Let the historians note that it only took 9 days for the state's highest ranking Republican, Dean Skelos' ethically challenged pet Pedro Espada, to let the power dangled in front of him take him completely around the bend. It would seem that the Il Duce of the Bronx has jumped the shark in record time. He now claims that he is the awesomest of all the senators, more equal than all the others, and that he has the power to cast not one, but two votes.
Outside an uneventful GOP-plus-Pedro Espada Jr. meeting of the Senate Rules Committee, the breakaway Democrat repeated his claim that as president pro tempore he is also "acting lieutenant governor," and therefore could wield not one but two votes in the chamber, which is deadlocked 31-31.
"I didn't invent that - it's in the Constitution," said Espada.
Espada said his only reluctance to unsheath his second vote and establish a quorum is his desire to avoid landing the Senate in an even more protracted legal battle. "We don't want to end up in court," he said.
He really believes this apparently. He was quoted saying the same thing to the Post this morning:
Renegade Democratic Sen. Pedro Espada claimed yesterday he and his Republican allies are forging an explosive new plan to give him an unprecedented two votes to break the newly emerged deadlock in the state Senate.
"I can have two votes," Espada boldly told The Post.
"We're going to maintain that, as the president pro tempore of the Senate, I am also the acting lieutenant governor, and the lieutenant governor can vote when there's a tie."
This man actually believes that he has been vested with the power to vote exactly twice as many times as anyone else in the New York State Senate. Does he also believe that he can manufacture a quorum by voting twice? What other superpowers does he believe he now has? Does he think he can fly?
More importantly, can he point a single instance anywhere in history where this has been the case for anyone else, no matter what titles they may have had? No? I wonder why that is. Oh right. It's because IT HAS NEVER HAPPENED BEFORE.
I did a brief Google search for the idea. What Espada is proposing has no precedent that I can find over the last four hundred years of Anglo-American parliamentary procedure. Not here, not in the UK, not in the Dominions.
Not anywhere, ever.
Not only is Pedro Espada a common criminal, he has obviously also lost his mind.
Congratulations, Senator Skelos! |
