NY senate Dems talking up a return to power

In the latest sign that the campaign season never ends, the State Senate's Democrats - who surrender their majority posts this week - have begun to trumpet a return to power.

Senator-elect Michael Gianaris (D-Astoria), newly appointed chairman of the party conference's campaign committee, already is pounding Senate GOP leaders for appearing quickly after Election Day to waffle on nonpartisan reapportionment.

But realists expected all along that the majorities in the coming year will, as always, redraw the lines to their own advantage for the next election. This, despite bipartisan statements of support for reform during the election races.

Even so, Gianaris, a veteran assemblyman who takes office next week, talks up the comeback in 2012. "The districts that exist are gerrymandered in the Republicans' favor as much as they could possibly be," he argues. "The fact is, this last election was a national historical Republican-wave election, and we lost by a razor-thin margin."

Playing up the prospects this early, as Gianaris does, may serve a strategic purpose beyond team morale. At a moment when the Senate Democrats' defeated campaign organization owes $2 million, contributors with state business might see Majority Leader Dean Skelos (R-Rockville Centre) and his crew as the wiser investment - the caucus better capable of functioning and delivering. The Democrats, ousted after a shaky one-term majority, will of course try to counter the historic sense of permanent GOP mastery in the house - interrupted in 2008 for the first time in four decades.

Thirteen brand-new senators take office next week. Given the history of the 62-member house, that's an exceptional number.

From Long Island, Jack Martins and Lee Zeldin add youth to the GOP conference, having both ousted short-tenure Democratic incumbents. Elsewhere, rookie Republican candidates Patty Ritchie and Mark Grisanti have done the same.

A pair of partisan turnovers went the other way. In Queens, Democrat Anthony Avella unseated 38-year incumbent Frank Padavan, while in Rockland County, Democrat David Carlucci will take the seat previously held by the late Republican Tom Morahan.

Other first-year senators will replace members of their own parties who left office: Republicans Greg Ball of Putnam County, Tom O'Mara and Pat Gallivan, both of western New York, and Democrats Tim Kennedy of Buffalo, Adriano Espaillat of Manhattan, Gustavo Rivera of the Bronx and Gianaris.

Gianaris predicted: "Long Island is going to be a major battleground in 2012. . . . We'll be playing offense."