Klein challenges Dems to unity pledge

Party, however, says IDC leader is focused on wrong side of the aisle

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State Sen. Jeffrey Klein is calling out members of his old party to join him in supporting progressive causes in the senate like Planned Parenthood and single-payer health care. But Democrats have responded with a “you first.”

Taking heat over the past week for stipends collected by members of his Independent Democratic Conference for senate leadership positions opponents said they never had, Klein tried to turn the tables a bit Monday in a letter to senate Democrats calling for a unity pledge.

“Whatever differences we may have, the members of our two conferences share certain core beliefs rooted in fairness, tolerance and inclusion — beliefs that are currently under attack from the Trump administration,” Klein said in a letter that also was signed by the seven other members of the IDC. “To meet this challenge, we need to work together to advance a shared progressive vision that achieves a number of long-overdue legislative goals.”

Those goals include bills in front of the senate tackling single-payer health care, access to affordable contraceptive choices, a gender expression non-discrimination act, campaign finance reform, making higher education available even to undocumented immigrants, and codifying abortion rights in state law.

“I believe that the state and the country is at a crossroads in the wake of Donald Trump,” Klein told The Press. “It’s become more important that we address the most important issues of the day.”

Democrats, at least so far, don’t seem to be biting. Klein admits that none of the 22 Democrats in the minority caucus have signed on. Sen. Andrea Stewart-Cousins, the leader of the Democratic Conference, has few plans to work with Klein’s coalition, which separated from the Democrats in 2011, and has since developed a coalition with senate Republicans.

Through a statement from her spokesman, Mike Murphy, Stewart-Cousins said her party already championed these causes.

“I guess the IDC really likes pledges, but they must have forgotten that just last week, they pledged allegiance to the senate GOP,” Murphy said. “They are hoping New Yorkers forget that they themselves all voted ‘no’ on some of these exact issues and more, including crucial protections for Planned Parenthood, a single-payer health plan, strong ethics and voter reforms.”

But that’s nothing more than continued misdirects from senate Democrats, Klein said, calling Murphy’s statement “games and nonsense.”

“We didn’t vote ‘no’ on anything,” he said. “That is part of this misinformation campaign that we want to step away from. We want to stop the grandstanding and misinformation and unify Democrats on progressive issues. If you support these things, then sign the pledge. It’s very simple.”

Yet, Murphy suggested Klein was reaching out to the wrong side of the aisle to sign a pledge like this.

“I thought the whole creation of the IDC was to bring Republican votes to issues like these,” Murphy said in the statement. “Everyone already knows there are no bigger champions for all these issues than senate Democrats. New Yorkers are fed up with the IDC’s gimmicks and their empowerment of Trump Republicans.”

A coalition of the Democrats and the IDC would include 30 votes, but Klein says he can pull together 32. That would be enough to earn majority status over the 63-member body.

Klein said he doesn’t know how the Republican members of his coalition feel about this unity pledge, because he didn’t ask them.

“I really didn’t discuss it with them, and this is something we decided to do on our own,” Klein said. 

“The best way to defeat Trump is to unify.”

Jeffrey Klein, Independent Democratic Conference, Andrea Stewart-Cousins, Mike Murphy, Michael Hinman

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