The circus in Albany is getting personal.

A New York senator angry at being lectured and ordered to stay in Albany by Gov. David Paterson called his fellow Democrat a drug user, and other obscenities unfit for posting on YWN.

The comment to some reporters by Sen. Kevin Parker of Brooklyn is one of the harshest criticisms of the governor by senators now in their third week of an internal power struggle that has shut down action in the Senate.

Earlier Thursday, YWN reported that Senate Republicans said they might file criminal and ethics charges against Sen. Kevin Parker, the violence-prone Democrat who allegedly threatened a GOP lawyer.

Attorney John Conway, 59, said he was on the Senate floor when Parker sought to disrupt a GOP-controlled proceeding that Democrats considered illegal.

“He said to me, ‘What are you looking at, punk? Do you know who I am and don’t you read the newspaper, punk?'” said Conway.

This follows an incident reported by YWN in late May when Parker was indicted on assault and other charges after being accused of attacking a New York Post photographer who took his picture.

A Brooklyn grand jury handed up the indictment charging the Democratic Senator with second and third degree assault, third and fourth degree criminal mischief, third degree menacing and second degree harassment. If convicted, he faces up to seven years in prison.

In 2005 Parker was arrested on charges of punching a traffic agent who was writing him a ticket. The charges were dropped after Parker agreed to take an anger management class.

Following Parker’s latest verbal attacks, Democratic conference leaders quickly called for “civility and decorum.”

As senators sought to go home for the weekend and resolve their dispute next week, Paterson ordered them to return to Albany indefinitely.

Paterson dismissed the comments as “distractions.”

Paterson has admitted drug use when he was young.

While the two sides of the house split 31-31 tried to work together to find a way to pass critical legislation, there was a new schism in Albany – Democrats furious with Paterson for calling special sessions that can go nowhere because anything passed would be invalid.

“I say to David Paterson, you don’t negotiate; you don’t bring legislation to the floor by thinking you are going to do that by beating somebody over the head with a bludgeon,” said Sen. Carl Kruger, D-Brooklyn.

To call the governor’s bluff Sens. Kruger, Hiram Monserrate and Eric Adams brought Paterson a packet of bills passed during the special session and challenged them to sign them.

“We’re calling him to put his pen where his mouth is and sign off on these bills,” Monserrate said.

(Source: WCBSTV)