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Subject: NY State Senate Follies
Posted by: Tree
- [41371322] Tue, Jun 23, 2009, 22:32
i don't know if this is making news outside of NY, but certainly MITH, Walk, and others who post here who live in NY must be following what is happening in our State Senate.
For those that don't know what's been going, the nut shells is that after the previous Elections, the Democrats held a slim 32-30 advantage.
then, about 3 weeks ago, two of the Dems (Pedro Espada and Hiram Monserrate) - both of whom had previously refused to back Malcolm Smith (also a Democrat) as the Senate Leader - moved into a voting bloc with the Republicans, who then voted to replace Smith with Espada (who is under scrutiny for various ethics and corruption-related issues and has been to trial for them before).
However, while this new Republican majority was voting to replace Smith, the Dems saw what was happening, and simutaneously voted to end that session, and claimed to have done so before the vote for a new majority leader could be concluded.
and then, to further confuse things, Monserrate switched BACK to voting with the Dems, making things now a 31-31 tie. (speaking of legal issues, Monserrate himself also has problems of his own, as he allegedly slashed the face of his girlfriend with a broken glass)
So, for nearly 3 weeks, the Senate refuses to meet. Finally, Governor David Patterson orders the Senate to a Special Session, which was today.
and what happened? The Republicans held proceedings in one chamber, the Democrats in another, and of course, nothing got accomplished.
well, except for the fact that the Republicans put forth numerous bills in their special sessions, and claim that the Democrats (who were not there), did not vote against the bills, and thusly, passed the bills.
here are our several random articles about the nonsense going on.
from NY1
from the NY Times
from Wikipedia, which probably is a better job of summing the situation up than i did...
anyway, to me, the whole thing is absurd, and it's disgusting. these people need to get their butts back to work, and do the job they were elected to do, not fight over who gets to rule the sandbox.
there's also a bit of a constitutional crisis happening because the state constitution says the Lt. Governor casts the tie-breaking vote. Well, after Elliot Spitzer resigned and Paterson succeeded to the Governor's mansion, there was no election for a NEW Lt. Governor because of a constitutional amendment passed over 60 years ago..WTF?!?!!?
one thing that is coming out of this is that Gov. David Patterson seems to finally be acting like the man in charge, and has told these clowns he's going to order a special session EVERY day, including weekends and even on July 4th, until they finish their job. |
| 1 | Building 7
ID: 9329258
Tue, Jun 23, 2009, 22:49
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You'll be better off if they're not in session.
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| 2 | Boldwin
ID: 25282121
Thu, Jun 25, 2009, 06:37
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My congrats to New Yorkers! May this go on indefinately.
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