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....November 19, 2:23 AM |
| The Road To Reform: 20 Years Of Late Budgets May Have Been The Final Straw
By Aaron Rutkoff At first, it looked like nothing more than another late budget — something extremely unremarkable for Albany, something no one expected to galvanize a movement for reform.
By now, the relevant history on this point is well known and politically pressing: two decades of state government in New York have produced no fewer than 20 consecutive budgets that passed long after the April 1 deadline mandated by law. Perhaps the extreme tardiness of this year’s budget, which floundered on a court order to beef up funding for New York City schools, served as that metaphorical last straw on the camel’s back. The headlines made by the perpetually late budget were bad enough for Albany, but a report issued by New York University’s Brennan Center made things worse. According the study, the citizens of New York enjoyed the “most dysfunctional” of all state governments in the nation and a legislative process that “systematically excludes rank-and-file lawmakers and the public from that process more than any other state legislature.” When the legislative fog cleared with the budget’s passage Aug. 11, however, sidestepping the school funding conundrum, something had changed in the political landscape of state government: the latest budget in history of New York became the swiftest impetus for reform. Caucus Time This week, as the all-Democratic Queens delegation to the State Assembly makes its way up to Albany to casts votes for Speaker Sheldon Silver to continue as house leader, there is an item other than business-as-usual lurking on the agenda. At the end of the month, members of the Queens delegation will meet with their Democratic Assembly colleagues from across the state in a caucus that will consider a proposal but forward by Assemblyman Scott Stringer (D-Manhattan). In a house controlled by a large Democratic majority, the tone of the caucus could, in effect, set the pace for legislative reform. Stringer’s proposals focus only on the rules that govern the lawmaking processes in the Assembly. As such, the changes could be adopted by a majority vote, without amending the constitution, negotiating with Pataki or bickering with the Republican-controlled State Senate. “We’ve never done it before,” said Assemblyman Mark Weprin (D-Little Neck), a co-sponsor of the resolution, on the reform focus of the upcoming caucus. “I can’t predict [the outcome] at the moment. I think there is a need to make some changes, but some don’t want to.” Stringer Says… Though the 15-point rules resolution would drastically alter the rhythms of political life in Assembly, the proposals themselves seem anything but radical. One measure takes aim at a little-known provision that allows lawmakers to check in at the beginning of the day, and then leave the Assembly chambers while automatically recording a vote in favor of every issue that comes to floor. Stringer proposes, in contrast, that “[v]otes by members shall be recorded and counted only when the member is physically present in the chamber.’” The reform proposals would also open up legislative committees to scrutiny, mandating the attendance of all members and requiring that a stenographer’s notes of the proceedings be made available to the public. Other so-called legislative abuses, such as the Message of Necessity, an provision that allows the governor to sign a bill into law without the customary three-day period of review, would be severely restricted. Lawmakers would also be assured of a minimum budget for maintaining an office and staff, depriving Assembly leaders of the financial shackles that have often been meted out in punishment to opposition of the majority Many of the provisions in Stringer’s reform package seem intended to correct the systemic flaws in the legislative process, which the Brennan Center report found had kept both rank-and-file legislators and members of the voting public on the outside. Other parts, however, seem designed to open up for public viewing the operations of a state government that is, after all, intended to be of and for the people. To that end, Stringer’s reform idea would require that every bill, before reaching the Assembly floor, include “at a minimum, purposes of the bill, change in previous law, section by section analysis, procedural history, committee or subcommittee votes, and any members’ views of the bill who wish to be recorded.” |
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