Panel to qualify state candidates

ALBANY - Candidates to succeed state Comptroller Alan Hevesi, who resigned in scandal, will now have to be qualified by a panel of former comptrollers in a new merit-based system pushed by Gov. Eliot Spitzer.

Under the process announced Tuesday, the state Legislature - dominated by Democrats - will choose a new comptroller from the list of qualified finalists. The procedure was presented as a sign of unusual bipartisanship for Albany.

Five finalists will be questioned as early as next week in public hearings by senior Democratic and Republican lawmakers and the former comptrollers.