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.

Last week, the Cuomo Administration held a cancer summit, the “New York State Cancer Prevention Summit: Transforming the Cancer Agenda for the Next Generation.”  The stated goal of this summit was to “focus on cancer prevention.”

Like all New Yorkers, I like the idea that the state government is examining the diseases caused by the “c-word” and it is an issue that deserves a summit.

Here are some of the cancer statistics for New York State.  According to the American Cancer Society, it is estimated that there will be nearly 108,000 cancer cases diagnosed in New York this year.  In addition, nearly 35,000 New Yorkers will die from various cancers.  Four cancers account for nearly half of all of these diagnoses and deaths:  breast, colon, prostate, and lung cancers.

In New York, lung cancer is the number one cancer killer resulting in over 8,000 cancer deaths, or roughly one quarter of all cancer deaths.  As we all know, the vast majority of lung cancers are the result of tobacco use.

The American Cancer Society’s statistics only include one form of skin cancer, melanoma.  The other major forms of skin cancer, basal and squamous skin cancers, are usually not life threatening and so are not part of their statistics.  Melanoma is responsible for over three quarters of all skin cancer deaths.

But skin cancer is far and away the most frequently diagnosed cancer, with an estimated 100,000 cases in New York each year.

You would expect that the cancer “summit” would focus on these major cancers as well as examining emerging causes of cancers – those caused by obesity and a sedentary lifestyle for example.

But there was little examination of the state’s policies for fighting cancer.  Since about one half of all cancers are the result of lifestyle choices, and one quarter of all deaths result from tobacco use, how well the state was attacking those problems should have been featured in this summit.

But a thorough review would have found that the cancer-fighting policies of the Cuomo Administration were failing.

As mentioned earlier, the single biggest cancer killer is lung cancer, which is almost entirely due to tobacco use.  Yet, the Cuomo Administration has consistently cut funding for the state’s effort to help smokers to quit and keep kids from starting. The program is modeled on the best practices developed by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and has demonstrated success, but the state spends less than half of what it did a few years ago.

When it comes to skin cancer, other than educating the public on the dangers of excessive sun exposure, there isn’t a lot that the state can do.  However, when it comes to indoor tanning, the state is doing the minimum.  A few years ago, legislation was passed banning kids under the age of 17 from using indoor tanning salons and requiring that 17 year olds get their parents’ permission to use them.  Why did that law pass?  Because of the growing evidence that indoor tanning was causing a rise in skin cancers and melanoma, particularly among young people.

New York law allows the Health Department to post warnings to alert the public to the dangers of indoor tanning.  Yet, inexplicably, New York has chosen not to use the “c-word” in its warnings – even though they were asked to do so!

Why would they fail to require a warning about skin cancer for indoor tanning?  The only opposition was from the industry itself.  As a result, tanning consumers are deprived of a critically important health warning.

All New Yorkers would likely agree that a top policy effort by all levels of government should be to do what they can to reduce cancer prevalence, help identify cancers early on, and help cancer patients deal with the financial, physical and emotion toll of the treatments.

But doing it is far better than talking about it.  New Yorkers deserve a state government that implements the best practices in its cancer fighting efforts, not annual budgets that seek to slash funding for those programs, or soften warnings due to industry opposition.

Hopefully, the summit will change the Administration’s behavior in attacking cancer.  Lives depend on it.

When Senator Skelos was arrested for alleged corruption on May 4^th, a clock started ticking.  In previous arrests, Governor Cuomo would weigh in with a raft of ethics changes within a couple of weeks.  When former Assembly Speaker Silver was arrested on January 22^nd, the governor waited until the Assembly sorted itself out and then gave a major speech to advance ethics measures on February 2^nd – ten days later.

But when it comes to the recent arrest of the former Senate Majority Leader, there has not been a peep from the governor.  No official statement, no promised speech, nothing.  In fact, after the legislative leaders emerged from a meeting with the governor – a meeting in which they discussed the end of the session’s legislative priorities – ethics was not on the list.

And it’s not like the governor hasn’t been in public:  he has talked about the problems of campus sexual assault; he has urged action on his proposed education tax credit; and he was touring the Indian Point Power Plant after its recent transformer fire.

Regarding the criminal charges filed against Senator Skelos, all that the governor has said was that “If the charges are correct, it’s deeply disturbing.”  If the charges are correct, it is not disturbing, it is criminality.  What is disturbing are the criminal charges themselves: that Senator Skelos extorted payments for his son from businesses.

So, what’s different this time for the governor?  Is it that he is trending lightly on allegations against a Senate Republican, but was ready to pounce when an Assembly Democrat was arrested?

Is it that that he is concerned about the growing sense that his contributors from the real estate industry are increasingly connected to allegations of corruption?

Of course, we don’t know.  But what should be concerning to all New Yorkers is the failure of the governor – and the legislative leaders – to put ethics on Albany’s priority list.

And New Yorkers are getting sick of what they see. A recent Marist College poll found that three-quarters of those surveyed thought that corruption has gotten worse in New York in recent years. The same poll found that the governor’s job performance rating has dropped to 37%.

According to press reports, Marist’s pollster Lee Miringoff said voters are looking to Cuomo to address corruption.  According to the Associated Press, Miringoff observed, “One of the pillars of his campaign was the notion that he would get Albany working again and clean up the mess.  Now there’s this drip, drip, drip reminding voters almost every day about the pervasive corruption in Albany. Of the three men in the room, two have been charged. If you’re the third guy it’s hard to buffer yourself.”

Yet according to new Assembly Speaker Heastie, during the most recent leaders’ meeting, ethics reform “wasn’t one of the topics of discussion.”

That’s completely unacceptable.

What does it take to put ethics reform on the table?  The past five Senate Majority Leaders have been criminally charged, two of the four most recent Assembly Speakers have had legal problems, the previous two governors have had ethics problems, the previous Comptroller went to prison for ethics violations, and dozens of lawmakers have run afoul of the law.

What does it take for the governor and the legislative leaders to seriously attack the ethics problems that plagued Albany?

Apparently, they fear little political retribution from voters for their failures to act.  That has to change.

New Yorkers should demand:

1. Independent ethics enforcement, not ethics watchdogs that are controlled by the governor and the legislative leaders.
2. Strict limits on outside income, limits that track those currently in place for the Congress.
3. Meaningful campaign finance changes, in particular closing the Limited Liability Company (LLC) “loophole.” LLCs should be treated like businesses, not humans, for the purposes of campaign contributions.  Limiting LLC contributions to the same as other businesses would go a long way toward curbing Albany’s “pay to play” culture.

The public should demand action from Albany’s legislative leaders.  In particular, they should expect action, not dodging, from the governor.  After all, Andrew Cuomo ran in 2010 saying that he would clean up Albany.  Obviously, that cleanup is, to put it charitably, unfinished.

Ethics was, once again, Albany’s big news last week.  Another lawmaker, long-time Assemblyman Bill Scarborough, pled guilty and faces prison, and Senate Majority Leader Dean Skelos joined his former counterpart Assembly Speaker Silver in having to defend himself against charges of corruption.

Assemblymember Scarborough faces up decades in prison.  Scarborough also agreed to resign as a member of the Assembly.  In addition, Scarborough pled guilty to a public corruption charge related to use of his campaign account for personal expenses, as well as receiving reimbursements for being in Albany, when he was not there.

However, it was the detailed federal criminal complaint filed against the Senate Majority Leader that was the seismic political event.

The allegations against the Senate Majority leader are stunning:  that the Senator used his considerable political clout to drive business to his son; that he pressured both state and local governments to award contracts to his son’s clients; that he was paid millions of dollars from his law firm, but did no legal work; and that he pressured real estate interests to make campaign contributions that were directed to a state Senate race in the Buffalo area.

However, we must be mindful that Senator Skelos, like all Americans, is entitled to a presumption of innocence.

In addition to bringing criminal charges against the Senate Majority Leader and his son, the complaint identified a number of policy areas that have been recurring problems in Albany:

1.   The U.S. Attorney’s charges stated that Senator Skelos was paid $2.6 million over two decades from his law firm, but did no legal work, which raised once again the issue of lawmakers’ outside income.

2.  The charges argued that the Senator used his clout to generate $100,000 in campaign donations from a real estate developer who used a number of limited liability companies to make those contributions, raising the issue of why LLCs continue to be treated as humans, instead of businesses for the purposes of campaign contribution limits.

3.  The U.S. Attorney’s charges argued that Senator Skelos’s son was engaged in both local and state lobbying without registering and yet, apparently, felt no pressure to comply with state disclosure laws, raising the issue of whether state ethics laws are being adequately enforced.

Those public policy problems should be addressed and, given the circumstances, the governor has a unique responsibility to make reform happen.

The criminal charges against the Senator are serious and, coming on the heels of the arrest and indictment of the former Assembly Speaker clearly strengthens the hand of the governor as the second half of the session heats up.  Governor Cuomo now must move Albany along to resolve the outstanding issues in the 2015 legislative session.

At the top of that list of legislative “must dos” are initiatives to overhaul ethics enforcement, limit outside income, and rein in the influence of New York’s powerful special interests.  Here are three important steps:

1.  If there were independent ethics enforcement, Albany’s pols would behave differently.  Like the rest of us, public officials behave differently when they know they are being watched.  We all drive slower when there are speed traps.  Yet, Albany’s ethics watchdogs are controlled by the governor’s and legislative leaders’ appointees.  New York needs independent ethics enforcers, ones who will apply the law without fear or favor.

2.  A clear limit on outside income, like the one in place in the Congress, would attract more lawmakers who are interested in public service, not monetizing their public office for private gain.

3.  Eliminating the LLC loophole would make it far harder to obtain huge campaign donations from all-too-often difficult to identify contributors.

Albany’s pay-to-play “transactional” political culture must end.  Once again, and more than ever, the ball is squarely in the governor’s court.