2015 Legislative Session is (finally) in Full-Swing

Although the Legislature has been in session since January, it feels as though the work of the 2015 Legislative session has only recently started. A series of snowstorms coinciding with session days, combined with the surprising change in the Assembly leadership, resulted in what felt like an awfully slow (and scandalous!) start to this Legislative session.

With the dust from the Assembly leadership shift finally starting to settle and session now in full-swing, the League has begun its advocacy work around a variety of issues. For a list of our legislative priorities this year, check out our 2015 Legislative Agenda. February afforded us the opportunity to testify at two joint legislative public hearings – education and public protections. On February 3^rd, Marian Bott, LWVNYS Education Finance Issue Specialist, presented testimony to the Joint Fiscal Committees and Assembly and Senate Education Committees, voicing our strong opposition to the Education Investment Tax Credit. To read her testimony, click here. On February 26^th, I presented testimony to the Joint Fiscal Committees at the Public Protection Hearing, highlighting our position on Election Law reform items and reiterating the League’s positions on Ethics and Campaign Finance Reform. To read my testimony, click here.

At this hearing, I also emphasized the League’s opposition to injecting non-fiscal policies into the State budget process to this extreme, which very much seems to be the Governor’s MO this session. To be sure, our conversations with numerous Legislators and advocates have indicated that the League is not alone in our deep disappointment that the Governor has leveraged the budget process in such a politicized manner. Alas, much of our advocacy efforts this March will involve working to separate some of the good policies that have been, regrettably, tethered to bad policies. And, we will be encouraging Legislators to do the same.

As some of you may already know, the League is vehemently opposed to the Education Investment Tax Credit (ETC), which has been linked in the budget to the Dream Act and to the Tuition Assistance Program (TAP).  Not only does the League believe that each of these policies should be considered on their own merits, the League also believes that public dollars should go to public education. We, therefore, oppose the ETC bill, which proposes a tax credit – not to be confused with a tax deduction, which represents a much smaller loss of revenue to the state than do tax credits – that will function to divert public dollars to private and parochial schools and siphon $100 or $150 million from the general fund. These are dollars that could (and should!) otherwise be directed toward addressing educational disparities in our public schools, especially given that the State has yet to fulfill the Campaign for Fiscal Equity lawsuit’s aim to provide students in low-wealth districts with the sound and basic education they are entitled to.  To read our memo in opposition to the ETC bill, click here. For additional background, check out the Policy Brief issued by Fiscal Policy Institute.  The League, in partnership with other civic groups, parent organizations, public education advocates and Legislators, will be participating in a press conference on Monday, March 9^that 11:30am. 

Stay tuned for more updates – we’ve only just begun!  

A Bad Week for Campaign Finance Reform

It has not been a good week for democracy.  On Monday, Governor Cuomo and Senate leaders decided to pass on the historic moment created this budget session to enact comprehensive campaign finance reform.  While enforcement was slightly enhanced and disclosure of independent expenditures improved, the final reform package in the budget fell woefully short of what is needed to ensure a fair, functioning, and uncorrupt government working on behalf of all New Yorkers.  See LWVNY’s statement on the reform package here. 

The failure of New York’s leaders to act was made even worse yesterday when the U.S. Supreme court decided that aggregate contribution limits (what an individual can give in total to candidates, political action committees, and political parties) in federal races is unconstitutional (see reactions from our good government colleagues here).   And so the flood gates of big money in government widened even further.  Governor Cuomo and the Senate Co-Leader Klein have claimed that they are working to pass more reform later this session.  Yesterday’s Supreme Court decision makes it all the more dire that they match their actions with their words. 

Budget Rumors Suggest at Least One Victory

The big deal this past week was our advocacy around the education tax credit mentioned last blog. On Monday, we had a large press conference with representatives speaking from the League, NYCLU, unions, and education advocates.  See more on the issue and press conference, here, here, and here.  Our efforts on Monday brought visibility to this issue and bolstered Assembly Speaker Silver’s (who has never liked the bill) position on it in budget negotiations.  Now that this issue is more visible, we hope it has collapsed under its own revenue weight.   Although we have not yet seen the final budget bill, media is reporting that this tax credit is no longer in it - Thank you to all our members who called the Governor and the Assembly this week to fight for our public schools!

Our advocacy continues full blown on campaign finance reform and we feel strongly that this budget is our best opportunity to get it passed this session.   We hold out hope that our elected officials will do the right thing and put comprehensive reform in the budget.  As I write, we are waiting for a final budget agreement, which must be completed by midnight Friday to allow for printing and the 3-day bill aging period for an on time budget on Monday.  We anticipate the budget will be debated all day Monday. Legislators have already left Albany, so final negotiations are left, unsurprisingly, to four men in a room.

On Monday, look to your local cable stations for debate on the budget bill or stream here and here.

Budget, Budget, and More Budget

My absence here can be summed up with “Budget, budget, and more budget.”  It has been a busier budget season than typical for the League as campaign finance reform had been part of the budget negotiations.

Each house has come out with their one-house budget resolutions – a procedural step in budget negotiations in which each house lays out their budget priorities.  The Assembly kept campaign finance reform in its one-house, while the Senate was noncommittal on campaign finance reform in its.  Pre-kindergarten funding remains a major issue between both houses and the governor.  Neither house approved the governor’s tax freeze.

This past week, the general joint budget conference committee (otherwise known as the mother ship) met Monday with the usual political theater.  Joint conference subcommittees on various budget topics were held very quickly thereafter.  The various committees didn’t meet again until Thursday when each committee set “table targets,” meaning they set the dollar amount they think each part of the budget should get – for example, transportation has a table target of 9 million and the Thruway Authority got a table target of 26 million (both house asked for funding than what the executive budget proposal laid out because of the harsh winter weather and the need for infrastructure repair.  However, campaign finance reform was not mentioned in the public protection conference committee (the part of the budget where campaign finance reform appears), which set a table target of 19 million, dealing primarily with prison closure, indigent legal services, and domestic violence funding.  Education’s table target was set at 240 million, with the pre-k funding decision being bounced back to the mother ship (which means it is a major sticking point for the legislative leadership and will be decided behind closed doors with the governor and Senate and Assembly leaders).

Meanwhile, our legislative lobbying on the budget goes on.  We’ve seen several senate and assembly members on our legislative priority issue, campaign finance reform and have participated press conference on the issue with our good government partners.  In addition, an troubling issue the League has recently become aware of that has been a free standing bill (sponsored by Assemblymember Cusick in the Assembly and by Senator Godlen in the Senate) has now become part of the Senate’s budget resolution.  The Senate’s budget provision would provide tax credits to individuals, corporations, and partnerships that donate money to public schools, to privately operated charter schools and, through “education scholarships,” to students who attend schools that provide religious education.  Not only do many opponents see the bill has a thinly veiled voucher system, but it would remove millions of dollars from the state general fund in the form of tax credits at a time when the state has continuously failed to fund public schools at levels ordered by the Court of Appeals in litigation initiated by the Campaign for Fiscal Equity more than a decade ago.  Additionally, the proposal favors taxpayers who desire to support private and public schools of their choice, through a first-come, first-serve process with no restriction on geographic distribution or the target institution’s need.   It uses, at a minimum, $300 million of state revenue, which the League believes should instead be allocated through a democratic legislative process. Although it encourages additional resource allocation to students in PreK-12 education, it thwarts the Legislature’s collective decision-making as exercised through the budget negotiation process and transfers the power to target public tax dollars for education to individuals, corporations, and partnerships.  We are working vigorously to protect public education by defeating this initiative.

It is anticipated that budget negations will end sometime this coming week and that the budget will pass following a few late nights.  Given that it’s an election year, we can be assured that the budget will very likely be on time.