Council member Melinda Katz, a candidate for city comptroller, is having a June 19 fund-raiser that will showcase strong support from black and Latino lawmakers.

The elected officials on the host committee for the event include Yvette Clarke, Jeff Aubry, Jose Peralta, Maria del Carmen Arroyo, Maria Baez, Helen Foster and Melissa Mark Viverito.

One of her strongest opponents is Adolfo Carrion, the only Latino in the race.

It’s worth noting that Arroyo, Baez and Foster are also, like Carrion, from the Bronx.

The invitation also includes a number of big real estate people who sit on Katz’s finance committee: Douglas Durst, Peter Kalikow and Richard Ravitch. Katz recently said that her connections to the real estate industry are an asset to her.

Assemblyman Jose Peralta, a Latino lawmaker who once supported State Senator John Sabini, yesterday made the case for Sabini's Puerto Rican challenger, Councilman Hiram Monserrate, in part because the district is becoming more Latino.

Sabini's answer to that? Barack Obama.  read more »

One of State Senator John Sabini’s longtime Hispanic supporters, Assemblyman Jose Peralta, is signaling that he may be ready to support Sabini’s likely challenger, City Councilman Hiram Monserrate.

In an interview earlier today, he told me he wasn't quite ready to make a formal endorsement, but that for Monserrate, "the time is now."  read more »

Now that the State Assembly has killed Michael Bloomberg's congestion pricing plan, do its members fear any potential electoral consequences (as Kevin Sheekey suggested they should) from opposing a mayor with billions of dollars at his disposal?

They say no.

Democratic Assemblyman Jose Peralta of Queens said he thinks the mayor’s decisions on whether or not to contribute to candidates running against congestion pricing opponents would be based more on his own political plans than anything else.

“I think he starts funding insurgents if he is going to be running for governor,” Peralta told me just now. “If not, then he worries about his business and his philanthropy.”

There would, Peralta, be no retribution. “He’s a big boy. He’s beyond that.”

It's not unimaginable that the mayor might back candidates at least in part on their stances on the congestion issue. This is, after all, the the same mayor who donated $500,000 to Senate Republicans, whose leader then supported congestion pricing.  read more »

Last night I asked Assemblyman Jose Peralta of Queens what he was expecting to happen today. Here's what he said:

“Hopefully, business as usual. If a resignation does come, it may put us back in a bit of a tailspin. But we’re hoping for business as usual tomorrow.”

So it's come to this: state legislators are basically waiting for the man who ran on the promise of changing Albany just to fade away.

A State Senator who criticized the dismissal of the top Latina on Hillary Clinton's campaign now says he’ll support Barack Obama as a result.

When reached by cell phone Monday night in Albany, State Senator Ruben Diaz, Sr. said, "I never supported anyone yet, so, you know, if I support Obama? Yes. I am with Obama, yes."

Diaz, who has had a history of criticizing his fellow Democrats in New York, said, "Hillary's campaign has been going down because of Bill Clinton, William Jefferson Clinton. Because people like Charlie Rangel, who called Obama stupid."

But the final straw, Diaz, said, was the removal of Patti Solis Doyle as Clinton's campaign manager, which was announced over the weekend. The next day, Diaz, along with Assemblyman Jose Peralta, sent a letter to Clinton's campaign saying they felt the Hispanic community was being ignored, and Doyle treated as a scapegoat.

"It is hard to understand how the Hispanic community that has been there to keep your campaign alive could remain in your corner when the first Hispanic woman to serve as your presidential campaign manager has 'resigned' from her post," Diaz and Peralta wrote.

More after the jump.   read more »

Football at presidential debate, shunned by Democrats, Governor Spitzer has become political pariah of party; Roger Stone gleeful, Anthony Weiner stressed out.  read more »

Eliot Spitzer just held a press conference with some Latino lawmakers to discuss disaster relief efforts for victims of the hurricane in the Dominic Republic which, the governor said, has displaced tens of thousands of people and killed 150.

“This really is one of those tragic moments that makes us ask ourselves, ‘What can we do to help?’” Spitzer said.

In his midtown office, Spitzer announced he was sending the 105th Air Wing of the Nation Guard, with two Black Hawk helicopters, to the hurricane affected areas for rescue missions.

The event was short, and sparsely attended by news reporters. (They announced they’d be having the 3 p.m. press conference at 2 p.m.)

But the event was, at least on one level, a success.  read more »

Lawmakers who met with Eliot Spitzer about his new driver’s license policy have asked the governor to sign a "don’t ask, don’t tell" executive order guaranteeing that undocumented residents can access state services without fear of having their immigration status reported to law enforcement officials.

“I raised the issue to him as sort of a way to help immigrants feel comfortable even applying for this license,” state Senator Jose Serrano, a Democrat from the Bronx, told me a few minutes ago.

Serrano brought up the issue earlier during a breakfast on the East Side, where he and other lawmakers met with Spitzer to discuss the driver’s license policy.

More after the jump.  read more »

Councilman Hiram Monserrate, who lost a state senate race by 247-votes, called on the state Board of Elections to investigate allegations that about 200 voters in his district were unjustly prevented from voting during the primary.