Skelos, Smith discuss late afternoon meetings

Senators Malcom Smith and Dean Skelos were each seen leaving their offices this afternoon around 4:30. CBS 6's Craig Smith spoke with them briefly about a meeting that Senator Smith said was going on at that moment. The senator said that during a leaders meeting earlier in the day there were "long discussions about our short-term agreement that Democrats have versus the long-term that the Republicans have."

"We have a team of members meeting right now," Smith said, "along with some staff and they are beginning to sort of hammer out if we can get someplace with both a short and long-term agreement...this is sort of the first - or second - phase towards trying to get something done. Whatever they complete we have to take back to both conferences respectively and try to come up with an agreement. But the good thing is everybody is clear - they want to get this done. They want to be able to restore some confidence level with the public. We understand why they are upset with us. We are upset with ourselves and we're gonna try to do better"

"What we're trying to do is work a long-term operating agreement," said Senator Skelos, "so that the Senate doesn't have to go through the gridlock that it's going through right now. That would mean sharing power, a more non-partisan approach, tone down the rhetoric and I think that's what people want.. they want us to be less partisan."

Skelos said seeing staff members join in the meetings with members is a positive sign. "I think they';re working through how you equalize resources, how you treat everybody fairly so that each member has the ability to really function and serve their constituents and that's really what we're trying to do."

As for why one senator from one side or the other does not - for only one day - vote with the opposition in order to get certain bills passed, and then go back to negotiating a long-term power-sharing agreemet later, Skelos said, "We can come to a long-term agreement within hours. The problem is if you break, you never get any long-term agreement. You just need to continue to work at it while, quite frankly, there are some pressure points there...we need to get a long-term agreement now."

"We thought we had one (senator)," said Smith, referring to GOP Senator Frank Padavan, who stepped into the Senate chamber briefly during Tuesday's session, which led to more than one hundred bills being passed. Governor David Paterson has said after speaking with Padavan (who never voted on any of those bills and said he was only cutting through the chamber to get a beverage) he would not sign any of those bills. Senator Smith said if the governor did sign them, the Democrats would not contest it in court and he did not expect the Republicans to contest it. "We're optimistic that those bills still may get signed," Smith says.