A Wacky Coup In Albany As Pedro Espada Jr. Becomes Second In Line To Guv

By: Bob Hardt

The Road To City Hall, an hour-long look at New York politics, can be seen on NY1 News weekdays at 7 and 10 p.m.

On last night's program, Democratic State Senator Pedro Espada Junior explained why he helped Republicans pull a coup in the State Senate.

Tonight’s program includes: Rep. Carolyn Maloney; Our NY1 Wiseguys; New findings in our NY1/New York Times/Cornell poll

INSIDE THE PAPERS

The New York Times

Hakim & Peters write: “The Democrats’ tenuous control of the New York State Senate abruptly collapsed on Monday, throwing the Legislature into chaos with just two weeks remaining in its session.. Two dissident Democrats, who had been secretly strategizing with Republicans for weeks, bucked their party’s leaders and joined with 30 Republican senators to form what they said would be a bipartisan power-sharing deal. But the arrangement effectively re-establishes Republican control. The change upends the agenda in Albany, where Democrats had assumed power in the Senate in January, with 32 seats, after more than 40 years in the minority. Democrats were pushing bills to give tenants more rights, strengthen abortion rights and legalize same-sex marriage this session. And the move underscores the continuing tumult of New York politics, where there have been three governors in less than three years and four Senate presidents since last summer.”

Chen & Connelly report: “Despite generally broad approval for the job Michael R. Bloomberg has done as mayor, a majority of New Yorkers say that he does not deserve another term in office and that they would like to give someone else a chance, according to a poll conducted by The New York Times, Cornell University and NY1 News. With anxiety rising over a difficult economy, few surveyed have a lot of confidence in Mr. Bloomberg’s ability to lead the city out of the recession, a troubling sign for a mayor who cited his financial acumen as the rationale for his undoing of the term limits law that otherwise would have forced him from office. In addition, some 51 percent say that the city is on the wrong track, while 40 percent say it is going in the right direction.”

New York Post

In a column, Fred Dicker observes: “The historic and breathtaking coup that apparently ousted Senate Majority Leader Malcolm Smith yesterday was set in motion three weeks ago -- but it was six months in the making….The major factor was the ham-handed and embarrassingly chaotic leadership by the Queens-based Smith and other leading Democrats, including Deputy Majority Leader Jeff Klein of The Bronx, that angered and alienated Senate Republicans.”
Carl Campanile writes: “Meet the two Democratic turncoats who handed control of the state Senate back to the Republicans: One's been charged with slashing his girlfriend, while the other is being probed in a funding scam.”

The Post has a good “tick-tock” of how the coup went down.

The edit-heads note: “Certainly, the Republicans under former Majority Leader Joe Bruno -- who himself is under indictment -- had scant more honor than the Democrats, having made endless corrupt bargains just to hang onto power.
But New Yorkers know that lawmakers from both parties invariably put their own interests over those of their constituents. Whoever winds up in charge, New Yorkers generally lose. Will it be different this time? There's no reason to think so.”

New York Daily News

Lovett & Blain note: “With two weeks left in the legislative session, the move throws into question a host of high-profile legislation: - Reauthorization of mayoral control in the city. - Legalization of gay marriage. - Democratic-sponsored ethics reform. - Changes in city rent laws.”

Op-ed columnist Bill Hammond writes: “A shining moment of democratic governance it was not. If Republicans really mean to keep their reform promises - and put their ill-gotten power to good use - we'll know soon enough. Maybe they'll do the right thing and let the Assembly-approved gay marriage bill actually come to a vote. Maybe they'll push forward in bipartisan fashion with the well-designed ethics bill Democrats crafted. Seeing will be believing.”

The edit-heads opine: “Yesterday's coup d'etat revealed Albany for the madhouse it has become, with the lunatics firmly in charge of the asylum.”

Newsday

Dan Janison writes: “For those learning of it downstate, this struck like lightning. Word of the parliamentary coup's early moments in the Senate chamber in Albany Monday smacked of reports from a foreign capital under siege, complete with descriptions of rooms going dark and TV feeds cut off and a mob scene in the hallway.”