Embattled Senate Republicans have crafted a secret plan to delay the seating of two new Democrats next month so they can elect their own majority leader in early January, The Post has learned.
The plan involves intentionally further delaying ongoing court challenges to the two apparent Democratic victors so that the 30 Republicans who have been elected to the Senate can join with GOP-friendly Democrat Sen.-elect Simcha Felder of Brooklyn in voting 31 to 30 over Democrats to select the new majority leader, two sources close to the situation said.
While the Senate will have 63 seats come January, Senate rules and the state Constitution are being read by Republicans and Democrats alike to say that a majority leader is selected by a majority vote of the elected members — meaning if two Senate seats haven’t yet been decided, there are only 61 members eligible to participate.
“If the GOP holds up the two outstanding races, they could pass a leadership resolution with just 31 members,’’ Senate Democratic spokesman Mike Murphy conceded.
While Democrats would eventually regain the majority if the legal battles over the two seats end in their favor, the GOP hopes it would be too late to reverse a vote making a Republican the majority leader.
“Once the Republicans have control of the Senate again, even for a few weeks, they could hand out so many perks — staff allotments, office space, cars and other goodies — that they could buy off a couple of Democrats and keep themselves in control,’’ predicted a source close to the Senate leaders.
The top-secret plan would eliminate the need for Republicans to make a deal with the four-member Independent Democratic Conference (IDC) led by Sen. Jeff Klein of The Bronx, who has strongly suggested he’ll help keep the GOP in power through an unprecedented “coalition government’’ arrangement.
On-again/off-again talks between current Senate Majority Leader Dean Skelos (R-Nassau) and Klein have been under way since just after the Nov. 6 election. If the talks lead to a GOP-IDC alliance, the plan to hold up the seating of two Democrats won’t be necessary.
Senate Democrats, after an embarrassingly dysfunctional two years in power and riven by bitter racial and philosophical divisions, lost control of the Legislature’s upper house in 2010, prompting Klein to form the IDC.
Last month, however, the Democrats, aided by millions of dollars in last-minute spending by the state’s powerful teachers unions and the son of leftist billionaire George Soros, appeared to have retaken Senate control — but two races are yet to be officially decided.
The closest race pits Republican Assemblyman George Amedore of Rotterdam against Democrat Cecilia Tkaczyk of Duanesburg. Amedore, who was expected to easily win the race for a newly created Senate district that was drawn for him by the GOP, holds a slim 110-vote lead, but nearly 900 votes that are believed to favor Tkaczyk are being contested.
The other battle has longtime Republican Sen. Steve Saland of Poughkeepsie, one of four GOP senators who voted to legalize gay marriage, trailing Democrat Terry Gipson by a seemingly insurmountable 1,700 votes.
Ballot counts in both cases have been delayed by numerous Republican challenges.
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Many Republicans blame Skelos for the GOP’s dismal showing in the elections, noting the party has lost control of the Legislature’s upper house in two of the three elections Skelos has served as leader.
They also hold Skelos, a self-described expert on legislative redistricting, responsible for what one top Republican called “the absolutely stupid lines’’ drawn for the Senate seat sought by Amedore, pointing out that the heavily Democratic Ulster County section of the district ‘had nothing in common with Amedore’s home region of Rotterdam, near Schenectady.’’
Insiders also contend that his top aides are what one called “a collection of failed and clueless second stringers,’’ and several singled out longtime adviser Tom Dunham as the worst.