"Politico NY: Senate Democrats explode over one-house resolutions
By NICK NIEDZWIADEK
ALBANY — Tension between the state Senate's Democratic factions exploded inside the chamber on Wednesday during a debate on a non-binding budget resolution.
When the Senate took up a budget resolution sponsored by the eight-member Independent Democratic Conference, mainline Democrats demanded that their resolution also receive a floor vote. That led Sen. Michael Gianaris, the mainline Democrats’ second in command, to attempt several parliamentary gambits to protest his conference’s inability to put forward its own measure. They failed.
Sen. Jose Peralta of Queens, whose recent defection to the IDC led to an outcry from colleagues and constituents that other IDC members labeled as “racist,” said it was the first time that he was able to vote in favor of a one-house resolution, referring to the IDC resolution.
“Everyone likes to talk about progressive issues,” he said. “A vote against this is a shame.”
Freshman Sen. Marisol Alcantara of Washington Heights ratcheted up tensions by accusing Gianaris of exercising “white privilege.”
In addition, she said she “would like to know how many times my colleague has been called the N-word or a spic."
Alcantara’s comments sparked multiple heated interjections from Gianaris and IDC leader Sen. Jeff Klein and forced Majority Leader John Flanagan to intervene to restore decorum.
Klein defended Alcantara after the debate, saying she “takes her job, and her community and her heritage very seriously.”
“This is the floor of the Senate where I think we’re supposed to be debating ideas, not personalities,” he said to reporters. “But at the end of the day, we did what we’re supposed to do, we put forth our legislative agenda.”
Ultimately the IDC’s resolution drew support from only its eight members.
“If there was ever any doubts who were the Republicans’ favored Democrats, this should put that to rest,” Gianaris said, speaking to reporters outside the Senate lobby.
Gianaris, standing alongside the conference’s leader, Sen. Andrea Stewart-Cousins, called the IDC’s resolution “Republican-light.”
“The coalition obviously couldn’t agree on what to put in one resolution, so they allowed the IDC to put in their own resolution,” Stewart-Cousins said.
Flanagan, speaking on the Senate floor, refuted accusations of opacity and exclusion by pointing to the joint budget hearings and calling it “a very public, lengthy, exhaustive process.”
The Republican resolution passed 32-28, with Democratic Sen. Simcha Felder — who caucuses with the GOP — voting alongside the 31 Republicans. Both Democratic conferences voted against it."
The mainline Democratic Conference could have voted for a progressive One House bill by the Independent Democratic Conference but instead choose to have temper tantrums, not helping progressive values. And no matter what Simcha Felder gives majority power to the Republicans. The IDC is apparently trying to bridge the gaps between party ideologies.
