Lieutenant Governor Ruling a Victory for Paterson and an Argument for Committee Reports

Today, the New York State Court of Appeals ended the final chapter of the Senate coup saga that began nearly four months ago. In an unexpected victory for Governor Paterson, the court ruled that the Governor had the authority to appoint Richard Ravitch as Lieutenant Governor on July 8^th. In arguing that the constitutional provision for the Temporary President to perform the duties of Lieutenant Governor is a “short term” solution that “can at best provide only stop gap coverage,” the decision might also be viewed as a victory for those who found distasteful Pedro Espada’s assertions during the coup that as Temporary President, he was entitled to two votes in the Senate.

In the decision, the court relies on the precedent created by Ward v. Curran, the 1943 case in which the court allowed then-governor Dewey to hold a special election to fill a vacancy in the office of lieutenant governor. Motivated by fears that such special elections might allow for a governor and lieutenant governor of opposite parties, threatening the cohesiveness and efficacy of the executive branch, the legislature later changed the law to require that vacancies in the office of lieutenant governor be filled by gubernatorial appointment rather than special election.

The decision necessarily includes discussion of the legislature’s intent in changing the law, something that the courts usually determine by examining committee reports along with debate and hearing transcripts. Hobbled by New York’s weak legislative process, the court must rely on a gubernatorial address rather than legislative records to provide evidence of intent in this case. The dissent contests the majority’s interpretation of legislative intent, stating – again without the benefit of legislative records – that the legislature did not mean for the offices of lieutenant governor and governor to fall under the rubric of the section of the public officer’s law from which Governor Paterson derived appointment authority. Neither side can point to conclusive evidence.

As the majority writes in today's opinion, "the legislature is always free to revisit" the question of how vacancies in the office of Lieutenant Governor are filled. Just another reason to adopt a robust legislative process designed to explore and document the intent behind the laws that will affect New Yorkers for decades to come.

Lt. Governor Question Still Merits Court Consideration

Yesterday, an appellate panel ruled that Governor Paterson’s appointment of Richard Ravitch to the office of lieutenant governor violated state law. At the conclusion of the decision, the panel stated that “this matter is one of great public import and ought to be resolved finally and expeditiously by the Court of Appeals.”

In a statement responding to the ruling, Dean Skelos said that if the governor appealed the decision to the court, he would certainly receive the same verdict – a statement that Capitol Confidential interpreted to mean that such an appeal would be futile.

But how should we define futility? Whether or not the Court of Appeals would rule the same way as the panel, a decisive ruling from the court would still have value. As we’ve written before, a ruling on the case would provide valuable precedent in the event that a court is asked to rule on a similar appointment in the future. The panel that ruled yesterday would seem to agree.

For his part, Paterson seems to be confused about the law. A story about the ruling in today’s New York Times reports that Paterson is toying with the idea of having the legislature vote to confirm Ravitch to the post. This brings section 41 of the Public Officers Law, pertaining to vacancies to be filled by the legislature, into the fray. Unfortunately for Paterson, though, section 41 explicitly states that the legislature may only vote to fill a vacancy in the office of comptroller or attorney general.

This Time, Let the Court Decide

The end of the Senate Coup two weeks ago doesn’t mean that New Yorkers have to go without their daily dose of interesting legal wrangling. Last night, a state Supreme Court Justice granted a preliminary injunction preventing Ravich from acting as Lieutenant Governor.

But that’s not the interesting part. Apparently, Governor Paterson’s argument against the motion for an injunction brought by Senate republicans is that it would upset the balance of powers for the judicial branch to rule in this case.

While we strongly opposed judicial intervention in the coup, we have to disagree with Paterson on this one. As the justice puts it in his ruling:

“A controversy is not justiciable if its resolution would require the court to ‘intrude upon the policy-making and discretionary decisions that are reserved to the legislative and executive branches’ […] a court may determine whether the state constitution or the legislature has empowered the governor to act.”

In this case, the court is being asked to interpret the provisions in the constitution and the Public Officers Law that Paterson argues grant him the authority to appoint Ravich, not to intervene in the legislature’s internal politics. Paterson’s argument is particularly baffling given that a central part of his defense of the appointment is a 1943 court case in which the judicial branch was asked to rule on the constitutional authority of the executive branch to fill the office of lieutenant governor. The case provides an interesting precedent and a victory for Paterson will likely require the courts to rule that it still applies today.

While the law has changed slightly since that case, the definition of justiciability has not. And although the coup is over and the impact of a Lieutenant Governor may now be inconsequential, we could stand to have some clarity on the Governor’s ability to appoint the Senate’s presiding officer – after all, a return to deadlock, as Liz Benjamin so aptly put it yesterday, is “just a hissy fit away.”

One Big Step Forward for the Senate; One Big Step Left to Go

Early this morning, the Senate passed a resolution to substantially alter the operating rules of the chamber. The Senate has gone a long way – certainly farther than the Assembly – to reform their leadership-controlled legislative process.

The new rules uphold most of the good changes made by the GOP-Espada coalition on June 8^th, including distributing member resources more equitably, allowing members to move legislation to the floor over the wishes of the majority leader, and imposing term limits on chamber leadership. But they also enacted a suite of new reforms that take important steps to empower rank and file members and increase chamber transparency.

Some of the most important new reforms are:

• Allowing 1/3 of the membership of a committee to petition to hold hearings on specific bills (subject to the approval of a majority of the committee)
• Replacing discharge motions with a motion for committee consideration, under which a sponsor can force a committee to vote on her bill (the new motion doesn’t require a majority vote of the chamber or the committee)
• Allowing committee chairs to hire their own staff - although the rules only force leadership to allocate funding for one staffer per committee.
• Requiring the Senate to make committee records, agendas, votes, minutes, reports, attendance, fiscal notes, active lists, floor votes, floor transcripts, calendars, the payroll report, and expenditure reports available on a searchable public database.

On the whole, the new rules are a significant improvement over what was passed last January. But like the June 8^th rules resolution, this one falls short on reforming the committee process. There is still no process for reading bills in committee or even for requiring committee members to show up to meetings. Committee reports can still be perfunctory and lack any description committees’ work on bills (in addition to making it more difficult for other legislative members and members of the public really understand these bills, a lack of real committee reports -- unique to New York -- makes it exceptionally difficult for the courts to determine legislative intent in difficult cases). And while the new rules allow members to petition for hearings, it does nothing to require hearings on major legislation. All of this means that the only substantive debate on legislation that occurs will probably continue to take place in closed-door party conferences.

But there is some hope. In a statement released last night before the rules vote, chamber leaders said that the Temporary Committee on Rules and Administration Reform will report back in December about committee reform, when they are expected to recommend reducing the number of committee assignments for each member. With extra time on their hands, committee members should be required to do the deliberative work that occurs in nearly every other legislature in the country. Specifically, the Senate should:

• Create a formal process for reading bills for amendments (otherwise known as a "mark-up") and public debate in committee;
• Make more rigorous requirements for committee reports showing the work of the committee on each piece of legislation;
• Allow committee chairs to hire more than one staff person where necessary; and
• Set requirements for committee hearings on major legislation

If they do this, they will finally earn the Brennan Center’s full-throated praise.

Three Reforms for the Post-Coup Senate

This week, the Senate is likely to vote on a new rules resolution that will determine how the post-coup chamber will run. While Republicans have already accused Democrats of reneging on reform, it seems likely that the key changes enacted by the June 8^th rules resolution – including more equitable distribution of resources and a procedure for moving bills to the floor over the wishes of the majority leader – will hold. But both caucuses have been silent on committees, which did not receive much attention during the month-long stalemate, or, for that matter, in the decades leading up to it.

The Senate's failure to address committees is particularly egregious given that a strong committee system could be the best counterbalance to Espada’s power as Majority Leader. If the Senate is to limit the extent to which one or two leaders can control the entire legislative agenda, it will create a deliberative committee process through the following three reforms:

1. Require committees to hold hearings on all bills unless the committee votes to dispense with a hearing;
2. Require committees to read all bills for amendments unless the committee votes to proceed directly for a vote; and
3. Improve the rule requiring committees to produce reports on all bills to include a summary of majority and minority opinions, records of all amendments and comments made by committee members, transcripts of hearings on the bill, and voting records.

If these sound like relatively basic requests, it’s because they are. But they’ll go a long way toward making committees – rather than the whims of chamber leadership – the driving force behind policymaking in New York.

To read the Brennan Center’s complete recommendations for rules reform, including proposed language for incorporating these reforms into the Senate’s operating rules, click here.

Back to Square One?

With Pedro Espada's apparent return to the Democratic conference, everyone is now wondering just how far the Democrats will turn back the clock on the rules changes made on June 8th. By one account, it does not look good. In an interview with Jimmy Vielkind today, Senator Eric Schneiderman said that the rules passed in January still apply.

On the other hand, there is at least a sliver of hope that once the Democrats regain control, they will actually make some long promised changes (which did not occur during their first six months in power). Senator Daniel Squadron has pledged to fight for reform under the renewed Democratic Majority. It is certainly now in the Republicans' best interest to back reforms, and as we've written before, it doesn't take much of a groundswell to form a majority in such a narrowly divided chamber.

But the Senate must do more than uphold the rules passed on June 8th that made it easier to move bills to the floor over the wishes of the majority leader and divided resources more evenly amongst members. The Senate will never be a functional legislative chamber until it reforms its broken committee system to make committees the engine of the legislative process. They must develop a process for reading, debating, and amending bills in committees before the legislation receives a vote, and if all of the legal ambiguities brought to light over the past month has taught us anything, it is that committees must produce substantive reports showing their intent in revising and passing the legislation under their consideration. The rest of the Democratic caucus would do well to not only follow Senator Squadron's lead in pledging to fight for rules reform, but also to look to his committee markup procedure as a model for the road ahead.

The Senate Democrats have been given the rare gift of a second chance. If they turn back the clock on rules and go back to business as usual, they will blow it in record time.

The Role of the Courts in Ending the Gridlock in Albany

Larry Norden is quoted in Crain's New York Business this morning saying that with no clear legal precedent, it's difficult to say how the courts would rule on the Governor's appointment of a Lieutenant Governor. But is worth it to have them hear the case that the Republican caucus has already brought - the courts can clarify once and for all the Governor's power in this area. They may find that he has the legitimate authority give the Senate a presiding officer to shepherd the chamber through its extraordinary session gridlock. We have opposed other attempts to bring the courts into the Senate's leadership fight, but this is an appropriate time for the judicial branch to step in and interpret the law.

Queens Democratic Assemblyman Rory Lancman has a slightly different take on the role of the courts. In an op-ed in Newsday, he argues that by refusing to weigh in on the leadership dispute to date, the courts have been abdicating their responsibility. While have not favored judicial intervention prior to the Governor's announcement that he is appointing a lieutenant governor, Lancman's op-ed is worth a read for another point of view.

When the Law is Ambiguous: Governor Paterson's Power to Appoint a Lieutenant Governor

In a press conference this morning, Assemblyman Michael Gianaris outlined the legal argument, originally proposed by our former colleague Jeremy Creelan, in support of Governor Paterson’s power to appoint a lieutenant governor to preside over the Senate.

It’s an interesting proposal. Because the senate rules state that the lieutenant governor is the president of the senate, this solution would provide the chamber with a presiding officer without requiring the membership to agree on whom rightfully holds the title of majority leader. The lieutenant governor wouldn’t count toward a quorum for the purposes of convening a regular session, but in the daily extraordinary sessions which a judge has ordered the full Senate to attend, a lieutenant governor could help end the stalemate and facilitate the passage of critical legislation. With a majority of Senators necessary to conduct regular Senate business, this solution wouldn’t affect in the ongoing fight to control the chamber in 2010, and the Senate’s warring factions would be free to take as long as they need to reach an agreement about the chamber’s leadership.

But while we’ve been quoted as saying that Gianaris’ proposal is a viable solution to the gridlock in Albany (our full statement says that the Governor may have the power to appoint a lieutenant governor), there are potentially legitimate arguments on both sides.

On the one hand, New York state law would seem to give Paterson the authority to appoint someone to the office. Section 43 of the Public Officers Law says, in relevant part:

“If a vacancy shall occur, otherwise than by expiration of term, with no provision of law for filling the same, if the office be elective, the governor shall appoint a person to execute the duties thereof until the vacancy shall be filled by an election.”

On the other hand, the 1943 state Supreme Court case cited in Gianaris’ letter to Paterson was decided based on the 1938 constitution, which diverges from today’s constitution in several important ways. The decision focuses on whether a clause of the former constitution stating that the president pro-tempore of the Senate shall preside over the chamber in the absence of a lieutenant governor constitutes a provision for filling a vacancy in the office of lieutenant governor. While the court ruled that this provision did not mean that the senate president assumed the office of lieutenant governor, it based its decision on the fact that presiding over the Senate is just one of the responsibilities of the office of lieutenant governor. The constitution used today reads a little differently with respect to succession to the office of lieutenant governor:

“In case of vacancy in the office of lieutenant-governor alone, or if the lieutenant-governor shall be impeached, absent from the state or otherwise unable to discharge the duties of office, the temporary president of the senate shall perform all the duties of lieutenant- governor during such vacancy or inability.” [emphasis added]

We don’t have a conclusive answer as to whether this constitutes a provision of law for filling the office of lieutenant governor (as opposed to a provision for someone to assume the responsibilities, but not the title of the office) but it’s certainly not a slam-dunk for Gianaris’ side.

In the end, the question for the courts would be, once the temporary president assumes all the duties of lieutenant governor, has the vacancy in the lieutenant governor's office been filled? If it has not, as Jeremy Creelan argued in the Daily News, then the Governor might have the power to appoint his own choice to temporarily fill the vacancy, pursuant to Section 43 of the Public Officers Law. Creelan has also pointed out that, in contrast to other offices, the drafters of both the constitution and the Public Officers Law never explicitly exempted the lieutenant governor's office from those that could be filled by the governor.

Despite the potential problems with Gianaris’ proposal, it merits serious consideration. The mere possibility of ending the current gridlock that is holding critical legislation hostage might be reason enough to take Gianaris’ theory for a spin. The courts exist to help navigate exactly this type of legal grey area, and it seems like there would be a real value to allowing them to weigh the merits of the arguments made today.

Brennan Center Statement on Gianaris Proposal for Appointing a Lieutenant Governor

Today Assemblyman Michael Gianaris (D-Queens) outlined the legal argument supporting Governor Paterson's power to appoint a Lieutenant Governor to preside over the Senate chamber.

Such an appointment would provide the Senate with the leadership necessary to pass critical legislation during extraordinary session without intervening in the ongoing fight for control of the Majority Leader and President Pro Tempore positions or affect the leadership of the Senate in 2010.

"This proposal seems to provide a viable roadmap for ending the current gridlock in Albany," says Lawrence Norden, senior counsel at the Brennan Center for Justice. "The law suggests that the Governor may have the ability to facilitate the passage of necessary legislation while staying well within the powers of the executive branch."

"A Lieutenant Governor would not affect the number of Senators necessary to call the Senate into regular session," continued Norden. "However, all members are under a court order to appear for extraordinary session. This means there will be a quorum for all extraordinary sessions, and the new Lieutenant Governor could act as presiding officer of the chamber to ensure that legislation on the calendar for such sessions received a legitimate vote."

Timing is Everything

Democratic Conference Leader John Sampson is right that his view and the views of other Senate Democrats ought to be heard in the debate over mayoral control of schools. And of course, the Senate is not required to adhere to the Assembly's version of the bill. But Sampson is wrong in his timing.

The Democrats have done nothing about Mayoral Control since January, when they actually did have control of the Senate. They were relying on the same last minute, midnight politics employed by the Speaker of the Assembly. And here they failed because they lost control of the chamber. Now Sampson wants to hold New York City's education system hostage for his party's failure to reform their own House when they had a chance. To quote a famous philosopher, "that's Chutzpah."

Correction: In an earlier version of this post, we stated that the Assembly's version of the mayoral control bill was passed in an overnight session with no opportunity for public input. In fact, the mayoral control bill was passed on June 17, several days prior to the Assembly's overnight end-of-term session, and the Assembly education committee held several hearings on the issue. We apologize for any confusion our post may have caused.

Political Power and Dominance Beyond the Coup

Yesterday, the New York Times ran a story about the impact of the state’s shifting demographics on gridlock in Albany, predicting that population increases in urban areas will lead to a larger Democratic majority after the 2010 Census.

The article mentions Republicans’ efforts to combat this trend in 2000 by packing as many urban voters into as few districts as possible while creating more rural districts of lesser population, but its author does not seem to think that this could happen again. We aren’t so sure.

Some have speculated that a primary motivation for the June 8^th Senate coup was control of the redistricting process, which occurs once per decade. And while the legislative leadership-appointed commission that redraws district lines must keep the population of each district roughly equal, there are all sorts of ways for those in charge of redistricting to game the system to grant the dominant party more control. Those in charge of the redistricting process can and often do dilute votes by packing voters together or dividing them among several districts, enhance power by creating oddly-shaped districts with the “right” partisan demographics, and divide communities of shared interest.

The ability to singlehandedly appoint a third of the members of the state’s redistricting commission (the Speaker of the Assembly appoints another third) is just another unique power of the Majority Leader that has, as we’ve said before, made the fight for leadership of the Senate so bitter.

When we consider ways to ensure that the chaos of the coup doesn’t happen again, working toward a more independent redistricting process merits serious consideration.

Some Thoughts on the Legal Claims Being Thrown around the Capitol

Salaries:

The governor is without power to halt payment of legislative salaries. The state constitution grants him little authority over the legislative branch, and none in this area. (And rightly so - if a governor who disagreed with the legislature's political positions or leadership had the power to cut legislators' salaries to keep them in line, it would be a gross violation of the separation of powers.) The courts might disagree, but it won't be because of the law. If the courts side with the governor, their reasoning will be rooted in short-sighted political payback for the legislature's continued denial of judicial pay raises, not legal reasoning. If the governor keeps beating on the wage drum, the senate could introduce legislation cutting his salary for errant behavior, something they most likely have the power to do.

Extraordinary Sessions:

While I am not sure a court would hear the case, the Senate is probably correct to say the Governor cannot call only the Senate back into session. While the Constitution seems to provide for that, its aim is to allow the governor to call the Senate back into session for things only the Senate can do, such as confirming appointments. The problem is that the Assembly has no interest in being called back to Albany and the Governor knows this, so he is trying to apply the provision for calling the Senate alone more broadly.

The bills enacted in the Senate last week will probably have to be enacted again to make sure they are identical to the ones past by the Assembly and to make sure the processes comply with the N.Y. Constitution's requirements. Even the Governor's Counsel has raised questions about the legality of these bills, and opponents of legislation passed during extraordinary session are sure to bring the issue to court.

The Politics:

My prediction based on my six years as counsel to the minority and many years thereafter studying legislatures is that the Senate will figure some way to pause their very real and important struggle over political power (which directly affects policies) to address the "must-pass" bills before them. Maybe they will even enact some rules reform along the way.

The Case for Rules Reform Today

Looks like the Governor’s threats of legal action and docking pay may have paid off, as the warring factions in the Senate have agreed to come together in an extraordinary session this afternoon. While there is always a chance that today’s meeting will be a repeat of Monday’s farcical dueling sessions, holding an actual session before the leadership fight is resolved could turn out to be the best thing to happen to either side. Today, on neutral ground, Senators can pass a rules reform resolution that will ensure that whoever ends up on the losing side of the Senate battle will still have an active role in governing.

Nobody has heeded our call to break rank and work with the other side to enact rules reform, no doubt in large part because working with the other side would mean giving a quorum – and the opportunity to legislate – to the opposition. But today, all 62 Senators will be in the room and they will be forced to legislate. Now is the moment to enact a bipartisan reform proposal to prove both sides’ commitment to reform and to ensure that the Senate can return to some semblance of function next year.

This may also prove useful in negotiating a power-sharing agreement, which both caucuses will eventually have to do. As Larry Norden stated yesterday on Buffalo Public Radio, one reason that a power-sharing agreement in which each side gets to appoint members to certain powerful leadership posts does not work in New York is because there is only one leadership role that really matters – that of the Majority Leader. By enacting reforms to strengthen committees and make them the engine of the legislative process that they are in most other states and in Congress, the Senate can decentralize power and divide authority over the legislative process more equitably.

The New York State Senate will not get a lifeline like this again. Its members should take the long view and act to ensure that 2010 is not a repeat of this ignominious session year.

How Did We Get Here?

Our own Larry Norden has a terrific interview on Buffalo Public Radio on the structural problems in the Senate that led to the coup and intensified the battle for leadership of the chamber.

What about the Assembly?

Over the past two weeks, the Assembly has been lauded as a model of a functioning legislative body, churning through a dizzying number of bills in its final days before recess.

Compared to the Senate, of course, the praise is justified. The Assembly has both met and passed legislation in the past two weeks while the Senate has been mired in quorum-less faux sessions, court battles, and media posturing. But what we mean when we talk about a functioning chamber merits further examination.

Last Monday, the Assembly met for 4 and a half hours and passed 78 bills on topics ranging from animal control programs to voting machine allocation. That works out to about one bill every 3 and a half minutes – which means that it is unlikely that a single one of these bills received any debate. There’s no question that the chamber is highly productive, but the legislation it produces is not carefully considered, especially given the fact that it is extremely unlikely that any of these bills were publicly reviewed, debated or amended in committee either.

Things didn’t improve as the session came to a close. In the final 13 hours of session, the Assembly acted on 202 bills, or 16 percent of all legislation passed this year. Add that to the 317 bills passed last week, and you get 41% of all legislation passed this year – all brought to the floor in the final week of the session. The end-of-session logjam, typical of both legislative chambers in Albany, precludes full review of legislation and makes it difficult for the public to follow and weigh in on legislative action.

Finally, we mustn’t overlook Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver’s role in this year’s secretive budget process that provoked Tom Golisano’s ire and that may well have set the coup in motion. As the Times reported in March, it was Silver’s proclivity toward closed-door meetings and leadership control of the legislative process that pushed the budget process into the dark, circumventing open meeting laws intended to promote government transparency.

So yes, the Assembly is technically a functional chamber in that it was able to continue on with business as usual as the Senate devolved into chaos. But it's a measure of how far we've sunk in New York that this is now considered praiseworthy in some circles.

Moving On: What to do About Deadlock

The National Conference of State Legislatures has a useful guide to deadlocked state legislative chambers since 1966, and what the chambers did to resolve the issue and keep legislative business moving.

In most deadlocked legislatures, the parties have negotiated a co-leadership agreement similar to that proposed by Senate Democrats last week. With the GOP-Espada coalition continuing to rebuff the Democrats on this front, we thought it might be a good time to look at other methods that states have used to work through a tie (setting aside a tiebreaking vote by the Lieutenant Governor, of course).

Several states have negotiated a different type of power-sharing agreement. In Arizona, Minnesota, North Dakota, Oregon, and Virginia, different leadership posts are selected by different parties, so that one party selects the presiding officer, one selects powerful committee chairs, and so on. Of course, with New York’s weak committee system, it’s not clear if getting to pick committee chairs is really a fair trade for floor leadership unless the agreement is accompanied by reforms that strengthen committees.

Florida and Maine have both employed a unique twist on the power-sharing agreement wherein each party holds the presiding officer position for part of the term, and the first person who takes the post agrees to an unconditional, irreversible resignation at the conclusion of her negotiated period of leadership. A negotiated resignation facilitates a smoother transition and avoids questions about the constitutionality of electing a new presiding officer in the middle of the term. (The question of whether it is constitutional to elect a presiding officer when one has already been elected for a two-year term is, of course, at issue here in New York.)

South Dakota, Montana, and Indiana all have statutes that allow the Governor to choose legislative leaders in the event of a tie, but of course, enacting such a statute would require a functional legislature, and neither party is likely to throw so much deference Patterson’s way.

If all else fails, there’s always a good old fashioned coin toss, used to break ties in Wyoming.

The bottom line? If Senators aren’t willing to leave the leadership question up to the whims of fate or the discretion of the Governor, they’re going to have to figure out a way to work together.

The Times Agrees: This is the moment for reform

In Saturday’s New York Times, the editorial board echoes our call for reform-minded Senators to take inspiration from the Espada/Monserrate charade to enact rules reforms and make the best out of the mess in Albany.

Back to Court

In an earlier post, I noted the wisdom of the Democrats' decision not to appeal Judge McNamara's opinion in Smith v. Espada. Turns out I jumped the gun. After negotiations between the two caucuses broke down again on Thursday, the Democrats changed their mind and will appear before the Appellate Division on Tuesday, a day after the scheduled conclusion of the session. Hopefully the court will affirm the earlier case.

But does it really make a difference? Even if Malcolm Smith (or John Sampson) is ruled the Temporary President, this does not produce a quorum, unless the Smith-Sampson team adopts the Espada position that the Temporary President has two votes on a quorum call. Of course, they have strenuously opposed this view until now. (My earlier post about Espada's possible entitlement to two votes does not include quorum calls. It is fairly clear that each member can have no more than one vote on such a procedural motion.)

Sieze the Moment for Reform

Following yesterday's Daily News article in which Larry is quoted as saying that the Senate coup shows that rank and file members can enact rules reform, we have an op-ed in the paper today that reiterates that members can and must introduce reforms if the Senate has any hope of governing.

A Wise Decision

This afternoon, New York Supreme Court Justice Thomas McNamara dismissed the Democrats’ lawsuit against Senator Pedro Espada, declining to intervene in a legislative matter and sending the question of legislative leadership back to the political branch where it belongs:

[…T]he question calls for a solution by the members of the State Senate, utilizing the art of negotiation and compromise. The failure of the Senate to resolve this issue in an appropriate manner will make them answerable to the electorate.

The Democrats recognized the wisdom of this decision, declining to file an appeal and pledging to develop a power sharing agreement. The Republicans have yet to show their own wisdom on this point, and continue to stymie any consensus efforts.

Two out of three isn’t bad, but we need the Republicans to come around if the Senate is to get back to the business of governing.