NY Senate leader Joseph Bruno won't run again

[Ron Burgundy]

AP - The top Republican in New York state politics, Senate Majority Leader Joseph Bruno, confirmed Monday that he won't seek re-election, an announcement that complicates GOP efforts to hang on to their slim majority in his chamber.

The 79-year-old Bruno, considered the oldest serving state legislative leader in the country, has run the Senate for more than a dozen years and has been the state's top Republican since 2006.

He was known as a formidable opponent who crippled the administration of Democratic Gov. Eliot Spitzer, who resigned amid a prostitution scandal in March.

Bruno turned a story about his own use of state aircraft against Spitzer, accusing the governor's aides of political espionage and misuse of state police. Several investigations followed and although no charges resulted, Bruno used them to erode Spitzer's once historic popularity.

Bruno's decision was announced in a closed-door session on the last scheduled day of the legislative session.

"After 32 years in office, I have decided that it is time to move on with my life and to give my constituents an opportunity for new representation and my colleagues in the Senate who have supported me, an opportunity for new leadership," Bruno said in a prepared statement.

He said he was grateful and felt blessed to be in his role so long.

"Politics is a tough ball game. Tougher now than it has ever been. But after 32 years of many successes and a few failures, I know now more than ever, and I can say that with comfort and confidence, there is no calling greater than that of public service," Bruno stated.

The state Senate has been Republican-held for 40 years, but the GOP now has just a single-vote majority. The state Assembly is held by the Democrats.

Several Republican senators, some of whom could seek the powerful majority leader's job, refused to comment on Bruno's announcement.

Bruno has also been under an FBI investigation for more than a year which appears to be looking at his business associates outside of state government.

The federal probe stems from an ongoing inquiry begun in late 2005 by the state Lobbying Commission into the relationship between the Senate leader and an Albany-area businessman, Jared Abbruzzese.

Abbruzzese, who contributed more than $70,000 since 2000 to New York Republicans and even more to the national party, but who has also contributed to Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Barack Obama, had made corporate jets available to Bruno and hired him as a consultant. Abbruzzese's wife had bought land from a real estate investment company that had ties to Bruno. Meanwhile, businesses with links to Abbruzzese received hundreds of thousands of dollars in state funding controlled by Bruno and former Republican Gov. George Pataki.

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Associated Press writer Valerie Bauman contributed to this report.

source: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080624/ap_on_el_st_lo/ny_senate_leader [link]