Assembly Minority Leader James Tedisco was the guest at the April 16 On/Off the Record breakfast hosted by The Capitol, held at 74 State. Tedisco’s official topic was “The Vocal Minority: Fighting for Property Tax and Legislative Reform,” which he addressed—but he covered many other topics as well, including an evaluation of new Gov. David Paterson, a prediction of a new tax hike before year’s end and why he thinks that keeping the best and brightest in politics does not depend on legislative pay raises.

What follows is an edited and abridged tran scri pt. A video of the event is available on www.nycapitolnews.com.

Q: This year’s state budget got a lot of attention and continues to be a topic of much discussion. What is your take on what is going on?
A: When you buy a product usually, in many instances you’ll get a one-year guarantee on that product; my fear is that this budget has maybe a six- to nine-month guarantee, which means the revenues aren’t really there for this budget. … The budget itself lacked transparency and openness. Even the governor doesn’t deny that. He blames it on himself, I don’t think he can totally be blamed for that, the governor. The leaders here have tremendous power, I’m talking the big leaders, the three guys in the room, and every once in a while myself and Malcolm manage to squeeze through the door before they shut it and we think we’re very helpful, and that’s why I think this governor’s going to do better, because in the speech he gave us yesterday he said, “I understand there’s 212 legislators here. I know the importance of the ideas that come out of the minorities.”

Q: What happens going forward if the economy continues as it has been going, and shortfalls in revenue arise?
A: I think what really might happen in this thing, let me tell you—one of the smartest guys over there, I know I don’t have to tell you this, is Sheldon Silver. He’s in the catbird seat, it’s not always what he does or what he says, it’s just what he doesn’t do and what he doesn’t say. He sits back sometimes, he watches very cautiously, and when he’s got to make the right move, he makes the right move. Now, you know him and his conference want what’s called the “rich man’s” or “rich person’s tax”, we call it the “job elimination tax” in New York State. We’ve already lost a million and a half people in the state. It’s not that we don’t tax enough in New York State, we spend too much in New York State—and we don’t spend for priorities, at least that’s what I and my conference think. I think he understands, probably in the back of his mind, that the revenues aren’t there. I think in four to six months he’s going to say “See, I told you, you really need those taxes from those millionaires and we better do it right now.”

Q: So you are predicting a late summer tax hike?
A: It could be, or what the governor said is he would be willing to go back and look to see where we have to cut. Cuts are never a popular thing, especially in the middle of an election year. So I don’t see Senator Bruno, Mr. Silver or any of my colleagues want to go back and cut during the middle of an election year.

Q: Are you confident that Tom Suozzi’s property tax commission can and will come up with the type of solutions that you think need to be conceived of?
A: I can’t say I’m confident, but I’m optimistic. … I think he’s got to come up with a realistic program that does what we want to do—and that is hold the line on property taxes in New York State, and he’s on the right track. The only way to do that, because a cap is not going to stop the increase in costs for school districts—you’ve got energy costs, you’ve got insurance costs, these things are built in—we’re not only talking about teachers’ contracts. I know there’s a lot made about teachers and their contracts and that’s the real cost; well, the largest cost and spending, probably if you look at it and evaluate it, are the mandates the state hands down to these educational areas and to the school boards, and what we’ve either go to do is take those mandates off or share in the funding of some of those mandates. If you just cap the property taxes but you don’t find other sources of revenue or hold the line on those mandates, then those people who are opposed to this are absolutely right. The school boards and school districts are not going to be able to fund basic education.

Q: Not long before he left office, Spitzer seemed to have decided to favor a property tax cap. Do you think Paterson will have the same position that Spitzer had come to?
A: In my conversation with him he is very much on board with that. He understands that if we’re going to bring the Upstate economy back, it’s just not going to be $700 million or a billion dollars of investment in the Upstate economy, it’s going to be investing in people who buy those goods and services and allowing them to have more money in their pocket to expand this economy, let them stay in their homes.

Q: Is there such a thing as meaningful property tax reform without a cap?
A: They have a circuit breaker, which I think is an interesting proposal. It’s not only tied into your property taxes, it’s tied into your income level, and it’s not out of the question. I think it makes some sense, but I think there’s got to be some proposal that does something to hold the line for those people like my mom, who are on social security and are paying high taxes for our education.

Q: Also on the official topic for this morning is addressing so-called Albany dysfunction: what do you think is a realistic change which would make a meaningful difference in the way that Albany functions?
A: First and foremost, you need mandatory conference committees not called by the leaders. … At some point, mandatory conference committees should kick in on the nine parts of the budget. I agree with our new governor, we’re 212 legislators, we should all be respected, they sent us here because they believe in what we do and that we’re going to stand up for them. Some of the greatest ideas come from the minorities. Of course, we have no pride of authorship. So we need conferences. We need something like a member’s prerogative, that’s something that my conference put forth.

Q: What about pay raises? That is something many legislators say is necessary to continue to attract the best and brightest to elected life and to the bench.
A: The best and the brightest judges… Everyone knows to get elected you’ve got to be politically in-tune, you’ve got to be politically tied. Elections are about politics—they’re not about the best and the brightest, I got to tell you that. I’ve got some colleagues over there that are the best and the brightest. But there’s a few that are not the best and the brightest, I can tell you that right now.

Q: You had a lot of success getting attention for yourself and your members as Eliot Spitzer’s foil. Will not having him around be a disadvantage going into this fall and the next gubernatorial election?
A: You know, some people would say that Eliot Spitzer has done more for the Republican Party than Ronald Reagan has. Although he’s not here, he really hasn’t gone away. And that’s why I’m so proud of my conference. When that illegal alien driver’s license issue came up, we didn’t do a poll—we evaluated the security risks we thought were involved with that, and we stood up and we had seven hearings across the state of New York on that; we actually sued the governor of New York as a last resort. … We’re very good at articulating either the positive-ness of issues or the negativity of issues. We have to be better at using the bully pulpit in the media than the majorities because we can’t buy our time, we don’t have the money to buy time, we don’t have the money to put $2 million in a race and say “We’re going to win it with a cookie cutter-type of campaign”—we have to know the people, we have to get the best candidate, we have to articulate the issues and we have to be tremendous at the grassroots. The conference is great at those types of things.