As strong as was my condemnation of the manner in which the recent Senate squall was resolved, I’m not about the take the step of naming heroes and villains, or to assert that any other possible resolution, however superior, was easily evolved, or even possible. Despite my earlier and relentless condemnation in their various incarnations of "The Four Horsemen of the Preposterous," "The Three Amigos," the "Aztec Two-Step," or "The Majority of One," I’m not even to prepared to condemn those Democrats (most prominently John Sampson and Marty Dilan) who negotiated with and through them to achieve the final settlement.
I’m not even sure how much I can really condemn the Republican Leader (as of today), Dean “The Dog” Skelos.
My objections to the deal still stand—it is that rare combination of being both dreamily impractical and morally reprehensible. I’m just not sure any alternative was really possible without first traveling down this road.
On June 8, the Senate Republican, aided by Pedro Espada and Hiram Monserrate, attempted to pull off a coup. Whether they succeeded or not is a matter that has never been resolved by the Courts, and as a results of the actions taken Thursday night, never will be.
This left the Senate with 32 votes for Republican control, provided they managed to hold a legal meeting; meanwhile, the Democrats scrambled to get Monserrate back before that occurred. Whhile I outlined the various scenarios of what would happen if they did or did not accomplish that task, I did not anticipate one other possibility: that the courts would abstain, leaving State government paralyzed for an entire month.
The obvious answer was a power sharing agreement, but the response of the Senate Republicans to Democratic overtures was : “You can’t get there from here.”
While it was true that in a 31-31 deadlock, no one could pass a bill, the more important matter (to the Senators, at least) was who controlled the Senate Payroll. Control of the payroll rested in the hands of the last party to elect a President Pro Tempore. While each side claimed ownership, it was clear that the Democrats smelled the handwriting on the wall, while the Republican position was “we’ll split power any way you want, as long as we get to be in charge.”
To give Skelos the benefit of the doubt, he was boxed in by his own situation; the appearance of his willingness to negotiate the relinquishment of Espada’s position of power was likely to cost him Espada, who, as Skelos knew, had twice jumped shipped upon the party in which he was enrolled and was surely capable of doing something similar to him.
Moreover, the fragmented nature of the Senate Democrats offered Skelos many opportunities to put together a more truly bi-partisan coalition. Not only was there the mercurial Monserrate, but his other remaining amigos as well.
And those were not the only possibilities. Darrel Aubertine wanted “Jobs for Power,” and Skelos wanted power for the jobs–surely, an accommodation could be reached, but then the plug got pulled.
Next, Skelos tried pulling Tom Duane’s plug, dangling the promise of a vote on same-sex marriage in exchange for a vote for a political one. Perhaps Skelos would have succeeded had he only promised Duane “the votes,” instead of just “a vote.” But Skelos seemingly did not understand that a man not named Pedro Espada may not be comfortable betraying a lifetime of friends and principles in exchange for merely getting a floor vote he was destined to lose.
We also know that Dan Squadron was seen late nights in a hotel bar in an animated discussion with the Mayor’s consiglieri, Kevin Sheekey, and Tom Golisano’s butt-boy, Steve Pigeon, though we can only guess whether it was by accident or design (bet you know where I stand).
Other Skelos overtures, and we know of at least one (to Bill Stachowski), appear to have been summarily rejected (but we will never know how many were made to whom, under what circumstances, with how much negotiation).
I am not condemning Duane, Aubertine and Squadron (well, maybe just a little),—by my count, if one adds them to The Gang of Four” (plus Dilan and Sampson) and the two groups of Seven putting forth their own power-sharing plans: “The Progressives” (Schneiderman, Squadron, Liz Krueger, Parker, Adams, Oppenheimer, and Breslin) and “The Palefaces” (Klein, Savino, Foley, Johnson, Stachowski, Valesky and Aubertine), there were at least 21 out of 32 Senate Democrats who, at one time or another, were conducting non-officially sanctioned negotiations (or trying to) with either the Republicans or Epsada, or were themselves Espada.
We know for a fact that the Palefaces nearly got the job done.
It is possible that Sampson, the closest approximation the Democrats currently have to a leader, had wisely decided to let a thousand flowers bloom in the hopes that if he threw enough of them at the wall, one would stick. However, it seems just as likely that individual and self-dealing may also have been involved in at least some of these activities (YA THINK?).
Ironically, it was the most disloyal Democrats who came up with the plan which most maximized the Party’s power. Only the plan put forth by the Amigos (and facilitated by their more loyal late arriving allies) left the power of the Senate solely in the hands of the Democrats.
And ironically, it was Skelos, by refusing to consider any power-sharing plan that actually shared power, who forced this to occur. Strangely, at the end, Skelos appeared to have finally woken up to the fact that “Sneaky Pete” Espada was about to do unto him as he did unto others; as a result, Skelos nearly concluded a deal with the Palefaces. Not surprisingly, this late effort by a mouse (or more accurately a dog) to finally be a man, went the way of most best laid plans, and actually brought to fruition Skelos‘ worst case nightmare.
In the end, the Palefaces and Progressives could have stopped this if they wanted. In fact, it would have only taken one of them. But they were tired, and tired of the abuse from the press, which has not entirely abated, but has now mostly de-intensified. And, at a certain point it was not unreasonable for each of them to conclude that a bad plan was far, far better for the State than no plan at all, especially if it allowed one to keep their lulu.
Most importantly, Dean Skelos, his Republican colleagues, and many of the Senate Democrats have learned a valuable lesson. The status quo, i.e., a majority dependent upon the care and feeding of one or more amoral scoundrels, is not a viable plan for governance.
I am not one of those Goo-Goos who hails the wonders of bi-partisanship, which, in practice, tends to resemble more closely the working of the Board of Elections than it does the Kean Commission. Despite the protestations, bi-partisanship is not an ends; it is a means. And, most of the time, it is a means for the accomplishment of no good. The June 8th coup attempt is a good example of what bi-partisanship usually means in real life.
And while I've always believed that wildly disproportionate allocations of budget items and member staff allotments are just plain wrong, I actually believe that subjecting the Senate Republicans to a year of them is actually good behavior modification therapy.
That being said, the recent resolution of the Senate Squabbles, dependent as it is upon the good faith compliance of Pedro Espada and 31 other people of differing priorities and amounts of good will, is unlikely to hold. To keep doing the same thing over and over again, expecting a different result, is the definition of insanity.
Now that Dean Skelos, the Senate Republicans, and many of the Senate Democrats have finally grokked this essential truth, we can heed the wise words of Portnoy’s Dr. Speilvogel:
"Now Vee May Perhaps to Begin."