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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 Charter, of the State University.
Hello and welcome to the Legislative Gazette.
This week, the new Public Relations Offensive of Governor Cuomo Forethics legislation.
Assembly Speaker Mel Miller talks about pay raises for legislators which he strongly supports.
We'll hear from the commander of the New York Army National Guard about their state of readiness
in the aftermath from former Commander Vito Castelano.
Also the withdrawal of Alexander Levine from the nomination to Thruway Authority Chairman.
And newly proposed changes in the state Medicaid system, all this plus more.
Can you imagine coming up on the Legislative Gazette?
Governor Cuomo said this week that it's now or never for an ethics bill that the time
has come for a final decision.
At the same time Senate Republican leader Warren Anderson reportedly said that unless a bill
was printed by this week, it probably should not be considered for a full house vote this
session.
Amid these edicts, Cuomo had a press conference to talk about the major issues.
Joining us on the Legislative Gazette is Maurice Small, who is at that press conference.
Maurice, what went on at this conference?
Governor Cuomo called the press conference ostensibly to talk about an internal audit bill,
which would require state agencies and authorities to perform internal audits and then make public
the results.
It's an ethics and government measure.
But basically the press conference was politic and Cuomo wanted to put some pressure on the
Republican-led Senate to move on a couple of key bills, important bills that have been
bogged down in negotiations.
Cuomo wants them past.
He wanted to put the pressure on the Republicans.
They are, of course, the ethics bill, which has been dragged through negotiations.
It isn't clear if it's going to come out as you just said Anderson has said maybe we
should postpone it till the next session, but Cuomo wants it.
The other bill, a court merger bill, a court reform bill.
It's been virtually pronounced dead.
The governor, however, called on the Senate to at least take these bills, put them on the
floor for debate, and possibly a vote.
He said the public should be able to see where their representatives stand on these issues.
But the ethics issue is a very hot one this week for the governor himself.
A close associate of Cuomo, Alexander Levine, the director of the Thruway Authority of New
York, has been focused on, there have been charges of conflict of interest.
And Senate anonymous letter to Governor Cuomo saying that a computer software firm that
Levine has contacts with, worked with a consulting firm that consulting firm had worked with
the Thruway Authority.
The implication here being that Levine could have told the consulting firm, you do this
work for us, I'll get you contracts with the Thruway Authority.
Now that charge has not been proven at all, but it is being investigated by the state.
So at the Thursday morning press conference, Cuomo was questioned intensively by reporters
about the issue, especially because Levine is a close associate of his.
He downplayed the whole issue.
He said there are no charges against Levine.
There's only this letter.
And he said that sometimes very sick people write letters like this just to get back at
someone.
And he called then on the person who wrote the letter to come forward and participate
in the investigation into Levine.
He said this would be the fair thing to do.
And he offered his own personal protection for that person.
In other words, the person would not lose their job or whatever because of blowing the
whistle on Levine.
And of course, there are a lot of implications that is, Maury, Alexander Levine is one of
Governor Cuomo's closest associates.
And this is a tough one on the governor because he has always allowed himself to cut people
loose who misbehaved.
Now assuming this is a case of misbehavior, this may be one of those times when a governor
feels reticent and starts to protect somebody else.
And when that kind of thing begins to happen, that's when they get into trouble whether
they're Richard Nixon or anybody else.
So Cuomo has to be very careful on this one and we're going to have to watch and see
what he does here.
On the ethics question, I'm amazed because there are a lot of people who have been saying
to me that Cuomo, particularly Republicans, that Cuomo really doesn't want the ethics
issue resolved.
They've been saying he really wants the issue, but I don't believe that.
I think he wants this bill.
And I'm being told by a lot of Republican senators that it looks like he's going to get
it.
And he's already opened up what we call a second front on this question of internal audits
in the legislature and what he calls his guidelines bill, which is really just a sort of reconfigured
ethics piece of ethics legislation which will allow us to know where and how the legislature
spends its money.
And I have a feeling we're in for the same kind of fight on that one in which the legislature
resists.
The governor beats him up.
The newspapers take the governor's side.
And like that.
Anyway, thanks, Mori.
That's the legislative gazette's Mori small.
Meanwhile, the question still hangs in the air in Albany.
Will there or won't there?
Will lawmakers vote themselves a pay raise this session or not?
We put the question to assembly speaker Mel Miller in this week's Speaker's Corner.
I think the legislature is not going to consider a pay raise unless and until such time is
there's an agreement on the ethics bill.
At that time, maybe there will be a sit down right now as of it's five after eleven on
the 23rd of June.
We have not the legislative leaders have not sat down to discuss it.
I think the feeling was that while I think individually we all feel there should be, we
are now paying substantially less than the New York City City Council is that we would
not really want to broach that subject unless we had an ethics bill put together.
The governor says that the leaders have specifically said there have been no discussions
on that.
I just said that.
It's exactly what I just said to you.
But the majority leader, Mr. Talon, said on our air on WRGB, excuse me on Channel 6
last weekend, that there have been extensive discussions.
Well, I will since the majority leader hasn't been at the discussions and I have been at
all the leaders meetings.
I think there have been a lot of discussions among now members about the pay raise.
But on a leadership level, I think the feeling was that until we get an ethics bill, it would
not be a profitable discussion.
Let's get the ethics bill first.
I think if we get an ethics bill, then at that point there may be discussions.
But at this point, at least not in the act.
Maybe there will be today or tomorrow or the next day.
But right now, there haven't been discussions the whole emphasis is trying to get a niah.
It's the wrong word.
I know what also that tells.
Whether it is not an ethics bill, it's a conflict of interest bill and a disclosure bill.
Ethics bill would be a whole different type of thing.
But until the disclosure bill is dealt with and the conflicts bill is dealt with, there
have been no discussions.
I think if those bills are dealt with, then I think the legislative leaders may be willing
to sit down and discuss with the governor legislative pay raises.
By the way, which could not go into effect until 1989, unlike the city council, we cannot
raise our salaries anyhow during our elected terms.
So, if we don't do it before 1989, we have to wait till 1991.
Legislature hasn't had a race late.
It's late.
So I made it very clear to the press that while I strongly favor pay raises, that subject
won't be brought until I know we have a bill dealing with disclosure and conflict.
Assembly Speaker Mel Miller.
Meanwhile, Speaker Miller was among several Democratic Assembly leaders who this week unveiled
a proposal to make more New Yorkers eligible for Medicaid.
Mori Small has our report.
Assembly Speaker Mel Miller and Democratic Majority Leader James Talon announced support
for a bill to broadly expand Medicaid eligibility in New York.
The measure would make Medicaid coverage available to about 60,000 New Yorkers who currently
have no health insurance.
An estimated 80 percent of those people are working adults and their children.
Talon, who until recently chaired the Assembly Health Committee, says government has to take
more responsibility for health care, which he says is being denied to too many people,
largely because of recent economic trends.
What's happened in the last five years is that there has been a very significant deterioration
in the level of health insurance coverage among the American people.
And a lot of it grows out of the 82 recession and the kind of jobs that were created after
the 82 recession.
You know the agenda, the movement to service jobs from manufacturing to part time from full
time to less unionized from more likely to be organized.
All those trends are in effect changing the whole structure of the workforce on which
our health insurance system is based.
We're now with an estimate that we have 2.4 million New Yorkers without any level of
health insurance coverage in the state.
Now, what we start to do today is to start to resolve that problem.
And we start with governments basic responsibility, government mental responsibility for those
people who are poor, government mental responsibility for those people who are at the bottom.
Eligibility for Medicaid in New York depends on the size of the household and the amount
of total income.
Currently in New York, a 3 person household is eligible for Medicaid if its income is
80 percent of the federal poverty level or less.
But for a larger household, the income has to be much lower to qualify the members for
Medicaid.
For example, if a 5 person household brings in more than $7,700 a year, the members cannot
get Medicaid coverage.
Talon says Medicaid coverage for smaller households has been protected because many one and two
person households are made up of older people.
As their social security payments have risen in recent years, the state raised the eligibility
level for Medicaid to ensure that the elderly don't lose medical coverage.
Talon says current Medicaid standards are also punishing the poor two-parent family by
making it ineligible for Medicaid when a single-parent family with the same income would
be eligible.
If you had two adults in a household with a child, the intact family, those adults were
ineligible for coverage under the Medicaid program.
And we correct that in this bill.
I can only observe how inappropriate it is that our program of medical insurance for
the poor was withheld from the intact family while being available to the family in which
the second adult has departed.
Expanding the Medicaid roles under the proposed legislation would add $86 million to the annual
$7 billion Medicaid program in New York State.
The costs are shared by the local, state, and federal governments.
Asked about expected local opposition to increased Medicaid spending, Talon noted that towns and
cities are already bearing medical costs of many poor people who turn up as charity cases
at local hospitals while if they had Medicaid coverage, the state and federal governments
would be helping to foot the bill.
Assembly speaker Mel Miller said the proposed legislation would actually save government
money because many people are currently staying on unemployment because if they got a job,
they'd be earning too much to qualify for Medicaid.
This is the most cost effective of all programs.
And it's cost effective because the cost of treating these people, the cost of keeping
these people as the pendants of the state is a lot more expensive than opening up and making
available to them medical care, medical treatment because as we've learned for so many years,
you know, a dollar spent on prevention ultimately is going to be worth $10 spent when we have
to pick them up down the line.
Miller and Talon say the assembly could well pass the bill by the end of the current session
expected next week, but an aide to Senator John Markey, who's sponsoring the bill in the
Senate, says it's highly unlikely the Senate will pass it that fast.
For the legislative gazette, this is more e-small.
The New York Army National Guard is a unit of state government that has connections
to both state and federal authorities.
The Guard has been called by Governor Cuomo in emergency situations like Hurricane Gloria.
In 1970, some New York Guardsmen were mobilized by President Nixon during the Postal Work
Stoppage.
The state guard troops are headed by Major General Lawrence Flynn, who moved into the
post last April.
90% of the guard members are part-time, training one weekend a month and two weeks a year.
The legislative gazettes Leslie Brokaw spoke with Major General Flynn to ask him about
several issues including how he determines the readiness of his troops.
He says the Army is established as a set of testing and evaluation procedures.
Their calls matter fact are a tap which is the Army training and evaluation program.
And each unit down to the company level undergoes one of these are a tap or evaluation programs
every other year.
There are regular scales by which they are graded and they cover the broad range of activities
that the particular type unit has to accomplish.
If it's a maintenance unit, it's got one set of standards.
If it's an artillery unit, it has another.
If it's an infantry, it has another.
So they're actually graded under the same standards that the active component is graded
because everyone has to evaluate what additional training you require, your organization requires
in order to meet its commitment.
This currently a lawsuit right now that's been filed primarily by Minnesota but in concurrence
with several other states that have joined in.
In opposition to a federal law that prohibits state governors from vetoing assignments that
their National Guard members might face.
What do you think of that?
Do you think the guards should be able to train anywhere?
Well, that's a kind of political decision that I'm really not in a position to answer.
A great level of our country's readiness is now in the National Guard.
And as such, the federal government is very, very concerned that the National Guard be
as well trained and as ready to respond as it can be.
So the federal government has been spending more and more money on the guard.
We have increased the full time support that the guard has from a level of about 4% of
the force seven or eight years ago or a full time people.
We're up to about 10% now.
Now the Constitution vests in the Congress the responsibility or the authority to raise
the militia.
They reserve to the states or to the governors the authority to appoint the officers and
require that the states train the militia according to the discipline established by the Congress.
Now what we have now is this suit of being that was brought by governor Purpose is on that
very issue.
The Congress initially established in 1952 the ability of the governors to withhold their
consent for overseas training.
The Congress in 1986 amended that to say that the governors could still deny the withhold
their consent, but only but they could not withhold their consent if the only reason they
had was the place where the training was going to be.
Let me ask you though as head of the New York National Guard is it make your job easier
to know that you can take your guard anywhere to train?
Well the law now states that I can and we're a lawful people in a lawful state.
The governor has delegated to me the authority to approve overseas deployments for the National
Guard, but I have reserved and have told him that I will exercise that authority until
we are presented with a you know what what I would consider a sensitive issue.
At that time I would go to him for his you know approval of a guidance.
Your following major general Vito Castelano is the head of New York's National Guard.
That's correct.
And he left amid some controversy over a number of issues including his pension and plans
to boost it and some criticism that he was out of the country when Hurricane Gloria hit
New York and most recently his association with the WEDTEC defense contract.
You know I had nothing to do with his leaving.
Yeah.
How have the issues though affected the National Guard, both you and the people who work
in the Guard?
Well at the time that I was under consideration as were a number of other people for the
position as the chief of staff and the commanding general.
I advised the governor that the problems that the organization had in public perception
would go away when the successor chief of staff took hold and moved out smartly and
aggressively and you know took up the position of the leader because people will invariably
follow a strong leader who displays the you know the characteristics of integrity, courage
and competence.
And I don't want that to sound self-serving but simply saying that if you have perception
problems because of a weak leader or one that is perceived to be weak if you follow
on with a strong leader, one who moves in the directions that his soldiers feel they
should be moving.
Those problems of perception go away.
And I think our National Guard is stronger today than it was a year ago.
Has the issue become a source of distraction or disappointment for rank and file members?
No.
At the time, the obviously the specter of two of its general officers being and being
indicted for things unprofessional and possibly illegal certainly didn't do anything for their
perception of leadership as a whole.
But I and all of the other leaders within the organization have been talking to the soldiers
and saying to them the very things that I have been saying to you for the last 20 minutes
about the vital role that they play and the importance that they hold in the defense
posture of the country.
And we simply don't have time to concern ourselves with things in the past particularly since
there were things that had nothing to do with the soldiers and nothing to do with the soldiers
competence or his performance.
As far as we're concerned, they were cosmetic problems.
They are real to the people who are affected but to the rest of the organization simply
want to protect.
Major General Lawrence Flynn is Commander of the New York State Army National Guard.
He spoke with a legislative gazette's Leslie Brokaw who spent a day observing staged military
exercises at Fort Drum New York near Watertown.
Stan Landy you've been in on the negotiations over some of the last minute bills that have
come up between the Republican-dominated Senate, the Democratic Assembly and the Democratic
governor who you work with.
There is one that I want to talk to you about today and that involves prisons.
What is the governor looking for and what seems to be the point of negotiation?
Well, first of all I think it's important to understand the context that we're approaching
this problem from.
Almost every other big state in the nation is under a statewide federal court order where
the federal courts are in effect running the state prisons because they're so overcrowded.
California is Texas is and the result of that in Texas for example is that every time
you jail someone you have to let somebody out.
It's just that simple.
We cannot administer a tough, effective criminal justice program in New York if we get into
that situation.
Therefore we have to deal with the overcrowding and capacity problems that we have in the
state and they're shared by the state and the counties.
We think that'll take additional prison cells and it will take reforms in our corrective
correctional practices.
We believe that we're very close to having agreement on additional cells.
It sounds funny at the first but we can use this barge that was a British troop ship for
ten million dollars and provide the same number of cells as we'd cost fifty million dollars
to build with new construction plus it's available in a relatively short period of time.
For us we think we can locate it down state where most of the prisoners come from so
that's an attractive option.
The Rome Developmental Center is there.
The clearly is the capacity to have the employees and the necessary correction officers and
other employees in Rome and we believe we can locate immediately a thousand beds and
eventually two thousand beds at the site of the Rome Developmental Center.
We've committed to building a new 700 bed prison unit in Marcy and in addition to that
we need reform in our corrective practices to the extent of allowing those non-violent
criminals who are first time offenders to have a little optional treatment instead of
just the sticking of a cell we're going to have a program.
I think it has an unfortunate name of shock incarceration but I believe it is both tough
and also good for the first time offender and we have another program called Earned
Algae Ability, the effect of which will be to allow those prisoners to have earned reasonable
treatment to get parole at an earlier date.
What is the point of negotiation though?
Is everybody on board or is anybody on board?
Well there is a little question in the sentiment mind about some of the wording of the Earned
Algae Ability piece and there's some question as of late yesterday that the assembly had
about constructing an additional prison at Marcy and then a third question about where
we're going to locate the barge but I think those things are all eminently resolvable.
I believe that our director of criminal justice Larry Carlander has done an outstanding
job in negotiating between very very different elements.
You have Senator Chris Mege who is tough and in a law and order kind of a guy and you
have a assemblyman after even other people that think we've built too many prison cells
in the state and feel that we ought to take an alternative approach and we believe that
what we have now on the table is balanced it is responsible and we'll keep New York and
charge of our own law enforcement and correctional system rather than inviting the federal courts
to take it over.
Stan Lundin is Lieutenant Governor.
And that's it for yet another edition of the Legislative Gazette.
We had helped putting the show together from Dan Anneleck and Maurice Small.
Our editor and producer is Leslie Brokaw.
If you have any comments write to us at Post Office Box 13000 I say 1000 Albany New York
12212.
We'll be back again next week for now I'm Alan Shartock.
The Legislative Gazette is a production of WAMC News.
Dr. Alan Shartock is executive producer.
This program is made possible with funds provided by the State University College at New
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