June Primary, the Budget and more Redistricting

June Primary

Over last weekend, Speaker Sheldon Silver, and Assembly member Michael Cusick introduced legislation that would return New York to a June 26 primary for State legislative elections.  This legislation would also decrease the number of signatures necessary on petitions and would lessen by 10 days the amount of time the parties had to gather those signatures.  The League has been strongly in favor of a “permanent” June date since 1957.  We feel that a single June primary is best for voters, candidates and boards of election.  This legislation passed the assembly elections committee on Wednesday, February 15, and is scheduled to go to the assembly floor when legislators return from their Presidents’ Day recess.  The League is actively lobbying the state Senate to pass similar legislation in that chamber so that localities will not have the extra cost estimated at between $300,000 and $500,000 for a separate September primary. Federal Judge Gary Sharpe, in late January ruled that NY must hold its congressional primaries on June 26, 2012 in order to comply with the federal MOVE Act.  Unless the Legislature changes the date for State Legislative, there will be three major primaries in NYS; a presidential primary in April, congressional primary in June and legislative primary in Sept.  Local municipalities would be responsible for financing these three distinct primaries as well as village elections, and other local fire and water district elections The League will continue to Lobby vigorously in the next several weeks to ensure that our military and overseas voters have the ability to vote and have their votes counted.

Redistricting

Redistricting remains an issue on the minds of all legislators here in Albany.  The last of the public hearings will end this week. And it is generally felt, here in the Capitol, that a second set of lines is ready to go, so that the most egregiously drawn lines will be replaced by lines that may indeed be more acceptable to governor Cuomo thus avoiding a gubernatorial veto.  It is generally believed that the permanent lines will be passed by the legislature, at the latest, in early March.  However, there is a lawsuit pending over the constitutionality of the 63^rd senate seat.  That suit has been brought by the Senate democrats and is on a parallel court track. 

Budget

Other activity in Albany was driven by the budget with lobby days becoming crowded and noisy.  It is believed that the budget will be earlier this year, most likely finishing up the third week in March.  Governor Cuomo appears to have used the powers given to him by several recent state court decisions and, with the 30 day amendment process now complete, the budget battle seems to be muted this year. The legislature will be in recess next week but the last week in Feb is sure to bring increased activity in several legislative issues.  Stay tuned…

More Redistricting and Primary Date

If you have been living your life or maybe living in a cave this past week, you may not have focused on the intricacies of redistricting and the issue of the federal election primary. 

On Friday, January 29^th, Federal Judge Gary Sharpe issued a decision that will move the Federal primary election to June 26^th.  As of now the state legislature has not agreed to move the state legislative primaries from September to June which means that there may be three primaries in New York in the 2012 election season.  Since 1957, the League's position has been in favor of a June primary, so we have applauded the Judge's decision and will lobby the state legislature to change state legislative primaries to the June date. This issue has a direct impact on redistricting as the congressional lines need to be drawn in an expedited manner and they have yet to be drawn. 

The League testified on Monday at the LATFOR hearing in Albany that the legislative lines drawn by LATFOR had been drawn by a partisan panel of legislators to protect incumbents and therefore we reiterated our call for the governor to veto those lines. The short testimony can be read on the Leagues website.  As League members know, local Leagues have testified across the state for several months now on our position that an independent nonpartisan commission should draw lines without regard to incumbents or political parties.  The governor has publicly stated that he would veto partisan lines drawn by LATFOR.

Also, on Tuesday the Senate Health Committee passed out of committee the tanning bed bill that the League supports.  This legislation would ban tanning bed for young women under the age of 18yrs.  The Assembly last year passed this legislation but it died in the Senate.  Now that the legislation has passed the Senate Health Committee, the League will begin to lobby for the bill to come to the floor.

Stay tuned as the redistricting issue continues to be on the front burner. 

Primary Date, Redistricting, Budgets and Reproductive Choice: A Busy Week

Breaking Good News

Federal Judge Gary Sharpe has just issued (Friday afternoon) a decision on the non-Presidential federal primary date for New York State.  Judge Sharpe has set June 26, 2012, as the date for the Congressional primary. This is a victory for both the Election Commissioners’ Association and good government groups, including the League. As you may know, the League has had a position on a June primary dating back to 1957.  The federal court was asked to change New York primary date to satisfy the 2009 federal MOVE Act, requiring states to get ballots to overseas military voters at least 45 days before the federal election since the state legislature had not changed the primary date to comply with the federal law. This is also a victory for the voters of NYS; however, if the legislature remains recalcitrant in leaving the state primary election in September, this could set up a three primary election season that would be expensive for local municipalities who administer the elections. It is estimated that it could cost up to $50 million more statewide.

Redistricting

This week was redistricting week in Albany.  We were originally anticipating that these lines would appear on Monday.  And then possibly Tuesday, by Wednesday at 5pm, individual Assembly members were sent by email their own individual district lines.  On Thursday, the much anticipated state maps appeared on the LATFOR website.  The Capitol immediately went into frenzy form.  The Capitol lobby was set up as an impromptu local television studio where I was able to spontaneously give five television commentaries for all the local television stations.  The blogs were going fast and furious with comments from good government groups, including the LEAGUE and individual legislators, particularly in the Senate where opposition to these lines was ferocious. It became apparent as the afternoon went on as analysis of the lines began to come in, especially from our good government colleague Bill Mahoney, of NYPIRG, who discovered that these could be the most gerrymandered lines, particularly in the Senate, in decades.  The Governor late in the day issued a statement essentially declaring these lines unacceptable and again, issued the threat of a veto.  Public hearings on these proposed state legislative lines will begin on Monday, January 30^th in Albany.  The League will testify at the hearing in Albany and will continue to critique the flawed process by which theses lines were drawn.  We will continue to call for structural reform to guarantee that these types of partisan lines drawn to maintain incumbency by reducing both competitive elections and legislative responsiveness.  We anticipate following the public hearing that some of the more egregious lines may be sent to LATFOR for readjustment. Stayed tune for updates on the process as it moves forward.

Budget Hearing

Also this week in Albany, the League testified at the Joint Education and Finance Committees. That testimony can be seen on the League website.  The League is also submitting testimony to the transportation committee.

Reproductive Choice

Also, this week a legislative resolution marking the 39^th anniversary of Roe v. Wade was introduced. This resolution went through the health committee in the Assembly with a League memo of support and moved to the floor of the Assembly where it is usually a non controversial voice vote. However, this year the Assembly Republicans made an effort to be loudly in opposition by screaming “NO.”  They were certainly drowned out by the “YES” votes.  However, given the anti-choice sentiment during a presidential election year this must be looked at as concerning. The Republican controlled State Senate refused to issue a similar legislative resolution marking the anniversary.

Next week will bring more redistricting, more budgeting, and the unexpected which can always happen in Albany.  Stay tuned…

State of the Budget

This week in Albany was budget week.  On Tuesday, Gov. Cuomo unveiled his $132 billion 2012-2013 budget.  This budget is being called the Executive Budget and Reform Plan, an Executive budget with a reform twist.

Before starting the budget explanation, the governor made it clear that there would be no one-shots, no gimmicks, no fees, no borrowing and, most importantly, no new taxes to fill the $2 billion gap in the state budget. 

The governor’s intention is to close this year’s budget gap by stemming the growth of state agencies, keeping their spending levels flat and by cajoling the Office of the Comptroller, the Office of the Attorney General and the judiciary to keep their agency funding flat. He also intends to keep local aid growth to 2.6% growth TANF  (Temporary Assistance for Needy Families) growth to 5%.  State operations will be maintained at 1.9% growth, and all funds will be reduced .2% from last year’s budget.  Together this will close the budget gap of $2 billion. The state legislature and the Governor had already agreed to a 4% increase in both education and healthcare and that will be reflected in this year’s budget.

The governor then talked about economic development reiterating the $25 billion that will be included in the NY Works Fund.  This is an economic initiated that will give priority to programs which will spur development and produce jobs.  He also intends to fully fund the MTA and, importantly for the League, will include the healthcare exchanges in the budget language which means the legislature will have no choice but to approve these exchanges with adjustments only to the details.  These healthcare exchanges are part of the federal Affordable Care Act which will draw down $100  million in federal dollars. 

Mandate Relief

Governor Cuomo explained that NYS unfortunately does not have a printing press in the basement of the Capitol, unlike the federal government.  Therefore, it just does not have the $8 billion to pick up the counties’ share of Medicaid.  However, the governor did say that the growth of Medicaid to the counties will be capped this year at 3%, next year it will be capped at 2%, and the following year at 1%.  After that the counties’ growth of Medicaid will be held harmless.

Pension Reform

The Governor intends to create a controversial new Tier VI.  He will again put this in budget language which will present the legislature with no options but passage.  At great length, he talked about the fact that the yet “unborn,” meaning the future state workforce, should not be guaranteed the right to a NYS pension.  This new Tier will be 50% cheaper to state and local counties. However, he did make a good argument for the ability of new employees, who do not stay in state service long enough to be vested, to have portability of their pension.

Education Reform

As part of his budget the governor is demanding that the legislature agree to his long held belief that there must be improved teacher’s evaluations.  This is an issue the governor has championed before as part of NYS ability to comply with the federal Race to the Top initiative. NYS stands to receive $800 million federal dollars if it complies with this new teacher evaluation requirement.

According to Bob Magna, the Budget Director, this is the most clear and straight forward budget document in his 25 years of doing state budgets.  It became clear from the Governor’s address that he, like former Governor David Patterson, intends to use the immense power that the Governor has over the legislature to accomplish his legislative initiatives.  The general consensus here in Albany is that this budget will come in early and that this will be a relatively less contentious legislative session.  Of course, for those of us that care about redistricting and campaign finance reform, we can only hope that these issues will be as easily resolved as the NYS budget. 

Next week may bring submission of legislative redistricting lines and a federal judge’s decision on the congressional primary date.  Stay tuned…