Spitzer to introduce gay marriage bill today

Richard C. Wandel/ lgbt Community Center, National Archive of lgbt History
Buoyed by the governor’s bill, the Pride Agenda plans the largest Albany lgbt crowd since the first gay rights march in 1971.

By Paul Schindler

A senior official in Eliot Spitzer’s administration has confirmed to this reporter that the governor will introduce his program bill enacting marriage equality for same-sex couples on Friday, April 27.

“The governor is fulfilling his promise to the community and a taking a courageous and historic step toward making equal civil marriage rights a reality in New York,” the official said.

A lawyer from the office of the governor’s counsel with deliver the bill and an accompanying memorandum, with a statement of support, to the offices of the Assembly speaker and the Senate majority leader. Also, on Friday, the state Department of Civil Service will order a policy change mandating that any entity participating in the state health plan — including hundreds of municipalities and local school districts — recognize out-of-state same-sex marriages for purposes of spousal and family benefits.

The governor’s action comes just four days before a grassroots contingent of at least 1,000 LGBT advocates travel to Albany to lobby the Legislature to take up his challenge.

Asked for comment on Spitzer’s imminent announcement, proponents of marriage equality voiced praise for what they described as bold leadership.

No reaction was more succinct than that of state Senator Tom Duane, an out gay Chelsea Democrat who first introduced a gay marriage bill into his chamber of the Legislature in 2002.

“Promise made, promise kept,” Duane told this reporter

Alan Van Capelle, the executive director of the Empire State Pride Agenda, the state gay rights group organizing the May 1 Albany lobbying effort — dubbed LGBT Equality & Justice Day — was effusive in praising Spitzer.

“This is a historic day for the community,” he said. “The governor has secured his place in the LGBT civil rights movement by becoming the first governor in the history of our country to introduce marriage equality legislation and we look forward to standing next to him when he becomes the first governor in the country to sign a marriage equality law.”

Dick Gottfried, a Democratic assemblyman, also from Chelsea, who with Duane has sponsored the marriage measure in recent years, emphasized the impact the governor’s action will have on the growing tally of equality supporters in the Democratic-controlled Assembly.

“Governor Spitzer submitting a marriage bill gives enormous boost to the issue,” he said. “The governor helps frame the public agenda and his strong formal support raises the credibility and visibility of the issue enormously.”

City Council Speaker Christine Quinn, an out lesbian who represents Chelsea and Hells Kitchen, said, “I am very pleased that the governor is moving ahead on his pledge to introduce a gay marriage bill. His actions prove his commitment to equal rights for LGBT New Yorkers. We will continue to work with the governor, the state Legislature, and advocates to see gay marriage become a reality.”

Democratic Assemblyman Matthew Titone, elected just last month as Staten Island’s first openly gay official, told this reporter, “I couldn’t be happier, especially for all our brothers and sisters who have been working on this tirelessly. I can’t take the credit for that.”

Daniel O’Donnell, an out gay assemblyman from the Upper West Side, was one who voiced caution about news that Spitzer’s action was imminent.

“It would come as a great relief to me that the governor is actually introducing the bill,” he said. “The speculation is creating more anxiety and that is whipping people into a frenzy. If the bill is in fact introduced, I look forward to the legislative process moving forward.”

According to Gottfried’s office, the marriage equality bill now has 43 sponsors in the Assembly and the Empire Pride Agenda’s running vote count shows 61 ayes out of the Assembly’s 150 members, with only 25 stating their opposition. To achieve a majority of 76, then, gay marriage advocates need to identify at least 15 votes out of the remaining 64. All but three of the marriage supporters are Democrats, who hold a total of 108 seats in the Assembly.

The picture in the Senate is less promising, at least in the near term. There, only 18 of 62 have indicated support, with 24 opposed. A minimum of 14 additional votes, out of the 20 undecided senators must be secured for passage (with the ability of Democratic Lieutenant Governor David Paterson to break a Senate tie currently under scrutiny in the attorney general’s office).

Republicans hold a slim two-vote margin in Senate, and upstate Majority Leader Joe Bruno opposes marriage equality and would block a vote on the issue at this point.

Van Capelle acknowledged the difficult work ahead and signaled that Assembly action is the focus for now.

“It is important for people to know that the governor’s role doesn’t end today, but really our work just begins,’” he said. “We want to work with the governor to encourage the Legislature, beginning with the Assembly, to pass this bill this year.”

Approval even by the Assembly will be no mean feat. The Legislature is due to recess on June 21 and fall sessions, though not unheard of, typically are called for narrowly specified purposes. But the governor’s action provides a critical spark. Just last week, Spitzer laid out key legislative goals for the next nine weeks, and did not mention gay marriage, explaining he was “focusing on politics as the art of the possible.”

As O’Donnell predicted before news of the governor’s impending bill surfaced, with Spitzer’s action, “the pressure is on the Legislature to act.” The ball would appear to be in Lower East Side Democratic Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver’s court. To date, Silver has been neutral on marriage, saying he needed first to caucus with his fellow Democrats.

Earlier this year, Glick told this reporter that if proponents can demonstrate at least 76 Democratic votes, plus a few extras for a margin of error, Silver would bring the issue to the Assembly floor for a vote.

Even assuming that the Republican Senate does not take up the Spitzer marriage bill this session, passage by the Assembly would dramatically alter the public conversation in New York. Polling done by the Empire State Pride Agenda more than a year ago found 53 percent of respondents statewide in favor of marriage equality, versus 38 percent opposed. This February, Democrat Craig Johnson won a vacant state Senate seat previously in Republican hands as a marriage equality supporter.

And in an online poll conducted this week, Crain’s NewYorkBusiness.com found that 63 percent of 1,022 respondents — presumably drawn from a traditionally conservative readership — support equal marriage rights.

The Pride Agenda promises an army of advocates to push the issue in Albany and statewide. Labor leaders representing 850,000 union members — including Dennis Rivera of the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) Local 1199 and Randi Weingarten of the United Federation of Teachers — have endorsed gay marriage, as have 650 religious leaders representing 350 congregations statewide.

ESPA has trained 320 advocates across New York as “marriage ambassadors” in their communities.

Advocates will also look to Speaker Quinn, a Democrat, and Republican Mayor Michael Bloomberg in the lobbying effort in Albany. Like Spitzer when he was attorney general, Bloomberg opposed the gay marriage lawsuit that failed in New York’s highest court last July. However, in a December 2005 interview with this reporter, asked whether he would support gay marriage legislation in Albany, the mayor responded, “I will go and testify… When I say I’ll do something, I’ll do something.”

One unresolved issue is who will carry Spitzer’s bill in the Legislature. A public dispute earlier this year between Gottfried, the long-time Assembly sponsor, and Glick and O’Donnell, over whether to re-introduce the bill first authored in 2002 or to wait on the governor’s legislation suggested that there might be a dispute over who will assume the lead spot on the Spitzer effort.

But this week all three Assemblymembers agreed that the decision will be made by Sheldon Silver.

“The speaker will probably be the ultimate decider on this question,” Gottfried told this reporter. “And I’d be surprised if he has given that any thought yet.”

“What I know of Shelly Silver, he doesn’t decide anything until he has to,” said O’Donnell.