despite efforts to maintain a positive relationship with the Legislature, he still faced Pataki’s strong opposition and periods of difficult budgetary disputes. Eliot Spitzer was elected during a national Democratic landslide in 2006, and came into office as governor in January of 2007 with a drastically different approach. Spitzer, who previously referred to himself as a came into office with a style that was described “steamroller,” as and aggressive. His interactions with the Legislature were not always easy “hard-charging” during the budget process, and as the other governors before him, Spitzer had to learn to compromise. The resulting negotiations were characterized as the lacking “behind scenes deals” transparency. Governor Spitzer only had one attempt to forge budgetary deals with the Legislature, as a 2008 scandal led to his resignation and passed his position onto Liuetentant Governor David Paterson. Paterson was another former legislator, and in his inaugural speech he reached out to the Legislature and promised a departure from the of the political “politics confrontation.” Amid Paterson struggled to gain legislative approval for his turmoil following Spitzer’s resignation, first budget bills and held meetings with legislative leaders that were criticized for their secrecy and lack of transparency. The 2010-11 budget bills, which were not included in this paper due to data unavailability, were a surprising 125 days late. It is apparent that Governor Paterson, in common with most of his predecessors, struggled to successfully negotiate with the Legislature on budgetary matters. To measure the difference in gubernatorial influence over appropriations across individuals, I graphed the average percent change and overall percent change of all four governors on top of each other, with the horizontal axis representing their respective length in office. Eliot one budgetary year is represented by a single data point, and the two years Spitzer’s
despite Pataki’s efforts to maintain a positive relationship with the Legislature, he still faced strong opposition and periods of difficult budgetary disputes. Eliot Spitzer was elected during a national Democratic landslide in 2006, and came into office as governor in January of 2007 with a drastically different approach. Spitzer, who previously referred to himself as a “steamroller,” came into office with a style that was described as “hard-charging” and aggressive. His interactions with the Legislature were not always easy during the budget process, and as the other governors before him, Spitzer had to learn to compromise. The resulting negotiations were characterized as “behind the scenes deals” lacking transparency. Governor Spitzer only had one attempt to forge budgetary deals with the Legislature, as a 2008 scandal led to his resignation and passed his position onto Liuetentant Governor David Paterson. Paterson was another former legislator, and in his inaugural speech he reached out to the Legislature and promised a departure from the “politics of confrontation.” Amid the political turmoil following Spitzer’s resignation, Paterson struggled to gain legislative approval for his first budget bills and held meetings with legislative leaders that were criticized for their secrecy and lack of transparency. The 2010-11 budget bills, which were not included in this paper due to data unavailability, were a surprising 125 days late. It is apparent that Governor Paterson, in common with most of his predecessors, struggled to successfully negotiate with the Legislature on budgetary matters. To measure the difference in gubernatorial influence over appropriations across individuals, I graphed the average percent change and overall percent change of all four governors on top of each other, with the horizontal axis representing their respective length in office. Eliot Spitzer’s one budgetary year is represented by a single data point, and the two years
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