Perhaps that is the idea?
Cuomo’s game of hide-the-ball
Four huge pieces of legislation remain this session, and details, so far, are nonexistent
Comments (1)NEW YORK DAILY NEWS
Tuesday, June 4, 2013, 4:05 AM
Mike Groll/AP
Gov. Cuomo should release legislation sooner -- and give lawmakers and public the chance to debate and shape it.
If Gov. Cuomo gets his way, the next couple of weeks will see a frenzy of high-stakes lawmaking in Albany.
With his third legislative session set to end on June 20 — just 16 calendar days and 10 session days from now — Cuomo is pushing for action on four big, controversial fronts:
-Rewriting and shoring up New York’s abortion rights laws as a precaution in case the U.S. Supreme Court overturns Roe vs. Wade.
-Amending the state Constitution to legalize as many as seven non-Indian casinos, subject to voter approval in November.
-Declaring dozens of State University of New York campuses to be “tax-free zones,” where select business startups would operate free from all business, sales and income taxes for up to 10 years.
-Allowing candidates for state office to finance their political campaigns with tax dollars as part of a broad overhaul of election laws.
Love ’em or hate ’em, these ambitious and far-ranging proposals have one dismaying feature in common: Their details exist only in the governor’s head.
Cuomo has been touting some of these ideas for months, if not years. Recently, interest groups have begun pressuring members of the Assembly and Senate to take stands for or against his various bills.
But there are no bills. Cuomo has yet to put his ideas down on paper as fully fleshed-out pieces of legislation.
That could change Tuesday, when the governor is reportedly going to unveil his abortion proposal as part of a 10-point “women’s agenda” that also cracks down on domestic violence, job discrimination and sexual harassment. That leaves one remaining session day per plank.
His obvious intention is to play the bad old Albany game of “three men in a room” — only now it’s four men because of a power-sharing deal in the Senate. Cuomo, Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver and Senate co-leaders Dean Skelos and Jeff Klein will huddle in private, cut deals and rush them to passage as quickly as possible.
This is a lousy, undemocratic process that reduces rank-and-file lawmakers to rubber stamps and, more troubling, denies the public a fair chance to weigh in.
And lousy process all too often leads to lousy results.
Witness what happened with the big gun control law that Cuomo and the Legislature whisked through before the ink dried. Among its tough new provisions was a ban on ammunition magazines that hold more than seven rounds. Problem was, there is no such thing as a seven-round magazine on the market — rendering that marquee provision unworkable.
Cuomo’s embarrassing fallback was to allow 10-round magazines, but to say owners can load no more than seven. How that will be enforced, no one knows.
Another danger of closed-door wheeling and dealing is that it enables insiders to put their own political interests ahead of the greater good.
That was certainly the case with the creation of Albany’s new ethics watchdog in 2011. Cuomo sold it as an independent oversight agency for the Legislature. But Skelos and Silver inserted language giving their appointees on the panel special veto power to block investigations of . . . Skelos and Silver. Plus, those votes would be taken in secret — so the public could have no clue the fix was in.
Had Cuomo demanded a full, public debate on that bill, those laughable vetoes probably never would have made it into law. Ditto for the seven-round magazines.
Cuomo defends his coyness with details on grounds that it helps grease the way to political compromise.
“To put forth specifics when you don’t have an agreement, in my experience, polarizes the parties,” he explained on one occasion. “It makes it harder to come to an agreement because you push people to their respective corners.”
He has even suggested that putting out full-fledged legislation is a sign that a politician is more focused on pandering than getting things done.
“‘Do they want a press release, or do they want something passed?’ is the question that has to be posed,” he said.
If that’s true, it’s a stunning indictment of Albany’s political culture — and something Cuomo should be leading the way to change.
Because when it comes to the big, important stuff — like when women can get abortions, how much money businesses must pay in taxes, what forms of gambling are legal and how we elected our most powerful state officials — details matter.
whammond@nydailynews.com
With his third legislative session set to end on June 20 — just 16 calendar days and 10 session days from now — Cuomo is pushing for action on four big, controversial fronts:
-Rewriting and shoring up New York’s abortion rights laws as a precaution in case the U.S. Supreme Court overturns Roe vs. Wade.
-Amending the state Constitution to legalize as many as seven non-Indian casinos, subject to voter approval in November.
-Declaring dozens of State University of New York campuses to be “tax-free zones,” where select business startups would operate free from all business, sales and income taxes for up to 10 years.
-Allowing candidates for state office to finance their political campaigns with tax dollars as part of a broad overhaul of election laws.
Love ’em or hate ’em, these ambitious and far-ranging proposals have one dismaying feature in common: Their details exist only in the governor’s head.
Cuomo has been touting some of these ideas for months, if not years. Recently, interest groups have begun pressuring members of the Assembly and Senate to take stands for or against his various bills.
But there are no bills. Cuomo has yet to put his ideas down on paper as fully fleshed-out pieces of legislation.
That could change Tuesday, when the governor is reportedly going to unveil his abortion proposal as part of a 10-point “women’s agenda” that also cracks down on domestic violence, job discrimination and sexual harassment. That leaves one remaining session day per plank.
His obvious intention is to play the bad old Albany game of “three men in a room” — only now it’s four men because of a power-sharing deal in the Senate. Cuomo, Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver and Senate co-leaders Dean Skelos and Jeff Klein will huddle in private, cut deals and rush them to passage as quickly as possible.
This is a lousy, undemocratic process that reduces rank-and-file lawmakers to rubber stamps and, more troubling, denies the public a fair chance to weigh in.
And lousy process all too often leads to lousy results.
Witness what happened with the big gun control law that Cuomo and the Legislature whisked through before the ink dried. Among its tough new provisions was a ban on ammunition magazines that hold more than seven rounds. Problem was, there is no such thing as a seven-round magazine on the market — rendering that marquee provision unworkable.
Cuomo’s embarrassing fallback was to allow 10-round magazines, but to say owners can load no more than seven. How that will be enforced, no one knows.
Another danger of closed-door wheeling and dealing is that it enables insiders to put their own political interests ahead of the greater good.
That was certainly the case with the creation of Albany’s new ethics watchdog in 2011. Cuomo sold it as an independent oversight agency for the Legislature. But Skelos and Silver inserted language giving their appointees on the panel special veto power to block investigations of . . . Skelos and Silver. Plus, those votes would be taken in secret — so the public could have no clue the fix was in.
Had Cuomo demanded a full, public debate on that bill, those laughable vetoes probably never would have made it into law. Ditto for the seven-round magazines.
Cuomo defends his coyness with details on grounds that it helps grease the way to political compromise.
“To put forth specifics when you don’t have an agreement, in my experience, polarizes the parties,” he explained on one occasion. “It makes it harder to come to an agreement because you push people to their respective corners.”
He has even suggested that putting out full-fledged legislation is a sign that a politician is more focused on pandering than getting things done.
“‘Do they want a press release, or do they want something passed?’ is the question that has to be posed,” he said.
If that’s true, it’s a stunning indictment of Albany’s political culture — and something Cuomo should be leading the way to change.
Because when it comes to the big, important stuff — like when women can get abortions, how much money businesses must pay in taxes, what forms of gambling are legal and how we elected our most powerful state officials — details matter.
whammond@nydailynews.com
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