John Liu. (Photo: Getty)

John Liu's mayoral campaign may be hovering around ten percent in the polls, but according to the candidate himself, they understate his support by more than twofold. Indeed, a beaming Mr. Liu told a room full of teachers yesterday that if the surveys were accurate, he'd actually have the support of a quarter of the city's Democratic primary electorate.

"My true base of support in the electorate is closer to 25 percent," Mr. Liu, the city's comptroller, exclaimed at a teacher's union mayoral forum in Brooklyn. "You add on top of that the tremendous amount of labor support I’m going to have, that puts me very much in the running--much more so than other candidates who I don’t think have any piece of their base that is not being reflected in the public poll numbers."

The Brooklyn United Federation of Teachers forum was apparently closed to the press, but Politicker wasn't kicked out until after Mr. Liu spelled out his case for victory in a 25th-floor conference room packed with public school teachers. Making an argument he's presented before, Mr. Liu went on to say the possibility of electing the city's first Asian mayor will drive that voting bloc to the polls. These voters, Mr. Liu firmly insisted, are simply not being reached due to language barriers and lack of publicly listed phone lines.

"What the polls don’t show is if you look at the breakdowns, you see breakdowns for white voters, black voters or Hispanics voters," he explained, claiming the 15 percent of the Democratic primary electorate will be Asian. "That’s it; those are the only breakdowns you’ll see. The Asian voters are not being captured in the public polls."

Marist College, one of two public pollsters that regularly releases numbers, actually does include a breakdown of the Asian vote and had recently the comptroller with 11 percent of the overall vote. Additionally, Asian Americans are only 12.7 percent of the city's population, according to U.S. Census figures, and data crunchers widely expect them to be even less of the electorate due to lagging citizenship and civic participation rates.

Once all of his support is taken into account, Mr. Liu nevertheless claimed, he'll have enough "to be running circles" around his opponents--even though two of his former associates--including his one-time campaign treasurer--were recently found guilty of committing campaign finance fraud on his behalf. He dismissed any continuing cloud over his own campaign as mere "innuendos."

"I’m certainly not only relying on the Asian vote, I only bring up the Asian vote because they are missing from the polls," Mr. Liu said. "We got a broad outreach. I’m in every community, I’m going to be running circles around all of my competitors."

Additional reporting by Colin Campbell.

Councilman Robert Jackson speaking at the press conference.

Last Friday, Mayor Michael Bloomberg, frustrated with the current state of contract negotiations with the city's teachers union, caused a political dust-up when he compared the leadership of the influential United Federation of Teachers to the National Rifle Association. Now, other New York City politicians are demanding an apology.

“Teachers want to work with the best, and most of them are not in sympathy with the union,” Mr. Bloomberg had said before pivoting to one of his preferred talking points when he pushes for tougher federal gun laws. "The N.R.A’s another place where the membership, if you do the polling, doesn’t agree with the leadership.”

Michael Mulgrew, the President of the U.F.T., said he was so infuriated by this comment that he organized today's press conference on the topic.

"What he did Friday, comparing us to the National Rifle Association at this point in time is just wrong," Mr. Mulgrew declared. "The demonizing of teachers in New York City by this mayor has now reached an all-time low. It's just a very, very sad day."

American Federation of Teachers President Randi Weingarten further blasted Mr. Bloomberg for the comment in the context of the recent massacre in Newtown, Connecticut.

"This was disgusting, the mayor was wrong," Ms. Weingarten exclaimed. "It is shameful for the mayor to use that kind of analogy in a collective bargaining spat....Do not denigrate either the teachers or the tragedy that just happened in Sandy Hook. And that's why I'm asking the mayor--asking the mayor!--to apologize."

Joining Mr. Mulgrew and Ms. Weingarten today was a small army of elected officials, including three of the four leading Democrats campaigning for mayor next year, using terms like "lowest possible insult" to describe the N.R.A. reference. The fourth, Council Speaker Christine Quinn, could not attend, but a Quinn staffer was present and handing out a statement condemning the comment.

Of course, apologies from Mr. Bloomberg are relatively rare, so Politicker asked Mr. Mulgrew if he actually expected to get one.

"I would expect to get the apology," he replied after a pause. "If he doesn't, so be it. We'll continue to move on."

Peter Abbate (Photo: NYS Assembly)

Against the backdrop of the contentious turf war over Governor Andrew Cuomo's pension reform plan, a trio of Democratic Assemblyman and several labor leaders are calling for passage of the Institutional Investor Recovery Act. This legislation would allow the Attorney General to seek damages and recoveries when public pension funds suffer losses due to securities fraud. Currently, the Martin Act gives the Attorney General broad powers to prosecute securities fraud, but it does not allow the State to recover losses on behalf of public pension funds. Pursuing losses from financial firms is a favored topic of opponents of the governor's pension reform push who argue the focus should be on penalizing Wall Street firms that lost money from the pension fund rather than cutting benefits.

"All the focus on the issue of pensions has been on the benefit side of the equation. We need to look at what happened on the investment side. It simply doesn't make sense that the pension funds have no practical way to recover investment losses caused by fraud," said Assemblyman Peter Abbate the lead sponsor of the bill to update the Martin Act.

Proponents of Governor Cuomo's pension reform plan, including Mayor Michael Bloomberg, argue the Wall Street meltdown isn't the sole factor behind ballooning pension costs.

The Institutional Investor Recovery Act was also sponsored by Queens Assemblyman Rory Lancman.

"For years, Congress and the courts have systematically eroded the ability of defrauded investors - including pension funds - to bring civil cases to recover their losses, putting the retirements of countless hardworking New Yorkers at risk," Mr. Lancman said. "Reforming the Martin Act would protect both retirees and taxpayers, and bring some much-needed accountability to Wall Street."

Brooklyn Assemblyman Joe Lentol is also backing the legislation.

"As elected officials, it is incumbent upon us to safeguard public investments, such as contributions to the pension funds," Mr. Lentol said. "If fraudulent activity jeopardizes these funds, then we must make sure that there is a reasonable remedy. Giving the Attorney General that power on behalf of the funds does just that."

Several labor leaders released statements praising the Institutional Investor Recovery Act. CSEA President Danny Donohue, who's currently campaigning to lead AFSCME, hoped the legislation would help people see the growing cost of the retirement fund came from "companies that scammed New York taxpayers" rather than "overly generous benefits."

"The public needs to remember that much of the current pressure on the retirement fund is not a result of overly generous benefits, it's a result of the Wall Street collapse in 2008 and the greedy schemes that led to it," Mr. Donohue said. "Companies that scammed New York taxpayers should be held accountable."

United Federation of Teachers President Michael Mulgrew said the act would stop workers from paying for mistakes made by Wall Street.

"Wall Street gambled with other peoples' money and lost. If I were a Wall Street billionaire, I'd love the idea of having somebody else pay for my mistakes," Mr. Mulgrew said. "We need Martin Act reform to help make sure that the firms who engaged in reckless behavior pay for their mistakes, rather than dumping that burden on the workers."

Bill de Blasio (Photo: Facebook)

Public Advocate Bill de Blasio, a likely mayoral candidate in 2013, didn't mince words when Roberto Perez recently asked him about Mayor Michael Bloomberg and teacher evaluations. The Mayor specifically referred to the United Federation of Teachers in his recent State of the City speech while calling for various education reforms.

"I was very disappointed in the Mayor's speech, I have to tell you that," Mr. de Blasio began. "I think the Mayor, after 10 years, has sort of re-declared war on the UFT. And I could not understand why that was productive."

Mr. de Blasio contrasted Mayor Bloomberg's style with that of Governor Andrew Cuomo.

"I think Governor Cuomo has shown us what a forceful but still cooperative approach looks like," he said. "I think he's gotten a lot done by saying to labor, and saying to a lot of other interests, there's a way to get on the same page."

Although Mr. de Blasio also criticized the Mayor on other issues, including paid sick leave, living wage legislation, and fingerprinting food stamp recipients, he did say he was "pleasantly surprised" by Mayor Bloomberg's call for an increase in the minimum wage.  "I was glad the Mayor called for an increase in the minimum wage," he said. "Bluntly, it sounded like a pretty minimal increase."

The comments come as the UFT is engaged in an aggressive $1 million television ad campaign targeting the Mayor.

Rupert Murdoch (Photo: Twitter)

News Corporation media mogul Rupert Murdoch took to Twitter today to weigh in on Mayor Bloomberg's State of the City address. Mr. Murdoch praised Mayor Bloomberg's education proposals, encouraged the United Federation of Teacher's to drop their opposition to the initiatives and wondered how New York's "chicken" governor will respond.

"Bloomberg's bold teacher proposals today terrific. How will chicken Cuomo respond? If UFT refuses this money good teachers will scream," Mr. Murdoch wrote.

In his speech, Mayor Bloomberg proposed merit pay and teacher evaluation programs. Teacher's unions have generally fought similar programs. The UFT has already clashed with Mayor Bloomberg about his evaluation plans.

Mr. Murdoch joined Twitter to great fanfare on New Year's Eve. Though he's been on the site for less than two weeks, but he's already written several postings on the social media site expressing admiration for Mayor Bloomberg. His 16th Tweet dubbed Hizzoner "New York’s best mayor in memory." On January 4, he described Mayor Bloomberg as one of the "three greatest philanthropists" along with Warren Buffet and Bill Gates.

Full Disclosure: From June 2010 until November of last year, this reporter worked at The Daily, an iPad newspaper owned by Mr. Murdoch.

Governor Cuomo (Photo: Getty)

In his appearance on Fred Dicker's radio show today, Governor Andrew Cuomo addressed the controversy over teacher evaluations. Last week, State Education Commissioner John B. King announced suspended millions of dollars in funding from schools in the five boroughs and nine other districts around New York that missed a deadline to agree on plans for teacher evaluation programs. Governor Cuomo, who called for an education commission to come up with an evaluation plan in his State of the State address last week, described the situation with as a "major crisis for the state." Though he doesn't plan on personally getting involved in the tense negotiations on evaluations going on between local school districts and teacher's unions, Governor Cuomo said something has to give.

"This situation is not going away, we need the evaluations done because it's how we improve education. Second, we need an evaluation system, because it was the condition of the federal funding and it's not going to get better," Governor Cuomo said.

Establishing teacher evaluation programs was a condition of the $700 million in "Race to the Top" education education funding New York received from the federal government. In order to qualify for the funding, Governor Cuomo passed a state law requiring teacher evaluations in 2010. Teacher's unions have successfully challenged that law in court arguing that it places too much emphasis in a teacher's evaluation on student performance. Governor Cuomo admitted to Mr. Dicker that the current law on evaluations has proven to be "a failure."

"Every state that wanted to qualify had to pass a teacher evaluation law, we did as part of the 'Race to the Top,'" Governor Cuomo said. "The law has been a failure, it has not been implemented. It is unworkable, some would say it was unworkable by design ab initio, but time has shown that it's unworkable."

Teacher's unions have also battled other plans for evaluation in local districts. In New York City, Mayor Michael Bloomberg has clashed with the United Federation of Teachers because they want an independent commission to come up with an evaluation policy while he wants principals to have control over the process. In a radio appearance of his own Friday, Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver said the governor should help "intercede and try to bring the parties together." Governor Cuomo rejected the idea that he should step in to the negotiations in the five boroughs or anywhere else in the state.

"I'm not going to get between Mayor Bloomberg and the UFT. There are roughly 700 school districts in this state, the answer isn't, 'The governor should intervene between the local political official, or the school board and the union,'" Governor Cuomo said. "I can't negotiate 700 union contracts, that's not going to be the answer here."

Scott Stringer (Photo: Facebook)

Manhattan Borough President and possible 2013 mayoral candidate Scott Stringer blasted the New York City Department of Education at a press conference today following the publication of a New York Times report documenting the DOE's failure to claim millions of dollars in federal Medicaid reimbursements for services provided to students with special needs from 2006 to 2010. Mr. Stringer called for hearings investigating the missed reimbursements, which he described as a missed opportunity to curb school budget cuts and evidence of widespread problems at the DOE.

"This calls out for state and city hearings immediately, there's no time to waste. This agency has been going down this perilous path for many years, but nobody could have imagined that, when it came for reimbursement, they would fail so miserably. I am shocked and I am outraged," Mr. Stringer said. 

Mr. Stringer was joined at the press conference by United Federation of Teachers President Michael Mulgrew who said the failure to claim federal reimbursements for special education was particularly egregious since city schools are currently being forced to trim budgets by cutting staff and services.

"This is money that we have all paid for through our federal taxes and we have a right to get it back," Mr. Mulgrew said. "The class sizes in New York City are now at levels that we have not seen since 1978. We have--every school has been cut to the bone and, at the same time, the Department of Education is leaving  hundreds of millions of dollars of our children's money at the federal level."

Mr. Stringer said other school districts around the state received $558 million in federal reimbursements for special education costs during the same period. He sent Department of Education Chancellor Dennis Walcott a letter in October expressing his concerns and asking for information about steps the department is taking to improve the Medicaid reimbursement process.

"They never responded to us, never acknowledged the letter. So, they've known about this and we've tried to get answers for many months," said Mr. Stringer.

DOE spokeswoman Barbara Morgan told the New York Times that the department didn't file claims for all of the funds it could have received because the reimbursement process has become "increasingly cumbersome" since new regulations were adopted in September 2009. The DOE recently spent $80 million on a computer database called the Special Education Student Information System that it expects to improve the reimbursement process. Mr. Stringer compared this approach to another city technology initiative-- the CityTime payroll system, which cost $700 million and was plagued by fraud.

"You've got to admit it's kind of embarassing for Buffalo to get this right and Syracuse to get this right--major cities with less of a population than we have of special needs kids," Mr. Stringer said. "We have 168,000 special needs kids. Two-thirds of those kids would be eligible for this reimbursement and then their answer, like CityTime is to come up with yet another computer system at the cost of $80 million to try to fix this problem."

Mr. Stringer said he blames the Bloomberg administration for this problem rather than Chancellor Walcott, who took office back in April after his predecessor, former Hearst Magazines exec Cathie Black, stepped down after a stormy 96 day tenure.

"This is not about Chancellor Walcott, who I happen to have great respect for. This is about an administration that is charged with running the school system and, when that system fails the taxpayers and the students, then we ask for more oversight," Mr. Stringer said. "I mean, City Hall laid off 700 school aides with a straight face saying we had no choice to lay them off because we don't have money and here, they've known all along that this money is sitting at the federal level."

Mr. Stringer also made clear he plans to continue focusing on the problems he sees with the Department of Education as he gears up for a potential mayoral bid.

"If it was up to me right now, I would close the Tweed Building, get these bureaucrats to a system that actually works and stop throwing everything onto computer systems that are untested, listening to outside consultants that have actually taken New York City for a ride," said Mr. Stringer. "This is not the end of this story today, this is a beginning that we're going to be able to show time, after time, after time that the Department of Education has now become a bureaucracy of its own that's now out of control."

Michael Mulgrew (Photo: UFT)

United Federation of Teachers President Michael Mulgrew sent a letter to all 51 members of the City Council asking them to support the "Fair Wages For New Yorkers Act," better known as the "Living Wage Bill." "Millions of New Yorkers are struggling just to make ends meet, and our members–their teachers and other educators–are seeing the effects of that harsh reality in our classrooms everyday. Children who are not being fed, clothed or housed properly cannot hope to concentrate," Mr. Mulgrew wrote. "The passage of the ‘Fair Wages for New Yorkers Act’ would be a step towards improving the lives of millions of New Yorkers, and consequently, their children," wrote Mr. Mulgrew.

Mr. Mulgrew described the bill as especially necessary due to the wide gap between the rich and poor in New York City.

"New York City has earned the dubious distinction of being America’s income disparity capital; Nowhere else in this country do we see such extremes separating the 'haves' and 'have nots,'" wrote Mr. Mulgrew. "This ‘living wage’ legislation is one crucial component to reducing the number of poor NewYorkers."

The UFT has endorsed the living wage bill, which would require employees to receive minimum wages of $10 an hour with benefits or $11.50 per hour without benefits on city-subsidized project. Currently, the minimum wage in New York is is $7.25 an hour.

A majority of City Council members also support the bill, but Mayor Bloomberg is opposed and Council Speaker Christine Quinn has not come out for or against the measure. Speaker Quinn's support is crucial as she can prevent the bill from being passed by not bringing it to a vote.

Mayor Bloomberg Visits Department of Environmental Protection Crew Cleaning Storm Sewers in Preparation for Hurricane Irene August 25, 2011 (Photo Credit: Edward Reed)

2012: "[H]e's simply not relevant anymore, and really hasn't been for a while." [Steve Kornacki / Salon]

2012: Pataki not endorsing Perry Saturday. [Andrew Rafferty / NBC]

2012: Pataki's leaked website "embarrassing." [Glittarazzi]

2012: "The population of reporters who never say mean things about people is smaller than a George Pataki 2012 house party." [David Weigel / Slate]

NY-9: Weprin robos off Turner's refusal to back Zadroga bill for Ground Zero volunteers. [Celeste Katz / Daily News]

NY-9: Turner said same-sex marriage "should not be an issue in this campaign." [Anna Gustafson / Queens Chronicle]

NY-9: NARAL for Weprin. [Rick Karlin / Times Union]

NY-9: Turner keeps calling Weprin a "career politician." [Courtney Gross/ NY1]

NY-9: Weprin and Turner tried saying something nice about each other. [Howard Koplowitz / Queens Campaigner]

NY-9: "[O]ne can only imagine how former Congressman Weiner will cast his vote. I suspect he will vote for Weprin." [Henry Stern / Huffington Post]

Teacher Evaluations: Teacher reports can be released, court rules. [NY1]

Teacher Evaluations: UFT vows an appeal. [Sharon Otterman / New York Times]

Mortgage Probe: Americans for Financial Reform make the case for Schneiderman's resistance. [Jimmy Vielkind / Times Union]

Mortage Probe: Buffett will dump $5 billion into Bank of America. [Ben Protess and Susanne Craig / Deal Book]

Fund-Raising: Rep. Ackerman mocks a Republican for alligator-hunting. [Celeste Katz / Daily News]

Executive Pay: Cuomo task force seeks info from Medicaid and social service providers first. [Michael Johnson / Capital Tonight]

Executive Pay: The move could yield "unprecedented analysis that could shine a light on executives who take home an outsize share of their organization’s revenue." [Russ Buettner / New York Times]