The New York Times
Celebration, Interrupted: 4 Dissidents Risk Democrats’ Gains in SenateBy DANNY HAKIM
Published: November 5, 2008
ALBANY — Confusion broke out in the State Senate on Wednesday as four dissident Democrats refused to commit to backing a member of their own party for majority leader, throwing Democratic control into question just a day after the party captured a majority of the chamber’s seats.
What should have been a celebratory moment — the elevation of Senator Malcolm A. Smith to the majority leader’s post and an end to four decades of Republican dominance — was instead a somewhat humiliating one, as party leaders scrambled to unite Democratic members.
Democrats, as a result of their gains in the election on Tuesday, now hold 32 of the Senate’s 62 seats. But Republicans have already been wooing the four breakaway Democrats, all from New York City, to back Senator Dean G. Skelos, the Republican majority leader.
The four lawmakers — Pedro Espada Jr. and Rubén DÃaz Sr. of the Bronx, Carl Kruger of Brooklyn and Hiram Monserrate of Queens — did not show up at a closed-door meeting of Democratic members in the Capitol.
If he ascends to majority leader, Mr. Smith, a Queens Democrat, will become the state’s first black leader of a majority party in the Legislature.
Three of the four holdouts are Latino legislators who feel Latinos have been underrepresented in leadership roles in city and state government and want to press the issue in the Senate.
Mr. DÃaz said the four men, who have formed an independent political caucus, may put off making a decision on whom to back for leader until the new legislative session begins in January.
“There’s a concern that we have a black president, a black governor and we have a concern that we have to be sharing power,†said Mr. DÃaz.
The development was the latest dizzying spin in a year in which a Democratic governor resigned after being implicated in a prostitution scandal and a Republican Senate leader stepped down amid a continuing federal corruption investigation.
In a sign of party leaders’ concern, Gov. David A. Paterson met with the four men Wednesday morning to urge them to back Mr. Smith, arguing that they were standing in the way of a historic opportunity for their party. The Democrats have not had control of the state Senate in nearly a half century and have not held both the governorship and the Legislature since the New Deal.
A staff member for one of the four senators said the group’s “key concern was the absence of Latino leadership among the state’s key leadership posts†and said the group would go so far as push to install a Latino majority leader — a move that would be a heavy political lift for four senators to achieve.
Other people who have spoken to members of the group downplayed the suggestion that one of the four would insist on the top leadership post but said they might seek other roles.
Mr. Monserrate said in a statement that “we must continue to fight for representation for our diverse communities,†adding, “our community does not have a single state or citywide elected leader in any legislative body.â€
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