Breakaway Dems again side with Senate’s GOP to forge majority

The breakaway cadre of Democratic state senators will continue to caucus with their Republican brethren as a new legislative session begins in Albany on Wednesday, elected leaders said.

Despite having a numerical majority in the State Senate — 32 Democrats barely edge out the 31 Republicans in the chamber — the now seven senators who make up the Independent Democratic Conference have aligned themselves with Republicans since 2011.

Senate Majority Leader John Flanagan (R-East Northport) released a statement praising the group’s adherence to a strategy that, to some, seems counterintuitive since it transfers power across the aisle to political counterparts.

If Democrats were to unite in the Senate, observers note, the party would be able to control the chamber, at least in theory.

Those numbers aside, Republicans have enjoyed the force of a majority in practice since Brooklyn Democrat Simcha Felder, who is not a member of the conference, has aligned with Republicans anyway, giving them a majority in votes if not along party lines.

“New Yorkers want Democrats and Republicans to work together to get results, and that’s exactly what we’ve done over the last six years in partnership with Senator Klein and members of the Independent Democratic Conference,” Flanagan said.

Jeff Klein, the Bronx and Westchester Democrat who is the leader of the independent Democrats, said the group’s strategy is a results-driven one that has paid off for New Yorkers. They reason that they are best able to get bread-and-butter progressive legislation passed by leveraging their power through the odd alignment.

“This is a pivotal time in New York and as pragmatic progressives, the Independent Democratic Conference is creating a majority coalition with Republicans because you must engage in order to make things happen,” said Klein, according to a report in the New York Daily News. “We believe there is too much at stake for New Yorkers to simply sit on the sidelines.”

The announcement comes amid increasing pressure from the Senate’s mainline Democrats on Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo, whose help the other Democrats have sought to bring the group back into the party fold. Cuomo has so far declined to intervene in the chamber’s fracas.

Klein last month dismissed pleas for Cuomo to step in as inconsistent with the spirit and letter of the state Constitution calling for the separation of powers.

“The situation in that caucus (is) you have personal rifts, you have personal agendas, that have gone back for years and, that, they are going to have to work through, if it’s going to be worked through,” Cuomo said last month. “So that, I will leave to them. It’s not my place to get involved in that and I have no desire to.”