agreement was allegedly reached between Senator Smith and the so-called "Gang of Three"; reports indicated that as part of the deal, Senator Smith agreed not to bring same-sex marriage legislation to a floor vote in the Senate during the 2009–2010 legislative session. However, on December 10, 2008, Senator Smith announced that the alleged agreement with three Democratic dissidents had been abandoned, and confirmed that he would not pledge to hold off on a same-sex marriage bill in the upcoming session. Senator Smith's decision placed control of the Senate by the Democratic Party in doubt, thus jeopardizing the passage of same-sex marriage legislation (since the Senate Republican leadership was opposed to same-sex marriage). After reaching an agreement with three Democratic dissidents, Malcolm Smith was voted Senate Majority Leader on January 7, 2009. A bill to legalize same-sex marriage passed the New York State Assembly a second time in 2009. Later in 2009, Senator Thomas Duane (D-Manhattan) claimed that he had lined up support from a sufficient number of senators to pass same-sex marriage legislation, though opponents disagreed. Senator Malcolm Smith stated he would not put the bill to a vote until he was sure it would pass. While same-sex marriage advocates declared that same-sex marriage would pass the Senate by the end of June 2009, the bill was not debated and voted upon until December of that year. On December 2, 2009, same-sex marriage legislation was defeated on the floor of the New York State Senate by a vote of 24 to 38; no Republican voted yes, eight Democrats voted no. The Daily News described the defeat as a "major blow", while The New York Times stated that the defeat "all but ensures that the issue is dead in New York until at least 2011, when a new legislature will be installed." Elected officials and observers opined that the results of a 2009 special election in New York's 23rd Congressional District — in which a Republican candidate who had voted for same-sex marriage withdrew her candidacy in the face of a challenge from a Conservative Party candidate — affected the marriage vote in the Senate. In late 2010, before the January 2011 expiration of his term as governor, David Paterson reached out to members of the New York State Senate in an attempt to gauge support for the passage of same-sex marriage legislation during a lame-duck session of the Legislature; however,