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   From: cruikshanke@yahoo.com   
      
   With full control of the New York State Legislature within reach   
   in November, Democrats on Tuesday expelled one indicted   
   lawmaker, held fast to another and reaffirmed their support for   
   an embattled Bronx power broker at the heart of much of the   
   party’s recent turmoil.   
      
   In a symbolic cleansing, primary voters in Queens decisively   
   turned against State Senator Malcolm A. Smith, who is accused of   
   trying to bribe his way onto the 2013 New York City mayoral   
   ballot as a Republican. Leroy Comrie, a former city councilman,   
   won in a landslide.   
      
   But John L. Sampson of Brooklyn, who is under federal indictment   
   on charges that he embezzled more than $400,000 from the sale of   
   foreclosed homes, survived a challenge as three other candidates   
   split votes.   
      
   In another closely watched race, State Senator Tony Avella won a   
   tight race against John Liu, a former New York City comptroller.   
   Mr. Avella, 62, is a two-term incumbent in a solidly Democratic   
   district. Mr. Liu, 47, was trying to make a political comeback   
   after a damaging campaign-finance scandal that thwarted a   
   mayoral bid. He was hoping to become the first Asian-American in   
   the State Senate.   
      
   The primary punctuated a year in which Democrats — divided for   
   several years by internal rivalries and acrimony — vowed to put   
   aside those differences in pursuit of a simple majority in the   
   state’s 63-seat upper chamber. Republicans have dominated the   
   Senate for decades almost without interruption.   
      
   The Assembly, the lower chamber, has long been solidly in   
   Democratic hands.   
      
   In November 2012, the Democrats seized a numeric advantage in   
   the Senate but were later foiled when the Independent Democratic   
   Conference, a breakaway group of Democrats, formed “a bipartisan   
   power-sharing agreement” with Republicans.   
      
   The chamber’s current makeup is complex: The Senate has 29   
   Republicans, 24 mainstream Democrats, two open seats, two seats   
   filled by Mr. Smith and Mr. Sampson (whom the Democrats have   
   disavowed) and five Independent Democrats, including Mr. Avella.   
   The final wild card is Simcha Felder, a Brooklyn Democrat who   
   votes with the Republicans.   
      
   The Independent Democrats’ leader, Senator Jeffrey D. Klein, who   
   represents parts of the Bronx and Westchester County, fended off   
   a hard-fought challenge by G. Oliver Koppell, a former city   
   councilman and state attorney general, who accused Mr. Klein of   
   political opportunism and disloyalty to the party.   
      
   Mr. Klein’s group had faced increasing anger from the left in   
   its second year in a leadership role. Liberals were particularly   
   incensed by the failure of the so-called Dream Act, which would   
   have allowed state tuition aid for undocumented immigrants.   
      
   Under pressure from Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo and others, Mr. Klein —   
   who has been co-leader of the Senate under his power-sharing   
   arrangement — agreed in June to rejoin the mainstream Democrats   
   after the November election “to deliver the results that working   
   families across this state still need.”   
      
   But some Democrats remain deeply skeptical of Mr. Klein’s   
   promises — including supporters of Mr. Koppell’s primary   
   challenge — and the tensions underlying the party’s fragile   
   peace seemed apparent on Tuesday.   
      
   At one polling place in Riverdale, in the Bronx, Howard   
   Robinson, 61, said he was voting for Mr. Koppell because he was   
   “fed up with corruption in Albany” and “the so-called   
   Independent Democrats.”   
      
   “I want there to be a clear progressive majority in the State   
   Senate,” Mr. Robinson said.   
      
   Others, however, said they voted for Mr. Klein because he had   
   been able to compromise.   
      
   “We complain all the time that Washington isn’t working   
   together,” Gisele Glynn, 76, said. “We tell them that all the   
   time.” But she added that when people like Mr. Klein did work   
   with Republicans, “we want the old guard back in.”   
      
   The primary, of course, does not assure Democrats 32 seats; only   
   the general election on Nov. 4 can determine that. Republicans,   
   not surprisingly, have scoffed at the series of “ifs” that would   
   lead to Democrats’ holding a majority, but Senator Michael   
   Gianaris of Queens, a Democrat, seemed bullish on his party’s   
   chances.   
      
   “The Senate Dems are in a better position at this point than at   
   any point in the last four years,” Mr. Gianaris said, citing the   
   support of Governor Cuomo, Mayor Bill de Blasio of New York and   
   major labor organizations. “This is, by everyone’s account, a   
   very different Democratic conference.”   
      
   Not all senators facing criminal charges were imperiled on   
   Tuesday. Thomas W. Libous of Binghamton, 61, an influential   
   Republican who was charged in July with lying to federal agents   
   about his efforts to get his son a job at a law firm, beat back   
   a primary challenge from Denver Jones, an upstate businessman.   
   Mr. Libous, who is battling cancer, has has a close working   
   relationship with Governor Cuomo.   
      
   Upstate offered a few surprises, including the defeat of Mark J.   
   Grisanti, an incumbent Republican from the Buffalo area, who was   
   beaten by Kevin Stocker, a conservative lawyer who touted his   
   support for gun rights. In 2011, Mr. Grisanti was one of four   
   Republicans who voted for legalization of same-sex marriage, Mr.   
   Cuomo’s signature civil rights accomplishment. He is the last of   
   the four to remain in office.   
      
   Democratic operatives see nearly a dozen possibly competitive   
   races in November, including some on Long Island, where younger   
   candidates like Ethan Irwin, a former Marine, are lining up   
   against veteran Republican senators like Kemp Hannon of Nassau   
   County. Several open upstate seats, including the Hudson Valley   
   seat of Greg Ball, a conservative Republican who is not seeking   
   re-election, may be in play.   
      
   Republicans counter that two Democrats from western New York —   
   Senators Ted O’Brien of the Rochester area and Terry Gipson of   
   the Hudson Valley — are vulnerable, as is Cecilia Tkaczyk, a   
   first-term senator from a district outside Albany.   
      
   Democrats were also assured of another seat after a bitter   
   primary between two lawyers to fill the seat vacated by Eric   
   Adams, now the Brooklyn borough president. Jesse Hamilton, 51, a   
   lawyer and community leader, and Rubain Dorancy, 43, a lawyer   
   running on a platform of education reform, each tried to have   
   the other removed from the ballot, without success. Mr. Hamilton   
   won handily.   
      
   http://www.nytimes.com/2014/09/10/nyregion/democrats-reject-   
   indicted-state-senator-in-queens-but-renominate-one-in-   
   brooklyn.html?contentCollection=nyregion&action=click&m   
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