After losing 3 GOP seats last election cycle over their support for the gay marriage bill, Dean Skelos should have learned that being a rubberstamp for Cuomo isn’t smart.
“Senate Republican Leader Dean Skelos said that while he found Assemblyman Steve McLaughlin’s comments on Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s legislative tactics “inapporpriate” he did say that the chamber may have acted too quickly on the sweeping gun control law last month … “I understand the concern about the use of the message of necessity,” Skelos said at a news conference. “As I reflect back, perhaps we did act in haste and you’ll see that there are going to be amendments to fix some of the mistakes, but I also think that that type of language is inappropriate.” …”
Yeah, well fuck you.
Having a power-sharing agreement with the IDC, at first glance it might have been plausible to believe that Skelos was simply unable to block the gun bill from coming up for a vote. However, there’s the matter of who is controlling the Senate:
“… While much has been made of the unique structure at the top of the Majority Coalition, including the shared and coequal role played by the IDC’s Jeff Klein and GOP leader Dean Skelos, it’s interesting to looks at the makeup of Senate committees, which are in almost all cases dominated by Republican majorities, even if the IDC and the mainline Democratic members voted en bloc on a given issue … In total, the 31 Republican conference members hold 242 committee posts (7.8 per senator), 166 for the 27 mainline Democrats (6.2 per member), and 34 for the five members of the IDC (6.8 per lawmaker) …”
So, had Skelos’ not immediately caved, there’s a chance the Cuomo bill could have at least been stalled in committee for awhile to allow opposition to build. Skelos did not want that.
The end result? A 15-point approval drop for Cuomo and who knows how much for the Republicans.
Is it safe to say then that King Cuomo, Duke Klien and Squire Skelos know they made a big mistake behind closed doors and are going to sweat out weather they have a job or are they just going to hope this all goes away, which in realistic terms…it will not!
I think they do realize it was a mistake, but aren’t about to admit it. I do not think any of these guys anticipated the reaction they’re getting from the public over this issue.
I agee, even if they say..oops our bad and we will make it right, the damage has already been done and there is no going back!
The question is how do we keep the intensity of opposition against them? If everyone who owned an “assault weapon” or a gun with an 8+ round mag would just make 1 call a day we could seriously disrupt their activities and force their hand.
My fear is that they’ll throw the cops and a few key constituents a bone and the rest of us unorganized plebs will get screwed.
The sheer number of people hurt by this law should ensure that the issue does not go away quietly.
No surprise. Downstate dems are uber liberals and downstate GOP = mainstream dems. You will look long and hard to find real GOP members in either Suffolk or Nassau Counties.
I don’t know why senate did this coalition thing. We need to write off the downstate GOP; they are really dems who somehow managed to piss off the liberals and ran on the other party.
I think the powers that be in our professional organizations, particularly here in NY are missing a great opportunity to organize and mobilize a whole lot of people. Maybe my letter got lost in the mail, but I’ve heard precisely nothing about any member get a member or get the word out campaigns from our state and my county organization. I hear more from you than I do from them.
I don’t know what these ahole RINOS think they are going to fix. What tweak or reversal do they think that the bolsheviks in the assembly are going to go along with? I agree, the damage is done and thats all she wrote. None of this will ever be reversed except maybe through the lawsuit, and I wouldn’t want to hold my breath. If Cuomo dropped by 15 points, Skelos and my guy, Martins (who ran on not having an ideology – if you can believe that joke) better start updating their resumes now. If I’m not out of NY by next election I won’t even bother getting out of my chair to vote.