| So it looks like we have some time to kill before the Senate finally gets around to voting on marriage equality sometime late tonight. This gives us plenty of time to speculate wildly about how this might go down.
Earlier this evening, Senator Lanza of Staten Island revealed that he would be voting against the bill. This is tough news for those of us who really want to this bill to pass. Lanza had been one of the dwindling number of true "undecided" votes and many folks, myself included, had hoped that he might be the one to push this one over the top. Alas, that is not to be.
That really only leaves two publicly "undecideds" left, Saland of SD-41 up in the Hudson Valley and Grisanti the frosh from SD-60 in Buffalo.
Saland is and always has been something of a cipher on this issue, though he and the rest of the GOP caucus voted against the bill the last time it came up back in late 2009. Saland has that district pretty wired for himself and has easily fought off challenger after challenger for the last few cycles. That said, it's not entirely certain that he even runs again. In fact, the rumor that he will retire has been going around since at least 2007. The story I've heard many times is that Joe Bruno begged him to stay on at least one more cycle back about that time. He's old, cranky and I get the impression that he doesn't much like the Senate nor the other senators all that much. If he really is calling it quits this time, he may just do the right thing on the way out the door.
Or maybe he won't. He's really kind of a sterotypical grumpy old man and he may decide to stick it to the gays anyway. Guess we'll know soon enough.
What's more interesting, to me anyway, is what happens with Grisanti. As you may recall, Grisanti very narrowly defeated incumbent Dem Antoine Thompson in a drawn affair that lasted months past election day. Now, Thompson was seen (rightly, IMHO) by many folks in that pretty blue district as being something of an ineffectual dolt, a not very bright guy in way over his head.
Grisanti was able to knock off a sitting Dem senator in a fairly deep blue district in a GOP wave year. Can he repeat that feat in 2012?
Maybe. Maybe not.
I think it's safe to say that there are precious few senators with more riding on tonight's vote than Grisanti. He's a former Dem, but he's on the wrong team for SD-60. Yes, he's Italian and that helps with many folks there, but he's also going to be running as a Republican in a presidential year with Obama at the top of the ticket in a largely urban district.
Does he vote against equality and risk pissing off a good portion of the Democrats that he has to win over to win reelection? Or does he piss off Mike Long and make the job of squeaking by a second time all that much harder? Does he hope that the white ethnic Catholic vote bails him out of a "nay" vote? Or does he hope those same folks have moved past this issue already?
Grisanti says we'll learn his vote tonight from the floor of the Senate.
There will plenty of very interested parties paying very close attention when the freshman from Buffalo stands up to explain his vote.
Then there are the wildcards. The names I hear most often that could possibly move from no to yes are Hannon and Fuschillo. Fuschillo has ambitions beyond the senate, statewide ambitions, and Hannon came very, very close to losing his seat in 2008 to a newcomer. Hannon's district ain't what it used to be, though I'm sure his district is at the top of the "must gerrymander" list for the Senate GOP.
Stranger things have happened.
Got any other wild speculation about the vote? Let us know in the comments. |
