The state Senate did more work than it's done in a year yesterday when it expelled convicted domestic abuser Hiram Monserrate. Bravo, Senators.

The Senate voted 53-to-8 to immediately oust the senator, Hiram Monserrate, a Queens Democrat convicted last fall of a misdemeanor for dragging his companion down the hallway of his apartment building.

The expulsion leaves the fragile balance of power in the Senate divided between 31 Democrats and 30 Republicans. Because legislation requires 32 votes to pass, Democrats will be unable to approve bills with just the support of their own conference. In an effort to minimize the disruption, Gov. David A. Paterson late Tuesday called a special election for March 16.

But rather than bringing the issue to a close, the expulsion vote could be the beginning of a lengthy legal fight that could create further instability in Albany's volatile political atmosphere. Mr. Monserrate said on Tuesday that he planned to run in the special election.

But Times columnist Jim Dwyer thinks there was more to this story:

During his 13 months as a state senator, both parties found Mr. Monserrate to be a useful bug to have in the bed. He was elected as a Democrat in 2008, when the party gained a majority in the Senate for the first time in decades. Six months after taking office, he switched sides with Senator Pedro Espada Jr., who was given various emoluments and a splendid title by the Republicans so that they could recapture control of the Senate.

A week later, Mr. Monserrate jumped back to the Democrats -- who rewarded him by ousting a Monserrate enemy, their majority leader, and giving him a committee chairmanship, which came with a $12,500 stipend.

For the Republicans, the loss of their fleeting majority with Mr. Monserrate's double cross -- or was it a triple cross? -- probably didn't seem so bad when he was convicted of the misdemeanor assault and it was left to the Democrats to figure out what to do with him. A felony conviction means automatic expulsion, but not a misdemeanor. The Democrats met in private for much of Tuesday.

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