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 of the Legislative Gazette, we'll meet one of the newest members of Governor Cuomo's inner circle,
Council Evan Davis. Also, some thoughts on the meaning of this week's local elections.
The subject of wage equity and state jobs continues to stir considerable interest.
Not only among those who hold those jobs, but within the state administration,
public employee unions and advocacy groups. Leslie Brokawa has a report on new studies of the wage issue.
The studies by the Center for Women in Government and Arthur Young & Company,
were commissioned as a result of a collective bargaining agreement between the state and its employees unions.
That in itself makes the studies unique since many that are undertaken around the country
are done so because of court cases. Both studies were released on Thursday,
and the results, while not necessarily surprising, are far reaching.
At least 50,000 and as many as 80,000 women and minority men,
were deemed to be performing jobs that, based on their responsibilities,
amount of stress and overall effort, should be paying more.
Once the state evaluates and implements the results of the studies,
thousands of state employees will be receiving anywhere from several hundred to several thousand dollars a year more.
State director of Employee Relations, Thomas Hartnet.
As the implementation team looks at the priorities and how we're going to approach payments for various individuals,
we may agree with some and we may not agree with others,
and that's part of the process of shaking all this out.
I would say with the high degree of confidence that people can, in undervalued titles,
generally will start to see some additional compensation in the second year of this agreement.
The money to implement the program was set aside in the last collective bargaining session.
One percent has given a pool of about $74 million.
Again, Employee Relations director, Thomas Hartnet.
We're confident that the amount of money that was set aside in the negotiations
and we were in the collective bargaining several months ago and talked about this issue.
We're recognizing fully that you have a certain amount of money to negotiate a contract.
State has its priorities, like we talked about health insurance and various other issues.
And one of those priorities was that we wanted to come out of this round of negotiations
with some money set aside to implement the findings in these studies.
We did that with the Civil Service Employees Association, with the Public Employee Federation,
and in the pay bill that we put in for the non-represented management confidential employees.
We are confident that the money set aside is going to substantially address the issues that have been handed out in both of these reports.
The study by the Center for Women in Government focused on the specific issue of comparable worth.
All the state jobs were basically evaluated to determine, for example,
how much jobs dominated by white males paid for specific job characteristics.
Did the males jobs pay more for higher education, for greater employee relations?
Did they take into account more stressful working conditions?
Using those results as a base, the researchers then looked at jobs dominated by women in minorities.
They found that most of those jobs did not pay as much for comparable levels of stress and responsibility in education requirements.
The study also found some jobs to be overvalued, that is, paid more than the state's criteria judge that they should be.
The study did not focus on that issue, however, although Hartnet indicated that down the line,
the salaries of those jobs would somehow be brought into line with the others.
A second study by Arthur Young and Company looked at the overall state employee system,
one that they found to be much too complicated and inefficient. Thomas Hartnet.
The study found that the current job classification system will not serve as well as we go into the next century.
It recommends a thorough overhaul or replacement, including a reduction of the more than 7,000 titles that exist in the present system.
The comparable worth study is one of the first in the nation to evaluate both the minority undervaluation,
alongside of the female undervaluation.
It's also one of the first to be initiated through the combined efforts of state government and the unions.
The study now goes to an implementation project team, which will develop and put into place a new pay structure that will address the problems of pay equity.
This phase is expected to take several months. I'm Leslie Brogott.
This has been a year of high-level changes within the Cuomo administration.
One of the most significant changes was the one which saw the governor's secretary Michael Del Judas leave for a position in private business.
His place was taken by former counsel Gerald Crottie.
Today we'll talk with a man who took Crottie's old job, Governor's Council Evan Davis.
Let me ask you this question first. How which job is harder?
Being a litigator for a major Wall Street firm or being the Governor's Counselor?
Well in terms of the hours, this job is much harder. It's a very, very busy day. A lot of midnight oil gets burned on this kind of job.
In terms of the intellectual challenge, this job is as great an intellectual challenge as you could find. Every issue from A to Z.
You've got to learn the history of the issue, you've got to learn the substance, you've got to do everything.
I say this job is a lot harder.
Let's talk about an issue for a moment. Issue, medical malpractice. You walk into this hot bed. I've sat around this table with Jerry Crottie discussing this in the past.
The doctors on one side, the lawyers who you just talked about on the other side.
First of all, let me ask you this in the critical conflict in this mass between doctors and lawyers who seem to be fighting it on either side of this issue.
Do you see yourself in any conflict of interest as a lawyer?
Not at all because I don't see the issue as one between doctors and lawyers when you get down to the real problem.
Sure the doctors and lawyers are angry at one another. The lawyers see the tremendous incidence of malpractice that occur, which are tragic and devastating, and there is malpractice. It's a real problem.
Obviously it's a number one thing to prevent malpractice. The doctors see cases that they think go on for too long and where the results aren't really accurate and where they feel they're being imposed upon by overly aggressive lawyers, so it gets emotional.
I think what you have to do is you have to get beyond emotion and look at what the problem is.
When you do that, you see that there is a problem. It takes seven years in this state to resolve a malpractice claim in the courts. That doesn't count the appeals.
Seven years when people don't have any compensation, don't have the award they need in a case of malpractice to pay their medical bills and have the extra services and helps they need as a result of the malpractice.
Seven years is much too long. I think we're not doing enough to discipline doctors to get the bad doctors out of the system.
The doctors want the bad doctors out just as the lawyers always want the bad lawyers out. No one who's a good doctor or a good lawyer feels that the people who aren't do anything for the profession.
We have now a rather cumbersome system in New York for discipline. First it goes to the Department of Health and then it goes to the Board of Regents and it's a two-step process and it's long and it's involved. It's important to improve that process.
It's important to attack the seven-year time period. A part of the problem is that good doctors are afraid to take on a high-risk case because a high-risk case, you know, something could go wrong. It's in the nature of it being a high-risk case.
We don't want a situation where people who have a high-risk medical problem are not going to get the best medical care.
We have a problem of defense of medicine where out of over-concern people are being having to take pills or go through procedures or spend extra time and money that is not needed.
That's also part of the problem. Of course, who pays the bill for these problems in the end? I think it's the consumers of medical services, the taxpayers, the doctors themselves.
It's not a matter of trying to help a particular profession like a doctor or trying to hurt a particular profession like a lawyer. Everyone has an interest in seeing that these problems are solved.
If I can just cut in for a second, we are all waiting, of course, on a major session of the legislature, a special session.
Primarily, I am told that one of its major tasks is going to be to try to come to some kind of resolution on this malpractice.
The governor said to have promised the doctors that he would work on some kind of solution before the beginning of the next session.
We are waiting to see if one comes up and we are hearing right now. There may be one, there may not be one from different sources.
Clearly, you are the point man on malpractice. You are the guy who sort of has to put this thing together.
You get thrown into this new from New York. You have Warren Anderson who has been here, what seems like.
Years and years, Stanley, think, a man of the legislature, the speaker, all with hotshot trouble shooters in this area.
You are supposed to carry the ball, isn't that a little frightening?
Well, it is certainly a challenge. The people who have been working on the malpractice problem in the legislature in this office are all extremely able and have given it a tremendous amount of thought.
And one thing that makes the challenge easier is an openness to learn from them.
I think that the way we are proceeding, where we are sitting down and working on the problem and addressing it in a serious way.
As you know, the stage right now is we have circulated a draft to legislative counsel and are talking with them.
And the fact that they are very knowledgeable on the area and have spent a lot of time working on it is very helpful.
I have to do a quick study to come up to speed on the issues and be able to have the same knowledge that they have.
But of course that is what a Wall Street lawyer has to do all the time.
Well, I have had to do that over the years, that is right. And I have certainly been burning the midnight oil as I said earlier doing the quick study.
Now, when one of the things that the governor has sometimes been criticized by some, as reported by my friend Fred Dicker,
it has been that in fact he doesn't take the lead on some of these legislative initiatives.
He lets the legislative leaders work it out for themselves and stamps his imprimature on that. That is the allegation.
I have presented to you in the context of this case study that we are looking at right now. What say you?
I think an effort to work with the various groups and we will also be on the legislature.
We have in any kind of legislative matter there are people who are interested at stake and they have to be consulted with and work with.
I think we have certainly been trying to make sure that the problem is addressed and that a sound solution is put forward.
And I think that we here in the office so far as I have seen and the two months I have been working on it,
do take the lead in the right kind of way, not in a dictating way, not in a bull in the china shop kind of way,
but trying to make the political process effective and work and open so that all affected have a chance to participate
and the legislature has a very important role and it can't be ignored.
The governor has a role of leadership and I think that we are exercising it, but trying to do it in an open way.
Does he throw, I mean this phone that I am looking at over here on your desk becomes famous and that he calls people up early in the morning late at night,
he is a workaholic. How much initiative does he take? How much hands on do you find him having as a boss? Does he call you up and say,
Evan, I think one of the things we ought to do is cut down on the amount of time that the doctors have to put up with a malpractice case with other deloiers that takes to get through the courts.
Is that the kind of initiative you are bound to hear on him or is he saying, look, this is your baby, you handle it.
One of the things that really keeps me on my toes is the governor very well informed on all the questions,
is thinking about them all the time and is always challenging me.
I have on several occasions to add down to talk with him on the issue that I had thought through and thought I was really well prepared on.
He was really several steps ahead of me. He really keeps you on your toes.
The governor has this mythical councilor, a special council, Fabian Palomino, who many people hear about but few people really see.
He is the governor, he is forever lecturing us and me in particular on the fact that the most palomino is a lawyer's lawyer.
You walk into this as his lawyer, as the head of the legal staff or what Jerry Crowdy used to call a little law firm here on the second floor.
Do you find that Palomino interferes that he helps or that he is not really a player?
Very helpful. Fabian and I work closely together. Fabian does more special projects kind of stuff but he has been very helpful to me and we work very well together.
Listeners certainly want to know about Evan Davis, the man.
What is the most profound thing that has happened in your life in terms of affecting the way in which you think you approach life?
Is there something that you could point to as saying, as really having provided for some kind of cognitive map in your head and the way you approach things?
I think for me it is probably like for most of us, it is my education.
That is of course a product of a lot of teachers and a lot of books over a long period of time.
We all come away from that process with particular ideas that have stuck in our minds through what the teachers said and through the books we read.
It is the same for me, it is mainly my education that...
Where did you go to school?
I went to public schools in Grand Edge, Connecticut through the 9th grade.
I then went to a school called Exeter in New Hampshire for three years, which is a very good school.
I then went to Harvard College and I finally went to Columbia Law School.
Then I had on the job education with Judge Levin Thal on the DC Circuit who was a great judge.
Unfortunately he died a few years ago but just a marvelous judge.
And Justice Stewart on the Supreme Court, another fantastic judge.
A man whose mind was totally non-pregidious, totally open to the realities of a problem.
My idea is still open, he is retired now as a judge but he was a wonderful experience too and to have the opportunity to be on the court and to see that such an important thing.
Such an important process, working in the integrity of it, it was really unique.
Then I worked for the city of New York for a while.
I was head of the Consumer Protection Division in the Law Department and also did some work in the budget bureau.
Then I worked on the impeachment inquiry, working for John Doerr who was the lead counsel for the House Judiciary Committee.
Your eyes light up when you talk about judges. Do you want to be a judge?
Judging is one of the important roles in society.
It has its importance, they try to bring reason and logic to problems, they follow precedent, they build on.
The wisdom of those who have gone before, they try to write opinions that explain clearly to the bar and the public.
The reason for the decision, it is a very noble and it is an exciting important thing.
Judges lead a somewhat isolated life.
They cannot have as much the normal contact because they are a little bit removed and to preserve their independence they have to do that.
In the job I have now, which is so much in the middle of the hustle bustle of government, if you became a judge you would lose that.
It is much more removed.
I don't know, you just have to let life go on and see what it brings to you.
When it be ironic, if someday there were one place on the New York State Court of Appeals and you and Mario Cuomo were competing for it?
Well, that would be ironic.
I will get out of here with the proviso that you promised that you will come back and talk to us on the legislative Gazette again.
I would have to do that. Thank you very much.
Now let's hear from regular contributor Dr. Lee Marangoff. He is the director of the Marist College Institute for Public Opinion in Pekipsi.
This week's election day was far more dramatic in other states than in New York.
Although New York voters selected local mayors in major cities throughout the state, the neighboring state of New Jersey selected its governor.
The New York's combinatorial contest now just one year away, what insights for our politics can be drawn from Tom Kane's smashing re-election victory in New Jersey.
Governor Kane, a Republican, went into the election a strong favorite.
Popularity polls in New Jersey measured his rating at close to 70%.
Although Democrat Peter Shapiro ran a good campaign, he was outspent in the campaign and outnumbered in the voting booth.
Kane's final tally on election day interestingly was almost identical to the approval rating he took into the campaign.
For a potential Republican candidate, deciding whether or not to oppose New York's governor Mario Cuomo next year, this pattern of voters' endorsing popular incumbent must be somewhat sobering.
The poses of an incumbent's final vote to his popularity rating during the campaign is a pattern that GOP well-rissers would like to break in New York.
And certainly there are no guarantees that Cuomo's popularity will remain high, or that voters will make his re-election effort a referendum on his administration.
But his popularity is also close to 70%.
And if the election poiled down to a test of his incumbent seat, then his approval rating, which he enjoys, will be a good parameter of how that race does shape up.
In addition to this, analysts must also ponder the political landscape to see who Cuomo's likely opponent will be.
State Senator Roy Goodman has been touring the state, but has yet to demonstrate strong statewide appeal.
The Lerman, who narrowly lost Cuomo in 1982, is said to be contemplating rematch, but according to recent New York Daily News reports, is reluctant to enter the race.
Other names include Andeo Rort, Westchester County Executive.
Andeo Rort, one re-election on Tuesday, handling, and would at least bring some suburban spring to the GOP ticket.
As Marys College polls have shown, Cuomo is unusually strong in the suburbs surrounding New York City.
And the Republicans certainly need to recapture those voters to have a hope of defeating Cuomo next year.
Other names of potential candidates will surface in the month ahead.
Andeo Rort, two days result of neighborhood jerseys, suggests that with the economy and the state that it is, an incumbent governor who enjoys wide popularity going into a re-election campaign, is certainly capable of record breaking tally.
Whether or not you are follows the same pattern next year remains to be seen.
In the meantime, for the legislative gazette, this is Lee Marringoff at the Marys College Institute for Public Opinion in Pakepsi.
Now we come to that regular segment of the show where Bill Gralty, the producer of the legislative gazette, and I get a chance to kick around some of the events of the last week.
Welcome, Bill.
Well, Alan, this was an election week, a local election primarily.
We last week went over the five ballot questions in New York.
But I'm interested in some of your thoughts as a political scientist.
If you read any tea leaves in elections in New York State and even elsewhere of Republican winning in New Jersey, a Democrat winning in Virginia, what's it kind of mean for the Republican and Democratic parties, do you think?
I really think it means very little except that political parties have to force themselves to rethink some of the very basic premises that they have.
We find a number of truths in politics.
For example, a lot of people didn't come out and vote this time.
We see that in fact, it declines and declines and declines, particularly where there is not a significant race, where you get a good hot race, everybody comes out to vote.
So we might look at, say, Syracuse and Buffalo, for example, where there were close races for mayor in both cities.
Of course, in Buffalo, we saw the mayor, the incumbent, and as I said, we've said so many times on the show, Incompancy counts for an awful lot, who was a Democrat and who was now a Republican.
He has always been anemosis of Mario Cuomo.
Mario Cuomo endorsed his opponent, who was a black man.
However, Mayor Griffin won his seat again.
So that has led some people to think that Cuomo's co-tails are not all that extensive.
However, the first person for anybody who ever listens to Governor on this station to say that co-tails don't mean a damn thing is Governor Cuomo.
I think what we saw in this election was not trends for either party, but really the fact that you have to think out your positions in New Jersey.
We saw Governor Kane win a tremendous victory over there.
He was endorsed by no one less than Coretta Scott King, Martin Luther King's widow.
He made a tremendous appeal for black votes as a Republican, where all kinds of other Republicans have been writing off the black voter.
And indeed, he won a tremendous victory over there, which is going to be very hard for Mario Cuomo to replicate even considering his great popularity in New York State.
In Virginia, you had a lieutenant governor, a black man winning for the first time in the history of that state since the Confederacy, an extraordinary thing, and a woman for the first time as a Democrat becoming the state attorney general.
So what we're seeing is some new ideas being injected in.
Of course, if nothing else, this election that just passed is significant in that it marks one year to the day almost to the next major election.
So a new season is in effect beginning along about now that clock is ticking down to less than a year.
That's right. Mario Cuomo, of course, in a correct, credit claiming position took some credit for the job development authority bond issue going well not bond, but constitutional amendment doing as well as it did.
It's extraordinarily well. And once again, he showed that he could get out there on the hustings and push, but of course, so did virtually every other politician in the state.
Yes, I think that we are going within one year we see Mario Cuomo with a tremendous voter approval in the poll, probably of historic proportions and things will start to warm up now.
I ask you one other political matter on politics and that was news this week that Lou Larman has been talking to the chairman of the Republican Party Anthony Calabita about a possible rematch. What do you make of that?
Is it a Mr. Larman serious or is he just having a little fun talking and getting his name in the news?
Well, I think that the way things are now, he would have to not have the kind of appetite for it that he had a year ago.
Clearly, he knew he had a shot. I think now barring some unforeseen circumstance would appear he would not have that good a chance on the other hand.
He made it an exciting race. He showed that he could spend an awful lot of money the last time. And in fact, we don't know what the White House has in mind for him.
Let us say for example that the White House wants him to get involved in this race is willing to give him something for, quote, dirtying Cuomo during this campaign and keeping his plurality down there by cutting him off for a potential presidential run. They may be worried about that.
So there may be a lot more here than meets the eye. He may have reasons for doing this, but I would suspect that he has not really shown a tremendous eagerness to get into this race up to now.
Maybe just maybe somebody will convince him that there's something that should be done here for reasons unbeknownst to us.
That's our show for this week. Join us again next week for another look at state government and politics.
Bill Grawlty edits and produces this program. Leslie Brokaw is associate producer. 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 Newport.
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