Ex-gov to Kat: Halt the budget!

Former Gov. David Paterson said Friday that Gov. Hochul ought to hold up the state budget past an April 1 deadline if she thinks that will secure changes to bail reform, despite legislative resistance.

“Whatever the governor thinks is the best way to resolve the issue quickly would be the proper way. If she feels she has to do that, then that’s the direction she’ll go in,” Paterson said in Albany.

Just two weeks remain until the spending plan is due, but Hochul suggested this week that she might go into legislative overtime rather than capitulate to progressives who want to keep current bail laws in place amid rising crime.

Paterson, a former lieutenant governor, served nearly three years as governor after Eliot Spitzer resigned amid a prostitution scandal in March 2008.

Paterson blazed the trail for Hochul when it comes to using a heavy hand with lawmakers in the budget process — even daring them to shut down the government or accept shortterm budget extensions on his terms while he waited them out in negotiations.

The maneuver marked the beginning of the end of a political era when state budgets would regularly get approved months after the April 1 deadline.

“I remember that when I used that process back in 2010, a candidate for governor called me up named Andrew Cuomo.

“And he said, I am going to take this measure that you figured out and I’m going to take it for a touchdown,” Paterson said his three-term successor.

“And he went on to pass, I believe, 10 of his 11 budgets on time. It’s not really recommended. It shouldn’t be a power grab. It shouldn’t be misused. But there are times when they’re when leadership has to lead,” Paterson added.