The New York State Senate is “poised to approve same-sex marriage tonight,” according to former Newsday scribe Reid Epstein, who now writes for Politico and is covering tonight’s vote on marriage equality.
Epstein reports:
New York’s state senate is poised to approve same-sex marriage Friday night, paving the way for the Empire State to become the sixth and by far largest state to allow gays and lesbians to wed.
The senate’s GOP majority leader, Dean Skelos, announced Friday afternoon that he will call a vote on the legislation. It will be “a vote of conscience for every member of the Senate,” he said in a press release. Half the chamber — 31 members — have said publicly that they will vote for the legislation. Gov. Andrew Cuomo, a first-year Democrat who campaigned on legalizing same-sex marriage, has been negotiating with several moderate Republicans to secure their votes the last two weeks.
“After many hours of deliberation and discussion over the past several weeks among the members, it has been decided that same sex marriage legislation will be brought to the full Senate for an up or down vote,” Skelos said in the press release.
It was not immediately clear what time a vote would take place.
To follow breaking news about marriage equality on Twitter, search #ny4m.
