Transcript

Transcription by Jacob Lazen

Mathew: Things can move fast in New York state politics. When we began working on this episode a few months ago the independent democratic conference or IDC was a small coalition of democratic state senators using their power to give Republicans a majority in the state Senate allowing them to block progressive legislation such as the dream act in early voting. Last April however after the recording of this episode the IDC announced it would disband and rejoin the Democratic Party under pressure from liberal groups and activists. Critics of the move remain skeptical citing previous claims by the IDC that it would disband only for them to reform after the elections. So what is the independent democratic conference and why does it still matter so much in the upcoming democratic state primaries? To find out why we talked the Eve Proper for a professor and member of rise and resist: a group opposed to government acts that threaten democracy equality and civil liberties. Let’s listen to her to find out.

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Eve: The IDC is the independent democratic conference. It is a group of eight democratic senators in this New York State Senate who run as Democrats they run in the democratic line, and when they get to Albany they do not caucus with their fellow Democrats. Instead they have formed an alliance with the Republicans in the Senate which gives the G. O. P. a very slender majority in the state Senate and this is an issue because of course New York has a democratic governor the assembly is two thirds Democrats and the Senate and then becomes a block to passing progressive legislation here in New York. You assume that the majority party is the one whoever has the most warm bodies in the room so to speak but it's not what you run as it's how you form a ruling coalition which gets a little complicated so basically what happens is the beginning of the legislative session which is every two years they all get up to Albany and they say: “Hey if you want your public can go stand over there if you want to be a Democrat go stand over there” so basically have to bring those in the stands over on the Republican side all the Democrats to stand on the Democratic side so to speak except for these eight Democrats who choose to set things out the IDC basically says no leave us out of the process and so even though there are technically one more Democrats than republicans in the Senate because they chiseled stay out of the process the Republicans end up having the most people standing on their side of the room and that's a majority is measurement so the Republicans because they have the majority control of the Senate you know if they don't have the majority members have this alliance with the IDC and they pick all the committee chairs so every committee chair is either a Republican an IDC member or Simcha Felder who is another Democrat who caucuses with Republicans on his own.

Cory: So the deal is the committee chair can decide whether or not something goes up for a vote is that correct?

Eve: So in bill is introduced in either the Senate or in the assembly it either passes or doesn't pass in that legislative chamber and then if it passes it goes to the other chamber but there's an assumption I think a lot of people make is that every bill that makes it over there gets voted on and that's not true it goes into a committee so it's a healthcare bill it goes to a health care committee if its a banking bill it would go to the finance committee and the committee decides whether or not that bill then goes to the floor and this is where things get hung up in the Senate because a bill will go into the committee and die; never makes it out to the floor so even though IDC members will say Hey I support state women's right to choose our support the dream act those bills never make it out to the Senate floor to get voted on.

Cory: And why is it that they don't make it to the Senate floor why do they die in committee.

Eve: Theoretically an IDC member who is a committee chair could lead a bill out of that committee but their power is contingent really on not using their power so they would their alliance would probably broken if they went against what the Republicans wanted.

Cory: I think that in itself is something that a lot of people don't realize in New York that ultimately it's just the committee chair who decides what goes up for a vote in the Senate what do you think the IDC thinks they are doing why does the IDC exists as far as you can tell.

Eve: There’s two different cases to be made one is the one they make themselves and they say that by working with the Republicans they can get things passed that wouldn't pass otherwise. The problem with that argument as far as I'm concerned is that one the things we do get passed are very watered down, so the raise the age bill that got passed last year was a very weakened version of what people were proposing. Same thing with raising the minimum wage. The other thing is the IDC doesn't kick back against the Republicans very much they very rarely disagree with them out right and so they're not using a little bit of power that they have to actually reach more progressive agreements the thing the IDC does get that's incontrovertible is that they get more power both for themselves and for their districts so they get bigger offices they'd get committee chairmanships that they wouldn't have otherwise, they get access to their own caucus housekeeping account which is not supposed to be run for elections, It's supposed to only be for Senate business but that still gives them larger staffs and more power than in money that they can use and it allows them to bring more money back to their districts so there is an interesting conundrum to being in an IDC district in that progressive legislation that would benefit the entire state is not being passed, but your senators bringing home money to renovate a school or to improve a senior center. There's some things about Albany they don't make a lot of sense right? You would think, theoretically, every senator should be able to bring something home to their district but it's not equally apportioned. The Republicans know that and get it to the IDC they know that if the IDC said we're actually going back to being fully democratic Simcha Felder who is other rogue Democrat has said he would go back with them so then there would be a one vote Democrat majority and the republicans would lose power, so the republicans know they owe the IDC so this is basically what they're giving to them in exchange for their support.

Cory: Is that legal can the Republicans just say here's a bunch of money don't caucus with the Democrats.

Eve: Well they don’t flat give them money they write them into the rules of the Senate so for example if you actually Google the rules in your state Senate you can is a PDF you can download. And It's written in that for the next two years the ruling coalition of the Senate is GOP and the IDC and that committee chairman's are chosen jointly by John Flanagan who is the head of the G. O. P. in the Senate and Jeff Klein who's the head of the IDC so it's totally legal. So what happens is that we have John Flanagan representing about half of the Senate and we have nobody representing the Democrats and Jeff Klein representing the eight people of the IDC so his power is absolutely outsized as compared to the representation in the Senate.

Cory: From what I can see at least the IDC claims that their agenda is incredibly progressive and they believe that this is a better way to get it passed why is that.

Eve: I don't think the IDC exist because their particular more progressive than the rest the Democrats some of them like (Alcantara) seems to be fairly progressive other members are not in the IDC caucus. The IDC came into being in 2011 there was sort of a schism in the Democratic Party part of it comes down to the fact that Jeff Kline really wanted to be Senate leader and they would not vote for him they did not want to be the Senate Majority Leader and he kind of said I'm taking my toys and going home and he along with Diane Savino and David Carlucci were the first four members of the IDC back in 2011 and because the Democrats into such a slender majority they're able to play the sort of pivot point. Where they can say you know we're throwing our weight one way or another if you don't get what we want.

Cory: Why is it that the Assembly is so solidly democratic yet the state Senate is not you would think that they would reflect each other why is it so desperate. Eve: There's a big difference between the Senate and the assembly by design for many years there was a philosophy that the assembly ought to be democratic in the Senate ought to be Republican now where this idea came from I have no idea but it was I mean for last fifty sixty years this has been the philosophy New York state and lines for elections have been drawn trying to make that happen this is gerrymandering if you look at a lot of the IDC districts if they make no sense so Alcantara’s is actually logical in the northern end she has Inwood and the northern tip of Manhattan but then she's got this little strip of like river side Broadway down the very western side of Manhattan but not the rest of the west I just a little bit by riverside and Broadway and then this little scorpion tail that curls and Penn station is actually in her district. And it makes no sense from a compactness or cohesive demographic group point of view so this is a very much drawn to make districts beat the blue district of the red district or even in some cases you know the Hispanic district or the Black district or the white district.

Cory: So can you give me some of the issues that you think if there was a democratic majority in the state Senate what kinds of laws do you think would pass and would you like to see get passed.

Eve: So some of the big issues that are getting stopped writing IDC and then one of these are bills that have been passed by the assembly by the way and presumably then Cuomo would sign if they came to his desk but they're getting stopped in the Senate they include whether we are sanctuary state, the dream act to protect immigrants and to enable them to. Be able to go to college and that kind of thing, healthcare is a big one and we see it under siege at a national level the right to birth control for example the right to be able to get healthcare no matter who you are there's a lot of movement towards universal health care and it's past the assembly but as a past that the Senate.

Cory: There's this proposal for the IDC to join the democratic caucus again rejoined the democratic caucus and I've heard a lot of push back about that why would that be a bad thing for the IDC to rejoin the democratic caucus wouldn't that give us the majority that we seek faster than primary in them.

Eve: The problem with the deal is not actually a deal to get them to join the democratic caucus they would not be Democrats say would be a separate caucus they have a deal very much like the what the Republicans right now so they would have instead of having one Senate Majority Leader which under the democrats would be Andrea Stewart Cousins the first African American and female leader in the New York Senate ever, it would be a co leadership position and Jeff Klein and Andhra Ishtar is to cousins together they could reject each other's deputies and jointly have to approve bills to go for a committee chairs so it really gives the IDC outsized power just like they have now rather than becoming a part of the democratic body yes absolutely true I think that some bills might get through under their leadership right but other bills would not so the IDCs in particular they receive a lot of money from real estate interests, so tenant reform would be off the table because the IDC wouldn't let it through whereas we can probably get something through related to women's health. That being said the state Democratic Party can play a role in how they choose to support incumbents or challengers to the IDC and this is becoming an issue with this so called deal that's on the table one of the things it takes off the table is they say okay if the IDC comes back and co leads with the Democrats we will not support any challengers to them and that support could include monetary support although frankly the state democrats put very little money toward senatorial elections but this also could mean they couldn't endorse each other and work for each others campaigns so they would sort of be tacitly endorsing who's already there if they chose to certainly the state party apparatus including folks like Cuomo city Jeff Berman who’s the director of the New York state Democrats and the party itself could put money and effort towards defeating the IDC but they've chosen not to.

The IDC is in an interesting position because they've never really had to defend themselves before because no one's been paying attention it was a few cranks I think in their mind complaining about the IDC and nobody really cared and now all of a sudden there's a lot of grassroots antagonism towards them. one thing we keep emphasizing is their voting record saying I voted for the right things which in most cases might be true but it hides the fact that they don't get to vote on a lot of other things if there's if there's an irony that IDC number's actually will sponsor legislation that doesn't make it to the floor because of their alliance with the GOP.

Cory: What are the actions that you're taking in regards the IDC.

Eve: As much is I am proud to be a member of rise and resist and a member of the 2018 elections group is that none of this is a solo effort. There's a lot of groups who are were working mostly in concert on this year we have our own initiatives and our own approaches but this has to be a mass issue or it will never get any traction and so all these different groups are really important to the fight. So the biggest action we've been taking and I think this is true of all of the other organizations as well is educating people don't know what the IDC is when you explain it to people almost everybody gets angry right away. They're like I can't believe that my senator who supposedly a Democrat is doing this to me but they can do it because they're so little attention to it. The biggest victory to me is that the word is getting out there. The other thing is happening is people are declaring to run against the IDC candidates as Democrats in particularly in some of these districts I'm in district 31 where senator Alcantara is a member of the IDC, this is a very blue district so a republican has no chance of winning it so completely decided in the primary and she won her primary by a very slim margin and she was able to get into office but now he's the incumbent so that gives her an advantage but it's not good for the voters within a year we'll have elections for the state Senate so my dream is that all eight members of the IDC get primaried out and that some of these seats flip. So For example Ross Barkan running against Marty Goldman. From one of the Season's currently Republican I love to see the Democrats have a clear and solid majority in the state Senate so that a trick like the IDC can't be pulled again. we can't pull it in the assembly because a hundred six of a hundred and fifty members are Democrats but we need a true majority in the Senate.

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Mathew: One last note as I mentioned at the start of the episode the IDC announced it would disband last April a promise similar to one they made and then backed away from after the elections in twenty fourteen currently the IDC's former leadership is keeping its finances separate from the Democratic Party and using it to fight off primary challengers to their campaigns even though the state Supreme Court has ruled this violates campaign finance laws will they really disband this time? if you want to make that choice for them vote against IDC members and democratic state primaries on September thirteenth to find out who your state senator is and more about the candidates challenging IDC members visit noidcny.org. To share your story with us here at mobilize visit mobilizehere.com thanks for listening.