With more than a year to go before New Yorkers return to the polls to vote on legislative candidates seeking office in Albany, the Empire State Pride Agenda (ESPA) has already directed upwards of $300,000 to the effort to shift control of the State Senate to Democratic hands.
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Alan Van Capelle, the group's executive director, said that at the current time, four Republican incumbents, all of whom oppose gay marriage, seem the most vulnerable - Caesar Trunzo of Suffolk County, Kemp Hannon of Nassau County, Serph Maltese of Queens, and Joseph Robach, a former Democrat, from the Rochester area.
Van Capelle also identified what he termed a "second tier" of Republican senators who might have reelection problems - two more Long Islanders, Carl Marcellino, who represents portions of Nassau and Suffolk Counties, and Owen Johnson of Suffolk, and James Alesi, who like Robach is from the Rochester area.
Notably absent from ESPA's current calculations is a long-time gay rights foe, Frank Padavan from Queens.
According to Van Capelle, for the first time in New York political history, the gay community is part of the "coordinated victory campaign" by the Democrats. ESPA recently set up a meeting between Smith, the Senate majority leader, and Paterson, the lieutenant governor, and representatives of the Gill Action Fund - the political arm of the LGBT work initiated by computer entrepreneur and philanthropist Tim Gill.
Gill has come through with $100,000, half of which went to the Democratic Senate Campaign Committee, the other $50,000 going to ESPA's PAC. Another anonymous donor working with the Pride Agenda similarly gave $50,000 to the DSCC. The Pride Agenda PAC itself has directed $170,000, drawn from 17 donors giving $10,000 each, to the state Democratic Party.
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The Pride Agenda is also emphasizing its work at building a field organizing capacity. Van Capelle pointed to more than 300 marriage ambassadors across the state and said 100 new activists will attend a Long Island workshop this weekend co-facilitated by the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force, where they will receive training to work on legislative races out there and in Queens next year.
Van Capelle took pains to argue that electing Democrats to the Senate is the default position required to build a pro-marriage majority; efforts to work with the GOP majority on the issue are currently dead in the water. The Pride Agenda is committed, however, to shoring up the political position of the handful of Assembly Republicans who joined the Democratic majority in passing the marriage bill in June.
This is very, very good news. Long Island is going to be a tough nut to crack and recent developments have made the task all the more difficult. Those of us working for reform in New York (and for, ya know, basic human rights) know that retaking the State Senate is an absolute necessity. The news that ESPA and their allies are joining that fight in a major way, with not just money but with people, is really quite inspiring.
Forward.
