Cross-posted at www.dlcc.org
It took former New York Senate Majority Leader Dean Skelos an entire week to realize what every other New Yorker must have known the moment he was indicted on corruption charges on May 4th: Skelos' leadership of the New York Senate was over.
But in those seven days, Skelos put up a major fight to keep his job and convinced fifteen Republican colleagues to sign a late-night media release insisting in the strongest possible terms that Skelos "should remain" in charge of the state Senate. Thanks to the team at Daily Kos Elections, it's possible to list those fifteen corruption-loving Republicans in approximate order of how blue their districts were in the last presidential election:
Senator |
2012 Obama Margin
|
Michael Venditto (SD-08) |
D+12.3% |
Tom Croci (SD-03) |
D+11.0% |
Kemp Hannon (SD-06) |
D+10.4% |
Jack M. Martins (SD-07) |
D+8.6% |
Phil Boyle (SD-04) |
D+7.0% |
William Larkin (SD-39) |
D+6.7% |
Martin Golden (SD-22) |
D+5.1% |
Hugh Farley (SD-49) |
D+4.3% |
Kenneth LaValle (SD-01) |
D+3.0% |
James L. Seward (SD-51) |
D+2.3% |
Michael Nozzolio (SD-54) |
D+1.3% |
Tom Libous (SD-52) |
D+0.6% |
Carl L. Marcellino (SD-05) |
R+1.6% |
John Flanagan (SD-02) |
R+6.8% |
Cathy Young (SD-57) |
R+12.9% |
Venditto and Croci are freshmen legislators who were already facing tough re-election campaigns in 2016. Hannon, Martins, Boyle, and Larkin all won very close races in 2012, the last time they faced a presidential-year electorate. Skelos' own 9th District is in that same range, supporting President Obama by an 8% margin.
Making matters worse, Libous (Skelos' top lieutenant) is already under indictment himself, and replacement Majority Leader Flanagan already has ethics scandals of his own making headlines across the state. Flanagan took campaign funds from the same developers at the center of the Skelos indictments, and the New York Daily News reports that Flanagan also pushed dozens of bills that were lobbied for by clients of Flanagan's firm - exactly the sort of arrangement that the U.S. Attorney's office is reportedly still investigating in the Skelos case.
With 31 Democrats already serving in the 63-seat chamber, Republicans will forfeit their lock on power if even one of their members falls because of ties to Skelos. And yet here are more than a dozen Republican incumbents who've put themselves on record declaring they "strongly believe that Senator Dean Skelos should remain on as Majority Leader," even after he was indicted for corruption.
Some of these Republicans may come to regret joining Dean Skelos' Corruption Caucus and "telling New Yorkers to go to hell."