| While Democrats outside of the leadership have acknowledged flaws in how things were run and promised greater change, I've not found much chatter like that from Republicans. (I'd really like to be wrong - if anyone's seen such talk, let me know!)
For now, Republican Senators seem to have hunkered down with the leadership, staying in a parallel universe where somehow President Pro Tempore Pedro Espada and Majority Leader Dean Skelos can munificently preside over a 31-31 split Senate, just because they say they can. Apparently no one is worried about the implications of this for 2010, or for getting much done in the short term either. (All I can find from my own Republican Senator are these comments from back on the 11th.)
I've suggested that the answer to this breakdown may come from the backbenchers rather than the leadership, but the backbenchers taking the initiative - and then falling back - all seem to be Democrats. Not counting the original switch of Monserrate and Espada, Duane and
Aubertine seem to have come closest.
So what's sustaining Republican unity? Is it sheer party loyalty? Is it the togetherness of the last stand, knowing that even their gerrymandered districts can protect them for so long? Is it patronage, the hope of reversing the Democrats' hires and replacing them with their own people? The sense that sticking together worked in the past, so why change now? Pride? Contempt for the Democrats? Tom Golisano? The threat of their local party machinery turning against them? I don't get the sense that they're actually all that fond of Pedro Espada.
But much more important, what might entice them out of the suicidal position their leadership is claiming? I don't think Paterson can appoint State Senators to the many open posts, even some of the vital ones, and expect them to accept.
What might bring them out of their bunker, into a functioning State Senate with room for two genuinely participating parties?
I suggested earlier that decentralizing Senate power might ease things, for members of both parties, but given the silence I'm hearing from Republicans, I don't think they're going to move forward soon on that basis. |
