BRONX state Sen. Jeff Klein has launched a behind-the-scenes challenge to Senate Minority Leader Malcolm Smith of Queens, in hopes of becoming majority leader if Democrats win control of the Senate tomorrow, The Post has learned.
During the past 10 days, Klein and a close ally, Sen. Diane Savino of Staten Island, have quietly contacted other Democratic senators – and even reached out to Gov. Paterson – to round up votes to make Klein majority leader when the newly elected Senate is seated in January, senior state Democrats said.
“Jeff has been making calls, speaking to people,” a prominent Democrat told The Post.
Klein and Savino have also quietly lobbied the “Gang of Four” – maverick Democratic senators and senators-elect – who have formed an “independent caucus” with an eye toward brokering their votes in exchange for their playing a deciding role in picking a new majority leader, possibly even a Republican.
Klein’s efforts prompted the Queens-based Smith to call a rushed “conference” of Senate Democrats next Wednesday, where he hopes to force a vote to name him majority leader if the Democrats, who haven’t had control of the Senate since 1965, are victorious.
Paterson, who served as minority leader before Smith took over in 2007, was described by one insider as aware of Klein’s ambitions, “ambivalent” about helping Smith and “open” to Klein taking over.
A top aide to powerful Bronx Democratic Assemblyman Peter Rivera has delivered a scathing indictment of Paterson’s “completely dysfunctional” administration and warned that the governor – who took over from the disgraced Eliot Spitzer in March – could be defeated in 2010.
Guillermo Martinez, Mental Health Committee Chairman Rivera’s legislative and communications director, made the comments last week in a private e-mail to an associate, a copy of which was obtained by The Post.
Martinez said that Paterson appears to be cut off from important information by his staff and warned, “Something has to give very soon or he will not be in office after 2010.”
“The second floor [Paterson’s suite at the Capitol] is completely dysfunctional,” Martinez wrote.
“Months of work on key issues are all lost because between the Spitzer fiasco and now the ‘unloyalty’ of some top Paterson people, we need to start conversations from scratch with new people and [not] waste valuable time.”
Martinez confirmed the authenticity of the e-mail.
He said state agencies and their bosses were increasingly unreliable, insisting, “Commissioners don’t respond, and the agencies don’t follow up.”
Martinez said that he and Rivera had heard similar complaints about the Paterson administration “from many members of the Assembly.”