publications | about us | on campus | jobs | alumni | cmap | straphangers campaign | fuel buyers group

homehomesocial justicestraphangers campaignenergyhigher educationhealthgood governmentconsumer


TESTIMONY
OF THE
NEW YORK PUBLIC INTEREST RESEARCH GROUP
BEFORE THE
NEW YORK STATE SENATE TEMPORARY COMMITTEE
ON RULES REFORM
February 10, 2009
Albany, NY

Good morning.  My name is Blair Horner and I am Legislative Director of the New York Public Interest Research Group (NYPIRG).  NYPIRG is a statewide, non-partisan research and advocacy organization.  One of NYPIRG’s principal areas of interest is government reform.  For decades, NYPIRG has been a strong advocate for legislative rules changes that would make the legislative process more transparent, empower rank-and-file lawmakers and increase public participation in legislative decision-making.

NYPIRG commends the initial steps that the new Senate Majority has taken to address legislative rules changes.  The moves include a fairer “motions to discharge” process, requiring that all floor votes be made public, and a pledge that minority party members would be allowed to sign onto majority-sponsored bills.

We agreed with you that these first steps should be taken, we agreed with you that the Temporary Committee was a good vehicle to develop future reforms, but we disagreed on the timetable.  NYPIRG urged that the Senate act on its rules changes before the beginning of the fiscal year.  However, the Senate has chosen a different approach.  Therefore, we urge you to take action on reform measures in stages and our testimony today follows a suggested timetable.

Our testimony is broken into three sets of recommendations, with the first focusing on short-term changes that we urge you to act on this session.  The second category lists proposals that we urge be adopted at the beginning of 2010.  The third recommendation is that the Temporary Committee be kept in place to keep working on rules changes as you go into next year as well as statutory changes that we urge you to embrace.

            Below are ten measures that will strengthen the New York State Senate’s legislative rules by affording accountability and fairness.  The first five focus on short-term recommendations that we urge the Senate to act on this session.  The second five we urge be included in the adoption of rules changes for 2010

  1. Allocate substantially equivalent resources to each member, including allocation of member items.  As you know, the long-time practice has been that majority party members received far more resources than minority party members.  According to a review conducted last year by the Empire Center for New York Policy, 32 Senate Republicans spent an average of $446,000 and the 30 Senate Democrats spent average of $274,000 on staff, rent, travel, telephone service, office supplies and other expenditures.   When member items are reviewed, Senate Republicans received, on average, over $2.3 million, while Democrats received, on average, $296,000.  Ironically, as you also know, Senate Democratic districts typically have more constituents in their districts.  The fundamental unfairness of this system must be remedied.  These are tax dollars, not monies for the political parties to dole out as they see fit.  To provide all New Yorkers with fair representation, resources need to be fairly allocated for every district.
  2. Party caucus consideration of legislation must be open to the public.  Discussion of legislation should be open to public scrutiny.  When the Open Meetings Law went into effect in 1977, it contained an exemption concerning political committees, conferences and caucuses.  Until 1985, judicial decisions indicated that the exemptions only applied to discussions of political party business.  Those decisions, however, were essentially reversed by the enactment of an amendment to the Open Meetings Law in 1985.  Despite that change, which we urge you to repeal, some localities continue to hold their caucuses in the open.  Therefore, we believe that the state legislature should follow suit.  We urge you to hold open conference meetings that discuss public policy.
  3. Require that Senate committee members be physically present in order to vote in committee.  There can be no clearer signal that committee meetings are for show and not work than the practice of allowing votes from members who are not present.
  4. Require that the Senate replicate the Assembly’s “Form 99” procedure, which requires a committee vote on specific legislation if requested by the sponsor.  The Assembly has learned to live with the requirement that committees can be forced to take up bills over the opposition of the chair.  The Senate can too.
  5. End the abuse of “messages of necessity.”  The state constitution requires that bills are available for review for three days prior to passage.  There is a good reason for that – to ensure that lawmakers had the time to review bills that they were asked to approve.  The “message of necessity” is, by definition, a way to avoid that aging requirement when the issue is of great importance and time is of the essence.  The practice has evolved into a way for the governor and the legislative leaders to ram through legislation in order to avoid scrutiny.  The practice should be curbed.

 

Longer-term solutions include:

  1. Mandate a greater use of the conference committee procedure, including allowing the sponsor to call for its use.
  2. Require that all legislation reported to the floor be accompanied by a public committee report.  That report should contain, at a minimum, the purposes of the bill, proposed changes in law, section-by-section analysis, procedural history, committee votes, any members’ views on the legislation, and the names of organizations in support or opposition to the legislation.
  1. Restrict the use of public-funded legislative mailings.  Such mailings should be prohibited once lawmakers have announced that they are running for re-election, unless the mailing is in response to a real public emergency.
  2. Create a New York State “C-SPAN.” Most Americans now obtain their news through the electronic media.  We urge you to look to the highly successful Congressional C-SPAN as a model for allowing televised coverage of governmental proceedings and the “value added” programming as well.  The current televised coverage of floor activities and some hearings are helpful, but without added context are bewildering to viewers.  Allowing important committee meetings to be broadcast now would be an important first step and should be followed by steps such as bringing on staff to help viewers understand New York government’s activities.
  3. Create an ongoing review of the rules, the changes and impacts.  There will be many other recommendations made by others that deserve action immediately, but some may require more contemplation.  Moreover, changes made now may need refinement later.  Maintaining an ongoing discussion on legislative rule changes through the Temporary Committee will give a platform for such discussions to occur.

Beyond the rule changes discussed above, there are significant changes that should occur.  Some of the changes need legislation, such as:  creation of an independent redistricting commission, creation of an independent ethics commission, dramatically lower contribution limits for legislative and state political committees as well as the elimination of donations to party “housekeeping accounts,” a requirement that lawmakers can only have one political committee, an expansion of FOIL to fully cover the legislature, and the creation of an Independent Budget Office.  Not only would it provide useful public oversight over the state’s finances, but could also provide pension fiscal analysis done by labor actuary is prime example of need for independent analysis.

NYPIRG looks forward to working with you all to make New York’s legislative process a model for the nation.

Thank you.