One of the two longest serving state legislators in the nation, New York Sen. John Marchi who has served in the Senate for 50 years, announced his retirement yesterday. Sen. Marchi, 85, served for many years as chair of the powerful Senate Finance Committee. An erudite man given to flowery oratory, he is well-known to veteran legislators active in interstate organizations. He was a leader of the Council of State Governments at the time of the formation of NCSL. He was actively involved in the negotiations over the merger of the three organizations that came together to form NCSL. The Council of State Governments provided crucial funding for the first six months of the new organization.
Sen. Marchi represents Staten Island, which was a Republican stronghold when he was first elected from that party in 1956 but is now solidly Democratic. Sen. Marchi has held onto the seat through his personal popularity (he once defeated John Lindsay in a Republican primary for mayor of New York) even as district demographics have changed. Speculation is that the seat may go to the Democrats with Sen. Marchi's retirement.
New York has the longest history of split control between the two chambers of any state--the Assembly has been controlled by Democrats since 1974 and the Senate by Republicans since 1966. The Republicans still hold a margin of 35-27 over the Democrats in the Senate, but that margin has been declining in recent years, which only increases the political stakes for the two parties in Sen. Marchi's retirement.
Tied with Sen. Marchi for longest serving legislator in the country is Wisconsin Sen. Fred Risser,
who was first elected to the State Assembly in 1956, the same year as
Sen. Marchi. Sen. Risser was elected to the Senate in 1962. He is up
for election this fall and has announced that he will run again in his
Madison district.
Comments