Senate celebrates Star Wars Day two weeks late

Planet Albany sometimes feels like it exists in a galaxy far, far away. And on Monday, state senators celebrated a belated Star Wars Day, complete with stormtroopers and lightsabers. 

Star Wars Day falls on May 4 every year (May the Fourth be with you), but this year, state leaders were still negotiating a late budget. So instead, the commemoration happened on May 19, when lawmakers in the state Senate passed a resolution officially recognizing May 4 as Star Wars Day. There are few similarities between the Galactic Senate and the New York state Senate – Gov. Kathy Hochul may be a hard-charging executive, but she’s not a secret Sith lord – but both have a shared dysfunction that can grind government work to a standstill.  

The resolution brought out the passionate inner nerds of members from both sides of the aisle. Before the session even started, state Sens. Gustavo Rivera and George Borrello showed off their lightsabers – green for Rivera, a Democrat, and red for Borrello, a Republican. (Forget that red is the color of the Sith.) They crossed sabers for a few photos in a moment of bipartisan camaraderie before taking their seats to get to work.

When the time came and state Senate Deputy Majority Leader Michael Gianaris – a diehard Star Wars fan – stood to introduce the resolution, two stormtroopers entered the chamber and went to flank Gianaris. “Madame president, I have a bad feeling about this,” he jokingly said as the soldiers of the evil Empire stood beside him. 

Gianaris, Rivera and Borrello each spoke about the impact that Star Wars has had on both themselves personally and on the wider culture – nearly 50 years after the first movie premiered. “1983, I was eight years old, and the first movie I remember seeing in the movie theater was Return of the Jedi,” Rivera said, after putting down his lightsaber. “That’s why, even up to this day, even though people don’t like it, I still love me some Ewoks.”