Gridlock-causing defector returns to Democrats; Senate work resumes |
On Board Online • July 20, 2009
Chaos at the Capitol
By Marc Humbert
Senior Writer
The political logjam that had paralyzed New York’s state Senate for more than a month has broken, providing a bit of relief to worried school leaders and municipal officials across the state.
The break came as Sen. Pedro Espada, a Bronx Democrat who had defected to the Republicans in return for being named president pro tem of the chamber, returned to the Democratic fold on July 9. The move restored, at least for the moment, the Democrats’ slim 32-30 majority.
Espada was named majority leader by the Democrats in the chamber’s new hierarchy.
The Senate quickly got back to work, passing more than 120 bills in a session that wound up at about 2 a.m. on July 10.
Included in the flurry of bills, earlier approved by the Assembly, was legislation to keep New York in conformity with federal requirements for educating disabled students. At risk was almost $700 million in federal aid.
Also winning final legislative approval were measures to allow schools to continue to make conditional hires pending completion of criminal background checks; to permit the state to waive, for up to five days, the 180-day classroom requirement for schools shut this year because of swine flu; and to authorize the latest phase of Buffalo’s massive school reconstruction program.
The latest twist in what had become a soap opera-like performance in the marbled halls of New York’s state Capitol came just one day after Gov. David Paterson, in a dramatic and legally questionable move, appointed veteran troubleshooter Richard Ravitch as lieutenant governor.
Paterson said that as the Senate’s new presiding officer, Ravitch would be able to break the 31-31 deadlock, at least on procedural matters, that had paralyzed the chamber.
More important, said Paterson, it would make clear who would succeed him as governor should he be unable to serve.
With Paterson turning up the heat, Espada made his move to come home to the Democrats. He has been a controversial figure not only for his shifting allegiances but also for his willingness to pay fines rather than file campaign finance paperwork. He is under investigation in connection with state grants to a non-profit organization tied to him.
Senate Republican leader Dean Skelos quickly predicted that despite Espada’s return, the Democratic conference had become so fractured that within a few months, the GOP would be back in the majority.
Paterson’s appointment of Ravitch came just two days after state Attorney General Andrew Cuomo, a potential rival of the governor’s for the 2010 Democratic gubernatorial nomination, declared that any attempt to fill the vacant lieutenant governor’s job would be unconstitutional.
And, Cuomo said, such a move “would not provide long-term political stability, but rather the opposite, by involving the governor in a political ploy that would wind through the courts for many months.”
In fact, within hours of Paterson’s announcement, lawyers for the coalition that had been made up of the 30 Senate Republicans and Espada were in court seeking to keep Ravitch from acting as lieutenant governor. Legal experts said the dispute would eventually have to be settled by the state Court of Appeals, New York’s highest tribunal.
The Senate had ground to a halt on June 8 when Espada of the Bronx and a fellow Senate Democrat, Hiram Monserrate of Queens, defected and voted with Republicans to oust the Democratic leadership that had ruled the Senate since January. Before that, Republicans had controlled the chamber since 1965.
Monserrate soon re-defected, leaving the Senate deadlocked 31-31, and with no sitting lieutenant governor to break tie votes on even procedural matters.
In 1973, when Republican Malcolm Wilson moved up to become governor after Nelson Rockefeller’s resignation, and again in 1985 when Alfred DelBello resigned as Gov. Mario Cuomo’s No. 2, the lieutenant governor’s office was left vacant until the next gubernatorial election.
The prevailing legal theory at the time was that the state constitution made no provision for filling such a mid-term vacancy. But Paterson has said a separate provision in state law dealing with the governor’s power to fill some vacancies in elective office opens the way for Ravitch’s appointment.
Ravitch, a 76-year-old lawyer, said he would serve only as a caretaker lieutenant governor and would not run for the post in 2010. He was one of the architects of the rescue plan that staved off bankruptcy for New York City and the state in 1975. He is the ex-husband of Diane Ravitch, a well-known professor of education at New York University.
In an earlier assignment from Paterson, Ravitch helped develop a financial bailout plan this spring for the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, which he once headed, that led to imposition of a payroll tax in New York City and the suburban counties surrounding the city. Under pressure from NYSSBA and local school districts, state leaders agreed to reimburse districts for the cost of the payroll tax.
The Ravitch appointment was blasted by Republican Skelos who said “the governor is clearly putting his own political future ahead of the best interests of the public.”
In fact, Paterson advisers have said his tough stance against Senate gridlock – he had ordered senators into daily special sessions even through the July 4 holiday weekend – has paid off with an uptick in his internal poll numbers.
And Paterson’s campaign committee was, within minutes of the governor’s Ravitch announcement, sending out e-mails and recorded telephone messages touting the appointment.
As On Board was going to press, the Senate had still not acted on Assembly-approved legislation to extend the 2002 law, with some revisions, that granted New York City’s mayor control over the city’s school system. The measure was expected to eventually win Senate approval.