From Albany, this is the Legislative Gazette, a weekly magazine on New York State government
and politics.
Your host is Don Decker, with commentary by a political scientist Dr. Alan Shartock.
Hello and welcome to the Legislative Gazette.
Coming up on this week's program, New York State leaders are calling for everyone in
the Empire State to stand up and be counted.
That's right, it's census time.
And they're warning that if everyone is not counted, the state may lose big bucks.
We'll tell you about that.
Also, New York's top law enforcement official proposes a way to make it easier for citizens
to police the environment.
The Health Department says a recently enacted regulation has made a dent in the state's
illegal drug trade.
And our political analyst Dr. Alan Shartock is joined by Fred Dicker of the New York
Post.
Call that and more on this week's Legislative Gazette.
Maybe you didn't realize how much you're worth, but New York State leaders do, and they're
urging you to stand up and be counted for this year's federal census, for the story
in Gisarta.
Fearing New York will lose billions of federal dollars and congressional seats, state leaders
have announced an all-out effort to ensure everyone in the Empire State be included in
this year's federal census.
Assembly Speaker, Mel Miller.
What happens in New York is extremely important for two reasons.
First, the number of members of Congress in New York State will have a sign to it as
dependent on the count, and secondly, amounts of state aid from the federal government is
also dependent on the count.
So this becomes very, very crucial.
The census is, in a sense, a national head count taken every ten years.
It determines a state's congressional representation, how district lines will be drawn, and how much
federal funding it will receive.
According to Jeff Weiss, the state assembly's Washington, D.C. Council, and a sense of specialist,
undercounting has been a problem in the past.
He says during the 1980 census, a half million New Yorkers were not counted, and there are
dire consequences.
80 federal programs, totaling some $39 billion is distributed to states by Washington every
year.
And if these programs provide an average of $200 per New Yorker, then we're out almost
$125 million a year in federal money for such critical programs as job training, education,
transportation, and housing, that could add up to $14 billion by the next census in
the year 2000.
According to Weiss, it's usually the homeless, illegal aliens, and minorities who do not
get counted.
Well, while the census counts 99% of all residents of the United States, the 1% that's missing
translates into a huge undercount of blacks in Hispanics.
For instance, roughly 15% of Hispanic male youths aren't counted.
One in every five black males in the 40-year-old age range are missed, and that adds up to hundreds
of thousands of people.
Why says this year, state officials are doing all they can to ensure everyone be counted.
As Speaker Miller has spearheaded a creation of New York counts, which is going to be a
not-for-profit corporation to promote a full count of all New York residents in 1990
federal census.
New York Council serve as a watchdog to make sure that the Census Bureau and that state
and local governments cooperate in a complete population survey.
Right now, the Census Bureau has opened up roughly one district office in every congressional
district in New York State, roughly 30 offices, and many county executives and mayors have
been working on full count activities.
But the real crunch time comes April 1st when every New York household which receives
the Census form is asked to mail it back.
According to WICE, about 78% of the population is expected to mail the forms back.
We need to make sure the other 27% fill out the forms and send them back, or are counted
by the enumerators hired by the Census Bureau who will canvas neighborhoods between April
13th and June 6th.
And one of the speaker's objectives through New York counts is to help the local Census
Bureau offices fill the jobs, part-time and full-time for people who will be needed to go
door-to-door.
As for the other, Speaker Miller says education is the key.
Part of the Census effort is an educational effort.
Why is it important to be counted?
Make sure you fill out your form.
What does it mean?
We have to inform people of the confidentiality of the forms, or a lot of people who don't
like to fill out government forms.
And I think if business, labor, media, or all cooperate, New York State will not have
an undercount as long as it was in 1980.
Miller says he hopes every New Yorker will stand up and be counted this year, so the
Empire State will get its share of badly needed funding.
For the lead to cited Gazette, I'm Ingasarda.
A number of state officials, including Attorney General Robert Abrams and Thomas Jorling,
the Environmental Conservation Commissioner, proposed this week a measure that will greatly
expand a person's right to bring lawsuits against environmental polluters.
For more on that story, Brian Shields.
They're calling on state lawmakers to expand a citizen's right to bring lawsuits against
environmental polluters, state attorney general Robert Abrams.
Right now, an individual citizen who has suffered direct personal injury or property damage
from pollution, such as pollution of their drinking water.
They would have the opportunity to sue a party that they believe is responsible under
legal principles when that individual suffers harm.
What this proposal does is give citizens the ability to compel compliance with state
environmental statutes without regard to quantifiable injury.
And so it would allow an individual citizen or an organization to litigate against a polluter
on behalf of the broad public interest.
According to Abrams, many other states have such a law in place and he says it has proven
effective in clamping down on illegal environmental polluting.
Interested citizen, for example, who wanted to protect a river from pollution, they thought
that some factory was wrongfully polluting that river.
For some other facility, they see a pipe that is leading lots of chemicals that have
discolored the area and caused the death of trees or other plant life in that area.
And they think that this represents a violation of the law.
They would be able to bring a lawsuit to enjoin that company from continuing to violate a
section of the state environmental law concerning the continued damage to the environment
as a result of those dangerous toxic chemicals illegally coming out of that pipe.
That individual will have the right to bring that law.
So today that person can't do it.
They don't have the standing to do it.
They can do it in federal court pursuant to certain federal statutory provisions if they
apply in a given situation in 30 other states.
People citizens have that right or power, but not here in New York.
Abrams says he expects some criticism, more specifically that such a law would lead to
a further clogging of the courts.
I don't see where that's going to happen.
Only meritorious lawsuits will be able to prevail.
There will be 60 days notice requirement to government before this kind of a lawsuit
could be brought.
Government might decide to bring it on its own.
My join with the citizen in bringing the lawsuit or might decide as a matter of priorities
to let the citizen bring that lawsuit.
So I think it makes him an incense.
I think it's an idea that has worked at the federal level and in other states.
But the attorney general says he's optimistic the public will stand behind him on the issue.
That's because many more people are concerned about the importance of preserving mother
earth.
And that's why government belongs to all of us.
And it should belong to us not only who are presently on the earth, but it should be
passed on to future generations who come later on.
And so we should be giving people the opportunity and the power to step in and enforce those
laws.
Although the measure failed to make it through the legislature in years past, Abrams says
the growing public concern about the environment should reverse that trend.
For the legislative Gazette, I'm Brian Shields.
Because the attorney general calls for a measure that he thinks will show great results
in clamping down on environmental polluters, the State Health Department has received results
from regulations it enacted last year.
And as Bruce Robertson reports, it's good news for them and some bad news for illegal drug
traders.
The New York State Health Department says tough new state rules have cut sharp light prescriptions
of drugs like Valium and appear to have made a dent in the illegal drug trade as well.
The Health Department study says Medicaid claims for benzodiazepines fell by 55 percent
between 1988 and 1989.
For the Empire Plan and the State's prescription drug program, claims were reduced by about
a quarter as well.
In an effort to curb abuse, the Health Department has required triplicate prescriptions of benzodiazepines.
Those are drugs used as tranquilizers and sleeping pills under trade names such as Valium,
Zanex, Ativan, Librium and Syrex.
The new procedures began on January 1st of 1989.
According to the Health Department's Director of Public Health Safety, John Edie, prior
to the regulation, illegal drug trade was a major problem.
There was wide scale diversion of these drugs that included what we're referred to as
pylmills in the city of New York and elsewhere, where patients would get prescriptions for
these drugs, fill them with the pharmacy, and then either take the drugs themselves or
sell the drugs.
Under the new rules, doctors now have to file a copy of their prescriptions for these
drugs with the state.
Also under the new rules, doctors cannot prescribe more than a month's supply at a time.
Edie says this has made all the difference.
To put it in perspective, we had a track, a group of some 3,400 patients who were, the
we viewed as just a sample of a group of the patients who were involved in this activity.
Between them, they were getting almost 20,000 prescriptions a month in the last part
of 1988.
That would translate almost a quarter of a million prescriptions a year for this group
of about 3,400 people.
Now, that's far in excess of any legitimate use that anyone could imagine.
What we've seen is for that group of patients by May of 1989, they were down to almost
1,000 prescriptions a month, just slightly over 1,000, which is a 95% reduction in their
use of these drugs and obtaining these drugs.
We've also tracked the group of pharmacies that we believe to have been involved in this
intentional diversion.
And they're prescribing or dispensing of these drugs went down by 76% between December
of 1988 and April of 1989.
John Edie, the health department's director of public health safety, he says previously
the state was not involved in tracking prescriptions and doctors could prescribe a six month supply
of such drugs.
For the legislative Gazette, this is Bruce Robertson.
Speaking of health-related issues, the health department this week began hearings on proposed
regulations to toughen drinking water standards.
The regulations would require filtration services for every system that uses water from
river streams, lakes and reservoirs.
The City of Albany did this a hundred years ago, but a lot of other cities and other communities
did not follow suit.
According to spokesman Bill Fagel, the state is following in the footsteps now of the
federal government, which last year put forth criteria for such a plan.
The federal government in enacting these rules basically sees an increase in waterborne
diseases nationwide.
And in New York state, and right close to home here in the Albany area, we have seen
five outbreaks of jar diocese, which is more commonly known as beaver fever, in communities
of Rome, Canter'sville, Fort Plain and Johnstown.
Some of these were very serious, resulting in hundreds of cases of diarrheal illness.
The water supply had to be put on hold for literally months.
The residents were on boil water orders for extended periods of time.
And it's just a very unpleasant situation, and one which causes a disease, which is very
persistent and can cause people to become dehydrated and have to be taken to the hospital.
So we're talking about very serious illness here, and we're talking about the potential
for this illness, hitting any community that has a surface water source.
According to Fagel, there are nearly 800 non-filtered surface water systems in New York.
They range from New York City's massive supply to the Adirondack community of Hague, whose
system serves 80 residents in 30 homes.
Question, of course, on many people's minds, what's it going to cost?
And obviously, at a cost to a small water system, we've done some estimates.
We estimate that it's going to cost approximately $1,000 for household and very small water
systems.
And that's a major outlay of cash.
However, I think if you ask the average citizen, whether he or she would pay for a good,
safe water supply, that's one of the things that I think the taxpayer would pay for.
And I think if you put it to him in that way, I think most taxpayers will say, yes, we
will pay for that.
We may not pay for some other government programs, which we don't think are worthwhile.
But this is something which is, you never miss good water until it's gone.
And I think if you talk to some of the people in Tannersville and Fort Point and John's
Town, I think those people can tell you some real horror stories about not only inconvenience,
but some real health problems that occurred because their water supply wasn't filtered.
Fagel Gazana say he thinks it's worth it.
And he says, imagine if New York City's water supply were contaminated, for example.
Thousands, perhaps millions, could wind up ill.
That he says would take its toll both financially and physically on everybody.
And now joining us political analyst, Dr. Alan Shartak, professor at the State University
of New York, he spoke with New York Post-Investigator, Fred Dicker, about the state's budget
bruja.
Clearly, Alan, the governor has laid down the guanlet with his $51 billion budget, almost
a billion dollars in New Texas, plus $400 million in additional taxes as a result of delaying
a tax cut.
The Republicans, in particular, the Senate Republicans like to be known as a tax cutting
and the frugal political party in this stage.
While we can debate that.
Is that Sandy Frugal?
No, go ahead.
I'll go ex-.
While we can debate that, this is an election year.
And the Republicans are making what I think is an unprecedented effort to try to find cuts
in the governor, to be able to cut the governor's budget, to try to find waste.
And right now, they're headed for a collision.
The governor says all these new taxes are needed, that all these recommending are basic programs
that have to be maintained, and the Senate Republicans are saying, no, that's not true
governor.
We're going to show you how to do it.
So the next few weeks are going to be very, very confrontational intense, and I would
comfortably predict we're not going to have a budget on time for yet another year.
I see that Mario Cuomo is flying all over the state talking to the editorial boards.
What's that all about?
Most people don't ever see this, Alan, but I've seen it for quite a while firsthand.
And you have this whole behind-the-scenes lobbying effort that goes on after the governor
presents his budget.
He calls editorial writers.
He goes to editorial boards at newspapers and television stations.
What it is is a lobbying campaign.
It's politics that it's best in a way.
Both the governor and to a lesser extent, but to a real extent, the Senate Republicans
try to convince the opinion makers of the righteousness of their position.
So there's a behind-the-scenes little battle that's going on as part of the bigger up front
out of the closet battle.
Fred, now Rudy Giuliani, man of the hour, the Republicans obviously want him to run for
governor because he would be their front runner, their best chance.
They figure he came close in New York City with all the Republicans upstate that maybe
he would have a chance of beating Cuomo.
I say that he has no chance of beating Cuomo and be that if he won't want to run against
Cuomo because twice out, twice lost would make him dead meat.
I think you're wrong on both counts.
I think that you're right when you say that Rudy Giuliani would be a strong Republican candidate.
In my judgment, he'd be the only strong Republican candidate.
There's an old saw in politics that you can't beat somebody with nobody.
Maybe the saw is rusty.
No, I think that's correct.
Mario Cuomo clearly is a somebody.
He is a preeminent political figure in the state and he still enjoys widespread popularity.
The Republican party in the state does not have anyone of Cuomo stature.
The only person in my judgment who comes close to it is Rudy Giuliani who in the downstate
area is extremely well known and almost one is mayor.
I think that he may run and I think that if everything went well for the governor, he
couldn't win.
You never know in an election just like in life that tomorrow, you don't know if tomorrow
could bring a situation which could prove very, very embarrassing, for instance, that
the governor could damage him politically.
Number two, I think that you can make a case and obviously the case is being made to
Giuliani that if he does very well against the governor, it doesn't beat him but say comes
close, then he'll remain a preeminent Republican political figure in this state.
In addition, it could be if he has interest in staying in public life that the White House,
President Bush and people around him, will be willing to offer Rudy Giuliani and import
the Washington job if he runs for governor and loses.
The fact that Giuliani hasn't fully ruled out such a race, I think, is an indication
that he's seriously thinking of it.
The next few weeks are important as you know he's beginning a statewide but basically
upstate a series of speaking engagements that by his own people's admission or at least
partly designed to test the waters for a race for governor.
Yeah, it's a sounds to me though, like the Republican establishment is getting a little
fancy, we had Pat Barrett, the Avis Maven who is now the state chairman talking about
how he had really make up his mind, Giuliani.
Absolutely, they are nervous but that's not surprising.
It's like the Democratic establishment in 1984 when they had a highly popular president
Reagan to run against.
I mean, when you have a popular incumbent and there's no doubt that Mario Cuomo is a popular
incumbent, it's very difficult and you can't always find a good candidate to run.
The other hand, Pat Barrett, I think to his credit, is trying to really make an effort
to reinvigorate two-party politics in New York State.
I think you would agree that's a good thing.
And I think he's to be praised by those people who want to keep the political system vital
for trying to reinvigorate the Republican Party.
Fred, in listening to it sounds like you know you sort of now people have accused me of
this with a governor so I mean it's something I can put up with but sounds like you're being
a bit of a cheerleader for the Republicans.
I think to the extent that I think it's good to see a vital two-party system, not taking
sides as you well know.
I just think it's better to see a better for the state's political health to see a Republican
party leader who takes his job seriously than what we've seen at times in the past where
it seemed as if they had surrendered before the battle even began.
Okay, now let's go to the state senate.
As you remember, because you and I have talked about this several times already on this
program, John Moreno, the state Democratic chairman who by the way is not to be confused
Ralph Moreno, who's the head guy in the Republican state senate, John Moreno issued a report
with Mario Cuomo's knowledge talking about how to take the New York state senate and make
it an old Democratic legislature.
What's become of that?
Well, I mean that really was more than just a reporter.
It was really kind of a declaration of war back in 1986 when the governor won this huge
landslide re-election victory.
People pointed out and I think correctly so that he had no co-tails.
That the senate political makeup was basically unchanged with the Republicans continuing in power.
Now, the governor seems to be willing and has put some of his press to put some of his
prestige in a line saying that not only do I plan to run a win re-election, but I'm
going to try to bring along with me the Democrats in the senate to make sure or to assure
that we have a Democratic government across the board in New York, Capital D, which would
presumably allow more Democratic programs to be passed.
I think he's put his neck out a bit in.
Those of us in the media who are sort of commentators and critics will be looking to see
what if anything he does.
So far, we know he's made some important moves and this week in fact there's a bit of a
controversy where it turns out that the Republicans, I'm sorry, the Democrats under attack
for this bother Republicans, the Democrats are trying to raise $500,000 from a few fat
cat contributors at 5,000 in the pop with at least some of the money apparently going
to help the Democrats try to take control of the senate.
Political analyst Dr. Alan Shartak and New York Post Fred Dicker.
And now with a look at some other happenings in state government this week Paul Rosen
thought with the legislative notebook.
Governor Cuomo has put out the word to state agencies to look for more budget cuts.
The cuts would be needed in the coming fiscal year if New York's financial condition
gets worse.
The agencies are being asked to come up with scenarios that would cut spending by as much
as 5%.
Cuomo says the state faces a potential $2 billion deficit in the fiscal year that starts
April 1st.
That's on top of an estimated $700 million deficit this year.
But Cuomo says the coming year budget problems could be worse and that more taxes, fees, or
budget cuts may be needed.
State Education Commissioner Thomas Sobel has ruled that New York schools do not have to
remove tiny amounts of asbestos.
Sobel's decision conforms state rules about asbestos to federal regulations and could save
the state millions of dollars over the next several years.
Under the ruling, anything that contains less than 1% asbestos is not have to be treated
as a health hazard that comes with assurances from the state health department that anything
would so little asbestos would not be a problem.
That means schools do not have to go through the time consuming and expensive process of treating
asbestos asbestos has been linked to cancer.
A Republican Assumment from Peakskill has introduced legislation that will convert $100 million
originally earmarked for loans in the 1986 Environmental Bond Act to grant money.
George Pataki says the funds would be used to assist municipalities in the closure
of their solid waste landfills.
What assembly Republicans are proposing is that the loan program be converted to a grant
program.
A 50% matching share where the municipality would pay half the cost and the state would pay
the other half.
The governor is now proposing a 1990 Environmental Quality Bond Act which has $150 million
in grants for municipal landfill closure.
We can expect municipalities to apply for loans under the 86th Environmental Bond Act
when the governor is proposing a grant program in the 1990 bond act.
So quite clearly the municipal part of the 1986 bond act has been a flop.
Nothing has happened.
It hasn't helped one municipality.
There are more than 120 of them that are under consent orders from the state requiring
them to close the landfills.
We believe conversion of this loan program to a grant program will allow our local governments
to meet the environmental standards of the state without sending the property taxes through
the roof.
State Assemblyman George Pataki of Peak Skill.
On the child abuse front the Senate took a tough stance this week by passing three bills
to strengthen laws designed to prevent harm to children.
One bill allows a child protective service agency access to certain criminal conviction
records kept by other state agencies.
The bill would allow the agency to use the conviction records while investigating a
report of child abuse.
Another bill grants immunity from civil or criminal liability to health care professionals
who give information to child protective service investigators looking at a case of child
abuse.
A third bill makes it a crime for individuals involved in private adoption to obtain consent
for the adoption and then take physical custody of the child which happened in the celebrated
Lisa Steinberg case.
The Senate also passed a bill designed to take a bite out of the crime of pet napping.
The legislation would impose penalties for stealing a dog or cat to a maximum of four
years in prison and five thousand dollars in fines.
The bill's sponsor, Republican State Senator Norman Levy of NASA, says the penalties
will be the strongest in the nation.
He says the bill is aimed at people who steal dogs or cats and then sell them on the black
market for laboratory research or for use as so-called sparring partners for pit bull
terriers.
For the legislative gazette, I'm Paul Rosenthal.
Many executives from throughout New York descended upon the state this week, they spoke with
Lieutenant Governor Stan Lundin and Albany about his drug plan.
Dave Galetli asked him how the plan is going to directly affect them.
Directly counties could be helped by diverting their sentence jail inmates from county jail
cells to drug treatment cells.
Many of the counties are looking at a doubling of their jail space.
If they could cut down on that or even eliminate it by where appropriate, sentencing people
to serve time in secure drug treatment facilities, they would not only save county money, but
perhaps some of these people would recover from their addiction and be fire, fire less likely
to go back to a life of crime and drugs.
What else are you hearing from the folks at the county level?
Over the last couple of years, they have not fared all that well in getting aid from larger
governmental bodies?
I think the counties know that this year's budget, being a very tight budget, was one that
they did pretty well by comparison.
They realized that where we achieve, that is the state achieves pension savings, they
achieve pension savings, where we receive some benefit from some Medicaid class containment
the county share in that benefit.
I think that they realized this state budget is somewhat less onerous on the counties
than last years or than they have been experiencing certainly from the federal government.
While they may not be delighted with the circumstances in relative terms, I think the counties
which are a growing unit of local government are doing relatively better this year.
New York State Lieutenant Governor Stan Lunding, and that does it for this week's show,
The Legislative Gazette is produced by Ingasarda, technical assistance from Phil Sluzaris.
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