John Sampson enters the Senate chamber and surveys the scene. He gives Pedro Espada confidant Steve Pigeon a pat on the lower back on his way over to squeeze Carl Kruger on the shoulders, bending down for a quiet conference. Then he is down the line along the back row in the chamber—brief hellos and waves to Darrel Aubertine, Craig Johnson, a handshake to Andrea Stewart-Cousins and a friendly chat with Bill Perkins before he catches Ruben Diaz on his way out the door. Outside, he stops by a table where Espada sits hunched with Hiram Monserrate and shares a laugh with his nominal majority leader. Suzi Oppenheimer approaches with a question. Sampson wraps a big arm around her little frame, leans in, and leads her through the side door into his private office.

As the Democratic conference leader, John Sampson has a light touch. But he makes sure to touch everyone.

In 90 seconds, Sampson has done all that most of the senators in his conference seem to want out of their post-coup leader: a little acknowledgment, a sense of calm. No thumping floor speeches, no notable press conference sound bites, no public strong-arming—no problem. Seven months later but still just as shell-shocked, they wake up each morning and savor the peace.

“There’s a sense that we never want to go back there—so however viciously we fight, there’s a sense that we’re never, ever going to go back there again,” said State Sen. Eric Schneiderman, who has emerged as a top Sampson lieutenant.

Malcolm Smith and his smooth yeses to everyone and everything had not worked. The era of David Paterson was behind them. When the Democrats looked up from the wreckage last June for their new leader, they picked a lawyerly man who speaks quietly and says next to nothing, preferring to keep close counsel and reveal himself only behind closed doors, and even then only grudgingly.

In other words, they went and got their very own Shelly Silver.

Like Silver, Sampson resists showing his cards until forced. He steers clear of most specifics or concrete predictions, preferring to talk in general terms about the need to create jobs, improve the economy, make New Yorkers’ government work for them. If all goes well, he says, none but the governing class in Albany and a few thousand concerned citizens will care who he is, or who the governor is, or even whether they are Republicans or Democrats.

Not that anyone should forget which party put the state in the situation where it is now.

“The bottom line is: for the last 40 years, they taxed, spent and put us in this predicament, which didn’t happen overnight,” Sampson said, referring to the Republican senators. “The next thing you know, the Democrats were in control in 2009 and suddenly, we did everything. It doesn’t happen like that. Tell the story. Tell the full story and take the blame so we can move on.”

Sampson was a surprise leader, not someone his colleagues had ever considered for the job before the coup and the rapid decision that, yes, Smith was going to go and the Conference of Black Senators wanted one of their own to replace him (which, after screening for sufficient ambition and lack of pending indictments, left a very short list). No one, not even Sampson himself, would have expected him to emerge as leader.

“My colleagues selected me because of my traits—my humility, my commitment and my support of them, and my ability to always listen to people,” he said. “I never thought anyone noticed. And I never looked for anyone to notice.”

Publicly, Democratic senators pour on the praise. Privately, they do the same while begging patience and understanding. The bold ones declare that everything will soon be much better. The cautious ones avoid talking much at all for fear of seeming too close to Sampson in the eyes of their voters.

Or the next leader, if there is one.

But even Republicans applaud him for somehow managing to bring down the temperatures within the chamber. Dean Skelos says he talks to Sampson every day, and though he took advantage of Sampson’s early warning of naming two Republican committee chairmen to pre-emptively blast the move, the minority leader says the answer to improved relations is simple: “It’s called communication.”

“I think the general feeling is, we can deal with him better than just about anyone else,” said State Sen. Dale Volker. “The Democratic conference is so badly divided—it’s just a mess. I’ve never seen anything quite like it. But John, you must give him credit, he’s been able to get people together where other people haven’t.”



Sampson is a big man. He ambles and lumbers, never in a rush, never visibly thrown by the circumstances, even when taking more questions than planned from behind the podium or hunched over the talking points and speeches that have been prepared for him before he steps forward. Casual for Malcolm Smith is a pinstripe suit without a pocket square. Casual for Sampson is a velour jumpsuit.

People call him the gentle giant. But just like Skelos said he hated “Mean Dean,” which popped up in every profile in the days after he started his own short-lived run as majority leader, Sampson does not seem to be a fan of his nickname either.

“Why do people have to call me a giant? Why do I have to be a giant?” Sampson said, cracking a rare smile. “I hope it’s not weight. I hope they’re talking about height.”

Slowly, he has been standing up in the chamber and especially in conference, flexing a growing influence and comfort. Smith came into office without almost any transition after the GOP holdout, without a staff or offices in place, without almost anyone able to locate the 20/20 plan he said would form the basis of the Democrats’ agenda in power. The conference was reactive, directionless and ultimately pulled apart by its limbs by every interest group demanding its issues get top priority.

“We failed to manage the expectations of the advocates. That’s what we failed to do,” Sampson said, arguing that 2010 would have to be a year of “down payments” on bigger action down the road.

As for what the agenda will be this year, Sampson will not say. His senators tend to have little sense beyond the deeply generic talking points memo sent out to guide them through video messages they were asked to record at the beginning of the session: “As a reference, conference priorities include creating jobs, providing property tax relief, controlling spending through significant budget reforms, restoring New Yorkers’ faith in their government through ethics reform, and protecting the rights of women and tenants.”

Sampson is a disciplined man, in the gym early every morning, careful what he says, careful that his JLS cufflinks sit just right. He has tried to exert that same level of discipline on the conference. Pushed to name one issue he feels certain will be addressed by June, Sampson picks property tax reform. That was the one major topic he said was missing from Paterson’s State of the State address, and two weeks later, right on message, that is the theme Deputy Majority Leader Jeff Klein hit on his way out of Paterson’s executive budget proposal speech.

But as for how or when—that is another question. Reinstituting STAR rebate checks was a possibility, and creating a circuit breaker might be as well. He is interested in talking about a cap with the governor, but warns against proposals that look better than they are and end up getting milked for their PR points.

But even that goal, like his pledges to spur job growth and economic development, comes with a signal of uncertainty.

“We are going to be reducing property tax,” Sampson said, then paused. “We are going to work extremely hard to reduce property tax this year.”

Of course, before any taxes get reduced, the state will have to address a budget situation that, despite the billion-dollar DRPs, seems to constantly spit up new shortfalls.

Government consolidation could help, Sampson said, and he wants to focus on streamlining agencies. And overall, with every program the state provides for this year, he said he will take a “zero-base, performance budgeting” approach.  

“You’re going to have to justify every dollar that you spend and why we should give you this dollar,” Sampson said.

After last year’s collapsed pledges of open budget negotiations, Sampson said he is optimistic that the Legislature and the governor would do better this year, both in achieving transparency and involving the Republican members. He refused to rule out participating in closed negotiations, instead projecting a rosy vision of Republicans and Democrats uniting to meet the needs of all of their districts in the face of those looking to scuttle the process just for the sake of it.

“Most of all, the public needs to know who is involved in gamesmanship and who is acting in the best interest of the public,” Sampson said. “People need to see that. I can go out and say, ‘They’re not involving me in the process,’—but if you’re going to be involved in the process just to be a thorn, just to cause confusion and chaos, why should you be involved in that process?”

Last year when the Republicans complained about the budget, they were shut out, and ultimately voted as a bloc against its passage. By making chairmen out of State Sens. George Maziarz and Tom Morahan, Sampson has tried to insulate himself against a repetition of that this year, but elections are looming, and the skeptics are beginning to wonder what happens if he runs up against a similar Republican revolt this year, especially with his own moderate members primed to pushback against seeming too closely tied to Democratic spending.

Not only will the budget get done, but it will get done early, Sampson said, even with the March 31 deadline falling on the night of the second Passover seder, in the middle of a week the Legislature tends to take vacation. As for the rest of the agenda, Sampson keeps mostly quiet. The Legislature’s ethics reforms will become law, he said. The governor’s term-limits proposal will not. IDA reform could happen. More business community partnerships definitely will.

But there will be successful legislative deals this session, he said, and making those deals will be more important than any of the political questions looming over him about the governor’s race (the Paterson-Cuomo match-up is still hypothetical, he explained) and the Senate race (Harold Ford has yet to make his candidacy official). Even majority control is less important than getting along and getting things done, he insisted.

“People won’t care who the governor is, they don’t care who the Legislature is,” he said. “People are concerned with getting the job done.”



Since Sampson took over as leader, the Democrats have passed the New York City mayoral control bill, two DRPs, Tier V pensions and public authorities reform. They even took an open vote on gay marriage. This was no small load for the new leader, but it also falls far short of negotiating a budget, battling a belligerent governor and accomplishing the incumbent-protecting, Republican-undercutting agenda he needs going into the November elections. Unlike last year, when the Democrats were still hiring staff and moving into offices long after session began, Sampson has had months to gear up for his new job. He had his one- and two-day special session trial runs.

Managing his conference through all the bills, decisions and pitfalls of a full session will be something else entirely, warn observers.

To most, though, the real measure of Sampson’s leadership will not be how many bills they pass or how much grace he shows in negotiations, but the number of races he wins for them on Nov. 2. Democrats came within a few thousand votes combined of carrying 35 seats in 2008. With a few more dollars or strategic decisions, things might have gone right for Joe Mesi or Jim Gennaro or Kristen McElroy—or all of them—and the Senate would have been a much different place. If Sampson gets the Democrats to 35 in this fall’s expected mix of anti-incumbency, shifting demographics and anti-Democratic mood, he will be seen as a success. If he does not, and they lose the majority ahead of the critical redistricting, no one in his party or his conference will care about cooling the temperatures or brokering legislative compromises. Sampson will likely become third in the line of recent failed Senate leaders.

Internally, Senate Democratic staffers have been trying to foster a more aggressive mentality among the members. There are the basics, like setting up that camera outside the chamber for them to record video messages to post on the web and feed to their local stations (almost no one did) or introduce more hokey resolutions recognizing wedding anniversaries and Eagle Scout promotions to pump up good will in the district (current count for this session: 524 Republican vs. 99 Democratic; count for 2009: 2643 Republican vs. 1047 Democratic). They have had more success in getting members to step up their own fundraising, though that has been a struggle with some as well.

Sampson has shaken up the management at the Democratic State Senate Committee, bringing in a new executive director and a more leashed approach to spending. He has helped pile money into the campaign account, including $1 million in the last month of the cycle. He has again installed Jeff Klein, the conference’s most prodigious fundraiser, as the head of finance operations for the DSCC, and put Liz Krueger in charge of candidate recruitment, which is still underway in many districts and yet to be fully started in some.

Back in Albany, Sampson is pursuing bills that will play well in the marginal, moderate districts, while steering clear of the kind of controversial votes which can kill candidates when done up right in mailers or palm cards.

Yet some of the most palm card-perfect issues remain unresolved. He has avoided commitments on whether or when there will be a vote on Monserrate’s expulsion, or how he himself will vote.

Carl Kruger, the Senate Finance chair and chief Amigo, is generally a fan of Sampson. He praises Sampson’s collaborative leadership, and believes they will together be able to succeed in passing a balanced, while painful, budget that results in a significant reshaping of many aspects of state government.

But on the issue of what to do with Monserrate, Kruger said, Sampson is treading into dangerous territory. Kruger will not vote for expulsion, and warns about what will happen if Sampson moves forward with the vote, aside from the Constitutional issue that may arise if the Senate Democrats are left with just 31 votes.

“It’s got political as well as legal implications. And it’s also a moral issue involved,” Kruger said simply.

Meanwhile, Espada is still majority leader, even with all the bad blood toward him and the attorney general’s investigation.

Though Sampson was firm that Espada remains part of his leadership team—by his telling, all decisions run through a mini-committee of Espada, Klein and Smith—he would not comment on whether Espada will remain majority leader after this year.

“The members in our conference will evaluate us based on our job performance. And it’s not whether I want anyone in that position,” he said.

Whether they will back Espada for re-election in his district is also a conference decision, according to Sampson.

“I think a person will be judged not by what you perceive that they may have done, but what they actually have done and the actions to increase our majority,” he said.

To many, though, the real uncertainty about the leadership situation is about when Smith will step aside. He remains Senate president—powerless, yet still with his title and a big office in Albany and at the top of 250 Broadway in the Democrats’ New York City headquarters. Some versions of the story have him gripping to power, refusing to let go. Some have him content with the situation, managing a better and more productive relationship with Sampson than their staffs make it out to be.  

But no one other than Sampson seems entirely sure what Smith does anymore.

“My understanding is that he’s Queen Elizabeth,” one Senate staffer joked. “He’s the goodwill ambassador for the Senate. And he’s good at that job.”

Smith himself did not push back on that idea.

“John is doing the day to day operations, all the CEO sort of stuff. He’s on the inside,” Smith said. “I’m doing projects more on the outside, traveling around the state, trying to get our image and message across to the state. And it works very well.”

Smith dismissed the idea of any tension at the top, and of any resistance to letting Sampson take over as president.

They are both satisfied with the current structure, Smith said.

“I don’t know what it will be like when the elections happen again, but right now it’s working,” he said.

But that is not enough for Ruben Diaz. While he refused to comment on Sampson beyond an ominous “there are some people who like him, and there are some people who don’t,” Diaz said the current leadership structure is a recipe for disaster, an inevitable way for people to duck blame if and when things go wrong, as could happen with the fate of a specific bill, with the Monserrate decision or with the showing in the November elections.

“As long as we have this three-headed monster, I don’t know what’s going to happen,” Diaz said. “As long as we have this three-headed monster, we won’t be able to pinpoint the responsibility.”

Sampson puts to rest all the speculation in simple terms: “We have our leadership team intact.”

The leader Sampson has been dealing with the most, though, is Silver. Last year, the speaker kept the Senate Democrats at arm’s length, largely leaving them to their troubles as he and the Assembly forged ahead on their own. His relationship with Sampson has evolved differently: they relate to each other, seem to connect and speak the same lawyer language. Together, with a governor increasingly on the ropes, they have engaged in a tag-team pummeling that seems at times just short of issuing a joint statement with photos of the two of them, side-by-side, sticking their tongues out at Paterson’s declarations and threats.

In the lobby of the Manhattan office building where the governor had called them for an impromptu leaders meeting Jan. 15 to complain about the Race To The Top, the speaker and the conference leader huddled at the center of a clump of their top aides. Silver did most of the talking. Sampson tilted to the side, listening, nodding, occasionally saying something.

Few words were actually exchanged, but a plan was finalized. The huddle broke and they headed upstairs, though Silver’s aides had to hold the elevator doors open while they waited for Sampson to get cleared by security (“they wouldn’t let Senator Sampson in—he’s a new face, they don’t know him,” conference counsel Shelley Mayer called out to them, explaining the delay).

Paterson started out by scolding the Democratic leaders for not scheduling Education Committee hearings early enough to possibly get the Race To The Top application in on time—they corrected him; for tying the lifted charter cap to giving the Board of Regents authority over issuing new charters—they resisted him; and ended by referring to the Obama administration education secretary as “Arnold Duncan”—“No, his name is Arne Duncan, as a matter of fact,” Silver said sharply.

Paterson turned to Sampson to ask him the same frustrated questions he had asked of Silver, but to no avail.

“If I did not have to grapple with the financial constraints of the state, I might have a different point of view,” he said. “It is a day-to-day struggle to keep this state afloat.”

In the end, there was no agreement. Paterson called an extraordinary session for 8 p.m. on Martin Luther King Day, but despite this and closed-door meetings through the next day, nothing emerged. Sampson kept a tight rein on his members, and for all the promises that came with his selection as leader of any member being able to get bills to the floor, the senators carrying the governor’s bill were kept from putting it forward for an open vote.

For the first time, Sampson exerted the full weight of his leadership, balancing the diverging interests of his members, his increasingly close relationship with Silver and increasingly distant relationship with Paterson, and the demands of advocates he will need to prop up his troubled incumbents and grasping challengers in November. The result: nothing got passed.

“I always believe in the five Ps of life: Proper Preparation Prevents Poor Performance,” Sampson said, explaining his philosophy about government and politics, his ZOPA. “And that’s what we’re doing.”

And so people wait, reassured by the greater authority that Sampson comes off as having compared to Smith. He gets goodwill for being a blank slate and for seeming to have the ability to execute and keep the order. But even in private, he has been reluctant to provide details, and there is a growing impatience with the lack of action.

“They were in the wilderness, now they’re back, everybody needs to share the pain,” said one person who heard Sampson’s presentation at a recent meeting of a prominent business organization. “It was not a bad introduction… to something.” 

eidovere@nycapitolnews.com

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Closer To Leadership Again, Schneiderman Emerges As Sampson’s Close

“Have you ever seen Law & Order?” Eric Schneiderman said, trying to explain the different roles he and Eric Adams have taken on as John Sampson’s lieutenants helping lead the Democratic conference. “It’s kind of like that. There’s the cop part and there’s the lawyer part.”

Schneiderman was a polarizing figure in the race to succeed David Paterson as minority leader at the end of 2006: for the most part, senators either thought he was a natural, brilliant choice for the job or they rolled their eyes, made a disparaging comment about his ego, and went looking for someone else. When the title ultimately went to Malcolm Smith, Schneiderman was left without much access.

The first decision Democrats made after Pedro Espada and Hiram Monserrate stood with the Republicans was to get rid of Smith. Then they turned to Schneiderman to serve as a sort of in-house lawyer for the conference.

That formed the foundation of the role he has evolved into with Sampson, and the basis for his way back into power.

He and Sampson speak the same language, Schneiderman said, explaining the success of their working relationship.

“We’re both lawyers,” Schneiderman said. “We like to think of things in terms of legal analysis. We can get a lot done in a conversation with very few words.”

Plus, there is a personality connection.

“We both tend to err on the side of bluntness,” Schneiderman joked.

Sampson has turned to Schneiderman to help run the day-to-day operations of the conference, but also for thorny and high profile tasks like sealing deals on the special committee that investigated Monserrate and inching toward agreements on ethics reform and the farmworkers bill. Schneiderman’s successes have some Senate staffers now calling him “The Closer,” their Mariano Rivera.

And some Republicans in the Senate have heaped on the praise, with special committee member State Sen. Jim Alesi praising Schneiderman’s leadership as a prime factor in what he called an eye-opening experience in Albany.

“What it showed me, and I think it showed others, is that legislators come to town and they bring a lot of talent with them,” Alesi said. “That usually gets squashed to a large degree because you have senior staff and you have the leaders pretty much running things on a day-to-day basis, as far as agendas are concerned.”

It left him wanting more, Alesi said.

“We should be able to run the whole place like that,” Alesi said. “It would be great.”

At this point, though, Schneiderman is himself not expecting to be in the Senate long. The fundraising is underway for an attorney general run, with most people assuming that Andrew Cuomo will himself be switching to the governor’s race. So is the rumor mill, which had whispers going for weeks that Schneiderman was worried about the various political consequences he might face from the Monserrate committee report, including among Latino voters.

Schneiderman rejected those rumors as baseless, pointing out that the final report, with the buffet of options on Monserrate’s fate that included expulsion, had been signed by all nine members.  

He expects an expulsion resolution to come to the floor, and he expects to vote for it. And he expects his political plans to remain in place.

“Certainly, attorney general is my dream job, and when there’s an opening, I will run,” he said.

Last year, he skipped a race to succeed Manhattan District Attorney Robert Morgenthau that many had long expected him to make, citing a need to remain in the Senate and the opportunities ahead of him as chair of the Codes Committee. This year, he says he can and will be able to balance the statewide campaign he is anticipating and the ambitious agenda he is hoping to shepherd through the Senate.

After decades of one-house bills and deferred solutions to looming problems, he says he and the Senate Democrats have learned from last year and are planning to come out strong.

“You could play this game,” he said, assessing the standard Albany approach to date, “but now the game’s over.”—EIRD