ALBANY — A group of breakaway state Senate Democrats has decided to continue in a bipartisan coalition with the chamber’s Republican majority.
Despite pressure from the left to strike a deal with the mainline Dems, Senate Independent Democratic Conference leader Jeffrey Klein told the Daily News that siding with the Republican majority gives his group the best chance of getting priority issues like college affordability, criminal justice reform and job creation enacted.
Klein said regardless of what the conference did, the GOP was going to be in the majority because Simcha Felder (D-Brooklyn) had already separately indicated he would continue to caucus with the GOP, giving the party the exact 32 members needed for a majority.
“The numbers are what they are,” Klein said.
But working with the Republicans will allow the IDC to get things done much in the way it did last year in passing progressive bills for a $15 minimum wage and the creation of a statewide paid family leave program, the Bronx Democrat said.
“This is a pivotal time in New York and as pragmatic progressives, the Independent Democratic Conference is creating a majority coalition with Republicans because you must engage in order to make things happen,” said Klein. “We believe there is too much at stake for New Yorkers to simply sit on the sidelines.”
Klein wouldn’t say if the Republicans agreed to pass any specific bills, but insiders say it’s clear the breakaway Dems will need some successes if the GOP expects to maintain its relationship.
The conference’s two newest members, Sens. Marisol Alcantara, of upper Manhattan, and Jesse Hamilton, of Brooklyn, have been criticized by those on the left and will likely have to deliver progressive accomplishments to help alleviate the threat of primaries in two years, insiders say.
Klein also said his group will have a say on the Senate’s daily agenda and negotiating the budget. Indie conference members additionally will receive different committee chairmanships.
Between the conference and the Republicans, “the partisan majority coalition will represent every county in New York. Upstate, downstate, every area will have their voice heard and represented,” Klein said.
The conference has been aligned with the GOP since its formation in 2011.
Senate GOP Majority Leader John Flanagan said in a statement that he has “tremendous respect” for Klein and is pleased the partnership with the independent Democrats will continue another two years.
“New Yorkers want Democrats and Republicans to work together to get results, and that’s exactly what we’ve done over the last six years in partnership with Senator Klein and members of the Independent Democratic Conference,” the Suffolk County pol said.
He added that he is committed to passage of a “bipartisan agenda” that cuts taxes, creates jobs, and focuses on all regions of the state.
“There’s a time for politics and a time for governing,” Flanagan said. “Now is the time to put the politics behind us and to move our state and its people forward.”
Klein said Gov. Cuomo was not part of the talks between himself and Flanagan.
Cuomo was under pressure from many on the left wing of his Democratic party to work to unify the different Senate Democratic factions. But Cuomo, who campaign on behalf of a Democratic Senate, said he would not get involved in an internal Senate squabble.
Mike Murphy, spokesman for the mainline Democrats, called it “disappointing that all Democrats are not united.”
He noted the Senate GOP supported President-elect Donald Trump’s campaign.
“In this perilous time, all Democrats should stand together, no matter if they’re in the majority or relegated to the minority by backroom deals,” Murphy said.
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As the new legislative session is set to begin Wednesday amid tensions between Cuomo and lawmakers, Republicans and Democrats are talking tough about the need for the Legislature to reassert its independence from the governor.
That could mean, they say, more legislative oversight hearings into Cuomo’s programs, giving him less discretion on how to spend large pockets of money in the budget and potentially overriding his vetoes for the first time.
“There has to be that opportunity to come together institutionally because you cannot let one branch overwhelm and overpower the other,” said Sen. Joseph Griffo (R-Utica). “It’s not a power grab. What we should be trying to do is institutionally assert yourself, a balance of power.”
But a Cuomo administration official accused the lawmakers of being upset they didn’t get a raise, which would have been their first since 1999, and said the move would backfire.
“They are as transparent as they are transactional,” the aide said. “They didn’t get their pay raise so now they threaten they are going to be dysfunctional? It’s extortion and they wonder why 70% of the public wouldn’t give them a raise.”
“Let them fail to pass a budget and then they will never get paid, because we will close the government or do a continuing resolution. If they go back to their dysfunctional days, they won’t get a raise from this governor in 2018 either, and then it’s at least another four years.”
But Griffo, Assemblyman Joseph Lentol (D-Brooklyn) and other lawmakers say their concerns are not about not receiving a pay raise, but the constitutional separation of powers lawmakers have too often ceded in recent years in the wake of legislative scandals.
“Initially, there was good will, but when it comes to a point now where it’s just one-sided, that’s where I think you’ll see a resurgence of the constitutional co-equal branches of government,” Griffo said.
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While many Albany insiders are not happy with the idea of Cuomo skipping the traditional annual State of the State address before the Legislature this year in favor of six regional speeches aimed more at the public, some advocates are looking at the bright side.
“Maybe the setting (away from the Capitol) isn’t perfect, but you have six of them to show how deep the opposition is all across the state,” said Alex Beauchamp, northeast region director for Food & Water Watch, which is opposing Cuomo’s multibillion-dollar bailout of three upstate nuclear power plants.
