NY Times: NY Lt. Gov. David Paterson Holds Similar Views on Abortion as Gov. Eliot Spitzer

N.Y. Times: Hope for Harmony in a Shaken Albany, by Nicholas Confessore and Jeremy Peters:

On Day 442, everything changes. Again.

When Gov. Eliot Spitzer took office 14 months ago, he seemed poised to upend the capital’s powers that be, pledging that on “Day 1, everything changes.” But Mr. Spitzer’s confrontational, sometimes bellicose manner antagonized his opponents and alienated his allies, and his sweeping electoral mandate dissipated month by month, a victim of the governor’s mistakes and oversteps.

Now, as Lt. Gov. David A. Paterson prepares to succeed Mr. Spitzer, Republicans and Democrats alike are predicting an equally extensive change of atmosphere and, for better or worse, a return to comity between the governor and the Legislature. Mr. Paterson’s temperament and style, his friends and fellow officials say, are as mild and subtle as Mr. Spitzer’s are not....

Mr. Paterson is considered more liberal than Mr. Spitzer on some key issues, and that could create friction with the Republicans. He opposes the death penalty and strongly supports overhauling New York’s Rockefeller-era drug laws, for example. Years ago he introduced a proposal to allow noncitizens to vote. On issues like abortion and embryonic stem cell research, Mr. Paterson is staunchly liberal, as is Mr. Spitzer.

See also: dotCommonweal: Eliot Spitzer and Abortion, by Paul Moses (3/11):

New York state’s Catholic bishops had a long-awaited appointment with Gov. Eliot Spitzer at the state Capitol in Albany on Monday at 3 p.m. to protest his pending abortion rights legislation. For some reason, it kept getting put off, and Cardinal Edward Egan and fellow bishops were left to wonder why. They were told at one point that the lieutenant-governor, David Paterson, would meet with them. But that failed to come through. They were finally able to deduce the problem after a New York Times report on the Web indicated that Spitzer was occupied with other worries.

For more on Spitzer's proposed Reproductive Health and Privacy Protection Act, see this post.