Raw Politics from Queens to Albany
[Originally published in the May 2009 issue of Dollars&Sense, Baruch College - City University of New York.]
Former State Senator Hiram Monserrate
May 2009 – New York State Senator Hiram Monserrate is engaged in a two-fronted battle that could have broad implications for both his career and state government. After beginning to flex his political muscle in Albany, he was indicted in March on three felony counts and three misdemeanor counts of assault, involving his companion, Karla Giraldo, 30.
The indictment was handed up by a Queens grand jury, after Monserrate was accused of attacking Giraldo in December with a broken glass at his home in Jackson Heights. Monserrate has pleaded not guilty and says he fell while bringing her a glass of water.
He could face seven years in prison.
After the indictment, Monserrate temporarily stepped down as chairman of the Senate Consumer Protection Committee. He had previously agreed not to accept the stipend paid to committee chairs until the criminal case is settled.
This is not the only controversy Monserrate has faced recently. In November, he formed an independent caucus, known as the “Gang of Four,” that denied its support to the majority leader of the State Senate, Malcolm Smith, demanding more minority leadership on Senate Committees. The maneuver temporarily splintered the Democratic majority in the Senate even before it had finished taking control from Republicans for the first time in 40 years.
The challenge paid quick dividends for Monserrate. Days after he was sworn in as a Senator, the Democrats named Monserrate chair of the Senate Consumer Protection Committee.
Monserrate’s willingness to play hard-ball with his own party is not new. In 2006, while he was a Democratic City Councilman for the 21st district, he ran as an independent against the incumbent Democrat, John Sabini, for the 13th district in Queens. He lost by 236 votes. Last year, he ran unopposed for the same seat after Sabini resigned following his appointment to the chair of the New York State Racing and Wagering.
A Contentious Politician
Monserrate remains a controversial figure. “Hiram is in the State Senate without the real support from the community”, says Orlando Tobón, a Colombian-born community leader in Jackson Heights, where he has lived for 40 years and is known by many as ‘The Mayor of Jackson Heights.’
Tobón, who played himself in the Oscar-nominated 2004 film “Maria Full of Grace”, about young Latinas who are used as drug couriers, is typical of many local constituents who have a love-hate relationship with Monserrate. Tobón is grateful for Monserrate’s work as a two-term Councilman for Jackson Heights, Corona and Elmhurst, and says, “Now we have a voice in Albany, and that matters.”
Yet the relationship between Tobón and Monserrate, whose parents are Puerto Rican, is colored by etnich rivalries. When he ran for the City Council, Monserrate won the support of the diverse Latino neighborhood that includes Dominicans, Ecuadorians and Colombians, and he promissed to back a Colombian for his seat when his term was over.
Instead he backed Julissa Ferreras, a Dominican who was elected to the council in a special election in February.
Monserrate also is being investigated by the Queen District Attorney’s office for campaing improprieties involving city contributions to the community organization LIBRE, where Ferreras was chairwoman.
Monserrate declined repeated requests to be interview for this article.
Monserrate campaigning in Queens.
In the City Council, Monserrate is credited with spearheading several important reforms. He championed a law in 2005 requiring truth-in-pricing in retail stores. He also helped to draft the “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy, or Executive Order 41, that allows all city residents access to city services independently of their immigration status.
But why he might be best remembered by his constituents and many others is his victory over Mayor Michael Bloomberg to have Sunday parking-meter regulations rolled back, reinstating free parking everywhere in New York City on Sundays.
“I’m a religious person as well as many people in Queens, and getting out of church in the middle of the sermon to feed the parking meter was something not pleasant to God,” said Luis Castro, who served as a close adviser to Monserrate and his community liaison for more than eight years, before quitting that position last May. At the time Castro called his boss an “egocentric politician”; now he is helping Monserrate defend himself against the assault charges.
Indeed, perhaps no one knows Monserrate better than Castro, 52, who was born in Ecuador. He boast of helping Monserrate, a member of the Royal Rangers, a Protestan youth group similar to the Boy Scouts, which Monserrate joined at age 12.
“I saw Hiram for the first time in June of 1967 when his mother was eight months pregnant with him,” says Castro. “We have been friends for 41 years.”
Monserrate, 41, was raised in Chelsea, on Manhattan’s West Side, but later moved to Bellrose, Queens, with his parents. Monserrate dropped out of school at 17 to enlist in the Marine Corps; he eventually joined the Police Department for 12 years and earned a bachelor degree in political science at Queens College.
Monserrate became the first police officer to be elected to the Board of Directors of the New York Civil Liberties Union and was a founding member of the Latino Officers Association. He left the NYPD in 2000 to run for Democratic distric leader in Queens and a year later, for City Council.
Many of those who know Monserrate best assume he has his eyes on higher offices. Castro expects his former boss to run for mayor, and Javier Castaño, editor-in-chief of the Spanish language newspaper Hoy before it closed in December, agrees that “Monserrate might see the State Senate as a springboard for City Hall.”
But Castaño points out this challenge for Monserrate: “In the city he’s a strong politician, he has power. In Albany, it’s going to be more about diplomacy.”
