ALBANY—When the State Senate returns on Wednesday, it will take up a school governance bill passed by the Assembly as well as a separate bill amending it.
This means that the Assembly bill—which David Paterson has said he will sign—would become law, and any changes or input that some Senate Democrats hope to make will sit in purgatory.
Two sources involved with the internal negotiations in the Democratic conference say those changes will be codified into a chapter amendment, which would revise the law already on the books. If it were ever to pass the Assembly.
“If we didn’t do it he first time, I don’t see why we’d come back,” said Assemblyman Michael Benjamin, a Bronx Democrat who is a strong proponent of legislation that vests power in the hands of the mayor.
