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 Díaz 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. Díaz 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. Díaz.
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.”
The Democrats that did show up for the meeting in Albany tried to present a unified front and downplayed the possibility of defections. Mr. Smith said he was “very proud” that some of his members had formed an independent caucus.
“We have an upstate caucus, we have a women’s caucus, we have a council of black senators, we have a suburban caucus. Now we have an independent caucus,” he said.
During the closed-door meeting, Senator Jeffrey D. Klein of the Bronx called for a vote of confidence for Mr. Smith; it passed unanimously. Mr. Klein had been widely seen as jockeying for the leadership job himself. When the Democrats emerged as a group from their meeting and reporters asked whether Mr. Smith would remain leader, several senators shouted “Yes!” and broke into applause.
But Juda Engelmayer, a spokesman for the independent caucus, said Mr. Smith “will only have 28 votes and will not have the 32 he needs.”
The leadership impasse comes as the state faces a dire fiscal outlook. The governor has called lawmakers back to Albany on Nov. 18 for a special session to close a $1.5 billion budget gap in the current budget. The governor will now have to negotiate amid leadership turmoil and with Republicans, still in control of the Senate for now, in no mood to compromise.
Mr. Díaz said he might stay neutral in a leadership race, but the Republicans may not have a hard time swaying the dissident Democrats. Mr. Espada switched party affiliations and ran on the Republican line in 2002. Mr. Kruger has been so friendly with Senate Republicans that they appointed him a committee chairman.
Mr. Díaz, a Pentecostal minister, has long been one of the most socially conservative voices in the Senate. He continued to say on Wednesday that he could not support as leader any lawmaker who would help make gay marriage become law, even if it were his own son, Assemblyman
Ruben Díaz Jr.
“I would not support anybody, Malcolm Smith, my son Ruben Díaz Jr., anybody who supports that,” he said.
Mr. Smith has indicated he would allow a vote on
same-sex marriage, but he and other senators attempted to downplay the issue Wednesday.
Senator
Thomas K. Duane, an openly gay Democrat from Manhattan who has been a major advocate for marriage legislation, said, “We’re putting everything on hold until we fix the economy.”
It was not immediately clear how the Republicans, who are still regrouping after their electoral defeats, will bargain with the four renegade Democrats. The four do not appear to be considering switching their party registration to become Republicans, but could be open to supporting a Republican for majority leader.
Senator Thomas W. Libous, a Binghamton Republican and deputy majority leader, said “The four of them are going to be a pretty powerful voice at this point.”
But other Republicans were skeptical of a power-sharing arrangement.
“Obviously I don’t want to lose all of our power, so I would welcome their support,” said Senator George H. Winner Jr., a Republican from Elmira. He added that keeping all four in line with Republicans could prove difficult.
“It’s just a very radical type of governing that’s not something that’s ever happened in Albany, so I just don’t know how it works,” he added.
In addition, if the four Democrats side with Republicans in a leadership battle, they could face intense political backlash. Olga A. Mendez, a former Harlem Democratic senator, lost in the 2004 election after she became a Republican.
The uncertainty over Senate control rocked the state’s political establishment Wednesday. Many expected a newly energized Democratic party to pursue a more activist agenda in Albany. Now that agenda is less certain. . Barbara Bartoletti, legislative director of the
League of Women Voters in
New York State, said in an interview earlier this week that if the Democrats took control of the Senate, “A lot of bills that have been held up will certainly be on the fast track.”
Besides gay marriage, those bills would likely include measures to strengthen abortion rights on the state level, should Roe v. Wade be overturned by the
United States Supreme Court, and the so-called bottle bill, which would extend 5-cent deposits to plastic water bottles.
