The planet is rapidly heating up.  The warmest years in the instrumental temperature record have occurred in the last decade, with 2016 and 2020 being the two warmest years in the period since 1850.  The increasing warmth is fueling changes that have resulted in stronger storms, rising sea levels, melting glaciers, famine, and human migration.

The increasing heat is primarily driven by human activity, most notably the burning of oil, gas, and coal to power civilization.

Scientists and climate experts have urged policymakers to move away from the use of fossil fuels and move toward reliance on renewable forms of energy, powered by the sun, wind, and increased efficiencies.

Some governments have reacted to that call.  Here in New York, former Governor Cuomo teamed up with former Vice President Gore in 2019 at a ceremonial bill signing to enact legislation that set up science-based, aggressive goals with the goal of slashing the state’s greenhouse gas emissions 85% below what they were in 1990.

At that event, the former governor stated, “Cries for a new green movement are hollow political rhetoric if not combined with aggressive goals and a realistic plan on how to achieve them.”  While that legislation set aggressive goals, it did not include an implementation plan.  That was left to the Climate Action Council established in the legislation.

The Council began its work two years ago and last week publicly released its plan.  The 400-plus page document is expected to be approved with little or no changes at a meeting of the Council this week. 

Assuming that the plan is followed, New Yorkers would see dramatic changes in their lives – from greener energy sources to the use of electricity to heat homes and buildings, and to power their vehicles.

The report spends significant time, appropriately, on ensuring that low-income and other front-line communities are adequately considered and protected as new technologies come online.  These communities have suffered far more than most from the public health harm caused by air pollution.  In addition, the report details plans for establishing the necessary labor transition from a workforce relying on climate damaging fossil fuel infrastructure to one that relies on green technologies.  Current workers can’t be left behind.

The report also seems to endorse the continued use of New York’s Vietnam-era nuclear power plants – facilities that utility ratepayers have already spent billions in special subsidies to keep open.  The plan also seems to advance the possibility of using untested and flawed technologies that promise to capture fossil fuel pollution and “sequester” it – usually in the ground.  That’s been long promised but has failed to produce results at a scale that makes it a viable process.

One potentially fatal flaw in the plan is that it relies on the current roster of state agencies to do the heavy lift of running these new programs.  New York’s state agencies have long suffered from fiscal neglect and are in no position, currently, to administer existing programs, much less handle gigantic new responsibilities.  It is in this area that the Legislature should focus attention.

Moreover, while the report discusses at length the need for public accountability, its proposals appear to fall short.  While discussing the need for annual reporting of greenhouse gas emissions, much of the public assessments of its actions occur less frequently. 

Until the public has an easy-to-understand, easy-to-access dashboard that tracks the progress the state is making toward its goals, there will be insufficient accountability.  After all, the climate law was approved three-and-a-half years ago and only now the required report is being released.  In addition, if the plan is approved the state government has to follow its normal regulatory process.  Thus, it’s possible that these plans will take time to come online, maybe in the next year or so.

Given the worsening climate catastrophe, there is no time to waste.  New Yorkers need to be able to hold their climate policymakers accountable, which cannot be done without real-time information.  And the government can’t deliver the goods with its existing structures.

Lastly, there was little about how much money will be needed to deal with the climate crisis.  The report is about moving New York to a green future, which is necessary.  But even under the best of circumstances, the state will have to spend tens of billions of dollars to respond to the rising sea levels and intense storms resulting from a hotter planet.  For example, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers estimates that it will take $52 billion to protect New York Harbor alone!  And that’s just a small part of mitigating projected damage – transition to renewable energy and a modern electric grid will be a huge, expensive undertaking.

So, the question remains:  Who will pay for those costs?  Those bills will definitely come due.  An important addition to the Climate Action Plan is a strong policy signal that the polluters – the oil companies – who created this mess and long profited from it should be on the hook to pay for the cleanup.  That type of justice is something we should all want.

The elections are over, the year is winding down, and . . . a pay raise for state legislators may be in the offing.  Historically, pay raises have been considered right after elections since lawmakers know that the public doesn’t support raises and it gives them a couple of years to cool off.  Holiday-filled December is usually the month and so rumors abound in Albany that this is the year for another one.

What triggered this year’s speculation (so far there is no official declaration of interest) was last month’s decision by New York’s highest court that the current mechanism for deciding on pay raises for the executive and legislative branches is constitutional. 

To understand how we got here, it’s useful to know the back story behind the last pay raises for lawmakers and statewide elected – and appointed – officials to explain the current pay raise rumors and the tortured mechanism that could allow them.

Between the years 1998 and 2019, lawmakers received zero pay raises.  Public opposition and partisan gridlock left frozen the salaries of lawmakers and members of the executive branch alike.  Then in 2015, then-Governor Cuomo and the state’s legislative leaders struck a deal: A new commission would be established that would decide on pay raises. 

The final result was that it advanced a pay raise plan right after the 2018 election.  Unless the Legislature intervened to stop its own pay raise, it would go into effect starting on January 1, 2019, which it did.

As a result, state lawmakers and top agency heads got salary increases.  Lawmakers’ salaries jumped from $79,500 to $110,000 – the second highest in the nation, just behind California (which is nearly $120,000).  The pay raises would continue to go up until they reached $130,000.  The panel also called for hiking the governor’s salary, which was also approved by lawmakers and now New York’s executive is the highest paid in the nation at $250,000.

But the salary increases for lawmakers came with some important caveats.

The commission voted to curtail lawmakers’ outside income to 15 percent of their salary and it moved to eliminate many of the lucrative stipends to which lawmakers have approved for themselves in previous years, which sometimes made up as much as half of their base pay.

In announcing their recommendations, the commission’s members emphasized the linkage between the pay increase and the restrictions on other income. They said the measures would help attract top talent to a body long tarnished by corruption and inefficiency.

That package was challenged in court.  Initially, the courts ruled that the pay increase could go into effect but threw out the linkages to outside income limits and the automatic salary increases advanced by the commission.  The high court’s decision last month found that the Legislature’s plan to establish a commission to determine a pay raise was constitutional.  The decision opened the door to lawmakers’ consideration of future pay raises.  And that’s where we are today.

Lawmakers argue – and Governor Hochul agrees – that they work hard and are entitled to an increase, one that had been blessed by the pay commission.  Yet at the same time, they have been unwilling to curtail outside income.  They consider themselves “part-time” and thus allowed to have second jobs.

It is that outside income that has been troublesome in the past and led to high profile scandals, most notably the former Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver who went to jail for corrupt schemes that stemmed from his outside business interests. 

In addition,  outside experts consider New York’s Legislature “full time.”  The National Conference of State Legislatures is among them, arguing that full-time legislatures “require the most time of legislators, usually 80 percent or more of a full-time job. In most [such] states, legislators are paid enough to make a living without requiring outside income. These legislatures are more similar to Congress than are the other state legislatures.”

Congress limits outside income because the members are full-time.  The Congress limits outside income to nothing more than a small amount and bans income from any entity in which the Congressmember has a “fiduciary” relationship with a client.  Being a “fiduciary” means putting the interests of your client ahead of your own.  When you’re an elected official whose constituents’ interests are paramount, how do you do that when you have clients?  Can lawmakers serve two masters?  Both the Congress as well as the pay commission said no.

Ironically, a relatively small percentage of lawmakers have substantial outside income, but it’s their opposition which has blocked approval of a Congressional-style limit in Albany.  If lawmakers want to be the highest paid in the nation, they must take a meaningful step to curb Albany’s corruption risk: No outside income for any elected official.  New York’s elected officials cannot serve two masters.

New York’s efforts to finalize its political boundaries for the State Legislature entered a new phase last week.  A Redistricting Commission – made up of equal numbers of Democrats and Republicans – released a proposed map for the New York State Assembly.  This proposed map is set for public hearings over the next few months with legislative action to follow.  The plan is for the new Assembly maps to be in place in time for the 2024 election.

Most New Yorkers would be excused if they had thought that the redistricting process was already completed.  After all, the once-in-a-decade census was completed and new lines were drawn in time for the 2022 election.  So, what happened to trigger another round of maps? 

In 2012, former Governor Cuomo and the state Legislature approved a plan to establish what they called an “Independent” Redistricting Commission.  The plan was advanced as a state constitutional amendment, and was passed in 2014.

Critics at the time argued that the amendment was deeply flawed and would, among other weaknesses, lead to partisan gridlock since the “independent” Commission was not, in fact, independent.  Instead, it was a Commission with equal numbers of Democrats and Republicans.

In 2021, the Commission gridlocked.  The state Constitution allowed the Legislature, with the governor’s approval, to draw up its own lines.  The Legislature did that earlier this year. 

Republicans challenged in court the Congressional and state Senate lines, arguing that the new districts were unconstitutionally partisan.  The state Constitution requires that districts be compact and not favor or disfavor political parties.  At that time, there was no challenge to the Assembly lines.

New York’s highest court agreed with the Republicans and the court itself drew up the lines for New York’s members of Congress and state Senate.  That decision opened the door to a legal challenge against the state Assembly lines as being equally unconstitutional.

Again, the court agreed, but ruled that since the action was so close to the Election, the Assembly lines drawn by the Legislature in 2022 would stay in place, but that new lines would have to be drawn for the 2024 elections.

So, here we are.

The court ruled that the so-called Independent Redistricting Commission should take a stab at new maps and if it failed the court would, once again, step in.

Last week, Democrats and Republicans on the Commission unanimously agreed to its new maps.  The Commission plans to hold a series of 12 public hearings on the draft plan. The first will be Jan. 9 in Buffalo.  After obtaining public input, the Commission may revise its maps and submit them to the Legislature to approval.  The Legislature can either accept or reject the drafted map. If they are rejected, the IRC would redraw them again. If they are rejected another time, the Legislature could then draw the maps themselves. You can take a look at the current and drafted maps here: https://nyirc.gov/assembly-plan.

Media reports from across the state have identified major challenges for members of the Assembly.  In Central New York, for example, the draft plan would force three state Assembly members to run in newly configured legislative districts where they don’t live.  New York requires state Assembly and Senate members to move into the district they represent within one year of an election.

So, are the new maps better?  The public hearings will provide useful analysis as to how the proposal impacts communities as well as whether the plan meets constitutional muster.

At the macro level, one thing is clear – the new maps create districts that do not have dramatically different populations.  Under the current maps, 39 of the 150 Assembly districts have significant population deviations from the average.  Those districts can range from as small as nearly 128,000 people to as large as 141,000 people – a range of 13,000.  Under the proposed maps, none of them have such a large range.  In fact, 130 of the 150 proposed maps are within +/- 2% of the average.

Numbers alone don’t tell the entire story, but it does mean that the Commission’s mapmakers were far less likely to use population differences to “game” the system.

Our democracy hinges on the principle of “one person, one vote.”  Whatever comes of this latest process, that principle must be the heart of any final redistricting plan.

New York leaves little time for a newly elected governor to relax after her campaign.  Under the state Constitution, she has until February 1^st to introduce her plan for the Executive Budget.  While her proposal is being developed, she also has to act on any legislation that was approved during the last legislative session – which in 2022 ended in early June—but has not yet made its way to her desk.

During the legislative session, a bit more than 1,000 bills passed both houses.  Under New York’s Constitution, the governor has 10 days to act on legislation once those bills are sent to the governor’s office.  Under the informal rules, the governor requests which bills she wants to act on in order to ensure adequate review.  If she does not act on the legislation within that 10-day period, the bill automatically becomes law.  If vetoed, both houses can work in concert to override that veto if two-thirds majorities in both houses vote to do so.

In terms of the bills that have gained legislative approval, all must be sent to the governor by the end of the calendar year.  If a bill is sent to the governor on the last day of the calendar year – or when the legislature is technically out of session – the rules are different.  Under those circumstances, the governor has 30 days in which to make a decision.  If she does not approve the legislation during that period, the bill is automatically vetoed (so-called “pocket veto”).

As of Election Day, a bit more than 400 of the 1,000 bills had not yet been sent to the governor.  Now that the election is over and she is getting ready for the 2023 upcoming legislative session, the governor began to act on those remaining bills.  Within three weeks of her election to a full term the governor had acted on more than 100 bills so far this November.

Among those 100 were two bills that she approved last week.  One was legislation that prohibited hospitals from placing wage garnishments or liens on the homes of those patients who had outstanding medical bills.  After all, patients are not “buying” hospital care in the same way as they may buy a car.  Usually, outstanding medical bills are the result of inadequate – or non-existent – health insurance.

Another bill that the governor approved placed a two-year moratorium on the use of old fossil fuel plants to perform an energy-intensive type of cryptomining.  The crypto companies were using these old plants to power currency transactions.  Environmentalists were rightly concerned that the use of such power facilities was undermining the state’s climate goals due to the emission of greenhouse gases from these plants.

Governor Hochul also issued some vetoes.  Last week, she vetoed bills that her office said could potentially have a fiscal impact yet were approved outside of the normal budget process.  This is not the first time that the governor has vetoed legislation.  During the budget process she issued 33 vetoes of budget items added by the Legislature.  None of those vetoes were overridden. 

As mentioned earlier, the governor still has nearly 300 bills to consider prior to the end of the calendar year.  At least two of them are considered consequential.

One bill is known as the Grieving Families Act.  This bill updates an 1847 New York State law that governs how families may claim financial compensation in the event someone in their family is killed by the negligence of someone else, also known as the wrongful death statute.  If approved by the governor, the legislation would modernize the law by allowing families in the tragic circumstance of the death of a loved one to sue to receive compensation for both their economic (current law) and non-economic loss (loss of companionship for example).  Current law measures the loss of a loved one solely by the economic loss to the survivors, which discriminates against those who are less-well-off, or in cases where the killed individual was a senior or a child.  The bill also expands the definition of a “family” to include those with close relationships with the deceased, not just those fitting the definition of a traditional family of 1847.

A second bill deals with the costs of owning digital products.  This legislation would require manufacturers of digital electronics like cellphones and computers to make diagnostic and repair information and parts available for sale to independent repairers and do-it-yourselfers.  This will prevent manufacturers from creating a monopoly on repair services and forcing consumers to pay, often inflated prices, for repair exclusively through their repair divisions.  According to a study by the U.S. Public Interest Research Group (USPIRG), the average family in New York would save approximately $330 per year and reduce electronic waste by 22 percent if the governor approves this first-in-the-nation legislation.

The governor has her work cut out for her but depending on how she addresses these issues and the hundreds others still under consideration, she could make a big difference in the lives of New Yorkers. 

This past election New Yorkers were inundated by political ads paid for by Big Money.  Huge campaign contributions from lobbyists and those who have contracts – or are seeking them –with  the government, as well as unlimited spending by wealthy special interest patrons, dominated the political landscape.  Those groups spoke with the equivalent of a megaphone amplified through rock-arena speakers.  In contrast the voices of average New Yorkers were barely a whisper.

What happened is not unique to New York. 

The U.S. Supreme Court’s interpretation of the Constitution has made it impossible to impose a limit on campaign spending.  The first Amendment states: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.”

Using its interpretation of the phrase “freedom of speech” in the mid-1970s the Court ruled, in the landmark case Buckley v. Valeo, that statutory limits on campaign contributions were not violations of the First Amendment freedom of expression, but that statutory limits on campaign spending were unconstitutional. 

The Court interpreted the First Amendment by deciding that restricting spending money to facilitate campaign messaging “reduces the quantity of expression by restricting the number of issues discussed, the depth of their exploration, and the size of the audience reached.”

Of course, there is nothing in the Constitution that equates the two.  And it was that decision that laid the groundwork decades later for the now-infamous Citizens United decision, which said that political spending independent of candidate control could not be restricted.  As a result, in America it is essentially unconstitutional to restrict the wealthy and powerful from spending as much as they want to influence elections.

New Yorkers saw the impact in the elections earlier this month.  Campaign donors drive elections and only those who curry Big Money’s favor can mount serious candidacies.

Against that depressing backdrop, New York has taken a step toward making it easier for grassroots candidates to run for office without having to be beholden to the wealthy and powerful.

In 2020, as a result of a big push from former Governor Cuomo, New York established a voluntary system of public financing of elections.  That program started up the day after Election Day of this year.  All statewide candidates, including those running for governor, comptroller and attorney general, as well as the 213 legislative seats in Albany, are eligible to participate.

New York’s program allows private direct contributions of between $5 and $250 to be matched with public funds, depending on the size.  The smaller the contribution, the bigger the public match; up to $12 for every contribution of no more than $50 for example.  Thus, candidates would be able to run for office by raising small contributions through a system of clean public resources that amplified small donations, instead of depending on big checks from special interest groups, wealthy individuals, and lobbyists.

New York has experience with a voluntary public financing system.  For over 30 years, New York City has had a similar program – considered a model for the nation.

And now that type of system is moving to a statewide scale in the new election cycle.  The hope is that smaller donations will reduce the influence of big money in politics and enhance electoral challenges.

The 2020 legislation also significantly reduced the allowable campaign contribution amounts.  For example, Governor Hochul was able to receive contributions up to $69,700 this year.  Starting now, she can “only” receive $18,000.  While a big drop, it is still much higher than New York’s U.S. Senator Schumer can receive; which is no more than $5,800 from an individual, and far more than the national average contribution to a state’s candidates for governor, which is $6,126.  The 2020 reform did nothing to limit donations from lobbyists or those who are seeking government contracts.

In addition, the new law could not do anything about the flood of so-called “independent” spending by corporations or wealthy individuals.  And public financing is a voluntary system, with participation a choice to be made by the candidate. 

But it does offer those New Yorkers of average means, who are not part of a network that includes the wealthy, to make a serious run for state office.  And given the tight grip the well-connected have over our government, electoral competition may be the only way to offset that enormous influence.

More can be done – including the creation of an independent enforcement agency, limits on those seeking government contracts, and lobbyist donations – but New York’s public financing system brings some good news.  News that holds the promise that the voices of rank and file New Yorkers can rise above a whisper.