The 2015 legislative session wrapped up last week, one week later than scheduled.\u00a0 During the last 2 weeks of session, nearly 540 bills passed both houses.\u00a0 But the big story was the last bill approved \u2013 the \u201cBig Ugly.\u201d<\/p>\n
What\u2019s a \u201cBig Ugly\u201d?\u00a0 The Big Ugly is an amalgamation of smaller proposals lumped together into one \u201cbig\u201d bill.\u00a0 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\u2019s property tax cap.<\/p>\n
All in one piece of legislation.\u00a0 Ugly.<\/p>\n
And the legislation was slapped together and made public a mere few hours before the legislature voted on the legislation, which \u2013 by the way \u2013 was around midnight.\u00a0 The process was ugly too.<\/p>\n
Hence, the \u201cBig Ugly.\u201d<\/p>\n
And to add insult to injury, the governor and state lawmakers ignored the elephant in the room \u2013 the swelling number of scandals and indictments that have plagued Albany.<\/p>\n
It really was remarkable:\u00a0 lawmakers were complaining that they were having a hard time negotiating agreements because the US Attorney was watching.\u00a0 They said that his indictments of the former Assembly Speaker and Senate Majority Leader complicated the session.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s not surprising that the indictments had some impact on the session.\u00a0 But you can\u2019t 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\u2019s trust in their own government.<\/p>\n
But they did just that.<\/p>\n
The few reforms that were approved came in the state budget agreement, but were widely criticized as \u201cinadequate\u201d to solve the massive scandals that have plagued the Capitol.\u00a0 The failure to enact any other needed changes was indefensible and shockingly irresponsible.<\/p>\n
Instead, the governor and the legislative leaders should have taken steps to:<\/p>\n
Any ethics agreement is only as good as the agencies charged with its enforcement.\u00a0 New York\u2019s ethics enforcement entities\u2014JCOPE and the Legislative Ethics Commission\u2014require substantial improvement.<\/p>\n
New Yorkers deserved a serious response before the end of session in this year of unending corruption scandals.\u00a0 Inaction and deflection in the face of the continuing ethics scandals is unacceptable.\u00a0 New York\u2019s political leadership must strengthen regulation, oversight and the enforcement of the state\u2019s ethics laws.\u00a0 New Yorkers across the state are demanding no less.<\/p>\n
Governor Cuomo and the state\u2019s legislative leaders shouldn\u2019t blow off their responsibility to strengthen the state\u2019s ethics.\u00a0 The governor in particular has to take the lead:\u00a0 the governor should convene a special session to tackle ethics reforms before the end of the calendar year.<\/p>\n
The \u201cBig Ugly\u201d must not be the final word on the 2015 legislative session.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The 2015 legislative session wrapped up last week, one week later than scheduled.\u00a0 During the last 2 weeks of session, nearly 540 bills passed both houses.\u00a0 But the big story was the last bill approved \u2013 the \u201cBig Ugly.\u201d What\u2019s a \u201cBig Ugly\u201d?\u00a0 The Big Ugly is an amalgamation of smaller proposals lumped together into […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1502","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nypirg.org\/capitolperspective\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1502","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nypirg.org\/capitolperspective\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nypirg.org\/capitolperspective\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nypirg.org\/capitolperspective\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nypirg.org\/capitolperspective\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1502"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.nypirg.org\/capitolperspective\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1502\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1504,"href":"https:\/\/www.nypirg.org\/capitolperspective\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1502\/revisions\/1504"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nypirg.org\/capitolperspective\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1502"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nypirg.org\/capitolperspective\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1502"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nypirg.org\/capitolperspective\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1502"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}