ROCHESTER LABOR FLEXING POLITICAL MUSCLE; CONFIRMS SUPPORT FOR MARRIAGE EQUALITY

ROCHESTER LABOR LEADERSHIP SUPPORTS MARRIAGE EQUALITY
Rochester & Genesee Valley Area Labor Federation President Jim Bertolone (at podium)
addresses the media at NYSUT HQ proclaiming that "We stand together."
photo:  Aron Reina

Rochester, N.Y.-- With just six days to go in the State Senate legislative calendar before the June 20 scheduled adjournment, leading New York marriage advocates and Gov. Andrew Cuomo are still pushing forward with what everyone involved insists is an unprecedentedly unified front-- one they say has held firm since the earliest days of the new governor’s administration.

The marriage equality push came to Rochester today, where area labor leaders reiterated their support to pass an equal marriage bill once and for all. Leaders from the American Postal Workers Union (APWU), Public Employees Federation (SEIU/AFT), CSEA/AFSCME, SEIU, Workers United, the Firefighters Union IAFF and the City of Rochester Police Locust Club among others who joined their fellow advocates at the headquarters of NYSUT at noon to address the media.

Jim Bertolone, president of the Rochester & Genesee Valley Area Labor Federation, AFL-CIO, told those in attendance, “Coalitions have formed throughout New York State, opinion polls are overwhelmingly supportive, and lawmakers are beginning to see the light. Marriage Equality is a civil right, a moral right, and an ethical right. Today we stand together, as labor, to voice collectively our call to action.”


Tom Privitere addresses the media.
photo: Aron Reina

 Echoing what other advocates have been saying for months, Tom Privitere, WNY Field Organizer for the Public Employees Federation and Vice President of the Local Chapter of Pride At Work, told the Voice Reporter, “We are encouraged by the Governor's efforts. However, we need to stay focused and get this thing done. What is so unprecedented about this local coalition, is that every major labor leader in the Rochester area wants this bill to pass. Our local state senators better be paying attention to us.”

With 32 votes needed for passage in the Senate, where Republicans hold a narrow 32-30 majority, the tally of public supporters of the bill stands at 26.

A source with direct knowledge of the effort being waged from Cuomo’s office said the feeling there is that “the path to success” involves everybody “staying organized and focused, and not going off on tangents.”

Nearly six months into his term and after weeks of saying marriage equality is among his top three priorities for the remainder of the legislative session, Cuomo re-upped this week on his commitment, telling reporters, “New York’s legacy of social progress is undeniable. We have led the way, and it is time to make marriage equality a reality in New York State. The time to pass marriage equality is now and we are all working together to do just that.”


City of Rochester Firefighters
Union President Jim McTiernan
at rally today at NYSUT.
photo:  Aron Reina

 The 26 committed supporters of the marriage bill represent the same level of support there was when the 2010 legislative election races were settled last fall. It is a measure of the delicacy of the effort to cross the goal line that-- though in recent months anywhere from seven to about a dozen additional senators have signaled publicly, in one way or another, a willingness to consider a yes vote this year-- none has yet spoken up affirmatively and definitively.

To be fair, no one involved in the fight ever suggested it would be otherwise.

Since the November 2010 elections, advocates-- from the Empire State Pride Agenda, Pride At Work, AFL-CIO, the Human Rights Campaign, Freedom to Marry, the Log Cabin Republicans, and the grassroots Marriage Equality New York (now organized into the coalition New Yorkers United for Marriage)-- have repeatedly used the “ path to victory” language employed by the source familiar with the Cuomo push. More precisely, the effort focuses on alternative potential paths.

The underlying math involves cobbling together at least six votes from among the three remaining Democrats previously in opposition but potentially persuadable (the Reverend Ruben Diaz, Sr., of the Bronx, of course, being beyond reach) and the 32 Republicans. Within the Republican caucus, the 25 reelected last year all voted no in 2009, as did the two who moved from the Assembly to the Senate in 2010. The other five GOP senators are newly elected legislators.

As was the case with the failed 2009 vote, when all 30 Republicans were joined by eight Democrats in opposition to 24 Democratic supporters, the GOP caucus this year is keeping a close eye on how much support the Democrats are prepared to deliver.

The three target Democrats-- Shirley Huntley and Joe Addabbo of Queens and Carl Kruger of Brooklyn-- have all been identified in recent weeks as “undecided.” Even if all three came around, another three Republican votes would still need to be found.

Recent media reports--  from NY1 News and Gannett-- have pegged the number of undecided Republicans at either four or five: Kemp Hannon of Long Island, Greg Ball from Putnam County, Stephen Saland of Poughkeepsie, Roy McDonald of Troy, and James Alesi from the Rochester area.

Alesi, in fact, is the Rochester area Republican most often identified as friendly on the marriage equality question-- in part due to his unusual formulation that he is “undeclared, but not undecided,” and also because of his appearance just last month at the Pride Agenda’s Spring Dinner in Rochester.

Advocates, however, are surely pursuing other targets as well. Earlier this spring, Utica’s Joseph Griffo’s office and Jack Martins from Garden City, who defeated pro-equality Democrat Craig Johnson last November in a razor-thin race that did not turn on the marriage issue, indicated an open mind in conversations with Gay City News.

Other Republicans, including Betty Little of Glens Falls and Buffalo freshman Mark Grisanti, who beat incumbent Antoine Thompson, in another squeaker where the Democrat’s support for marriage equality did not factor, are also often mentioned by activists in the fight. Grisanti has expressed sympathy for equal rights for same-sex couples, but has repeatedly voiced discomfort with the word marriage.

In a related story, The Voice Reporter has learned from direct sources that former Democratic Sen. Thompson, who is an ardent marriage equality supporter, may be eyeing another run next year.

The Voice Reporter's source with direct knowledge of Cuomo’s efforts said, “Like the advocacy groups, the governor’s office sees no value in public discussion of private conversations going on with senators and influential voices within their districts.”

The content and scope of those conversations have been the subject of untold amounts of speculation by the media as well as by activists not party to the regular series of meetings Cuomo and his staff have held with legislative allies and the advocacy coalition.

Assemblyman Danny O"Donnell
at Albany rally on May 9, 2011.
photo: Ove Overmyer

On May 9, Manhattan Assemblyman Danny O'Donnell told the Voice Reporter, "Governor Cuomo should be here [Equality & Justice Day] and this bill should be introduced." He added, "I will not wait."

Later that day, O'Donnell created concern among some and angered others by his overt displeasure with the lack of action from the Governor. In the wake of his introduction of a marriage equality bill in the Assembly, where it has been approved three times since 2007, Cuomo explained the lack of a companion measure in the Senate by saying, “We don’t want to bring a bill up in the Senate that would fail. Nobody wants to have an instant replay of last year. We’re not having a vote for the sake of a vote.”

Others involved in discussions with the governor’s office have put it more bluntly-- this is a battle Cuomo doesn’t want to lose and he wants to lead.

Both the discipline of the advocacy coalition and secular trends in public opinion and voting patterns offer the governor a substantial foundation for his effort. In the past week, the coalition released its second television spot and also delivered 25,000 postcards to senators’ offices in Albany.


photo:  Ove Overmyer

 Labor is flexing it's political muscle

New York's union leaders, in separate appearances in New York City, Albany and in Rochester today, reinforced their support for equal marriage rights and several phone-banking operations that are now being employed.

Phone banks are up and running out of the NYC Midtown offices of the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) Local 1199 and canvassing in the Rochester area continues. Rochester area groups have been lobbying hard, attending the public market, church fairs and public meetings gathering thousands of signatures to be dropped off on the doorsteps of Rochester area Senator's Jim Alesi and Joe Robach.

Privitere told the media today, “Thousands of LGBT workers and union members across this country, and within New York State, are denied the basic access to the right to marriage. Our respect for the institution of marriage is demonstrated by our ardent fight to achieve and value what is denied to us as human beings.”

Polling results and 2012 electoral politics also offer reason for optimism. A June 2 tally from Quinnipiac University pegged support for marriage equality at 58 percent versus 36 opposed. Significantly, support outnumbered opposition “upstate”-- outside the New York City metropolitan area-- 55-40 percent. And, independent voters, a crucial swing bloc in many districts outside the city, voiced support by a 58-34 margin.

The Quinnipiac findings were the strongest yet, though generally consistent with recent trends.

One argument often heard when talking to gay marriage advocates is that the Republicans, mindful of their narrow 32-30 control of the Senate, are eager to take the issue off the table to avoid seeing a repeat of the significant sums of gay money that went to Democrats in the 2006, 2008, and 2010 election cycles and contributed to the GOP’s two-year loss of leadership in 2009-10.

Weighed against that factor are the threats from Mike Long’s Conservative Party, which on May 12 declared the marriage vote a litmus test for future endorsements.

Some Republicans have told advocates they take Long’s threats seriously-- despite the fact that the Conservatives exacted no revenge after making similar warnings prior to passage of the state’s gay rights law in 2002-- are mindful of the districts in which the Conservative Party ballot line provided the margin of victory, and have done their own polling that shows that only a small number of their members could cast a pro-equality vote without facing reelection risk. In most scenarios, the impact of a conservative backlash on a Republican voting yes on this bill is minimal at best.

In a complicated political dance, however, in which nobody’s yet sure exactly what the choreography demands, it’s hard to know just how much stock to put in either public or private statements coming from senators being wooed.