When I wrote an item about Hiram Monserrate ludicrous rationale for voting to put the Republicans in charge of the State Senate,
http://www.r8ny.com/blog/yoda/how_dumb_does_hiram_monserrate_think_we_are.html
I hadn’t planned to have series of posts with the same theme but the hacks, thugs & thieves in the State Senates have given me so much material, I feel I must.
The latest has to do with the Senate Democratic Leader(s), Malcolm Smith & John Sampson giving Monserrate back the Committee Chairmanship & $12,000 of taxpayer money that was withheld for him when Hiram got busted for “allegedly” cutting his girlfriend.
Despite his denials, indicted state Sen. Hiram Monserrate asked to have his committee chairmanship and $12,500 stipend reinstated, legislative leaders said.
Senate Democratic Conference Leader John Sampson (D-Brooklyn) Tuesday said Monserrate (D-Queens) asked that his committee chairmanship and stipend be suspended after he was indicted in March on a felony assault charge. "Subsequently, he asked to go forward with his committee," Sampson said.
Senate President Malcolm Smith, in a letter last Friday – the day after the Dems regained the state Senate – to the controller's office, wrote that "at this time, Sen. Monserrate is requesting that he receive his full stipend as soon as practicable."
While the News story focuses, correctly, on Hiram’s lying again, I have another question.
When Malcolm originally took the Chairmanship & the money away from Monserrate, could Hiram have gotten it back at that time by just asking “to go forward with his committee” and “requesting that he receive his full stipend as soon as practicable"? Is it that easy to avoid punishment by asking & requesting? Or it just remotely possible that the money & power was Smith & Sampson’s way to win back (buy) Hiram’s vote?