Who runs the New York state senate?

posted at 10:55 am on June 16, 2009 by Ed Morrissey
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A week after the Republicans appeared to gain control of New York’s state senate, no one knows yet who runs the chamber.  Two Democrats defected to give the GOP 32-30 control, but then one of them changed back.  A court gave the gavel back to the Democrats, but they can’t bring it under control.  The state press has begun to call them “clowns” and the capital a “circus,” but they’re still missing a ringleader:

The state capital, Albany, was locked in political chaos Monday, just a week before the legislature is due to go home for the summer and with major bills, from control of New York City schools to same-sex marriage, stacked up and awaiting action.

After a day of confusion, no one knew which party was in control of the 62-member state Senate, which now appears evenly split. Both sides were claiming to be in charge, with no lieutenant governor to break a tie. Gov. David A. Paterson (D) was offering to broker a compromise, but with his approval ratings at a record low, he had few tools to force the senators to make a deal. …

Republicans announced they had seized control of the chamber, and they named one of the Democratic renegades, Pedro Espada Jr., as president pro tempore. In an event resembling a coup, the chamber doors were locked and a television channel carrying Senate proceedings briefly went blank.

But over the weekend, the other renegade, Sen. Hiram Monserrate, seemed to have a change of heart, and he appeared Monday at a news conference with ousted majority leader Smith. Monserrate’s re-defection left the Senate hamstrung and commentators freely using words such as “circus” and “clowns” to describe the atmosphere in the capital.

On one hand, this has become a bit of a feel-good story.  It involves incompetence rather than corruption, which allows everyone to have a good time with it.  The New York Post even sent a clown to Albany to help with the circus motif.  It allows everyone, even the New Yorkers who voted this group into office, to feel a little superior without having to worry about cleaning up the consequences later.

Unfortunately, though, there seems to be few ways out of a 31-31 impasse.  Normally, the lieutenant governor would simply preside over the state senate and cast tie-breaking votes, which in this case would give Democrats control.  However, New York does not have a lieutenant governor.  When David Paterson replaced the disgraced Eliot Spitzer as governor, New York did not require him to appoint a replacement for his own office, and the legislature didn’t provide for one, either.  Paterson himself has no official power to compel the state senate to do anything, and with his approval ratings somewhere below that of George Bush, he has no political clout, either.

The show will continue into the courts, which may or may not feel comfortable with picking winners and losers in a legislative organization effort.  The proper way to handle this would be to force the legislature to come to an agreement on organization, perhaps a power-sharing arrangement that would allow the state senate to limp along to the next election.  The legislators themselves should beware giving the courts an entree to dictate the internal workings of the legislative branch, but if they took that much responsibility for their work, the circus would never have come to Albany in the first place.

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