By Associated Press
Buffalo, NY – Opposition to the Pataki administration's indefinite delay of state tax collections on most sales by Indian vendors took the form of an impeachment petition Friday.
A group called Upstate Citizens for Equality said it was calling for the ouster of Gov. George Pataki "with a heavy heart."
"Through his refusal to enforce the tax law as enacted last May, the governor ... is violating his oath of office by failing to enforce all laws," said Dan Warren, chairman of the group's Niagara Frontier chapter, one of three chapters in the state.
Warren said the petition would be circulated on the Internet and possibly in convenience stores before being delivered to Albany.
"That is so ridiculous as to not be worthy of a response," was the reaction of Pataki's spokesman Todd Alhart.
The administration was to have begun collecting the taxes on March 1 after already getting a three-month delay from the time the Legislature originally set. Tax Commissioner Andrew Eristoff this week said his department needed more time to review the issue and acknowledged the possibility of violence by unhappy Indian tribes.
Non-Indian merchants near Native American lands say the imposition of the tax would even out the wide price differential between what Indians can charge for cigarettes and gasoline and what they can charge. The state charges $1.50-a-pack tax on cigarettes and 28.95-cents-a-gallon tax on gasoline.
Under the state constitution, the Assembly votes on articles of impeachment and the Senate holds impeachment trials.
The action against Pataki is an extreme longshot. Only one New York governor has ever been impeached: William "Plain Bill" Sulzer left office after less than a year in 1917 after quarreling with his former colleagues in the Tammany Hall Democratic political machine in New York City.