You see them everywhere – requirements that consumers go to an arbitration system instead of the courts.  If you look in your car’s manual, those arbitrations are mandatory, when you look at the fine print on your smart phones, they are there too.  If you want the car, or the phone, you have to agree to give up your right to go to court and resolve disputes through an arbitration system set up by the companies.

And while some may argue that these are bad practices, the cost to the consumer is financial.  Yet, as these arbitration practices move into more and more consumer contracts, the consequences could be much more severe.

According to a series written in the New York Times, nursing homes have begun to force residents into arbitration when a resident suffers harm from neglect or abuse.  That’s right, if an elderly person needs to be placed in a nursing home, he or she may have to give up their legal rights – or go somewhere else.

Thus, if a nursing home resident is harmed by a nursing home employee, the resident ends up having a private arbitrator – chosen by the nursing home – hear the case.  That’s a huge conflict.

Overturning a bad decision by an arbitrator borders on impossible – even if it’s deadwrong.  As one court noted, “a court’s conviction that the arbitrator has committed serious error” is not enough to overturn the decision as long as the arbitrator “is even arguably construing or applying the contract.”

Under these circumstances, an injured nursing home resident’s chances of getting justice are slim to none.

And without proper justice, the injured nursing home resident will suffer as critical basic needs go unmet. These may include the need for better quality care, health insurance co-payments, transportation or equipment costs, care not covered by insurance, or other help.

The rest of us also suffer because if fewer claims get fully investigated, “bad actors” are not brought to light and harmful wrongdoing against vulnerable people is allowed to continue.  And in what is right out of Kafka, there’s no public record of private arbitration decisions, so no one can review the types of claims being brought against nursing homes and how they are decided.

People who seek residency in a nursing home typically have little or no choice about where they go for the care they need, so refusing to sign such a contract – or even expressing reluctance to do so – is not a practical option.

Nursing home residents are by definition vulnerable.  The decision to enter a nursing home is fraught with emotion and often made under extreme time pressure.  Yet when they do so, they must entrust the nursing home with their very safety.

Given these circumstances, nursing homes should never pressure residents to give up their right to go to court.  Yet this is exactly what is happening.

And it is wrong.

New York State agrees.  Long ago, it amended the state law to ban forced arbitration clauses in nursing home contracts.

But recent litigation is threatening this protection, with nursing homes claiming that a federal law (originally intended for business contracts) preempts New York’s, blocking state lawmakers from protecting nursing home residents.

At the national level, the situation is so problematic that the federal government is proposing to impose some restrictions on the practice.

The bottom line is that forced arbitration agreements are all wrong for the nursing home setting.

After all, if arbitration were beneficial for nursing home residents, why make it mandatory?Let residents (or their personal family representatives) decide voluntarily whether or not to choose it, on a case-by-case basis, after – not before – something really bad happens.

As the former New York State Senate Majority Leader goes to trial and his former counterpart Assembly Speaker is still in court, it has become clear that whatever the outcome, Albany’s ethics is on trial.

And business as usual at the state Capitol is facing a conviction in the court of public opinion.

While both cases are different, they share a common theme – abuse of public office for private gain.

In the case involving the former Assembly Speaker, the prosecutor’s case is built on the allegation that the former Speaker used his legislative power to drive state aid to legal clients and in return received millions of dollars for himself – even though he did no legal work.

The former Speaker denies the charges and argues that this form of quid-pro-quo is legal.

In the case involving the former Senate Majority Leader, the prosecutor’s case is built on the allegation that the Senator used his considerable power to force those with business before him to do business with his son – even though little work was done by him.

The former Senator denies the charges and argues that what he did was legal.

With both cases moving through the legal system, and with both lawmakers presumed innocent until action by the courts, we cannot draw a conclusion about their guilt or innocence.  That’s for the juries to decide.

But what is clear is that business as usual in Albany looks terrible in these court proceedings.  If it turns out that the actions by these two men are legal, the cries for change will be deafening.  If they are convicted, the public should demand that Albany’s ethical standards be improved so that no one thinks that using public office for private gain is acceptable.

It should be a time for real change.

Reformers are pushing for such changes.  A coalition of civic organizations last week urged Governor Cuomo to convene a special session devoted strictly to ethics.  In addition to the court cases, the groups cited a recent national ranking which gave New York State a D-minus grade in how it handles issues of integrity.

The groups issued a call to the governor and the legislative leaders to embrace a wide-ranging package of reforms that included placing strict limits on public officials’ outside income.

As mentioned earlier, in both cases the legislators are accused of using their public office for private gain.  Most New York State lawmakers currently do not have outside income, or they make a small amount.  The Congress places limits on outside income, New York should too.

The groups also called for an overhaul of the state’s system of monitoring ethics.  Specifically, the groups noted that it has been federal prosecutors, not state ones, which have been responsible for the lion’s share of the ethics actions brought in recent years.  The groups called for changes to increase transparency of the state’s ethics watchdogs’ operations, meetings and votes; expand jurisdiction to include all executive and legislative branch employees; and elevate the independence of the commissioners from their appointing authorities.

The groups also called for new campaign financing changes in response to what has been found in the cases against the former legislative leaders.

While there have been some improvements to ethics laws over the past ten years, the core problem of lawmakers using their public posts for private gain still persists.  New Yorkers have lost faith in state government to make decisions without using the interest and influence of those who do business with the state.

The governor and the state legislature must act so public trust can be restored in New York’s democratic institutions and political processes.  There is no shortage of solutions that New York’s political leaders can draw upon in enacting comprehensive change, instead of incremental reform, and in doing so give hope to the public that can trust can be restored.

Higher education policy moved back into the news last week when the State University of New York’s Chancellor announced an effort to keep increasing the cost of public college tuition.

The Chancellor urged that lawmakers renew legislation, known as SUNY 2020, which (among other things) allows for annual increases in SUNY tuition.  The current law expires in late June of 2016.

SUNY’s argument to allow continued tuition hikes hinges on this statement, “We simply cannot go back to a time when students applied to SUNY without knowing what their tuition rates would be year to year.”

The plan would hike tuition as much as $300 per year.  The plan to continually hike tuition was originally hatched in 2011.  At that time, New York’s fiscal house was still in disorder from the national financial meltdown in 2008-09.

New York, like the rest of the nation, jacked up the cost of going to college to help balance budgets.  But those policies have come at a price – the shift from the state coffers to the bank accounts of students and their families has increased the size of college debt.  Nationwide, student loan debt is currently over $1 trillion and it is estimated to be $2 trillion by 2025.  At New York’s four University Centers, 56% of graduates carry debt averaging over $22,000.

The shift of college costs from the state to students happened in New York as well.  Prior to the 2008 recession, public tuition covered about half of SUNY’s budget.  Since 2008, state support to New York’s public colleges and universities has been slashed by $1.5 billion.  Now, tuition covers more than 60% of SUNY’s budget.

These tuition increases are the result of a so-called “rational tuition” policy.  New York’s law, described by proponents as “rational,” hiked public college tuition each year for five years.  Tuition at SUNY will have increased by over 40% by the time the law expires at the end of June.

The only thing rational about this policy is that it guarantees increases in the cost of attending a public college.  As a result, New York families are paying more – and in some cases adding to an increasing college debt load.

Yet in recent years, the state budget hasn’t faced shortfalls:  Its annual budget has swelled from $132 billion in 2011 to $142 billion today.  That’s right, while the state has spent 8% more than it did at the beginning of the Cuomo Administration, students have been forced to pay more and the state has shortchanged public colleges in the budget.

The SUNY 2020 deal was predicated on the fact that students would pay more, but that the state would promise to maintain its support for SUNY.

Yet, while the state budget swelled by 8%, state support was stagnant.  That stagnant state support does not include the eroding impact of inflation on SUNY’s expenditures.  When inflation is factored in, stagnant state support means a cut – and that cut must be made up with other dollars.

Legislation has passed with overwhelming bipartisan support to close that loophole to make sure that the state adjusts its support for inflation as well as other increases in fixed costs at SUNY.  The tea leaf readers guess that the governor will veto that bill.

If so, he will further undermine whatever credibility SUNY’s plan for additional tuition hikes may have had.

Irrespective of what the governor chooses to do, there is a more basic question: should students have to pay more just to ensure the “peace of mind” knowing that the tuition hikes come at a predictable pace?  Or would they have greater peace of mind knowing that no increases would occur?

The state’s budget has swelled in recent years, the promise in the last tuition deal not to reduce state support was broken, and public college has become less – not more – affordable.

The state should make a new pledge – add support for SUNY, not make the students pay for it.

Governor Cuomo stirred up a hornet’s nest when he decided to use the World Series as a way to raise and spend his campaign warchest.  He chose to use his campaign contributions to pay for his plane ride to Kansas City to watch the first game of the World Series between the Mets and Royals.  His transportation was a private jet owned by the Mets’ owners.

The second event was that the governor was able to obtain a package of tickets to the World Series Games 3 and 4 to be held at Citi Field, the home of the Mets.  The governor offered the tickets at $5,500 each to any deep-pocketed campaign donors, which would allow them to watch the game as well as get some face time with the governor at a reception.  The Mets’ tickets are reportedly available to the public on StubHub for $1,600.  The governor’s campaign would keep the difference.

The second incident generated the most controversy.  One New York City tabloid called it “ticket scalping” (when a purchaser of event tickets turns around and sells them at a huge markup).  The New York Post hammered away at the governor, noting that while the event was within the limits of the state’s campaign finance laws, as Attorney General, Cuomo had gone after ticket scalpers for engaging in a similar practice.

Because of that firestorm, the governor cancelled his fundraisers.

But the first event raised eyebrows too.  When the governor gets to fly in a private jet to a World Series game, he must avoid violating the state’s ethics laws.  The owners of the Mets have been registered lobbyists and are prohibited from offering gifts to any public official.  The governor got around that prohibition by using his campaign funds to pay for the trip on the owners’ private plan.

Should campaign contributions be used to pay for a personal trip on a private jet to a baseball game?  How can that expenditure be justified?  As far as we know, there was no campaign fundraising involved in the use of the contributions for the trip.

Instead of paying for the trip out of his pocket, the governor was substituting his campaign funds, which reformers believe should be a no-no.

Some argue that the governor should be allowed a perk of going to the World Series.  The governor already gets lots of perks – he has a free mansion, use of the state helicopter, staff support, all paid for by taxpayers.  He also makes a decent salary as governor, $179,000.

Should his campaign contributions pay for his trip to a ball game?

The incidents illuminate just how bad New York State’s campaign financing system is.  It couples the highest campaign contributions limits of any state with limits, with inadequate disclosures, sporadic enforcement, and loopholes that allow elected officials to use their campaign monies in ways that can subsidize their incomes.

Reforms are needed.

The first step is an obvious one and does not put elected officials at a competitive disadvantage.  Restrict the use of campaign contributions to the actual campaigns themselves.  The loophole that swallows current law is that an elected official cannot use campaign contributions for personal use, but can use campaign contributions if the use is related to the holding of public office.  Thus, the governor can argue that flying to a ballgame in Kansas City is part of his job and he can use his campaign contributions to reimburse flying on a private jet owned by individuals who are registered lobbyists.

New York law should be amended to simply state that elected officials can only use their campaign contributions for actual campaign-related activities.

Of course, more needs to be done – lowered contribution limits, expanded disclosures, unique restrictions on those seeking government favors, independent enforcement, and a voluntary system of public financing to provide resources to any New Yorker who wants to run for office, not just those with wealthy friends or connections.

The governor could start by leading by example and pledging to use his campaign funds only for campaigning.  In that way, perhaps he could lead all elected officials down the path toward more comprehensive reforms.

It is a well-established fact that the planet is heating up.  2014 was the hottest year on record and last week, the first prediction of 2015 came out –it wasn’t good news.

According to the scientists at the federal government’s National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), the summer months of June, July and August in the Northern Hemisphere saw its highest globally averaged temperature since records began in 1880.  Some have said that it may have been the hottest summer on the planet in over 4,000 years.

NOAA also said record heat was reported across northeastern Africa stretching into the Middle East, part of southeastern Asia, most of the northern half of South America, and parts of central and eastern North America.

That extended heat wave has heated the oceans and has contributed to the large El Niño that powered the hurricane that ravaged the Mexican coast over the weekend and is drenching the south.

The heating up of the planet is turbocharged by the dramatic increases in carbon dioxide generated by human activity.  According to scientists at the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), the Earth is experiencing carbon dioxide levels not seen since prehistoric times and has never seen carbon dioxide levels increase at such a rapid rate.

The NASA scientists predicted that these increases in carbon dioxide will cause “real, significant changes in the Earth system now, not in some distant future climate, and will continue to be felt for centuries to come. We can study these impacts to better understand the way the Earth will respond to future changes, but unless serious actions are taken immediately, we risk the next threshold being a point of no return in mankind’s unintended global-scale geoengineering experiment.”

NASA found that the “global concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere – the primary driver of recent climate change – has reached 400 parts per million for the first time in recorded history.”

What is a critical driver in these increases in carbon dioxide?  The burning of fossil fuels.  And the reason that so little is happening to reduce carbon dioxide emissions is that the fossil fuel industry, (made up of oil, gas and coal companies) has done all it can to undermine the science documenting global warming.

In a recent series of articles in the Los Angeles Times, internal documents show that oil company giant Exxon – which once was considered a pioneer in climate change research – began in the 1990s to fund a campaign that questioned climate change.

The reason, according to the reporting of the LA Times, was that Exxon feared that there might emerge a growing public consensus that would lead to governmental policies that would hurt the company’s finances.  Essentially, Exxon decided to put its corporate profits ahead of scientific research that showed that global warming would hurt the public’s health.

And the oil giant decided to start funding groups that would combat proposals to reduce greenhouse gases.  According to the LA Times, Exxon joined an association of companies from industries linked to fossil fuels, to aggressively fight potential climate change regulations.  The plan was to spend millions of dollars on a disinformation campaign emphasizing scientific uncertainty and underscoring the negative economic impact of such laws on consumers.

Their effort was so successful that in 1997, the U.S. Senate refused to ratify a U.N. treaty committing states to reduce greenhouse gases because restrictions on carbon dioxide emissions “could result in serious harm to the United States economy” — an argument Exxon used repeatedly in its public-relations campaign.

For years, the efforts by the oil, gas and coal companies were successful: significant percentages of Americans did not believe that global warming was real or that human activity was the driving force behind it.  As a result, policies to reduce greenhouse gases were stymied – and the planet heated up.  As the planet has heated up, weather patterns have begun to change and so has public opinion. Those changes have affected voters in each party.

A recent poll of voters found that a “majority of Republicans (56 percent) now believe that there is solid evidence of global warming, up from 47 percent a year ago, joining solid majorities of Democrats (79 percent) and Independents (69 percent).”“Americans who believe there is evidence of global warming are also increasingly confident in their belief, with a record 65 percent saying they are ‘very confident’ in their appraisal.”

Those beliefs have not, as yet, shown up in the public policies of the Congress.  The political strategies of the oil, gas and coal companies are still paying off.  The big question facing the nation is whether public policies will catch up to public opinion – and will they do so before it is too late.