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 zero in on the agency that is asking New York voters to allow it to double the amount of money.
It can lend to businesses.
Last week, the State Board of Regents declined to act on the matter.
Now it is headed for a court and the decision there could change the face of school sports in New York.
What's the issue? A high school girl wants to play on the football team.
Leslie Brokall prepared this report.
A year and a half ago, Jacqueline Lance of Yonkers went out for her high school's University football team.
She had played football all her life and wanted to be a kicker for Lincoln High School.
The coaches were receptive. She began weightlifting training, but was later told that a New York State regulation prohibited her from trying out for and playing on the team
because football is a contact sport and the state prohibits co-ed contact sports teams.
She wrote letters to New York's Education Commissioner Gordon Ombach, the New York Board of Regents, and to her assemblyman, Nick Spano, who introduced legislation to change the law, which later died in committee.
Jacqueline Lance then went to the New York Civil Liberties Union, which couldn't find a lawyer who was willing to take on the case for free.
But then, Elizabeth Ballsley won the same case against the State of New Jersey, and Lance went back to the Civil Liberties Union, who was unable to enlist lawyer Virginia Napland to represent Lance.
Ms. Napland says that the month-long legal process to bring the case against the State will probably be wrapped up next week.
I brought suit on October 2, which is a Wednesday. I filed the suit in federal court, and I was assigned a judge.
I immediately went to that judge's chambers with the motion I had to bring along, bring about an immediate hearing to get a temporary restraining order that says,
OK, during the year, so it's going to take to settle this case by trial and so forth. You can play in the meantime.
That's what you're going for as a temporary restraining order.
Because the lawyers from the State Attorney General's Office couldn't get to New York immediately, the hearing was put off until next Monday, October 28th.
Napland says that all sides have agreed that if the judge rules and Lance's favor next week, the decision will not only be a permanent injunction that allows Ms. Lance to play football.
But a declaratory judgment on the regulations overall constitutionality. All girls across the State would then be eligible to try out for any sport that was provided for boys, but not for girls.
I asked Attorney Napland what the arguments are that she's presenting for her side.
The first argument you have to present is that irreparable harm will come to your client if he doesn't grant your immediate motion.
So there are two ways I did this. First of all, there's a Supreme Court case that says that if you allege deprivation of it, one of your constitutional rights, that that's irreparable harm, you don't have to go further.
So the judge understood that and I did allege that she was being denied her constitutional right to equal protection of the law.
So he agreed with that argument. But I also stated that the football season was now one week older, only seven weeks left, and that there was a requirement that she practiced for four weeks before she could get into a game.
But something had to happen within the next three weeks if she were going to make it into a game this season.
The State argues that they have a legitimate interest in protecting the safety of girls and that girls run an inordinate risk of injury if they play with boys.
But Napland says that the State can't treat all girls on the basis of the average girls' risks.
The Supreme Court has already said you can't lump people. You can't say that.
All handicapped people can't climb ladders and therefore you don't let them be painters. Some handicapped people can climb ladders.
Maybe their handicapped consists of being blind in one eye. You can't lump people. You have to judge people in this country on their individual traits.
In the same for women, you can't say that women cannot try out to be firefighters because the average woman can't carry a 200-pound person down a three-story ladder.
Because the average woman can't do it. That doesn't mean that a 200-pound woman can't do it.
And therefore you can't say she can't even attempt it because she's a woman. That's what the firefighters case was about.
Her family and she love football. She said to me when I interviewed her before I agreed to take the case.
She said I just like to buy football. If there were girls' team I would play on it. But there's not even a girls' team.
I love to kick. I love to play football. And I see the boys out there and they're having such a good time. And I have to sit on this eyed line.
She said I've had season ticks to the jets ever since I can remember. I earned them with my own money.
And all over the one role of her living room is jets memorabilia. She's got penance and it's got a picture for herself with Mark Guest.
I mean it's incredible. They are just a football family. And everyone has said to the parents, what do you think about your daughter playing football?
And the mother said, I didn't want my son to play. But he wanted to play. So I said, okay. Jackie wants to play. Jack one wants to play. I said, okay. That's what she wants to do if she understands the risk of injury.
Virginia Napland is the lawyer representing Jacqueline Lentz in her challenge to New York's regulation which prohibits co-ed contact sports teams. I'm Leslie Brokaw.
Last week we reported on the results of the latest poll by the Marist College Institute for Public Opinion.
This week the man who coordinated that poll, Dr. Lee Marangoff delves deeper into the numbers and their significance.
In addition to documenting almost consistently high ratings as governor of New York, this survey also revealed that the New York electorate is overwhelmingly opposed to President Reagan's recent tax reform initiative to eliminate the destruction of forced state and local tax flows.
Opposition to this proposal is across the state and reflects disapproval on the part of Democrats, Independents and surprisingly Republican voters as well.
Even among those Republicans who think that Ronald Reagan is doing an excellent job as President, a plurality believed that the tax reform idea is wrong.
Mario Cuomo is indirectly the beneficiary of this view. Cuomo has adopted a strong posture in opposition to the idea to eliminate the deduction and is rating on the question of whether voters think he is spending too much attention on national politics and not enough on New York state has gone up.
Specifically 72% of state Republicans opposed the Reagan proposal and only 19% of state Republicans support the idea.
In terms of Cuomo's role in national affairs and state politics, there has been a full 15% swing among state Republicans in Cuomo's favor.
Whereas a slim plurality believed in June that Cuomo was spending too much attention to national politics and not enough to New York state, now a majority of Republicans endorsed the role Cuomo is playing.
Mario Cuomo has again it seems found the center of public opinion on an issue that defines his administration.
The list of popular causes that Cuomo has heralded grows longer, including the transportation bond issue, the seat belt law, the raising of the drinking age, and now is opposition to the Reagan tax reform proposal.
Up until now these issues have been largely New York state matters.
Cuomo has thrust himself into the national spotlight on tax reform.
Although the public wants to change it seems that they reject the current Reagan idea and endorse what Cuomo is doing.
What this episode will do for Cuomo in the future, in national politics is too far in the distance.
In terms of New York state politics, it is another weapon, it is re-election campaign arsenal, with the 19a's expunatory election just one year away.
In the meantime for the legislative Gazette, this is Lee Merrick-Off at the Marist College Institute for Public Opinion in Paget Fates.
It is a safe bet that most, maybe 100% of New Yorkers never heard of the job development authority, or JDA.
But on an election day, they will be asked to approve a proposal by the JDA to double the amount of money it can lend to stimulate business.
Supporters, including Governor Cuomo, say it is a great idea. The tractors call it welfare for the rich.
Ron Moss is the executive director of the job development authority.
Commissioner, there is a proposition on all of our ballots, if one were to vote in New York state, which I don't, which would allow you to support something called the JDA.
What is JDA?
It is the job development authority, and it is a proposal that we have on the ballot. It is an amendment to the Constitution.
What in fact would it allow us to do in New York state, and what is the Constitution have to be amended to do that?
Well, because it deals with the bonding authority, the Constitution has to be amended to increase the amount of the limits bonding that JDA is allowed to do.
Currently, JDA is allowed to bond up to $300 million, and it has spent almost all of that, or loaned out all of that money.
If it is going to continue to be the economic tool that has been in the past, we need to refund it with an opportunity to raise another $300 million through bonding.
Okay. Now, it would seem to me that there are a lot of people out there who are saying, why should we go out and borrow money again?
We are indebting our children. These bonds have to be paid off. It is another way to spend money. It is welfare for the rich.
What are some of the answers to these things? Well, first of all, this money doesn't cost the taxpayer a dime. What we do is we sell these bonds to people who can afford to buy them, and who want to bond them, in fact, because they are tax deductible bonds.
We take the money and put them into JDA, which is a state-run bank, in effect.
Job development authority. Now, just quickly, what does the JDA do? The JDA lends this money as part of a package. Up to now, JDA has never lent more than 40% because that was its lending authority and limit.
40% of a deal. Now, I have a shot talk comes to you, or comes to JDA and says, listen, I am going to employ people, I am going to bring people to New York State, I am going to set up a plant.
But I don't have the money to do it. So, the JDA takes a look at me and says, okay, we find you a reasonable risk.
Well, no, there is a preliminary start. First of all, you have to go to a bank, you have to go to other sources, and you have to come in and show us that,
hey, you have already raised the necessary bank money, bank loan, if that is what you want, that you have put in the necessary capital, that you have prepared if it is necessary to guarantee the loans, and that you have a financial balance sheet and P&L projection that makes you look like you can do the job.
Well, that sounds perfectly reasonable, but then why do I need a JDA? Why doesn't the bank just give me that money?
Well, the bank has a limit to what they are going to lend you based upon your financial condition. And as a result of that limit, they are looking for additional ways for you to find the money.
In fact, the banks think JDA is terrific, because JDA helps them as well as help the company. Because if the bank says, it is a chart, your own is good for a $400,000 loan, and you need a million dollars to get your company off the ground,
I suggest you do the following. The net result is JDA can get into the act. Part of that process can give you money at below market rates and help you get your job started in New York State.
Now, of course, if I were a bank, I would love it too. After all, as you just said, they are essentially supplying me the bank with the money to work with, to some degree, right?
So that it is to the bank, manner from heaven. Yes, it is. But again, remember, we lend against real estate and machinery equipment only, and we take leans against that equipment as our security.
And if we are not satisfied that we have adequate security, we will also take your guarantee.
But I presume that the JDA is in business to support projects that might not ordinarily be a little bit more marginal than a bank would support by itself without the JDA assurance, right?
Yes, that may be true. In many of the cases, it is true. It is not necessarily true. Because the criteria is not always a question of need. It is a question of what will make the company more viable in terms of creating more money.
And more importantly, let's take the situation where you are already in existence here. And what you find going for you is that the state of Pennsylvania just offered you a million dollars to move over the Pennsylvania into an industrial site that they have picked out for your 350 employees.
And then you come to me and say, hey, wait a second, New York, what are you going to do for me?
So rather than trickle down economics, which is what Reagan talks about, I mean, that seems to me what you are talking about here too, right?
If you make these loans, that it will trickle down in terms of benefits to the rest of the New York state.
Well, clearly it does. Last year, we made $110 million in taxes on JDA loans. And JDA loans themselves made a profit of a million and a half dollars.
So this is not a giveaway. This is an organization that's run very tightly as a bank would be run. We have a lower loss ratio than the other banks, which we don't lend to Argentina and Poland. And we're doing very well.
It seems to me that one has to be suspicious here. I'm looking at all kinds of letters to the papers from guys like Ray Schuller, the head of the business council of tremendous support.
You have a list of supporters, some of whom have real decent economic pedigrees as long as my arm. And I'm going to say, hey, wait a second here. These guys aren't in business for their health.
They're obviously, this is truly welfare for the rich. We're helping them develop their businesses. What's wrong with that kind of suspicion on my part?
Well, because it's just not true. I mean, let me tell you a story about a recent JDA loan. And this involves economic development people at their heart of the matter. You've got political leaders in communities where there is adverse economic conditions.
You have the Commerce Department's regional people who are down trying to help a little town core wavily, which is in the western part of New York.
It had a plant close that Inglesur or Ren ran. It was in castings. And when this plant closed and the men were out of work for over a year, they finally got themselves together with the help of the local people, with the help of the town, with the help of the economic development people.
And they formed an esop, which is employee ownership. They hired themselves a good manager and they wanted to reopen the plant. These guys wanted to go back to work.
They've been out of work for over a year. And they came to JDA with a package that included concessions from the town, concessions from the bank. Everybody wanted to help these guys get back to work. And JDA did too.
And that's the kind of story that JDA really represents, is the ability to put people back to work.
And you're saying if you don't have the money, you don't have the tools to do that.
Exactly.
Okay, now I'm delighted you mentioned Pennsylvania as your test case. Because last week on this very program, we had Senator Roy Goodman, who seems to be gearing up for his gubernatorial campaign against Mario Cuomo.
And what did he say as his number one critique that Cuomo was not doing a good job in economic development and we were letting our business get away because we couldn't offer the same kind of low cost loans to business and to start up businesses as did Pennsylvania.
So here's your chance to tell us whether or not what he says is true. Is the governor to be folded on this A and B? Is this the remedial action that will be needed?
Well, let me say that he's wrong. That we have a whole group of programs in the state of New York that are just as good as Pennsylvania's.
Even if Pennsylvania currently can lend more under their JD and we can we're going up from 40% to 60% in this new amendment and proposal number one.
And that will make us competitive on that particular economic development tool. But economic development tools like JD are only part of the mix.
You've got to come in with all kinds of other things that make it attractive for a company to stay in New York and we have done that look at General Motors of Tarry Town.
We did a splendid job of creating an environment for the General Motors Corporation to invest another hundred and forty million dollars in the paint shop so that we could stay they could stay and we could have thousands of jobs remain in Tarry Town.
And the governor was in the front of that and economic development in the state of New York is diverse, exciting and going on all the time in JDA is one of the weapons we use to keep our companies here.
Ron, refresh me for a moment. You of course have had some real extensive advertising background, right?
Yes. Now let's talk a little about the politics of this situation. It seems to me it's fairly dangerous.
You can walk down in front of the building we're standing in right now. You can ask the first hundred people who pass who the lieutenant governor of the state of New York is and no one will know.
I mean first of all we don't have one second of all if we had one they still wouldn't know. So how are you going to explain something like what in hell a JDA bond is to them.
You're talking to a fairly interested group of people on this radio show right now but for most people who walk into that room they're never going to know what a JDA is, right?
Well that's what we've been doing for the last three weeks. I've been traveling all over the state talking to everybody from town to town from city to city educating people as to what JDA is all about.
This is an educational campaign and that we have to explain it to people because nobody's against it. The problem is apathy, the problem is lack of knowledge. We have to get the message across and that's what we're trying to do.
I had a door man when I used to live on 96 Street name Harry and Harry used to tell me that he always voted against bond issues. Just voted against them because they were knows.
He said don't let the bombs get get any more money than they have. Is this the kind of thing you're facing?
Yes we're facing those kinds of institutional no voters and we have to turn out a vote of people who understand in our sport of a JDA.
Have you and your deputy Mr. Morello gone around and looked for done any polling to find out whether or not where people are on this issue?
We have not done any polling where the JDA campaign is being run with very little funds and we need to use every bit of it for the marketing that we're going to have here in the next 10 days.
I don't think on a proposition or a proposal you can get that much effectiveness in polling but because we can you got to how you turn out a vote for a proposition or a proposal is very different.
How do you do it? Well we hope that in every city where there is an election campaign people will come out to vote and it is those people who are running for office where we've gotten bipartisan endorsement for this throughout the state.
We hope that in that situation we can generate a large turnout for JDA.
Now Commissioner some would say you have taken essentially a good strong Republican issue here and fed it back to the electorate.
Is this a democratic concept? Is it a Republican concept? You mentioned bipartisanship.
This is a bipartisan concept as far as I'm concerned. Every Republican leader in the state is in favor of it and every Democratic leader in the state is in favor of it.
There doesn't seem to be any controversy about it at all. And yet you seem a little worried. Well I'm worried about the fact that as you pointed out you're a dormant named Perry votes no on anything because he doesn't know what it's all about.
And educating Harry is my job. Can I get his number so I can call him up?
Ron Moss. Well I'm here with my partner and producer of the Legislative Gazette Bill Groldy. Bill what do you think of that interview?
Well it sounds it's kind of in the realm of mom and hot dogs and apple pie in one sense. It sounds at least the way it's being presented by the Cuomo administration is something that you just can't possibly be against.
But there are certainly some points worth considering in opposition to a doubling of their bonding program.
Yeah it seems to me Bill that one or two of the things that we ought to be looking at here is number one. If in fact it's all that safe a program which everybody says it is then how come they need the 600 million in other words if all these risks aren't really risks at all. Why aren't the banks taking them? Why are we supplying money as New Yorkers is voters?
Why are we supplying money for the GDA to operate with? Well there are a couple things to be considered here it seems to me. Number one is what we call and what the governor has derisively called trickle down economics.
If this ain't trickle down economics I don't know what it is. In other words the theory is that if you give money to businesses that the businesses will employ more people more people will come off welfare and there will be a general resurgence of the economy.
Well I'd like somebody to tell me perhaps in a letter what the difference is between that and what the president has been espousing in a lot of ways. Second of all Bill I think we have to look at something else here and that is that we heard on this very program last week a fairly vicious attack by Senator Goodman on the economic policies of the Cuomo administration particularly where it comes to encouraging business.
And if this JDA bond isn't an answer to that I'd like to know what is. Well some of the criticisms dealt with other other aspects of encouraging business including percentage rates that are paid on loans and other types of state support but clearly this is part of the governor's new support of business.
And also it's my understanding maybe you've heard differently that one of the aims of this JDA program is to target loans into areas that banks are just more or less well they don't like the word redlining that is deliberately not giving loans in an area like that.
For instance agriculture is one it's my understanding that the agriculture markets commissioner is very excited about the JDA because he thinks it will provide more money for agricultural type businesses which banks these days are not very very anxious to support.
Well two points there Bill number one of course redlining in this state is illegal that's number one. However it still is difficult to get some loans in some of these marginal areas you can't have it as a policy that you're not going to give any loan in that area but we know where the greater risks are and where the greater risks are of course is the possibility of default.
And therefore this is something that we have to get a straighter answer on if in fact the administration is telling us all on that there is no major possibility of default and if there is it's going to be so marginal that the extra money that they charge on the loans is going to take care of it then why aren't our bankers acting more responsibly in the first place.
Final question on this point I'm just kind of curious you said at the beginning of the interview that perhaps as many as a hundred percent of the people have never heard of the JDA they just have a few more days before they're being asked to vote on it are they going to are they going to know about it between now and then.
They're trying I got to tell you that I had a door man when I used to live on 96 and he used to say on the propositions I vote against all of them because I don't trust government government is always trying to do us in and you may remember the earlier this week on the capital connection the governor made that very point he said that a lot of people just vote against things that are sponsored by government so that they're confrequently be a no vote on bonds and of course you know the governor is the guy who goes around talking about how the president of the United States
has gotten us into all this trouble by barring so much in the national debt is out of sight well we have a billion dollar environmental issue coming up we've just had rebuild New York these are things that have to be repaid by our children and I got to tell you for whatever it's worth it while I really admire the aims of this JDA program we really do have to be very careful about the amount of bonding we go into in the state we have time for to quickly turn to one other subject and that is the rather curious.
This situation that's going on now with the governor's endorsement of a candidate for the U.S. Senate seat now held by the Republican Al Fonsdomado and during the capital connection program this week at least in my interpretation of listening to it three or four or five times it appeared that he absolutely and convincingly came out for Geraldine Fararo no matter who enters the race for U.S. Senate.
There's no question about that Bill and I think that there are a number of reasons for it I love this whole situation first of all I want to tell you that whose name is surfacing outside of all that we're going to talk about and that is Julio Carrey is apparently being seen more and more these days and there's a lot of talk about his running for the United States Senate that of course was the guy who done on Dumerio in many different ways in his career and not all of it all that good.
So all of a sudden we have the governor coming out in support of Geraldine Fararo who he said on the capital connection many weeks ago he doubted whether she was going to run in the first place so now they had a meeting and she told him all that he was she was doing in order to prepare for such a Senate race allegedly and polls that kind of thing.
I would have liked to have been a fly on that particular wall during that meeting because I just imagine what went on there and he comes out and somewhat I think a little bit unhappy from what I could tell says yes he would support are no matter who the opponent was now of course he may believe she's not going to run anyway in which case that's highly symbolic he continues to support why would he have been against her for Senate when he was four of a vice president.
There's the whole women's issue and the support for that and then on a CBS interview that I saw just yesterday she said that she might be interested in an even higher office there's only one higher office the United States Senate in this state and that of course is governor and wouldn't it be interesting if Mario Cuomo was starting to consider Geraldine Fararo as his lieutenant governor running mate in case he runs in 1988 for president of the United States.
You have opened up a whole and or is box here in a sense and one that will have to get into in other weeks.
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 and talks on this program Leslie Brokaw is associate editor please address comments and questions to us at WAMC box 13,000 Albany New York 1212.
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.
