Hiram Monserrate: The Most Wanted Unwanted Man in NY
Cross Posted @ goMYD
Both the Democrats and Republicans want Hiram Monserrate as badly as the Knicks want Lebron James. Don’t pay any attention to Dems calling him a “thug” or the Repubs saying “he should step down” – the Queens State Senator could, perhaps, attack someone with a broken glass tonight and tomorrow morning the two parties would still be genuflecting to his sudden and inarticulate power, maybe fighting over whose napping couch would be more comfortable for him after his night in jail. He is a double agent without a country (sort of like Pedro Espada is a man without a District) and whatever his whims or his payment schemes for his mounting legal bills, he is currently the most important person in New York.
Democrats must threaten him, but not too much – Republicans must cajole him, but not with anything illegal like offering to pay for his lawyers – and mostly everyone undoubtedly holds their tongue as best they can, lest they reveal what they all really think: that he is no more than a thug who should step down.
And now as we saw today, quixotic Hiram will show up to open the Senate with his new coalition of the willing (to overlook his flaws) – and but he will not stick around to eat their donuts either, insisting his fellow Democrats must be there for him to actually vote on anything (also: the bills were locked in a desk and who knows where that golden key is) So Hiram Monserrate won’t hang out in the Senate Chamber without his party, and his party won’t hang out in the Chamber at all – because of…. Hiram Monserrate.
Welcome to the unique magnetism of New York Politics.
And in reality it doesn’t matter if Monserrate cures cancer tomorrow morning – when the dust settles, even if he’s acquitted of practically trying to kill his girlfriend – he’s OUT.
“I have been marked ‘present’,” said Queens Democrat Hiram Monserrate who repeatedly stressed that he was a Democrat and then left the chamber.
Judge refuses to rule, Senate convenes and adjourns (Times Union)
and
Monserrate A Caucus Of One (The Daily Politics)
