ODD PAIR AGREE ON DRUG LAWS

As far as strange political bedfellows go, this pairing might take the cake.

Randy Credico, a longtime advocate for reform of the strict Rockefeller
Drug Laws, will appear today at a news conference in New York City with
Manhattan District Attorney Robert Morgenthau.

Credico said he is advising the 85-year-old DA on drug law reform as he
prepares to seek his ninth term in 2005, adding that Morgenthau will call
for lawmakers to act on reform while they're in Albany this week.

Assembly and Senate staffers trying to negotiate a drug law reform bill
this weekend came up empty as of Sunday afternoon but were said to still be
talking.

Morgenthau was mum on the issue for years, but went pro-reform last spring
after he met with members of The Mothers of Plaza de Mayo from Argentina,
on whom Credico modeled his reform group, Mothers of the New York Disappeared.

Morgenthau's critics say his change of heart is politically driven by his
desire to win another term, and the fact that his opponent and former
assistant, Leslie Crocker Snyder, has publicly supported reform.

Credico says Snyder's reform talk is also politically motivated, noting
that the former Manhattan-based state Supreme Court justice doled out many
long sentences to drug offenders.

Two Capitol veterans are eyeing the top post at the Saratoga Performing
Arts Center.

Marcia White, an aide to Sen. Joseph Bruno, and recently retired budget
director Carole Stone have told SPAC officials they'd like to replace Herb
Chesbrough, SPAC's executive director and president, who plans to retire
next year, sources familiar with both women say.

A SPAC board search committee is just getting under way to find a new
executive director.

File this under: "Oh, really?"

Sen. Michael Balboni, R-Nassau County, is "the state's leading expert on
terrorism," according to his Friday press release on former NYC Police
Commissioner's Bernard Kerik's new job as secretary of homeland security.

So, is he? Capital Confidential asked around state government for
nominations. The names that surfaced: James Kallstrom, Pataki's top
counterterrorism adviser; James McMahon, director of the Office of Public
Security; former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani, and Kerik.

Balboni got a vote from a state Senate supporter who said he is the
chamber's terrorism expert (Balboni chairs the Veterans, Homeland Security,
and Military Affairs Committee).

Gov. George Pataki has a new speechwriter. Scott Sandman, 38, of Albany, is
moving from spokesman for the state Division of Military and Naval Affairs
last month to pen the governor's bons mots.

The move came with a tidy raise, from $85,225 a year to $90,000.

Before joining the division in 1998, Sandman was spokesman at the Division
of Criminal Justice Services and worked on U.S. Rep. John Sweeney's first
congressional campaign.