The video uses an photograph of Golden getting a foot massage earlier this week in Albany (part of a group's lobbying effort). While Governor Cuomo has talked about getting state government working again, and being above the fray of partisan politics, videos like this send a message that, even now, there are some political opportunities too good to pass up.

Predictions for how this race will turn out? Also, if you're voting in the district today, let me know what you're seeing out there.

"I am distributing turkeys to my seniors in the Bronx," Diaz told me by phone. He said he's distributing 2,000 turkeys. Last year, he was being wooed by both Republican Leader Dean Skelos and Democratic Leader Malcolm Smith in a fight over his chamber's leadership, and his Thanksgiving festivities were very well attended.

Diaz  left Albany on Tuesday after making a stink on the floor Monday night that there was no reason for him to be in Albany until a deal is reached on New York's budget deficit.

"When they get a deal for the budget, they're going to call me," Diaz told me. And the vote on Leandra's law?

"That was important, and I'm sorry that I missed that one, but I am here in my district distributing turkeys to my seniors--seniors that don't always have something to eat, and who the governor wants to cut $10 million from."

The bill passed 58-0. According to a Senate clerk, Senator Marty Golden, a Brooklyn Republican, was excused and the other absent legislators were Velmanette Montgomery, a Brooklyn Democrat and Ken LaValle, a Long Island Republican.

Already there are rumblings in the chamber to have a committee review the matter; under the Legislative Law, senators could then approve Monserrate's expulsion.

"Hopefully he would step aside on his own and not have to go through the committee process," State Senator Marty Golden, a Republican who has criticized Monserrate repeatedly, said.

"There's a whole series of issues here that would leave one to believe that he acted improperly. Nobody should be above the law, least of all a man that is going to be drafting legislation to protect women when he is an individual convicted of assaulting a woman her in the city. What signal does that send to women across the city, the state?"

Clearly one that is awkward for the chamber's Democrats, who went into immediate hedge mode, and will face the politically sticky scenario of having to sit beside someone convicted of assaulting a woman.

"We have to move forward and weigh the various options," State Senator Jeff Klein told me. "We have to look to see, following the letter of the law, on how he'll be treated based on prior circumstances and other members of the legislature who were convicted of misdemeanors."

State Senator Diane Savino echoed Klein's sentiments, adding the conviction is "not a petty crime." An official statement from Conference Leader John Sampson (who's in China) said that Democrats "respect the decision rendered" but are "discussing the potential for further disciplinary action."

"There is no doubt that this has been a troubling situation for all those involved," Sampson said in the statement, "but the Senate will continue to move forward and fulfill its duty."

We are spared the return to complete chaos that would have ensued if Democrats were reduced--albeit temporarily, until a special election was called--to a 31-member caucus that could not pass bills requiring majority approval. Many politically difficult votes like last spring's budget and a bailout for the M.T.A. passed along party lines. But any hearings will no doubt be a distraction from official business, including efforts to address a mid-year budget imbalance.

Golden said that if Monserrate does not step aside, hearings should "advance as quickly as possible."

The Senate is not currently in session; David Paterson indicated earlier he might call a special session to deal with budget cuts on Oct. 27.

"I think it was deliberate. I think he was judge shopping and he was wrong," said State Senator Marty Golden, a Brooklyn Republican, noting that Judge L. Priscilla Hall was appointed to the Appellate Division Second Department four months ago. "I find it pretty shocking that this governor, out of all the judges in the state of New York, he would have to choose judges that he just raised to the next level in appointment within the next four months."

If this sounds familiar, it is. Democrats, including the governor himself, were attacking Republicans for filing their court challenge to the constitutionality of Ravitch's appointment in Nassau County instead of Albany. Now the case has been appealed to Brooklyn, and everyone expects it will work its way to the nine-judge Court of Appeals in Albany.

I asked Blair Horner, an advocate of transparency, ethics and such, if this boded poorly for public confidence in the ultimate result of the case.

"I hope it's just the typical antics that you see from whatever one side thinks they're on better ground, depending on the ideological orientation of the judge," he said. "It's hard to say. This is, in our opinion, not a slam dunk one way or another. Reasonable people can differ, and that may be the way the court ultimately comes down one way or another. I'm hoping at the Court of Appeals level, that that's the court of last resort and no one will attack the judges themselves."

Monserrate was charged in December and indicted in March for cutting his girlfriend's face with a piece of glass during an argument. (Both Monserrate and his girlfriend say what occurred was an accident.) In February and March, campaign filings show, the New York City Patrolmen's Benevolent Association gave Monserrate $950; the State Correctional Officers and Police Benevolent Association gave $1,000 in February and the New York City Deputy Sheriffs Association PAC gave $500 in March.

On January 15, records show, Monserrate's committee logged a $2,000 payment to attorney Edward Irizarry and $7,500 to Irving Seidman, who continued the case. It is now being handled by Joseph Tacopina.

"If he's going to use that money for defense, everyone who gave money to that fund should demand it back," State Senator Marty Golden, a Republican former police officer and outspoken Monserrate critic, said. "Sometimes elected officials have been known to use their campaign funds for legal matters because it's job-related. And then there are those that are arrested for criminal acts. He stabbed that woman in the face with a broken glass on his own time in his own apartment. It had nothing to do with government business. Anyone giving him money--especially law enforcement--for his defense should be appalled."

"Their willingness to fund someone who has been indicted for a violent crime is certainly a contradiction when looking at these kinds of issues," said Marcia Pappas, the president of the New York chapter of the National Organization of Women. "The fact that these police departments would have bureaus or departments that help victims of domestic violence, and yet in turn would give money to someone who was indicted for such a crime is such a contradiction and such hypocrisy."

Joseph Mancini, a spokesman for the PBA, did not immediately return a call seeking comment. The Corrections Officers PBA did not return a call seeking comment. I couldn't find a working number for the Sheriffs Association.

Monserrate also declined to comment, but told me in January that "campaign committees routinely spend money on legal expenses that are related to the campaign, to the candidacy and to the candidate." He also asked his colleagues to help fund his legal defense.

In total, Monserrate raised over $42,000 since January. The Queens Democrat was one of two people to defect last month and spark a month-long leadership struggle; he was rewarded by fellow turncoat Pedro Espada Jr. and other members of the so-called "four amigos."

UPDATE: Mike Nieves, a Monserrate aide, said that after receiving advice from attorneys the senator repaid $7,500 to the campaign committee in May to cover the money spent on legal bills. The transfer is listed as a contribution with "repayment" as the explanation.

"You'd think that would spur the Democrats to want to broker a deal here, and to legitimate a vote that was taken here. We live in a democracy--maybe that's where they should start looking at democracy and where a vote was taken," Golden said, putting his arm on my shoulder as he spoke. I noted that Michael Bloomberg, in announcing the freeze, was non-partisan as he blamed dithering by all state senators.

"We've been trying to put this together, and we just see that the Democrats are unwilling to do that," he replied. "They're all over the place. I think you'll start to see, I believe, a coming together very shortly in this dilemma here in the state capitol and a coming together of the senate."

I asked if Bloomberg's action was justified.

"I can't speak to the mayor," he replied. "You can't spend if you don't have the dollars."

And cops? Should they be on the block?

"The answer is we should be putting cops on the street especially when you see the legislation--the egregious legislation--the Democrats passed that will put more criminals on the street. So to put more criminals on the street you need more cops to protect our families and our city."

"Several of them are in ‘Oh my God, what have we done' mode," said one Republican who is close to many of the senators. "Pedro is obviously enjoying this immensely. The image of Dean standing mute while Pedro pontificates is a little much. And the general stoppage ... some are saying we never should have done it, some are saying, they should have said bring three or four or don't come."

That much seemed clear Thursday when the two top figures in the Republican-led coalition—Espada and State Senator Dean Skelos—emerged from a negotiating session.

Espada proclaimed he had Skelos' support. Skelos said nothing. When pressed, his comments were less than clear.

Later in the day, Skelos issued a statement decrying attacks against Espada and touting the historic nature of the first Latino to attain the title of president pro tempore. There was also this line: "The members of the Senate Republican Conference stand solidly behind Senator Espada as Temporary President and we look forward to building our reform coalition together."

Still, no first-person declaration. Skelos was pressed by the Times Union's Irene Jay Liu in a walk-and-talk. She asked if Skelos was "going to stand by him throughout this."

"I'm going to stand beside him because that was the vote of the Senate," Skelos said.

Since the coup first happened two weeks ago, I've asked Republicans whether they were concerned about welcoming the much-investigated Espada into the fold. Either they're actually thrilled at ceding a bunch of authority to a free agent and not even getting into the majority for doing so, or they're simply showing more message discipline than Democrats, who are currently locked into their own unsavory bargain with State Senator Hiram Monserrate.

"I was more concerned with making changes," State Senator Kemp Hannon, a Long Island Republican, told me the day after the coup. "With making sure there is a fair budget in this state, which there is not. With making sure there is fair funding of the M.T.A., which there is not. With making sure there is property tax changes, which there is not. If all of those things can be addressed, then the voters will be responsible for addressing all this set of other questions that exist."

As negotiations over power-sharing started, I asked State Senator Joe Griffo if he would want Espada to have a seat at the bipartisan table.

"Anybody who supports those rules changes, which I think are substantive and dramatic, those are the kind of people that I think we need to continue to say we'll work together with to move forward on the critical issues facing New York," he said. And Espada, as a colleague?

"I think the last I heard is that he remains a member of the Democratic Party, and that we're welcoming anybody who wants to work with us to try to change the way we do government in Albany," he replied.

The strongest statement of support I've heard for Espada came from State Senator Marty Golden, who attacked the Democrats for attacking Espada.

"Right now he's innocent until proven guilty. I've had the privilege of working with them in the past, and I've found he's an all-right guy, and I've found him and his son, who I worked with on the City Council, to be good family people," Golden said.

Golden was somewhat more judgmental about the other defecting Democrat earlier this year, when Monserrate was first arrested on charges of glassing his girlfriend in the face.

Golden explained: "Here, he had been arrested. This guy [Espada] hasn't been indicted. This guy hasn't done anything wrong yet, although the Democrats would want you to believe he has."

Yet?

"The question is not 'yet,' he hasn't done anything wrong at all. The Dems would want you to believe ‘yet' is the word," he said. "We'll see what happens. Grand juries meet on a regular basis, and sometimes they file charges and sometimes they don't."

Newly named Democratic conference leader John Sampson is, as the Post noted this morning, a "foe" of the system and is one of the co-sponsors of a bill that would have diluted the mayor's power over the Panel for Educational Policy.

The Assembly had been waiting for the State Senate to iron out the wrinkles in its version of the legislation, but, with the upper chamber now in flux, finally went ahead and acted on its own. A bill was voted through the Senate education committee Monday. Senate Republicans say they will pass it.

 "I think it's a good compromise," State Senator Marty Golden, a Brooklyn Republican, told me yesterday after a brief "session" in the chamber. "I don't see Democrats or Republicans having difficulty with that bill."

State Senator Frank Padavan, a Republican from Queens, added that he was "prepared to introduce it as our companion bill."

"There may be some accommodations here and there, but essentially the bill meets the requirements that we have been discussing with the chancellor particularly in regard to superintendents and districts, and the advisory panel," he said. "All of the essential ingredients are in it."

Despite pending litigation, the Republican-led coalition claiming to control the State Senate after a coup Monday entered the chamber and conducted some brief business, but left without passing any bills.

I didn't get back to Albany in time to see it (Liz has a blow-by-blow here), but State Senator Kemp Hannon said that 32 members entered the chamber—30 Republicans plus the turncoat Democrats Hiram Monserrate and Pedro Espada Jr.—were counted in a quorum, and adopted the journal from Monday's proceedings. No bills were enacted, because the official bill jackets remained locked in a drawer, Hannon said. The officially appointed clerk, Thomas Testo, and stenographer did not show up. The coalition provided staffers. State Senator George Winner, an Elmira Republican, presided.

Monserrate, who has been under considerable pressure to come back into the Democratic fold, was counted in the quorum, made a statement saying he wouldn't vote for any bills today, and left.

Protesters organized by Citizen Action swamped the lobby outside the chamber, chanting "voters not donors" and "the Senate is not for sale."

I asked State Senator Marty Golden, a Brooklyn Republican, whether he was concerned the proceedings today would be nullified by a court.

"How can it be declared illegal if you have 32 members and they have 30 members?" He asked. "Any judge in the land can count."