GOP's Senate Coup Paralyzes Albany
ALBANY, N.Y. (AP) -- A Republican coup in the state Senate, helped along by one Democrat with legal troubles and another who violated election laws, paralyzed the chamber on Tuesday.
Democrats vowed to fight back, possibly with a lawsuit, but the new leaders said the takeover was in the name of reform: to turn back Democrats' overspending and overtaxing.
Democratic Gov. David Paterson and good-government advocates criticized the move in a statehouse where control of a legislative chamber gives nearly unfettered power to the ruling party.
The Senate and its committee rooms were dark Tuesday, normally an active day in the part-time legislature. There are only eight full days of the 2009 session left and several key issues, including legalization of same-sex marriage and control of New York City schools, are pending.
Senate Republican leader Dean Skelos, the coalition's No. 2 leader, says he and Democratic Sen. Pedro Espada Jr., the de facto Senate leader if the coup survives, will conduct a session on Wednesday in a separate room if the Democratic conference locks them out of the ornate Senate chamber.
Paterson called the overthrow a dereliction of duty just as New York starts to dig out of a fiscal crisis and faces major policy issues. He said the power grab was "dressed up in the cloak, falsely, of reform and good government."
If reform was the point, said Barbara Bartoletti of the League of Women Voters, the Senate should have worked together to change the state's ethics and campaign finance laws and to take other steps to bring more democracy to the leader-dominated Legislature.
"The public should look at all of this with disdain," Bartoletti said.
Espada, named Senate president by the coalition, said its members plan to work past June 22 end of session set by Senate Democratic Leader Malcolm Smith, who was deposed Monday. Espada said there will be no delay on critical actions.
On Monday, Espada and a fellow Democratic senator, Hiram Monserrate of Queens, joined with Republicans on hastily introduced measures that changed the leadership structure. Neither Espada nor Monserrate changed party affiliation, but their votes helped the measures pass 32-30.
Espada has sided with Republicans in the past and threatened Smith's leadership as soon as it began in January.
He still has two pending election violation cases, but has pledged to resolve them.
In one case, he and his campaign committees owe the state $13,000 in fines for not filing contribution records related to his 2008 election campaign. In the other, he was ordered by a court in December to pay the New York City Campaign Finance Board $60,000 in fines related to his 2001 campaign for Bronx borough president.
Separately, state Attorney General Andrew Cuomo has announced he is investigating managers at the Soundview Health Center, founded by Espada. Cuomo is looking into allegations that state funds earmarked for programs designed to serve impoverished women, children and people with HIV and AIDS were instead diverted to finance political campaigns.
Monserrate, the other dissident, is charged with slashing his girlfriend's face with a piece of broken glass. He has maintained his innocence and called his prosecution politically motivated. A conviction on the felony assault charge could cost him his Senate seat and put him in jail for up to seven years.
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First Posted: 06- 9-09 04:27 PM | Updated: 07-10-09 05:12 AM