ALBANY (WSKG) - The state Democratic Party, led by Gov. Andrew Cuomo, is offering carrots and sticks to two rival factions of Democrats in the state Senate in an effort to get them to reunite and potentially rule the chamber.
Leaders of the state’s Democratic Party released a letter Monday evening, asking the eight-member breakaway Independent Democratic Conference in the Senate to reunite with the mainstream Democrats. They said in a time where President Donald Trump and the Republican Congress are pursuing policies that might harm New York, “to waste one more minute fighting each other is both unproductive and destructive.”
The letter also contains a threat.
The party leaders — including state party chair and Buffalo Mayor Byron Brown and Queens Congressman Joseph Crowley — wrote that “if the IDC refuses to accept this offer,” then the state party is prepared to run primaries against the senators in the 2018 elections.
Cuomo, speaking Tuesday in Syracuse, said he backs the request.
“I urge both sides to stop their intramural disputes and unify,” Cuomo said.
Both the IDC and the mainstream Democrats, who have often exchanged bitter words, reacted positively.
Senate Democratic Leader Andrea Stewart-Cousins said mainstream Democrats are “willing to enter a coalition” and have long called for reunification of the two factions.
IDC Leader Jeff Klein said he’s “excited” by the prospect and said he also wants the rest of the Democrats to adopt his group’s policy agenda, including transgender rights and public financing for campaigns, items supported by many mainstream Democrats. One day later, the Democratic Party leaders agreed to those terms.
The party leaders are not asking for reunification right away, though. The Democrats will have only 30 seats at the start of the session in January, not the 32 needed to actually take control of the chamber away from the ruling Republicans.
Two current Democratic senators were elected earlier this month to new positions and will leave the Senate at the end of year. The party leaders said they don’t think the two seats will be filled by a special election until after the state budget is approved in early April. They said the two groups could wait until after the budget to form a governing arrangement.
The left-leaning Working Families Party said that’s too long to wait. Executive Director Bill Lipton said special elections could be held as early as March 13, more than two-and-a-half weeks before the budget is due.
“Do we really want to live through yet another budget cycle with the Republicans in power?” Lipton asked. “Especially with Trump doing these massive tax cuts for the 1 percent that are going to result in eviscerating the safety net.”
Cuomo, in his seven years in office, has seemed content with the Republicans controlling the Senate with the help of the breakaway Democrats, and Democrats running the Assembly. He has frequently touted his ability to work with both parties to achieve goals. At the event in Syracuse, Cuomo repeated that claim.
“Our mantra has been, and why we get the budgets done, ‘You can be a Democrat, you can be a Republican, you’re a New Yorker first,’ ” Cuomo said. “And act in the best interest of New York.”
Lipton said Cuomo, who has tacitly backed the IDC in the past, now wants it both ways.
“Going into a re-election year with Trump as president, he wants to put that chapter behind him,” Lipton said of Cuomo’s past tolerance of the IDC. “But he wants to do it after the budget because he would prefer to negotiate with the Republicans.”
A spokesman for the Senate Republicans, Scott Reif, agreed with Cuomo that Democrats and the GOP working together have been good for the state.
Reif said the Senate should focus on “governing” in its current structure and save the “politics” of the Democratic factions until later. And he hinted that the unification of the two Democratic factions in the Senate might not mean much. He predicted that the Republicans will gain seats in the 2018 elections and will have the numerical majority to continue to rule the Senate.