Podcast: Previewing the end of the legislative session

It’s a tradition in New York state. The last week of the legislative session, almost always the third week in June, is a time of much activity at the state Capitol. In fact, it is more like a time when all of the activity at the capitol happens. For decades, the final days of the legislative session have always been a mad dash of decision making with legislation that have meaningful impact on voters’ lives being introduced and passed in hours with the rank-and-file lawmakers often just shaking their heads and casting votes the way their colleagues or leadership tells them.

This year, it seems like we are heading to the same type of conclusion.  

You may ask why this happens. It’s pretty simple. You have basically three conferences with different interests and priorities, and all three think the they are more likely to get what they want, or at least some of what they want, if they wait until the last minute and cut a deal in which bills are bundled together and voted on, as opposed to addressing each issue individually on its own merits. So, while discussing the end of session on our Slant podcast, we started by talking about what each conference wants.  

NY1 Albany Political Reporter Zack Fink made the point that both the Assembly and the Senate got a lot of things they wanted in the budget, so there are few pressing demands for this last week of session. And that means we probably won’t see a lot of things get done.

On the podcast, which also featured Editor-at-Large Gerson Borrero along with myself, we talked about at few specific issues that we will be watching closely this week. Topping that list was mayoral control of schools in New York City, which has been a contentious issue in the past few years. Senate Republicans openly despise New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio, in part for his policies and more so for his involvement in the 2014 election cycle, when the mayor raised money with a goal of helping Democrats take control of the chamber. Now, the Senate Republicans, who retained power, do not want to give the mayor a long-term extension of control of the city’s schools. Last year they only extended New York City’s control of schools for one more year, and it appears that is all they want to do this year as well. Gov. Andrew Cuomo has called for a three-year extension, which the Assembly is mostly in line with (though they would probably prefer a longer period). Heading into the last week of session, it seems a one-year extension, possibly with some additional oversight over the mayor, is the most likely scenario, but it is something all the Albany reporters will be watching closely.  

The discussion also touched briefly on the push for legislation to combat the growing heroin epidemic, which seems likely to pass in some form.

We also discussed legislation that would legalize online fantasy sports games. The past few weeks has seen a huge influx of advertising and lobbying dollars spent on this issue, and it appeared likely that the Assembly and Senate would legalize it until some recent hangups. At this point, it appears to be a tossup as to whether this gets done this week or lawmakers punt because they can’t hammer out the details in time.

The other issue you can’t ignore, even if the Assembly and Senate are trying to, is ethics. There have been a host of bills and proposals put forth. Let’s run through them really quickly and their chances of passage:

• Comprehensive campaign finance reform that includes public funding of elections has virtually no shot at passing.  

• The closing of the LLC loophole also seems unlikely to get done.

• Pension forfeiture for elected officials who are convicted of felonies may get done, but Senate Republicans already passed this bill last year in a deal that was cut with Cuomo and the Assembly. The Assembly then backed out because of some technical details that got into the final bill that they were not happy with. They are trying to iron out those details in a new bill, but Senate Republicans don’t have to pass the Assembly’s bill and could just continue to blame the Assembly for its failure to pass the bill that was agreed upon (which is the type of thing that often happens in campaign years).  

• Finally, we have the relatively new proposal from the governor to crack down on independent expenditures and better regulate the coordination between campaigns and outside groups that have used IE’s more and more ever since the U.S. Supreme Court ruled the activity to be legal in the Citizens United case in 2010.  This seems like it could make its way into a final deal at the end of the week. However, the late introduction of this bill may be an indication that the governor had very low hopes for all of the other pieces of ethics legislation he put forth.

I hope our podcast helps set the table for the week ahead. And for the latest updates on what’s happening in the halls of the Capitol, please be sure to check out our live blog that we will be doing all week long, tracking the top pieces of legislation and trying to provide some behind-the-scenes color of the busiest week in Albany.

You can download, review and subscribe to this episode of The Slant Podcast on iTunes or stream the episode via Stitcher.