Amigos Stick to Thursday, Espada Softens on Co-Presidency

ALBANY—Thursday Thursday Thursday!

The now-five amigos emerged from their breakfast at the Crowne Plaza Hotel several minutes after Democratic Senate leader John Sampson. They designated the somehow-always-quotable Senator Ruben Diaz Sr. to be their spokesman.

"Today we're celebrating the first 30 days of the coup, and this is the beginning of the end. We are keeping with our Thursday deadline, and we are asking both leaders and the governor and anyone to issue, by tomorrow, come to an agreement," Diaz said.

Neither he nor any of the other senators present—Martin Malave Dilan, Carl Kruger, Pedro Espada Jr. and Hiram Monserrate—would elaborate on what unspecified action they would take on Thursday. But they're sticking by their vague threat.

Dilan, a new addition to the group, was asked why he was there. He initially said it had to do with his membership in the Latino Caucus of the State Senate, then offered that he was partly driven to join the amigos by a comment made yesterday by Senator Jeff Klein that "people like that are irrelevant."

"I felt it's a racist comment and I'm not going to stand for it," Dilan said.

Espada did say one new thing: He can live with a rotating senate presidency. This provision was not contained in a proposal put forward Tuesday evening by his Republican allies, but it is in the proposal made by Klein.

"I'm now at a point now where it's not about me, it's about the process and finalizing the process. If both conferences can agree to a middle ground—I've thrown this out before, you've heard me talk about a six-month term for this—whether it's a day or week or six months, I think that we can finalize that in 24 hours," Espada said. "It's an option on the table."