This week’s New York Magazine has an interesting article about Governor Paterson by Chris Smith.
However one part of the article stands out to me. Writing about what was going on when Paterson had to appoint someone to replace Hillary Clinton in the Senate, Smith says:
“Andrew [Cuomo] has always dreamed about being governor and president; David has always dreamed about being U.S. senator,” says a New York Democrat who is a friend of both. “We had an opportunity for it to work out that way. We had a small threshold where if David had named himself senator, we could have had some time with Malcolm Smith as interim governor while putting together a process to give Andrew an opportunity in a special election to run for governor. It would have solved a lot of problems”
This stands out because it means that Smith’s source is either an idiot or a liar.
The New York State Constitution does not allow any process to create a Special Election for Governor. If Paterson appointed himself to the Senate, Malcolm Smith or whoever was President Pro-tem of the Senate would have become Governor.