WILL UWS STATE SENATOR JOIN REPUBLICAN-ALIGNED GROUP?

Former opponents of Marisol Alcantara, who won election as the state senator representing sections of the Upper West Side, Harlem and Morningside Heights, are urging her not to join the Independent Democratic Conference (IDC), a group of Democrats that has split off from the rest of the party. Alcantara’s decision could prove the swing vote that gives Republicans control.

The IDC has aligned with Republicans since 2011, giving them the majority. Democrats argue that that’s led to lower school budgets and the failure of campaign finance reform in this scandal-plagued state. State government has broad control over most of the biggest issues for city voters, including school budgets, subway and bus funding, and even traffic cameras. (While people fret over the changes coming at the federal level, state government arguably has more control over the day-to-day lives of most New Yorkers.)

Micah Lasher and Robert Jackson, who lost the Democratic primary against Alcantara, wrote a letter to her urging her to join traditional Democrats instead of the IDC. They say she’ll be giving “the shaft” to residents of the 31^st Senate District if she joins the IDC, which supported her in the primary. We’ve posted the full text below.

A campaign spokesperson for Alcantara did not respond to a request for comment. Another spokesperson told the Daily News that Lasher and Jackson are sore losers, but didn’t say whether Alcantara would caucus with the IDC.

“Marisol Alcantara won a highly contested campaign against these two failed candidates because the voters trusted her to do everything in her power to change the way Albany works,” Smith said. “She will fulfill the commitment she made during her campaign to be an agent for change on behalf of the people of this state.”

The IDC has said its alliance with the Republicans gives it power to affect change, including winning the $15 minimum wage last year. Alcantara previously told Politico that that battle made the IDC appealing to her.

Here’s the letter from Lasher and Jackson:

Dear Senator-Elect Alcantara:

We write to urge you to caucus with the State Senate Democrats and not the so-called “Independent Democratic Conference” (IDC).  For four years now, the IDC has perpetuated Republican leadership of the Senate.  They have done so by:

• Depriving Democrats of a majority and preventing the election of the first female Senate Majority Leader, even when—as will be the case in January—a majority of Senators are in fact registered Democrats;
• Providing critical votes to the Republican leadership on a day-to-day basis—in committee and on the floor of the Senate—stymieing the efforts of Democrats to advance a progressive agenda and call attention to the Republicans’ failure to act on a wide range of progressive legislation;
• Undermining the efforts of Senate Democrats to raise funds and build support for candidates running against Republicans.  This happens both because donors and institutions are skeptical that the IDC would ever support a Democratic majority, and because those donors and institutions can, in the alternative, support the IDC, knowing that the conference will be a requisite part of any majority—since, to put it charitably, the IDC is ambidextrous.

The result of all of this has been the trappings and crumbs of personal power for the IDC—and the shaft for residents of the 31^st Senate District.

New York State has no DREAM Act because of the IDC.  Public schools remain underfunded to the tune of billions of dollars.  We have some of the worst campaign finance laws in the country and loophole-laden rent laws that, every day, force tenants in the 31^st Senate District out of their homes.  All because the IDC has killed the prospect of a Democratic majority that would take action on these issues.

Now, in the Trump era, with its plans for an anti-public school Education Secretary, an anti-environment EPA Administrator, an anti-voting rights Attorney General and an anti-diversity, anti-women and anti-equality agenda, Democrats cannot afford to be divided.  You and others have made the specious argument that the IDC is responsible for the few good things that have come out of the State Legislature in recent years, such as an increase in the minimum wage.  This is nonsense.  To the extent the Senate has been coaxed into the occasional compromise, the coaxing has not truly been done by the IDC and the results have been heavily watered down versions of what would pass under a united Democratic majority, which the IDC could make a reality but instead obstructs.

For all of these reasons, it is unconscionable to us that you would join the IDC, and we write to express hope that you will change course.  You and each of us ran to represent the 31^st Senate District on strong progressive platforms—and there can be no surer way to prevent progressive action than by strengthening the hand of the IDC.

Finally, it should be noted that most voters in the September Democratic Primary—even among the less than 33% that constituted your plurality and delivered a 294-vote margin of victory—had no idea that you planned to caucus with the IDC, nor that hundreds of thousands of dollars came into your campaign from the IDC’s various political action committees through elaborate circumvention of individual contribution limits.  In addition to being at cross-purposes with helping your constituents, caucusing with the IDC is to perpetrate a fraud on them, as well.

For the people you represent, and the issues you claim to care about, please reconsider and join the Democratic Conference.

Sincerely,

Micah Lasher

Robert Jackson