New York State Senate Parliamentary Coup?

I’m not going to start celebrating just yet. Republicans controlled the New York State Senate for decades, but perhaps with some new leadership it could be a step in the right direction.

Republicans and two dissident Democrats appear to have taken control of New York’s Senate after the two New York City renegades voted with the GOP to throw the fledgling Democratic majority out of power in a parliamentary coup.

The decision by senators Pedro Espada Jr. of the Bronx and Hiram Monserrate of Queens to join the coalition gave Republicans a 32-30 voting edge on hastily introduced measures that changed the leadership structure. Neither Espada nor Monserrate are changing party affiliation.

Naturally, the democrats are crying foul, but I’m not sure there’s much they can do about it.

Within an hour of the defection of Pedro Espada Jr. of the Bronx and Hiram Monserrate of Queens, Republicans anointed Dean Skelos of Long Island as the new majority leader, and Espada as president pro temp.

Following the news, the Democrats walked out of the Senate Chamber and the power and television feed were cut.

According to a statement from the Senate’s GOP press office, “An historic change in leadership is taking place at this moment and a new bipartisan, coalition is being established that is bringing real reform to the Senate RIGHT NOW.”

 A quick search at 5:41 PM failed to locate any comment or reaction from Governor Paterson. I did find a comment by Espada.

Espada just told reporters that he decided to cross over the aisle and support the Republicans because of the “quagmire” that had occurred since Malcolm Smith and the Democrats took over. He said it has been “chaos” and that he and Monserrate will form a caucus of “reform Democrats.” For now, it will consist only of the two of them, but Espada said that there had been conversations with other members and that “the door is open to anybody.”

Update: Did the gay marriage issue have something to do with this?  And what was Tom Golisano doing there?

This entry was posted on Monday, June 8th, 2009 at 5:45 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.