(photo: the Governor's office)

Governor Andrew Cuomo signed the Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act (CLCPA) into law last week, finalizing legislation that has been labeled “the most aggressive climate change legislation in the nation,” “comprehensive,” and a “historic compromise.”

With its aggressive carbon emission reduction mandates and push toward renewable energy and a green economy, the CLCPA has been heralded by lawmakers and supporters as the most comprehensive and ambitious climate change legislation in the country, and as a model for other states. But at the same time, it’s not all that activists wanted, after a significant and near-fatal disagreement between Cuomo and others over what requirements the legislation would include for state investment into communities that have borne the brunt of pollution and climate change.

Almost all legislators and activists who wanted to see a version of the legislative majorities’ Climate and Community Protection Act passed are pleased with the CLCPA, which passed based on Cuomo’s specifications, even as some say there is more to do and several next chapters to the push coming up soon. The legislation creates certain mandates, but there are also many unanswered questions and decisions still to be made in terms of its implementation.

Historic
The CLCPA will add the Climate Change Article to the Environmental Conservation Law, establishing a statewide greenhouse gas emission limit of 60% of 1990 levels by 2030 and 15% of 1990 levels by 2050. It calls for the state to reach net-zero emissions by 2050, meaning that most of the energy used in New York by 2050 will come from renewable sources like solar, wind, and hydro-power.

The law also mandates that 70% of the electricity consumed in New York State come from renewable sources by 2030 and 100% come from zero emission sources by 2040.

Cuomo released a statement calling the bill “the most aggressive climate change legislation in the nation,” and he hopes this legislation will help New York -- which has one of the largest economies in the United States -- become a leader in global climate policy.

Legislative leaders and advocates alike have voiced their support for the bill.

“This bill sets New York on a course for a sustainable future by transitioning our state to clean renewable energy, unleashing the genius of American industry, and ensuring good paying jobs that work for all New Yorkers,” Assemblymember Steve Englebright said in a statement announcing the law’s passage. Englebright served as the lead sponsor of the bill in the assembly.

“In our coalition, we did a really intentional job of bringing together environmental justice and labor voices to the table so that we could develop a policy that benefits everybody,” said Priya Mulgaonkar, policy organizer for the NYC Environmental Justice Alliance and member of the NYRenews coalition that helped lead the push for a sweeping climate bill. Appearing on the Max & Murphy podcast, Mulgaonkar noted that environmental advocates played a major role in the passage of the law.

Overseeing the emissions reductions will be a newly established 22-member New York State Climate Action Council, consisting of state agency leaders, business leaders, and environmental advocates. The governor will appoint the members of the council.

Including members of the business community on the Council will ensure that the law “cleans up industry and industry doesn't move out of state,” said Miles Farmer, senior attorney at the Climate and Clean Energy Program of the Natural Resources Defense Council, appearing on the Capitol Pressroom last week. But, “at the end of the day the state agencies are going to be the ones that decide how to regulate,” he told host Susan Arbetter.

The law will “call for a process that creates structures where the private market invests in clean technologies,” Farmer said.

The law does not mandate any particular strategy for reducing carbon emissions, giving a wide berth to create and enforce new standards, something the new council will take on, followed by key state agencies involved.

The state will transition to 6,000 total megawatts of solar energy by 2025 and 9,000 total megawatts of wind energy by 2035. The state currently has a capacity of 2,000 megawatts of solar energy and nearly 2000 megawatts of wind energy, according to the New York Independent System Operator, which operates the state’s electricity grid. In 2018, the entire state had an installed generating capacity of 39,064 megawatts from all fuel sources.

While more renewable forms of energy like wind and solar are thought to be more expensive than fossil fuels, that has proven not to be the case, Farmer said. “The track record is that every forecast of prices for wind and solar has not been ambitious enough,” Farmer said on the Capitol Pressroom. “And the prices continue to plummet.” Cuomo has repeatedly promised in recent weeks to soon announce a major expansion of the state’s wind energy program.

The law will also create a process to ensure at least 35% of investments from clean energy funds are invested in communities most affected by climate change.

Compromise
“This is a compromise bill,” Mulgaonkar said, noting that Cuomo did not consider the climate bill a priority for the Legislature until two weeks prior, when legislators and activists continued to push for passage of the Climate and Community Protection Act.

The bill Cuomo signed notably excluded some provisions that activists and some legislators wanted to see, especially those that aim to protect labor and climate-vulnerable communities.

Under the law, polluting industries and companies that cannot directly address all of their carbon emissions will be required to invest in “sound solutions to offset their emissions” elsewhere. However, some environmental advocates worry that requiring companies to invest in efforts to offset their carbon emissions allows them to employ loopholes that disadvantage more vulnerable communities. The environmental justice aspects of the legislation remain a bone of contention.

“All these sources of emissions that we want to curb are disproportionately sited in low-income communities and communities of color,” Mulgaonkar said. “It’s well-documented; you see higher rates of asthma, cancer, traffic accidents, you name it, from all of these noxious infrastructures.”

For neighborhoods most affected by pollution, environmental justice was an integral component of the bill, Mulgaonkar said. Those neighborhoods most at risk, she said, “have been thinking about how to tackle climate change for years now.”

Mulgaonkar noted the loss of the “equity provision” of the original CCPA, which would have dedicated 40% of clean energy funds to frontline communities, or those most affected by climate change and pollution. The provision that made it into the final version of the bill, however, is much more vague, fitting Cuomo’s vision for the bill -- while the governor had expressed understanding of the calls for environmental justice, he repeatedly said he was wary of requirements for investments in certain places, instead wanting flexibility to choose the best projects to fit the environmental and green economy goals.

“The new NY climate law is not a win for justice. In fact, low income & communities of color got screwed [with] requirements for money into disadvantaged communities and high road labor standards gutted at Cuomo's insistence. Please people: don't act like it's a win when we lost,” environmental activist Pete Sikora of New York Communities for Change wrote on Twitter.

While Sikora expressed dismay about elements of the CCPA that were lost or watered down in the CLCPA, some of his fellow activists responded with slightly more hopeful sentiments. Daniela Lapidous of NYRenews responded to Sikora to agree that the CLCPA was not as strong as the CCPA in terms of environmental justice requirements, but that the funding elements were always going to be annual budget battles, and that that would be the next frontier in the “fight,” with a “pathway” for strong outcomes.

Stephan Edel, project director for New York Working Families wrote that now, with the CLCPA, “For the first time law mandates equity provisions, spending, oversight by communities, and a reorganization and analysis to ensure environmental and spending benefits are more equitably shared.”

“The bill is incomplete but sets up even more wins,” Edel added.

The “ambiguous” new provision will make it harder to fund the kinds of projects that communities actually want, Mulgaonkar said. “It comes down to the [dedicated] funding not being there in this version of the bill,” she said.

Future
Along with the formation of the Climate Action Council and subsequent steps to implement the new law, the CLCPA will also face the challenge of transitioning workers to a “clean” or “green” economy, as in retraining workers in fossil fuel industries for more environmentally-friendly employment.

“You always hear people claiming that climate bills are going to kill jobs,” Mulgaonkar said, but “we’re going to continue standing with our labor partners” to protect them.

Despite any perceived or actual shortcomings, the CLCPA still has the potential to unite “workers who need to be transitioned to the new economy, and the front line communities that have dealt with these polluting industries for so long,” Mulgaonkar said.

The CLCPA came as the final piece of a wave of climate-related legislation this year in Albany, with newly-powerful Democrats loosening the hold on long-desired bills. This session, the state Legislature passed bills banning plastic bags and toxic chemicals, improving child safety, preventing overfishing, and prohibiting oil and natural gas offshore drilling, among other efforts to curtail climate change.

“This has been the best environmental legislative session in a generation,” Peter Iwanowicz, executive director of Environmental Advocates of New York, said in a statement. “Bills that have been environmental priorities for years passed the Legislature after having finally been given thoughtful and thorough consideration by new Senate leadership.”

Heastie, Stewart-Cousins, Cuomo, Hochul (photo: Mike Groll/Governor's Office)

Following a historically productive legislative session in Albany, a broad coalition of progressive advocates has scored the performance of state lawmakers on a range of topics, pointing to major victories and unfinished tasks for reformers as political dust continues to settle from last year’s elections and this year’s governing.

True Blue NY, a grassroots coalition formed to oust rogue Democratic state senators who shared power with Republicans, released its “People’s Platform” in January, seizing on the electoral momentum that brought sweeping changes to the upper legislative chamber’s power structure and created one-party control in Albany.

The coalition, made up of dozens of new constituent-engagement and traditional advocacy organizations, was created to support challengers to members of the state Senate’s Independent Democratic Conference (IDC) -- a group of eight break-away senators who formed a power-sharing deal with Republicans, giving them control of the chamber for several years and ensuring a divided Legislature, with Democrats holding a wide majority in the Assembly.

Six of the eight IDC senators were defeated in last year’s Democratic primaries. Then, in November, major grassroots efforts and a huge jump in voter turnout -- seen, in part, as a reaction to the first two years of the Trump presidency -- saw a number of Democratic wins to flip Republican seats, handing the Democrats a solid majority in the Senate under Majority Leader Andrea Stewart-Cousins.

As the calendar turned to 2019 and the legislative year in Albany was set to begin, the attention turned to governance, and following through on campaign promises.

“The People’s Platform came together with a sense of the notion that if we stuck together, if we brought the same galvanized energy to the legislative work, we’d be way more successful,” said coalition member Ricky Silver, co-lead organizer with Empire State Indivisible, in an interview. “Even though we had a Dem majority, no one thought it would be easy.”

With Democrats holding both houses of the state Legislature and the Executive Chamber, this year’s session was an opportunity for Democrats to achieve some of the long-sought legislation that had been blocked or backlogged under the Republican-led Senate over the past decade. On issues ranging from civil rights and climate change to gun control and election reform, grassroots activists and reform-minded elected officials pushed an aggressive agenda and achieved many policy goals that catch-up to or go further than other states.

But in certain critical areas, True Blue NY’s post-session scorecard identifies what the coalition views alternately as shortcomings and complete failures in the end-of-session outcomes.

The People’s Platform scorecard, set to be released widely on Tuesday, rates the state Senate and Assembly individually in 13 distinct issue categories. The group plans to release another scorecard of Governor Andrew Cuomo after he takes action on the legislation that has passed both houses.

The activists and organizers in the coalition see the scorecard as a measure of accountability, and the basis for both celebration and top agenda items for next year.

The highest grades (A) were for advancing legislation that protects some of New York’s most underserved populations: immigrants, transgender and gender-nonconforming people, and survivors of child sex abuse.

The scorecard also shows favorable performances on items like voting reform (A-/B+), gun safety (A-), housing (B), and reproductive and sexual health (B). Of the 13 issue categories outlined by True Blue NY, the Assembly and Senate each scored As or Bs in eight, and Ds and one F in the other five (the Assembly got an F on tax reform for not introducing two tax credit bills that the Senate did).

“Working with a Democratic Senate Majority for the first time in ten years, we were finally able to deliver the progressive legislation we have championed for years,” the Assembly majority, led by Speaker Carl Heastie, said in a celebratory statement released on Monday, another in several efforts to sum up the massive amount of legislation passed this year. “Looking back on all we’ve accomplished this year, New Yorkers have a lot to be proud of.”

Both chambers earned A grades for promoting civil and human rights and protections for immigrants. For the civil and human rights rating, True Blue NY cites the passage of the Gender Expression Non-discrimination Act (GENDA), extending the statute of limitations to bring charges under the Child Victims Act, and a ban on “conversion therapy” to try changing the sexual orientation of minors. All three measures had long been sought by LGBTQ or children’s rights advocates, and all three passed during the first month of the legislative session under the new cohort of Democratic lawmakers.

For immigrant protections, the coalition weighed the passage of the controversial Driver's License Access and Privacy Act, known as the “Green Light bill,” which allows undocumented immigrants to apply for driver’s licenses. Supporters say the measure will allow immigrants, many of whom are already driving, to obtain licenses legally, bolstering regulatory effects, creating safer traffic conditions, and bringing in revenue. The bill was one of the last to pass the Legislature, hitting roadblocks in the final days of session and requiring concerted pressure from supporters.

In other categories, the True Blue NY grades are more middling, like on efforts to improve criminal justice, promote reproductive and sexual health, and advance comprehensive environmental protections. In these cases, the coalition identified some positive results accompanied by notable shortcomings.

The Legislature passed reforms to the cash bail and speedy trial systems, but failed to act on calls to end solitary confinement and fell short of securing many of the restorative elements that advocates sought in the push to legalize recreational marijuana. 

“When it comes to redirecting revenue or investment to communities most impacted by the drug war, climate change, and housing instability, they came woefully short,” reads a statement attached to the True Blue NY scorecard.

Legalization of adult-use marijuana failed to pass, largely due to opposition from suburban and upstate Democrats in the state Senate, some of whom represent newly-taken swing districts and feared swinging the pendulum to far to the left. A bill to decriminalize marijuana was passed at the end of June with some elements of what reformers desired, but not nearly all of it.

In a statement on the bill, Stewart-Cousins said, “This legislation is marking a momentous first step in addressing the racial disparities caused by the war on drugs. The Senate Majority continues to move forward on full legalization...”

A number of mediocre grades are accompanied by the view of some coalition members that critical measures promoting the interests of more marginalized constituencies were deprioritized.

“I think that’s a reflection of the Legislature focusing on the politics of issues, concerned about the maintenance of their seats, the maintenance of their power,” said Jawanza Williams, director of organizing at VOCAL-NY, a member of the coalition.

That is not inherently a bad thing, according to Williams, “but whenever you don’t center the experiences of some of the most vulnerable New Yorkers, like those who are dealing with marijuana prohibition legacy issues,” it can overshadow “the experiences and the needs of the people that are directly impacted by some of the most devastating issues in the state.”

Some of True Blue NY’s worst grading was given in categories that the coalition felt would do the most to change the dynamics of power in Albany and across the state. In categories titled “Big Money Out of Politics” and “Clean Up Albany” the Assembly and Senate both received Ds.

“There is no question this was a historically progressive year and that the state made a big leap forward, but unfortunately it didn’t make that equal leap forward for everyone,” Silver said. “If you look at the things that were left on the table, these are issues that affect the most marginalized in our state or effect real representation.”

True Blue NY members were especially disappointed to see delays to comprehensive campaign finance reform, like a publicly-financed campaign matching funds program, which they view as essential to limiting the influence of special interests and promoting more representative candidates.

“It’s the discrepancy across the pillars and within certain core pieces of legislation, where economic and social issues were not prioritized, that we believe is a good example for why the Legislature should have pushed heavier for fair elections,” said Silver.

The rest of the D and F grades were given in categories impacting some of New York’s most essential functions and public resources: taxation, education, and healthcare. Creating a more equitable tax system, funding culturally-responsive education, and establishing single-payer healthcare through the New York Health Act were all left on the table at the end of session.

The People’s Platform scorecard is calculated based on a number of factors for each bill in an issue category tracked by the coalition, including legislative activity as reported on the Senate and Assembly websites, according to True Blue NY’s co-leader, Judith Hertzberg. Each legislative body earned credit when a bill supported by the coalition advanced, whether it be out of committee or on the floor.

If populist displeasure helped turn the state Senate in September and November, it was the sustained grassroots advocacy, not the partisan control, that brought many reforms to the finish line, according to members of True Blue NY.

“You look at the housing bills, you look at the harassment-free legislation that passed, this is due to everyday New Yorkers stepping up and saying, ‘I need to be heard. And if you are going to pass legislation, you need to listen to people that have actually been impacted by it.’ And a number of our senators and Assembly members were champions of that approach,” said Silver.

(photo: NYSenate)

June 26, 2019 - Max & Murphy Podcast: Reflecting on the Year in Albany, with Senators Krueger & Myrie

State Senators Liz Krueger of Manhattan and Zellnor Myrie of Brooklyn joined the show to reflect on the year that was in Albany, the January through June session with Democrats in full control of state government for the first time in many years. Two two senators discussed their majority's first session in power, dynamics between the Legislature and Governor Cuomo, what got done and what fell off the table - and why.

Listen to the conversation and let us know what you think -- we're on Twitter @TweetBenMax and @JarrettMurphy. You can listen to the show through the embedded audio below or download the episode wherever you get your podcasts, under "Max & Murphy," and listen to Max & Murphy live on Wednesdays at 5 p.m. on WBAI radio, 99.5FM or wbai.org

(photo: the Governor's office)

As part of their end-of-session rush, the State Legislature passed this year’s state capital budget, months later than usual after it was not passed as part of the other budget bills that moved on or before the April 1 start of the new state fiscal year.

One provision of the $3.9 billion capital budget added $385 million to the coffers of the opaque State and Municipal Facilities Program, often referred to as SAM, which has in a sense replaced the old “member item” system for awarding pork projects to legislators, while also providing the governor millions to work with.

SAM already has over $1.9 billion in unspent funds that have been rolled over from previous allocations. As of June 12 of this year, there are over 1,800 grants currently administered under the program that amount to just over $988 million in current or planned spending, which leaves about $1 billion remaining for the governor and state lawmakers to use at their discretion. This is more than SAM has spent in any single year since its inception.

Now, there is the additional $385 million that has not been committed to any particular projects, leaving almost $1.4 billion to be used as a pork barrel program for state legislators and Governor Andrew Cuomo.

These funds can be used for any number of things, from additional police cars for local departments to playgrounds and skate parks to local library renovations. The programs are not immediately lined out in the budget, but allocated based on an even less transparent internal process.

The program is relatively new, having been started by Governor Andrew Cuomo and legislative leaders in 2013, the same year that Republicans and the Independent Democratic Conference first formed a majority coalition in the State Senate. Former Senator Jeff Klein, the one-time leader of the IDC, was the biggest beneficiary of the program, getting $12 million from 2013 to 2015, much of which came from SAM, according to Politico New York. During that period, Klein received more earmarked funds than any other state senator and other IDC members were also top receivers of earmarks.

SAM can be seen as a successor to member items, a process where legislators could use money from a discretionary fund controlled by the legislature for projects in their districts.

E.J. McMahon of the Empire Center think tank calls SAM “basically member items on steroids,” because member items traditionally funded smaller needs like Little League uniforms and meal programs for seniors, but SAM supports larger programs such as gazebos and highway garages.

According to McMahon, member items “amounted to $100 million or so a year at their peak,” but SAM will now be authorized to spend over $2.3 billion in the coming years. According to SeeThroughNY, run by the Empire Center, the state government spent over $500 million through the same program in 2018.

Cuomo opposed member items as Attorney General and during his 2010 gubernatorial campaign. Funding for member items stopped in 2009, but it only took four years before a new discretionary fund for legislators and the governor emerged. (Cuomo was first elected governor in 2010.)

Now, the governor is an active participant in the “pork barrel” program akin to the one he previously opposed. According to McMahon, Cuomo gets to “claim his own big hunk [of SAM funds], and has used it to supplement capital spending in areas that already have their own very large capital budgets,” such as the MTA.

For SAM projects, the governor or individual legislators make requests, and those requests are then approved (or not) by the state’s Division of Budget or the Dormitory Authority. The Dormitory Authority then administers approved funding. The Division of Budget reports to the governor and the Dormitory Authority’s board consists of five direct gubernatorial appointees, three gubernatorial appointees to other positions who serve on the board ex-officio, and one appointed by each of the Assembly Speaker, Senate Majority Leader, and State Comptroller.

There is only one member of the 11-person board who is not directly affiliated with the Governor or state legislators. The Governor and legislators request funding for local projects and then their appointees approve them.

With the IDC no longer around and the state facing fiscal challenges, the program’s future was slightly in limbo when it was not included in the April budget, as the whole capital budget was kicked down the road.

Governor Cuomo line-item vetoed about $44 million of the budget’s capital spending after it passed the State Legislature. However, he had said in an interview with WAMC radio that the capital budget would be dealt with “in the coming weeks” while also declaring that his infrastructure agenda is “the most aggressive infrastructure plan in the United States of America.”

McMahon says SAM is “a completely indefensible program,” because “it’s all financed with borrowed money, effectively diverting scarce capital resources from core infrastructure needs.”

Tiffany Caban (photo: @CabanForQueens)

Public defender Tiffany Cabán declared victory in the crowded, competitive Democratic primary for Queens District Attorney on Tuesday night, though Borough President Melinda Katz did not concede, instead promising to see every vote counted, despite the fact that the numbers appear to make Cabán nearly impossible to overcome.

A primary win would set Cabán up to win in November in the overwhelmingly Democratic borough and become the first newly-elected Queens District Attorney in almost 30 years.

With 98.58 of election precints reporting, Cabán had 33,814 votes - or 39.57% of the total, outpacing Katz, who had 32.724 votes, or 38.3%.

Coming in third was Greg Lasak, with about 14.5%, followed by Mina Malik with 3.9%, City Council Member Rory Lancman, who dropped from the race on Friday to back Katz, with 1.4%; Jose Nieves with 1.3%, and Betty Lugo with 1%. The total number of votes in the primary stood at 85,447 at that point, roughly 12% of Queens' 766,117 active registered Democrats (as of February 1, according to the state Board of Elections).

The New York City Board of Elections will be responsible for counting outstanding absentee, military, and affidavit ballots, and reviewing the election results before certifying them. It is unclear if Katz will reevaluate her stance and concede -- she spoke Tuesday night before Cabán declared victory.

In the other higher-profile primary race of the day, City Council Member Farah Louis -- who won a crowded special election on May 14 -- won the Democratic primary as she tries to keep the District 45 seat formerly held by Public Advocate Jumaane Williams beyond this year. If Louis wins in November, she'll have the seat for the rest of what was to be Williams' term, through 2021. Louis again defeated a field with Monique Chandler-Waterman, who had Williams' support. Louis recorded about 50% of the vote to Chandler-Waterman's 43%, unofficially.

In judicial races:

-Margarita Lopez Torres won a Surrogate Court Democratic primary race in Brooklyn.

-D. Bernadette Neckles won a Brooklyn Civil Court Democratic primary.

-Lumarie Maldonado-Cruz won a Queens Civil Court Democratic primary.

-E. Grace Park won a Democratic primary for Judge of the Civil Court - 4th Municipal Court District in Manhattan.

-Caroline P. Cohen won a Democratic primary for Judge of the Civil Court - 6th Municipal Court District in Brooklyn.

Other results for judicial delegates and state committee and county committee positions can be found here.

@GothamGazette

(photo: @CabanForQueens)

Tiffany Cabán, a 31-year-old public defender, made national headlines and shocked the New York political world on Tuesday evening, taking a commanding lead and declaring victory in the crowded Democratic primary for Queens District Attorney. Her closest rival, Queens Borough President Melinda Katz, did not concede, however, and said she wants to see every vote counted, and perhaps recounted.

A primary win would set Cabán up toward victory in November -- something she indicated in her remarks she believes is a given -- in the overwhelmingly Democratic borough and become the first newly-elected Queens District Attorney in almost 30 years.

With 98.58 of election precints reporting, Cabán had 33,814 votes, or 39.57% of the total, outpacing Katz, who had 32.724 votes, or 38.3%. Cabán did especially well in western Queens, including areas such as Astoria and Long Island City (see map to the left, created by Steven Romalewski of the Center for Urban Research at the City University of New York Graduate Center).

Coming in third was Greg Lasak, with about 14.5%, followed by Mina Malik with 3.9%, City Council Member Rory Lancman, who dropped from the race on Friday to back Katz, with 1.4%; Jose Nieves with 1.3%, and Betty Lugo with 1%. The total number of votes in the primary stood at 85,447 at that point, roughly 12% of Queens' 766,117 active registered Democrats (as of February 1, according to the state Board of Elections).

The New York City Board of Elections will be responsible for counting outstanding absentee, military, and affidavit ballots, and reviewing the election results before certifying them. It is unclear if Katz will reevaluate her stance and concede -- she spoke Tuesday night before Cabán declared victory.

Cabán ran on a radical platform of a “decarceral state,” pledging to keep as many people out of jail as possible by investing in communities, never seeking cash bail, not prosecuting a host of lower-level offenses, and other campaign promises that made her the candidate of New York’s ascendent left wing.

"[T]hey said we couldn't win, but we did it, y'all," Cabán declared on Tuesday evening to a raucous crowd of supporters at La Boom in Queens.

She pledged to overhaul the Queens criminal justice system toward fairness, and investment in communities rather than more punitive prosecutorial measures. But, she stressed, "Nothing is more important to me than the safety of all people who call this borough home." She promised to build relationships across the borough and in its various communities, to work with those who did not vote for her, and to create an equitable justice system not "at the cost of safety - that is the source of safety."

The race is for an open seat after long-time Queens DA Richard Brown passed away in May; he had already declared that he would not be running for reelection, prompting the first competitive primary in several decades.

Cabán, a Latina who identifies as queer, was the insurgent, far-left progressive in the race, running a grassroots campaign built on the strength of hundreds of volunteers and thousands of small donors, as well as big ones, from inside Queens and across the country.

Having served as a public defender in Manhattan for seven years, she became the poster child for opposing the calcified tough-on-crime policies of the Queens DA’s office, which Brown had led since 1991, though all the other candidates also ran on progressive platforms.

Cabán was the only candidate in the primary who has neither been a prosecutor nor an elected official. But her candidacy inspired criminal justice reformers and like-minded elected officials who have fought for policies of decarceration. She drew comparisons with the dynamic and groundbreaking Democratic Congressional Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who endorsed Cabán and lent her campaign a surge of energy. That soon followed with endorsements from presidential candidates Senators Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts and Bernie Sanders of Vermont.

Cabán was backed by a somewhat surprising number of local elected officials, including Queens electeds such as State Senators Michael Gianaris, Jessica Ramos, and James Sanders, Assemblymember Ron Kim, City Council Member Jimmy Van Bramer; as well as city Comptroller Scott Stringer, and others. She received endorsements from recent progressive hero candidates Cynthia Nixon and Zephyr Teachout, as well as activist groups who represent people who’ve been in the criminal justice system, immigrants, and others. She made special mention of The Working Families Party and the Democratic Socialists of America during her victory speech.

The New York Times editorial board, not known for supporting new-into-politics revolutionary candidates, endorsed Cabán as well, saying she would come into office “unencumbered by ties to the borough power structure and free to pursue her commitment to serve the community by doing more than just winning convictions. Her seven years as a public defender have given her insight into how the system works, and how it ought to be changed.”

Her lack of prosecutorial and managerial experience was often used as criticism by her opponents, who said she did not seem interested in law and order, raising concerns that crime would rise under her tenure. But her supporters argued that that is what makes her uniquely qualified to usher in a paradigm shift in the Queens DA’s office, which other recently elected DAs across the country have attempted including Larry Krasner in Philadelphia and Rachael Rollins in Boston, both of whom endorsed Cabán.

In overwhelmingly Democratic Queens, Cabán is almost sure to win the November 5 general election, assuming her apparent primary win holds. She would face a nominal opponent in Republican candidate Daniel Kogan, an attorney in private practice (there was no Republican primary), but the ballot is not yet set and it is unclear if Republicans may try to field another candidate given a Cabán victory, or if any other efforts to defeat her could emerge.

Mayor de Blasio with Senate Leader Stewart-Cousins (photo: Michael Appleton/Mayor's Office)

Democrats in control of the state Legislature for the first time in a decade ended a whirlwind legislative session last week, having notched a raft of progressive victories that were denied to them when Republicans controlled the state Senate. 

At a news conference in Albany on Friday, Governor Andrew Cuomo declared it the “the most productive legislative session in modern history,” and in New York City, Mayor Bill de Blasio agreed.

“As we tally up the scorecard for the end of session, one thing is clear: New Yorkers have won big on a host of progressive legislation that will help make our state fairer,” de Blasio said in a statement on Friday.

Among the bills passed this year were several sweeping packages with significant ramifications for the city’s 8.5 million residents. Registering to vote will become easier. Tenants will have stronger protections. Wealth will no longer determine, in most cases, if someone accused of a crime loses their freedom. Marijuana possession won’t land people in jail. The subways will get new funding and the streets will be a little less crowded by vehicles. Cameras will catch speeding drivers near schools. Construction projects will be completed more efficiently. Undocumented immigrants will be able to apply for driver’s licenses and receive education funding. And that’s not all.

Among de Blasio’s top stated priorities, he saw movement on stronger rent regulations, mayoral control of city schools, congestion pricing, election reform, design-build authority, criminal justice reform, and more.

Nonetheless, there were a few professed priorities for the mayor that did not get approved this year including legalizing adult use of recreational marijuana, scrapping the Specialized High School Admissions Test (SHSAT), and reforming Section 50-a of the state Civil Rights Law, which shields police officer disciplinary records from public disclosure, among others.

“We haven’t seen a session this daring, productive and progressive in decades, and while we have much more work to do for New Yorkers, I want to thank Senate Majority Leader Andrea Stewart-Cousins, Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie and the rest of the legislature for passing these sweeping reforms,” de Blasio said. “I also would like to thank Governor Andrew Cuomo for taking swift action on many of these pieces of legislation.”

The city has already or will soon begin the process of executing some of the various reforms that passed, including creating new local regulations for e-bikes and e-scooters to expanding contract awards for MWBEs, and implementing bail reform. Some reforms will also take effect immediately while other programs are scheduled to ramp up over time.

Here’s a rundown of approved bills and programs, some broad and others more specific, that will impact New York City:

Expanded MWBE Program
The Legislature gave the city greater authority to award discretionary contracts to Minority- and Women-Owned Business Enterprises (MWBEs) as well as Emerging Business Enterprises run by socially and economically disadvantaged business owners.

The legislation increases the value of contracts that the city can award without a formal competitive process to such businesses from $150,000 to $500,000 million. It also allows adding MWBE or EBE status as a criteria for creating pre-qualified vendor lists, allows the Department of Design and Construction to create a mentoring program for MWBEs and EBEs, and allows those businesses to apply for School Construction Authority contracts.

De Blasio had called this a top priority, holding a press conference on the subject in late March (he wanted the threshold raised to $1 million, but was pleased with $500,000) and reiterating its importance as the session moved toward completion. A $1 million threshold would have allowed the city to increase annual MWBE awards by $500 million, he had said.

“Our city is fairer and more vibrant when everyone – regardless of race, gender or ethnicity – has an opportunity to participate in our economy,” de Blasio said in a statement. “With the help of State lawmakers and persistent advocacy from our minority and women entrepreneurs, we managed to once again expand economic opportunity for people who have historically been left out of our economy. A $500,000 discretionary award limit for minority and women entrepreneurs will strengthen our thriving economy and entrepreneurial backbone.”

Expanded Design-Build Authority
Design-build is a procurement method intended to cut infrastructure costs by allowing government to solicit a joint design and construction contract. De Blasio has been pushing for the commonsense measure for years but it was repeatedly used as a leverage item by the governor and Republican Senate, with at times small gains allowed to the city.

Democrats this year expanded the city’s design-build authorization to several city agencies: the Department of Design & Construction, the Department of Transportation, the Department of Environmental Protection, the School Construction Authority, the Department of Parks & Recreation, the New York City Housing Authority and New York City Health + Hospitals.

Legalizing Electronic Bikes and Scooters
The Legislature legalized e-bikes and e-scooters (with a maximum speed of 20 miles an hour), mandated safety requirements for e-scooters, and gave municipalities the ability to regulate e-scooters within their jurisdiction.

In New York City, the bill could end a de Blasio-ordered crackdown by the NYPD on e-bikes, which are often used by immigrant food delivery workers. It will also allow the City Council to create new regulations where earlier its hands were tied. Several bills were introduced and discussed at a Council hearing in January, which can now move forward. When pressed on his e-bike crackdown, de Blasio repeatedly pointed to Albany, saying he wanted state regulations so the city could then act, but also expressing safety concerns not backed up by any data.

Governor Cuomo did say Friday that he is still reviewing the legislation, and he expressed safety concerns about where and how e-bikes and e-scooters riders would operate, saying he didn’t think they should be in bike lanes or on sidewalks with those riding traditional bikes or walking. De Blasio has expressed similar concerns.

Rent Regulations
The Legislature passed and governor signed a package of sweeping tenant-friendly rent regulations, with no expiration dates unlike previous rent laws, which are expected to affect more than 2.4 million rent-regulated tenants in the city. 

The bills ended high-rent and high-income vacancy decontrol, limited rent increases from “major capital improvements,” and banned blacklisting of tenants for being sued in housing court, among other regulations.

De Blasio called the rent regulations “extraordinary” in an interview on NY1’s Inside City Hall. “[W]e created the biggest affordable housing program this city has ever had, we gave free lawyers to stop evictions, we’ve done a lot of things here that are working – rent freezes for two years, obviously. But the missing link was to get action in Albany,” he said. “Now we have the strongest rent laws we’ve ever had and that’s extraordinary. And I think this has been – this is one of the watershed moments in terms of protecting New York City as we love it, you know, keeping New York New York, making sure it’s a city for everyone.”

Environmental Regulations
In a last-minute agreement, the governor and Legislature approved the expansive Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act, said to be the strongest environmental regulation of its kind in the country. It mandates goals for cutting carbon emissions to zero in the electricity sector by 2040, invests heavily in wind and solar energy, and will direct state agencies to invest 40% of clean energy funds in disadvantaged communities.

The bill also empanels a Climate Action Council charged with creating a plan to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 85% from 1990 levels by 2050.

De Blasio has already set New York City on a path to reduce emissions by making large buildings more energy efficient and other measures, including related to how the city gets its energy and uses automobiles. The mayor announced in April that all city operations would be powered by renewable energy sources within five years. The CLCPA, with its aggressive goals, will add fuel to those efforts and beyond.

The Legislature also passed a statewide ban on single-use plastic bags at retail and grocery stores (a few years after the state overruled a new city law to a similar effect). The bill does include several exemptions, however, and also allows municipalities a choice to impose a 5-cent fee on single-use paper bags. 

Voting and Elections Reform 
The Legislature passed several laws this year to remove hurdles to voting and registering to vote, most of them early in the year. In New York City, where the New York City Board of Elections has shown repeated failures in administering elections, some of those reforms promise to make voting processes far more efficient. 

Among the measures the Legislature passed were early voting, electronic pollbook authorization, three hours of paid leave on Election Day, consolidating the federal and state primary, pre-registration of 16- and 17-year-olds, changing the party enrollment deadline to allow more time for voters to pick a party, and universal portability of voter registrations.

The Legislature also approved measures to amend the state constitution to allow same-day voter registration and no-excuse absentee ballots by mail. Those measures will have to pass through another Legislative session and a ballot referendum.

De Blasio has already been wrangling with the city Board of Elections, which the city does not control but funds, about some of the changes, including how many early voting sites will be operated for the November election.

Extended Mayoral Control
The state budget deal passed in April gave de Blasio a three-year extension on mayoral control of city schools, compared to the one- and two-year extensions he’d received in the past. The extension gets him through the rest of his term.

The deal also required no concessions from the mayor, unlike when Republicans used mayoral control to pass measures friendly to charter schools or require more oversight. In fact, the charter school cap, which has been hit in New York City, was not lifted at all this year, pleasing the mayor.

The budget did add two members to the city’s Panel for Educational Policy, and changed how members of local parent councils are appointed.

The city will also have to do additional new reporting on where state education aid is going, which could lead to conflict next year if Cuomo believes the city is not moving enough state dollars to the most needy schools.

Criminal Justice Reform
De Blasio’s plan to close the Rikers Island jails hinges on reducing the population of the jail complex to below 5,000 (the city's entire correction facility population was slightly under 7,500 as of this week, according to the de Blasio administration). The mayor has repeatedly insisted that that would require broad criminal justice reforms at the state level, and the Legislature obliged with a broad package.

The Legislature ended the use of cash bail for most offenses, save for violent crimes; they overhauled the discovery process, allowing defendants access to evidence against them earlier and more easily; and they guaranteed a defendant's right to a speedy trial.

De Blasio had wanted a change in the recently-passed bail laws, asking the Legislature to give judges the ability to assess a suspect’s “dangerousness” in order to set bail in cases of violent crimes, but the measure proved controversial and failed.

At a June 3 news conference in Albany, he explained, “Remember, there are some people who are profoundly dangerous who have a proven, unfortunately, a proven record of being dangerous to their communities, but are not a flight risk. In those cases, judges’ hands are tied and they do not have a ready way to hold them in, in the way they need to. We need to come up with a very precise definition of dangerousness so that it is not overused. But I think that's something that can and should be done while this legislature is still in session.”

The Legislature also decriminalized possession of low quantities of marijuana, but failed to legalize the recreational adult use of marijuana which would have also allowed commercial sales.

De Blasio has insisted that he would only support legalization done responsibly and with investments for communities long adversely affected by enforcement. “I want to see legalization of marijuana for sure, but I want to see it done in a way that does not create a new monster corporate class that takes advantage of people, that profits in a very inappropriate way,” he said at the June 3 Albany news conference. Cuomo has promised to pursue marijuana legalization again next year.

Transit, Traffic and Congestion Pricing
After opposing it for years, de Blasio embraced a congestion pricing program to impose a charge on drivers entering Manhattan’s central business district, 60th street and below. The Legislature this year approved something of a broad plan -- though it will not take effect till 2021 and must be designed by a committee where de Blasio has little control -- which will create an annual stream of $1 billion in revenue for the Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) and allow it to leverage to raise about $15 billion in bond funding to repair and maintain the city’s struggling subways. 

The governor and Legislature also mandated reforms at the MTA, including an overhaul of its management structure. But Governor Cuomo seemed to make a last-minute power grab at the state authority, where he already appoints a plurality of board members and its top leadership.

Cuomo nominated his budget director, Robert Mujica, to the board and was successful in pushing the Legislature to waive the requirement that Mujica be a resident of the city. In fact, he had state law changed so that the state budget director is always a member of the MTA Board.

One new de Blasio nominee to the board, former city labor commissioner Bob Linn, was approved by the Senate.

At the same time, the governor failed to advance the mayor’s other nomination for MTA Board member, Dan Zarrilli, to the Senate for confirmation, which leaves de Blasio and the city with one fewer representative.

“It is disappointing the City will have less say on the board during this critical time of change for the MTA, especially that of Mr. Zarrilli, a Staten Islander and professional engineer who is ideally suited to the role,” said Seth Stein, a de Blasio spokesperson, in a statement. “We will continue advocating for the residents of New York City.”

The governor’s office has not fully explained why Zarrilli’s nomination was held up. A spokesperson for Cuomo, Patrick Muncie, said in a statement to Gotham Gazette, “Mr. Zarrilli’s recommendation was received after Mr. Linn’s, and he is currently going through the background process.” Muncie did not respond to a question about whether Cuomo prefers to have the city at less than full strength on the Board.

Aid for the Undocumented
The Legislature approved the Jose Peralta New York State DREAM Act, named for the state Senator who sponsored the bill but died last year before seeing it passed. The bill gives undocumented immigrant students access to state tuition assistance to attend college and also creates a privately-funded scholarship fund. It’s likely to be significantly impactful in New York City, which is home to about 150,000 DREAMers, according to the Mayor’s Office of Immigrant Affairs.

The Legislature also approved the Driver’s License Access and Privacy Act that would reinstate undocumented immigrants’ eligibility to apply for drivers licenses, which was banned following the September 11, 2001 terror attacks. 

Cameras Near Schools and on Buses
Democrats reauthorized and dramatically expanded a speed camera program around New York City schools this year, after Republicans had let it lapse last year. Cameras are expected to be installed in 750 school zones, up from 160, and will operate for longer hours.

And the state moved to allow for cameras mounted on city buses in order to ticket vehicles parked in bus lanes, which will aid de Blasio's effort to speed up the city's slow bus fleet.

Veteran Firefighters
Working with city officials, the Legislature crafted and approved a bill that would allow military veterans to subtract seven years from their age (up from six) to qualify for the city’s Fire Department. “If you’re a veteran who has served this country proudly, your age shouldn’t be a barrier to continue serving our fellow New Yorkers,” de Blasio said, according to a Wall Street Journal report.

LGBTQ and Gender Equity
The Democrat-led Legislature moved forward on a number of bills that Republicans had repeatedly blocked in past years. They banned conversion therapy for minors, passed the Gender Expression Non-Discrimination Act (GENDA), prohibiting discrimination based on gender and sexual identity.

The Legislature also passed the Reproductive Health Act, which codified federal abortion protections established by Roe v. Wade into state law, and passed the Comprehensive Contraception Coverage Act, mandating that insurers cover the cost of contraception. They also banned employers from discriminating against employees based on reproductive health decisions.

Child Victims Act
The Legislature approved the Child Victims Act, which raises the statute of limitations for adult survivors of child sexual abuse to file civil and criminal complaints.

(photo: the governor's office)

Just after it ended, Governor Andrew Cuomo deemed 2019’s “the most productive legislative session in modern history” at a news conference on Friday in Albany.

The Democrat in the first year of his third term went through only a partial list of the many laws and investments he and state legislators had made between January and June, in what was the first period of full and functional Demcratic control of state government in decades.

Though the session included a good deal of sparring between Cuomo and legislators, especially with the governor repeatedly attacking or needling Senate Democrats, a pattern that intensified after the demise of the deal to bring an Amazon campus to Queens, almost all of the priorities laid out by the governor and the legislative majorities were accomplished in some form.

"Six months ago we laid out our 2019 Justice Agenda - an aggressive blueprint to move New York forward - and today I'm proud to say we got it done," Cuomo said on Friday, adding, “...this was the most progressively productive legislative session in modern history. The product was extraordinary, and we maintained our two pillars - fiscal responsibility and economic growth paired with social progress on an unprecedented and nation-leading scale."

As the Legislature wrapped up its work, similar boasts came from the two majority leaders -- Carl Heastie in the Assembly and Andrea Stewart-Cousins in the Senate -- as well as many other Democratic state lawmakers, advocates and activists, and like-minded officials from around New York, including Mayor Bill de Blasio and City Council Speaker Corey Johnson.

“This session we’ve chosen to stand up with the people over special interests,” Stewart-Cousins said in her closing remarks as the Senate completed its session. “We’ve chosen to invest in the future over the failed policies of the past. We’ve chosen science over rhetoric. We’ve chosen equality over divisiveness. This is the most historic and productive legislation session in New York State history, period.”

“We haven’t seen a session this daring, productive and progressive in decades,” de Blasio said in a long, celebratory Friday statement about the session. The mayor highlighted many of the bills that were passed, from stronger rent regulations to congestion pricing, criminal justice and voting reforms to driver’s licenses for undocumented immigrants, and more.

In many ways it was a historic session, with Democrats following through on much of what they promised during last year’s campaigns, when Cuomo easily won a third term and the party took a commanding new majority in the Senate to couple with long-standing control of the Assembly. There were roughly 800 bills passed by both the Senate and Assembly, according to Stewart-Cousins.

But Republicans also believe the session provides them with significant new ammo to flip Senate seats back next year and begin to line up the pieces to eventually retake the chamber and win their first statewide office come 2022, when Cuomo has said he’ll seek a fourth term.

Much of life for New Yorkers will be altered by what Democrats in Albany decided this year, with impacts -- social, economic, environmental, and political -- for many years to come. The party in power is certain it has produced for New Yorkers who will benefit in many ways. The results will start to be seen soon.

Here’s a look at what got done this session in Albany:

JANUARY
>Election Reform
Lawmakers started off the session passing legislation aimed at reforming voting and elections in New York. The Legislature passed a series of bills to establish early voting and no-excuse absentee voting, expand voter registration, impose limits on LLC campaign contributions, and extend primary election voting hours.

>LGBTQ and Women’s Issues
They also passed the Gender Expression Non-Discrimination Act (GENDA), which prohibits discrimination based on gender identity or expression. This act also added transgender people to those protected under New York’s Hate Crimes Law, which defines a hate crime and specifies mechanisms for punishing those who commit hate crimes.

Also in an effort to protect members of the LGBTQ community, lawmakers banned conversion therapy for minors.

They also codified Roe v. Wade abortion protections into state law through the Reproductive Health Act. The RHA legalized abortion past 24 weeks of pregnancy if the woman’s health or life is at risk, or if the fetus is not viable.

The Legislature also passed the Comprehensive Contraception Coverage Act, which requires health insurance companies to cover all FDA-approved contraceptive options, and the Boss Bill, which ensures that employees are able to make reproductive healthcare decisions without fearing adverse employment consequences.

>Children, Immigrants, and Survivors
The Legislature passed the Jose Peralta New York State DREAM Act, which would allow undocumented students in New York to qualify for state aid for higher education and create a Dream Fund for college scholarship opportunities for these students. It was named after the late Senator Jose Peralta, who had championed the bill in the past.

They also passed the Child Victims Act, which reformed the state’s statute of limitations for child sexual abuse. The legislation provides that the statute of limitations doesn’t start until someone turns 23 years old, where it previously started when a child turned 18. It also allowed a temporary look-back window to allow individuals to file civil claims for long-ago incidents.

>Gun Control
Lawmakers also passed a gun control bill package that bans bump-stocks, creates regulations for gun buybacks, extends the background check period for people trying to purchase a gun, and institutes the “red flag” law to allow teachers and others to petition judges to order removal of firearms from a troubled student’s home.

FEBRUARY
After an onslaught of legislation in January that opened the floodgates after years in which Democrats saw their agenda items often stall in the state Senate, February was slower. This was in part due to the fact that there are often fewer session days in February due to the annual school vacation-aligned break.

Legislators did pass a bill that criminalizes “revenge porn,” or the distribution of intimate images with the intent to cause harm to another person.

MARCH
The Legislature passed additional gun and voting reforms in March just ahead of the budget deal that came together at the end of the month: a bill that creates stronger regulations for gun storage, aiming to prevent unintentional gun violence, and the Voter Friendly Ballot Act, which aims to create a more readable ballot layout.

>Budget
As usual, the state budget was perhaps the most consequential piece of legislation to pass during the month of March. Along with spending decisions adding up to about $175 billion, it included sweeping legislative changes.

Lawmakers and Cuomo reformed the criminal justice system, the electoral system, health care, and public transportation. From bail and discovery reform to a plastic bag ban and congestion pricing and the expansion of speed cameras allowed in New York City, the budget was home to many major changes for the state and city.

It also increased funding for education through local school aid and grants across the state. And, they made the property tax cap, which prevents annual increases in property taxes from exceeding 2% of the previous assessment or rate of inflation, into permanent law (it applies everywhere outside New York City).

The budget passed a compromise on campaign finance reform, creating a commission to propose a public campaign finance system, with recommendations due before the end of this year.

The budget agreement came together in the final days and hours of March, and was given final passage on April 1, the day of the start of the new fiscal year.

APRIL
As is often the case in Albany, the post-budget months of April and May were relatively quiet times between the big budget push in late March and the end of session flurry in June.

But, just after the budget, in April, lawmakers raised the age to purchase tobacco products in the state from 18 to 21. This legislation includes cigarettes, chewing tobacco, and vape products.

The Legislature also passed a bill package aimed at promoting environmental protection and conservation. Among the provisions of this bill package is a ban on harmful pesticides and the establishment of a constitutional right to water and life and strict regulations on the toxic chemicals in children’s toys.

MAY
In May, the Legislature passed a series of bills aimed at protecting victims and survivors of domestic violence. These bills varied from special ballots for victims of domestic violence to requiring companies to allow victims of domestic violence to cancel contracts.

Among the domestic violence protection bills, the Legislature also passed a bill banning the manufacturing and selling of undetectable or “ghost” guns, such as 3D printed guns. It makes it illegal for anyone to knowingly possess, manufacture, sell, transport, or possess undetectable firearms.

They also created protections for disabled New Yorkers through a bill package that: creates an advocacy office for those living with disabilities, expands Medicaid coverage for people with autism, and provides housing for New Yorkers with therapy animals.

JUNE
Things in Albany got very busy again in June, especially toward the end of the legislative session and at its very end, with movement on a variety of bills, though Democrats did not find compromise on some professed priorities.

>Rent Regulations
Expiring rent regulations that apply to roughly 1 million New York City apartments was the marquee issue of the end of session. After a great deal of debate, advocacy, negotiation and consternation -- including some conflict between the governor and Senate -- the Legislature passed and the governor signed the Housing Stability and Tenant Protection Act of 2019, which was called the strongest tenant protection bill in state history.

The legislation makes the rent regulations permanent, with no sunset clause as had been the precedent, repeals two key elements that had led to many thousands of units leaving regulation over decades, vacancy decontrol and the “vacancy bonus,” drastically reduces what landlords can recoup in rent for “major capital investments” into buildings, and more.
The legislation also allows other areas of the state to opt into the regulations if they have a housing emergency based on a lower than 5% vacancy rate and the local legislature votes to adopt them.

>Fighting Climate Change
During the last month of session, there was increased pressure from lawmakers and activists on passing the Climate and Community Protection Act, an effort to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and move New York toward renewable energy and a cleaner economy. The legislation, which had fairly aggressive timelines and requirements, as well as mandates around environmental and economic justice to ensure investments in communities hardest hit by climate change and pollution, was opposed by Gov. Andrew Cuomo, who said in a June 7 interview with WAMC radio that “it actually doesn’t do, in my opinion, any of the main goals or initiatives.”

Despite Cuomo’s repeated criticism and opposition, a compromise was reached with lawmakers that included elements of the CCPA into a bill more aligned with Cuomo’s related bill, with the new law known as the Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act. The legislation that was passed has New York transitioning to 70 percent renewable energy by 2030 and 85 percent greenhouse gas emissions reductions by 2050.

Part of the reason for Cuomo’s opposition related to the redistribution of funding to communities most vulnerable to climate change and hurt by pollution. The agreed-upon bill has between 35 and 40 percent of the funds allocated by transition requirements going to impacted communities. It also creates wage and labor standards for state-supported green jobs.

>”Green Light”
Undocumented immigrants now have access to driver’s licenses in the state with passage of the Driver’s License Access and Privacy Act (known as “Green Light NY” as termed by supporters). This legislation was a priority for many progressive organizations, and it repeals a 20-year-ban enacted after the terror attacks of September 11, 2001 on undocumented immigrants obtaining driver’s licenses.

>Farmworkers’ Rights
Another of several major pieces of legislative to move in the final week of the session, the legislature also passed the Farm Laborers Fair Labor Practices Act. The legislation is aimed at addressing the standards of working conditions for farm workers across New York. It grants collective bargaining rights, workers’ compensation, unemployment benefits to farm laborers, as well as bringing them in line with other workers in terms of mandatory overtime and time off, where they had been carved out of labor law decades ago.

“We are correcting a historic injustice, a remnant of Jim Crow era laws, to affirm that those farmworkers must be granted rights just as any other worker in New York,” Senator Jessica Ramos, a Democrat and the bill’s sponsor, said in a statement.

Some lawmakers and farm owners who would be affected by the bill were opposed to it, saying that the legislation disregarded the interests of Upstate New Yorkers.

“The new One Party Rule continued to steamroll over Upstate interests, this time targeting our farmers,” Republican Senator Fred Akshar said in a statement.

>Sexual Harassment and Rape Law Udpates
The Legislature moved and Governor Cuomo supported significant changes to the state’s sexual harassment and rape laws, lowering what was called an exceedingly high bar to proving sexual harassment in the workplace and extending the statue of limitations on rape in the second and third degrees from five to at least 10 years, with specifications at times allowing more than that.

"Sexual abuse is a far too widespread and pervasive stain on our society, and the five-year statutes of limitations for rape in the second and third degrees has been an abject dereliction ofjustice,” Cuomo said in a June 19 statement. “By providing victims more time to bring claims in court, we are honoring those who suffered pain, endured humiliation, and had the courage to come forward.”

>E-scooters and E-bikes
The legislature also passed a bill to legalize e-scooters and e-bikes, but would allow localities to determine implementation and regulation. But unlike most other high-profile measures passed by the Legislature, this bill does not necessarily have Cuomo’s blessing.

“That's a bill that's going to I think need more review and discussion,” Cuomo said in his end of session news conference when asked if he’d sign it.

Not Passed
The most high-profile measure not to pass this year despite widespread expressions of support for it from Democratic leaders is the legalization of adult-use marijuana. It was a priority for many Democratic legislators and activists, and was listed on the governor’s early 2019 agenda and top ten end-of-session priorities when he put forth that list after the budget.

The Marijuana Regulation and Taxation Act, which would have legalized marijuana use for people at least 21 years of age, came close to passing but ran out of time, according to its lead sponsor in the Senate, Senator Liz Krueger, a Democrat.

"It is clear now that MRTA is not going to pass this session,” Krueger said in a statement just before the end of session. “This is not the end of the road, it is only a delay. Unfortunately, that delay means countless more New Yorkers will have their lives up-ended by unnecessary and racially disparate enforcement measures before we inevitably legalize.”

Although the MRTA didn’t pass, lawmakers did pass legislation to decriminalize small amounts of marijuana and establish procedures for record expungements for past and future convictions. Cuomo said marijuana legalization efforts should have been included in the budget, as he initially recommended, but indicated he would sign the decriminalization measures.

Lawmakers also failed to pass the Human Alternatives to Long-Term Solitary Confinement (HALT) Act, which according to the bill “limit[s] the amount of time an inmate can spend in segregated confinement, end the segregated confinement of vulnerable people, restrict the criteria that can result in such confinement, improve conditions of confinement, and create more human and effective alternatives to such confinement.”

The governor, Stewart-Cousins, and Heastie did, however, form a joint agreement on addressing some of the goals of the legislation administratively, to be executed by Cuomo’s administration in the prisons.

"While we are disappointed that HALT legislation could not be passed this year, we have reached an agreement to dramatically reduce the use of solitary confinement in correctional facilities,” reads a joint statement released by the three parties. “These new steps build on this year's landmark reforms and will further help to correct inequities and end inhumane practices in our criminal justice system.”

Lawmakers were also unable to pass bills on automatic voter registration (though legislative leaders promised to move it in 2020), the legalization of paid surrogacy, and an expansion of the prevailing wage requirement for building projects that receive state subsidies. And though it was much-discussed in last year's elections, the New York Health Act to institute single-payer health care in the state did not come to a vote.

What the Session Means
This session marked the first time in about a decade that Democrats have been the majority party in both houses of the Legislature, and the first time in well beyond that where they had a functional majority in both houses. For party members and progressive activists, this session proved that the party is capable of accomplishing big things.

“We demonstrated beyond a shadow of a doubt that not only we can govern, but we can govern like gangbusters,” Democratic Senator Gustavo Rivera said, with reference to the questions facing the Senate Democrats as they took power with remnants of 2009-2010 dysfunction and chaos hanging over them.

The session included a good deal of infighting between Cuomo and legislators, especially in the Senate, with Cuomo repeatedly questioning the Senate’s ability to find consensus, focus on policy over politics, and move controversial legislation -- most of which was proven unfounded in the end, Rivera and others note.

“Across the board, I think we've had an incredibly successful year, which I put right at the feet of our leader,” said Rivera, who has repeatedly criticized Cuomo on multiple fronts, in part in defense of Stewart-Cousins. “And she has been very ably dealing with all the difficulties like of us figuring out how to be a majority conference which has its own idiosyncrasies, and the fact that we have been fighting somebody downstairs on the second floor [where the governor’s offices are], who would not like us to be successful, everything that we've been able to achieve has not been because of the governor, it's been in spite of him.”

Republican Assembly Minority Leader Brian Kolb disagreed on the session’s successes and called it a six-month parade of irresponsible progressivism.

“One-party rule in Albany is an unmitigated disaster,” Kolb said in an end-of-session statement. “The best part about the 2019 Legislative Session is that for now, the damage is over. What we saw during the last six months was unchecked liberal extremism too eager to show what could be done, without giving any consideration to what should be done.”

The results of what Democrats passed are yet to be seen: much of the legislation doesn’t go into effect right away, and even after it does, only time will tell.

“We still have a long laundry list of things that we need to pass, because our communities have been under resourced and over criminalized for so long that we have to undo those harms,” Javier Valdes, co-executive director of Make the Road New York, an immigrant advocacy organization, told Gotham Gazette. “So this is a long term process. But the thing this session has shown us that we're building momentum, even better things to come.”

And there’s another session before the next state legislative elections in 2020, when the entirety of both chambers will again be on the ballot.

“All of those things speak to the energy that's got us here, and that's the same energy is going to carry us next year,” Rivera said of Democrats’ long list of 2019 achievements and the 2020 elections.

Ben Max contributed to this story.

Gov. Cuomo (photo: Kevin P. Coughlin/Governor's Office)

Governor Andrew Cuomo celebrated the achievements of 2019 on Friday, calling the legislative session an “overwhelming success” at a wrap-up news conference in the Capitol. During the January to June session, Cuomo and the state Legislature, with its two Democratic majorities for the first time in a decade, moved legislation dealing with a long list of issues, from combating climate change to expanding voting and reproductive rights, new gun regulations to a cap on annual property tax increases, and much much more.

However, while Cuomo did achieve most of what he outlined for 2019 in speeches delivered late last year and early this year, he said on Friday that three big issues remained unresolved: the Legislature did not pass bills to legalize adult-use marijuana or paid gestational surrogacy, nor to expand prevailing wage requirements that govern how union workers are paid on projects that receive public dollars.

When asked about what did not get done and would thus form the basis for his 2020 agenda, Cuomo first joked about the question and said that almost everything he wanted to get done was achieved -- “Are you kidding me?” the governor half-joked, “you want to go through what we didn’t do?”

“We did 99.9%,” Cuomo said. “It was an overwhelming success.” With a smile, he held up a glass about half-filled with water and said that, usually, that’s representative of a session and it can be debated whether it is half-full or half-empty. He then filled the glass almost to the top, to represent his view of the session’s success rate based on the goals.

“What didn’t get done?,” Cuomo continued, getting serious, “I’m disappointed that surrogacy did not get done, and I will continue to fight for that. Legalization of marijuana. Prevailing wage. Those are really the issues that did not get done, and I will revisit all of them next year.”

While he identified those three issues, there were several other items he hoped to accomplish -- like raising the cap on charter schools in New York City -- also left off the final, very lengthy tally of what did get done.

A look at the three issues Cuomo named to set the table for the future:

Marijuana
After calling it a “gateway drug” not long ago, Cuomo began moving on marijuana legalization in 2018 and indicated support for its legalization during his successful campaign for a third term, though he didn’t run on the issue. He then introduced adult-use legalization in his beginning-of-the-year budget proposal, but said that the two houses of the Legislature did not have the “political support” to pass the budget with marijuana legalization as the April 1 deal came together.

Legalization efforts continued in fits and starts, with some sniping between lawmakers and the governor, but ultimately the votes were not there in the Senate, there wasn’t significant momentum in the Assembly, and Cuomo did not appear to make a big push for a policy he had called particularly important as both a social justice issue and revenue-raiser for the state.

“It was clear they didn’t have the votes for legalization, then we went to decriminalization,” Cuomo said at the Friday press conference looking back on the session.

A decriminalization deal was reached in the final days of the session, creating a system of fines for possession of “small amounts” of marijuana, “reducing the penalty for unlawful possession of marijuana to a violation,” according to a press release from the Senate Democratic majority. It removes criminal penalties for possession of under two ounces of marijuana, and adds a penalty of $50 for possession under one ounce and $200 for between one and two ounces.

It also creates a program to automatically expunge past and future convictions. And, it adds “marijuana to the definition of “smoking” under the Public Health Law so that smoking marijuana will be prohibited in any circumstances where smoking tobacco is prohibited by law.”

“This monumental legislation will decriminalize small amounts of marijuana and establish procedures for record expungements for both past and future convictions,” according to a press release from the Senate Democratic majority.

Cuomo has pushed for marijuana reform since 2012. In that time, he has twice proposed legislation to categorize possession of small amounts of marijuana as a violation rather than a misdemeanor. The legislature did not pass either proposal. In 2014, Cuomo and the Legislature made medical marijuana legal across the state.

In 2018, Cuomo began pushing for marijuana legalization. He ordered a Department of Health study on regulated marijauna legislation, which determined that legalization of recreational use would have positive ramifications across the board, including reducing racial disparities in criminalization and incarceration rates. The report found that there have been more than 800,000 arrests for possession of small amounts of cannabis in New York, with the majority of those arrested people of color.

Surrogacy
The Legislature also failed to pass a bill legalizing paid gestational surrogacy. The bill would have allowed gay or infertile couples to contract with a woman to serve as a surrogate.

Paid gestational surrogacy is legal in 47 states, but not New York, where it was banned under Governor Mario Cuomo in 1992. Current state laws also fail to define who the legal parents are when a child is conceived with a gestational surrogate.

“Before the end of the legislative session, we need to fix these two violations that are repugnant to what we believe and who we are and an injustice to the LGBTQ community,” Cuomo said in May, speaking on gestational surrogacy and the ‘gay and trans panic defense’ that was ultimately banned before the end of session.

Cuomo called legalizing surrogacy the next logical step after he helped pass marriage equality in the state in 2011, allowing LGBT couples to marry and to have children through a surrogate if they so choose. But, there were significant concerns from some lawmakers, especially in the Assembly, about protections for potential surrogates and the notion that surrogacy can be viewed as taking advantage of women from lower socioeconomic backgrounds.

Cuomo and others disputed those concerns, touting the legal protections for surrogates in the proposed legislation and pointing to the idea of letting women decided what to do with their bodies, but his advocacy did not prevail.

Prevailing Wage
Discussing the prevailing wage bill before the end of the legislative session, Cuomo decried the Democrat-controlled state Assembly, claiming its members didn’t want the bill to pass.

“The Assembly does not want to pass because it has no immediate effect on New York City,” Cuomo said Thursday on WAMC radio’s The Roundtable, referring to the fact that an updated prevailing wage bill had carved New York City building projects out, giving in to a call from real estate industry leaders and some affordable housing developers who said that an expanded prevailing wage could really hurt housing production.

The prevailing wage is a state-set wage that says if a project gets government subsidies and support, then its developers must pay workers a wage set by the state. It is primarily applicable to construction projects, and is especially prevalent in New York City, where construction abounds. Cuomo has been especially close to the building trades union, though he also has close ties to the real estate industry.

Cuomo’s favored bill would have changed the prevailing wage on Long Island and upstate, but not in New York City. “And the Assembly then basically said why should we pass it, you don't have any interest if it does anything immediate in New York City that's it,” Cuomo said on WAMC Thursday. The bill at hand at the end of the session would have mandated a study on New York City to potentially expand the wage there in the future.

Cuomo promised to return to each of the issues next year.

“I’m going to get on with the other part of my job, which is actually doing things,” Cuomo said at the press conference. “This has probably been the most successful legislative session,” he said.

(photo: Demetrius Freeman/Mayor's Office)

“In some ways, we are all victims of corruption,” Huguette Labelle told attendees of the Global Cities III conference Thursday morning, giving opening remarks at the two-day event organized by Columbia University’s Center for the Advancement of Public Integrity. The event brings together leaders and ethics officials from major cities across the world, including New York City and Barcelona.

Labelle was the board chair of Transparency International, a non-governmental organization with the mission of combating global corruption with chapters in over 100 countries. She delivered the keynote address Thursday in Manhattan, making a direct connection between corruption and a lower quality of life for citizens. Corruption, Labelle said, “manifests itself with poverty around the world and a lack of essential servings, creating a barrier for justice to take place and regulations to be implemented.”

More directly, she declared “corruption is a crime against humanity that has many faces.” Labelle’s speech and the ensuing panel discussion, which featured Carolyn Miller of the New York City Conflicts of Interest Board, considered several contemporary problems and best practices for public integrity.

A recurring theme, brought up by Labelle and other speakers, was the need for transparency in governmental contracts with private businesses. Transparency can be beneficial for both good government purposes, but also for the businesses that seek these contracts. She told the audience, “businesses are victims [of corruption], too.” One proposal that she said worked well in other countries was “getting businesses to publish what they pay” as part of winning government contracts.

She used an example of a Norwegian company doing business in an African country. A governmental official asked the company for a bribe to ensure that they were awarded the contract. When the company informed the official that Norwegian law would require them to publicize this as part of their transparency law, “that was the end of discussion” regarding the bribe.

Corruption in the process for awarding contracts for infrastructure projects can cost taxpayers up to 50% more than what the project would normally. “This means that the quality of the infrastructure is not what’s required,” Labelle said, which will lead to infrastructure lasting for shorter periods of time and requiring frequent costly repairs.”

In the ensuing panel discussion entitled “Effective Ethics Systems for Local and National Governments and Intergovernmental Organizations,” four integrity officials from New York City, the United Nations, Barcelona, and Cape Town discussed what they do well and what challenges they face in the positions.

Gemma Clavert, the director of the Transparency Agency of the Metropolitan Area of Barcelona, said that while her agency is officially independent of the government, “really it’s not correct” because her agency’s budget is set by the officials she is tasked with holding accountable.

“In order to be effective, we need autonomy,” Calvert said, adding that independence is impossible “if you depend on another service the bigger structure.”

New York City’s 2019 Charter Revision Commission recently put forward a proposal for independent budgeting for the Public Advocate and the Borough Presidents, elected officials who are supposed to at least in part act as checks on the mayoral administration, which largely determines the city budget. There has also been discussion about the need for the city’s Conflict of Interest Board (COIB) to have independent budgeting. COIB currently relies on the Mayor and City Council, whom the board is tasked with overseeing, for its funding.

COIB monitors potential conflicts of interest and enforces the ethics code for New York City’s over 325,000-person workforce, from the Mayor to City Council to Department of Sanitation workers, teachers, and beyond.

Miller, COIB’s executive director, said, “it’s a challenge to reach so many people,” for training and educating city employees about potential conflicts of interest. Noting the wide variety of jobs in city government, one of Miller’s biggest challenges is “getting humans in a room.” She pointed to teachers and sanitation workers as two professions where schedules and work conditions do not allow them to take time out of their day for a training on conflicts of interest.

Elia Armstrong, the director of the U.N. Secretariat’s Ethics Offices, said that her office recently saw a spike in the volume of sexual harassment reports it received after it conducted a series of training sessions on the issue. She said this is emblematic of a trend where reports for a particular issue area often spike in the aftermath of her office providing training on that issue.

“One of the things we’re most proud of,” Miller said, was the promptness with which COIB responds to requests for ethics advice. She brought up the board’s attorney-of-the-day hotline, where the public can receive legally-binding conflict-of-interest advice from a staff attorney. The board receives 400-500 requests for advice per month, through phone calls and emails, and most of those are answered within the same day, Miller said.

Armstrong noted how important that is because officials often wait until the last minute to seek counsel on potential conflicts. She said many U.N. officials, for example, wait until the day before a speaking engagement to check with the ethics office to see if there may be a conflict of interest, putting her office in a difficult position.

Miller also spoke about the need for confidentiality when giving advice to public officials. It is necessary for officials to have a “safe space,” where they feel that they can go to seek ethical advice, or the system would not work. “The only way people feel they can be transparent is confidentiality,” Miller said.

“There’s the political world to deal with” when fighting corruption, noted Marianne Camerer, the director of the Building Bridges Program at the University of Cape Town’s Nelson Mandela School of Public Governance. For example, she said, the Mayor of Durban, South Africa, Zandile Gumede was suspended from office over corruption charges relating to a waste management contract. Her supporters then marched, demanding that she be reinstated.

Comparing that case with New York City, Miller said “the kinds of desperate ethical issues we deal with are city employees wanting to take free tickets” for baseball games. Instead of marches in the streets, COIB faces “the righteous indignation of someone who can’t take free Yankees tickets.”

When asked by the moderator about New York City being a “one-party town,” Miller said that “even though New York City is mostly Democrat, there are only so many positions” and “ethics can become political” when politicians seek to distinguish themselves from the competition, so confidentiality is important, because COIB does not want to influence the political process.

Miller also noted some emerging trends in the types of conflicts-of-interests cases her office reviews. Social media use, second jobs, and political speech rank among the top issues that COIB currently contends with.

With the rise of ride-hail apps and similar services, many city employees seek out permissions from COIB to work part-time as Uber or Lyft drivers, for example, as a means of earning a supplemental income.

Additionally, city employees are prohibited from using their offices for political purposes. This means that they should not be promoting political causes from their official social media accounts.

A question Miller said that the board often faces is “what is political and what is policy?” She gave an example of a public official speaking out against the federal government’s immigration policy as an example of a gray area for this rule. Just in the last several days, two City Council members requested that COIB investigate Department of Education officials’ involvement in a press conference in support of Schools Chancellor Richard Carranza organized by the City Council’s Black, Latino and Asian Caucus (BLAC).

COIB will have to decide if DOE officials were supporting Carranza’s policy or engaging in political activity, although the investigation request itself has been seen as political. As Camerer noted at Global Cities, “there’s a whole politics to this” and all four panelists noted that integrity investigations can be difficult when they overlap with political battles.

Frequently, throughout their panel discussion, the four integrity officials commented that they would seek to incorporate ideas that their peers on the panel had discussed. Armstrong expressed admiration for COIB’s attorney of the day hotline and fast response time to advice requests, saying that she would like to implement both at the United Nations.

In her opening remarks, Labelle told the audience that there are many current challenges to public integrity, from the “shrinking space of civil society and the media” to the withdrawal in “commitments to international treaties” to “A.I. and big data becoming both part of the solution, but also a facilitator of all types of corruption.”

She said “the rule of law remains a top priority,” but said that “the other part is enforcement.” It is not simply enough to have strong anti-corruption laws on the books, but those laws must be properly enforced to be effective, she said.

In discussing the myriad of problems that currently threaten public integrity, all of the speakers appeared to agree on a common theme, expressed by Camerer, that “ethics needs to come back on the agenda.”