Senate Majority Leader Dean Skelos, R-Rockville Centre, released a letter today for Minority Leader John Sampson, which basically tells his Democratic colleague, "Tough."
The disagreement stems from an attempt on Tuesday by the Senate Republicans to pass a series of rules changes, which would have the impact of lessening the authority of the lieutenant governor and would ease some term limit restrictions. The changes stalled (temporarily) in the rules committee on Tuesday, when one Republican on the committee was missing from the 85 minute meeting. Because Republicans couldn't muster 13 votes, the proposal ended up being pulled by the chair.
Now, though, Skelos has said that the rules changes will happen in the upcoming week, as they advance out of committee and to the floor. "I expect that these rules will also pass the Senate with bipartisan support," he said.
In addition to accusing Democrats of delaying the senate from acting on critical issues, like the looming budget deficit, Skelos argued that he was actually being more conciliatory than his immediate predecessor. Specifically, he cited the assignment of committee chairs as evidence of his bipartisan approach.
"I have selected three Democrats to serve as committee chairs, which is more members of the minority party than any Majority Leader has ever chosen to head up Senate Standing committees," said Skelos.
The rules meeting has not been scheduled yet, which is in keeping with the impromptu nature of these meetings.
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