Return of the Avella

For all the huffing and puffing the "no IDC" people did years back, it certainly didn't stick very long in the 19th Council District in northeast Queens. You had Richard "Baby Bear" Lee get buoyed by the Andrew Yang vote and Austin Shafran with the biggest unions backing him but former State Senator Tony Avella, the council member prior to Dan Halloran, bested them both. Dem voters in this district sought the familiar rather than a newcomer and didn't give much of a shit about progressive conspiracy theories. Avella will meet Vickie Paladino (R) and John-Alexander Sakelos (C) in the general election.

Avella is all in

From the Wall Street Journal:

State Sen. Tony Avella, a former member of a now-defunct group of breakaway Democrats who lost to John Liu in his district’s Democratic primary in September, announced Monday that he will still run for his seat in the general election.

The Queens senator said in a video that he will run as a candidate for the Independence Party and the Women’s Equality Party.

Mr. Liu, a former New York City comptroller, beat Mr. Avella in the primary after announcing his own last-minute run. However, Mr. Avella said that he will have strong support in the general election from voters who couldn’t vote in the primary.

“Although I was disappointed in the results of the Democratic primary, I have been astounded by the level of support I have received since then from all aspects of our community,” he said.

Like Mr. Liu — who made a last-minute push to get on the Democratic ballot this summer after encouragement from a grass-roots group — Mr. Avella said residents urged him to continue his campaign.

Avella, Peralta defeated in anti-IDC votes

From the Queens Chronicle:

New York State is a different place today. It's littered with the wreckage of what once was the Independent Democratic Conference.

And nowhere was the rubble deeper than in Queens, where a pair of state Senators were ousted in Tuesday's Democratic primaries by challengers who dubbed them traitors to their party.

In District 13, it was four-term state Sen. Jose Peralta (D-East Elmhurst) who lost his re-election bid to former mayoral aide Jessica Ramos — a fierce critic of her "turncoat" opponent's IDC membership.

With 99 percent of precincts reporting, Ramos had won 12,181 vote to Peralta's 10,021 — good for a 10-percentage point margin.

In District 11, fellow four-term incumbent state Sen. Tony Avella (D-Bayside) was defeated by former city Comptroller John Liu in a rematch of 2014's Democratic primary — a race Avella won by a mere 568 votes.

This time around, it was Liu who came out victorious, defeating the incumbent 12,133 ballots to 10,846 — a 6-point margin.

The funny thing is unless there's a flip in the Senate then there won't be any "progressive legislation" getting passed in Albany because Simcha Felder won re-election easily. Basically all that happened is that the greater Bayside area voted for overdevelopment and corruption. Smart move!

Johnny vs. Tony

From City Limits:

The two men agree on most policy issues. They both disagree, for instance, with Mayor de Blasio’s bid to change the entrance process for the city’s specialized high schools. Voters will, of course, decide what the race is about, but if the candidates have anything to say about it, the contest will come down to whether the supposed practical benefits of Avella’s having joined the IDC outweigh the allege damage that did to the chances for a Democratic senate.

Both men appeared on Max & Murphy on WBAI this Wednesday. Below are each of their interviews:

Yet another turd that won't stay flushed

From the NY Post:

Scandal-scarred former New York City Comptroller John Liu is attempting a political comeback — emboldened by the stunning upset pulled off last week by Democratic congressional candidate Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, sources said.

Liu and his hard-left supporters from TrueBlueNY are racing to gain 3,000 signatures so he can run against incumbent Sen. Tony Avella of Queens in the Democratic primary Sept. 13.

The deadline to submit the petitions is Thursday at midnight, according to the city’s Board of Elections.

Avella is the last member of the Independent Democratic Conference to be challenged by a Democrat, even after the mainstream party called a truce with the rogue group that aligned itself with the GOP in a power-sharing agreement.

The grudge continues

From the Times Ledger:

In late November, Democratic Party leaders sent IDC members an ultimatum calling for reunification of the party through a coalition to claim two seats up for special elections outside of Queens or face primary challenges, which would affect state Sens. Jose Peralta (D-East Elmhurst) and Tony Avella (D-Bayside) and six other members of the committee.

Comrie claimed a Democratic coalition was unrealistic considering his dealings with Avella, who he said has never tried to work with other Democrats in the state Senate, despite his own efforts to maintain a working relationship.

“I’ve tried to work with him over the years, but he is not interested in working with us in any way, shape or form,” Comrie said. “He is the singular most selfish person that I have ever met... This is beyond his desire to work collectively because I don’t think he’s interested in working collectively with anybody. He sees himself as an independent warrior, as his own soldier to go and rally against the things he feels are unjust and he will do whatever he can to step on whoever he wants to make that happen.”

The Hillcrest Jewish Center where the forum was held is in Avella’s district. Most of the criticism was directed against him.

But Avella struck back in a later statement at the accusations from IDC detractors, saying Empire State Indivisible and similar groups perpetuate the same “distortion” of facts they claim to oppose from the Trump administration.

“Obviously I like to work with people. Otherwise how would I get 49 bills past the Senate?” Avella said. “What I have a problem with are politicians who are working against the public good... If [Comrie] follows the political adage ‘going along to get along’... If he believes in that adage, well then shame on him. I don’t.”

Avella said Comrie had ignited conflict by introducing a bill to allow a Sephardic temple in Fresh Meadows with safety violations, and owned by Avi Dishi who was once on the 100 worst landords list, to file for a tax exemption. Avella declined to back the bill because the people conducting worship did not own the property and there were safety concerns.

Cuomo aide says Albany drama is all because of Gianaris

From the Daily News:

A top aide to Gov. Cuomo says reunifying the fractured state Senate Democrats will be almost impossible as long as Sen. Michael Gianaris remains in a top leadership role for the mainline Dems.

The personal animosity between Gianaris and Bronx Sen. Jeffrey Klein, who heads up a group of eight breakaway Senate Democrats aligned in a leadership coalition with the Republicans, is the single biggest roadblock for Dem control of the chamber, the Cuomo official said.

The aide sought to peg most the problems on Gianaris, who has had his own tensions with the governor, most recently over the mass transit crisis.The Cuomo aide accused Gianaris, of Queens, of trying behind the scenes to torpedo any deal because he’d rather be deputy leader in the minority than lose influence if the Dems are in the majority.

“This is the oldest story in the book — it’s power, who gets it and who loses it,” the aide said. “When Jeff Klein rejoins the Democrats, Mike Gianaris gets displaced, and therefore he is working to further the divide.”

To break the stalemate, the Cuomo official said, the governor has gone “so far as to offer Mike a job in the administration or offer to support him to run for Queens County (district attorney) down the road.”

Gianaris behind protests of IDC members

I had to laugh when I saw this. Avella just got re-elected by a gigantic margin after being in the IDC for 2 years and there were zero protests before the election. His constituents seem to be content with his decision. But Gianaris got some heat recently for tweeding, so this is the reaction.

Peralta joins the IDC

From NY1:

The breakaway Independent Democratic Conference, or IDC, will now have eight members with its newest addition, state Senator Jose Peralta of Queens.

"Look, this is a process. Like I said, I've been doing a lot of soul searching. And I reached that crossroads," Peralta said.

Despite holding a numeric majority, Democrats do not run the state Senate. The Republicans do, with a power-sharing arrangement with the IDC. That means both members of the IDC and Senate Republicans control the legislative agenda in the upper house.

By party registration, Democrats actually outnumber Republicans by 32 to 31 seats. But in practice, it's much different. Mainline Democrats now have 23 seats, Republicans 31 and the IDC 8. And Brooklyn Democrat Simcha Felder caucuses with the Republicans.

Peralta says joining the IDC is the best way to deliver for his Queens constituents.

IDC and GOP make a deal

From the Epoch Times:

The unusual power-sharing arrangement in the New York state Senate between Republicans and a splinter faction of Democrats will continue despite the GOP’s gains, the chamber’s top Republican said Monday.

Following a closed-door meeting with fellow Republican lawmakers, Senate Leader Dean Skelos also announced he would support legislative pay raises for lawmakers and state commissioners if the question came up in a lame-duck session this year.

The Senate had been led by a coalition of Republicans and the breakaway Independent Democrats, but Republicans won the majority outright in the Nov. 4 elections and will hold 32 seats in the 63-member chamber come January.

The gains prompted speculation that Senate Republicans would brush off the five-member Independent Democratic Conference.

Skelos said he and Sen. Jeff Klein, who leads the IDC, will work out the details of the arrangement. Republican senators unanimously re-elected Skelos to his leadership position on Monday.

Hatchet buried in Albany

From the NY Observer:

The rift between mainline Democrats and the Independent Democratic Conference appears to have been mended.

Gov. Andrew Cuomo and State Senator Jeff Klein, the leader of the breakaway faction of Democrats that governs the senate with the GOP, said in a joint statement this afternoon that the Democratic conference and the IDC would unite in a new power-sharing agreement after the fall elections, sidelining the Republican Party.

“As Democrats, the IDC remains committed to the fight for an equal education for all New York students – which the Dream Act would provide, protecting a woman’s right to choose, increasing workers’ wages, and enacting meaningful campaign finance reform. I agree with Governor Cuomo that these are progressive priorities we must pass,” Mr. Klein said in a statement.

“Therefore all IDC members are united and agree to work together to form a new majority coalition between the Independent Democratic Conference and the Senate Democratic Conference after the November elections in order to deliver the results that working families across this state still need and deserve,” he added.

Mr. Klein and Mr. Cuomo, along with Mayor Bill de Blasio and labor leaders, have met behind closed doors in the past few days to discuss the possibility of reconciliation. Mr. de Blasio helped broker a deal to deliver the Working Families Party line to Mr. Cuomo last month and in turn Mr. Cuomo promised the left-leaning party–and Mr. de Blasio, a liberal Democrat–that he would work to put the Democrats in the majority.

Left-leaning Democrats have bemoaned the IDC-GOP power sharing agreement because it kept the Republican Party in the majority and stifled some liberal legislation. Democratic primary challenges were launched against IDC members this year in retaliation; it’s not immediately clear if these challenges, including ex-Comptroller John Liu’s bid against State Senator Tony Avella and ex-Councilman Oliver Koppell’s challenge to Mr. Klein, will continue.