Cuomo’s Post-Budget Report Card
With the passage of a comprehensive medical marijuana bill in the state Senate this afternoon, Gov. Andrew has met the three main goals he laid out for himself in the closing weeks of the legislative session.
“I think the last few weeks were really a banner session of accomplishment,” Cuomo told Susan Arbetter on The Capitol Pressroom radio show Friday morning, citing compromises reached on medical marijuana, combating heroin abuse and adjusting teacher evaluations in light of concerns about hastily implemented Common Core standards. “We got done really amazing work that will make this state a better state, and we got it done under very difficult circumstances—it’s a political year and there’s a lot of cross currents—so I couldn’t be any happier.”
Of course, some lawmakers and advocates would be happier if the governor had the same level of success with several other measures he has publicly supported. Some chalked up the failure to pass liberal legislation like the Dream Act and public financing of campaigns to opposition from Republicans in the state Senate, while others noted that the bar was always going to be lower in an election year.
Now that the legislative session is nearly wrapped up, here’s a recap of the governor’s post-budget wins and losses.
WINS:
1. Medical marijuana
In the closing weeks of the session, the legalization of medical marijuana seemed on the verge of stalling several times amid concerns about abuse of the new system that the state would set up. But on Thursday Cuomo joined legislative leaders, key lawmakers and advocates in the Red Room to announce a landmark deal to make New York the 23rd state to allow those suffering from severe ailments to use the drug.
One of the bill's sponsors, Assemblyman Richard Gottfried, had been working on passing the legislation for 18 years, while state Sen. Diane Savino got it over the finish line by spearheading its passage in the Senate on Friday. The governor insisted on several precautions, including a kill switch, a seven-year sunset and a ban on smoking the drug, which lawmakers ultimately accepted.
"I think the governor stepped into this process at a very important time," said Senate Co-Leader Jeff Klein. "I think because of his leadership we were able to craft a bill that is not only safe and secure, but is really going to serve as a relief to many who need that relief and have been waiting so long."
2. Combating heroin abuse
The state Senate set up a joint task force on heroin and opioid addiction earlier this year, and Republicans and members of the Independent Democratic Conference held hearings around the state to come up with recommendations. Assembly Democrats raised concerns about the resulting package passed in the Senate, specifically concerns about stricter penalties. But Cuomo was able to bring legislative leaders together on a compromise measure, even though it was what he called an “extraordinarily difficult bill to pass.” “The Senate wanted significant criminal penalties, the Assembly had more intervention policies,” the governor said Friday, “and I think we came up with a balanced approach there.”
3. Teacher evaluations
After lawmakers delayed the impact on students from exams tied to controversial new Common Core standards, the governor promised to address a related issue—how the national education standards impact teachers. A deal reached this week benefits poor performing teachers, allowing them to omit student scores tied to the Common Core from their evaluations for two years.
“The teacher evaluation [deal] ... I think was fair, given the established precedent, but that was difficult,” Cuomo said. Other key players agreed, including lawmakers on both sides of the aisle as well as NYSUT, the statewide teachers union, whose president, Karen Magee, called the move “a necessary step toward reducing over-testing and restoring our focus on teaching and learning.”
4. Moody’s upgrade
It wasn’t a legislative victory, exactly, but the governor did get a big boost this week when Moody’s upgraded the state’s rating to Aa1 and changed its outlook to “stable.” Cuomo shared the credit—and some cake—with legislative leaders, including Senate Republican Leader Dean Skelos. Skelos’ celebration with the governor then caused some embarrassment for the campaign of gubernatorial challenger Rob Astorino, whose adviser's criticism of Skelos for hobnobbing with the governor ended up backfiring.
“Moody’s is the objective standard of performance,” Cuomo said Friday. “And when they upgraded the state, first time in 50 years, that really means something.”
LOSSES:
1. Women’s Equality Act
Lawmakers continued to point fingers at each other over the failure to pass the Women’s Equality Act, a 10-point measure originally announced by Cuomo in his 2013 State of the State address. Senate Republicans refused to pass a controversial measure that would codify abortion rights in state law, while Assembly Democrats insisted on passing the full package. By the end of last year Cuomo said that he was open to passing the points as individual bills, a position he stood by this week. And this year some Assembly Democrats, most notably Amy Paulin, dropped their all-or-nothing stance while pushing for human trafficking and pregnancy discrimination measures. But this year again ended in a stalemate.
“I think it is a very sad day for the women of New York that we’re going home two years in a row without passing one single Women’s Equality bill,” Assemblywoman Nicole Malliotakis, a Republican, said. “We had the opportunity to go home with at least nine of the 10, because that’s where we have consensus and that’s what we should be doing. Combining an omnibus bill where you know there’s no consensus in the Senate to pass it is just playing politics. So now Speaker Silver can go ahead and run his campaigns against us, send the mail pieces to our houses, tell our constituents that we don’t support women, when he’s the one who really doesn’t support women.
2. Public Financing
The governor did secure an ethics package earlier this year, but good government groups blasted the measures as weak while almost nobody was happy with the public campaign financing pilot program for the state comptroller’s race. Efforts to pass a more comprehensive campaign finance bill then fizzled in the second half of the session.
“We didn’t do women’s equality, we didn’t do campaign finance reform, we didn’t do ethics reform, we didn’t do Dream Act,” said state Sen. Liz Krueger. “I think there’s a list more of what we didn’t do.”
Cuomo chalked up such failures to “political differences,” which he said would be resolved at the polls this fall. “There is no question that the Republicans have a different opinion,” Cuomo said. “They don’t support a woman’s right to choose, and they don’t support a Dream Act, and they don’t support campaign finance. They’ve made that very clear in any number of ways, and we have a fundamental difference, and that’s one that is going to be brought to people in the election season.”
3. Dream Act
Immigrant rights’ advocates continued to push for the Dream Act, a measure that would allow young undocumented immigrants in New York to qualify for state financial aid for college, and during the course of the session Cuomo grew increasingly supportive of the bill, at least in his public statements. However, after the bill narrowly failed in a last-minute vote in the state Senate, supporters say that the governor failed to champion the measure.
“Once again, very disappointed that the Dream Act was not included in the round of pieces of important legislation for the state of New York,” said Assemblyman Francisco Moya, a bill sponsor. “Since the budget passed, all we heard was it would be a top priority for the administration, and again, we haven’t seen it happen. We haven’t heard from the administration on anything they’re looking to do. Very disappointing, but we will continue to fight [to] have the Dream Act in the state of New York next year.”
4. Brownfields
The Cuomo administration included in its executive budget a measure to extend the state’s expiring Brownfields program, which provides tax incentives for developers to clean up contaminated properties. But once it fell through, the governor failed to make it a priority post-budget. Lawmakers this week passed a short-term extension, which critics say will only allow it to hobble along while discouraging developers in poorer areas from seeking the credits. On Friday Cuomo dismissed the concerns of environmentalists and lawmakers, saying that the problems have been exaggerated and that he would make reform a priority next year.
But Peter Iwanowicz, the executive director of Environmental Advocates of New York, said that the program is “broken” and that action was desperately needed this year. “The governor started off this year with a wonderful reform proposal,” Iwanowicz said. “We strongly backed it, as did the Business Council and other interests. That’s what we would like to see him signing into law right now, but unfortunately it didn’t come to a head during the budget and the governor did not re-submit a program bill after the budget, so there was no serious discussion of Brownfields until this extender bill passed.”