ALBANY–Malcolm Smith is hanging on by a thread.
A well-placed Democratic source told me the conference of black senators–without Smith–met yesterday and gave their blessing to John Sampson of Brooklyn to lead the Democratic caucus in the State Senate after a coup put a coalition of Republicans and renegade Democrats in charge.
“It’s not clear that Sampson has the votes yet to put this all together, he’s a few votes short,” the source said.
Liz hashed out some more of the context of this here.
Meetings are going on this morning to bring aboard other members of the caucus, including several white members who were loathe to make a play for conference leadership without first waiting for the black caucus to move.
