Gov. to wait and see before commenting on senator
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- October
- 21
Gov. David Paterson today that he’s glad the Senate has set up a panel to review the recent misdemeanor conviction of Sen. Hiram Monserrate, D-Queens, for a domestic-violence incident involving the senator’s girlfriend. But Paterson declined to comment on the question of the hour—should Monserrate be forced to resign because of the conviction? (Had the freshman senator been convicted of one of the two felony charges he faced for slashing his girlfriend’s face, he would have lost his seat automatically.)
The governor noted that preventing domestic violence is an issue that he cares about deeply. He said it would be easy for him to make a comment, “but I think I have a higher duty, a duty of professionalism and a duty of ethics to let this committee take the action that it takes. Based on what their action is, then I would make a response if I thought that it was not commensurate with what the public deserves right now.”
“It’s easy to tell someone to resign who says they’re not going to resign, but the issue of expulsion first would involve a committee to review it and so as with any ongoing legal process, I will let it conclude and then tell you exactly what I think,” Paterson told reporters today.
Paterson called the proliferation of domestic violence “one of the most horrible crimes that has been committed in our society.”
A number of Monserrate’s Senate colleagues, along with U.S. Sens. Charles Schumer and Kirsten Gillibrand, both Democrats, have called for his immediate resignation. The same is true for the National Organization for Women of New York and NARAL Pro-Choice New York.
Monserrate said in a statement this week that he would cooperate with the Senate probe.
This entry was posted
on Wednesday, October 21st, 2009 at 1:25 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. 
