Yesterday the legislative stars aligned - if only for a fleeting moment - as I was able to address the Senate about one of my bills. Currently, I have 16 active bills being considered by various committees, and have publicly addressed my Senate colleagues only once this session. It will also probably be the last time due to the rules that govern the New York State Senate.

I’ve spent the past month passionately defending the new DMV policy, and if one thing has become clear, it’s this: the other side could use a good public relations firm.

“It’s obvious that you’re Mexican and interested only in Mexican interests,” wrote one person who saw me on CNN’s Lou Dobbs Tonight last week. (I was born in the South Bronx, to Puerto Rican parents.)

Along the same lines: “Despite your assertions, your people are bastardizing American trades … So why don’t you go to Mexico, asshole, and stay. You are a traitor to the people of America.”

As a member of the Senate Environmental Conservation Committee, I was surprised to learn that hundreds of students across the state were selected as winners of the "I’m a Green Nation" contest.

The only problem: all the students were from Republican Senate districts. Click here to read the full article in the Buffalo News. This was the first I’d even heard of the contest.

It’s bad enough the Republicans don’t allow our bills to the floor, or provide equal staffing resource, or a more equitable distribution of member items and capital funds. Now they are snubbing the kids in our district.

I had the opportunity to travel with Minority Leader Malcolm Smith to our nation’s capital this week.

With just two seats needed to re-capture the State Senate, we received a warm welcome from leaders in Washington.

Joe Bruno beware.

Because now is the time when policy and politics collide. When common sense tasks like environmental protection and real campaign finance reform are not likely to happen without a shift in power.

Under the leadership of Senator Smith, we are putting together a formidable slate of candidates for 2008.

We showed our playbook to the likes of Howard Dean, Rahm Emanuel and the New York Congressional Delegation. They were all ears.

This week we mourn the loss of State Trooper David C. Brinkerhoff, the second State Trooper shot and killed in the past year.

But I question why this news has prompted yet another debate on capital punishment. The death penalty does not deter crime. Any studies that claim otherwise "fall apart under close scrutiny."

The facts speak for themselves. Across the country, over 100 people have been exonerated and released from death row. The death penalty costs tax payers more than keeping guilty convicts in jail for life.

The 421a tax exemption looms somewhere on the Albany horizon, and it’s not yet getting the attention it deserves.

Created in the 1970s to fuel development in a depressed city, the exemption program has been periodically reformed to help protect affordable housing in a now booming market.

Most recently, Mayor Bloomberg convened a task force to study the program, and Speaker Quinn later fashioned a compromise in the City Council.

But all of it was just a non-binding recommendation for us legislators in Albany. We hold the purse strings on this program, which sunsets at the end of the year.

A funny thing happened in the Senate last night. Democrats took the offensive.

It didn’t last more than an hour or two. It didn’t even work out. But our efforts to change the Senate rules, and bring some openness back to Albany, made a ripple that might just become a wave.

My colleagues leading the floor debate did a great job stating our case. We need complete disclosure of member items. We need an equal allocation of staff and resources. And no more “off-the-floor” committee meetings that subvert the legislative process.

Most Republicans didn’t have the decency to show up. But they all flooded back into the chamber to oppose a “slow roll call,” which would have obligated them to go on the record against reform.

I never liked the idea of so-called "halls of power." But it sure beats the "backrooms of power." The extraordinary legislative session held earlier this month was an indictment of the current system. We passed nothing.

What followed was the capitol blame game – a boon to the pundit community I’m sure, but a real waste for New York residents. The leaders of the Senate and Assembly must work better together, and they can do so by including the rest of us in the process.

As for the rest of us, if we’re going to call for a more open decision-making process, then we need to promote a more transparent budget. In the future, let's not wait for a judge to order the disclosure of our member items. We can do it ourselves.

I like endorsements just as much as the next guy. So it bothered me when I was recently denied an endorsement from an organization dedicated to environmental protection – this being an issue close to my heart, and one for which my voting record is quite strong.

According to the letter I received, the board of directors “has decided not to endorse any incumbent members of the state legislature this year” because of the “failure to forge solutions to four of the five top environmental priorities” identified by the organization.

Point taken. Many important environmental bills did not even garner a floor vote in the Senate. Rather they died in the Rules, Finance, or – oddly enough – Environmental Conservation committee.

There are few people who would deny that Elliot Spitzer has done a decent job as Attorney General of New York State. I would think only a handful maybe, and probably Republicans mostly. Some of his detractors say he is a bit aggressive and “macho”, others say he is a bully. Others yet claim that he is an “alpha–male” all the way, possessing too much testosterone. Point being, there is no real attack on his competency and/or capability. In most regards, this is good for Spitzer.

The only area where Spitzer seems vulnerable is the one where his relationship with Albany legislators can be gauged. The least you can say is that he has been quite accommodating. Can anyone find the public attacks on Albany (from Spitzer) in the past decade? And for sure, most elected officials are lining up in droves to endorse him. Not surprisingly, his endorsement list will be an Albany “who is who” list.