Megalomanical Monserrate Controlling NYS State Senate

If you think the clown circus in Albany is crazy, you haven't seen anything yet. The guy who now appears to be holding the keys to power is none other than the indicted New York State Senator Hiram Monserrate. He was indicted for assaulting his girlfriend, and his fellow Democrats covered for him while they were in power, and now that he's "switched" allegiances, they're looking to get him. Better late than never.

Meanwhile, Monserrate walked out of the State Senate session yesterday, leaving the Republicans without a quorum to conduct the state's business, which means that Monserrate is holding the key to who controls the Senate and who gets to lead the State Senate.

It can't get any crazier than that, although the possibility that some of the Democrats might switch sides to join with the Republicans may make Monserrate's actions moot. Still, there's also the possibility that the Democrats might toss current leader Malcolm Smith on the chopping block and insert someone else in the leadership. Among those suggested for that role is John Sampson. The fact that the leadership couldn't see this coming tells you just how screwed up and incompetent they were. Throw in a heaping portion of political axe grinding, and you've got a mess:

Under Smith's leadership, Democrats, who held a bare one-vote majority, gloated as they fired nearly 200 employees of the Senate Republicans, many of whom had considerable knowledge and skill.

Smith's Democrats, who had promised to "reform" the Senate by equalizing resources for the majority and minority parties, treated the Republicans worse than the GOP had treated them.

The Democrats cut the Republicans' central staff allotment by some $4 million below the Democrats' former level and gleefully booted GOP senators from offices they had occupied for decades.

If the Republicans needed any final proof that the Democrats were determined to grind them into political dust, they got it yesterday morning when, after two months' delay, they were finally provided with a list of the pork-barrel "member items" they would be receiving this year.

The "split" turned out to be hugely lopsided: $76.7 million in projects for the 32 Democrats and only $8.2 million for the 30 Republicans.

Another key factor was the outrage of Rochester billionaire and newly minted Florida resident Thomas Golisano, a three-time candidate for governor and strong advocate of reduced taxes who spent some $5 million last fall helping the Democrats capture the Senate.

Golisano contended Smith and the Democrats betrayed him by backing a record-high, tax-and-spend state budget in April.

With new Democratic leadership, Monserrate and Espada might come back into the fold, but the problem is that those two continue to have ethical and criminal questions that need a full investigation.

And through it all, the state's business continues to be ignored, particularly the state budget that remains an absolute disaster and is fiscally irresponsible.