With only 12 legislative days until the scheduled end of the session, state lawmakers face an increasing “policy traffic jam”:  New issues are being added to an already packed end-of-session agenda.  Here is what the scrambled Albany political landscape looks like as of now:

The courts have tossed the Congressional and state Senate political district maps drawn by the Legislature and will replace them with ones drawn by a court-appointed Special Master by May 20^th.  Will the Legislature then have to redo candidate petitioning and other rules that determine who will be on the ballot for the new primary pushed forward two months to August 23^rd? Moreover, will legal challenges result in the state Assembly’s newly drawn lines also getting tossed? 

Will Governor Hochul and state lawmakers move all of the primaries – including those for governor – from June to August in order to save taxpayer dollars?  (It costs about $30 million to run a primary.  Obviously two of them are more expensive than one.)  If so, what other changes will be needed to qualify candidates for that new deadline?

And there is the issue of how to replace Congressional Representative Delgado once he is sworn into his new job as Lt. Governor.  Under New York law, the governor has a short window of time to announce a special election.  Will that be part of the current June primary vote?  Will she wait until later in the summer? 

The recent leak of a draft US Supreme Court decision to overturn abortion rights in America has also roiled Albany.  Lawmakers are expected to develop a raft of new legislation to respond to this possible change.  Expect a number of new legislative initiatives to be added to state lawmakers’ end-of-session list.

And those two issue areas are loaded on top of an already-packed list of important bills expected to be taken up in the waning days of session.  For example, lawmakers are debating issues over how to adjust the state’s housing code to reduce global warming greenhouse gas emissions by requiring new buildings to solely rely on electricity for power, whether to place a moratorium on certain cryptocurrency activities that increase those emissions, as well as deciding whether to act to reduce excess packaging to meet Governor Hochul’s promise to put the reduction onus on producers of packaging waste, not taxpayers.

There are other, lower profile, but important issues too.  For example, how should the state combat the growing public health threat caused by the rise of antibiotic resistant infections? 

According to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), at least 35,000 Americans will die and another 2.8 million be made sick by exposure to antibiotic-resistant “superbug” infections.  Those numbers translate into New York State seeing more than 164,000 serious illnesses and 2,000 to 9,000 deaths in the next year. These infections include MRSA, urinary tract infections, salmonella and others that are increasingly dangerous since antibiotics may no longer work against these illnesses.

Controlling resistance requires both strong antibiotic stewardship measures in medicine and reducing antibiotic use in animals.  In the U.S., approximately 65 percent of medically important antibiotics, i.e., those that are important for human medicine, are also sold for use in food animals – cattle, pigs, turkeys, chickens – typically raised in large-scale industrialized operations, but on smaller farms, too.  Surprisingly, most of the animals getting antibiotics aren’t actually sick.  Instead, antibiotics are routinely administered to the animals at subtherapeutic levels daily, mixed into their food and/or water, so that they can survive often unsanitary, overcrowded living conditions and unnatural diets.

Last week, legislation was introduced to combat the threat of antibiotic-resistant infections.  The legislation, introduced by Senator Brian Kavanagh and Assemblymember Linda Rosenthal, would be the first in the nation to take the comprehensive “One Health” approach recommended by the CDC.  The legislation was supported by thirty consumer, public health, animal welfare, and environmental groups.

Of course, there are many other important issues that may be addressed as well.  In a “typical” end of session, during the last few weeks lawmakers approve roughly half of the total number of bills that they have acted upon during the entire six-month session – hundreds of bill are likely to get passed in this end of session blitz.

Lawmakers are heading down the final stretch of this legislative session; how they manage the increasingly large number of policy items and whether they take action on issues important to all New Yorkers will determine whether the session was successful.

New York State politics is maddening and endlessly surprising.  Over the past twenty years, three governors have had serious scandals – with two resigning and one fined for lying under oath.  A state Comptroller went to prison, previous leaders of the state Senate and Assembly were sent to prison for corruption, and scores of state legislators were punished for violating state laws.

Just two weeks ago, the Lt. Governor resigned after being charged by federal prosecutors with corruption.

And this past week, the state’s top court threw out the political boundaries set for New York’s delegation to the House of Representatives and the state Senate.  The Capitol shook from that latest political earthquake.

As background, every ten years the nation counts its residents through the census.  Every ten years, federal, state, and local governments readjust their political boundaries to reflect population changes.  That process – known as redistricting – has long been manipulated by the major political parties to maximize their electoral prospects for success.  

That manipulation is known as “gerrymandering,” named for Elbridge Gerry, a 19^th Century Massachusetts politician who pioneered the strategy.

In modern New York State political history, the Democrats who controlled the state Assembly drew the lines for themselves, the Republicans in the Senate did the same for themselves.  The last time around in 2012, the courts drew up the lines for New York’s delegation to the House of Representatives. 

Legal challenges had been filed to challenge these plans, but the courts almost entirely deferred to this arrangement.

Ten years ago, that process was changed.  As part of a deal by then-Governor Cuomo, the governor agreed to astonishing gerrymandered legislative maps in exchange for lawmakers agreeing to approve changes to the state constitution.  Those changes included mandates that future maps could not be gerrymandered and that a new so-called Independent Redistricting Commission (IRC) would oversee the development of new maps for the state and Congress.

As with far too many “reforms” during the Cuomo era, there were problems with the plan, most notably one that the IRC would really be run by the two major political parties, who would have equal representation on the Commission.  At that time, critics argued that such an arrangement would lead to gridlock.

And gridlock is exactly what happened.  The IRC could not agree on maps and so the Legislature drew them.  But this time, both state legislative chambers are run by an overwhelming majority of Democrats.  Republicans cried foul and filed legal challenges that argued that the Democrats’ plans were gerrymandered.

Last week, the Republicans won that argument in the state’s top court and now New York’s political scene has suffered an enormous disruption.

The new lines will be drafted by the courts.  Thus, candidates do not know at this time whether they live in relevant districts and won’t know that until later this month. 

Moreover, the primary for Congressional and state Senate seats has been moved from June to August, and it’s possible that Assembly and statewide primaries will move as well in order to consolidate voting and save taxpayers money – one primary date is cheaper than two.

In effect, the court’s decision has forced a political reset; campaigns that were designed around a June primary now are planning for one in August and whether existing candidates even choose to continue may be determined by the new political boundaries set by the courts.

In addition to immediate changes, the court’s decision has long term implications.  The state constitutionally-created IRC will be in place for the next redistricting in ten years and it’s hard to imagine a minority political party ever agreeing to the lines drafted by the Commission.  Thus, it is likely that there will be redistricting gridlock, which will force the courts to act again.  The 2014 state constitutional change has led to the courts being in charge of redistricting.

That change could have enormous implications this year.  The Congress’s House of Representatives currently is run by Democrats with a very small majority.  If the 2022 election leads to another close majority, the switch of a small number of seats could determine which party controls the House – which can have huge implications for the nation and the world.

New York’s current controversy could have been avoided if then-Governor Cuomo had established a truly independent commission.  In addition, the state’s political representation could have been stronger if the Cuomo Administration had pushed its census efforts; its failure to do so cost the state a representative in the House.  Proposed changes to the state constitution, which could have fixed the problem identified by the courts – that the IRC must act in order to avoid intervention by the court – failed at the ballot last November when the Democrats decided to sit out that vote and devote no resources to persuading the public.  And finally, the Democrats could have been less greedy – at least according to the state court – in drawing up the lines. 

This was a decade-long mess that was allowed to fester.  Now the courts will draw the lines, a surprising outcome and one that will be on the books for years to come, with huge shock waves felt inside and outside New York.

April 22^nd was Earth Day.  Since 1970 the world has marked Earth Day as a time to reflect on the state of the environment and debate how best to improve the only habitat we have. As we know, the world faces an existential threat posed by climate changes driven by global warming.

There is no longer a credible debate over whether human activity, primarily the use of fossil fuels to create energy, is warming the planet. According to the world’s climate experts: “Human influence on the climate system is clear, and recent anthropogenic [human-caused] emissions of greenhouse gases are the highest in history.  Recent climate changes have had widespread impacts on human and natural systems.”

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s (IPCC’s) experts tell us that human society has to curb its carbon emissions by at least 50% by 2030 and then achieve carbon neutrality by 2050 to avoid the worst impacts from global warming.

Given Congressional gridlock, states like New York, California, Massachusetts, and others have stepped up with aggressive goals to cut greenhouse gas emissions.

Using a science-based approach, in 2019 New York State set aggressive goals to attack climate change. The state’s Climate Law says the state must achieve net zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050. The law also sets goals of 70 percent renewable electricity by 2030 and 100 percent carbon-free electricity by 2040.

Those goals are laudable and scientifically-based, but there will be significant costs to address the climate crisis for the world, the nation, and New York.

Climate change resulting from burning of fossil fuels has already had adverse effects on New York in the form of extreme weather events that caused billions of dollars in damages. For example, “Super Storm Sandy” caused $19 billion in damages in New York City. Hurricane Irene devastated the state and resulted in ten deaths and in excess of $1.3 billion in damages. Tropical Storm Lee brought drenching rains that caused more than $1 billion more.

Researchers have estimated the potential economic costs of climate change in New York State for key sectors may approach $10 billion annually by mid-century.   

Those costs are staggering, but the question facing policymakers is how to fairly distribute responsibility. One thing we all know, is that the oil, gas, and coal industries are significantly responsible for the dangers we are experiencing and will face.

The record is clear that for the better half of the late 20th Century, oil companies funded industry and university research collaborations broadly in line with the current scientific consensus. According to corporate documents obtained by the Los Angeles Times, for example, a leading Exxon researcher told an audience of engineers at a conference in 1991 that greenhouse gases are rising “due to the burning of fossil fuels.  Nobody disputes this fact.” 

Nevertheless, starting in the 1980s, the industry championed climate change denial on multiple fronts and opposed regulations to curtail global warming. The industry funded organizations critical of climate change treaties, undermining public opinion about the science that global warming is caused by the burning of fossil fuels. Their successes in bamboozling the public have pushed the planet to the brink.

Now governments are facing the costs of responding to this deadly threat. So how do we ensure that those responsible are on the financial hook for the costs and in a way that minimizes – or eliminates – the industries’ ability to pass those costs along to the public?

New York’s state Superfund program offers precedent for a “polluter must pay” model for making the fossil fuels companies bear the costs tied to a looming climate catastrophe. Under the Superfund program, polluters are obligated to pay for remediation without any requirement of a finding that the polluter was negligent or acted intentionally with knowledge of the damage to the environment its activities would cause.

Working off the state Superfund model, lawmakers should embrace a proposal that extends the principle of the “polluter pays” to pollution from carbon dioxide released into the atmosphere from the combustion of fossil fuels, the primary cause of climate change from global warming. 

The world knows that it faces a dire threat and staggering costs. It’s also true that the record shows that the oil, gas, and coal industries did all they could to block adequate responses to this growing threat. As a result, the threats are greater and the costs of responding are higher.

It’s time to make polluters pay for the damage they’ve done. Right now, big polluters get to pollute for free. New York lawmakers must support a plan that ensures that fossil fuel companies pay their fair share of the costs of cleaning up the mess they’ve created. Someone is going to pay for the costs of climate change: if it isn’t the polluters, it’s going to be the public. They’ve known for some 50 years that their pollution was causing the climate crisis, but they put their profits ahead of public welfare. Now it’s time for New York to make them help pay for the mess they’ve made.

The arrest and subsequent resignation of Lt. Gov. Brian Benjamin sent shockwaves across New York’s political landscape. The charges against Benjamin stem from an alleged misuse of his public office to financially benefit a big campaign contributor. Of course, Benjamin deserves to have his side heard, but his immediate resignation underscores the legal threat he faces and the indictment is fresh evidence that the state fails when it comes to ethics oversight.

According to the federal indictment, Benjamin used his role as then-state senator to obtain a grant for an individual who donated to his Senate campaign and became a significant donor to Benjamin’s failed bid for New York City comptroller. In other words, he secured taxpayer money in direct exchange for someone funneling him campaign cash, including the ability to get public matching funds.

The courts will sort this all out, but misuse of public office for personal (or political) gain is a story that has been told too often in state government. The former Senate majority leader went to prison for misuse of his office; the now deceased former Assembly Speaker did too; and as we know, Gov. Hochul’s predecessor is challenging claims that he misused his public office as well.

And it’s not just elected officials. Top aides to the former governor also were convicted of corruption, along with the campaign contributors who conspired with them.

The larger question is why does this keep happening? The answer is that the state simply does not take ethics enforcement seriously. It’s common knowledge: People behave differently when they know that rules are enforced. Drivers follow speed limits when they see patrol cars. When there are no patrol cars for miles on end, they’ll go as fast as they damn well please.

Albany is a highway with no patrol cars.

It should be lost on no one that many of the state’s major corruption prosecutions — including the Benjamin resignation — were the result of federal investigations, not state ones. If the feds are not watching, or there is no federal legal violation, enforcement is left to state ethics watchdogs.

In Albany, the state has never established an independent ethics watchdog. The most recent iterations — the Joint Commission on Public Ethics, which monitors the executive branch, and the Legislative Ethics Commission, which monitors the Legislature — are controlled by individuals who are directly appointed by the governor and the legislative leaders. Ditto the state inspector general, who reports to the governor’s office.

Having ethics watchdogs hand picked by the individuals that they are supposed to regulate is an obvious problem and at the heart of why scandals occur.

Governor Hochul understood this and advanced a plan in January that she said would ensure that state officials were not directly choosing their own watchdogs. Yet the final agreement she negotiated in the state budget earlier this month fell far short of that.

Under that new law, cobbled together in secret negotiations between the governor and the legislative leaders, the new agency won’t be independent. Its commission will have an 11-member board: three members appointed by the governor, two by the Senate majority leader, two by the Assembly speaker, one by the Assembly minority leader, one by the Senate minority leader, one by the attorney general and one by the comptroller.

Why should the governor and the leaders of the legislative majorities be entitled to more than one appointment? There is no reason, but it does smack of a classic deal to allow the three leaders to dominate the new agency. Quick math shows that those seven appointees would dominate the new ethics agency.

There is an added wrinkle:  The Deans of New York law schools would vet those applicants to determine qualifications, using criteria ranging from their professional backgrounds to their geographic diversity. It’s worth noting that law schools are involved in lobbying the state government, and in any event, the Deans’ role won’t make the ethics agency independent.

Of course, that’s not to say that the plan does not offer improvements over the awful ethics system now in place. But the cornerstone of effective ethics oversight is independence, and on that basis alone, this proposal fails, and fails miserably.

New York has had too many ethical scandals, resulting in a crisis in public confidence in state government. History shows that whatever ethics agency is put in place will be around for years. Scandals can drive real reforms, but unfortunately New York’s leaders have so far squandered this reform opportunity.

Of course, the vast majority of elected officials are honest, professional and reasonable.  But having a weak state ethics law enforced by individuals who are directly tied to the political establishment creates a culture where individuals can game the system to benefit themselves. That appears to be what led to Lt. Governor Benjamin’s arrest.

This latest scandal underscores the need for independent ethics oversight. The governor and the leaders still have time this session. They must go back to the drawing board and fix their latest deal.

Early Saturday morning, the Legislature approved the state’s $220 billion budget.  The budget agreement was eased by billions in federal governmental financial support, as well as swelling state tax revenues.  The state’s huge budget surplus made the budget negotiation process easier to manage, but it was still late – and Albany had to resort to its bag of tricks to get it done.

Governor Hochul’s first budget agreement mimicked the worst legislative processes: While meeting the state’s minimum legal requirements, the budget was negotiated in secret.  Rank and file lawmakers were largely cut out of the discussions, with the major decisions hammered out by the governor and the legislative leaders and their top staffs.  Once the agreements were finalized, the governor granted the leaders “messages of necessity,” which suspend the normal review period allowing them to force votes on the budget bills with little or no time for lawmakers – or the public – to review the details.  And the final votes were cast in the wee hours of Saturday morning.

Yet, with so much available money, the final budget added billions in spending that made many groups successful in getting some of what they wanted in state support.  Despite that, the budget fell short in at least two critically important areas: climate change and ethics.

On the climate change front, lawmakers were debating the budget at the same time the world’s experts issued their most alarming call to date.  The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) issued a report saying that the world has very little time to act to avoid climate catastrophe.  As one author put it, “This report finds that the impacts of climate change are here. In many cases they are worse than expected, and they’ve been hitting every area of the world.”  The IPCC called on the world to act, and to act now.

Yet in Albany, the most significant actions to tackle climate change were kicked out of the budget.  The most positive aspect of the budget agreement was approval of a $4.2 billion Environmental Bond Act, the fate of which will be decided by voters in November.  If approved, the Bond Act would provide $1.1 billion for flood risk reduction, $650 million for open space land conservation, and $1.5 billion for climate mitigation.  While those would be significant investments, they fall far short of what’s needed – some estimates state that New York will need to spend upwards of $10 billion annually to deal with the impacts of global warming. 

On a more concrete level, the budget requires that all new school bus purchases be zero-emissions by 2027 and all school buses on the road be zero-emissions by 2035.  If approved by the voters, the Environmental Bond Act will provide $500 million to support school districts in purchases of zero-emission buses and related charging infrastructure, including charging stations. The budget appropriated $500 million to develop the state’s offshore wind supply chains and port infrastructure.  The budget also creates a geothermal tax credit to help homeowners shift away from reliance on fossil fuel heating.

But despite the alarms being sounded by the IPCC, the most dramatic moves to shift the state from reliance on fossil fuels – such as the proposal to require that all new building construction rely on electricity for power – were removed.

Another big failure was in the area of ethics. 

Relying on the old Albany tactic of “applying a fresh coat of paint to a rotten building,” Governor Hochul and state lawmakers agreed to get rid of the much-derided Joint Commission on Public Ethics (JCOPE) and replace it with something that is essentially the same thing. 

The fundamental flaw in the new ethics watchdog is that the new commission – like the old one – is not independent from the elected officials who it is supposed to oversee.  The leaders still directly choose the commissioners, but they added a new wrinkle: requiring that the state’s law school deans review these direct appointments prior to final selection.

The vetting process involving law school deans or designees does not add any independence to the selection process, nor does it even create the appearance of independence.  The new law says the deans will not nominate or select candidates; they will simply screen their eligibility.  Just like in the current, broken system, elected officials will directly select and appoint the ethics commissioners who will pass judgment on their actions.

Under this flawed structure no member of the public can put forward a person whom they think should be considered among the pool of candidates, which other states do for independent commissions.  The regulated have monopolized the identification of the persons who should regulate them.  

While the law includes measures that allow the new agency to perform more efficiently and, in most instances more openly, what matters most is the agency’s leadership.  The ethics commissioners will make the ultimate decisions about whether or not to enforce the state’s ethics laws and whether lawmakers, agency personnel and lobbyists have passed an ethical line.

Lawmakers have until June 2^nd to finish up their work.  All New Yorkers should hope these two big issues – and others – are substantially addressed before lawmakers go home to face the voters.