Regarding the current Senate Stalemate

(Edited on 15 March 2010.)

As always, the New York State Senate is where the news is. The Assembly is so boring by comparison these days. When I visited the Legislature some months back, the Assembly was dead, and the Senate lively. The late February night I originally authored and posted this piece, it seems, was no exception. And now, a few weeks later, as I edit this piece, is also no exception

Liz Benjamin reported in late February that there was yet another stalemate in the State Senate. While the mere fact of another stalemate isn't necessarily surprising, the exact topic is, at least to me. Seems there's doubt about whether or not 31 votes out of 61 total Senators is enough to pass gubernatorial appointments.

Writes Liz in the article linked to above:

The state Constitution says that in order for a bill to pass, there must be a majority vote of the members elected to each branch of the Legislature. But the Democrats argue the requirement does not cover resolutions for gubernatorial appointments.

As I edit this piece on 15 March 2010, the issue of what constitutes a majority in the Senate is still a live one, as it relates to the ability of the Senate to pass budget bills before presumptive Senator Jose Peralta is elected in a Special Election to fill the seat vacated by the expulsion of Hiram Monserrate.

Let us leave aside the particular question about appointments, and go back to the passage of bills.

In the February piece linked to above, Liz meant to refer, I think, to Article III, Section 14 of the New York State Constitution, which reads in part:

nor shall any bill be passed or become a law, except by the assent of a majority of the members elected to each branch of the legislature

Normally, there have been 62 elected Senators, but right now, there's actually 61, thanks to Hiram Monserrate's expulsion.

31 is a majority out of 61 (about 50.8%).

So....Is there some court case, or some important precedent, or some common and binding interpretation of the Constitution saying that "of the members elected" refers to the total members there should be, even though now there's one less than that now? I looked through the court cases (the legal term is "case law") listed in McKinney's, one of the most popular and respected editions of the Laws of New York State. I didn't see anything on the issue of what constitutes a majority of the members elected.

Is there some part of the Constitution I'm missing entirely? Is there some critical case either not listed in McKinney's (doubtful) or that I somehow didn't notice (possible, I guess)?

Or is this another case of New York State politicians and their staffs not being up for the task they have been elected and appointed to not thinking outside the box? (Another example would be the Lieutenant Governor issue settled by Skelos v. Paterson.)

Sometimes, after all, the conventional wisdom is just what we have because no one's thought of anything else.

Just asking.

-The Albany Exile

Hiram Monserrate: His Own Victim

As readers likely know by now, late on Tuesday 9 February 2010, the New York State Senate voted 53 to 8 to expel one of their own, Hiram Monserrate (D-Queens County), from the Senate (as reported by the Daily News's Liz Benjamin). Monserrate's misdemeanor assault conviction, stemming the videotaped aftermath of a violent incident that took place in his apartment between himself and his girlfriend, is well-known, and was the official basis for the expulsion.

Hiram Monserrate has long-argued that the pursuit of him by his fellow Senators is political in nature, and doubtlessly he'll continue to do so. He will paint himself as a victim of politics, a victim of his enemies.

I think it's beyond question that he's at least partly right. Really, how could he not be?

Hiram Monserrate, as Senator-Elect and Senator, betrayed both sides of the aisle at least twice. Twice he had either gone over to the Republican side, or floated the idea that he might, only to in short order turn his back on the Republicans and rejoin the Democrats.

Senator Marty Golden (R- Kings County) had, in a clear and desperate attempt to maintain Republican control of the Senate regardless of the outcome of elections, tried to keep Senator Monserrate from being seated at all. Yet, Senator Golden didn't have a problem voting with Monserrate in favor of the June 2009 coup. In the aftermath of that coup, Senator Diane Savino (D-Richmond County) snarled to Senator Monserrate “life is circular” as she left the chamber in disgust. To assume that Senator Savino's February 2010 vote to expel Monserrate is somehow unrelated to her obviously strong feelings about the coup stretches credibility to the breaking point, if only because it assumes Senator Savino lacks the courage of her convictions.

Monserrate's political actions gave certain people motive to get him. His personal, and violent, actions gave them the means.

It's ridiculous, however, to suggest that Hiram Monserrate was solely the victim of his enemies. He'll probably try to sell us on this notion in the coming weeks, and we shouldn't believe him. It was Monserrate's own actions, and those alone, that both made enemies and provided those same enemies with the means to get him.

Some might compare Monserrate to Members of the Assembly expelled in 1920, for the "offense" of belonging to the completely legal Socialist Party during the “Red Scare.” Monserrate's true political kinship is, I suggest, to be found elsewhere.

Monserrate has now joined a long, illustrious, and infamous list of New York State politicians, including figures as diverse as DeWitt Clinton, William Sulzer, and Eliot Spitzer. All of these figures, and others not named, made new enemies, or antagonized old enemies, who knew where to look for old indiscretions, or committed new indiscretions in full view of enemies old and new, and then had the abject nerve to whine and cry when those indiscretions were predictably used against them. Not all of these politicians fell the same distance, and the nature of their various indiscretions varied greatly, from prostitution to changing their positions on bills they had previously supported. But they all shared the same completely unwarranted sense of surprise at a fate that was predictable, and at least partly within their own power to change.

Hiram Monserrate's enemies didn't make him behave violently, and I didn't see any politics on that videotape of him dragging his bleeding, crying girlfriend to the hospital. Senator Monserrate's own behavior gave his enemies the means to get him.

Further, he made these enemies he made totally on his own. No one made Hiram Monserrate betray both sides of the aisle twice. No one made him decide to go back on political commitments multiple times.

Regardless of what one thinks of his expulsion, no one but Hiram Monserrate is to blame for Hiram Monserrate's self-defeating actions, personal and political. His own character flaws garnered him enemies, and then conveniently gave those enemies the weapons to use against him.

At the end of the day, regardless of the manipulations of his enemies, Hiram Monserrate is primarily a victim of his own actions.

Harold Ford and New York: An Issue of Attachment

I know that New York is traditionally open to “carpetbaggers” (in this context meaning a politician or would-be-politician who moves to his or her non-primary State with the intent of running for office in the new State) in a way that, say, the Southern States are not. New York's own Governor has pointed that out.

"Well generally speaking, I don't think carpetbaggers - I mean if the people of the state want them they can have them," Paterson said on WOR this morning in an interview with John Gambling (and listened to by the DN's Glenn Blain).

"New York did do this with Robert Kennedy in 1964 and Hillary Clinton in 2000, and I know Harold. If he wants to run for Senator in New York State, I'm sure that's an interesting idea."

Ok, fine. New York's experience is greatly informed by waves of immigrants, so maybe immigration from another State directly into New York's corridors of power isn't as odd as I might think off-hand.

Still, the idea of a failed Tennessee politician (he lost a U.S. Senate race in his home State of Tennessee, to a Republican, in 2006, during the buildup to the Democratic sweep of 2008), coming to New York, working on Wall Street for awhile, taking helicopter rides around the City, and then deciding he's qualified to run for U.S. Senate, is, I think, a tad much, even for New York.

I remember when Ford's name was first floated for the U.S. Senate, back in late 2009 or in the very first days of 2010. I hadn't heard of him at all. I located his own website which, back then, expressly described him as not living in New York State, but only working there. "Ford lives,” the site stated, “in Memphis and Nashville and has offices in New York and Nashville." I was surprised to see a 5 January 2010 article in the New York Times, describing Ford as having “moved to New York three years ago,” presumably meaning sometime in 2006 or very early 2007. The bloomberg.com article announcing Ford's Wall Street job, also linked to above, is from early 2007. Even assuming Ford moved to New York State immediately upon getting this job, despite his own website indicating otherwise, this basically means he left Tennessee within just a few months of losing the U.S. Senate election, a fact that I find interesting all by itself.

Yet, even after this New York Times article, Ford's own website continued to refer to him as “working,” but not living, in New York. The mainstream media eventually caught up with me a couple of days later. On 7 January 2010, Josh Robin, a political reporter for New York 1, “Twittered” about the seeming contradiction. Shortly afterwards, Ford's site was changed to reflect a dual residency, in New York and Tennessee.

I'd suggest that the very least this strange incident means is that Ford has displayed a lack of common sense diligence. I know that if I were contemplating a run for the U.S. Senate representing a State I hadn't moved to all that long ago, updating my website to reflect my residency there would be one of my first priorities. But maybe that's just me.

I also have to wonder, strongly, if Ford's strange error reflects a lack of attachment to New York State as much as it reflects a lack of diligence. Length of residency may or may not be an issue in a U.S. Senate election, but attachment, I strongly feel, should be.

Ford is sometimes spoken of in the same breath as Robert Kennedy and Hillary Clinton, because, it is argued, all three are subject to the “carpetbagger” label. Surely, New Yorkers had little problem being represented by carpetbaggers named Kennedy and Clinton. So why not one named Ford?

From what I can tell, though, Clinton and Kennedy both bothered to form, or already had, attachments to New York State before they ran.

Regarding Kennedy, note the following passage from Arthur Meier Schlesinger's book Robert Kennedy and His Times (first published in 1978, reissued in 2002):

In fact, Robert Kennedy was less of a carpetbagger than his older brother had been in Massachusetts in 1946. He had lived in New York from a few months after his birth until 1942, indeed, had lived nowhere longer. Except for schools and summers, he had never really lived in Massachusetts. (Page 668)

The Clintons purchased, and lived in, a home in Westchester County. Granted, it was merely the September prior to her Senate run. But, in fairness, before that she had a place to live: The White House. She wasn't going to live anyplace else until January 2000, when her husband's term as President was up. Bill Clinton also set up his firm, the Clinton Foundation, in New York State, specifically on 125th Street in Harlem.

And, as far as I can tell, the Clintons maintain that residence, and Bill Clinton maintains his Harlem office.

Contrast this with Harold Ford. He supposedly moved to New York sometime in late 2006 or early 2007, but he didn't so much as update his official website to reflect the move until early 2010, after his technically-still-undeclared Senate campaign was already underway, and after he was "caught" twice. Further, as I also pointed out above, assuming Ford really moved to New York when he says he did, he had to have done so almost immediately upon losing a U.S. Senate run from his home state.

Governor Paterson pointed out something similar in an article also linked to above.

"But what's kind of interesting about the way he's [Ford] doing it than the way they [Clinton and Kennedy] did it is that both of them traveled extensively around the state and were pretty familiar with what was going on before they ran," the governor continued.

"I honestly - and I know Harold - had no idea he was interested in running for the Senate until the last few weeks." [emphasis added]

Interesting.