Helen Sears has switched sides.

Just six months ago, Helen Sears was fighting to hold on to her City Council seat in Jackson Heights, Queens. She hadn't done much over the past eight years, and had voted to give herself a shot at a third term. Still, the Queens County Democratic machine, which was going to back Daniel Dromm for the seat before term limits were extended, now switched to longtime machine member Sears. (It's possible that they went so far as to make some sort of deal with Alfonso Quiroz, who had planned to run but dropped out suddenly and endorsed Sears. So far, there doesn't seem to be any payoff for Quiroz, however, despite several opportunities, so that possibility is in doubt.) Dromm got the active backing of the Working Families Party, and the fight was on.

Dromm won. Sears lost.

Now Hiram Monserrate has been expelled from the state Senate and a special election has been called for March 16. The Democratic machine (along with a lot of non-machine aligned people) is backing Assembly member José Peralta. Peralta is not completely clean (there are some pretty bad campaign finance violations), but he's about 99 44/100% better than Monserrate.

Meanwhile, Sears has turned against the party that used to back her. She has gotten the Republican line.

Why? Read on...

Monserrate is working hard to get the 3,000 petition signatures he needs to get on the ballot as an independent candidate. The district is heavily Latino, but not overwhelmingly so. Sears figures that if Monserrate and Peralta split the Latino vote she could win by getting all the others; it's the same concept David Yassky tried to leverage in 2006 when he ran for Congress.

So why does Helen Sears want to run for state Senate? She's no spring chicken, she never did much when she was in the City Council, and she seems to have no real agenda on issues (healthcare, maybe, since she claims that she used to run a hospital). The only reason anyone has offered so far is that she wants to get back at Daniel Dromm for not getting out of her way and letting her slide easily into a third term in the Council. Dromm is backing Peralta, in large part because Peralta will vote yes on marriage equality while Monserrate voted no.

Of course, it's possible that Monserrate won't make the ballot. He'll probably get 3,000 signatures, but will they hold up? It's a sure bet that the Democratic machine will pull out all the stops to knock him off the ballot, and they're pretty good at challenging petition signatures. If Monserrate doesn't make the ballot, Sears is going to get taken to the cleaners. In a three-way race, Peralta will probably win anyway, but it's not nearly a sure thing.

One other thing -- if Sears wins, she'll caucus with the Republicans, meaning a 31-31 tie in the Senate (unless Espada, Diaz or Kruger switch sides, in which case watch out).

So if you have any time over the next three-plus weeks, come to Queens and help!