Senate Democratic spokesman Austin Shafran just released the following statement:

“In light of Senator Pedro Espada’s indictment, he has been removed as Majority Leader and Chair of the Senate Housing Committee effective immediately.”

Technically speaking, it’s Democratic Conference Chairman John Sampson who controls the committee chairmanships and Senate President Malcolm Smith who has the sole power to strip Espada of his leadership post.

As you’ll recall, the Democrats split the president and majority leader positions apart following the 2009 coup and let Espada keep the former title as part of the agreement that drew him back to the fold and ended the 31-day stalemate.

It was largely a ceremonial post, although there was also quite a sizable chunk of change that went along with it, most of which Espada spent on bulking up his staff.

The Democrats didn’t want to force all their members to vote “yes” on making Espada majority leader – the likelihood of them getting to 32 was pretty low, considering the folks like Sens. Neil Breslin and Liz Krueger would have probably rebelled.

So, in the end, Smith was elected president and then he appointed Espada majority leader. Hence, the power to remove Espada rested solely with Smith.

I also can’t help but point out the fact that today’s indictments came on the heels of Espada’s taxpayer-funded back-patting report …to think he might have actually believed that was somehow going to deflect attention from his criminal charges…bizarre.

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