ALBANY — The his toric and breathtak ing coup that apparently ousted Senate Majority Leader Malcolm Smith yesterday was set in motion three weeks ago — but it was six months in the making.
EDITORIAL: MALCOLM’S JUST DESERTS
The foundation was laid in December when the “Gang of Four” renegade Democrats repeatedly played political footsie with shell-shocked Republicans who had just narrowly lost their Senate majority for the first time in 43 years.
The flirtation heated up in the following weeks — but not because of anything done by the Republicans and “Gang” members.
The major factor was the ham-handed and embarrassingly chaotic leadership by the Queens-based Smith and other leading Democrats, including Deputy Majority Leader Jeff Klein of The Bronx, that angered and alienated Senate Republicans.
Most importantly, it led key “Gang” members Pedro Espada Jr. of The Bronx and Hiram Monserrate of Queens to decide to jump ship, several insiders said last night.
Under Smith’s leadership, Democrats, who held a bare one-vote majority, gloated as they fired nearly 200 employees of the Senate Republicans, many of whom had considerable knowledge and skill.
Smith’s Democrats, who had promised to “reform” the Senate by equalizing resources for the majority and minority parties, treated the Republicans worse than the GOP had treated them.
The Democrats cut the Republicans’ central staff allotment by some $4 million below the Democrats’ former level and gleefully booted GOP senators from offices they had occupied for decades.
If the Republicans needed any final proof that the Democrats were determined to grind them into political dust, they got it yesterday morning when, after two months’ delay, they were finally provided with a list of the pork-barrel “member items” they would be receiving this year.
The “split” turned out to be hugely lopsided: $76.7 million in projects for the 32 Democrats and only $8.2 million for the 30 Republicans.
Another key factor was the outrage of Rochester billionaire and newly minted Florida resident Thomas Golisano, a three-time candidate for governor and strong advocate of reduced taxes who spent some $5 million last fall helping the Democrats capture the Senate.
Golisano contended Smith and the Democrats betrayed him by backing a record-high, tax-and-spend state budget in April.
So he decided to help put the GOP back in power.
Golisano, who has longstanding ties to Espada and a deep-pockets political action committee, Responsible New York, made it clear that he’d be willing to help Espada and other renegade Democrats win what could become a difficult re-election battle next year if they joined with Republicans in a coup.
The final and decisive factor was the failure of Smith and the Democrats to give the dynamic and at times controversial Espada, who had been given the title of vice president of the Senate, any real power.
“Pedro could see he wasn’t being given any of the things that he had been promised and that it wasn’t likely to get any better in the coming months,” said a source who was involved in the coup.
Espada also told associates that he found Smith “embarrassing” and “unable to provide the kind of leadership that Democrats really need,” according to a source close to Espada.
Talks got under way with Senate Republican leader Dean Skelos about three weeks ago, with Golisano and Sen. George Maziarz of Niagara County serving at times as intermediaries.
“The talks involved reforms that Espada said he wanted and what his role would be if the leadership in the Senate changes,” said one of those involved in the negotiations.
One of the most amazing things about the coup was that neither Smith nor any of his Democratic loyalists learned of any details in advance.
If Smith had had the information, he might have been able to head off the coup. The fact that he didn’t says a lot about why he’s on the verge of losing one of the most powerful jobs in state government.