Monserrate hopes this time the law is on his side

Nearly a quarter century since it unfolded, the sad and forgotten tale of "Gambling Gerdi" has returned to relevance in a widely watched new court case.

Gertrude Lipschutz was a Democratic state assemblywoman who first earned the nickname in a simple way. She pushed to legalize casinos as a way to revive the Rockaways, which she long represented.

By the 1980s there were still no casinos, but her moniker took on a new and ironic meaning. She'd taken the big risk of signing for a no-show employee on her legislative payroll. Though given immunity to testify in a wider criminal probe, and never prosecuted, she was pressured into resigning her elected post.

Those troubles seem so gentle nowadays compared to the charges leveled in 2008 against then State Sen.-elect Hiram Monserrate, in the slashing of his female companion's face with a drinking glass. He's appealing a misdemeanor assault conviction, insisting it was an accident.

Now there's a twist that links political Queens past to political Queens present - and with it, murky Albany past to murky Albany present. That is, the way the Assembly handled the Lipschutz misdeed - with censure, rather than expulsion - could help overturn the State Senate's once-in-a-lifetime 53-8 vote this week to expel Monserrate.

Or at least, that's what Monserrate's lawyers are betting.

They appeared Thursday before U.S. Judge William Pauley, who set a hearing for next Thursday on the East Elmhurst Democrat's move to be reinstated and block a scheduled March 16 special election for his seat.

SEE PHOTOSSen. Hiram Monserrate assault trial

Filed by Team Monserrate as Exhibit A: The Assembly ethics committee in 1987 - which included George Pataki and Alan Hevesi - cited in its report on Lipschutz "an absence of any provision in the New York Constitution authorizing the Assembly to expel a member and therefore there is significant doubt as to the authority of the house to take such action."

But lawyers for Attorney General Andrew Cuomo appeared Thursday before Pauley to defend the Senate's decision - armed in part with a section of the legislative law that states: "Each house has the power to expel any of its members, after the report of a committee to inquire into the charges against him shall have been made."

Monserrate lawyer Norman Siegel calls that section "void for vagueness and over-breadth." In a Manhattan news conference alongside Monserrate, Siegel noted: "This is the first time we can determine that any [New York State] elected official has challenged an expulsion or exclusion and went to court."

By now it should come as no surprise to those who follow his doings that Monserrate would steer a journey into muddy legal terrain. Few if any legislative careers have ever followed the attention-grabbing arc of Monserrate's year-and-a-few-weeks of living dangerously in the State Senate.

In January 2009, after initial resistance by himself and three close colleagues, Monserrate cast a crucial vote to install Malcolm Smith, also of Queens, as the first Democratic majority leader. Before the session was over, however, he became a crucial vote in turning control back to Republicans in what became known as the "June coup." Later he returned to the Democratic conference - which for a while left the tumultuous Senate in an unheard-of 31-31 party deadlock.

Monserrate was in the Marine Corps and later served as a police officer in Bayside. As widely publicized before, he received a psychological disability pension in 2000.

At least you can't call him a machine politician - given his continual record as a wrench in legislative, bureaucratic and judicial machinery.

A source close to Monserrate hinted Thursday that he may be tiring of this frequent public spotlight.

But for the time being, he'll be dwelling in it, refusing to get - as he'd undoubtedly see it - pushed around.