Great news late last night. A number of sources told me there was repeated caucusing all throughout the day yesterday in the Senate Democratic conference and between LGBT advocates, continuing into the night. At last, a deal was announced. Paul Schindler of Gay City News reports:
Flanked by four members of the State Senate Democratic majority and the leader of New York's LGBT lobby, Governor David A. Paterson announced an agreement by which the Senate leadership has, for the first time, agreed to debate and vote on a marriage equality bill before the end of 2009.
"This is the first time that the Senate leadership has indicated that it will support a vote on marriage equality," the governor said. "This is a stunning and very happy development in this process."
[...]
Paterson was joined by the Senate's deputy majority leader, Jeffrey Klein, who represents portions of the Bronx and Westchester, Brooklyn Senator Eric Adams, Manhattan Senator Eric Schneiderman, and Thomas K. Duane, the out gay Chelsea senator who is the lead sponsor of the marriage equality bill. Alan Van Capelle, the executive director of the Empire State Pride Agenda, was also on hand.
The day capped a chaotic "extraodinary session" in which the Senate declined to take action on Paterson's proposals for closing a widening budget gap -- meaning legislators will return to Albany on Monday to resume that effort -- and the Democrats caucused on on and off in passionate, even heated debate about whether the marriage bill would be taken up. As senators moved in and out of the offices of the Majority Conference, dozens of advocates, many affiliated with Marriage Equality New York, kept up a chant of "We deserve a vote."
The agreement that the governor announced Tuesday evening was hammered out in a tense, but frank meeting he held with Senate leaders and advocates just prior to the press conference.
Thanks to all of you who made calls yesterday asking your Senator to support a vote. From what I'm told, it made a very real difference in the internal deliberations between Senators and the leadership.
Our job now is to obtain the votes. A number of outlets have reported vote totals below the 32 needed to pass as bill as of now. I argued yesterday in favor of having a vote even with the knowledge that it would fail rather than pushing this off into 2010 or 2011, and that is still the optimal strategy.
If you haven't done so yet, call your State Senator and ask him/her to vote in favor of marriage equality.
I'll have more on this fight as it comes. Game on.
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