“That rattled their cage, huh?”
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- February
- 28
That’s how one Republican characterized Senate Majority Leader Joe Bruno’s surprise move today.
Bruno upended tradition by naming a Democrat, Carl Kruger of Brooklyn, to be a committee chairman. Never mind that Kruger doesn’t have a background in Social Services, his new assignment.
It’s the first time that a legislator in the political minority was named to head a legislative committee.
The move comes after lots of scuttlebutt about the Dems trying to woo some Senate Republicans to switch parties (GOP holds a 33-29 advantage). Kruger swears he’s loyal to the Dems, that he won’t vote with the GOP majority on issues and that there was no promise (read pork-barrel money) for his agreement to serve.
Bruno maintained “this is about governing’’ and not politics. The Senate Democrat leader, Malcolm Smith, said he saw through that.
“Let’s be clear about this,’’ Smith said at a news conference with Kruger. “We’re playing a little chess game here. (Bruno) made a move … we’ll make our move as well.’‘
This entry was posted
on Wednesday, February 28th, 2007 at 2:48 pm by Yancey Roy.
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clearly joe bruno is desperate ..if he has to name
a democrat chairman of any committee..the state republicans
are an inch away from being totally irrelelvant to new
york state politics…thank you mike long
Yancey, don’t you think your article (as it ran in the paper) should have said what committee Kruger was picked to head? Not only is it a relevant fact at the core of the story, it is important to support the notion that Kruger was not appointed because he was particularly well qualified for the position. What gives?