There are a bunch of self-styled Democrats in the New York State Senate who deserted the regular Democrats and formed their own conference known as the Independent Democratic Conference. They soon forged a relationship with the Republicans in the Senate and from time to time, they have saved the Republicans from becoming the minority party. If all the Democrats who were elected to the Senate were back in one conference they would, indeed, be the majority party.
It certainly could be argued that they SHOULD be the majority party. After all, New York is a Blue State but because we have allowed the Republican majority in New York to draw districts in which only they can win (otherwise known as the gerrymander), they have held onto power. Their problem is that the more Blue New York State becomes, the fewer bodies the Senate Republicans will have to configure. Sooner or later, they will be out of power and consigned to spend their days in minority hell where they will be forced to suffer the same indignities they heaped on the minority Democrats for these many years. Let’s try to remember that the Democrats in the Assembly (albeit with their own gerrymander) have such a strong majority that the Republicans in that house are officially designated as an endangered species.
Into all of this comes Governor Andrew Cuomo who, like his father, Mario, prefers to have the Republicans control the Senate. That’s because Andrew is much more conservative than he would like us to think, particularly as he clearly attempts to win a third term as governor, and after that, to take the biggest political prize of all, the U.S. presidency.
After he was given the scare of his life by Zephyr Teachout in the last gubernatorial primary in 2014, he became a born again Democrat. Nevertheless, he ain’t fooling me. He is a when-convenient conservative wolf in Democratic clothing. We all know that the minute he tells the traitorous Democrats of the IDC to get back to where they belong with the regular Democrats to take the majority, they will darned well have to do it. Suppose he would go into the district of the head traitor, Democrat Jeff Klein, and tell them that the Democrat they thought they were electing was really a secret Republican who, if you follow the thread, was enabling the “Party of Trump.”
In the meantime, throwing another wrench into the works, Simcha Felder, a Republican collaborator but a singleton outside of the of the traitor group who has from time to time been the very vote that the Republicans need to stay in power, has written to the other traitors that they should go back where they belong with the regular Democrats. No one really knows what he is up to or whether he intends to desert the Republicans and return to the regular Democrats himself.
The problem for the traitors is that by now there is such bad blood between them and the regular Democrats that they seem to think that if they return to said regulars, they will be treated like the French collaborators who slept with the enemy were when the allies won — turned out into the street with their heads shaved. While that certainly is hyperbole, there really is very bad blood between the two groups and if they were to reunite, there would have to be something like the Oslo Peace Accords to make it work.
From where I’m sitting, it is looking more and more like the end of Republican control of the Senate. The pressure on the traitors is just too great. My bet is that Andrew Cuomo will know just what to do — he’s too suspect now that everyone knows he is double dealing keeping the Republicans in power. That wouldn’t look too good in a presidential campaign.
