On Board Online Web exclusive • February 3, 2009

By Marc Humbert
Senior Writer

Malcolm Smith, the first Democrat to serve as majority leader of the state Senate since 1965, said he has no ambition to ever run for governor and plans to serve, at most, only four more years in the Senate.

“Politics for me is a calling, not a career,” the Queens legislator said Feb. 2 during an interview about education issues with On Board, a bimonthly newspaper published by the New York State School Boards Association.

Smith, 52, said that when he was elected for his first term in the Senate in 2000, he planned to serve for no more than 10 years. He was elected majority leader in January for a two-year term.

Smith said his immediate future is clear. “I think I should do my time here,” he said. “It could be two years or four years. I think beyond that, you get stale, and you get comfortable, and you are no longer willing to accept new ideas.”

After a maximum of four years, it would be time to leave the Senate, Smith said. “I think it would be somebody else’s time … I think, after that, I will move on to whatever.”

He added: “I think I have reached my pinnacle in state government.”

Asked if he might consider running for governor next year if for some reason fellow Democrat David Paterson decided not to seek re-election, Smith said, “No. No.”

And what about running for governor further down the road?

“No,” Smith said.

A former real estate developer and the first African-American to serve as the leader of a legislative majority in the New York Legislature, Smith said he believes state government is “slow and bureaucratic” and could learn things from the business community, such as the use of performance measures.