ALBANY—Tuesday’s debate over same-sex marriage legislation in the State Assembly was supposed, according to the measure’s advocates, to demonstrate to some fence-sitting state senators that there is safety in numbers for supporters of the measure. But is that true?
There were five Assembly members who changed their votes from 2007, when an almost-identical measure passed the chamber: Repblicans Janet Duprey and Fred Thiele, Independence Party member Tim Gordon, and Democrats Bob Reilly and Sandra Galef [corrected]. Duprey, who told me she came to her decision after much deliberation, joined her North Country colleague, Republican assemblywoman Teresa Sayward. Both of their districts overlap with that of State Senator Betty Little.