2007: Spitzer gets off to a rock start, and a young attorney general emerges

What a way to start the year! A new firebrand governor, a new state comptroller (picked by his Assembly colleagues despite the recently elected state executive’s best-laid plans), a new attorney general with a familiar name – and incredible tension between the executive and legislative branches.

The rise of Tom DiNapoli to state comptroller was the least of the new, exceedingly popular governor’s worries. Gov. Eliot Spitzer had enemies to keep an eye on, and watch them he did. The governor quickly made foes of the other members of the “three men in a room,” with then-Senate Majority Leader Joe Bruno and then-Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver conspiring against the governor.

Adding to the intrigue was an ambitious young attorney general: Andrew Cuomo. The state’s top prosecutor at the time led an investigation into Spitzer’s use of state police to monitor Bruno. While Cuomo would eventually rule that there was nothing improper in the governor’s use of police to follow his foe as he used state resources to traverse the state raising campaign funds, the investigation itself – dubbed “Troopergate” – became the focus of reporters across the state. The revelations that Spitzer had used the police to track his enemy was decried by Bruno and others as a use of state resources to carry out a political attack, ironic given the nature of the police investigation.

Further complicating an already rocky start for Spitzer were the politics behind DiNapoli’s appointment to comptroller following the resignation of his predecessor, Alan Hevesi. Despite a tentative agreement between Assembly leadership and the governor, the Assembly voted in DiNapoli after a panel assembled by Spitzer failed to produce any candidates from the Legislature.

That was just the beginning of his troubles with the legislative leadership, as Bruno and Silver both worked to thwart budget plans, policy initiatives and just about anything the governor, who once described himself as a “fucking steamroller,” tried to accomplish. While Bruno was entirely open about his disdain for Spitzer, Silver was more civil in public. Still, behind closed doors the two worked together to make sure the brash state executive understood that he wasn’t going anywhere without their help.

And Spitzer had a major blunder of his own. He drew national attention with a plan to issue driver's licenses to illegal immigrants, sparking a debate that was picked up by news outlets around the country. The proposal sent his approval numbers into a nosedive and he eventually backed off of the idea, but the damage had been done.

It seemed as though things could not have gone much worse for the governor, who had stepped into office with such great promise and expectations. But the next year would host a series of events that would have him wishing for the good old days, when his biggest problems were the leaders of the Assembly and state Senate.

OUR COVERAGE: Edward-Isaac Dovere in City Hall cover stories explored then-New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s potential run for president. In an interview with Dovere at the Saratoga Race Course, Bruno said Spitzer doesn’t have “the temperament to govern” and should be in real estate, not politics.