Focus is on N. Y. City as reshuffled Senate returns
Upstate issues take back seat after coup
ALBANY — The State Senate, dubbed the New York City Council by critics for its current policy focus, returns Wednesday to Albany in what will be the first major test of its geographic and political leanings since Democrats took back control following the June 8 coup.
After last week’s ouster of Republican leadership — who briefly claimed control of the Senate and vowed to push property tax cuts and other issues important to upstate voters—the Democrats return this week to try to close out their long-stalled 2009 session.
But, as was the case earlier this year when a bailout of downstate’s transportation authority preoccupied Senate and Assembly Democrats for months, the talk of major priorities for the Wednesday session is focusing on New York City issues.
Things are supposed to be different, if everyone from the likes of new Senate Majority Leader Pedro Espada to Florida businessman and Buffalo Sabres owner B. Thomas Golisano are to be believed. The “new” Senate is about empowering rank-and-file lawmakers — Democrats and Republicans alike — to make it easier, for instance, to get bills to the floor.
The focus for this week’s session, however, is not unlike what Albany witnessed the previous six months: downstate-centric and with the usual Capitol secrecy surrounding what is on the agenda.
Asked Monday for the bills the Senate will be considering, a Senate Democratic spokesman could name only one: Legislation affecting an expired law that had the mayor in control of the New York City schools will be a “high priority” Wednesday.
Another hot-button issue being pushed by some senators: pro-tenant legislation affecting rent-control laws in New York City.
What’s not high on the priority list of the Senate Democratic leadership? Bills dealing with lowering property taxes, or cutting state mandates to help localities cut costs, or improving how industrial development agencies are run, or making technical changes many lawmakers say are needed to the Empire Zone program that gives tax breaks to companies.
“When the Senate returns this week, it must demonstrate that upstate is not irrelevant,” said Brian McMahon, executive director of the New York State Economic Development Council, a trade group of job-creation agencies.
In the past month, the Senate Democrats from New York City have battled with themselves as much as with the Republicans who briefly took over the chamber but did not have enough votes to actually pass any bills. The Democrats have feuded mightily across borough lines and racial and ethnic divides.
Whether the various factions can come together, at least for one or two days during their mid-July visit to Albany, remains to be seen. Not on the agenda — until September or so — are such divisive issues as same-sex marriage and dealing with what Gov. David A. Paterson said Monday was a looming budget deficit of as much as $1 billion. “My most optimistic expectation is pessimistic,” Paterson said of the revenue shortfall.
Both houses failed to adopt reforms to industrial development agencies. While companies can still use IDAs for things like cheap financing, not-for-profits have been cut out of the program for 16 months because of the dispute. As a result, $2 billion in projects for hospitals, universities, YMCAs, nursing homes and others are stalled. Several groups are pushing for passage this week of a bill to allow those groups to use IDAs again while the political tussle over reform continues.
Another bill would relax some of the new changes made this year to the state’s Empire Zone program, which has been criticized for giving away money to undeserving firms that produce few, if any, jobs. But even some Democrats now say the changes in the 2009 budget went too far and threaten to eject a number of worthwhile companies.
“Legislation to implement these measures has been introduced by upstate Democratic senators,” McMahon said. “We hope their voices will be heard.
Because the June 8 coup and its messy aftermath stopped all action in the chamber until last Thursday, the Senate also is playing catch-up with the Assembly, which passed 1,242 bills this year, compared with 392 in the Senate. While an unknown number of those Assembly bills have no chance in the Senate, many were on the fast track to passage until the coup.
Among the bills awaiting Senate action are measures to permit domestic partners and health care proxies to consent to a person’s donation of organs, to give insurance discounts to owners of cars with side-door air bags and to provide new consumer protections at auctions.
A bill strengthening New York’s teen driving laws — to require more training hours, fewer teen passengers in a car driven by a teen and a texting ban for all drivers — was amended in the past few days by the Senate sponsor to make it compatible with an Assembly bill that passed last month. That means the bill is “live” for possible final passage Wednesday.
Among other bills that passed the Assembly and were moving through the Senate before the coup were measures to establish regional “one-stop” shopping for economic development programs; increase penalties for boaters leaving the scene of an accident; use a new voluntary checkoff on income tax forms to raise money for volunteer fire department recruitment efforts; and ban salary bonuses to state authority workers, such as the ones halted under pressure this spring at the New York Power Authority.
There is a bill to establish new standards for how DNA evidence is kept to make it easier for wrongly convicted people to obtain the information and a measure to change a state law that now calls for prosecution of teens involved in the growing illegal sex trade to encourage treatment, housing and crisis intervention services.
As happens in Albany, misfortune can bring opportunities. During the monthlong Senate feud, a number of lobbyists were smiling because gridlock meant inaction on bills they tried all year to stop. Will the return of the Senate bring back with it, for instance, bills to ban flavored cigarettes and restaurant food with artificial trans fat ingredients?
The farm lobby, meanwhile, is now working overtime to stop a bill it says would destroy the upstate agriculture industry: expanded rights for farm workers permitting them to form labor unions and to receive mandatory overtime pay.
Andrew Rudnick, president of the Buffalo Niagara Partnership, said the Senate Democrats’ focus on New York City issues could have the reverse effect of quietly allowing through the Senate — almost by default — some measures that upstate interests have been wanting.
But he said there also are concerns that the most senior Senate Democrats are all from New York City with decidedly downstate priorities.
Log into MyBuffalo to post a comment
MyBuffalo is the new social network from Buffalo.com. Your MyBuffalo account lets you comment on and rate stories at buffalonews.com. You can also head over to mybuffalo.com to share your blog posts, stories, photos, and videos with the community. Join now or learn more.
Reader comments