Former IDC Leader Jeff Klein will be Democratic floor leader. | AP Photo After 7-year schism, IDC officially rejoins mainline Democrats

ALBANY — The state Senate’s Democratic and Independent Democratic Conferences have officially ended a schism that has lasted more than seven years, allowing the party to present a mostly unified front a week before a special election that could give them a numerical majority in the chamber.

While the existence of the IDC has led to bitterness, protests and internecine primary battles over the years, its ending was unceremonious and involved none of the parliamentary bickering that routinely surfaces in Albany’s upper house.


State Sen. Michael Gianaris of Queens, who will be replaced as Democratic floor leader by former IDC Leader Jeff Klein of the Bronx on Tuesday, simply handed the dais four sheets of paper. The paperwork stated that the eight members of the IDC had joined the minority conference and laid out new committee and leadership assignments. The IDC will likely remain on the books until January, but as of now, it has no members.

The reunification was guided by Gov. Andrew Cuomo. His intervention was widely seen as a reaction to primary challenger Cynthia Nixon’s criticism that he condoned the conference’s existence. The IDC was allied with Senate Republicans in an arrangement that allowed the GOP to maintain control of the chamber. Soon after the unity deal was official, Cuomo sent out an “open letter to New York Democrats” touting its importance.

“Short term, it provides the clarity and focus necessary for long-term and profound change,” Cuomo said. “It is a recognition that, in this age of [President Donald] Trump, individual agendas must come second to Democratic goals. For the sake of the values that unite us, we’ve laid to rest the intramural contest between individuals jockeying for position — a contest that drove most of the division within the Senate Democratic Caucus.”

Senate Deputy Majority Leader John DeFrancisco (R-Syracuse), who is seeking the Republican nomination to run against Cuomo, was asked before session Monday whether the governor had improperly meddled in internal legislative business.

“No, he doesn’t meddle in anything as far as I know,” DeFrancisco said, sarcastically. “I think he’s pretty upfront that he’s a bipartisan person and doesn’t want to play politics with anything. He does everything based on policy.”

He then added: “Obviously it’s political. He thinks it’s important to unite the Democrats, and that’s a position I can understand, especially when he’s getting hit hard from the right and the left and the in between. So unity helps him, and that’s what his main guiding light is — ‘If it helps me, it’s good; if it doesn’t help me, it’s wrong.’”

The newfound unity, of course, does not mean that Democrats will control the chamber. The new conference now has 29 of the necessary seats. Two special elections will be held next week, one of which is all but a guaranteed win for Democrats. The second, in Westchester, is up for grabs and will likely absorb most senators’ attention for the next eight days.

“It’s probably going to be a light calendar until this election is resolved next week,” DeFrancisco said. “But we’re all trying to make sure that it’ll be a constructive work environment rather than chaos, and I’m sure that’ll happen.”

If Democrats win, the conference will have 31 members. To obtain a majority, it will then need to either win over state Sen. Simcha Felder of Brooklyn, a registered Democrat who has conferenced with Republicans since he came to Albany in 2013, or wait until November and pull off the extraordinarily rare feat of picking up a seat in a year in which a gubernatorial election tops the ballot.

Felder, for his part, has remained mum over the past two weeks as to whether he’s open to the first of these options.

Before session started Monday, he wandered over to the half of the chamber where Democrats sit.

“Don’t mess with me, I’m the new IDC,” Felder said to laughs.