Posted on 06/09/2009 5:57:00 AM PDT by shortstop
Yesterday afternoon, the Democrats in the New York State Senate got poleaxed.
For half a moment they stood like deer in the headlights, not quite realizing their fate. By the time they caught on, and literally ran out the door, trying to shut off the lights in the Senate chamber, it was over.
Somebody called a vote, the hands went up and the heads rolled.
The Democrats lost control of the Senate. More correctly, a little knot of Democrat bigwigs lost control of the Senate. Out in the hallway, the Democrat leader Malcolm Smith stood dumbfounded. After just five months on the job, one of the most incompetent leaders in New York history had been relieved of duty.
While the Democratic leadership was putting the final details on a massive annual spending bill that would have raided the treasury for their pet projects, Republican leaders were talking with a couple of wildcard Democrats.
In the mix was billionaire Tom Golisano, whose money helped the Democrats last November win a majority in the Senate for the first time since 1965. What the Democrat leadership didn’t know is that you don’t double deal Tom Golisano and get away with it. They promised reform, they didn’t deliver, he gutted them.
Yesterday morning the world stood at 32-30, Democrat favor. Yesterday afternoon it was 32-30 voting for a Republican to be in charge. That’s how the state troopers came to be standing outside the majority leader’s office at dinnertime, watching Malcolm Smith carry his things out in a box.
The coup was a response to audacity and arrogance.
After campaigning on reform, and promising to open up New York state government, the Democrats found themselves with not only their traditional stronghold in the Assembly, but also the governor’s mansion and, most cherished of all, the Senate. Hopes were high.
And they were almost immediately dashed.
In one of the most Democratic states in the Union, with any number of vastly capable people in the party, the Democrat governor and the Democrat Senate majority leader proved to be failures. They honestly didn’t begin to have the slightest capability to handle their offices.
Worse than inability, however, was the patent dishonesty of promised reform. Instead of opening up budget deliberations, for example, the governor and legislative leaders closed down the few public meetings that had previously been held.
Claiming that he and the Assembly speaker and Senate leader were all Democrats, and consequently all in agreement, the governor said there was no point in public discussion of the budget.
That produced, in the midst of almost incalculable record budget deficits, a spending plan that was 9 percent bigger than last year’s.
From the legislative standpoint, under complete Democrat control, individual members of the Assembly and Senate found that they had almost no power or input into what was voted on or passed. Ironically, that was also true for rank-and-file Democrat legislators.
In a legislature that’s been dictated to from the top down for a couple of generations, the Democrat sweep only made the abuse worse. Promised cooperation and reform, the “post-partisanship” of the Barack Obama campaign, never materialized.
Further, the pushing of some Democrat special-interest groups’ pet legislation – like gay marriage – didn’t sit well with some, including Democrats.
And yesterday the dam broke.
The Republican Caucus brokered a deal that has a Republican as Senate majority leader and a Democrat as president pro tem. And instead of doing a victory dance last night, most Senate Republicans were saying this wasn’t about party, that it was about reform. They say that this isn’t about them governing, it is about returning the body to its members and, consequently, to their constituents.
It’s about delivering the reform that the Democrats promised and spurned.Here’s hoping they’re sincere and successful.But even if they’re not, hanging up the leadership of the Senate, and kicking a leg out of the Democrat stool, will hold back the flood of incompetence and foolishness that has poured out of Albany so far this year. In a stunning display of going from bad to worse, New Yorkers have been horrified by the other worldly stupidity of the ruling Democratic threesome and the slew of bad decisions they have made.
Thankfully now, one of them is gone.
Hopefully, chastened members of both parties can now try to unravel some of the slavish devotion to party, lobbyists and patronage that choke the legislature. Hopefully the Republicans who were cagey enough yesterday to carjack the Senate will be smart enough to figure out how to get it back on the right track.
Right now, I'd say he's "blinded by the right"...He's just plaing flaming right now...kinda embarrassing, I'd say...
Bottom line...We don't like dictators!!
That’s how the state troopers came to be standing outside the majority leader’s office at dinnertime, watching Malcolm Smith carry his things out in a box.
Love this sentence!
WOW!!!
There must have been some ground shaking changes in the seven years since I left NY if the NY GOP is now "the right."
B. Obama take heed.
Nancy pelosi take heed.
Barney Frank take heed.
Chris Doud take heed.
The sheeple are getting fed up.
A thought occurred, due to your post.
We, as conservatives, love to see our opponents have to walk away from the power that they crave and covet.
Liberal/collectivists, on the other hand, would love nothing more than to see their political opponents hauled off under arrest, preferably subsequently “put to the wall”, and shot. And not figuratively.
The Marxists would kill us if they could. They just can't get away with it...(yet).
Scratch a liberal and under his thin skin is a socialist. Dig a little deeper and you will find the Marxist nuclear fuel rod that drives everything he says and does.
Corollary: All Marxists will lie, steal, and cheat to gain and hold power. They will kill, too, if they can get away with it.
It looks like they tried the same tactics in New York that the Dems employ in the House and Senate. One can only hope that enough Representatives and Senators have had enough to Obama’s loony toons ideas and will step in. If not for our sake, then at least for the sake of their own families.
What a load of BS...I live in New York...everyone up in Albany is bought and sold by the unions....Teachers and Cops making well in excess of $100K annual salaries, pensions and benefits that would make your head spin (many make more retired then working). The State is simply a cesspool of corruption run by unions with the Pubs not much better then the Dems. I suppose one guy if elected, Suffolk County Executive Steve Levy, a Dem in name only, has the ba!!s to take on the unions but if he tries to run his name would be mud within a week and the unions would pull every dirty trick to smear what could be the only NY politician with a smidgen of morality and integrity.
Don't feel bad, this is a normal response from someone working on God's side when confronted with Satan's minions...
/only half facetious
This is an opportunity for the GOP to show just how different from the Democrats they can be. And if they don't make a mess of it then that could bode well for other Republican office seekers in the state.
ROTFL.
At that point, I'm guessing Malcolm told his limo driver "I don't give a damn where you park it."
They pulled it off by combing thru parliamentary law. Let's hope Congressional Pubs will be empowered by this, even though they are up against formidable cruds........O, Rahm, Pelosi and Reid.
There MUST be enough people in congress by now who are disillusioned and disgusted that they deeply want to see Pelosi and Reid removed. I pray they have the strength to act on it.
Wow! I guess Paterson was really blindsided!
This morning I posted a bunch of info in my blog http://AlbanysInsanity.com
I am having too much fun watching all this go down. I talked to a couple insiders in Albany this morning and they are gleeful to say the least.
I am trying top spread this around too, sign the petition to oust Silver as speaker..... http://TeaNewYork.com
We are getting ready to run commercials on the radio here in Erie County too. Trying to raise funds to do much more.
In all fairness, this was also the situation when Pataki and his fellow RINOs controlled the govenor's mansion and the senate. And while the individual members of both parties claim they have had almost no power or input into what was voted on and passed, the pathetic fact is that they easily could have lodged a protest and made their voices heard by refusing to pass key legislation such as the bloated budget.
Ping!
Thanks for running Lonsberry’s column. His radio show today (WHAM-Rochester) was riveting.
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