Assassination complete: Wednesday, Senate Majority Leader Andrea Stewart-Cousins orchestrated a vote on Gov. Kathy Hochul’s nomination of Justice Hector LaSalle to lead the state’s highest court, and he was defeated by a vote of 39 to 20.
While Stewart-Cousins and her deputy, Sen. Michael Gianaris, had clearly set out the law, the vote was nearly along party lines, with only two Long Island senators crossing over (Democrat Monica Martinez and Republican Mario Mattera).
Initially, considerably more Democrats supported LaSalle, but moderates decided not to anger their bosses for what appeared to be a losing cause. In addition, two of his Democratic supporters were out of town, preventing them from not just voting but also speaking.
The day before, Stewart-Cousins vehemently ruled out any vote, insisting, “The [state] Constitution allows us to make our own rules.” But, it appears that she did not want her position to be tested in court, as state Senator Anthony Palumbo’s (R-LI) lawsuit would have done.
When she rushed the vote without adequate warning, she reframed the nomination as a “ongoing distraction” and a “wedge issue to distract us from other pressing matters.” Notwithstanding her protests regarding the rights of the Senate, she clearly does not care about the rights of her own members.
Senate Majority Leader Andrea Stewart-Cousins orchestrated a surprise vote on the nomination of Justice Hector LaSalle by Governor Kathy Hochul, which resulted in a 39-20 defeat.
Hans Pennink
This follows the initial ASC-Gianaris strategy of filling the Judiciary Committee with anti-LaSalle members in an attempt to remove the judge there.
LaSalle, the presiding justice of the Second Judicial Department’s Appellate Division, would have become New York’s first Latino top judge. Hispanics for LaSalle described this final act of deceit as “a sad day for fairness and decency” and “a predetermined vote that mocks the merit-based system.”
Hochul, meantime, is again humiliated in public by her fellow Democrats. Her allegation that she used a “iron fist in a velvet glove” (to obtain a vote on the Senate floor) is shown as hollow bravado. If she does not want to be completely dominated by progressives in next budget negotiations, she must find a way to play much tougher ball.
The panel will have 120 days to provide a new list of seven applicants for the governor’s consideration. Her apparent strategy is to choose another moderate jurist and former prosecutor, in defiance of the radical left’s demands for a nominee who will transform the supreme court into an activist body that imposes the progressive agenda without requiring any legislative approval.
Governor, do not permit this power ploy to succeed.
»Hector LaSalle has been killed by schemers in the New York Senate«