New York's
senate majority leader, Joseph Bruno, a 32-year institution
in the state senate, announced his retirement Tuesday
just as the GOP and Democrats gird for an election
season that will determine the fate of the chamber
and, potentially, New York's gay marriage bill.
Democrats need to
pick up two seats this November in order to gain
control of the senate -- something most LGBT activists wager
would hasten the process of getting a same-sex
marriage bill to the desk of Gov. David Paterson, who
has supported marriage equality since the mid '90s. Asked
if he would sign the bill if it landed on his desk, Gov.
Paterson told The Advocate, "Absolutely!" The
New York assembly is Democrat-controlled and passed a
marriage bill last year.
Democratic
strategists said Bruno's exit raises questions about
how effectively the GOP can raise money in his absence
and whether they can hold certain constituencies
together.
"One of
the key pillars of Bruno's support and support for
the Republican senate majority has been the labor
unions, including progressive unions that you
wouldn't think would be helping to keep a Republican
majority in Albany," said Ethan Geto, an LGBT
activist and Democratic political consultant.
"His stepping down doesn't mean that on a
wholesale basis all the unions who have been
supporting the Republican majority will abandon them,
but I think a number of them will."
Alan Van Capelle,
executive director of the Empire State Pride Agenda, a
statewide LGBT equality organization, also questioned
whether other senators of his era might also decide to
call it quits -- Bruno is 79, and more than half of
the GOP's 32 senators are 65 or older.
"Some of
them might decide they don't want to run for
reelection this November. So I think today that there
are a lot more questions than there are
answers," said Van Capelle, adding that the next few
weeks would provide a clearer picture. "That
said, I think that we were in very good shape before
any of this happened. Our prospects for winning a pro-LGBT
leadership in the senate were extraordinarily good, and
I'm even more hopeful now."
The senate
Democrats have been eyeing a handful of seats, some of which
represent the suburbs surrounding New York City, where, Van
Capelle noted, constituents have tended to poll very
well on LGBT issues in general and same-sex marriage
in particular. "Our polling shows that Long
Island, for instance, is more supportive than New York City
is to a large extent, and the suburbs north and east
of the city are enormously supportive on issues such
as marriage equality and transgender civil
rights," he said. The Pride Agenda's 2006 poll
found that 53% of the state's voters supported
marriage equality, while samplings in Long
Island's Nassau and Suffolk counties yielded 57% and
58% support, respectively.
Long Island also
happens to be the home of the newly elected majority
leader, Sen. Dean Skelos, who until Tuesday was number 2 in
command of the senate behind Bruno. Van Capelle also
credits Skelos with using same-sex marriage as a scare
tactic to get Republican voters to the polls during a
special election in 2007. Craig Johnson, the Democratic
candidate, had gone on record supporting gay marriage, and
on election day the Conservative Party released a flier that read: "Craig
Johnson and gay marriage. A match made in heaven. Your
vote is the only thing that can stop Craig Johnson and
the gay community from legalizing gay marriage in New
York State. Staying home on election day is a vote for gay
marriage." It backfired; Johnson won the seat.
"Dean
Skelos ran that campaign, essentially," said Van
Capelle, "and he certainly did not hesitate to
use marriage equality as a wedge issue in that
campaign, and it failed miserably."
A Republican
strategist acknowledges that Skelos does not have a sunny
record on LGBT issues but adds that Bruno was no knight in
pink armor either before he became majority leader.
Although Bruno has consistently stood against
legalizing same-sex marriage, he did allow votes on bills
such as the Sexual Orientation Non-Discrimination Act for
employment and Hate Crimes, both of which were passed
and signed into law. Skelos voted in favor of Hate
Crimes but against SONDA.
The GOP
strategist, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, said
that although Skelos does not always vote pro-gay,
"he has been number 2 in command as the senate
has moved those bills. That means he is very familiar
with why the Republicans made those determinations as a
majority." Most strategists believe that the
Republican caucus has allowed its members to vote more
liberal on some social issues in order to keep from
being voted out of office.
Nonetheless, the
GOP strategist agrees with Van Capelle that Skelos's
real test will be whether he can hold the Republican
majority this fall.
"In these
coming weeks, those early important things like keeping
everyone together and keeping everyone running for office --
that's going to give you a sense of how unified
the Republicans are going to be," he said.
"I don't think you can write the obituary, but
it's another factor of adding
difficulty." (Kerry Eleveld, The
Advocate)
