New York state reps in home stretch
Legislative session expected to end June 21
ALBANY, N.Y. » Senate and Assembly members are due back Monday for the final stretch of the 2017 legislative session, which Gov. Andrew Cuomo has declared is already pretty much over, thanks to the April state budget that settled the most contentious issues.
After a week’s break for Memorial Day, legislators are scheduled to hold just 11 more session days before calling it quits for the year. They plan to meet four days a week for the next two weeks, followed by a three-day week, closing with ad-
journment on Wednesday, June 21.
President Donald Trump, the heroin epidemic, Lake Ontario flooding, upstate job losses, and downstate gang violence are among the things on their minds — along with a pending investigation into bonus payments given to select members of the Senate, also known as “Stipendgate.”
The Senate GOP majority’s priorities at the end nears include renewing Kendra’s Law regarding court-ordered treatment for the mentally ill, more help to fight the opioid and heroin epidemic, anti-gang legislation to respond to the MS-13 violence on Long Island, and expediting state aid to help people affected by high water and flooding.
There is also a push under way to pass an anti-nepotism ethics bill to stop legislators from awarding member item grants to non-profits or businesses that they have personal connections with, either directly or through a family member or domestic partner.
Assembly Democrats didn’t return messages Friday seeking their to-do list, but they also have a busy agenda, including a $5,000-per-person “Night of Baseball in the Bronx!” fundraiser on Thursday. Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie is holding it in one of the luxury suites at the Yankees-Red Sox game at Yankee Stadium, with special guest Mickey Rivers, a Yankees great from the 1970s.
The fundraiser is the biggest in a week when legislators will shake the lobbyist money tree to get as much campaign cash as they can as vital votes are taken in the final days of the session.
Invitations are out for at least nine fundraisers in Albany on session days this week. Counting the Yankees event, a lobbyist would have to shell out nearly $9,000 to attend all of them.
Assembly Republicans also have a list of things they say should be done.
“Our work is far from finished, especially considering New Yorkers are still struggling with one of the nation’s highest tax burdens, worst business climates and the black cloud of corruption that plagues Albany remains unmitigated,” Assembly Minority Leader Brian Kolb, R-Canandaigua, said Friday.
He cited the need to replace the JCOPE ethics office with an independent ethics panel and pass a series of measures to reduce Cuomo’s control over massive funds that finance economic development projects. The money is part of the Buffalo Billion and SUNY Poly contract-fixing case brought against some of Cuomo’s former top aides and campaign donors.
Cuomo has not been accused of any wrongdoing in the contract-fixing scandal.
“Simply coasting to the end, as the governor has suggested, serves no one,” Kolb said.
Cuomo declared after the budget passed in April that the session was essentially over, and has made a point of avoiding Albany since then.
“They call it a state budget,” Cuomo said back then, not elaborating on who “they” are. “It’s not really a budget. It’s really an overall operating plan. It’s what we think are the important things for the upcoming year.”
The budget totaled $163 billion, another new spending record. Cuomo has spent the time since then gearing up for his expected 2018 reelection campaign and stoking speculation he may seek the Democratic nomination to challenge Trump in 2020.
As part of that effort, Cuomo delivered what was believed to be his first speech at a high school graduation on Thursday, at Columbia Prep, the same elite New York City prep school attended by President Trump’s youngest child, Barron. Annual tuition there is $48,000.
The NY1 cable news channel reported the chairman of the board of Columbia Prep is a major Cuomo donor, who has given the governor $100,000 in recent years.