With Heavy Hearts, Assembly Dems Sell Out Once Again

With heavy hearts and forked tongues, most Assembly Dems voted yes on the end-of-session legislation that sold out tenants, NYC schools, and teachers, but Assemblyman Charles Barron had some choice comments on the floor:

ALBANY—There so much in the bill it was hard to debate. So after Republicans in the Assembly highlighted some of the more unseemly aspects of the omnibus “big ugly” bill that tied up the loose ends of the state legislative session late Thursday night, members of the Democrat-dominated chamber approved it by a 122-13 vote.

...

Despite reservations and private grumbling—and the denunciation of tenant advocacy groups—most Democratic members of the chamber kept their complaints out of the floor debate. Only a few, including Assemblyman Charles Barron of Brooklyn, rose to outline concerns.

“There's too much of the protection for the tenants that was watered down,” he said. “I am disappointed. I know you feel in negotiations that you go as far as you think you can go. You can talk about the Republican Senate, the Republican governor. For me, the governor is a disgrace, what he's allowed to get away with.”

Indeed the governor is a disgrace, both as a human being and in what he is allowed to get away with, but frankly, some of that second category could be mitigated if the Heavy Hearts Club in the Assembly stood up to him.

Alas, they are cowards and sellouts and so, once again, in the end, Cuomo gets his way on legislation and policy.

Same old story, over and over and over again...