Taking stock of the Independent Democratic Conference

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A Riverdale resident who ventured to Albany recently to lobby for passage of the Child Safe Products Bill came home declaring that the state was no longer governed by three men in a room.

The era when the governor, the senate majority leader and the speaker of the assembly held a stranglehold on every piece of legislation is over, she said.

It has been replaced by — four men in a room.

Oliver Koppell and many other Democrats, including Governor Andrew Cuomo, are rankled by that situation. They’d like to pull the rug out from under the four-legged stool in hopes of leaving behind just three legs — providing that they are all Democrats. 

That’s why Mr. Koppell has come out of retirement to launch a vigorous campaign to unseat Senate co-leader Jeff Klein, whose breakaway Independent Democratic Coalition has — they say — given inordinate power to Republican Dean Skelos, with whom he shares Senate leadership in a manner more reminiscent of parliamentary rule than two-party politics. 

Now that this year’s legislative session has ended, we can try to assess how that’s working out.

Mr. Klein points with pride to the early success of a Democratic agenda that included passage of new gun control legislation, a rare feat in a country cowed by the National Rifle Association. 

He also helped to broker a budget deal that funded universal pre-kindergarten throughout the state and — in a flurry of last minute action as the session wound down — passed a law giving New York City the right to protect pedestrians by promulgating its own package of traffic regulations, including lower speed limits.

And at least some medical marijuana is now legal in New York State. 

On the negative side of the ledger is the utter failure of the Senate to make any progress on campaign finance reform — something that a Klein spokesperson told The Press he would be working on before the end of the session.

Last year, national women’s rights groups targeted Mr. Klein because he had failed to martial the votes for a women’s equality agenda that included an abortion rights plank — something he says he favors. — and the legislation languished this year, too. 

 

Mr. Klein insists that immovable anti-abortion Democrats are intransigent regardless of who leads the Senate. He is confident that other important portions of the women’s agenda could pass if the controversial abortion plank were removed. 

But it is Republican opposition that has buried the Dream Act which could give the children of undocumented immigrants a path to citizenship and the right to a college education.

As for that Child Safe Products Bill — which Mr. Klein said he would support — it died in committee after a furious lobbying effort by the chemical industry.

The voters will have to determine whether that kind of business as usual arm twisting by special interests can best be squelched by a monster with four legs or one with three.

Independent Democratic Conference, Jeff Klein, Oliver Koppell

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