Wednesday, June 22, 2011

Cuomo "Cautiously Optimistic" on Marriage Equality

Despite NY Gov. Cuomo's push to get a marriage equality bill through the GOP-controlled state Senate, passage seems tenuous at best.  The House has already passed the bill and it is within one vote of passage in the Senate, that is if the Senate leadership advances the bill that far.  That's a big if.  Cuomo and the Senate leadership reached a deal on all remaining issues for this legislative session, including bills regarding rent reform and property taxes, except for marriage.  Cuomo told reporters late yesterday that he still believes marriage will come up for a vote.  According to Politicker NY:

"We early on said we’re not going to advance a bill unless we’re confident that it has a good chance of success,” Cuomo said. “Not that you know it’s going to succeed, because you never know until the vote is actually cast. But we’ve reached the point, the threshold where we believe there was a high likelihood of success, we felt good about the chances of success, so then we moved the bill.”

Sen. Tom Duane, the marriage bill's sponsor, was asked if he thought there were enough votes for the bill and he said “I’m not going to predict that.”

Chitika