Assembly Member Michael Gianaris' (D-Queens) expected run next year for the Council seat being vacated by term-limited Peter Vallone, Jr. is seen as something of a cakewalk. But if Gianaris tries for the Council speaker’s chair, a post he has for some years been eyeing, his path will not be as easy, insiders say. Gianaris has money and legislative experience on his side, but will be competing against a handful of Council members already lobbying for the job. Incumbent Council members said to be considering the spot include Daniel Garodnick (D), Jessica Lappin (D) and Inez Dickens (D) from Manhattan and Maria del Carmen Arroyo (D) from the Bronx. Meanwhile, another expected would-be speaker, Assembly Member Herman “Denny” Farrell (D-Manhattan), has decided to remove himself from the race.

“He is focused at this point on his Assembly re-election bid. He supports Councilwoman Dickens for the speaker post,” said a Farrell aide, speaking on behalf of the Assembly member.

That would remove a major obstacle for Gianaris, the first Greek-American elected to office from the city, who can wage a Council campaign without risking his Assembly seat. When asked if he would run for Council, Gianaris was coy.

“That is something I am going to seriously consider, but right now I am going to focus on making a case that I deserve re-election in my Assembly district,” he said.
So far there is only one announced candidate for the Council race, Republican Robert Hornak, the deputy director of the city office for Assembly Minority Leader James Tedisco (R-Saratoga/Schenectady). The district is overwhelmingly Democratic.

With more than $2 million in campaign funds from an abandoned 2006 race for attorney general and his Assembly committee, Gianaris will have enough funds to create alliances, if he wanted. However, more than half of that money would likely be off limits because city campaign finance rules are much more restrictive than those of the state, a spokesperson for the city Campaign Finance Board said.

In addition to the healthy campaign coffers, more than 30 of the current Council members will be term-limited out next year, giving any new member a relatively better chance of winning the speaker seat, said political consultant Evan Stavisky. Notably, though, the Council did not elect a new member as speaker after the last term limits purge in 2001, going instead with Gifford Miller (D-Manhattan).

Gianaris had reportedly wanted to make an earlier transition to the Council to give himself some seniority going into the 2009 speaker’s race. The plan involved Vallone running for Gianaris’ Assembly seat, prompting a special election which Gianaris would run in and likely win, in exchange for Gianaris backing Vallone for Queens district attorney down the line. Gianaris would then have had a few years in the Council to develop relationships.

When asked about the never-realized proposal, Vallone characterized it as a rumor, but said he would not comment on private conversations. He said he is committed to finishing his full term on the Council.

The key to winning the speaker seat, party insiders say, is Queens county support. The county Democratic Party has picked the winner in each of the three campaigns for speaker over the 22 years since the post has existed.

Stavisky, who has worked on earlier Gianaris Assembly campaigns, said it was essential for any candidate to get the backing of the tightly unified machine.

“The first challenge is how to find the support of Queens County,” he said.

He discounted the theory that any borough would expect its legislators to be next in line because a Manhattan member had had the seat for two terms.

“It is a new game every time and the political circumstances are different each time,” he said.

Queens has been willing to back a speaker from Manhattan in exchange for getting control of powerful committee chairs, as it did when backing Miller and Christine Quinn (D-Manhattan).

Some believe that the Queens County organization should continue this strategy.

“I think Queens has a net loss if it has the speaker. You can’t have the speaker and Land Use, Finance and Public Safety,” said one Queens Council member, adding that all but one Democrat from the borough currently had a committee chair.

Vallone, though, said the decision was far from simple.

“Queens has done very well when my father was speaker and it has done very well when it controls the most powerful committees,” said Vallone, chairman of the public safety committee.

County executive secretary Michael Reich said he could not yet speculate on which candidate the organization might back, since no one yet knows all the candidates running for Council, let alone speaker.

But the county party would have only one factor in mind when deciding who to support, according to Reich.

“Our goal,” he said, “is to make sure Queens County is in a position to promote the issues that are important [to it].”