Skelos Ascending and Descending

State Senate Majority Leader Joe Bruno is stepping down from his post and not seeking re-election in November. Skelos who is the Deputy Majority Leader is going to be replacing Bruno. That is of course until the elections when Dean will most likely be the Minority Leader.
Bruno is smart to get out now before the coming storm in November. Skelos will be the leader of the Senate Republicans as they most likely lose their majority.
After a loss of the majority, expect the long knives to come out and Skelos gets replaced by Sen. Thomas Libous, of Binghamton who really wanted the top spot.
Skelos was crowing earlier this year that he will defeat Sen Craig Johnson. That ain't happening and now Bruno's seat is an open election where the Democrat Brian Premo is working hard to win.
Skelos is left in a bad place for someone who helped engineer the ouster of fellow Long Island republican Senate majority Leader Ralph Marino 14 years ago.

Democrat Roy Simon, Skelos' Challenger

Skelos faces another challenge in November from Democrat Roy Simon a professor at Hofstra Law School. His range of expertise fits perfectly into what is missing in the State Senate - Ethics.

Here is his bio from the Hofstra website:
" Roy Simon is the Howard Lichtenstein Distinguished Professor of legal ethics at Hofstra University School of Law and is the director of Hofstra's Institute for the Study of Legal Ethics. He graduated from Williams College (B.A., 1973) and N.Y.U. School of Law (J.D., 1977), where he was editor-in-chief of the N.Y.U. Law Review. He clerked for United States District Judge Robert Merhige (pronounced "marriage") in Richmond, Virginia, then practiced law at Jenner & Block in Chicago. He began his teaching career at Washington University School of Law in St. Louis in 1983, and has taught legal ethics since 1985. He joined the Hofstra faculty in 1992.

Professor Simon annually writes Simon's New York Code of Professional Responsibility Annotated, annually co-authors Regulation of Lawyers: Statutes and Standards (with Professor Stephen Gillers of N.Y.U.), and co-authors Lawyers and the Legal Profession. He also writes a monthly article for the New York Professional Responsibility Report, a monthly newsletter covering professional responsibility items of interest to New York lawyers.

Professor Simon is a member of the professional ethics committees of the New York State Bar Association, the Association of the Bar of the City of New York, and the Bar Association of Nassau County, and is vice chair and reporter for the New York State Bar Association's Committee on Standards of Attorney Conduct ("COSAC"), which is comprehensively reviewing the New York Code of Professional Responsibility. In March of 2005, he was appointed to the New York City Bar's Task Force on the Role of the Lawyer in a Corporate Governance."

Skelos Should Be Embarassed

Newsday reports on the hearing about the double-dipping that is draining our school budgets "Two state senators who fight for Long Island school funding, Dean Skelos (R-Rockville Centre) and Kenneth LaValle (R-Port Jefferson), indicated at the hearing that double-dipping stories had embarrassed them. They've been answering pointed questions from constituents and upstate colleagues, too, who wonder why Long Island needs so much state aid."

Where were you while this was happening for YEARS, Dean?
Skelos has been on the State Senate since 1984 - that's 24 YEARS.
If Skelos showed half the concern over the years about education on Long Island as he has since budgets started failing a few short years ago maybe something could have been done sooner.
Why does it take a Newsday article to inform Skelos on what is going on in his own backyard?
Heck, his own former aide and now Nassau County Legislator Richard Nicolello was caught with his hand in the Pension cookie jar.