.
Some of the reasons for the NY State Senate coup that I have heard floated are: Republicans getting fierce about redistricting coming up; the vote on same-sex marriage coming up; personality conflicts among Democratic State Senators with their leadership; and some NYC business related to budgets and tenants issues.
Though, knowing how few women are in the NY State Senate, and knowing how sexist many of the NY State Senators are (from having worked in State Senate campaigns and studied members’ right-to-life positions), I suspected that sexism might be an underlying tension that would just not allow the chamber to be controlled by Democrats, especially with any progressive Democrats in leadership.
I found the article that tells the story about that issue. As noted in a list of daily news by Elizabeth Benjamin:
(excerpt from) Times Union
State’s political chaos hurts women
By Kelli Conlin, President of NARAL Pro-Choice New York
Tuesday, June 16, 2009
…While you saw two men cross the aisle, I sat in the New York Senate chamber and saw three years of hard work and real coalition-building in the service of women’s health go up in smoke. While you watched the lights go out in the Senate chamber, I watched the state go dark on reproductive rights.
Because last Wednesday, the Reproductive Health Act — landmark legislation to codify Roe vs. Wade in New York — was scheduled to be voted upon in the Senate. NARAL Pro-Choice New York and other advocates had commitments from 34 senators, across party lines, to pass a clean, amendment-free bill.
With passage of this legislation, every woman in New York would have been assured that her fundamental right to choose abortion would be protected. Critically, the Reproductive Health Act would also have clarified that a woman would be allowed to have an abortion if her health or life was endangered. The bill, which has been loudly debated for three years, was going to be voted on quietly and respectfully so that each senator could fully vote his or her conscience.
But two days earlier, the Republicans — with the help of Sen. Pedro Espada and Sen. Hiram Monserrate, both Democrats, ostensibly — engineered a coup that took down the pro-choice Senate leadership and attempted to reinstate the same anti-choice Republicans who’ve been blocking pro-choice legislation for 40 years…
Filed under: New York State Politics, News, politics, progressive politics Tagged: | abortion, Espada, feminist, Monserrate, NARAL, NY, NY State Senate, pro-choice, pro-life, Roe v Wade, State Senate
Leave a Reply