State Senator Darrel Aubertine thought that a one-year extension of Power for Jobs was a done deal earlier this week.
Apparently he was wrong, as Aubertine continues trying to find a way to get the power-paralyzed Senate to approve the extension by Tuesday, when the program runs out.
Wednesday, Aubertine issued a press release saying that although the Senate remained in gridlock, it had passed a "non-controversial calendar" on which a Senator's vote was recorded as a "yes" simply by virtue of his/her attendance at the session that day.
Now, it appears the Power for Jobs extension was deliberately held off the non-controversial calendar, Aubertine says.
He's offered a compromise - a temporary power-sharing arrangement to get the matter passed by Tuesday's deadline. Aubertine says 400,000 jobs supported by Power for Jobs hang in the balance.
Aubertine proposes that all Senators making a claim on Senate leadership step aside for a day, allowing a "neutral" Senator to be appointed Senate President Pro Tempore to move critical legislation.
"What the people of New York need is for their issues to take center stage and have Senators Espada, Skelos, Smith and Sampson go to their neutral corners and have someone else take the reins for four hours or whatever it takes for these non-controversial bills to move," Aubertine said. "Then both sides can resume their negotiations over who gets what title."
Aubertine said the Governor's office and Democratic leadership on the Senate have expressed support for his compromise.
However, Senate Republican leader Dean Skelos and Democrat Pedro Espada, whose defection to the GOP led to a 31-31 power stalemate, refuse to consider it, he said.
