New York Senate Expels Monserrate Over Assault

New York Senate Expels Monserrate Over Assault
By JEREMY W. PETERS
Copyright by The New York Times
Published: February 9, 2010
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/10/nyregion/10hiram.html?hpw


ALBANY — The State Senate on Tuesday expelled a senator convicted of domestic assault, the first time in nearly a century that the Legislature has forced a member from office.

The Senate voted 53-to-8 to immediately oust the senator, Hiram Monserrate, a Queens Democrat convicted last fall of a misdemeanor for dragging his companion down the hallway of his apartment building.

The expulsion leaves the fragile balance of power in the Senate divided between 31 Democrats and 30 Republicans. Because legislation requires 32 votes to pass, Democrats will be unable to approve bills with just the support of their own conference. In an effort to minimize the disruption, Gov. David A. Paterson late Tuesday called a special election for March 16.

But rather than bringing the issue to a close, the expulsion vote could be the beginning of a lengthy legal fight that could create further instability in Albany’s volatile political atmosphere. Mr. Monserrate said on Tuesday that he planned to run in the special election.

Even as the Senate moved forward with the vote, Mr. Monserrate’s lawyers were drafting a temporary restraining order seeking to have him reinstated. One of the lawyers, Norman Siegel, said the order would be filed Wednesday in federal court in Manhattan.

“The New York State Senate does not have the constitutional and legal authority to expel Senator Monserrate,” Mr. Siegel said. “And even if they did, their actions have not been consistent with due process of law.”

In a fiery speech to the Senate just before the vote, Mr. Monserrate said he had been made a scapegoat, accused his critics of exploiting an “ethical bully pulpit” and called the process to expel him “the height of arrogance.”

“The actions that I’ve committed,” he said, “do not rise to the level of expulsion.”

During the vote, all but a few senators were silent and expressionless.

“Nobody was happy about this,” said Senator Eric T. Schneiderman, the Manhattan Democrat who led the special committee that recommended that the Senate consider expelling Mr. Monserrate. “But most senators on both sides of the aisle felt that we had to do something. The days of sweeping things under the rug are over.”

Few other episodes have so grimly symbolized Albany’s reputation as a place where impropriety and ethically questionable conduct among public officials are commonplace.

As a member of the narrow Democratic majority, Mr. Monserrate used the threat that he would switch political allegiances to gain considerable leverage within his party. After he was arrested in December 2008 and details of the assault became known, no Democrats in the Senate openly criticized his conduct. He was given a committee chairmanship, though it was revoked after his indictment, and was even the beneficiary of a fund-raiser by the majority leader at the time, Senator Malcolm A. Smith of Queens.

In June, Mr. Monserrate was one of two Democrats who took part in the upheaval that temporarily resulted in the party’s loss of power in the Senate. His formerly loyal colleagues quickly turned on him.

Democrats lashed out: Mr. Smith’s spokesman called Mr. Monserrate “a thug,” and some Democrats began openly questioning whether he was fit to hold office.

Yet a week after the coup, Mr. Monserrate agreed to abandon his alliance with Republicans and was welcomed back into the Democratic fold. He was given back his committee chairmanship, along with its $12,500 annual stipend.

But once his trial ended in a misdemeanor conviction, the tide turned against Mr. Monserrate once again. Senator John L. Sampson, the Democrats’ leader, convened a special committee in October to look into the assault and determine whether it merited any disciplinary action from the Senate.

Last month the committee issued a lengthy report that castigated Mr. Monserrate, saying that he showed little remorse for injuring his companion and that he was more interested in preserving his political standing. The committee found that Mr. Monserrate’s actions demonstrated he was unfit to serve, and it recommended that the full Senate vote on a resolution to remove him from office. That report, completed on Jan. 13, set the wheels in motion for the vote Tuesday.

Though no provision in the State Constitution grants explicit authority for the Legislature to expel its own members, state law does. Legislators convicted of felonies are automatically expelled; the law is silent on those convicted of misdemeanors.

Still, expulsion has been extremely rare. The last time it occurred was in the 1920s, when six assemblymen who were members of the Socialist Party of America were kicked out of office.

The atmosphere was tense at the Capitol on Tuesday as Mr. Monserrate’s fate hung in the balance. Security around the elegant mahogany-paneled Senate chamber was tighter than usual, with uniformed State Police troopers standing guard in the lobby.

Lt. Gov. Richard Ravitch, who serves as the president of the Senate according to the State Constitution, took the rare step of acting as the presiding officer of the Senate on Tuesday, a position typically occupied by a Senate Democrat.

His presence at the Senate rostrum was intended to prevent any awkwardness if a group of Democrats tried to force an expulsion vote by challenging the presiding officer on procedural grounds.

In Mr. Monserrate’s northwest Queens district, where he has been popular since he was first elected to the City Council in 2001, there were still signs of support. But there was little question his standing has suffered considerably.

As she was walking her dog on Tuesday afternoon just around the corner from where Mr. Monserrate lives, Mary Reilly, 44, defended the senator.

“I look at what happened in that incident with him and his girlfriend as a personal thing,” she said. “I support keeping him in office.”

But Roger Deutsch, 57, said he believed Mr. Monserrate should go.

“This is not like cheating on your wife. He beat up a woman,” said Mr. Deutsch, a filmmaker. “And this is not just a personal matter. He committed a crime, and that disqualifies him from serving. In all decency, he should have resigned.”

Mick Meenan contributed reporting.