53.0°,
Mostly Cloudy Skelos takes office
Says L.I. will be ‘better protected’ with 9 majority senators
Sen. Dean Skelos assumed the two most powerful posts in the State Senate — majority leader and president pro tem — last week.
Joined by his wife, Gail, his son, Adam, and his father, Basil, the Republican from Rockville Centre actually had two swearing-in ceremonies on Jan. 5, both administered by his brother Peter, an associate justice in the Appellate Division of the State Supreme Court. The first, in which Skelos was sworn in for his 14th term as a senator, took place in a private reception in Skelos’s office. He then took the oath of office as majority leader in a second, public ceremony in the Senate chamber.
Skelos comes into power as the “Long Island Nine” — a block of nine Republican state senators representing Nassau and Suffolk counties — returns for the first time since 2006, comprising more than a quarter of the 32-vote Republican conference. Even in the lean fiscal times the state is facing, political observers expect the group to wield considerable clout if the senators vote as one on regional economic and educational issues.
“For the past two years, Long Island has had two senators in the majority in Albany,” Skelos said. “It was during this time that we saw the MTA payroll tax passed, hurting Long Island businesses, nonprofits and every level of local government. We also saw the elimination of the STAR rebate check program that many Long Island families had come to rely on. With all nine senators from Long Island now in the majority, our interests will be better protected. I look forward to working with my colleagues to ensure that we are treated fairly and equitably and that our interests are given the attention that we lost over the past two years.”
In a departure from Albany tradition, Skelos and his Democratic counterpart, Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver, were invited by Gov. Andrew Cuomo to make remarks before Cuomo delivered his first State of the State address to a large audience in the State Convention Center in the capitol later
that day.
“The taxpayers don’t want more spending or more government,” Skelos said. “They want more job growth, more individual choices, more economic security and more opportunities for their children to have a career here.”
