ALBANY — A top aide to Gov. Cuomo says reunifying the fractured state Senate Democrats will be almost impossible as long as Sen. Michael Gianaris remains in a top leadership role for the mainline Dems.
The personal animosity between Gianaris and Bronx Sen. Jeffrey Klein, who heads up a group of eight breakaway Senate Democrats aligned in a leadership coalition with the Republicans, is the single biggest roadblock for Dem control of the chamber, the Cuomo official said.
The aide sought to peg most the problems on Gianaris, who has had his own tensions with the governor, most recently over the mass transit crisis.The Cuomo aide accused Gianaris, of Queens, of trying behind the scenes to torpedo any deal because he’d rather be deputy leader in the minority than lose influence if the Dems are in the majority.
“This is the oldest story in the book — it’s power, who gets it and who loses it,” the aide said. “When Jeff Klein rejoins the Democrats, Mike Gianaris gets displaced, and therefore he is working to further the divide.”
To break the stalemate, the Cuomo official said, the governor has gone “so far as to offer Mike a job in the administration or offer to support him to run for Queens County (district attorney) down the road.”
The official said Gianaris declined the job offer and Queens party leaders weren’t open to running Gianaris should the district attorney position open.
“As long as this tension exists, it’s nearly impossible to bring these two sides together,” the aide said.
Cuomo himself made the same argument during a recent meeting in D.C. with the state’s congressional delegation, according to four House members in the room. He’s also repeatedly privately criticized Gianaris and the Senate Democrats’ handling of campaigns.
A source close to the breakaway Independent Democratic Conference confirmed it’s unlikely a reunification deal could be struck if Gianaris remains in power.
Cuomo’s secretary to the governor, Melissa DeRosa, said Cuomo fully supports mainline Democratic leader Sen. Andrea Stewart-Cousins of Yonkers and Democratic unification, but both sides “have to stop talking and come together.”
“The governor is working very hard again to end the personal agendas and infighting that is causing the divide and unify the factions, which is more important than ever when our democratic values are under attack by the Trump administration,” DeRosa said.
But a mainline Senate Democratic source accused Cuomo of “making up stories to mask his true agenda of divided government.”
“Everyone knows the single biggest impediment to a Democratic Senate is Andrew Cuomo,” he said. “This is a man who endorsed Republican Senate candidates, bragged to the Republican conference about how little he’s done to help his own party and continues to place false obstacles in the path of unification.”
Cuomo spokesman Richard Azzopardi said the only GOP Senate candidate Cuomo backed was one who put his career on the line by voting for gay marriage and noted Gianaris has said the governor did everything the Senate Dems asked to during last year’s elections.
“This is not about supporting one Republican who voted for gay marriage seven years ago, it’s about sabotaging Democratic reunification today,” he said. “The bottom line is Gianaris and his ego have continued to prevent unification so that he continues to be relevant in the minority rather then be irrelevant in the majority.”
Since the election of President Trump in November and the defection of two more mainline state Senate Dems to Klein’s IDC, members of the party’s liberal wing have upped pressure on Cuomo to bring the two warring sides together.
Senate Democrats after a special election in November are expected to be back at 32 members, enough for a majority. But the party does not control the chamber because of Klein’s coalition with the Republicans and the fact a ninth Dem, Brooklyn Sen. Simcha Felder, caucuses with the GOP.
The issue, if not resolved, threatens Cuomo if he is challenged in a Democratic primary next year or seeks to run for President in 2020, political experts say.
Cuomo recently met with the Senate Dems to discuss the matter, sat down with Klein and Stewart-Cousins, and encouraged union allies of both sides to help work toward a reconciliation, his aide said.
“We’re killing ourselves to make a deal but it seems, oddly, that some are trying to self-sabotage despite their lip service to the contrary,” the aide said.
The source pointed to the fact that Gianaris, just hours after the Senate Dems met with the governor, went to the Staten Island district of breakaway Senate Dem Diane Savino to talk about the Independent Democratic Conference with a progressive group.
The Senate Dem source said Gianaris had previously committed to the appearance and actually said during the meeting that he supports a deal where Klein would become the co-president with Stewart-Cousins.
A well known labor official, in an unsolicited call, dubbed it untrue Gianaris is looking to sabotage a deal with the independent Democrats.
The Cuomo aide said that for any deal to happen, the two sides need to stop attacking each other and threatening the other side with primaries next year.
Klein under any deal would have to be co-president of the chamber with Stewart-Cousins. Also being discussed, a source close to the talks said, is having both leaders jointly signing off on what campaign consultants can be hired, with the mainline Dems having to agree to jettison longtime consultant the Parkside Group, which has close ties to Gianaris.
“Jeff is convinced Parkside planted all the negative press stories against him and organized the town halls against the IDC,” the source said.
Klein has long insisted even if a deal is struck, the IDC will continue to be its own conference. Asked why the two sides would be able to sign off on each other’s political consultants if they each would have their own separate campaign teams, the source close to the IDC said the breakaway group would have a vested interest in making sure the Dems keep control.
Some of those involved say there will also need to be discussions on such internal issues as whether the chairman of the powerful Senate Finance Committee should be appointed by the two leaders on a rotating basis and how the secretary of the Senate is appointed.
Klein, who has talked positively about his relationship with the Republicans, said he remains open to creating a new leadership coalition with the mainline Democrats.
“Since 2014, the governor has spent time, energy and political capital to bring about a Democratic majority,” Klein said. “The reason it has not happened is because of the political grandstanding coming out of the Democratic conference.”
Stewart-Cousins, looking to become the Senate’s first black female majority leader, defended Gianaris and said she will not be bullied into making a change no other leader is being asked to as part of “some high school drama.”
“I am the head of the Senate Democratic Conference and like every other leader of a conference in the New York State legislature, I decide who holds our leadership positions.
“For some reason, whenever the question of myself or the Democrats are talked about having their rightful position, another unreasonable barrier is created. Mike Gianaris is a great senator and no one has done more to achieve Democratic control of the Senate. I am proud to have him as my deputy and as the head of the (Democratic Senate Campaign Committee),” she said.
She added that, “I find it hard to believe that people outside my conference are trying to use personality to justify denying Democratic control of the Senate. When this situation was first created they said it was because of the leader at the time, now it is about the deputy. The excuses have to stop.”
Stewart-Cousins took offense after Cuomo, during his meeting with the Senate Dems, said Klein understands better how to win elections, particularly in the suburbs.
“You see my black skin and a woman, but you don’t realize I am a suburban legislator,” sources say Stewart-Cousins shot back.
Cuomo aides later said he was directing his comments not at her but Gianaris, who heads the Senate Dem campaign committee.
One person who might play a role in trying to find a solution, insiders say, is Rep. Joseph Crowley, one of the ranking House Democrats who is also the head of the Queens Democratic Party. Two IDC members — Sens. Tony Avella and Jose Peralta — reside in Queens. And Crowley’s district also encompasses parts of the districts of Gianaris and Klein.
“Everyone views Joe as being very engaged in trying to get the situation resolved,” said one New York congressman. “It’s important to the members of the congressional delegation.”
