The collapse of the Amazon deal may have had another unintended consequence: endangering an ambitious progressive wish list in the state legislature. There is growing concern that some of the suburban state senators who supported the deal will now be careful about votes because of their more conservative-leaning districts.

In the last election, Long Island elected six Democratic senators. All of them won seats Republicans previously held, and all of them supported the Amazon deal.

"It's very disappointing. The majority conference had a lot of plans, including increasing school aid and to bring universal health care coverage to everyone," said Kevin Thomas, one of those Long Island senators. "We need to figure out how to raise revenue to do all of this now."

But while some critics blamed Majority Leader Andrea Stewart-Cousins for nominating her deputy, Queens State Sen. Michael Gianaris, to an obscure Albany board that could have scuttled the Amazon deal, others blamed the Long Island senators for failing to stop that move.

An editorial in the Long Island-based newspaper Newsday accused the newly-elected senators of remaining silent when they should have spoken up. Gov. Andrew Cuomo went a step further, singling out Sen. Todd Kaminsky, the Democrat who has held his Long island seat the longest. In a statement, a spokesperson for Cuomo said, "Senator Kaminsky cowered when he should have shown courage. Now all of Long Island suffers."

"Look, I certainly understand the anger, disappointment, and frustration, but I've supported the project," Kaminsky said. "So for all the blame to go around, to have it land on someone who supported the project, I think is a little odd."

 

But now some fear the Long Island members will be reluctant to support more progressive legislation such as bail reform and driver's licenses for undocumented immigrants in the face of all the criticism that they sided with liberal critics of Amazon instead of their constituents. Their votes would be crucial for the passage of any legislation.

"I'm not going to take a vote I don't want and we have a good group of people who aren't afraid to speak up," Kaminsky said. "No one is going to force us to vote on things we don't want to and no one is going to take us down a path that we don't want to go."

 

 

 

Sen. Julia Salazar of Brooklyn, a vocal Amazon critic, said the Democratic agenda remains on track. "I think that constituents generally don't favor these sorts of transactional moves with regard to completely separate issues."

Cuomo has pointed to the fault lines between the city members and the Long Island and Hudson Valley senators for several weeks now. That became much more pronounced this week, with the Amazon deal blowing up.