ALBANY—Just before 8 p.m. last night, the State Senate finally came into session to confirm several judges to their slots. Like most things the body does, it was not free of inter-party rancor.
The first nominee was Richard Dollinger, a former Democratic senator and formerly failed judicial candidate from the Rochester area, who watched from a gallery with his wife as his former Democratic colleagues heaped praise upon his nomination to be a Court of Claims judge. (“This sounds like a love fest, and it should be,” Senator Suzi Oppenheimer, a Westchester Democrat, said.)
Republicans were not on the chamber floor until just after the vote; five of them, however, were counted present earlier in the day to establish a necessary 34 vote quorum, clerks said.
