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From Albany, this is the legislative gazette, a weekly half hour review of New York State
government and politics.
The host is political scientist and syndicated columnist Dr. Alan Shartoff of the State University.
Hello and welcome to the legislative gazette.
I'm Leslie Brokaw, sitting in for the vacationing Alan Shartoff.
This week details on the status of prison legislation and the recently passed New Milk Laws.
We'll hear about the Court of Appeals narrower interpretation of the state's shield law for
reporters and about why the state's chief administrative judge thinks that courts need
guidelines on how to deal with defendants who have AIDS.
All this plus more is ahead on this week's legislative gazette.
Jonathan Salant of the Syracuse Herald Journal.
You're down there at the New York State Capitol in the press room.
Good afternoon.
Thanks for joining us.
Right pleasure.
And let's talk about prisons.
There has been a major package as part of the legislative session which involved a whole
variety of things including the building of new cells, the taking of a barge that belongs
to Britain which would be converted into a floating cell, early release program which
would put more prisoners out a little bit earlier than they might have been otherwise,
also shock and carceration for juveniles.
Let's talk about the whole thing overall.
You say that it was approved Wednesday night, correct?
Yeah, the state senate.
There was a postal approved Tuesday night and there was a big disagreement in the Republican
conference and the majority, and they had the post-spoin consideration.
It was a question for a day and they finally passed it last night.
What kind of disagreement was it?
The chairman of the corrections committee, Christopher Megger from Brooklyn Republican,
didn't like the idea of early release and letting people out of prisons.
In part, I think, the reason they want this early release is because the prison is so
overcrowded.
Megger fought against it and he was strong enough that enough other Republicans were also
unwilling to support the proposal, which had been negotiated between the Senate Majority
Leader and the Senate and no merely the Speaker of the Assembly and the Governor.
And so what happened?
The Senate Republicans eventually came around to back Warren Anderson's plan?
You know, when your leader makes a deal, you really have to support him.
Otherwise, he can't lead and you don't get the benefits of being in the majority.
I think they, well, they did it.
They did some clarification.
They did pass another bill that would clarify some of their positions.
And for the most part, just a lot of argument and negotiation and Anderson saying, you know,
behind the closed doors, look when we make a deal, this is the way it's supposed to be.
And this is going to be the Republican position and you guys are on the team.
You play with it.
What do you think this modes for Chris Megger?
Well, Megger isn't a district that has been a gun democratic or a public in the sea
sword.
Two years ago, four years ago, it was a democratic district.
And you know, Warren Anderson decides who's going to get the support and the money from
the Republican campaign committee.
And it's an interesting question to see whether what he does for Megger in 88 when Megger
comes up for election.
Just to clarify the contents of what it was that they were debating the urgent eligibility
proposal is going to allow some inmates to qualify for early parole if they do well
getting an education or learning a trade while they're in prison.
That's correct.
And for completing a drug treatment program, you have to be a great pro for inmates two
months before their minimum sentence.
And estimate that of three 1500 beds a year, which you can then put in hard and criminals
and, you know, new people who have been sentenced to jail.
As part of this prison proposal as well, they've got some new prison spaces which are
going to be created that has to do partly with that margin, partly with some other stuff.
What else do you know about that?
Well, it's supposed to set up two new 250 bed prisons, one in Essex County and one in
World Cod in Wayne County.
So you know, legislators from that area were very happy to have it all.
They have those type of things and they were going to know about that bond which will
hold up 700 prisoners.
So you're talking about, if I go over, I think they also are talking about three new medium
security prisons in the Moravia, Marcy and Malone.
So you're talking about 4,800 new prison cells going to be built or added under this program.
John and Wayne changes subjects.
The New York Court of Appeals ruled this week, New York State's highest court, that the
information which is gathered by reporters, which is protected by a shield law is actually
much narrower.
The shield law is much narrower, that it actually only protects that information which was gathered
confidentially where the person had told their source that the material that they were
turning over is confidential material.
What do you think about that?
In the reaction down at the legislature this week after that decision.
Well, the real danger of it is by not protecting things like, with a kitty-d case with the television
station refused to turn over out takes which are the film that did not appeal on the year.
It's like going through my notebooks and the danger in this is that you're putting the
judge into the position of being an editor who can go through your notebooks and say,
why didn't you use this quote instead of that quote?
Or why did you write this word on this plot instead of using that?
And when you're reporting, you're trying to get pretty good at the fact you're writing
a story or a deadline, you're putting together a television show, you've got a certain
time constraint, and you try to do a balanced, fair piece at the end.
And it's kind of, you know, hinder reporting.
If every time you start writing something, say, uh-oh, if I don't put this quote in a judge
might ask me why I didn't.
And maybe I should use this quote over this quote.
In fact, better still, I won't even do the story and then nobody will ask me any questions.
And that's the real fear about it.
Let me ask you, John.
Do you keep all of your notes?
No.
Ever since the US Supreme Court ruled that police could search newsrooms, I throw out all
my notes after a story appears in the newspaper.
I've done it for years because I don't want anybody to go through my notes.
I don't know how I wrote it.
I use quotes.
I have my stuff as scribble and it's an eligible anybody.
But me, I might put observations down.
And those are what I use in writing.
But I don't think that those should be, I should be cross-examined in the court of law
on that.
John, we're talking on on Thursday afternoon and it's likely the session may wrap up in
the next day or two.
There was one particular bill that you followed from beginning to a depeers end.
And that's the Apple Muffin Bill.
Well, it does be signed by the governor and the question is whether the governor will
go out with it.
But a group of North Syracuse Fourth graders were doing a story, doing a unit on state
government and they came up with the idea to try to get a bill become a law.
And a designee was to make the Apple Muffin, the official state muffin.
Apple's being the number one agricultural crap in New York State.
And they came out to Albany, baked hundreds of muffins and handed them out to legislators
and staff members and members of the press and got a lot of attention for this.
And what is the governor said lately about whether he's going to approve this or not?
He hasn't said anything.
There's a concern of something that was brought up in the New York City papers primarily
that this is very frivolous.
And they'll just wait to wait.
I think it's time though.
I can't see why a half hour out of a six month session is considered a waste of time.
I think all those one house bills is a much worse waste of time than nobody says anything
about.
But, you know, a question is, well, do you encourage this stuff?
Have you signed the bill?
Maybe there'll be a thousand fourth grade classes coming down next year.
I don't see the merit to it, but enough people are saying that.
But there's a question that's not a sure thing.
I hope the governor signs the bill.
If he asks me, I would tell him to sign it.
But there's still that possibility that's going on.
And of course, we know that he's not going to ask you, John.
No, but if he were, I would be the advice I give him.
Okay.
Jonathan Salant, thanks for talking to us from the Syracuse Herald Journal.
Back in May, the legislative gazette spoke with New York Senator Tarky Lombardi, chairman
of the Senate Health Committee about the degree requirements for nurses.
Currently New York State nurses are not required to have a college degree before entering a
nursing program.
Senator Lombardi said that he supported maintaining the minimum requirements for nurses because
of the shortage of men and women enrolling in nursing schools.
And because nurses with advanced degrees often leave their nursing responsibilities for
the administrative positions where the money is better.
In response to that interview, Ellen Burns and Martha Orr, the president and executive
director of the New York State Nurses Association, spoke with Ellen Shartock explaining why they
support more stringent education requirements for nurses.
I think the highest priority is passage of what has come to be known as the entry into practice
bill.
That is the bill which will require a minimum of baccalaureate preparation for professional
nursing and a minimum of an associate degree for associate nursing.
Ellen Burns, that's fine.
Say all the people that I talk to in hospitals and around and people like Senator Tarky Lombardi
and others, but who's going to carry the bedpans?
I mean, if everybody has to have a college degree, who's going to do the scut work in the
hospitals?
Well, I hate to hear you equate bedpans with scut work because carrying bedpans is a very
important part of nursing care.
But when you talk about carrying bedpans as if it were a simple task, if you actually
look at the patients today, who require that kind of service, they either have such profound
self-care deficits or their medical condition is so unstable that they require the care
of a professional nurse, not the care of somebody who is inadequately trained on the job.
But we can't even find enough nurses right now and you're already saying that you're
going to do something that's going to make it even more difficult to find nurses.
One of the reasons you cannot find nurses is because admissions to and graduations from
schools of nursing have dropped precipitously in the past couple of years.
And the major reason for that is that the confusion of the educational picture in nursing
has discouraged people from becoming nurses.
For a short period of time, when it looked as if we were going to straighten out our educational
mess and enrollments in schools of nursing were up, they are very, very seriously down
now.
Unless you make nursing an attractive career for bright people, the shortage of nurses
is going to get worse.
Yes, but is the baccalaureate the answer?
Is just paying them more money the answer?
There's no evidence that the major problem that nurses have in practice today is money.
Money is a factor to be sure.
But there are more important factors that are related to control of practice, to the kind
of decision making, to things that have to do with the job satisfaction, the ability to
give care.
That's what nurses are asking for.
Well, now Martha Orr is the executive director of the association.
You can get around.
Do you hear from the LPNs at all or do you only hear from those people who have baccalaureates?
Well, you're talking about a whole variety of nurses.
Certainly, we hear from the LPNs.
There's no question about that.
Does they like the century level idea that only people with college degrees?
Interestingly enough, many LPNs do see it as their future because they see themselves
being put out of business in very short order unless they, too, improve their educational
requirements for practice.
To add to what Ellen said, I think that what has to be understood is this is a means of
elevating the entire educational credentials of all those who would practice nursing.
All of those who would provide service to the public that is commonly called nursing.
The fact that our educational system has not changed in 100 years, and certainly I'm
sure that you and your listeners appreciate the fact that the care required by people
has changed drastically in 100 years, should be statement enough that it is high time
when we enter the world of all other professions and achieve that educational credential.
Well, now, in fact, the few times I've been in the hospital, I always had the idea that
nurses were running the show doing all of the major work.
And is what you're saying is because they're doing that work, they have, and because
doctors just drop around every so often that the nurses really do have to have a better
educational background.
Absolutely.
There is no question about the technological aspects of care, the psychological aspects
of care, the entire range of service that is provided has become much more complex.
Nurses need that education in order to do what the public needs.
Ellen Burns as the president of the association, is it your sense that there is a war between
doctors and nurses, that the doctors are feeling that nurses are somehow moving in on their
areas, first of all, as nurse practitioners in other ways?
I don't know that I would describe it as a war.
I think one of the things which is difficult for some doctors is to recognize that nursing
has a professional practice of its own, which is independent and not under the domination
of medicine.
Many of them become very nervous when they think about nurses in more independent positions.
I think the physicians who actually work where nurses are responsible for very important
decisions appreciate the fact that nurses need more education.
Ellen Burns and Martha Oer are president and executive director of the New York State
Nurses Association.
You're listening to the Legislative Gazette.
There are no uniform guidelines for how courts should handle defendants or other court
participants who have the disease aids.
Some might argue that no guidelines are needed because the disease is not transmittable
through the casual contact of a courtroom.
However, prison guards, traffic people, court attendants, clerks, judges, juries, and lawyers
have all begun expressing concerns and apprehensions about potential problems.
That's according to New York's chief administrative judge Albert Rosenblatt, who announced
this week that he'll be holding hearings next month in New York City, Albany, and Buffalo
to explore handling procedures.
He says already there have been some unusual incidents arising from defendants with the
syndrome, including one where the hearing was held outdoors.
He says the problem there arose when a judge had difficulty arranging transportation for
a defendant and the available location did not have large enough indoor facilities.
Recently, a case arose in which someone who was believed to be afflicted with AIDS had
his case conducted out in open air.
This was done with the consent and indeed the encouragement of everyone involved.
I guess that was okay at the time, but people were kind of left with the feeling that they
were at sea as to how to proceed.
So they did it by an ad hoc determination.
They did what they thought was best, it turned out that everyone agreed that they go outdoors.
But surely they weren't acting out of a statewide policy that all AIDS cases be handled in the
parking lot.
And yet, under the circumstances, if everyone wanted to do that, everyone, including the person
who was afflicted with AIDS, said, yes, thank you very much.
I would prefer to be on the parking lot, which is what I understand what his reaction was.
Then, you know, so far, so good on that case, but I don't know that that should be a model.
Let me ask you about specifically what kind of concerns you're thinking of.
My initial reaction is thinking, oh no, people are starting to go hysterical.
The idea that if they sit in a courtroom with somebody that has the disease, they're going
to contract it, which is completely antithetical to what we've heard from health department officials
over the last couple of years.
Are there specific instances of, say, people who are defendants potentially biting the
people that are bringing them into court?
Are we heard about people in prisons who have thrown urine at prison guards?
Are those the specific things that you're worried about?
Yes, those are, and they come from a segment of the criminal justice system that is in
close contact with prisoners possibly, and with those that are in the high-risk groups.
So we have an understandable concern on the part of court attendance guards, people who speak
through their unions saying that they're exposed to this kind of peril.
That's all understandable, and we recognize it, and we're sensitive to that, and we don't
want to be inconsiderate of that.
On the other hand, we have to make sure that those anxieties do not interfere with the
fairness of a trial itself and that the essential fairness of the court is not in any way compromised
by what may strike some as excessive levels of apprehension.
I have to myself gauge what is an accurate basis for concern and see whether fashioning
a rule might alleviate some of those concerns.
But surely we wouldn't want to have those anxieties reach the level where they come into
the courtroom and insinuate themselves in the trial itself.
Do you have any preliminary thoughts on what the state should be doing?
I think we'll be premature, and I want to go into this with an open mind, and we have
really no guidance from any other initiatives in other states or other state-judicial systems.
So we're going to be learning as we go along, as I think it should be.
We're going to be listening to the public health experts.
We're going to be drawing on all manner of available resources the best that we can acquire,
be people from the CDC in Georgia, New York State, health experts, and then after hearing
all those who can speak authoritatively on the subject, we can say, well, based on
present information, such and such as the case, based on present information, and on the
best information possible, we think that the trial can be managed compatibly with safeguarding
everyone's rights by doing ABC.
We feel that it is unnecessary to do XYZ.
We feel that one, two, three are appropriate safeguards and go from there.
Is this growing out of anxiety primarily by the people that handle defendants?
In other words, is it the unions that are coming to you and saying we have to formulate
guidelines on this?
No, they haven't.
I don't want it to reach the point of hysteria.
We don't want it to reach the point of uncontrollable levels of anxiety.
We're trying to do it anticipatorially so that we don't have a crisis confrontation on
our hands.
We're trying to do it in a deliberate, circumspective way with input from all interested sources
and what we hope to come out of would be an intelligible coherent body of knowledge that
could direct us toward a sensible rule.
And you make a very good point in asking whether we've been assaulted by expressions from
guards or union people we have, and they've been very good.
They have made known their fears, but there's been no confrontation or anything like that.
We want to make sure that they feel protected and that the court system is not endangered
by any kind of an ordinance spectacle that might result.
The final question, would these be rules that would be applicable only when the defendant
has AIDS or when say any witness in any kind of case coming to the stand has AIDS?
Would it be just for people that had visual symptoms of AIDS?
I don't know why it should be limited.
I think if there's any danger that's demonstrable, it would be so regardless of the person's
status as a defendant or as a witness or anything else.
The danger of the complicating the trial is somewhat greater in a criminal case as you
pointed out, someone's sitting there on trial and if there's a spectacle surrounding
that person, it could prejudice that person's right to a fair trial.
It might be a little different with a witness, but certainly in both categories we would
be concerned, but we want to act on the most authoritative knowledge as to what is or
is not communicable.
Albert Rosenblatt is Chief Administrative Judge for the State of New York.
He says that after next month's hearings it will take several months to formulate guidelines
for dealing with AIDS-infected people in the court rooms.
New York lawmakers this week approved a bill to change the way that New York regulates
the sale of milk.
The bill changes a system set up in the Depression years to protect dairy farmers from competition.
We talked about the bill with Lieutenant Governor Stan Lundin.
Prior to this there had been a regulation on where milk could be marketed and the regulation
provided for a county by county authorization to sell milk.
Now we're going to have a statewide licensing territory eliminate the county by county
licensing setup.
This will go into effect in April 1988 and most milk dealers if they can show that they
have financial soundness and wouldn't default to the producer will qualify for licensed
B.A. dealer in New York State.
The three different groups affected New York consumers of milk and New York farmers and
milk dealers that operate in New York.
How are they all going to be affected by the laws?
We think that consumers will be benefited from the greater amount of competition.
We do not think there will be any adverse effect on New York's dairy farmers.
In fact the other provision of the bill that enhances the milk producers security fund will
make it more sure that they get paid for their milk and that there isn't a default to producers.
The effect upon the dairies who actually deliver the milk is difficult to estimate.
I think some dealers may profit to a greater extent because they are more competitive.
Certainly some of them could be hurt.
This was a fairly contentious bill for much of the session.
What were the final pieces that had to fall in place where the negotiations were the
most delicate towards the end?
Well I think that everybody all along felt that it was necessary to pass law this year.
As you know Governor Cuomo has been urging this kind of a law for several legislative
sessions but the intervention of the federal court into the New York system made it absolutely
necessary that this year the legislature take took action.
There were differences between the Senate and assembly approaches at first and some
difference with the administration but those differences were really minor.
The resolution on the milk producers security fund and the other payment dates and that kind of thing.
I never felt were an enormous challenge and we felt confident all along that this was one of the major pieces of legislation
that would in fact be adopted and it has.
Now this bill affects not just interstate milk sales.
In other words an upstate person will now be able to sell with more ease of downstate but people from outside of New York state will be able to come into the state more easily.
That's right.
Is there any guarantee for New York farmers that eventually they too will have the ability to sell outside of the state the way that people say from Massachusetts or Jersey can come in state at this point?
There is a provision in this bill that requires the Attorney General to take action to open up neighboring states markets to New York milk.
Right now that isn't a critical issue for most producers because we really are short in our supply of milk here in New York while there's a national surplus and that should give us time to take action.
Currently I understand the Connecticut and Massachusetts markets are very close to New York milk.
Pennsylvania on the other hand is quite open so the producers in the southern tier where I come from.
What don't have too much of a problem penetrating the Pennsylvania market so we'll have to take selected action under this measure and the bill does provide for authority for the Attorney General to take that action and hopefully they'll be full and fair competition throughout the Northeast milk market area.
New York Lieutenant Governor Stan Lundin.
And that's it for the legislative Gazette this week. Our show is edited and produced in the studios of WAMC Albany and helped this week came from Brenda McMahon, Dan Brody and of course Ellen Shartock.
I'll be back again next week for more news about the New York State government for now on Leslie Brokaw.
The legislative Gazette is a production of WAMC News. Dr. Ellen Shartock is executive producer.
This program is made possible with funds provided by the State University College at New Ports.
Statewide satellite distribution of this program was made possible by the Lawrence Group providing residents throughout New York State with total insurance coverage.
