Statewide satellite distribution of this program is made possible by the Lawrence Group,
providing residents throughout New York State with total insurance coverage.
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 Shartock, of the State University.
Hello and welcome to the legislative gazette.
Governor Cuomo says we need to do more to wage war on drugs.
Lawmakers in Albany tackle that issue this week.
And this controversy over a bill that would allow nursing home chains into New York.
The state attorney general wants the state to provide free medical exams to workers
exposed to hazardous materials and will hear from a former New York State governor about
his plan to reform legislative ethics.
These stories and much, much, much more on this week's legislative gazette.
Lawmakers in Albany concern themselves with issues aimed at curbing the state's growing
drug problem.
Bruce Robertson has this report.
The state may soon have tougher laws to deal with those who possess crack.
Legislative members have joined with the Cuomo administration on a bill to stiffen
the penalties for possessing the powerful cocaine derivative.
State Senator Dale Voker, a sponsor of the bill, says the law is needed because dealers
have improved their refining process.
The crack bill, what it basically had happened is we realized, law enforcement people were
telling us that they were having trouble prosecuting for possession cases because the weights,
the way the weights were set up in the law, did not equate to the way that people in the
streets are cutting crack down so that as much for instance as 20 vials of crack could
still end up being a misdemeanor because of the weight statute that we have relating to
drugs.
So what we've done is we've changed the statute around so that as low as 4 or 5 vials
of crack could be considered a felony with sentences up to 7 years.
The sale of any amount of crack would remain a felony under the bill, punishable with up
to 25 years in prison.
Senator Voker says in addition the bill would provide $700,000 for police narcotics laboratories
in the state.
Money needed for sophisticated drug testing.
What we're providing is money to beef up police laboratories across the state from Buffalo
to New York City in order to make sure that law enforcement people have the capability
to test the drugs that they have and we're specifically talking about crack here and be
able to provide the kind of evidence in court that can convict these people and get the drug
cells off the streets.
Now there are those who disagree with the legislation.
Jim Murphy, director of the New York State Coalition for Criminal Justice, says his organization
has been concerned with what they consider to be the almost excessive use of jailing
for drug related offenses.
There's not enough money for treatment, there's not enough money for prevention and these
get tough laws, oftentimes so-called get tough laws on drugs.
Oftentimes wind up doing nothing more than adding to the prison population and that's
what's been the experience of the past 15 years.
There's been, we have some of the toughest laws on the books in the New York State and they
tend to lead to more and more people in prison, not to less drug use or drug abuse in society.
Jim Murphy notes that the strict Rockefeller era drug laws have not solved our problems
with drugs.
He says more resources should be assigned to alleviate the drug problem through rehabilitation
and treatment.
He says local community organizations and mobilization is needed to get a well-run statewide rehabilitation
program on track.
More and more prisons cells at $25, $27,000 a year to keep a person in $100,000 to build
a cell.
There's too many people with the problem that you're never going to solve it just by
building more cells or locking more people up.
You can't deal with the problem that way.
Meanwhile, New York State Assemblyman Charlie O'Shea says drug and alcohol use is becoming
more prevalent among young people.
O'Shea is a member of the Assembly's task force on adolescent alcoholism and substance
abuse.
The task force held a day-long hearing recently.
To discuss the problem, O'Shea says he has talked with young people from throughout the
state and they say drug and alcohol use among their peers is common.
He says many students feel that nobody is listening to them and hearing their anxieties and
concerns.
They feel that the pressures on them are enormous.
The peer pressure in their own school clicks, the pressure on them to be able to advance
later on in high school, we've never had a generation that has really put so much emphasis
on success.
And having these two outlets of drug and alcohol, I mean why would someone take drugs to escape
from a problem that's going on now?
But there's no escape at all.
And those people that are users are really losers later on in life.
And the experts, what kind of solutions are they presenting in order to cope with this
problem, which you say is growing?
Well right now the experts are telling us that there are, they have agencies in place,
they have counseling programs, but the state isn't doing enough.
We're not doing enough to combat drugs in the streets.
We're not doing enough to help those people that are hooked on drugs right now.
And obviously this means more state money.
We're talking about entire generation at risk unless we are, unless we do.
Assemblyman Charlie O'Shea speaking with legislative Gazette correspondent Inga Sardar.
There may be another reason for this problem.
Assemblyman Glenn Warren says lacks parental attitudes are partly to blame, saying parents
are more tolerant of teenage drinking than they used to be.
Warren says parents are often relieved that their children are drinking rather than doing
drugs.
And Governor Cuomo says he would consider proposals to use the state's national guard to help
battle illegal drugs.
Cuomo told the New York Post this week that if such a proposal was reasonable and if he
thought it would help apprehend people involved in the drug trade, he would consider it.
The governor said the fight against drugs is really a war.
He said quote, drugs are killing us as surely as any other weapon can.
Post spokesman Gary Fryer said that no such plans, however, have been presented to the governor.
For the legislative Gazette, this is Bruce Robertson.
There's a bill in the New York State legislature which supporters say could help ease the nursing
home bed shortage, but as Beth Angler reports, the bill is the center of controversy.
New York State is the only state in the nation that does not allow what are called publicly
traded corporations or chains to come in and operate nursing homes in the state.
Those are corporations whose stock can be sold on the market.
The bill in the state legislature would make it possible for these chains to come in.
Proponents argue it would generate more capital and improve the bed shortage, but opponents
say it would decrease quality of care in our nursing homes.
Assemblyman Richard Talon is the bill's sponsor.
He's the Assembly Majority Leader as well as the former chairman of the Health Committee.
He explains what the bill would mean.
For example, if three partners operating a nursing home in the state of New York, meeting
all of the state's requirements, a fully operating legal up to standard nursing home,
if they wanted to expand their facility and like any other business, wanted to raise
money by selling common stock in their corporation, they would be prohibited by New York law from
doing that.
This legislation would allow those for-profit sponsors in New York to go public and sell
stock on the stock market, raise additional capital for expansion in that matter.
Historically New York has had the highest standards for health care, and opponents of the
bill say that's the reason the state has not allowed chains to come in.
Are you that if a company is traded on the stock market, you don't always know who owns
it, and that when decisions are made outside of the nursing home environment, quality cannot
be maintained at the level it is now.
Talon says the state's tight restrictions would be kept intact.
It has the highest standards of any other state in the country, and any nursing home operating
under these provisions would have to meet those standards.
So any observations that are made about nursing home standards in other states, really
are not applicable in New York state.
There are indeed poor nursing home conditions found in other states, and indeed in some
cases that may be related to publicly traded corporations, but other nursing homes in other
states are also deficient in their operation because some states don't maintain the high
standards that we do in New York.
Dr. Cynthia Rutt is the director of the New York City-based nursing home community coalition
of New York state.
She argues under the state's regulations it takes too long to act upon any problems
that are found in the homes.
It is much faster now, but it's still, I would say it probably takes something like
nine or ten months from the finding of a problem and in the fourth of an action.
So what we're talking about here is let's, let's wait until the problem occurs, and
then we'll take care of it, but the problem is that once their problem occurs, it's already
been patient care problems and people are suffering.
And that's unfortunately the case in New York state.
We do have better regulations, and I was involved in actually helping to pass and work on
some of these good regulations.
But the development enforcement system is still a long way in my opinion from being where
it should be.
Carla Williams is the director of governmental affairs for the New York State Association
of Homes and Services for the Aging.
She says she's talked with people in Washington state who say that one particular chain called
Beverly decreased standards in some state nursing homes.
When I asked why the answer was, well, they laid people off.
They reduced the amount of money that went to nutrition services.
And this is the type of thing that can happen in terms of decisions not being necessarily
made on site.
Proponents of the bill say that new companies will create more nursing home beds.
However, Williams says that may not necessarily be the case.
Well, we know from looking at other states and looking at the activities of these proprietary
chains that they don't build, they buy.
They acquire through purchase or through merger substantial numbers of beds.
Therefore, we don't expect that they're going to come into New York state and build new
nursing home beds.
That's not going to happen.
Well, they will.
They will come in and buy existing beds.
Robert Murphy is the director of governmental relations for the New York State Health Facilities
Association.
He says that the state needs the option that publicly traded corporations give to existing
homes who may want to sell.
Now, if there's somebody who wants to get out of the business now, all right, and then
this is happening as most of the ownership in New York state are what you would refer
to as mine, pop operations.
They're very small.
They're very often family run.
Say they were getting older and they wanted to get out of the business itself.
Certainly, that's an option for somebody to purchase that home.
Now whether that be an in-state operator or an out-state operator, with this bill, that
would be an option.
The bills to allow publicly traded corporations to operate nursing homes in the state are
currently on the calendar in the state senate and in the assembly health committee.
Lawmakers are unsure just when they'll come up for a vote.
This is Beth Angler.
No campaigning on New York State's time.
That was one of the recommendations made this week by a Blue Ribbon panel set up to devise
guidelines for political activity by legislative employees.
The panel comes in the wake of the New York City corruption scandals and investigations
of campaign work by legislative staffs.
The commission is chaired by former New York governor Malcolm Wilson, who spoke with reporter
Paul Rosenthal.
The my commission, which is consists of former senator Carol Bellamy and former dean New
York Law School, Robert McKay and me as chairman, filed with the legislature and with the press,
a 26 page report in which we recommend the adoption by the legislature of six guidelines
and the establishment of an oversight commission.
I really can't synthesize every sentence in the report, Paul, is important.
We have a guideline which forbids campaign work, defines campaign work and forbids it
on paid, you know, on state time.
I might add that as the report indicates we had, it's not an easy matter.
You can't take payroll status because in order to get health benefits and pension, the
law provides that legislative employees are paid in 26 semi-multipamins by weekly payments,
you know, most of them do the work they're paid for, finish it by the time the legislature
recesses.
So, and we are also aware of the fact that the members, the employees, the legislature
are citizens like all other persons and have a right under the First Amendment to expression
of their views.
And within those parameters, we have carefully crafted guidelines which we feel will not
inhibit proper activity, political activity of legislative employees.
That is on their own time provided they don't use state resources and forbids them to use
paid time or state resources for political campaign purposes.
Governor, the other option which I see has also been recommended by our commission was
that current legislators not be mailing to their constituents within 30 days of an election.
How would that help out?
Well, in today's world with modern technology, the targeted mail is a new technique is used
in industries, using business, and is used in politics, and it's a machine and computer
produced by very sophisticated mechanisms.
And what we forbid our guidelines in the event, they are, you bear in mind, these are
just recommendations of legislature.
If they are adopted by the legislature, then there will be a blackout, a blackout for
30 days before any election, whether it's a general election or a primary election or
a special election, with respect to utilization of mass efforts to communicate with constituents
on behalf of a candidate, the 30 days before any of these elections that cannot be done.
What about the personal attitudes of the legislators themselves?
Do you think that that's going to have to change as well as new guidelines?
Well, that's a big question.
There are 201 legislators, you know, I don't know it, but their personal attitude, that
indulges the assumption that there needs to be a change.
We don't indulge that assumption at all.
We are to look forward, we're not to look back.
We were asked to make any recommendations about the conduct of legislator's.
Our charge was limited to just what the charge said, the guidelines for political campaign
activity of legislative employees.
Former Empire State Governor Malcolm Wilson.
This week in my conversation with Fred Dicker, I asked him about his feelings about the
Blue Ribbon Commission's report.
Well, I think the first and most important finding is that legislative employees should
not be used during what they call working hours to work on campaigns.
I mean, basically it's saying that people ought to be paid to do work for the state, not
work for political campaigns.
Of course, this has to be discussed with the Fred Ornstein situation as the backdrop.
Of course, it's Ornstein, the Senate Democratic Minority Leader, two other senators and two
Ornstein appointees who are all under indictment now from the Manhattan District Attorney for
allegedly using public employees on a full-time basis to run private political campaigns.
Malcolm Wilson's commission, this Blue Ribbon Commission said, we're not going to make
a judgment on what went on in the past.
For other people to do, but we are saying there should be a legislative resolution that
says never in the future can this kind of activity take place.
Now, Fred Governor Wilson said something, if I heard him right, I found to be absolutely
extraordinary.
When the person who was talking to him, I believe it was Jim Blykamp, asked him whether
or not there should be law rather than rules with criminal sanctions attached to him,
the answer came, of course not because that would violate the separation of powers.
Now under the both the state and federal constitution, do you have any insight into what he could
possibly be thinking?
Well, I didn't hear him say this, but it sounds to me that he's trying to buy an argument
being used by Ornstein and the legislative leaders that somehow members of the legislature
are beyond the law, that the kinds of laws that apply to normal citizens like you and me,
at least you when you're in New York state out, because I know you live in Massachusetts.
I don't apply to-
At too brutal.
I don't apply to people who work for the legislature.
Now, let's be specific as possible.
What's happening now with Fred Ornstein case is that Ornstein and others, including the
legislative leaders, have filed briefs in a New York state court which argue in part that
the legislature should not be subjected to the kinds of indictments or subject to the
kinds of indictments that have taken Ornstein and these other people I mentioned to the
point of criminal trials because the legislature is a separate branch of government.
Now that line of argument may be seem reasonable for some, but I know throughout the state,
many people have been horrified that the legislators would dare suggest that somehow they're
not subjected or subject to the laws that other people in the state are subject to.
So it sounds to me that's what Malcolm Wilson may have been alluding to.
Even more importantly, why wouldn't he suggest that he-
Why wouldn't he commit himself to a set of rules for the legislature?
Which if violated them because we're dealing here with the theft of public money, which
if violated with subjective violator to a criminal offense?
He seems to be saying it's okay if you work for the state legislature and do something
that shouldn't be done, that you'd be free of criminal penalty, but if you work for
the executive branch of government and do something that shouldn't be done, then you
would be subjected to criminal prosecution.
Now Freddie, there is, of course, when they say in the future rules that they don't want
anybody to be working on political campaigns on state time, they also went out of their
way to say that it's all right to use your vacation time because after all you're still
a private citizen and private citizens have rights to-
Sure.
First Amendment rights.
However you and I both know that this is a potential whole big enough to drive a
Mack truck through because in the past one has taken vacation time to cover ones behind
to do the campaigning and then somehow you take something that looks and smells and quacks
like a vacation at a beach somewhere, but it doesn't show up as vacation time.
Now taken together with Mel Miller's announcement this year that he's going to ask everybody
to put in time cards.
There may be something here.
Now you're absolutely right.
It is a big loophole, but I think bottom line of this whole thing is that very few
people and certainly not this commission believe steps should be taken to prevent people
who work in the legislature from being involved in political campaigns.
And frankly I agree with them and look there is potential for abuse here what they'll
do.
You know it as well as I do is claim not only vacation time but they'll claim comp time,
comp time section time.
They'll claim these people are so busy during the legislative session that you know they
put in 14, 16 hours a day, seven days a week and they'll have the time cards to show it.
So they'll go out for a month or two and work on campaigns and they'll say we're just
eating up the comp time that we earn during the legislative session.
But I would note that the distinction between this kind of practice which I believe, and I
know you believe has gone on for years, is very great between what Orinstein was accused
of doing where he created phony titles on the state payroll for instance a council's
title and then put someone in that title and had nothing to do with a council.
Had no state responsibility at all and as you well know and all that person did was
worked for months at a very large salary running a private political campaign.
I think the distinction is a real one.
I don't think we will ever stop the kind of practice you're talking about where you have
a mix of political activity and government work.
No, I think we should stop that.
But I think we can stop the practice for which Orinstein was indicted which is just outright
in my judgment.
You know I feel outright lying in theory.
The Dicker State Editor of the New York Post.
A New York state lawmaker and state attorney general Robert Abrams want New York to pay
for medical examinations for workers exposed to hazardous materials on the job.
A report from Don Dicker.
The legislation introduced this week in Albany would ensure medical exams every two years
for workers exposed to hazardous chemicals.
State Attorney General Robert Abrams says the program would benefit farm workers for example
chemical handlers, pesticide applicators, welders and painters and others.
Assemblyman Frank Barberos says that each examination would cost $100 bringing the initial
cost of the program to and a half million a year.
If the problem turned out to be non-work related the patient would have to pay.
Barberos says the proposal is worth the money.
We have found that there are thousands upon thousands of workers who are sick and really
can't afford to pay if it's not covered by workers comp so they don't get checked.
And then unfortunately they die.
We just uncovered what Department of Labor just uncovered working together with the
amalgamated clothing workers union.
A number of workers in Gloversville who have come down with testicular cancer.
Testicular cancer is one of the cancers that can you can get a hundred percent recovery
if it's caught in time.
Barberos says there are many other cases around the state where workers have died or become
ill due to hazardous materials.
Officials estimate there are approximately 50,000 workers in the state who are exposed
to hazardous materials in the workplace.
Barberos says that number may be even higher and the program is indeed sorely needed.
When you have what is conservatively estimated that's about 70 to 80,000 chemicals in the
workplace today.
And by the way you don't get sick only from chemicals.
I mean we have these airtight buildings now where we're finding that the fungus is growing
in the events and this causes diseases of the lungs.
So there are all kinds of reasons why people are getting sick and I think 50,000 is a very
conservative figure.
I believe it's much, much higher than that and we just don't know.
So the screening will begin to identify how many people are actually sick.
Barberos says the legislation is the first of its kind in America and he hopes if it's
passed it'll set a precedent.
For the legislative Gazette I'm Don Degre.
There were many other bills introduced this week in Albany.
Paul Rosenthal brings us up to date now with the legislative notebook.
It should be against the law in New York to arrange surrogate mother contracts for profit.
That's the opinion of a state task force appointed by Governor Cuomo.
The task force will recommend that payments in surrogate mother contracts be limited
to the biological mother's medical and other necessary expenses.
The task force said that the birth mother in surrogate situations should get custody
if she decides she wants to keep her new baby.
The state legislature is also considering a bill that would require the New York telephone
company not to charge customers who want their phones blocked from getting through to special
service lines such as dial-apporn messages.
The proposal would also bar phone companies from charging ratepayers for calls placed
to the service lines without written authorization from the customers.
A bill designed to help businesses run by minorities and women get more public works contracts
is getting a second look by Democrats in the state legislature.
Democrats who control the assembly were originally against the Republican back bill but ongoing
negotiations have moved Democrats toward agreeing to the Senate GOP proposal that they
had considered unacceptable last month.
James Yates is counsel for assembly speaker Mel Miller and chief Democratic negotiator
on the issue.
He said of the GOP plan, quote, if that's the only game in town, it's worth looking
at unless we can do better.
End quote.
The issue has been one of the most controversial of the session.
The impasse has short-circuited $326 million in spending for housing programs and a referendum
to borrow $3 billion to repair highways.
Neither proposal will move forward without agreement on the minority business provision.
The assembly has also been introduced in the assembly that was formulated along with
the state AFL-CIO.
The joint effort was made to improve the state's benefit system in labor's big three areas.
Minimum wage, workers' compensation and unemployment insurance.
Assemblyman Frank Barbaro says he believes the state's current benefit policy is inadequate
and that improvement in these three areas should correct that.
And the state assembly has also approved legislation requiring the installation of smoke alarms
in every one or two family residence in the state.
Governor Cuomo now gets the bill, which has already received state senate approval.
If he signs it into law, it would take effect on New Year's Day.
Under current law, smoke detectors are required in all multiple dwellings.
They're also required in one and two family homes, but only at the time of sale or transfer.
For the legislative gazette, this is Paul Rosenpaw.
And that's it for this week's legislative gazette.
The show is produced by Beth Angler.
She had helped this week from Paul Rosenpaw, Don Decker and Bruce Robertson.
We hope you enjoyed the show and that you'll tune in again next week to hear what's happening
in and around the Empire State.
Until then, I'm Alan Chartock.
The legislative gazette is a production of WAMC News.
Dr. Alan Chartock is executive producer.
This program is made possible with funds provided by the legislative gazette,
a weekly newspaper on state politics, with student internships available.
Statewide satellite distribution of this program was made possible by the Lawrence group,
providing residents throughout New York State with total insurance coverage.
