Joseph Bruno - Political Career

Political Career

In 1966, Bruno was on the campaign staff of Governor Nelson Rockefeller, and from 1969 to 1974 he served as Special Assistant to Speaker of the Assembly Perry B. Duryea. From 1968 to 1969, he was President of the New York State Association of Young Republicans. He also served as Chairman of the Rensselaer County Republican Committee from 1974 to 1977.

Bruno was first elected to the New York State Senate in 1976 from a district composed of the counties of Rensselaer and Saratoga. He was first elected Temporary President of the New York State Senate on November 25, 1994, ousting the incumbent Ralph J. Marino, and was re-elected to that position in 1995, 1997, 1999, 2001, 2003, 2005 and 2007.

Bruno, along with Governor George Pataki and Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver, was instrumental in returning the death penalty to New York State in 1995. The New York Court of Appeals (the highest state court in New York) later found the law to be unconstitutional because it gave jurors deadlocked between life without parole and execution no choice but to give eligibility for parole after 25 years; the Court of Appeals feared that jurors faced with this choice would unfairly lean toward a death sentence. In the 10 years after the law was passed, New York's crime rate plummeted without ever seeing an execution, perhaps weakening public support for the death penalty. Silver let the law die in 2005 without much debate.

According to an editorial in The Buffalo News, Bruno forced a bill through the Senate on June 27, 1995 that would have forced girls under 16 to get consent from both parents for an abortion. The bill never passed the New York State Assembly.

In 2005, Bruno proposed research into high speed rail development in New York State as part of a plan to boost Upstate New York's economy.

As the Temporary President of the Senate, Bruno was Chairman of the Rules Committee and an ex officio member of all Senate standing committees and statutory commissions.

A minor league baseball stadium in Troy, New York, the Joseph L. Bruno Stadium, is named after the Senator.

Bruno has dominated politics in the County, as well as the state, experiencing only two major defeats; when Democratic Judge Patrick McGrath won re-election as County Court Judge by 69 percent in 2003, and when East Greenbush Town Justice Bob Jacon defeated District Attorney Patricia DeAngelis for an additional County Judgeship that was created by the State Senate specifically for DeAngelis in 2005.

Opposing President George W. Bush's War in Iraq, in February 2005, Bruno stated that America, instead of battling insurgents in Iraq, should declare victory and "get the troops out of there."