You move Speaker Silver

Your Move, Speaker Silver
By: PAUL SCHINDLER
05/03/2007

Four days after Governor Eliot Spitzer buoyed the spirits of gay New Yorkers by introducing same-sex marriage equality legislation, more than 1,100 LGBT grassroots activists turned out in Albany May 1 to lobby the Legislature on that issue - and on transgender rights and school bullying measures as well. An exuberant noontime rally in front of the State Capitol Building drew easily 2,000 participants.

To be sure, no one among the leading LGBT proponents, in the Legislature or the activist community, was predicting enactment of any of the three key measures this year, with resistance in the Republican-controlled state Senate the bottom-line stumbling block.

But on the high profile issue of marriage equality, the Empire State Pride Agenda (ESPA), New York's gay right lobbying group which organized the Tuesday effort, is aiming for passage in the Democratic Assembly before the Legislature recesses on June 21 - and that goal met with a curious, even confounding reaction in Albany Tuesday.

Speaker Sheldon Silver, the Lower East Side Democrat who assiduously protects a super-majority that now numbers 108 out of 150 seats, for the first time signaled that the Assembly may in fact move on the measure this year, while openly gay Upper West Side Assemblyman Daniel O'Donnell, the bill's new sponsor, took pains to caution against "false expectations" about success.

The Daily News' Liz Benjamin, writing on her blog late Tuesday, reported that Silver "said he expects the Democratic conference will take up the bill within the next three weeks." The speaker's office on Wednesday, without skipping a beat, confirmed that account. Bills that have the support of enough Democrats to guarantee passage, even without a single GOP aye, are typically sent to the Assembly floor for a vote.

However, O'Donnell, also on Tuesday, noting that Spitzer's bill arrives less than eight weeks before the June recess, told Gay City News that passage by the Assembly is "highly unlikely" in this session, and in an interview on NY1 said, "I don't think that it will pass this year."

In a follow-up call to Gay City News on May 2, the Upper West Side Democrat emphasized that he has packaged the governor's bill and its accompanying memorandum with a "somewhat more personal memo that mentions my partner" for distribution to his colleagues, asking that they let him know by May 15 if they are willing to sign on as co-sponsors. At that time, he explained, he will be in a better position to gauge Assembly prospects for this year.

"I am confident that if the votes are there, it will come to the floor," O'Donnell said. "In my conversations with him, the speaker has made that very clear. I don't know if the votes are there today, because I just got the bill yesterday."

Silver's statement and O'Donnell's expression of confidence that given sufficient support the bill would receive a floor vote are significant because to date the speaker has been Sphinx-like about gay marriage, saying he would have to consult the Assembly's Democratic caucus. Given Senate Republican Majority Leader Joe Bruno's opposition on the issue - which he reiterated to reporters on Tuesday - some advocates had feared that Silver might be unwilling to call the controversial question while the GOP still held its slender two-vote hold on the Senate and full legislative approval was not possible.

The Pride Agenda came away from a meeting with Silver with an impression consistent with the comment the speaker offered Benjamin later that day.

"We had a very positive meeting with the speaker," Alan Van Capelle, ESPA's executive director, told Gay City News. "I left very hopeful about the future of the bill."

Given Van Capelle's consistent marker in recent months of winning Assembly passage this year, his comment suggests that Silver may have told him as well that Democratic caucus consideration of the bill is in the offing.

In light of Silver's new posture, O'Donnell's caution is surprising. Democrat Dick Gottfried, who has sponsored a marriage equality bill with his out gay Chelsea colleague Senator Tom Duane since 2002, had identified at least 42 Assembly members willing to co-sponsor his measure. And according to an ESPA tally, prior to Spitzer's move last Friday, already 62 members of the Assembly had indicated they would vote for marriage equality, just 14 shy of the 76 votes needed.

O'Donnell, Gottfried, and Van Capelle agree that Spitzer's bold move last week should prove to be a potent catalyst, though as of press time ESPA had not yet tabulated the increase in support resulting from Tuesday's lobbying.

But O'Donnell, like everyone else, recognizes that the field of play for the near term is the Assembly, and he is visibly working to calibrate his leadership message even as he ponders how to accurately measure the strength he is building for the bill in his caucus. It is clear that part of his calculation is the near-certainty of no action by the Senate under GOP control.

"You don't want to pass this with 76 votes," he said Tuesday, noting that it would not result in marriage equality today but might "lock in 'no' votes" for the future, while that fragile majority could later erode through attrition and not be there when the Assembly has to re-approve the measure in subsequent sessions.

"Legislators do not want to change their votes," O'Donnell said of the risk of calling the question too early.

Just what level of support would O'Donnell like to see before trying to move his caucus?

"The reason I can't answer that question is because I have to see who the votes are," he said Wednesday. "I have to look not only at the number, but who the people are."

He added, "The counts to date have been very unreliable."

To be sure, he is being a conservative counter, at several points framing the current level of support in the Assembly in the low 40s - based on members who have signed on with Gottfried - rather than relying on the significantly higher number of aye votes that the Pride Agenda says is based either on public statements by legislators or clear commitments relayed privately in meetings.

ESPA and others Tuesday were emphasizing the upside potential that came out of Spitzer's action last week.

"We're happy to work with Danny," Van Capelle said. "We hope he shares our optimism that this bill can get a vote this session."

Robert Voorheis, the co-executive director of the grassroots group Marriage Equality New York, and his husband Michael Sabatino recounted the success they and a large group of others, many of them gay youth, had at a meeting Tuesday in winning a commitment from Westchester Democratic Senator Andrea Stewart-Cousins, just elected this past November, to support the marriage bill.

Asked about the prospect of no action being taken in either chamber of the Legislature this year, Voorheis said, "I think we have support in the Assembly. And I would hope you would talk it up. You're not going to get it passed if you don't talk it up."

Brendan Fay, the longtime gay, AIDS, and immigration activist who married his husband Tom Moulton in Toronto, offered advice to O'Donnell for his new task of rounding up votes on marriage.

"He ought to tap into the passionate Danny O'Donnell that we love and sent to Albany," he said. "Now that the baton has been handed to Danny O'Donnell, I know that beginning tomorrow he has to work to get this done now. Don't put off until tomorrow what can be done today."

Other activists Tuesday faced more daunting odds than Voorheis and Sabatino encountered in their meeting with Stewart-Cousins. Cathy Marino-Thomas, Voorheis' co-executive director at Marriage Equality, along with her partner Sheila, and their seven-year-old daughter Jacqueline, were among a group that met with top staff representing two Long Island Republican senators, Owen H. Johnson and Caesar Trunzo. Johnson is uncommitted on marriage and Trunzo is rated by ESPA as among those most firmly opposed.

Marino-Thomas explained her strategy was to raise marriage, the Dignity for All Students Act, a gay- and trans-inclusive school bullying measure, and the Gender Expression Non-Discrimination Act, or GENDA, giving transgendered New Yorkers civil rights protections, as a package.
"My ask was: we are looking to our legislators to protect the children in our communities," she explained. "I feel that combining the three of them to show a balanced approach to families was more effective than raising each individually. They could not deny that our families were better protected with these bills. It helps to have your seven-year-old perched on your knee."

Winning the argument, of course, may not translate into gaining an extra vote, at least for now.

Paul Neenos of Buffalo also ventured onto uncertain turf to make the argument for marriage equality - and failed to win even the hearing Marino-Thomas gained. Republican Senator Mary Lou Rath had already cancelled a lobbying meeting ESPA had earlier scheduled, but Neenos decided to drop in anyway. When he explained to one of her staffers the nature of his visit, she shot back, "We're not meeting with any of you people today."

Undoubtedly, many others on Tuesday faced disappointments as well, but at the day's start, Karen Carr, in Albany with her partner of 33 years, Yvette Christofilis, voiced the insistent determination that many had carried inside them when they arrived at the capitol.

"Just how many ways do we have to keep justifying our relationships?" the White Plains resident asked during the day's opening gathering. "It's time for us to stop explaining ourselves - and just start introducing ourselves as married couples."