Tuesday looks to have been a rough night for a number of New York Democrats with a history of supporting Republicans who'd either been seeking promotions or making comeback attempts. Most prominently, state Sen. David Carlucci and New York City Councilman Ruben Diaz Sr. are currently both in third place in their respective congressional campaigns. But two fellow travelers, former state Sens. Jesse Hamilton and Hiram Monserrate, are also falling short in their bids to regain elective office.
Hamilton was a member of the notorious Independent Democratic Conference, which for years handed power to Republicans in the state Senate, even when the GOP held a minority of seats. The junta's defection single-handedly prevented a huge range of progressive priorities from ever even getting a vote, sparking progressive anger that resulted in six of the IDC's eight members losing primaries to mainstream Democratic challengers two years ago. Hamilton was among those who got the boot, losing to now-Sen. Zellnor Myrie by a 54-46 margin.
This year, an apparently clueless and adrift Hamilton belatedly decided to challenge Assemblywoman Diana Richardson in the 43rd District, located in the Crown Heights neighborhood of Brooklyn. Hamilton didn't officially kick off his campaign until just a month before the primary and expressed bewilderment as to why voters had turned him out in the first place. "When I lost my race, I said, 'Wow, I did all I could do for the people. I don't know how I lost this race,'" he recently said. With more than 12,000 votes counted, he's losing this one, too: Richardson currently leads 72-28.
Monserrate might be even worse. In 2009, not long after Democrats reclaimed the state Senate for the first time in over 40 years, he and fellow Sen. Pedro Espada voted with the GOP to oust the Democratic majority leader and install Republican Dean Skelos in his stead. They were joined by Diaz and a fourth senator, Carl Kruger, in regularly making life hell for the Democratic caucus—a quartet Diaz dubbed the "Four Amigos." (Diaz would later take credit for inspiring the IDC to turn renegade.)
Espada and Monserrate eventually returned to the fold, but Monserrate's tenure didn't last much longer: Later that year, he was convicted of assaulting his girlfriend, and soon after he was expelled from the Senate—the first New York legislator to be ejected in almost 100 years. He then lost the special election to fill his own seat (running as an independent), as well as a primary for the Assembly, both in 2010. The month after his second loss, he was indicted on federal corruption charges and ultimately pleaded guilty, serving 21 months in prison.
Monserrate followed up his jail term with another unsuccessful campaign, this time for his old seat on the City Council in 2017, then launched a fourth straight comeback bid against Assemblyman Jeffrion Aubry in the 35th District in western Queens—a different seat than the one he'd sought in 2010. Aubry, however, leads Monserrate 65-35 with 5,000 votes tallied.
The only member of either the IDC or the "Four Amigos" who will return to Albany next year will be state Sen. Diane Savino, who currently has a wide lead in her primary. But not only have the political fortunes of these other turncoats suffered badly, Espada, Kruger, and Skelos all joined Monserrate in serving time for corruption convictions. Of the old buddies, only Diaz never went to prison.
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