Senate leadership still up in the air
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- January
- 5
There are just two days to go until the start of a new legislative term, and three Democratic senators from New York City have not publicly said who they will support to lead the upper chamber. Democrats won a majority of Senate seats for the first time since 1965. But members of the so-called ”Gang of Three” (originally a “Gang of Four”) have considered backing Sen. Dean Skelos, R-Nassau County, so the GOP leader would continue as head of the Senate. They forged a deal with Sen. Malcolm Smith, D-Queens, to get some prestigious leadership posts in the Senate, but that quickly fell apart. The trio’s votes are so important because the margin between Democrats and Republicans is so close (32-30).
Sen. Ruben Diaz, D-Bronx, who is one of the three, said today that he didn’t know who he was going to support as leader. “By Wednesday, maybe I’ll know what I’m going to do,” he said.
Sen. Carl Kruger, D-Brooklyn, and Pedro Espada, D-Bronx, could not immediately be reached for comment today.
Smith met with Diaz, Kruger and Espada on Sunday. Democrats and Republicans are scheduled to hold conference meetings tomorrow night. The session begins Wednesday in Albany.
This entry was posted
on Monday, January 5th, 2009 at 1:07 pm by Cara Matthews.
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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. 
