After finally gaining control of the New York Senate, two Democrats have defected from the Democrats in the New York State Senate to join the Republican caucus, giving the Republicans a majority again. The two Senators, Hiram Monserrate and Pedro Espada are still technically Democrats but will be joining the Republicans and some key votes.
Republicans reclaimed control of the New York state Senate with help from two Democrats, who rebelled against a $131.8 billion budget they said was negotiated in secret.Pedro Espada from the Bronx and Hiram Monserrate from Queens sided with 30 Republicans on key votes to change the Senate's leadership. Democrats immediately challenged the claim and described the action as illegal. Governor David Paterson called it "despicable."
The maneuver, just two weeks before the Legislature's scheduled June 22 adjournment, leaves in doubt the outcome of bills to allow gay marriage, create a new money-saving pension category for future state and city workers and approve taxes to balance New York City's budget.
So what does this mean for gay marriage? According to Queerty it is not a good look,
• If Republicans do take control over the Senate, they will certainly not allow a bill to reach the floor for a full vote. Which means even if Sen. Thomas Duane had locked up the 32 votes necessary to pass the bill, it's now dead in the water.• If this mess is not sorted out immediately and power not officially maintained by either party, you can expect the rest of the legislative session to be tied up with turmoil, and the same-sex marriage issue pushed to the back of the bus in terms of priorities.
• If Democrats do maintain control, we're still not out of the water. Sens. Espada Jr. was marked in the "yes" column while Monserrate was "undecided" on supporting marriage equality; it's unclear how the team up with Republicans would impact that vote. Moreover, if Smith retains his leadership post, he may still not permit the same-sex marriage bill to come up for a vote, since he's requiring 32 votes to pass it.
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Things are crazy up in the air in Albany right now, but I'm not totally sure the same-sex marriage bill is shot to hell yet. I work as an intern reporter for a paper that covers the Legislature, and right now everyone's just trying to figure out what's going on, who's siding with who, and who's getting what out of this whole deal. Malcolm Smith(the as-of-yesterday-ex Senate majority leader) held a press conference last night, and all but four democrats showed up, which means everyone's speculating as to whether that indicates they'll be joining the Republican's "coalition." One of them was Tom Duane, the sponsor of the same-sex marriage bill. Maybe Duane has a deal brewing with republicans--he'll give his support if they bring the bill to the floor this session. Maybe that's how he secured the votes after months of not having enough. Who knows? I guess I'm just optimistically speculating right now.
I hope the folks living in Monserrate's and Espada's districts are blowing up their phones and filling their inboxes with complaints. I fucking hate when politicians do this shit. If you were elected a Democrat, then stay a damn Democrat during your term, otherwise you've stolen the votes of everyone who voted for you because of the little letter beside your name on the ballot (I know *gasp* a politician misleading the public!). If you must, you can change your party affiliation for the next election.
Naturally, you felt the same way when Jim Jeffords defected to the Democrats, giving us the US Senate, and recently when Arlen Spector switched, bringing us to 59 senators (plus Franken, eventually).
Not to upset the snarkiness of your comment, but yes. I can't speak for AlmostAmanda, but Arlen Spector was elected a republican. People elected him because of what he stood for - and a big part of that was him being a republican. Unless he had constituents flooding his office with demands that he switch parties, then no, he shouldn't have done it. Does getting more Dems in the Senate benefit my "liberal agenda"? Absolutely. Does that mean I agree with the man? No way.
If his constituents wanted a Dem to represent them, they would have picked one. And they didn't. Same goes for Espada and Monserrate. Your gdfmin' job as a politician is to represent your constituents as they want to be represented, not power play and all this other crap. If you forget that, you're not doing you're job. And most people who aren't doing their job get fired.
Additionally, there's already a hot place in hell for Monserrate, so what's one more fuck up to him?
So we'd rather have a Republican Senate than have a moderate Republican who their party no longer fits give it to us? No wonder liberals/Democrats never seem to accomplish anything.
Unless it's a Democrat from a deep blue state or district, or a Republican from blood red territory, in which case switching sides would be electoral suicide, the voters elected the woman or man, not the party label. Do you think Monserrate's and Espada's districts elected them to support gay marriage, and they are defying their voters by acting to block it?
There are nations where you vote for party rather than candidate. For better or worse, this isn't one of them.
Holy crap. Has there ever been an instance of a better example of the political being personal?
Regardless, and this is just Marc talking: gay marriage will eventually be won in the Supreme Court, much like Roe v. Wade, rather than being decided at the state level.
The political climate, it seems, is asking for just that. With enough challenges, soon enough, this whole thing will be the central issue of debate in various courts, and eventually, make its way toward the Supreme Court.
It's another reason the nomination of Sotomayor is such an important issue.
Perhaps one of feministing's readers might even be the next Sarah Weddington of gay marriage!
Hopefully this piece of garbage Monserrate will be locked up soon. Apparently he carved up his girlfriend's face with some broken glass. And somehow he got her to stop cooperating with the police.
http://www.nydailynews.com/news/ny_crime/2008/12/19/2008-12-19_queens_city_councilman_hiram_monserrate_.html
Espada, on the other hand, is just another ethically-challenged politician.
http://wcbstv.com/topstories/pedro.espada.senator.2.881430.html
These two will fit in perfectly with the NY GOP.
It just makes me nauseous that Monserrate is brokering more power for himself.
Albany has always been dysfunctional, so I have had little faith that a marriage bill would pass this year with such a weak governor and senate leader. If this leadership change sticks, I don't think it will last through another election cycle. New Yorkers are sick of Republicans, even in conservative districts. Everything in NY takes longer than it should in NY - the marriage bill will pass eventually.
Let's just hope this doesn't give some gay marriage activists license to unload their racism as "moral outrage" if this kills the bill.
Explain further please.
While in the senate of New York disputes of legalisation of gay marriages proceed, unisex pair has cheated the clerk from civil registration office in the city of New York and has received at it the marriage certficate.