This program is a production of WAMC News.
From Albany, this is the Legislative Gazette,
a weekly half hour review of New York State government and politics.
Your host is political scientist and syndicated columnist Dr. Alan Sharton of the State University.
In this edition we'll have a look at top level meetings held this week to try to reach agreement on the medical malpractice insurance issue.
Also, some thoughts from an old friend, the deputy majority leader of the Senate,
Senator William T. Cadillac Smith.
This was the week for the long-awaited leadership meeting to discuss the issues which may face the legislature in an upcoming special session.
Chief among these issues was malpractice reform.
As Leslie Brokall reports, the session did not produce a workable compromise.
It's not very often that Governor Cuomo and the state legislative leaders from both parties all come together.
The last time that Governor Cuomo, Republican Senate leader Warren Anderson,
Democratic Assembly Leader Stanley Fink, and minority leaders Fred Ornstein and Clarets Rappley A,
got together to talk business was last June.
That's when they hammered out initial action on the medical malpractice issue.
Many people expected Wednesday's session to focus again on medical insurance, which has continued to develop in the last five months.
Cuomo Fink and Ornstein met for three hours.
They were joined by Anderson and Rappley A for two hours.
But when they all emerged, little information was given about the malpractice discussion.
Republican Senate leader Warren Anderson.
There isn't a great deal to report other than that we discussed MedBowl and some of its details.
We got no specifics as to how much it was going to really affect rates.
And we're there going into a negotiating session and hopefully we can work out a bill that will be satisfactory.
Whether we can, I guess we can't really say in there yet.
Anderson said that his aides have a dozen suggestions for Governor Cuomo's malpractice proposal.
A plan which includes a million dollar cap on Physicians' personal liability.
Binding arbitration for certain cases and health department jurisdiction over the investigation and disciplining of negligent physicians.
However, Anderson did not specify what the sticking points to Cuomo's proposal were, although all sides did agree that the final plan will not include a cap on pain and suffering portions of malpractice settlements.
Senator Anderson.
There's no cap as far as the bill that's before us.
Certainly, the Senate will still be receptive to a cap, but we're not saying that it has to be a cap.
We're not saying it has to be a cap or saying we have to have relief from the high rates.
Speaker thinks that the legislative staffs will be meeting with the governor's counsel on the issue and that the leaders will meet again as soon as possible.
The meeting was not limited though to a discussion of malpractice insurance.
Governor Cuomo did have an array of legislative topics that he raised.
We talked about South Africa and campaign financing. We talked about toxic towards and municipal liability. We talked about corporate take over.
These are not indispensable parts of the agenda of the resume session, but conceivably some of them could be.
Democratic Assembly leader Stanley Fink was non-committal when asked if the two chambers were any closer to reaching agreement on any of these issues.
I don't want it to be clear of point. We have had our differences. A number of the bills are in question of past my house and gone off to the Senate.
Senator Anderson's passed his versions of some of the bills. My notion is that the Senator honesty, myself and the governor have been meeting and we have narrowed the differences.
And we pretty well have positions on many of the items and we'll see what happens over the next few days.
Specifically, little was said to indicate that the two sides were closer on the issues of municipal liability or divestiture from South African related companies.
Everyone was concerned about property taxes. A decision released that day declared unconstitutional or recent law that allowed municipalities to charge higher tax rates for commercial property.
The decision means that the legislature may have to readjust the overall property tax structure.
The final major subject of discussion was about victims of chemical exposure. The state has been working for years on so-called toxic, torrent reform.
The point of dispute centers on whether victims should be able to assume municipalities if their injuries occur from publicly owned sources.
Senator Anderson explains why he thinks they should.
Let's just say a contractor built a church on one side of the street in a school on another and the contractors long gone and people are exposed to asbestos in both places.
Same contractors, same thickness of walls, same amount of asbestos. No contractor around.
You could say that he was exposed. The fellow that was a janitor in the church has got a good claim because he can sue the church.
But the janitor in the school hasn't got a good claim because the school is owned by a city of Binghamton or the city of New York or whatever some school district.
And that's a municipality so they couldn't recover.
Governor Cuomo says that he has problems with leaving municipalities open to lawsuits.
Municipality is interesting here. On the one hand there's a great pressure to protect municipalities against liability.
In the case of toxic torts, the sentence position is you ought to make them subject to liability which I'll leave to you the analysis of that because I have difficulty with it.
In any event, I've said that in order to get a toxic torts bill, I would undertake to take a look at the possibility of including municipalities.
I'm concerned however about Niagara Falls. I want to know what it would do to Niagara Falls. I wouldn't want to see Niagara Falls made vulnerable the way Lacawanna was.
And I said I'll do that right away. I'll take a look at municipal exemption, whether or not I can deal with that.
If so, then I think we're very close by Senator Anderson's appraisal of the matter. He is said to sum it up.
To look at toxic torts, he will drop his insistence on products liability which was jammed into the bill.
He will take that out if we can take out the exemption for municipalities.
I don't know what the logic of that is but I accept it for this bill.
Lawmakers do want to change one part of the toxic tort law. That's the section that deals with the statute of limitations.
Currently a victim of chemical illness has to sue the chemical manufacturer within three years of his or her exposure to the chemical.
Cuomo, Finc and Anderson all want to amend the law so that people who discover illnesses like espesto or DES poisoning many years later can still sue the companies for the damages.
Lawmakers indicated that amending the statute of limitations would only be done in conjunction with an entire toxic tort bill.
In Albany, Unlezzly Broca.
Just about a year ago the legislature voted to give itself and judges on the court of appeals pay raises.
The vote was challenged in court on the grounds of the action which happened after the election but before the start of a new legislative session violated the constitutional prohibition against a legislature voting to give itself raises during the current session.
Attorney Mark Dunley filed a suit. He spoke with Bill Graulty.
Were you surprised by the court ruling?
No, I wasn't surprised by the court ruling. I knew from the start there would be difficult to convince the court of appeals to rule against the legislature on a pay raise issue.
Particularly when the court of appeals themselves also got a pay raise under the same bill that we were challenging.
I was somewhat surprised though to the extent that they really did not look at the public policy behind the constitutional phrase in question and making their decision and didn't really look at why the language was inserted.
That that did surprise me.
Could you elaborate a little bit on that?
The Constitution was amended in 1947 and as the court has previously interpreted the particular section of the Constitution in question.
The Constitutional draughtists were trying to prevent a conflict of interest situation to rise in which respect to pay raises.
They didn't want one legislature to increase in its own salary and lead to the possibility of manipulation of votes.
We thought that was a situation present here that the public evil was being accomplished and the court didn't at all talk about that.
They just talked about the presumption of constitutionality of legislative enactments.
Yet 10 years ago in a very similar case that I had also involved in, will we challenge the law payments that the state legislators received.
The court went into great depth about the public policy considerations.
Traditionally, when one loses in the court of appeals, if one is still interested in the issue, you go and try to change the law.
Is that possible in this case?
Of course it is still very possible.
What we were saying was the Constitution said one thing, the court ruled otherwise.
But certainly the legislature has the power right now to go in and draft the constitutional amendment which clarifies that their pay cannot be increased between their time and time.
And the date of the commencement of their term.
In fact, I know Bobby DeAndre has introduced a resolution to that effect the last couple of years.
He hasn't pushed it very hard.
But certainly the legislature could solve this problem very easily if they wish to.
And I'm certain if it was proposed to the public, it would pass over one like, perhaps unanimous like.
Attorney Mark Dunley.
Now let's turn to a regular contributor, Dr. Lee Marangoff.
He's the Director of the Marist College Institute for Public Opinion and joins us for a comment on public opinion and voting.
What do Jim Floreo, Lou Lerman and Elizabeth Holpzman have in common?
Each of these three politicians was narrowly defeated for statewide office last time out.
Each has decided not to try to unseat the incumbent who beat him or her last time.
And each has relied upon poll data, reports indicate, in arriving at his or her decision to stay on the sidelines this time around.
Jim Floreo, now a congressman, was narrowly defeated in his race against Comcane for the governorship of New Jersey four years ago.
This time Floreo led Cain's secret election against a relatively unknown county executive Peter Shapiro.
Cain scored a smashing win with 70% of the vote.
Lou Lerman, a more familiar name to New York voters, was beaten narrowly by Mario Cuomo three years ago.
Within this past month, Lerman, the best finance of the potential Cuomo opponents, ruled out a rematch.
His poll show, according to the New York Post reports, that Cuomo had a convincing three to one lead over him.
This past week, Brooklyn District Attorney Elizabeth Holpzman ruled out a possible rematch with New York's Republican Senator Al Dammado.
In 1980, Holpzman lost to Dammado by only 81,000 votes, state wide.
She indicated that she would be substantially outspent in the contest this year.
And reports also showed her lagging far behind Dammado in the polls at present.
These privately commissioned polls have all served to dissuade previously formidable candidates from seeking to unseat one term in combat.
But these pre-election polls are best snapshots of an electorate who is not at all focused on the race for office that is being considered.
The reliance on this poll data, therefore, is somewhat risky.
It overlooks all the changes that it can occur during a campaign.
Pre-election polls taken one year off might accurately measure incumbent strain, but issues change, the economy could change, and the electorate could simply change its mind.
Yet, the polls seem to carry significant weight with these reluctant politicians.
I'm concerned with this trend, it is increasingly depriving the electorate of competitive races for public office.
That is, after all, the only way to measure the true popularity of an incumbent is the only way of keeping our political leaders more accountable.
In the meantime for the legislative gazette, this is a Lee Marangoff at the Marist College Institute for Public Opinion in Piquet, Psy.
As we heard in Leslie Broadcliffe's report, there is supposed to be a special session of the legislature coming up, but it hasn't happened yet.
I spoke this week with a deputy majority leader of the Senate, William T. Cadillac Smith, and asked him why it's taking so long.
Well, I don't suppose there's any more difficult issue to deal with in medical malpractice.
This is not a new subject we've had for years, and the ball seems to me to be in the governor's court.
We came up with a sort of a mandate bill, as you would call last July, and it's a very difficult issue to deal with.
You have the Senate, the Assembly, and the governor, and it's going to take a lot of discussion, and the position seems to be pretty well locked in, and we're going to have to do something in my opinion.
Phil, where would they give have to be in all of this?
Well, I guess that those who say that it's really a fight between the doctors and lawyers, and this has been pretty evident.
If you're going to come into contingency fees, you'll come into the cap, which the governor and think have not gone along with, or that the cap on their pain and suffering.
And that is an aftermath to the legal profession, although it has to be.
You are always a lover of, of course.
Well, I respect them for what they are.
And what are they, Senator?
They are very special people.
So we are dealing with a very difficult, controversial group of people here.
For the good of the people, this state, somebody has to get together and do something about this.
I started to say that the limitation of contingency fees was declared constitutional, or California did that, and we did it to a limited degree in the last session.
I think there has to be more consideration given the fact.
Some of our people may not know what a contingency fee is, Senator.
Well, that is the percentage that a lawyer agrees to take a case for.
Many people do not have money to run.
I am a lawyer for a suit, and this lawyer says, well, if we take the suit, now get 30%, or 20%, or 40%, for the negotiated fee, and it's generally pretty high.
But it does require a lot of work on the private lawyers.
I understand that, but I know many lawyers have come out of some of these cases with a million dollars.
I think that's a little unreasonable.
Senator, let me wax philosophical with you for a moment.
Senator Kennedy, Ted Kennedy, when talking about the United States Congress in a number of years back said that the special interests had literally bought the Congress.
Each with their particular concern, I wonder if you feel that is the case with the state legislature at this stage.
Well, I think it's probably pretty true in most legislatures.
I think with the PACs going on, the tremendous thousands and millions of dollars involved in these special interests groups who support different candidates, and usually they'll support on both sides to make sure they don't lose.
I think it's a very dangerous situation going on.
The resolution to that, I don't know under freedom of speech whether we could ever do anything about it or not.
I am very concerned about how can I legislate or forget that he got $10,000 from some individual who represents a special interest group when a vote comes up.
I think that's pretty evident what's going on right now in Washington.
We're deadlocked, special interests are winning, and we probably won't get any tax reform out of there because of the influences special interests groups, and they're certainly evident in Albany 2.
What I always love about talking to you is that you're a man who speaks his mind.
So let me get right to this here.
If, in fact, this is going on, isn't one of the big problems that most people don't know about most of what's going on in the legislature.
Therefore, the special interests can ask a legislator to do something and know darn well that they can't respond my people would never stand for it because their people don't know about it.
Oh, I take this, generally.
Till you really can't expect the general population to know all of the issues that are going on.
I mean, we as legislators don't know everything that's going on.
We have so many issues going around us, and I may be an expert in one area or half a dozen areas or a dozen, but when I get into the whole cross section of the thousands of bills flying around there,
I'm not interested, but I just do not have the time to go out and be an expert in this thing.
So it's certainly easy to have some of this influence brought about.
Now we're going to move, if we can, to a little bit of politics. How's the governor doing?
He's very popular.
Up in your area, too?
I would think so, yes.
So it's going to be tough to beat him for the Republican Party?
Oh, it's tough to beat any incumbent.
And he isn't commenting, he's very aggressive, very political guy, a charismatic, but I think he has a lot of things false that we'll be able to point out over the next year.
We're going to work on some of them, I don't think he's perfect by any means.
I think that the fact that we're still the highest per capita taxination, perhaps the highest welfare grants we will be after it anyway first, we're really a mecca for welfare people.
I'm glad you mentioned that, Senator, because as you may or may not have read, Wisconsin has now done a fairly innovative thing, asking that the parents of teenagers who have had children be held responsible before they can go on AFDC or welfare.
I wonder if you think that's a good idea, in other words, to pay for that.
I had just heard about that the other day, Alan, and I really can't comment.
It doesn't sound very fair to me, but...
Why not?
Off the top of your head, then.
Well, how do you control teenage pregnancy?
How do you do it?
I don't know any family that ever has a responsible, I don't know.
That's kind of a new concept I had never heard of that.
This is in fact, it proves out in Wisconsin.
What if, in fact, Wisconsin seems to...
By the way, the governor on his radio show with me yesterday said exactly what you just said.
He just too early didn't want to talk about it irresponsibly.
But what if it proves out?
I suppose we find out in Wisconsin that...
I certainly got an open mind.
I mean, we have to do something about the welfare cost of this state.
I just pointed out we have the highest benefits, probably the highest cost of any state in the nation.
And then Medicaid costs are probably...
Price is highest California.
We're absurd in what we're doing in the welfare areas.
You know, I've been involved with that for a number of years.
I've tried to restrain the program.
I must confess that I have not had much luck because the general of the New York state...
The city liberals overrightist said that we spent more and more money.
It's really got way out of control.
Senator William T. Smith.
Now we just have a few moments to sit back and talk a little bit, Bill.
Bill, don't you think that Cadillac Smith is a remarkable man after all?
How many other guys would constantly come out and hit on the lawyers and tell you...
His most direct feelings about the welfare system.
Usually they're standing all over the eggs, but this guy absolutely tells you what he thinks every time.
That's why everybody in the legislature seems to love him.
He really does, and I think it's very refreshing for a lot of people.
I sensed in your interview in fact that you was a legislative watcher...
As most others who watched the legislature do, realize that there is really in there a need to have lawyers...
And a need to have special interests and lobbyists and so forth.
And yet I think you like others kind of relish the time you get to spend with someone like Cadillac Smith...
Who really just tells it like it isn't just spout out the same line all the time, time after time.
I've always felt that he has moved into this area of statesmanship as opposed to politician with a great ambition after him.
He's really a person who reflects tries to tell the truth.
And by now is just endeared to everybody in the legislative process.
I must say I spoke to Fred Oranstein, his democratic leader of the minority...
And usually the Republicans and the Democrats are the lawgates. Oranstein just loves this guy.
I think he's phenomenal.
Let me ask you about something else that came up in the conversation.
And also actually came up this week in Geneva where a presidential aide Donald Regan said something to the effect that women don't understand the confidence...
The complex nature of arms control. You also sense that there's a sense in the legislature.
Oh John Q. Public doesn't understand what's going on here.
Well I think that's absolutely true. And to magnify it even more, I'm always astounded by this.
I ask my classes in political science, my graduate classes at the university.
I say you know you mentioned an issue and almost nobody knows.
And in fact I have to confess something to you. I've been watching the legislature for years.
But until I started writing my column five or six years ago and doing regular radio shows and television work...
I must tell you that I didn't know half of what I had to know.
I knew about the concepts. I knew about the way it was supposed to work. And in fact the way it did work.
But to dot the eyes and cross the teeth, it's almost impossible. And as Cadillac Smith says, they don't know either.
That's our show for this week. Join us again next week for another look at state government and politics.
Bill Graulty edits and produces this program, Leslie Brokrow as associate editor.
Please address comments and questions to us at WAMC Box 13,000 Albany New York, 1-2-2-1-2. I'm Alan Chartock.
The legislative Gazette is a production of WAMC News. Alan Chartock is executive producer.
This program is made possible with funds provided by the state University of New York College at Newples.
The program is made possible with funds provided by the state University of New York College at New York College at New York.
The program is made possible with funds provided by the state University of New York College at New York College at New York.
The program is made possible with funds provided by the state University of New York College at New York.
