The power of Simcha Felder
For the uninitiated, the New York State Senate is a true riddle: a concoction of conferences, shifting allegiances and mind-bending math. At the heart of it all is a senator who hails from Brooklyn and delights in his peculiar kingmaker status.
His name is Simcha Felder. A registered Democrat, he has chosen since his 2012 election to caucus with the Republican conference, helping them maintain a majority.
As of today, he is the most important senator in Albany. While the Assembly remains reliably Democratic, the Senate is Republican by the thinnest of margins. There are 31 members of the Democratic conference and 31 members of the Republican conference. Felder, though elected as a Democrat, has chosen to give Republicans the 32nd vote.
Why? How? It’s a confusing but important story. Though the inner workings of Albany can seem incredibly opaque and unrelated to our everyday lives, it’s the state government that determines the funding for our public schools, transit and roadways. Tenant laws, the minimum wage and almost all forms of taxation are set by Albany.
New York has been a deep blue state for some time. Statewide, there are now 5.6 million registered Democrats and just 2.6 million registered Republicans (2.4 million voters are unaffiliated) — a more than 2-to-1 advantage. A Republican presidential candidate hasn’t won here since 1984.
Yet with one chaotic exception a decade ago, the GOP has run the upper chamber of the Legislature for over a half century.
Blame gerrymandering, a lackluster state Democratic Party, and Democrat-approved sabotage. Though Gov. Cuomo has committed himself this year to fighting for Democrats, he enabled the Republican majority by approving of — and even empowering — a rogue group of Democrats known as the Independent Democratic Conference. The IDC had a power-sharing alliance with the GOP from 2013 until April.
This month, under pressure from grassroots groups and Cuomo, who is now facing down a formidable primary challenge from actress Cynthia Nixon, the eight-member IDC rejoined the regular Democrats. That grew the conference to 31, matching the Republicans.
And now we get to Felder. A former city councilman, Felder represents the heavily Orthodox Jewish neighborhoods of Borough Park and Midwood. He is proudly not loyal to any party; he has said openly he will caucus with anyone who promises the most resources for his district.
It’s important to remember Felder’s act, while galling to progressives, is accepted by many of his constituents. Orthodox Jewish voters are usually registered Democrats to influence New York’s primaries, but they often vote Republican in general elections.
Like Felder, they are socially conservative, send their children to private schools and often take a hawkish approach to foreign policy. As a state senator, Felder has had particular obsessions: putting armed guards in every school whether public or private, fighting back against fees to reduce plastic bag usage, and, most recently, trying to exempt yeshivas from certain state educational standards.
This week, Cuomo — who used to say he had “no power or role” in meddling in legislative matters like this — penned an open letter to Felder, warning him that “the Democratic conference will not need you in November the way they need you now,” alluding to the fact that if Democrats pick up seats this fall, Felder will no longer have a decisive vote.
This is true, but it is ironic Cuomo is now trying to bring the hammer down on Felder. Felder is in the state Senate in part because of Cuomo.
In 2012, when Senate districts were being redrawn, Cuomo promised he would fight for independent redistricting free from the influence of legislators. He ended up breaking his promise, allowing the Republican majority to create new districts that would bolster their tenuous hold on power.
In a move to pick up a seat in heavily Democratic Brooklyn, Republicans crafted what was dubbed, at the time, a “super Jewish” district. Encompassing most of the heavily Orthodox territory in Brooklyn, the district was guaranteed to elect a conservative Democrat or a Republican. Felder stepped in. He could have won the seat on either the Republican or Democratic lines, but ran as a Democrat to defeat a new Republican senator, David Storobin, who was not well known in the reconfigured district. At the time, Cuomo was satisfied with this status quo. Felder, caucusing as a Republican, and the IDC helped keep the GOP in power and ensure the governor never had to move further left than he wanted to go.
Now Donald Trump is President, progressives are paying attention to Albany, and Cuomo wants a Democratic Senate ASAP. But he has no real way to budge Felder.
That means, for the rest of 2018, it’s Simcha Felder’s world. We’re all just living in it.