Sally Robinson, sally.s.robinson@gmail.com, and
Jennifer Wilson, jennifer@lwvny.org
Current Legislative Action
This month the League focused its efforts on ethics, campaign finance, and voting reforms. After the Legislature returned from their two week spring break, we held a joint press conference with our good government partners calling on the Legislature and Governor to pass reforms that would address the ethical issues raised by the trial of top aide to Governor Cuomo, Joe Percoco. Following the press conference, our groups conducted several lobby visits with key legislators to garner support for the reforms.
We are feeling confident that the Database of Deals, legislation to mandate a public database of state government contract awardments and spending, will pass before session ends. Our other priority reform Clean Contracting, legislation which would give the Comptroller back his oversight authority of all state contracts, is a work in progress. We believe this reform has a chance of passing although we still have a lot of work to do in winning over members who are concerned over how the legislation could affect Women and Minority Owned Businesses.
Later in the month, the Assembly passed several voting reforms including early voting, no-excuse absentee voting, online voter registration, and closure of the LLC loophole. We were very pleased to see the Assembly pass these reforms but troubled that their early voting proposal did not include a funding component. In the Senate, an early voting bill with a funding tie to the Abandon Properties fund, was introduced by Senator Kavanagh earlier this session. The bill is virtually identical to this Assembly bill except it contains a mechanism for funding. We had hoped the bill sponsor would amend his bill to include a funding component and disappointed to see he did not. Although both reforms have identical mechanisms for early voting, it is crucial to pass a bill that would not result in an unfunded mandate on counties.
That same week, the Governor issued an executive order restoring parolee’s right to vote. We were very excited at the news. It was only within the last month that the State League Board accepted a recommendation by the Issues Committee to support this reform. Up until this point, we did not believe that the National position on voting rights covered restoring parolees’ right to vote. We reviewed the position again after being asked about our position by several Local Leagues and other good-government organizations. We found that several other states supported this reform and we were able to approve our own support in March.
The executive order will allow the Governor to “pardon” parolees so that their right to vote will be restored. This is not a blanket order restoring the right to vote automatically for all parolees. Although we are pleased the Governor has taken the lead on this reform, we have many concerns over the actual roll out. There are no clear guidelines as to how or when the Governor will sign these commutations. There are also no clear deadlines as to when parolees’ voting right will actually be restored. We are fearful that there will not be an adequate mechanism in place to alert parolees when their right has been restored. A lag between the time in which the commutation is signed and a parolee re-registered has the potential to prevent some parolees from exercising their opportunity to vote.
On the same day as our Lobby Day, the Assembly Elections Committee took up legislation that would amend election law to allow parolees to regain their right to vote immediately after serving their sentence. This bill will ensure that parolees are re-registered immediately and that they are informed their voting right has been restored in a timely manner. We will support this legislation and urge its passage.
On April 23rd, our new Issues Specialist on Medical Aid in Dying, Barbara Thomas, testified before the Assembly Health Committee at a hearing on the Medical Aid in Dying legislation. Barb has been an expert for the League on Women’s Issues for many years and we are delighted to have her as a Specialist on this topic. Barb testified about the League’s new position and her own personal experience with end of life choices. You can watch the archived testimony here
