http://www.capitalnewyork.com/article/albany/2014/11/8556858/skelos-republicans-hoping-maintain-alliance-idcOriginal title:
Skelos: Republicans hoping to maintain alliance with I.D.C.by Josefa Velasquez
Republican conference leader Dean Skelos said Monday he would like to continue the alliance with the breakaway Independent Democratic Conference, though details of the arrangement are still being negotiated.
“There was a consensus that we would like to keep the coalition going,” Skelos said after a nearly two-hour meeting with his conference. “I will be having discussions with Senator [Jeff] Klein on how we move forward.”
Klein, leader of the I.D.C., has also indicated he would like to maintain the arrangement, despite pledging earlier this year to rejoin the mainline Democrats.
(excerpt)
For those unfamiliar:
The State Senate, in the last term, had 30 Republicans (including one nominal Democrat who caucuses with the GOP) and 31 Democrats. However, the last time the Democrats held the state Senate (the Obama Wave 2009-10 term), things were nothing short of a disaster. As a result, in 2011, four (later upped to five) of those Democrats broke away and formed their own conference, the I.D.C. When the Democrats won back a couple of seats in 2012, the I.D.C. turned against their fellow Democrats and coalesced with the Republicans. (There are also three who don't conference with any of the three—Christian Democrat Ruben Diaz, who votes with Republicans on social issues and Democrats on fiscal issues, and indicted former party leaders Malcolm Smith and John Sampson. Smith lost his primary and will be out of office for the next term, replaced by a mainline Democrat.) Basically, the IDC and the Republicans cozied up to Governor Andrew Cuomo and assured he got almost everything he asked for: the SAFE Act, the Marriage Equality Act, and (most importantly for the Republicans) a property tax cap (which is a farce and, from Cuomo's perspective, merely a scheme to shut down local government). Had the GOP not allied with the IDC, they would have had no power. Well, now that the state senate has enough Republicans to control the chamber alone, there's no further need to ally with any group of Democrats.
