A shocking study was publicized last week. It revealed, astonishingly, that New York state's government doesn't work. I, and many other commentators, activists and editorialists from around the state, have been saying this for years. Maybe the next great study will reveal that Januarys in New York are colder than Julys.
"Neither the U.S. Congress nor any other state legislature so systematically limits the roles played by rank-and-file legislators and members of the public in the legislative process," concluded the report released by the Brennan Center for Justice at the New York University School of Law.
The report found: Meanwhile, just 4.1 percent of bills proposed in 2002 in New York were enacted, compared with 69 percent in Michigan, which has the nation's best enactment rate. In California, the most populous state, 41 percent of bills passed.
Though rank and file legislative participation is virtually non-existent in Albany, I think this is a spurious way to measure it. I don't think you measure a legislature's effectiveness by how many, or what percentage, of laws it passes. Otherwise, you get people passing laws just for the sake of passing laws.
Yet, the report does detail how broken Albany is.
The report cited the infamous 'three men in a room mentality,' whereby major decisions are handled exclusive by the governor, Senate majority leader and Assembly speaker.
According to the Times Union, the study said that this problem would be greatly reduced, the Brennan Center concluded, if the Assembly and Senate would change the rules governing legislative committees.
These rules largely determine which bills go to the floor for debate and a vote, and which are buried.
The study found the committees now do little real work, have few hearings on bills and release almost no reports to help members make voting decisions. It also said it is more difficult to bring a bill to a full house vote in New York than any other state.
Every two years, both the Senate and Assembly adopt rules for their committee processes. Those rules will be voted on in January; their passage requires neither agreement among the legislative leaders nor gubernatorial approval.
The report made other suggestions as well:
Making it easier for members to request a public hearing on a bill.
Require all bills reported to the floor to have a detailed public committee report reflecting the debate held on each.
Limit committee assignments to no more than three per lawmaker per legislative session.
Restrict the number of bills passed under a "message of necessity" from the governor, which gives lawmakers little time to read what they are voting on.
The report also calls for the end of proxy voting. Legislators can swipe their ID cards, reporting themselves as "in," and leave the chamber -- sometimes even going home -- but still have their votes recorded. Those votes are automatically counted in the affirmative.
Citizens are cheated by the existing system, [Brennan Center's associate counsel and an author of the report Jeremy].Creelan said. Many bills of public interest never receive public hearings.
The New York Times' article on the topic added that over a five-year period, 11,474 bills reached the floor of the two houses of the Legislature in Albany. Not a single one was voted down.
And during that period, from 1997 through 2001, the Legislature held public hearings on less than 1 percent of the major laws it passed. When those laws made it to the floor of each chamber for a vote, more than 95 percent passed with no debate.
In short, nothing even gets voted on that the chamber leader doesn't want voted on; not that they don't get approved, but that they don't get voted on. And when I say nothing, as the article makes clear, I mean that literally.
In fact, hardly anything even gets DEBATED in the whole chamber or even a committee hearing, without approval of the Assembly and Senate emperors. It's as though the minority members aren't representing New Yorkers; it's as though they don't exist.
Senate Majority Leader Joseph Bruno called the study "pure nonsense." He asks, "What are you going to do, have a discussion and have 212 employees decide what the agenda is?" he asked, referring to the 212 legislative members. "Then you'll have 212 different agendas. That is just chaotic. That is Third-World-country stuff."
Now, I have some regard for Sen. Bruno, despite him being a Republican. Not only is he an affable guy and a distant relative of mine, but he's only one of the "three men in a room" who's able to work with the other two to get things done. The governor and Assembly speaker spend all their time criticizing each other through the media. But this comment shows that Sen. Bruno just doesn't get it.
His logic might make sense if New York's legislature actually worked today, if it weren't chaotic today. For example, it would be nice if they could pass a budget on time. My sister will be old enough to drink next year; the legislature hasn't passed an on-time budget in her lifetime.
As I wrote about here, a parliamentary delegation from Ghana, West Africa, visited Albany in May. Ghana is a country that had its first democratic change of government only four years ago. Yet even they were shocked by what they saw in New York's Capitol.
The New York Times summed up their visit like this: While West Africa in general is not a place where there are functioning governments, much less governments operating in a way the public can scrutinize, the delegation found New York's budget 'opaque.' "Here we have to ask a lot of questions," [the Ghanaian parliament's finance committee chairman] said. "You just really don't know how each allocation is spent. That is quite bleak."
Sen. Bruno, even third world countries aren't impressed by how Albany operates.
And quite frankly, if Mr. Bruno thinks that rank and file legislators are irrelevant and only the leaders matter, then maybe we should get rid of the other 210 and save ourselves a lot of money.
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