Share This Article
In last night’s primary election, Sen. Rev. Ruben Diaz, Sr. defeated his challenger, community organizer Charlie Ramos, to move on to the general election in the Senate’s 32nd District, where he’s been in office since 2003.
But it wasn’t all smiles for Diaz. While he was victorious, his Senate buddy, Pedro Espada, Jr., lost his seat to challenger Gustavo Rivera. Diaz has been a staunch defender of Espada throughout this election season, endorsing and even campaigning for him.
“I’m going to lose an amigo,” Diaz told reporters as poll numbers started coming in during his election party last night-a classy buffet dinner and open bar celebration at Morris Park restaurant Maestro’s.
This afternoon, Diaz sent out a press release saying that with Espada’s looming departure, he “refuses for hispanics to forgo leadership” in the State Senate, and expects his colleagues to fill Espada’s vacant spots with other Hispanic legislators (Espada is the Majority Leader, and also heads the Senate’s Housing Committee).
“I will not accept a ‘one step forward, two steps backwards’ approach toward participatory democracy for Hispanics in the Senate,” he wrote.
He goes on to say that he doesn’t want the positions himself, but lists a number of other Hispanic senators who he thinks should get the titles-including Espada rival, and now Senator-elect, Gustavo Rivera.
At his election party last night, the generally over-the-top Diaz was somewhat subdued, though still colorfully dressed in his usual cowboy hat and Western-style shirt, and occasionally singing into the DJ’s microphone. He spent most of the night, however, on a small couch outside the actual baquet room with his campaign workers.
“There’s going to be a tsunami here tonight!” the Senator kept saying, in reference to his landslide win against Ramos (Diaz got 78 percent of the votes, over Ramos’ 21 percent).
Ramos’ challenge made headlines this year, as he received endorsements from a number of civil and gay rights groups who saw him as a good shot at ousting Diaz, who feircely opposes gay marriage.
At his party last night, Diaz suggested his opponents in the gay community might try to use the State’s new voting system-a scanning machine that debuted yesterday, to a fair amount of complications-as a reason to dispute his victory.
“Let’s just see how they try to spin this one,” he said.
