Questions Abound After Democratic Senate Win
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- February
- 27
A political firestorm is underway today at the state Capitol after Democrat Darrel Aubertine won the special election for a Senate seat in the North Country last night, lowering the Republican control to just a one-seat majority.
Aubertine had 27,901 votes, or 52 percent, to 25,345 votes for Republican Will Barclay, 48 percent, according to the Associated Press.
The results are a shock to Republicans, who talked yesterday with confidence that they’d win the seat and push forward in November. Senate Republicans now have a 32-30 lead over Democrats.
With Aubertine’s win, there are huge questions about what will happen to the state’s power structure:
Will Joe Bruno stay on as Senate majority leader? Or will someone like Binghamton Sen. Thomas Libous—an architect of Barclay’s race—or Long Island Sen. Dean Skelos replace him?
Will Gov. Spitzer and Democrats look to flip a Republican senator—giving them an even number in the chamber—and then look to approve a rule change that would take out Bruno and replace him with Democratic Minority Leader Malcolm Smith of Queens or Deputy Minority Leader Jeff Klein of the Bronx?
Will upstate be hurt, as Republicans contend, if Democrats control the Assembly, Senate and governor’s office with all downstate leaders?
Will Senate Republicans, especially many of their elderly members, retire rather than face a tough re-election battle this fall?
And will the Republican-controlled Senate, already at gridlock with Spitzer, have any chance of agreeing on policy measures and getting a budget approved by the April 1 deadline?
This entry was posted
on Wednesday, February 27th, 2008 at 10:35 am by Joseph Spector.
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Jay Gallagher has covered Albany for Gannett News Service since 1984 and has been Albany Bureau chief since 1989. He`s a native of the Boston area and likes to point out that in this millennium, the score is Red Sox 1 championship, the Yankees 0. 
Cara Matthews has been a statehouse correspondent in the Albany Bureau since August 2005. Prior to that, she covered Putnam County government and politics at The Journal News for nearly five years. Before that, she worked at newspapers in Connecticut and covered the state Legislature for one of them. 
