ALBANY -- Dean Skelos is the new Senate Majority Leader.  While he was leader once before, he has never lead his conference during a budget negotiation.  The good news for Skelos is that he hails from a politically powerful region of the state, but that could also mean bad news.

The media refer to Dean Skelos as either Senate Majority Leader or the Republican Senator from Rockville Centre, but politically he's a member of the Long Island 9.  
 
The 9 are a powerful bloc making up more than 25% of the new Republican majority in the Senate.  
 
Lawrence Levy, Hofstra, Executive Dean, National Center for Suburban Studies said, "Almost all the issues that the LI 9 care about revolves around schools…When they say taxes taxes taxes they mean property taxes." 

But Levy says that while they have given lip service to spending cuts, they have also promised to bring home education aid.
 
Lawrence Levy continues, "So I will be interested in watching them deal with the conundrum of having to keep their word while cutting spending…YET delivering for their home districts."
 
But not all 9 are equally powerful.  Two members are rookies, Lee Zeldin and Jack Martin, something that Skelos and the other 5 veterans will have to remember…
 
Levy said, "It also will be interesting to see how the older lions of the 9 interact with the rookies.  Those are the one who have been there a long time and get elected by wide margins.   

As leader of the entire conference, Skelos will also have to take care for two other newbies, from another part of the state where education funding is seen as critical: Mark Grisanti and Patrick Gallivan.