He backed Mayor Michael Bloomberg in 2005, but Brooklyn Borough President Marty Markowitz said on last night’s program that Hizzoner’s budget ax is making him hesitate this time around. Watch the video above.

Programming note: Watch NY1's live coverage of the governor’s State of the State address, which will be airing LIVE at 1 p.m.

Tonight’s program includes: New State Senate Majority Leader Malcolm Smith; complete coverage of Gov. Paterson’s State of the State address; our Political Rundown with Curtis Sliwa and Gerson Borrero.

Danny Hakim notes: “After two months of chaotic negotiations, the fractious Senate Democratic caucus reached a deal on Tuesday night that will give the party control of the Senate for the first time in four decades.”

Nick Confessore writes: “Even as Attorney General Andrew M. Cuomo insisted he was staying out of the competition for New York’s soon-to-be-vacant Senate seat, a top Cuomo aide urged labor leaders and upstate officials to refrain from embracing Caroline Kennedy for the job, according to several people with direct knowledge of the conversations.”

Baker & Meenan report: “Hiram Monserrate was expected to take his seat as a new state senator on Wednesday as the authorities in New York City pressed their investigation into the slashing of his companion.”

Fernanda Santos writes: “After intense criticism, the Bloomberg administration has given up a perk it worked fervently to secure: a free luxury suite at the new Yankee Stadium. The city will relinquish use of the 12-seat box in exchange for whatever revenue the Yankees generate by selling the seats, minus the cost of marketing them. Although neither the city nor the Yankees have publicly disclosed the market value of the suite, similar suites at the new stadium are being sold for as much as $600,000 a year."

Jeremy Peters reports: “Gov. David A. Paterson will propose that private employers be required to offer health insurance to workers’ dependents who are ages 19 to 29, part of what the administration hopes will be a step toward universal health care coverage in New York.”

Patrick McGeehan notes: “Swamped by a post-holiday surge of claims from laid-off workers, New York State’s computerized unemployment insurance system shut down briefly Monday afternoon and then again for several hours on Tuesday, according to the state Department of Labor.”

Neuman & Chan write: “Is another transit strike in store? Not likely."

Trymaine Lee reports: “A 9-year-old boy was struck and killed in Queens on Tuesday by a bus that was being used in campaign activities for Michael P. Ricatto, a candidate in a special City Council election. The driver had a suspended license, the police said.”

Op-ed columnist Maureen Dowd opines: “I know Caroline Kennedy. She’s smart, cultivated, serious and unpretentious. The Senate, shamefully sparse on profiles in courage during Dick Cheney’s reign of terror, would be lucky to get her. And believe me, she talks a whole lot better than the former junior senator from New York, Al D’Amato, who once wailed that he was ‘up to my earballs’ in some mess, and another time complained to me that those ‘little Jappies’ bring over boats full of cars and then take the boats back empty.”

Columnist Jim Dwyer looks at how Sen. Chuck Schumer has dissed former Gov. Hugh Carey at a courthouse dedication in favor of former President Theodore Roosevelt.

New York Post

Perone & Seifman note: “Even in the wacky world of Big Apple real estate, this is a tale for the ages: a hot-dog vendor has agreed to pay the city $81,701 more a year to peddle franks on the north side of the Metropolitan Museum of Art entrance than on the south side 100 feet away. In what may be the epitome of the location-is-everything maxim, the Parks Department has auctioned off the food-vending rights to the north-side entrance of the museum on Fifth Avenue at 82nd Street for $362,201 and the south-side entrance for $280,500, both to first-time vendor Pasang Sherpa.”

Dave Seifman reports: “Scratch one would-be Republican mayoral contender. Lawyer Bruce Blakeman has taken himself out of the running in the race for mayor, barely four months after putting himself in the running.”

Fred Dicker writes: “Forty-five percent of Americans want Gov. Paterson to name Caroline Kennedy to replace Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, according to a poll released yesterday.”

Page Six reports that Sen. Chuck Schumer had hernia surgery last Friday.

The edit-heads opine: “Ground Zero's hapless bureaucrat-in- chief is finally on his way out -- from one of his jobs, at least. Spitzer appointee Avi Schick steps down this week as Downstate president of the Empire State Development Corp. Now if he'd only do likewise at the useless Lower Manhattan Development Corp. - and lock the door behind him.”

In an op-ed column, former state economist Stephen Kagann writes: “Over-taxing employers may help politicians gain a footing with the special interests, but it will swell unemployment.”

New York Daily News

Pearson & Gendar write: “A Queens state senator who denies beating his girlfriend was caught on security cameras dragging the scared, bleeding woman from his apartment, law enforcement sources told the Daily News. Newly elected Sen. Hiram Monserrate ‘will be convicted by the security video’ taken in the hallway and outside his Jackson Heights apartment after he allegedly slashed Karla Giraldo in a jealous rage, sources said.”

Frank Lombardi looks at an interesting website that reveals the salaries of every city employee.

Elizabeth Lazarowitz reports: “The Bloomberg administration overstepped its bounds in giving principals the final say in setting educational objectives, state education officials said. Education Commissioner Richard Mills also slammed city Schools Chancellor Joel Klein for not consulting superintendents, teachers and parents when he rolled out amended rules in 2007.”

Donohue & Theodorakis note: “Alan Friedberg left the MTA board six years ago, but he's still tooling around town in his snazzy red Jaguar with a police-issued parking permit. Friedberg defied an order from the Metropolitan Transportation Authority to return an MTA police-issued permit that lets him park just about anywhere.”

Op-ed columnist Michael Goodwin writes: “…Paterson's actions have not matched his rhetoric. Merely trimming here and there - he called for laying off only 521 state workers out of more than 200,000 - won't be enough. Nor will symbolic actions, such as his closing a state game farm and donating thousands of pheasants to food kitchens.”

In a guest op-ed column, the Brennan Center’s Stengel & Norden write: “The legislative process in Albany is still in dire need of an overhaul. The leaders of the Senate and Assembly still maintain a stranglehold over the legislative process: standing committees do not hold hearings on major bills; there is little or no substantive debate on major bills; member resources are distributed on the basis of party, loyalty and seniority, and the products of the process remain opaque.”

Newsday

Dan Janison writes: “If this were an election campaign, the clichéd question of the moment would be whether Caroline Kennedy peaked too soon. But because Kennedy is seeking appointment to the seat that Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton expects to vacate, the law says Kennedy needs only one vote -- from Gov. David A. Paterson.”

The edit-heads opine: “New York's 1977 decision to abandon election in favor of merit selection for Court of Appeals judges was the right call. So was delegating the first cut to a nominating commission, which compiles a list of qualified applicants from which the governor must choose. Can the system be abused? Of course. Small-minded partisanship can't be completely banished from any appointive system that's only as good as the people who control it. The system could and should work better.”

New York Observer

Jason Horowitz reports: “Some members of the Kennedy family are worried that Mayor Michael Bloomberg's advocacy for Caroline Kennedy is boxing in the governor and damaging her chances of replacing Hillary Clinton in the Senate, according to one family member. ‘We love the kind words the mayor has said about her but this is Governor Paterson's decision, and we were concerned that the mayor's vocal support would crowd the governor and damage the effort,’ said one member of the Kennedy family, speaking on background. It hasn't always been clear that the mayor's camp sees it that way.”

Jimmy Vielkind notes: “Of all the public-minded people insisting they are not campaigning in the non-campaign to convince David Paterson they should be appointed to the U.S. Senate, Attorney General Andrew Cuomo is not-campaigning the hardest. Publicly, at least, it's working like a charm.”

The edit-heads oppose the property tax hike: “Punishing property owners during a recession is a very strange way for a city to do business. These are the people, after all—co-op, condo and house owners—who have made a real investment in the city’s future, by putting their hard-earned money into their homes, often at great sacrifice to other living expenses.”

Village Voice

Tom Robbins writes about some of the deals the city made with the Yankees and the Mets about their new ballparks.

Until tomorrow.

Bob Hardt

To drop us a line, write to political_itch@ny1.com.