State Sen. Kevin S. Parker, D-Brooklyn, who has a colorful reputation, casually tweeted at a Republican spokeswoman Tuesday and told her to kill herself.
He then deleted the Twitter post and apologized — only to come back at the spokeswoman less than an hour later, drawing calls for disciplinary action.
Given that it was Albany, of course, there were more than a few layers of backstory, complete with barely buried feelings of party betrayal, memories of disastrous legislative sessions and the real possibility of parking placard impropriety.
It seemed to all begin Tuesday with a Twitter post from Candice Giove, who works for the outgoing Republican majority leader, John J. Flanagan. Giove called attention to the possibly inappropriate use of Parker’s state-issued parking placard.
Parker, who is fond of bow ties and blunt-force bons mots, apparently did not like her tone.
“Kill yourself!” he wrote to Giove, the Republicans’ deputy communications director.
The attack immediately drew a startled response from Giove — “Did a senator just write this to me?” she wrote — and a barrage of criticism from people touched by suicide and Democrats like Lt. Gov. Kathy Hochul, who said that such a remark sounded “wildly inappropriate” when told of it during an event in Albany.
The kerfuffle also underscored the kind of challenges that the incoming Senate majority leader, Andrea Stewart-Cousins, may now face in leading a 39-member conference with a terrible track record of serving in the majority.
Indeed, the last time that Democrats led the Senate, in 2009-10, the chamber was crippled by defections and dysfunction that led to Republicans’ regaining and maintaining their own majority for the next eight years — often with the help of a group of rogue Democrats known as the Independent Democratic Conference, which collaborated with the Republicans (more on this in a moment).
Stewart-Cousins promptly expressed her displeasure with Parker’s remarks, saying that “suicide is a serious issue and should not be joked about in this manner,” even as Parker’s apology called his Twitter post “a poor choice of words.”
Then, less than an hour after apologizing, Parker decided to tweet some more. He suggested that Giove had been “on the wrong side of history for every important issue facing New York State,” pointing out Giove’s former role as a spokeswoman for the IDC, which was viewed by many Democrats in the state as treasonous for its long partnership with the Republican leadership.
Giove did not return fire — or return requests for comment.
Flanagan said in a statement that Parker’s “cavalier and harmful language shouldn’t be dismissed as just a poor choice of words.” He added: “Actions have consequences, and as a member of the incoming Democrat majority in the Senate, Kevin Parker should be reprimanded by his leadership immediately.”
The incident has already cost Parker one post: He agreed to step down from his role as a chairman of Jumaane Williams’ campaign for New York City public advocate.
Such outbursts are not uncommon for Parker, who once referred to Gov. David Paterson — a fellow Democrat and former colleague in the Senate — as a “coke-snorting” governor, a reference to Paterson’s admission of past drug use. (He also made reference to Paterson’s professional and sexual habits in particularly pointed terms.)
Nor was that the first time Parker had found himself in the headlines: In 2005, Parker had been arrested and charged with punching a traffic agent when he noticed the agent was writing a summons for the senator’s double-parked car. The charges were eventually dismissed.
Then, too, there was that time in 2009, when Parker was indicted on a charge of assaulting and menacing a New York Post photographer who was staking out the senator’s mother’s home. He was later found guilty of two misdemeanor counts of criminal mischief but acquitted of more serious felony charges. He received three years’ probation and a command to attend an anger management class.
Parker’s office did not return requests for comment on Tuesday’s Twitter statements or his use of the Senate parking placard, and it was unclear if the incident would derail his political career, or simply add to its pockmarked legacy.
One of the recent bills that Parker introduced would allow authorities to access an individual’s social media records before issuing a handgun license.
In explaining the need for that bill, Parker gave advice that he might have been wise to have later heeded.
“We are in a new age with new technology,” he said of his legislation. “And we need new rules.”
This article originally appeared in The New York Times.