Don't These Democrats Know Better Than to Have Affairs With Interns?

They never learn, do they?

The state Assembly's Ethics and Guidance Committee yesterday met behind closed doors for four hours, weighing the fate of an upstate lawmaker who carried on a hot and heavy affair with an intern.

The panel has been mulling how to discipline Assemblyman Sam Hoyt (D-Buffalo) since last month, when a political blog posted explicit e-mails between him and a one-time legislative aide.

Neither committee members nor aides to Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver (D-Manhattan) would confirm reports that the meeting focused on Hoyt. But Chairman William Magnarelli (D-Syracuse) said it met "to discuss matters that could lead to the discipline of a particular person."

Buffalo voters recently rewarded Hoyt with re-election. Apparently affairs with interns enhance the resume.

Assemblyman Sam Hoyt, damaged by an admission of marital infidelity, survived the challenge of his political career Tuesday to win the Democratic primary and most likely another term in Albany.

Hoyt, a 16-year veteran of the State Legislature, survived a well-financed opposition campaign funded by Rochester billionaire and Buffalo Sabres owner B. Thomas Golisnao — which focused on allegations of an affair with an legislative intern — to defeat former Common Council Member Barbra A. Kavanaugh.

Some background on the affair.

A woman who had an affair with Assemblyman Sam Hoyt has told the Assembly’s Ethics and Guidance Committee that she was an intern in the spring of 2003 when they first had sex, according to a source close to the investigation.

The woman, who was 23 at the time and whose name is being withheld by The Buffalo News, was an intern in the office of Assemblywoman Teresa R. Sayward, R-Willsboro, when she first met Hoyt, a Buffalo Democrat, who was 41 at the time.

She told committee members late last month that Hoyt asked her on a date, the source said, and they later went to her apartment. She said the affair with the married assemblyman continued after she became a staff member for another legislator.

The disclosure that the woman, who has since graduated from the University at Buffalo Law School, was an intern when the affair began would not mean a violation of Assembly rules against fraternizing with interns, since they were adopted later.