One Down

It seems like one of the No's has decided it's to go.

New York state Senator George Onorato, a veteran Queens Democrat, will not be seeking reelection to the seat he has held since 1983, clearing the way for a run by Assemblyman Michael Gianaris.

Onorato, eighty-two years of age and hundreds of years behind the times, is the Senate Democrats' oldest member, but his recent "no" vote on gay marriage made him vulnerable to a primary challenge, which caused party leaders to fret and fume and urge him to step aside. It seems Senate Democrats were anxious to prevent a primary between Onorato and Gianaris, but were just as interested in harnessing the assemblyman's fund-raising skills for their upcoming battle with the GOP for control of the Senate.

Gianaris, 39, was elected to the Assembly in 2000. He raised some $2 million for a short-lived state attorney general run in 2006 and was the state Democratic Party's finance chairman as well.

He had been considering another attorney general run this fall, but now says, "The Senate is where the battle has been joined in many ways....For better or worse, the fate of New York will be decided in there, and the reason I'm in public service is to roll up my sleeves and make government work for people. There's no better place to do that now."

For better and better, though, Onorato is leaving.