But as the morning dragged on, Felder saw no sign that the Senate was readying for a vote.
It was a drama that played out this past Friday in Albany.
The bill itself was passed earlier by the Senate
but only with nine non-controversial parts attached, such as
establishing equal pay for women. Senate Co-Majority Leader Dean Skelos
(R-Rockville Centre) did not allow the tenth clause to be brought to a
vote.
However, Jeff Klein, leader of the four-member
Independent Democratic Conference which is allied with Gov. Andrew
Cuomo, wanted to hand a victory to the Democratic governor, who said in
his state of the state address back in January that the bill was a top
domestic priority.
Klein’s plan, one which Republicans say was
coordinated with the Senate Democrats, was to add the divisive tenth
clause to a medical records bill sponsored by Sen. Marty Golden
(R-Flatbush). As Friday was the last day of the 2013 session, it was
known that that was the day when it would come for a vote.
But Felder, his eye on the clock as it passed
noon, listened in the chamber as Democrats made rambling floor speeches
and asked questions, obviously indifferent to the fact that Shabbos
would begin at 8:12 in Brooklyn, three hours away from Albany. Cuomo was
still making calls to Republican senators, trying to peel off at least
one of them to allow the amendment to pass.
“You know they are waiting for you to leave for
Shabbos,” Sen. Thomas Libous, a Binghamton Republican who is the floor
leader of the majority coalition, told Felder matter-of-factly.
At about 4:15 p.m., Felder left the chamber and spotted Sen. Liz Krueger (D-Manhattan) in the hallway.
“It looks like we will be spending Shabbos
together in Albany,” he told the non-religious Jewish senator, according
to the GOP sources, who paraphrased the conversation for Hamodia.
“Why?” Krueger asked in surprise. “You’re not leaving?”
“No,” Felder said. “I am staying until the bill is struck down.”
Felder then returned to the chamber, and within 15
minutes, the entire Democratic conference was there, six hours after
the session had been scheduled to begin. Klein presented his amendment,
and it went down 32 to 31, with Felder as the decisive vote.
Republican sources are now charging their Democratic counterparts of exploiting Felder’s status as a shomer Shabbos to slip what would have been a landmark progressive bill through the legislature.
“By slowing things down,” Mark Hansen, a spokesman for the GOP caucus, told Hamodia
Tuesday, “that certainly would impact that particular piece of
legislation in terms of the timing of Senator Felder and when he needed
to leave to observe the Sabbath.”
If Felder would have left Albany, the bill would
have had a 31-31 tie, with Lt. Gov. Robert Duffy casting the deciding
vote in favor. The GOP is claiming that the Democrats conferencing that
day was merely a ploy to deny the chamber the quorum needed to vote,
until Felder left.
“Obviously, the Democrats in the Senate wanted to
pass this amendment,” Hansen said, “and they were slowing down the
session on a Friday afternoon.”
Keith Glazer, a spokeswoman for state Sen. Andrea
Stewart-Cousins, the Democratic leader of the Senate, denied the charge
emphatically.
“I was in the conference at the time,” Glazer
said, “[and Stewart-Cousins] had no knowledge” that Felder would be
staying in Albany.
Andrew Goldston, a spokesman for Krueger, said
that the senator did not pass on any message to Stewart-Cousins that
Felder would be staying in Albany for Shabbos.
“We just think that that rumor is categorically
false,” Goldston said. “I mean, [Krueger] may have heard something about
Sen. Felder’s travel plans but we weren’t stalling that day, and we
certainly weren’t stalling to find out anything about Sen. Felder.”
Glazer said that at the conference, the Democrats
were discussing how to vote on the nine other parts of the bill, not the
Klein amendment. Calling it a “surprise amendment,” she said they were
not even aware that he would be bringing such a bill that day.
“Klein’s amendment wasn’t a bill per se that they
would have conference,” Glazer said. “It wasn’t a bill that was brought
up on the floor. … The Democratic conference, under Sen.
Stewart-Cousins, had no idea that they would be bringing a hostile
amendment to the floor.”
A hostile amendment refers to an amendment
attached to another unrelated bill. There is usually no advance warning
that it will be presented. But a Senate Republican source said that due
to the nature of this bill, the Democrats must have known that the bill
would be tabled on Friday.
The offices of both Stewart-Cousins and Krueger
noted that it was Klein who offered the amendment without discussing
with them, and referred questions to him.
A press person in Klein’s office said they were not sure they would have any comment but would get back to Hamodia. Nobody from the senator’s office called back by press time.
In the meantime, the bill was killed at 4:50, and
by 5:20, too late to make it to Lakewood, Felder was on the road to
Brooklyn, chauffeured with the help of the Republican caucus.
He made it to his home in Brooklyn 10 minutes before Shabbos began.
Felder refused to comment on the allegations
beyond saying, “I hope and pray that nobody had the audacity to
discriminate against somebody’s religious beliefs to manipulate the
process for political purposes.”
But he said that he was grateful to be able to strike down a bill of such immoral values.
“It’s very rare that Hashem gives you an opportunity to have such as impact on such a critical issue,” he said.
IH the Hamodia will continue and increase the amount of articles like this.
