Continued chaos in Senate
-
- June
- 11
Republican senators and their two new Democratic allies waded through a crowd of protesters today to convene a session of the Senate – only to find the bills they planned to act on locked up in a desk.
They quickly adjourned until Monday.
The locked-desk ploy by Democrats – and the continued waffling of one of the two dissident Democrat on just which side he is on – left the Senate leadership picture still unclear and action on key bills blocked for a fourth straight day.
‘’Democracy has prevailed,’’ said Republican leader Dean Skelos, R-Nassau County, after the new 32-member majority was seated in the Senate chamber – something Democrats had vowed to block.
But they couldn’t act on any bills because they were locked in a drawer, said Sen. George Winner, R-Elmira, who presided over the session.
“There is no key available to us,’’ he told the senators.
Earlier, Republicans had clapped when Sen. Hiram Monserrate, D-Queens, who voted Monday to oust the Democratic leadership, walked into the chamber, about 10 minutes after the scheduled start of the session.
He answered “present’’ when his name was called, giving the dissidents the 32 votes they needed to convene a session of the 62-member body.
But then he said he would not vote to pass any bills today.
“I excuse myself from the chamber,’’ he said before walking out, saying he wanted to continue talks aimed at getting more Democrats to join the revolt against the leadership of Majority Leader Malcolm Smith, D-Queens.
This entry was posted
on Thursday, June 11th, 2009 at 12:32 pm by Jay Gallagher.
You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.
| 
Email This
They adjourned until Monday? Did they ever hear about working on a Friday like the rest of the world? There’s no key? We may as well be governed by monkeys.
Yeah no key stalls government. Absolutely hysterical. And NY Legislation takes offense when they are called dysfunctional. You mean to tell me with all the billions they spend they don’t have a friggen screwdriver hanging around to pry the lock open? I hope every single incumbent gets voted out next election.