It hasn’t been a good year for Governor Eliot Spitzer (D-NY).
First, he’s been accused of using state troopers to spy on political opponents. Next, he proposes to give illegal aliens drivers licenses—a measure that’s overwhelmingly not supported by New York residents. Eventually he abandons the idea. Then he supports a stretching of the definition of “nexus” for state sales taxes to include affiliate programs. Yesterday, he dropped the idea—at least for the time being.
Republicans were going to paint Spitzer as the “Grinch who stole Christmas.” Spitzer won’t have to deal with that, for now.
However, New Yorkers should still watch what happens in Albany. The State Department of Taxation and Finance still believes they’re right in their expansive view of nexus. This plan will likely reappear sometime in 2008.