“For the sake of my family, for the sake of my close friends and for the sake of my own health, I will resign from the Assembly Monday morning by 10 a.m.”

“…I want to make it clear that this is not an admission of wrongdoing on my part. I have not admitted to wrongdoing, and I do feel I was denied an opportunity for due process in the investigations that took place.”

The TU doesn’t believe Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver needs to be ousted in the post-Vito Lopez era – “His errors here were in matters of judgment and degree, not ill intent” – but does think he needs to prove he learned a lesson from this scandal.

The Kingston Daily Freeman disagrees, and calls for Silver to resign his speakership. “Enough is known of this matter to conclude that Sheldon Silver is a big part of the cultural and systemic problem of Albany World.”

Ditto, say The Journal News and the Daily News.

Republican NYC mayoral hopeful George McDonald called Lopez and former Rep. Anthony Weiner “social deviants.”

Lopez is sitting on $1 million in his state campaign account, some of which he could use for a NYC Council run.

Another story comparing two potential 2016 Democratic rivals: Gov. Andrew Cuomo and Maryland Gov. Maryland O’Malley.

It’s a “family affair” when Sandra Lee, Cuomo and his three girls are in the kitchen at Lee’s Westchester County home.

The NY Post is skeptical that Cuomo’s casino plan will truly help the upstate economy in the long run.

Bloomberg told Kenyon College grads to “have the courage to think for yourself and to believe in your idea.”

It took Cuomo, local elected officials and Oneida Indian Nation Representative Ray Halbritter less than one month to do the casino deal announced last month.

The managing editor of the Lockport Union-Sun & Journal is not a fan of the deal due to the cigarette taxes portion of the agrement.

Bloomberg would only pose for photos with a preapproved list of power players at El Museo del Barrio’s glamorous gala last Thursday night.

The mayor thinks going to trade school to become a plumber is a better economic bet for many “average” teenagers than obtaining an undergraduate degree.

Options for paying for public schools are running out, so some districts are taking rare steps to save money.

NYC Schools Chancellor Dennis Walcott took a rare shot at the mayoral candidates’ education proposals in a robust speech that demonstrated Bloomberg wants to aggressively cement his school reform legacy.

Once again, the budgets voters will approve or reject on Tuesday call for hundreds of jobs to be cut from local schools, many through layoffs or attrition.

The Glens Falls Post-Star warns: “If we keep relying on school districts to cover billion-dollar shortfalls in the state budgets, we will find before long, our school districts are broke and our state is broken.”

Former senior adviser to Mitt Romney’s 2012 campaign Stuart Stevens predicts Hillary Clinton will lose if she enters the 2016 Democratic primary.

Seeking to end months of partisan bickering over competing City Council redistricting maps, Yonkers Mayor Mike Spano has put forth his own proposal and called for an accelerated approval process to ensure new political boundaries take effect before the November election.

Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand is hoping to relieve the debt burden of millions of students who have borrowed to pay for their education — especially New Yorkers, who average nearly $30,000 in student debt.

Bob McCarthy: “After decades of cooperation, the Cuomo approach and the Canadian reaction have resulted in the most serious rift in Peace Bridge history.

The number of school administrators earning $200,000 or more is expected to grow by 5 percent from this academic year to the 2013-14 school year, even as schools grapple with soaring pension costs and a property-tax cap.

Contracting Lyme Disease spurred Sen. Terry Gipson to introduce the Tick Borne Illness Treatment and Education Act of 2013.

NYC Councilman Jimmy Van Bramer helped bust a Queens businessman who was trying to bribe him.

Joseph J. Lhota, a Republican candidate for New York City mayor, has amassed a fortune of at least $13 million from real estate and investments, a new document shows.

Former President Bill Clinton contrasted the success of community colleges with the dysfunction of Washington in a speech Saturday at Westchester County’s largest educational facility.

The once powerful Brooklyn Democrat had been engulfed in a sexual harassment scandal since August, when it was revealed he had been accused of harassing four legislative aides.

The resignation letter sent to Silver today is simple, with one sentence: I hereby resign the public office of Member of the Assembly from the 53rd Assembly District, Kings County, effective 9 a.m. Monday, May 20, 2013.”

The resignation likely ends what would have been a distracting expulsion proceeding for the Assembly, and Lopez would have been the second state lawmaker to face a forced ouster since former Sen. Hiram Monserrate.

Details of the allegations were made public this week in two reports issued by the Joint Commission on Public Ethics and Staten Island District Attorney Dan Donovan, and with the revelations drew widespread disgust and outrage at the lawmaker.

Silver’s office on Friday morning released a resolution recommending Lopez be expelled from office.

Lopez on Friday had signaled he would resign by June 20, the final day of the legislative session and indicated he would remain a city council candidate as Silver moved to begin expulsion proceedings.

But Silver, along with Gov. Andrew Cuomo and other members of the Assembly said Lopez’s resignation should come now, and not in a month.

Silver himself is fending off calls he step down as speaker — mostly from Republicans and newspaper editorial boards — after being criticized for keeping an initial $100,000 settlement fee with the employees a secret.

Silver has said it was wrong to keep the settlement confidential, but has not been accused of breaking any laws.

Update: Cuomo’s director of communications, Melissa DeRosa, reacted to the news by calling Lopez’s resignation a relief, but added such an episode can’t be repeated.

“As the Governor said, one month was unacceptable as was one more day,” DeRosa said. “Today’s immediate resignation is the best end to this ugly chapter. Now we must do everything we can to ensure this type of behavior is never tolerated or allowed to occur again.”

VJL Letter by Nick Reisman

“I’ll give this whole situation a name: it’s the ‘IRS Targeting Gate.’ I’ll put it right out there,” Reed said.

During a heated exchange at the House Ways and Means Committee hearing, the Corning Republican chastised outgoing IRS Commissioner Steven Miller.  Miller acknowledged his agency singled out conservative groups seeking or already receiving tax-exempt status for additional review, but objected to the term “targeting.”

“Foolish mistakes were made by people trying to be more efficient,” Miller claimed.

President Obama Announced Wednesday that Miller was being replaced.  But Reed pointed out that Miller was allowed to resign instead of getting fired.

“I can tell you, in my private experience you would have been fired on the spot.  And all you were allowed to do is resign and retire and now you come here and somehow try to say I did the honorable thing by falling on my sword.  And nothing bad is going to happen to you.  You are going to get your full benefits.  You are going to get everything that is associated your retirement as an IRS employee,” Reed said.

When Miller suggested he was indeed being held accountable, Reed fired back.

“You’re allowed to retire.  That’s the level of accountability in Washington, D.C. now,” Reed said.

Miller refused to take full responsibility for the practice and told the committee he did not know who was responsible for it.  After the hearing, Reed vowed to find out.

“We will get to the bottom of this, we will get answers as to why this was allowed to happen,” said Reed.

Reed also called reports confidential taxpayer information taken from the applications was released to the media “disturbing.”  Reed suggested IRS personal were incompetent or displayed a total disregard for personal, confidential information.

“This is just the tip of the iceberg.  There are gaping holes in the timeline of the report and substantive details that have been omitted,” Reed added.

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The Bronx County Democratic Party endorsed Bill Thompson in the NYC mayor’s race and Councilwoman Tish James for public advocate.

With two candidates in the race – Thompson and NYC Council Speaker Chris Quinn – the Manhattan Democratic Party declined to back anyone for mayor.

New York City’s largest union, Local 1199 SEIU, has overwhelmingly decided to throw its considerable political weight and grass-roots muscle behind Public Advocate Bill de Blasio’s mayoral campaign.

Quinn is throwing her weight – and campaign resources – behind City Council candidate Antonio Reynoso in an effort to keep soon-to-be former Assemblyman Vito Lopez from wining the seat.

Mayoral hopeful Jimmy McMillan from The Rent is Too Damn High Party has earned a nod from none other than Papaya King.

Hillary Clinton will keynote Canada’s “Top 100 Employers” conference this November in Toronto, earning at least $250,000 for the speech.

The DCCC launched an on-line ad campaign targeting Rep. Michael Grimm for a recent health care vote.

The Green Party called on “Democrat-WFP lawmakers” to oust Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver.

Gloria Allred, the attorney who represented two of Lopez’s victims, also called for Silver’s ouster.

Rep. Charlie Rangel, who was once censured by the House for ethics violations that included tax evasion, spoke out against tax abuse at a hearing today.

Sen. Liz Krueger last smoked pot in the 1970s, but has become a champion of medical marijuana.

Woodstock Town Councilman Jay Wenk plans to stage a sort of sit-in at the Capitol until he gets a meeting with the governor.

Bloomberg’s Mayors Against Illegal Guns is out with a new ad targeting Arizona GOP Sen. Jeff Flake over his  vote against a failed measure to expand gun-purchase background checks last  month.

Flake says he won’t be “bullied” by the mayor and his money.

The DCCC topped the NRCC in fundraising – again.

The Village Voice lost two of its most prominent remaining writers: Michael Musto, the paper’s gossip columnist, and Robert Sietsema, the restaurant reviewer.

U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. was in Western New York today.

The resolution authorizes the committee to review the Joint Commission on Public Ethics report detailing Lopez’s verbal abuse and sexual harassment toward four legislative aides and recommends “if warranted, additional sanctions, including expulsion.”

The resolution begins the process of removing Lopez from the state Legislature, a source of what once was his power both in Albany and at home in his Brooklyn district.

A spokesman for Silver said this afternoon the resolution will be voted on Monday when the Assembly returns to Albany.

In a statement issued this morning, Lopez signaled he would resign by June 20, the final day of the legislative session.

Silver, including Gov. Andrew Cuomo and Democratic lawmakers, repsonded that Lopez should be removed from the state Legislature now, not in one month.

20130517 Resolution by Nick Reisman

Slickly produced ad campaigns similarly stymied both Eliot Spitzer and David Paterson.

When Gov. Andrew Cuomo took office in 2011, he had the help of the Committee of the Save New York, a business-oriented coalition that backed his fiscal priorities, which included a tax cap, reduced spending and a new pension tier.

As the Save New York coalition remains dormant, Cuomo himself took the helm and began airing ads touting his budget proposal.

Conspiculously absent in the budget season: An air war against Cuomo’s spending plan.

A survey based on fresh lobbying data found that for the most part labor groups, corporations and other entities with business before state government held their fire when it comes to opposing or supporting the governor’s budget proposal.

Expense reports made available this week on the Joint Commission on Public Ethics website show unions representing health care and state workers did not push advertising campaigns, nor did big-spending corporations like Exxon Mobil — a proponent of hydrofracking – back expensive ad campaigns to push their pet issues.

Instead, the airwaves in New York during budget season were dominated by Cuomo himself with ads paid for by the state Democratic Committee. The spending on those ads won’t be revealed until the party posts its campaign finance report online this summer.

The Committee to Save New York, meanwhile, has not registered to lobby the state this year.

There are some exceptions.

Records show the New York State United Teachers Union did spend roughly $18,000 on a radio campaign in mid-March, just as the budget negotiations between Cuomo and state legislative leaders were winding down.

Updated: I’m reminded that the New York State Correctional Officers and Police Benevolent Association spent big on both TV and newspaper ads, but their March-April report does not appear to be posted on JCOPE’s website. I’m told the final spending target was about $250,000, making them a significant purchaser during the prison closure debate.

The reports made public this week cover March and April. Expense reports from lobbying firms and entitites previously posted lobbying for January and February.

There’s still five weeks to go in the legislative session and final media push on a variety of issues such as strengthening abortion rights or public funding of political campaigns could still be had.

But it is the first three months of the year — when lawmakers and the governor determine how to spend more than $130 billion in money — that lobbying tends to be at its most intense.

And to be sure, lobbying remains a lucrative enterprise in Albany, even if 2012 reported a dip in spending when it comes to influencing state government.

Part of the reason may have been the shortened budget season, which was scheduled to end two weeks in advance of the April 1 deadline and largely completed work several days before the state of the fiscal year.

That’s right, “continuing.” Lopez is actually already retired, and has been since Dec. 31, 2010, acccording to the state comptroller’s office. (He had 48.16 years of service credit at the time; he started his career with the NYC Department of Social Services at the Stanhope Street Senior Center in Bushwick, Brooklyn, and was elected to the Assembly in 1984 ).

Lopez was one of ten lawmakers to file retirement papers three years ago, enabling them to start collecting their pensions and their legislative salaries (in Lopez’s case, $92,000) at the same time. The controversial move might be deemed double-dipping by some, but it’s completely legal thanks to a loophole that applies to legislators who are older than 65.

Remember: Lopez hasn’t been charged with any crimes, and would have to be found guilty of a felony-level offense in order to automatically lose his seat.

Even if he WAS to be found guilty of such a crime, he would still be able to continue collecting his pension. There are a number of proposals out there – including one first floated by Gov. Andrew Cuomo in 2011 – that would end that practice going forward, but would not apply to the many former elected officials who were found guilty of wrongdoing and continue to collect their taxpayer-funded pensions anyway.

(UPDATE: I’m reminded by the governor’s office that this was passed as part of the 2011 ethics reform package Cuomo pushed through the Legislature, using a Moreland Act Commission threat – much the way he has in the wake of the recent wave of corruption scandals in hopes of getting more reforms, including changes to the campaign finance system).

Also, expulsion from the Legislature, which it appears the Assembly might try to do to Lopez, since he so far has refused to depart until the end of this session, does not terminate a former lawmaker’s pension, either.