The 2015 legislative session wrapped up last week, one week later than scheduled.  During the last 2 weeks of session, nearly 540 bills passed both houses.  But the big story was the last bill approved – the “Big Ugly.”

What’s a “Big Ugly”?  The Big Ugly is an amalgamation of smaller proposals lumped together into one “big” bill.  In this case, the 72 page bill covered a wide range of topics, including: extension of rent control largely for New York City tenants; extension of tax credit programs for developments in New York City; expansion of charter schools in New York City; $250 million in aid for nonpublic K-12 schools; aid for the city of Yonkers; and an extension of the state’s property tax cap.

All in one piece of legislation.  Ugly.

And the legislation was slapped together and made public a mere few hours before the legislature voted on the legislation, which – by the way – was around midnight.  The process was ugly too.

Hence, the “Big Ugly.”

And to add insult to injury, the governor and state lawmakers ignored the elephant in the room – the swelling number of scandals and indictments that have plagued Albany.

It really was remarkable:  lawmakers were complaining that they were having a hard time negotiating agreements because the US Attorney was watching.  They said that his indictments of the former Assembly Speaker and Senate Majority Leader complicated the session.

It’s not surprising that the indictments had some impact on the session.  But you can’t have it both ways: complain that the US Attorney is watching after the arrests of the legislative leaders and then ignore reforms that could help restore the public’s trust in their own government.

But they did just that.

The few reforms that were approved came in the state budget agreement, but were widely criticized as “inadequate” to solve the massive scandals that have plagued the Capitol.  The failure to enact any other needed changes was indefensible and shockingly irresponsible.

Instead, the governor and the legislative leaders should have taken steps to:

1. strengthen the state ethics watchdogs to bolster their independence and public accountability;
2. place real limits on lawmakers’ outside employment;
3. appoint an independent executive and legislative compensation commission; and
4. close the LLC loophole created by the Board of Elections, in addition to other critical campaign finance reforms.

Any ethics agreement is only as good as the agencies charged with its enforcement.  New York’s ethics enforcement entities—JCOPE and the Legislative Ethics Commission—require substantial improvement.

New Yorkers deserved a serious response before the end of session in this year of unending corruption scandals.  Inaction and deflection in the face of the continuing ethics scandals is unacceptable.  New York’s political leadership must strengthen regulation, oversight and the enforcement of the state’s ethics laws.  New Yorkers across the state are demanding no less.

Governor Cuomo and the state’s legislative leaders shouldn’t blow off their responsibility to strengthen the state’s ethics.  The governor in particular has to take the lead:  the governor should convene a special session to tackle ethics reforms before the end of the calendar year.

The “Big Ugly” must not be the final word on the 2015 legislative session.

Last week was a depressing one in Albany: the all-too-familiar gridlock resulting from partisan differences, pettiness and legislative dysfunction.  And while some of the issues that are stuck in the legislative morass are important – such as tenants’ housing costs – some would, if enacted, have a limited impact on many people.

Yet, last week one issue moved front and center – global warming.  The push that moved the issue came from an unlikely source:  the head of the Catholic Church, Pope Francis.

The Pope publicly issued a policy paper that stated, “The earth, our home, is beginning to look more and more like an immense pile of filth.”  Strong stuff.

His encyclical further argued, “The problem is aggravated by a model of development based on the intensive use of fossil fuels, which is at the heart of the worldwide energy system.”

His analysis is based on facts.  2014 was the hottest year in recorded history.  The world’s experts have stated that global warming is largely due to human activity—primarily the result of reliance on fossil fuels.  They argue that the only way to respond to this crisis is to dramatically slash the use of fossil fuels, like coal, oil and gas, which, when burned, emit the greenhouse gases warming the planet.

Over the past 150 years, the industrialized world has been able to use fossil fuels to power its societies.  Those nations, now joined by China and other emerging nations, are generating too much greenhouse gas emissions for the planet to absorb, thus leading to the greenhouse effect that is heating up the planet.

While global warming is a threat to civilization, given its wealth the most affluent nations should be able to mitigate some of the worst consequences.  Yet the poorest nations, those least responsible for generating greenhouse gases, are the ones who will suffer the most.

Not only will a hotter planet result in more droughts and thus famine, global warming can devastate in other ways.

For example, a severe drought, worsened by a warming climate, drove Syrian farmers to abandon their crops and flock to cities, helping trigger a civil war that has killed hundreds of thousands of people.  The drought was the most severe on record, and its severity matched trends expected to occur with rising temperatures.  The drought increased the risk that the country would unravel, and climate change was a factor in the drought.

Another example is the impact of rising sea levels.  Experts predict that global sea levels could rise more than three feet by 2100.  Bangladesh is one of the world’s poorest nations’ and much of its land is at or below sea level.  Experts predict that by 2050, rising sea levels will inundate some 17 percent of Bangladesh and displace about 18 million people.  But Bangladesh generates only a tiny fraction of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions.

In a rational political system, our nation would act.  Congress would hold hearings, introduce legislation and advance proposals to help curb the impact our nation has on the world’s climate.

But our national political system is anything but rational.  Many of the nation’s political elite simply don’t believe in the fact that the planet is heating up, and many more ignore the evidence that humans are primarily responsible.

Given that our national government is incapable of addressing this issue, it is up to the states to develop solutions.  New York could be among the leaders in tackling the issue.

New York is not only contemplating how to respond to the climate change menace, but it is also trying to move its energy system into the digital age.  Under the current utility structure, the power sector in New York is on track to spend an estimated $30 billion to replace and modernize the state’s aging energy infrastructure over the next decade.

In New York, the proposed solution is the state’s Reforming the Energy Vision (“REV”) plan.  REV is under active development before the state’s Public Service Commission.  REV has the potential to fundamentally reshape the production and distribution of electric power and significantly reduce the creation of heat-trapping carbon emissions through the use of energy use reductions, efficiency measures and the move to reliance on alternative energy sources, such as solar power.

The old saying is that the states are the laboratories of democracy.  New York’s REV offers a vision for how to modernize the energy grid while mitigating the impacts from global warming.  If it succeeds, it can offer a model for the nation and perhaps the world.

Lawmakers are set to wrap up the scheduled end of the 2015 legislative session.  Typically, this week is “show time” for lawmakers – hundreds of bills are likely to be approved, many more will fail.

For the second year in a row, an important bill that is under serious consideration is the “Toxic Chemicals in Children’s Products” Act.  If approved the bill would establish a framework for identifying potentially harmful chemicals in everyday children’s apparel, toys and other consumer products.  The type of chemicals would include those likely to be a carcinogen, severely toxic or cause significant health problems.

Manufacturers would be required to report their intentional use of most harmful “priority chemicals” in children’s products within twelve months of such listing.  Eleven identified “priority chemicals”—such as lead, asbestos and benzene—would be banned for use in children’s products as of January 1, 2018.

This legislation represents a paradigm shift over current federal and state laws that fail to prevent toxic exposures.  It would oblige a response to the devastating health and environmental problems caused by toxic chemicals before injuries occur.

This intelligent legislation proposes a preventative, science-based approach—as already adopted by the European Union.  The bill is modeled after legislation in Maine and Washington State.  Three counties in New York – Albany, Suffolk and Westchester – have acted as well.

Federal law was supposed to protect public health and the environment by establishing a way to review the safety of chemicals and, if based upon that analysis a chemical was found to be toxic, ban its use in the U.S.  Yet, after 35 years, only 200 of the nearly 83,000 chemicals produced and used in commerce have been reviewed.  Only five have been banned.  Chemicals such as asbestos—proven to cause cancer and lung disease—have not be banned.

Toxic chemicals are suspected of playing a role in many of the most pressing health issues, including cancer, heart disease, obesity, and children’s developmental disorders.  Moreover, getting these toxic chemicals out of children’s products will protect workers from exposure, reduce overall toxics in the environment and diminish toxic chemicals sent to landfills, recycling programs and incinerators.

Clearly, there needs to be a better way to protect children and the environment.

More than fifty years ago, President Kennedy laid out the cornerstones of modern consumer protection.  President Kennedy’s 1962 Consumer Bill of Rights was hailed as opening a new era in consumer protection.  These principles continue to be relevant and vital in 2015.  Included among these were three key principles:

1. The right to meaningful information;
2. The right to choice; and
3. The right to safety.

These rights are so reasonable and so fundamental as to be beyond dispute.  They complement each other and ensure that the other rights are meaningful and realized.  If there is no choice, meaningful information becomes moot; if there is choice, but no meaningful information, consumer choice is illusory.  And if a product is unsafe, information and choice are of little benefit.

Parents and other caregivers cannot be expected to sample and laboratory test each product for toxic chemicals before a purchase.  And not every parent can afford or find products that are guaranteed to be “toxic free”—if such products exist at all.

Ensuring that children’s products are safe is not only an appropriate role for government; it is an essential role for government. 

The legislature has begun to act.  The Assembly has passed legislation that addresses this problem and there is significant support in the state Senate.  Of the 63 Senators, 42 of them are now sponsors of the bill; including a Republican lead sponsor.  Governor Cuomo has stated that he supports this legislation and that is a priority for him this session.  Yet, so far, the Senate leadership has blocked the bill from consideration.

Clearly, with such overwhelming support, this important public health measure could become law this week.  It is now up to the overwhelming number of Senators to make sure that this legislation gets approved and sent to the governor.

While New York’s political class has been focused on Albany as it heads down the homestretch for the 2015 legislative session, the US Supreme Court could have a huge impact on both the state’s policies and politics.

Last week, the Supreme Court agreed to hear a case brought by some voters in Texas that could define the meaning of the principle of “one person, one vote.”  The Court is expected to reach a decision next year.

We all know that in our representative democracy, it’s important that legislative districts contain more or less the same number of people; we all want equal representation.  That’s why the nation has had a census – it’s a way to count the number of people in the nation and then to allocate Congressional districts to reflect changes in the population.

The Constitution itself is quite clear:  the 14th Amendment states that all people in the United States are to be counted for distributing US representatives.

A 1964 Supreme Court decision ruled that voting districts must contain very close to the same number of people. But the court did not say which people count.

Federal appeals courts have uniformly ruled that counting everyone is permissible, and one court has indicated that it is required.  The census counts every person living in the nation, irrespective of their ages, whether they are immigrants – here legally or not.   And it is that census that provides the basis for the reapportionment of Congressional representatives and the drawing of new district lines every ten years.

But the Supreme Court has never resolved whether voting districts should have the same number of people, or the same number of eligible voters. Counting all people amplifies the voting power of places with large numbers of residents who cannot vote legally, including immigrants who are here legally but are not citizens, illegal immigrants, children and prisoners.

And that issue – who counts when creating legislative districts – is at the heart of the case brought in Texas.

Most state and local governments draw districts based on total population. If people who were ineligible to vote were evenly distributed, the difference between counting all people or counting only eligible voters would not matter. But demographic patterns vary widely.

Not only is there the obvious issue of counting those under the age of 18 – clearly nonvoters – but there is the issue of immigrants living in the country.  For example, there are about 11.7 million illegal immigrants that lived in the United States in January 2010.  More than half of all unauthorized immigrants lived in California (2.9 million), Texas (1.6 million), Florida (1.0 million), and New York (705 thousand).

More broadly, more than four million immigrants live in New York and three million of them live in New York City.  Roughly the same proportion of illegal immigrants live in New York City, so more than 550,000 illegal immigrants live in the City.

The Texas case argues that the definition of “one person, one vote” means only voters.  The individuals bringing the case argue that their voting power had been diluted.  They argue that their representatives should have more of a say since they are from rural areas which tend to have higher numbers of older voters and with a smaller percentage of immigrants.

So, what are the arguments?  The current system ensures representational equality, with elected officials tending to the interests of the same number of people, whether they are voters or not. Counting only eligible voters, on the other hand, is based on the principle that voters hold the ultimate political power in our democracy.

If the challenge succeeds, it is likely to hurt urban areas – with its larger immigrant populations and with a younger average age – and benefit rural areas.

But more problems could result: The change would likely mean new districts would have to be developed, but that would require a new census, since the current one includes all people, of all ages.

And redoing legislative districts and then holding new elections could make Albany even more chaotic than it is now.  New York’s political future is in the Court’s hands.

Ethics controversies continue to dominate the news in New York.  The former Senate Majority Leader and his son were formally indicted, there were reports of the Nassau County District Attorney investigating a powerful Long Island-based Senator’s misuse of public funds, and the FBI raided the residence of a long-time political operative in Buffalo and two others.

All in one week.  Unbelievable.

These latest actions come after the indictment of the former Speaker of the Assembly and the guilty plea of a legislator.  And of course, these actions occur in a context of ongoing ethics scandals that have plagued Albany for years.

In a normally functioning democracy, lawmakers would react: hearings would be held, legislation would be introduced, and news conferences would be held.

But in Albany, not much more than a peep.

To his credit, last week the state’s Attorney General unveiled his ethics reform package, but Governor Cuomo quickly shot it down claiming that there is too little time left in the session for a meaningful debate over his proposal.  What did the governor think should be done?  Not a word.

Why would the governor sweep the ethics issue under the rug?  The most charitable interpretation is that the governor’s political calculus has determined the Senate’s and Assembly’s new leadership simply cannot handle negotiating additional significant legislation, much less sweeping ethics changes.

The most pessimistic interpretation is that the governor has given up, and would rather not be associated with Albany or talking about its ongoing scandals.

Ethics reform is a tough sell even under the best of circumstances.  While there is no doubt that legal changes are needed, what is really needed is the creation of an independent enforcement agency that regulates state ethics requirements without fear or favor.

And the creation of such an entity is something that Albany does not want to do.  There is too much fear that an independent agency could end up a runaway enforcer, criminalizing the log-rolling practices found in the normal legislative process.  An additional fear is that the enforcer could end up being taken over by partisans who would use ethics laws to unfairly target political opponents.

Yet, New Yorkers have been promised independent ethics enforcement.  In 2010, then Attorney General Andrew Cuomo promised to reform New York’s ethics law.  He pledged:

To restore public confidence and address this potential and actual conflict of interest, [to] … establish an independent State ethics commission with robust enforcement powers to investigate and punish violations of law by members of both the executive and legislative branches.”

The governor’s diagnosis was correct: the key to real reform – and success in ending Albany’s ethical weaknesses – was, and is, the establishment of an independent ethics enforcement agency that would enforce New York law without fear or favor.

Since he became governor, Albany has regularly passed ethics bills with lots of fanfare, but with little impact.  Instead of creating a system of ethics regulated by an independent enforcer, they instead approve limited measures that usually require more disclosures.

And now, after what may turn out to have been the lowest ethical point in New York State history, the governor and the legislative leaders are choosing to ignore the issue and kick the can down the road.

New York deserves better.  We elect our representatives to solve problems, not ignore them.