New York City Hall

What to watch for this week in New York politics:

This week looks like it will be dominated by several storylines:

-Controversy over comments made by City Council Member Reverend Ruben Diaz, Sr. that the City Council is "controlled by the homosexual community," as reported by NY1's Juan Manual Benitez. Diaz Sr.'s comments, the latest in a long line of controversial and bigoted statements, have been met with condemnation by many, and calls to resign from some, including many of his Council colleagues. City Council Speaker Corey Johnson -- who sought Diaz Sr.'s support for his speakership bid and rewarded him with the creation of a new committee for him to chair -- said Sunday that the Council is looking into its options for consequences for Diaz Sr., who said he has no plans to resign and refused to apologize for his comments.

-Monday will see Mayor Bill de Blasio and other local officials testify at a legislative budget hearing in Albany. It is de Blasio's yearly trip to the capital to discuss the governor's executive budget plan, the city's top state government priorities and funding needs, and to take questions from legislators.

-Wednesday will see a joint legislative hearing on sexual harassment in New York, both the public and private sectors. The hearing will also include discussion of how to improve upon the anti-sexual harassment laws passed last year without public hearings. Victims and alleged victims of harassment are expected to testify, including about how sexual misconduct has been part of a culture in state government in Albany and the systemic failures to address it that persisted for a long time, and may still have remnants even as awareness has been heightened and new laws have been passed.

-Tuesday will mark just two weeks until the February 26 special election for Public Advocate. Candidates are raising money, getting their messages out, working to secure endorsements, and trying to make sure they qualify for the second televised debate, which will be on NY1 on February 20.

It will also be a very busy week of hearings at the City Council, including a Stated Meeting of the full Council, at which new bills are introduced and those that have passed committee are voted on by the full body. That's not it, though. As always, there are a variety of events to be aware of - see our day-by-day rundown below.

***Do you have events or topics for us to include in an upcoming Week Ahead in New York Politics?
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The run of the week in detail:

Monday
The New York State Legislature will be in session on Monday.

At 10:30 a.m. Monday, State Senator James Sanders will hold a press at the State Capitol to discuss new legislation for a “Green New Deal for New York.” [Read about Sanders’ proposal here: State Senate Bill Would Advance Framework for More Aggressive Green New Deal in New York]

Also at 10:30 a.m. Monday in Albany, “dozens of Mayors and village officials from across New York State” will hold a press conference “to call on Governor Andrew Cuomo to restore over $60 million in funding to municipal governments across the State,” according to a press release from Village of Freeport Mayor Robert T. Kennedy.

At 11 a.m. Monday, the State Legislature will hold a joint budget hearing on “local government officials/general government.” Mayor Bill de Blasio will be the first to testify at the hearing. After the mayor, Comptroller Scott Stringer and City Council Speaker Corey Johnson will each testify, as will leaders from other cities around the state.

The New York State Board of Regents will meet on Monday and Tuesday in Albany.

At the City Council on Monday:
--The Committee on Justice System will meet at 10 a.m. for an oversight hearing regarding Multi-Agency Response to Community Hotspots (MARCH), as well as to discuss a proposed law requiring the Mayor’s Office of Criminal Justice to issue quarterly reports on MARCH.
--The Committee on Housing and Buildings will meet at 10 a.m. to discuss proposed laws requiring landlords to take steps to eradicate “indoor asthma allergen hazards” and to establish a “demonstration program” for legal basement apartments in East New York.
--The Committee on Environmental Protection will meet at 10 a.m. for an oversight hearing regarding “the Astoria transformer explosion and the transition to a green grid,” as well as to discuss a proposed law requiring the Mayor’s Office of Sustainability to study and issue a report on the feasibility of replacing gas power plants with renewables.
--The Committee on Civil Service and Labor will meet at noon to discuss the DCAS provisional employee reduction plan.
--The Committee on Immigration will meet at 1 p.m. for an oversight hearing regarding IDNYC.
--The Subcommittee on Planning, Dispositions, and Concessions will meet at 1 p.m.

At 1:15 p.m. Monday, Assemblymember Harvey Epstein, CUNY Interim Vice Chancellor Christopher Rosa, other elected officials, and student leaders will rally at the State Capitol to demand greater funding for students with disabilities in New York colleges.

At 5 p.m. Monday, there will be a meeting of the Queens Borough Board, chaired by Borough President Melinda Katz.

Tuesday
The New York State Legislature will be in session on Tuesday.

At 1 p.m. Tuesday, the Senate Standing Committee on Environmental Conservation will meet in Albany for a public hearing to discuss the Climate and Community Protection Act.

On Tuesday, the State Legislature will hold joint budget hearings on:
--Economic development at 9:30 a.m.
--Taxes at 1 p.m.

At the City Council on Tuesday:
--The Committee on Finance and Subcommittee on the Capital Budget will meet jointly at 10 a.m. to discuss proposed laws requiring city agencies to electronically notify elected officials and community board members of delays in capital projects and requiring the city to create a publicly searchable database on all pending capital projects.
--The Committees on Juvenile Justice and Youth Services will meet jointly at 1 p.m. for an oversight hearing regarding “runaway and homeless youth (RHY) and the juvenile justice system.”
--The Committee on Technology will meet at 1:30 p.m. for an oversight hearing regarding the “Commission on Public Information and Communication’s collaboration in developing city information policies and promoting governmental transparency.”

At 9 a.m. Tuesday, the New York City Board of Correction will hold a public meeting at 125 Worth Street.

At noon Tuesday, Council Member Brad Lander, Families for Safe Streets, TransAlt, and the Red Hook Community Justice Center will rally at the City Hall steps to demand passage of the Reckless Driver Accountability Act.

Starting at 2 p.m. Tuesday, faculty unions and student activists from SUNY and CUNY will hold a lobbying day in Albany to press lawmakers for full funding of public higher education.

Wednesday
The City Council will hold a stated meeting at 1:30 p.m. Wednesday. It will be prefaced by City Council Speaker Corey Johnson’s pre-stated press conference.

Also at the City Council on Wednesday: the Committee on Immigration will meet at 10 a.m. to discuss a resolution calling on the State Legislature to pass a law allowing undocumented immigrants to obtain driver’s licenses.

At 10 a.m. Wednesday, the Senate Standing Committees on Investigations, Ethics, and Women’s Issues, the Assembly Standing Committees on Governmental Operations and Labor, and the Task Force on Women’s Issues will hold a public hearing in Albany to discuss sexual harassment in the workplace.

At 10 a.m. Wednesday, the City Planning Commission will hold a public meeting at 120 Broadway.

At 4 p.m. Wednesday, the Civilian Complaint Review Board will hold a board meeting.

Thursday
At the City Council on Thursday:
--The Subcommittee on Zoning and Franchises will meet at 9:30 a.m.
--The Committees on General Welfare and Higher Education will meet jointly at 10 a.m. for an oversight hearing regarding “food insecurity in New York City.”
--The Committee on Consumer Affairs will meet at 1 p.m. to discuss proposed laws prohibiting and establishing penalties for cashless businesses, and requiring cash-only businesses to post signage indicating that they only accept cash.

At 10 a.m. Thursday, the New York City Campaign Finance Board will hold a board meeting at 100 Church Street.

At 10:30 a.m. Thursday, the Senate Standing Committee on Environmental Conservation will meet at 250 Broadway in Manhattan for a public hearing to discuss the Climate and Community Protection Act.

At 6 p.m. Thursday, Mayor de Blasio will join CNN commentator Symone Sanders for a discussion at Harvard’s Institute of Politics.

Friday and the weekend
At 10 a.m. Friday, the Senate Standing Committee on Environmental Conservation will meet at the Nassau County Legislature in Mineola for a public hearing to discuss the Climate and Community Protection Act.

Mayor de Blasio may make his weekly appearance on WNYC’s The Brian Lehrer Show at 10 a.m. Friday.

At 1 p.m. Saturday, U.S. Rep Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez will deliver her inaugural address at Herbert H. Lehman High School in the Bronx.

***
Have events or topics for us to include in an upcoming Week Ahead in New York Politics? E-mail Gotham Gazette executive editor Ben Max any time: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. (please use "For Week Ahead" as email subject).

***
by Ben Brachfeld and Ben Max
@GothamGazette

A New York Renews rally at the state Capitol (photo: @NYRenews)

As Congressional Democrats pursue efforts to pass a Green New Deal at the federal level and Governor Andrew Cuomo has outlined his own version for New York, Queens State Senator James Sanders has proposed a pathway to implementing a more ambitious climate and green jobs agenda.

Proponents of the Green New Deal aim to eliminate the country’s reliance on fossil fuels and transition to 100 percent clean energy, creating thousands of infrastructure and renewable energy jobs in the process and in a way that prioritizes fairness for those communities most adversely impacted by harmful environmental policies. It’s been championed in the past by members of the Green Party, and recently by U.S. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, the rising Democratic star who represents Queens and the Bronx and is gearing up with Massachusetts Senator Ed Markey to introduce a non-binding resolution on the Green New Deal this week, details of which have begun to emerge.

Just as newly re-empowered House Democrats created a “Select Committee on the Climate Crisis” -- though without a mandate to look at the Green New Deal -- the New York State Senate could soon follow suit. State Senator Sanders’ bill would mandate the creation of a Green New Deal task force charged with crafting a “detailed statewide, industrial, economic mobilization plan” for New York to take the state to zero carbon emissions by 2030, a goal more ambitious than those recently proposed by Cuomo and by advocates and legislators backing a separate bill, the Climate and Community Protection Act (CCPA), which has languished in the state Legislature for years despite repeated passage by the state Assembly. The CCPA is part of Sanders’ vision for a New York Green New Deal. The 18-member task force his bill would empanel would have until the end of the year to send its report and draft legislation to the state Legislature and governor.

Cuomo, who has used executive action to mandate carbon emission reductions by 2050,  recently announced support for a Green New Deal as well but his “Climate Leadership Act” proposal stops short of others. In his executive budget proposal, presented at his State of the State address in January, he advanced legislation that would make the state’s electricity sector carbon-free by 2040. He also proposed a Climate Action Council to look at measures to reduce the state’s carbon footprint overall.

The CCPA, on the other hand, would aim to make the entire state economy carbon-free by 2050, not just the electricity sector. It also establishes a Climate Action Council, similar to Cuomo’s proposal but with a different, more democratic structure. The bill is sponsored by State Senator Todd Kaminsky and Assemblymember Steve Englebright, both Democrats. It was passed by the Assembly’s Environmental Conservation Committee, chaired by Englebright, on Tuesday and Kaminsky is holding a series of hearings on it next week. It also has the backing of New York Renews, a coalition of more than 160 organizations across the state that have been advocating for it for the last three years.

There are also two other legislative proposals with similar goals as the CCPA -- the Climate and Community Investment Act, which would enact a carbon tax to fund the transition towards renewable energy, and the Off Fossil Fuels Act, which would establish a 100 percent clean energy system by 2030, among other measures, on a faster timeline than the CCPA.  

An official in Sanders’ office said that his task force proposal was modelled on Ocasio-Cortez’s effort to push for a House select committee, in an attempt to advance the conversation on the Green New Deal. Sanders has also co-sponsored the CCPA in the past and intends to support it this year as well. His new proposal, the official noted, mandates the shortest timeline and is the most progressive of the proposals.

Its supporters include the New York State Council of Churches, 350 NYC, Bronx Climate Justice North, The Climate Mobilization, North Bronx Racial Justice, Food and Water Watch, and prominent environmental scientists such as Stanford University Professor Mark Jacobson, Paul Hawken and Peter Kalmus, among others, the official said. The senator plans to rally for the proposal in the capital on Monday.

Mark Dunlea, co-founder of the Green Party in New York, said Sanders’ proposal would “go much further” than the CCPA with its longer timeline and would be much stronger than any proposal put forth by the governor. “I think [Governor Cuomo’s] concept of the Green New Deal is a branded slogan,” he said. “He can latch on to the Green New Deal as an economic stimulus program, which is good, but Sanders is going further than that, which is even better.”

But other environmental advocates want to see action immediately, rather than wait for a year from now after the task force would report. “The CCPA is still the most ambitious climate legislation out there...I don’t think that there needs to be any other interim step, this bill is the first step,” said Annel Hernandez, associate director at the New York City Environmental Justice Alliance, which is a part of New York Renews.

Hernandez pointed out that the CCPA also includes a guarantee that 40 percent of funds raised from new energy and climate regulations are directed to disadvantaged communities dealing with the effects of climate change. “[A]nything that is proposed by New York State has to be abiding by the principles of a just transition,” she said. “It means that those who are on the front lines of the climate crisis, of dealing with environmental burdens in their communities, have to be a part and leading the solution to the renewable, regenerative economy.”

A spokesperson for the governor did not have comment on Sanders’ proposal (Cuomo’s office rarely provides comment on pending bills) but did note the overlap between the Climate Leadership Act and the CCPA, which are bound to be issues negotiated with the Legislature as the legislative session proceeds, up to and after a budget deal is reached by April 1. The spokesperson speculated that the CCPA will likely not be approved in its current form, and may go through amendments following the Kaminsky-led hearings, after which a version of the bill acceptable to both lawmakers and the governor could come to pass.

Note - This article has been updated to clarify the provisions of the Off Fossil Fuels Act. 

Ben Max, left, of Gotham Gazette, and Jarrett Murphy, right, of City Limits

February 7, 2019 - Max & Murphy Podcast: State Senator Alessandra Biaggi

Alessandra Biaggi shocked the New York political world when she defeated then-State Senator Jeff Klein in last September's primary. After hitting the ground running upon taking office in January, State Senator Biaggi joined the show to discuss the work that has been done so far under unified Democratic governance at the state level and what's coming up next, including her work as the new chair of the Senate's ethics committee and where things may get choppy with regard to negotiations with Governor Andrew Cuomo.

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)

Throughout his tenure, Governor Andrew Cuomo has been a strong advocate for charter schools as part of his broader education policy, even as many of his fellow Democrats are far less friendly toward, if not opposed to, the privately-run, publicly-funded schools. Cuomo has repeatedly supported and helped orchestrate a raising of the cap on the number of charter schools allowed in New York, both across the state, and the sub-cap for New York City, where the vast majority of charters exist.

Now, as that sub-cap on charter schools in the city is about to reach its limit with a new round of approvals in March, there is virtually no talk in Albany, from Cuomo or legislators, about raising or doing away with the sub-cap, either of which would allow more charters to open in the five boroughs. Though he has recently reiterated his support for charter schools when asked by reporters, Cuomo did not mention charter schools or the cap in his January State of the State address or the lengthy accompanying policy book, nor in his Executive Budget for Fiscal Year 2020.

During his first eight years as governor, Cuomo has had fellow charter school supporters leading the state Senate, where Republicans held the majority, at times with the help of charter-friendly breakaway Democrats in the Independent Democratic Conference (IDC). The Democrat-dominated Assembly has been unfriendly toward charter schools and closely aligned with teachers unions that oppose them -- most charters are not unionized. But now, both the Republican Senate majority and the IDC are gone. While there are charter-supporting legislators in both houses, including some Democrats and Republicans, Cuomo now faces more of the individual responsibility to advocate for charter-helpful policies in Albany.

While his policy book and budget do not include anything on the charter cap, that does not mean Cuomo won’t push for changes that would allow more charters to open in New York City. A new state budget is due by April 1, and though the city sub-cap will be hit by then, it would be just a short delay if Cuomo orchestrates a cap change in the budget, where many deals are known to come together in Albany.

The governor’s recently-outlined plans do include a 3.5% increase in total per pupil funding for New York City charter schools, but this was the only time charter schools were mentioned in the State of the State book or Executive Budget.

New York State has a cap on the number of charter schools that can be approved by the two authorizing authorities, but there is a special sub-cap for the number of charters, which allow a group to start a new charter school, that can be issued for New York City. There are currently 236 charter schools in New York City educating 123,000 students, according to the New York City Charter School Center.

There are now seven remaining charters left under the New York City sub-cap, while there are 99 charters left for the rest of the state. There are currently 18 applicants for charters in New York City that have made it through the initial application process and a meeting of the SUNY Board’s charter schools committee, one of two authorizers, is set for March.

This would be the first time that the board has to decide not just whether an applicant meets its standards, but also which of the 18 applicants should get the seven remaining charters. Assuming that more than eight applicants meet the standards, this would mean that some potentially satisfactory applicants would not receive charters.

Charter school advocates, such as those at the New York City Charter School Center, believe this is a worst possible scenario. The Center has called for the charter school cap to be eliminated altogether or at least raised to allow for new charters to be issued. Another proposal would be to end the sub-cap so that there would no longer be a distinction between charters issued for New York City and the rest of the state. This could mean dozens of new charters in the city as opposed to the final seven under the current sub-cap (in theory, all 107 statewide slots could go to charters for the city).

In a statement, James Merriman, the CEO of the New York City Charter School Center, said the “arbitrary charter cap for New York City” should be raised. He called the current situation “the definition of a crisis” and that “we are running out of charters at a time when charter schools are making remarkable progress in closing the achievement gap for some of the most vulnerable children in New York City.” Merriman called on state lawmakers “to forgo special interests and ensure all families have the opportunity to access high quality public school.”

No proposal to change the cap is currently on the agenda of the state Legislature, which has been moving a host of progressive legislation long-stalled in the Republican-controlled Senate. Gotham Gazette sent multiple requests for comment about the charter school cap to spokespeople for Cuomo, Senate Majority Leader Andrea Stewart-Cousins, and Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie; none of them were returned.

The politics around charter schools has shifted in New York over the last year or two, but especially since the November 2018 elections. While Cuomo, an outspoken advocate for charter schools, won a third term as governor, pro-charter school legislators lost a variety of races, including several in New York City, both in Democratic primaries and the general election. Republicans and members of the Independent Democratic Conference lost a large number of races, though charter schools were rarely central issues in those elections. Advocates for charter schools, of both parties and in both houses of the state Legislature, currently do not hold enough power to extract charter school expansion as a concession in larger policy negotiations, but like with many issues, the fate of the charter school cap may rest in Cuomo’s powerful hands.

Lifting of the charter cap last happened in 2017, when a deal was struck for a two-year extension of mayoral control of New York City schools that also included a provision that would allow 22 revoked or surrendered charters to be reissued. Now, only seven of those “zombie” charters remain.

Note: this article has been changed to cite seven available charters in New York City, not eight, as dicated by a spokesperson for the state education department; though there has been conflicting information put forward by several entities involved about whether there are seven or eight charters available under the city sub-cap.

New York City Hall

What to watch for this week in New York politics:

This week the state Legislature will continue its very busy start to the year, including more budget hearings, while Governor Andrew Cuomo will give a speech in Manhattan on Thursday.

The main event of the week might be the first debate in the special election for Public Advocate, which will take place among 10 candidates on Wednesday night (there are 17 candidateson the Feb. 26 ballot). Tuesday will mark just three weeks until the vote; the second debate will be on Feb. 20.

There are several interesting hearings at the City Council this week, but perhaps most notable is the Thursday oversight hearing on police discipline, which comes just after the NYPD received and responded to an independent report commissioned by Commissioner James O'Neill that found the police department's approach to discipline is secretive and inconsistent. O'Neill promised some reforms, while also reiterating support for a state law change that would allow more transparency around officer discipline.

There's a lot to be aware of - see our day-by-day rundown below.

***Do you have events or topics for us to include in an upcoming Week Ahead in New York Politics?
e-mail Gotham Gazette editor Ben Max: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.***

The run of the week in detail:

Monday
At 11:30 a.m. Monday, Governor Cuomo and Comptroller Tom DiNapoli will hold a press conference in the state Capitol.

At 1:30 p.m. Monday, "On Monday, Mayor de Blasio and Chancellor Carranza will make an announcement about Pre-K and 3K. This event is open press. There will be no Q-and-A." The announcement will take place at PS 128 Audubon on West 169th Street.

At the City Council on Monday:
--The Committee on Governmental Operations will meet at 10 a.m. for an oversight hearing regarding “city agency responsiveness to 311 service requests,” as well as to discuss a proposed law to require 311 operators to indicate to callers when an agency can’t respond to a complaint.
--The Committee on General Welfare will meet at 1 p.m. for an oversight hearing regarding “client experience at HRA centers,” as well as to discuss several related proposed laws, including to require all HRA Job Center or SNAP employees to undergo de-escalation training, require a social worker to be present at all HRA facilities, and requiring space for children at HRA facilities. "The hearing comes after a highly publicized incident in December when Jazmine Headley entered a Department of Social Services (DSS) Job Center after her child care benefits were terminated. Ms. Headley allegedly waited over four hours to speak to a supervisor and subsequently faced a physical encounter with HRA and NYPD officers as Ms. Headley’s child was removed from her arms."

City Council Speaker Corey Johnson will deliver remarks at both Council hearings. Later in the day, in his Acting Public Advocate role, Johnson will continue his five-borough bus rider survey tour in Queens, "talking to bus riders at the Jamaica Center - Parsons/Archer Station in Queens with Council Members Adrienne Adams, Rory Lancman, and I. Daneek Miller."

The State Legislature will be in session on Monday in Albany.

At 10 a.m. Monday in the Capitol, "Senator Luis R. Sepúlveda will address the human rights violations at the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn involving lack of electricity and heat...The senator will be joined by Senator Velmanette Montgomery and Senator Jamaal Bailey."

On Monday, the State Legislature will hold two joint budget hearings: on housing at 11 a.m. and on workforce development at 3 p.m.

Tuesday
The State Legislature will be in session on Tuesday in Albany.

"Senate Majority Leader Andrea Stewart-Cousins joined Chair of the Senate Environmental Conservation Committee, Senator Todd Kaminsky, and members of the Senate and Assembly Majority Conferences to announce support for historic legislation to ban oil and natural gas drilling in New York's coastal areas. The legislation (S.2316), sponsored by Senator Kaminsky, will protect Long Island and New York from the Trump Administration’s dangerous offshore drilling expansion efforts. The Senate Majority will pass this critical legislation on Tuesday, February 5."

At 9:30 a.m. Tuesday, the State Legislature will hold a joint budget hearing on health and Medicaid.

Wednesday
At the City Council on Wednesday:
--The Committee on Public Housing will meet at 10 a.m. for an oversight hearing regarding “NYCHA management of TPA funds.”
--The Subcommittee on Planning, Dispositions, and Concessions will meet at 10:45 a.m.
--The Committee on Land Use will meet at 11 a.m.
--The Committee on Civil and Human Rights will meet at 1 p.m. for an oversight hearing regarding “discrimination testing and commission-initiated cases at the NYC Commission on Human Rights.”

At 9:30 a.m. Wednesday, the State Legislature will hold a joint budget hearing on elementary and secondary education.

Wednesday at 5 p.m. on WBAI radio, the latest episode of Max & Murphy will air; catch it on 99.5FM or streaming at wbai.org.

At 7 p.m. Wednesday, the first of two televised debates in the special election for Public Advocate. There are 10 participating candidates, who met the financial threshold needed, out of the 17 who will be on the February 26 ballot. The debate will air on NY1 and be streamed online by the network, which is co-sponsoring the Campaign Finance Board-sanctioned debate with POLITICO New York, Citizens Union, Borough of Manhattan Community College, Latino Leadership Institute, The League of Women Voters of the City of New York, NAACP New York State Conference Metropolitan Council, and Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, Inc., and East Kings County Alumnae Chapter.

Thursday
At the City Council on Thursday:
--The Committee on Parks and Recreation will meet at 10 a.m. to discuss proposed laws requiring the Parks Department to report more detailed information on its capital expenditures, requiring the Department to provide portable defibrillators to all public pools and staffing all pools with someone trained to use it, and to allow the Department to distribute extra defibrillators to sports leagues after fulfilling their obligation to youth baseball and softball leagues.
--The Committees on Justice System and Public Safety will meet jointly at 10 a.m. for an oversight hearing regarding police discipline, and to discuss several related proposed laws, including laws requiring the NYPD to report monthly on complaints of police misconduct, requiring the NYPD to study the feasibility of an “internal disciplinary matrix,” requiring District Attorneys to report detailed information on criminal prosecutions, requiring the NYPD to publish its disciplinary guidelines and reports, requiring the NYPD to provide DAs with disciplinary records, and requiring the NYPD to report on arrests for obstructing government administration and resisting arrest. The committees will also discuss a resolution calling for the state to repeal section 50-a of the civil rights law.
--The Committee on Health will meet at 1 p.m. to discuss a proposed law allowing individuals to request that the name of a physician whose license has been revoked be removed from their birth certificate.

At 9:30 a.m. Thursday, the State Legislature will hold a joint budget hearing on mental hygiene.

At 11:30 a.m. Thursday, Governor Cuomo will speak at the Association for a Better New York at the Midtown Hilton, discussing infrastructure.

At 2 p.m. Thursday, the Center for Community and Ethnic Media at the CUNY Graduate School of Journalism will host a debate for Public Advocate candidates. NY1’s Errol Louis will moderate. The participating candidates are former Council Speaker Melissa Mark-Viverito, Council Members Rafael Espinal and Ydanis Rodriguez, and Assemblymembers Michael Blake and Nomiki Konst.

Friday and the weekend
At 8:15 a.m. Friday, the Center for New York City Law will host Port Authority Executive Director Rick Cotton for a “CityLaw Breakfast” focusing on “rebuilding New York’s airports for the 21st century.”

Mayor de Blasio may make his weekly appearance on WNYC's The Brian Lehrer Show at 10 a.m. Friday.

***
Have events or topics for us to include in an upcoming Week Ahead in New York Politics? E-mail Gotham Gazette executive editor Ben Max any time: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. (please use "For Week Ahead" as email subject).

***
by Ben Brachfeld and Ben Max
@GothamGazette

(photo: Elections Systems & Software)

As Democrats in the state Legislature continue a rapid pace of passing legislation to start the new session, the state Senate seems poised to advance another round of election and voting reforms, including approving the use of electronic poll books to administer elections.

Electronic poll books, used in at least 34 states and the District of Columbia, are a fairly simple but significant instrument in making elections more efficient, experts and advocates argue. They make voting faster, preventing long lines at polling sites, save costs in the long run, and are easier to update and maintain compared to the paper lists currently used in New York.

Some advocates also say e-poll books, as they’re often called, are essential in implementing improvements to voter registration processes, which the state Legislature put into motion last month, and helpful in the implementation of the significant shift of early voting, also part of the recently-passed package.

On Monday, the state Senate’s elections committee held a vote and approved a bill allowing electronic poll books, among other items on the agenda. The bill will now head to the Senate floor for a vote. Senator Zellnor Myrie, committee chair and the sponsor of the bill, is confident e-poll books will subsequently be passed by the full Legislature, in advance of this year’s primary election in June. The legislation does not mandate the use of e-poll books.

“The larger reforms that we’ve instituted and that we’re looking at for the rest of the session are going to be made much easier by us modernizing how we see whether or not someone has voted,” Myrie said in a phone interview. “So electronic poll books is something that has wide consensus.”

When Democrats took control of the Legislature this year after flipping the Senate, they quickly passed a series of voting and elections measures including early voting, consolidating the federal and state primary to June, and preregistration of 16- and 17-year-olds. They also passed measures to amend the state constitution to implement no-excuse absentee ballots and same-day voter registration -- amendments that will require passage by the next Legislature seated in 2021 and then approval by voters through a referendum.

Advocates say that early voting and same-day voter registration in particular would be far more efficient with electronic poll books.

“Implementing early voting in New York City without electronic poll books would be an administrative disaster,” said Rachel Bloom, director of public policy and programs at Citizens Union, a government reform group. “To have effective and organized early voting in New York, we need to allow for the use of electronic pollbooks.”

Other advocates aren’t as worried but agree that electronic poll books should be the next step for the Legislature. “You don’t need to have electronic poll books to do early voting but it would make it easier,” said Jennifer Wilson, director of program and policy for League of Women Voters of New York State. She noted, for instance, that Texas implemented early voting more than a decade ago but started using electronic poll books about five years ago. But for same-day registration, she said it would be “crucial.”

Jarret Berg, executive director of the New York Democratic Lawyers Council, concurred. “I don’t think it’s an indispensable component but it certainly makes a lot of sense and I don’t see how you could do [early voting] effectively without some kind of real-time reconciliation,” he said. “We need to move away from this really sloppy paper-based system.”

The advocates do acknowledge challenges and concerns about electronic poll books. Among them is the upfront cost that local counties may have to bear for purchasing equipment, like digital tablets, on which the poll books would be stored (localities may look to the state for help in paying for such equipment). Poll workers also tend to be older and could struggle with the technology. “There’s a digital divide,” Berg conceded. Training would be necessary regardless.

There are also concerns about the security of voter lists, made that much more severe after Russia’s interference in the 2016 presidential election. Digital devices could be vulnerable to hacking, necessitating standalone devices that would not be connected to the internet and would have to be individually updated. This is similar to the electronic ballot scanners that are not internet-connected and therefore far less susceptible to hacking.

Myrie is aware of those concerns but, as the advocates also argue, says the benefits outweigh the costs. “This is really about making and administering elections much simpler,” he said. “It allows for cost savings. In the future we’re not gonna have to pay for storage of all these [paper] poll books. It is a much more efficient way to do things so that...some of the lines that we have become unfortunately very accustomed to when we go to vote are reduced by a significant measure if we make the process of checking a registration easier.”

Electronic poll books also have bipartisan support. Before Myrie took over the elections committee, Republican Senator Fred Akshar had sponsored a bill, with companion legislation put forward by Democratic Assemblymember Michael Cusick that was repeatedly passed by the Assembly. Governor Andrew Cuomo also backs the measure but some say his support would have to be backed up with funding to help counties transition to the new system, money he did not include in his executive budget proposal.

“Governor Cuomo proposed a comprehensive set of reforms in the Executive Budget to make voting easier, including authorizing electronic poll books,” Hazel Crampton-Hays, a spokesperson, said in a statement. “We will work with the legislature to identify additional resources to the extent necessary.”

Myrie is prepared to push for those resources; as some are already doing when it comes to funding early voting. It’s not clear what the initial and ongoing costs of the e-poll books may be. “Even if its a significant cost, I’ve been saying and will continue to say, to go from worst to first is gonna require some pain,” he said of New York’s voting laws.

Note - This article was updated after the Senate elections committee held a vote and passed the e-poll book bill.  

What's The [Data] Point? Episode 63 -- 2040, Seth Hulkower [You can download What's The [Data] Point? wherever you get your podcasts, including on iTunes]

2040 is the year by which Governor Andrew Cuomo wants New York’s electric sector to go entirely green; that is -- to reduce carbon dioxide emissions in that sector of energy to zero. This is the key new goal announced by the Governor as part of the state’s “Green New Deal,” and it follows other ambitious environmental targets previously established. Seth Hulkower, Principal of Strategic Energy Advisory Services and author of a recent CBC report on New York's energy consumption, production and future, joined the podcast to discuss key related issues and his findings.

Listen to the conversation and let us know what you think: Ben Max of GG (@TweetBenMax), Maria Doulis of CBC (@MariaDoulis). Listen below or download wherever you get your podcasts, and subscribe to "What's The [Data] Point?"!

Part 2: Panel

(photo: the governor's office)

Taking the stage at the Global Citizen Festival in Central Park last September, Governor Andrew Cuomo promised to end cash bail “once and for all,” a move that would launch New York into the national spotlight with New Jersey and California. “In America you are still innocent until proven guilty,” he told the cheering crowd. “And that’s whether you’re black or white. That’s whether you’re rich or poor.”

The elimination of the cash bail system, under which poor black and Hispanic New Yorkers are disproportionately incarcerated pre-trial, does seem imminent thanks to a new Democratic majority in the state Senate. Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie, whose chamber last year passed legislation that only limited cash bail, assured faith leaders at Trinity Chapel in Manhattan on Thursday that, “I support a 100-percent-ending-of-cash-bail system.”

But big questions remain: who will be eligible for pretrial incarceration, what constraints will be put on judges, the reach of controversial ankle bracelets.

Cuomo’s recently-released budget proposal calls for more extensive pretrial detention and monitoring than an advocate-backed bill in the Legislature, and several Democrats told Gotham Gazette they want broad judicial discretion on domestic violence cases: a red flag for advocates who see a window for bias. As Democrats use their new power to rapidly pass progressive legislation, bail reform, in all its complexity, could prove a test of how far they’ll go.

“We have to remember there's a presumption of innocence,” warns Democratic Assemblymember Dan Quart of Manhattan. “The point of bail is not to judge or adjudicate people.”

The New York City jail population has decreased by 1,500 over the last two years, according to a December report from the Independent Commission on New York City Criminal Justice. Still, as of September more than a third of the 8,200 people in city jails were held pre-trial on misdemeanors or nonviolent felonies. More than 90 percent of the jail population is people of color. The commission, led by former chief judge Jonathan Lippman, estimates substantial bail reform could reduce the population by 3,000 people.

Deputy Senate Leader Michael Gianaris of Queens likes to remind reporters that the FREEnewyork campaign, composed of more than 150 grassroots groups, has dubbed his bail reform bill with Manhattan Assemblymember Danny O’Donnell the “gold standard.” It eliminates cash bail and was a non-starter in the Republican-controlled Senate.

Under the Gianaris/O’Donnell bill, most defendants would be released on their own recognizance. Possible exceptions include witness intimidation cases, and felony cases where the defendant is accused of attempting to seriously injure another person.

Anyone eligible for pretrial incarceration would be entitled to a hearing where a judge evaluates evidence and considers less-restrictive alternatives, like mandatory check-ins. These hearings would mark a “huge step forward,” says JoAnne Page, president of the Fortune Society, a nonprofit that provides prison reentry services. Currently, setting bail is “a decision that happens in a heartbeat.”

Cuomo’s budget proposal also eliminates cash bail and mandates pretrial hearings. However, his net of eligibility for pretrial detention is much wider, including Class A felonies like murder, conspiracy, and controlled substance charges; most violent B and C felonies like rape, assault and weapon possession (burglary and robbery are excluded); and cases where the judge deems the defendant a threat to the physical safety of someone in their family or household, regardless of the severity of the charges.

Alphonso David, Cuomo’s counsel, told Gotham Gazette that the governor intentionally excluded controversial public safety assessment tools (which Mayor Bill de Blasio has endorsed). These tools rely on data points like a defendant’s age and criminal history, and have been met with allegations of racial bias in New Jersey and California.

But if decarceration is the goal, advocates warn, the net of eligibility for pretrial incarceration must be much smaller -- lest judges balk at losing cash bail and fall back on detention.

“Unfortunately, the same decision-makers who are deciding to set bail on our clients now are going to be the ones who decide whether or not, after an evidentiary hearing, to keep that person remanded,” says Legal Aid Society attorney Marie Ndiaye. “The only thing you can do to really, really decarcerate is just by really, really limiting the number of people who could even be eligible for that kind of treatment."

Cuomo also wants electronic monitoring as an option for people charged with felonies and domestic violence misdemeanors. “When you have something like electronic monitoring there’s a very real risk that it means the expansion of social control,” warns Page, of the Fortune Society. “The threshold you pass before you put an electronic bracelet on someone is much lower than locking them up.”

Last year, the Assembly passed a proposal that would have preserved cash bail and electronic monitoring in felony and domestic violence misdemeanor cases -- a broad category that includes verbal threats. “I'll be the first one to say the Assembly bill wasn't good enough,” Heastie told advocates Thursday.

O’Donnell also dismissed the Walker bill as a relic earlier this month. “In previous years the Assembly would come up with bills we thought might pass muster in the Republican Senate,” he explained. “Those days are over. I would hope that my colleagues would come around and take this bolder approach.”

But there is still substantial Democratic support in the Assembly for the domestic violence provisions in the Walker bill. “There are going to be enough Democrats, me among them, who will be raising the issue,” said Assemblymember Amy Paulin of Scarsdale. “If we don't protect domestic violence [victims], I won't be voting for the bill.”

“Whether it's cash bail or pretrial detention I'm not worried about that,” added Assemblymember Patricia Fahy of Albany. “My interest is the bottom line…that we are not tying any judicial hands in keeping our streets safe, or our households safe.”

This is a point of entry for the state District Attorneys Association, which opposes expansive bail reform on the grounds that it curtails prosecutorial discretion. “We have serious concerns about, with the swipe of a pen, creating a proposal that has calamitous effects on public safety,” Albany County District Attorney David Soares told Gotham Gazette.

Domestic violence advocates in the FREEnewyork campaign say this logic is at odds with the ultimate goal of significantly decreasing jail populations, and relies too heavily on the perceptions of law enforcement. “Particularly for LGBTQ people,” cautions Audacia Ray of the New York City Anti-Violence project, “the way police and prosecutors perceive what is happening is often faulty and racist.”

Senate and Assembly leaders tell Gotham Gazette that they hope to come up with a compromise before budget negotiations, which are set to begin in earnest in March. A budget deal is due April 1. “The old ways of Albany involved trading one thing against an unrelated thing,” Gianaris said. “The new New York Senate is trying hard to break that mold.”

“The tricky thing with bail,” he added, “is that if we don’t do it right, things can get worse rather than better.”

Assemblymember Crespo (photo: @ABetterNY)

A new poll about the 2020 Census released Thursday showed New Yorkers, particularly Democrats, agree with what elected officials and advocates have expressed fear over for months, that adding a question about citizenship status on the 2020 Census would depress responses and risk an undercount that could have far-reaching consequences for the state.

A Quinnipiac University poll found that 49 percent of New York residents think it’s a “bad idea” for the Census to question if people are citizens, while only 29 percent believe it’s a “good idea.” The poll results showed a strong split along party lines -- 61 percent of Democrats think the question is a bad idea while 66 percent of Republicans believe it’s a good idea. Overall, 89 percent thought that the citizenship question would discourage undocumented immigrants from answering the Census questionnaire; 61 percent believe it would discourage even legal immigrants from responding; and 44 percent of all respondents said they knew someone they thought would be discouraged from filling out the Census form.

“New Yorkers have a clear message for the federal government: if you want an accurate count of the population, don’t ask a citizenship question,” said Mary Snow, Quinnipiac University polling analyst, in a statement. Though the planned inclusion of the question was struck down by a federal judge, in a lawsuit led by the office of the New York Attorney General, now occupied by Letitia James, the Trump administration is appealing the judgement and the Department of Justice has sought to take it directly to the Supreme Court and bypass the Second Circuit Court of Appeals.

The poll was released Thursday morning at the New York Public Library at an event hosted by the Association for a Better New York, a leading business coalition that requested that Quinnipiac conduct the poll and has been taking its own approach to the Census (ABNY did not provide any input on the poll). ABNY Census coordinator Melva Miller announced the launch of a new committee called Census 2020 for a Better New York, chaired by Ford Foundation President Darren Walker and former New York City Planning Commission head Carl Weisbrod, who is currently senior advisor at HR&A Advisors.

“This really has to be a civic effort that involves everybody, but it really does depend on government the effort and doing the job right,” Weisbrod said.

“Let’s not forget that this is also a competition,” he added, pointing out that New York is fighting for federal funds just like other states. “It’s a division of resources, not just an expansion of resources, and we’re in competition with states all across this country.”

At the event, several state and local elected officials and representatives of Mayor Bill de Blasio’s administration reiterated the ramifications that New York would suffer if the state’s population is not accurately tallied in 2020. The state would risk losing two seats in the House of Representatives, affecting its strength in Congress and in the electoral college, which determines presidential elections. It could cut billions in annual federal funding for the state, affecting about 300 government programs for vulnerable populations like children, seniors and the homeless.

“[O]ur most core democratic principles are at stake when you think about our representation,” said Julie Menin, the former commissioner of both the Department of Consumer Affairs and the Mayor’s Office of Media and Entertainment, who de Blasio recently put in charge of the city’s Census outreach efforts. “But it really goes even farther than that. What we really believe a citizenship question really is about is an attempt to defund blue progressive cities and to increase funding to red states.”

Menin said the city is focused on distributing grants to community groups and will eventually roll out a “really extensive mass media campaign” targeted at specific communities, hinting that the city would include funding for Census outreach in the upcoming budget (the mayor’s preliminary budget plan for next fiscal year is due out in early February). Advocates from the New York Counts 2020 coalition, made up of dozens of organizations from across the state, say $40 million is needed just to conduct outreach in communities above and beyond the city’s and state’s own efforts.

Last week, City Council Speaker Corey Johnson announced the creation of a task force to examine census-related issues, chaired by Council Members Carlina Rivera and Carlos Menchaca, who also appeared at the ABNY event.

There has been slower movement at the state level where Governor Andrew Cuomo just announced this week the creation of the New York State Complete Count Commission after it had already missed a January 10 deadline to file a comprehensive report.

At Thursday’s event, Assemblymember Marcos Crespo, co-chair of the Legislative Task Force on Demographic Research and Reapportionment, said he was “disappointed” with the state’s momentum and the lack of funding in the governor’s executive budget proposal, but was optimistic that leaders in government understand what is at stake. “I’m somewhat disappointed that the [governor’s executive budget proposal] didn’t already include this money but I’ve had conversations with the second floor,” he told reporters after the event, referring to the governor’s office in Albany’s Capitol building. “I think they understand this is something we have to address and invest in early. We can’t wait till the eleventh hour.”

Crespo wasn’t worried that the Complete Count Commission, which was created through a bill he sponsored, hadn’t issued its report yet. He said its findings would likely just reinforce the already-acknowledged need for resources. “If anything, the recommendations of the commission should be, how best to spend those resources,” he said. He doesn’t expect, however, that the report will be completed before the state budget is approved by the April 1 deadline.

“I don’t know if it’ll be able to meet and study all this in-depth before the state budget,” he admitted. “But we know enough already from other sources, we know what’s needed, we have a good sense what’s needed and I think we can make the allocation and figure out the distribution later.”

Note - This article has been updatd to clarify that ABNY requested the poll from Quinnipiac, they did not commission it. 

Gov. Cuomo with Lt. Gov. Hochul & legislative leaders (photo: Mike Groll/Governor's Office)

Governor Andrew Cuomo, a third-term Democrat, delivered his State of the State speech earlier this month, laying out his proposed $175.2 billion executive budget for the 2020 state fiscal year that begins April 1. Calling it his “justice agenda,” Cuomo unveiled a long list of proposals, some new and many rehashed, expressing confidence that full Democratic control of the state Legislature would allow for a slew of sweeping policy victories that had been denied by years of Republican obstruction in the upper chamber. In the two weeks since then, the Assembly and Senate have indeed advanced several bills -- some of which the governor has quickly signed -- to reform the state’s voting laws, protections for the LGBTQ community, reproductive health rights, and criminal justice system.

The budget gap for next fiscal year, which begins April 1, is about $3.1 billion, lower than the one the state had to cover last year. Cuomo has proposed a 3.6 percent increase in spending each for healthcare and education, the two largest buckets in the budget. Under Cuomo’s plan, which will now be the subject of negotiations with the Legislature, the health care budget would increase by about $700 million, reaching $19.6 billion, and education spending would increase by $1 billion, for a total of $27.7 billion. The governor has also proposed a new education funding formula that he calls “Education Equity,” which would redistribute funds to the poorest schools in the poorest districts, he says, and will be a central element of budget discussions.

[READ: 15 Notable Cuomo Proposals Not In His State of the State Speech]

There’s a great deal to be hashed out, both in terms of policy and the state budget, in the next three months, including stakeholders beyond the governor and legislators, such as advocates, service-providers, local officials like Mayor Bill de Blasio, and others. Though the governor finds himself largely allied with the Legislature on broad progressive priorities, there are areas of disagreement, small and large, and details to be worked out on a host of complicated policies.

Now that Cuomo has framed the discussion with his policy and budget plans, the Legislature is fast at work passing bills and others around the state are pushing their agendas, here are ten of the outstanding questions for the upcoming Legislative session and budget:

1. Will the state stick to a 2% cap in spending increases?
Cuomo is fond of touting his administration’s fiscal discipline and his self-imposed 2 percent cap on increased spending each year. But it’s become a tradition for him to use maneuvers that move spending off the state budget to help mask the actual uptick in spending.

“One of the things that we noticed was that the governor again purports that this keeps state spending at 2 percent,” said Dave Friedfel, director of state studies at Citizens Budget Commission, a nonpartisan watchdog, said of the governor’s executive budget plan, “and it looks like it’s closer to 3 percent. It’s probably a touch more, based on some quick adjustments that we could see right away where money was moved out of state operating spending in a budget year but not in the current year for the calculation.”

2. Will the state put away more money in reserves?
The state would have just $2.3 billion in rainy day funds based on Cuomo’s budget, a pittance compared to the $175 billion in planned spending and an amount that would be insufficient for the state to survive an economic downturn if one should occur without major spending cuts and/or tax increases. The state, and the country at large, is reaching the tail end of the second-longest economic expansion in history and most experts say it will not last too much longer.

“The tide will turn eventually,” Friedfel said. “It’s a matter of how severe that recession is going to be. So we were hoping to see more deposits to the state’s rainy day funds.” Friedfel praised the governor’s proposal to put $500 million more into reserves over the current and upcoming fiscal years but said it wouldn’t be strong enough. “In the absolute best case scenario, [based on] the last three recessions, you could expect to see a revenue shortfall of $20 billion over four years and right now the state’s rainy day fund, even with the governor’s deposit is gonna have $2.3 billion,” he said.

Experts like Friedfel have pointed to California, a similarly high-tax and high-spending state, as a model to follow since that state has put away nearly 10 percent of its operating budget into reserves -- the California rainy day fund is expected to reach $15.3 billion by next year.

3. What will congestion pricing look like?
Cuomo has embraced congestion pricing -- tolling traffic into the Manhattan business district south of 60th Street -- as a crucial method to fund the MTA (and help reduce traffic). At his State of the State, he said the proposal could bring in as much as $15 billion over ten years. But he gave few details of what he believes the program should look like and his budget similarly does not outline exact tolls or methodology.

For elected officials in New York City and its suburbs, congestion pricing is far from a settled idea (there is also concern upstate about transportation funding). New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio has repeatedly emphasized that he would prefer a millionaire’s tax to fund the MTA, and has hemmed and hawed about an ideal congestion pricing plan, while lawmakers in outer boroughs have raised concerns that the program will hurt the pockets of their constituents. However, support for congestion pricing has grown significantly over the last few years, and Cuomo appears committed to passing some version of the program.

Still, there are many questions to answer as a scheme is crafted.

“But I think the bigger question too is, the city runs the roads and bridges that will generate this revenue, so how much of the money will go back to maintaining these roads and bridges?,” said Nicole Gelinas, senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute, a think tank. “That’s something the city really has a stake in. You wouldn’t want to see the city having to pay hundreds of millions of dollars to rehabilitate these bridges every few decades and then they’re generating money that only goes to the MTA.”

The governor's proposal, as Gelinas pointed out in a column for the New York Post, would give the Triborough Bridge and Tunnel Authority, which falls under the MTA, the ability to take over city streets, sidewalks, roads, bridges and tunnels to build the infrastructure to implement congestion pricing. In effect, it would put city infrastructure under the control of the state which could potentially, Gelinas warned, use that power to demolish bike lanes and pedestrian-friendly spaces and create more space for cars. "This would be a huge deal even if the state were offering something in return: a bigger say over how the MTA spends our money," she wrote. "Instead, Cuomo has said that he’d like more control over the MTA. More money from the city — and more dominance over its future."  

4. Will the governor and Legislature force New York City to split MTA costs with the state?
The governor has suggested that any shortfalls in capital funding for the MTA, after congestion pricing revenues are accounted for, should be split 50-50 between the city and state. He dubiously argued in his speech, as he has before, that he doesn’t control the MTA and that the city is legally responsible for funding subway and bus system capital needs. “And it is worth splitting the cost with New York City, to make the investment we should've made for decades to keep that transportation system vital,” he said, indicating that he could leave it entirely to the city.

Mayor de Blasio disagreed with the governor’s contention, and pushed back against his suggestion that the city had funded the majority of capital plans in past decades. But the mayor may have no choice in the matter if the governor and Legislature force his hand through law, as they did last year in compelling the city to fund half of the $836 million Subway Action Plan put into motion to arrest the rapid decline of subway service over the last few years.   

“On the MTA, it’s going to be very difficult negotiations to start off from here,” said Gelinas of the Manhattan Institute. “It’s hard to see the city going along with having to pay a much bigger portion of the MTA capital budget without having some kind of greater say in what happens at the MTA. The governor seems to want to go in the opposite direction with giving the state a bigger say, although it’s not really clear.”

In the weeks since the speech, Cuomo has repeatedly criticized the very management that he has appointed at the MTA while arguing that it should be restructured to give him more control, though he effectively already has near-absolute power over it.

“I think it’s a little disturbing that he would tie the rest of the existing [2015-2019] capital plan money for the MTA to all of this reform because that’s money that was already promised,” Gelinas added. “They’re already bidding out contracts based on that money. If you’re gonna say that $7.3 billion won’t be available unless we completely restructure the MTA, not only then do you have to worry about the future capital budget but now he’s sort of creating a big hole in the current MTA capital budget...It would be really hard to conceive of an MTA where the city, the suburbs, they’re still providing this money...but they don’t have say over the major capital projects that the MTA embarks on.”

5. What will Cuomo’s new education funding formula look like?
Cuomo proposed $1 billion in increased education funding overall, about $1.1 billion less than what the state Board of Regents recommended. In a series of slides during his speech, Cuomo pointed to education funding disparities across the state stemming from the current “Foundation Aid” formula, also known as Fair Student Funding, and how local districts distribute it to their schools, insisting that more money was being funnelled to richer schools in the poorest districts. His argument formed the basis for his “Education Equity” proposal, which would require school districts to dedicate a significant amount of foundation aid money to the poorest schools.

De Blasio was among those to quickly critique the governor’s proposal, insisting that in New York City at least, funding had been sent where it was needed, despite figures Cuomo had for the first time presented during his speech. The mayor, and education advocates and elected officials, have repeatedly urged Cuomo to fully fund the state Court of Appeals’ Campaign for Fiscal Equity (CFE) decision that first led to the creation of foundation aid -- a decision Cuomo insists is no longer relevant, with a commitment he says has already been met -- which would require billions more in funding, which Cuomo has refused to provide.

Rather, the governor’s budget briefing book took pains to argue that CFE has no relation to foundation aid. But he did not outline what his new proposal would entail, instead leaving it up to the state Department of Education to hammer out a plan.

6. Will Cuomo leverage mayoral control of city schools to get concessions from de Blasio?
Cuomo’s budget book noted his support for extending mayoral control of New York CIty schools by three years, a position he has taken in the past as well. But in the past, the governor -- and Republicans who controlled the state Senate earlier -- used mayoral control as a form of leverage over de Blasio, who is more closely allied with Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie and the teachers unions, attempting to enact concessions including an expansion of a charter school cap.

Cuomo did not mention charter schools in his speech and his budget briefing book has only a small section dedicated to them, but he has been friendly to the sector in the past, and charter school donors have been generous to his campaigns. It’s not clear yet whether Cuomo will pursue increasing the statutory cap, which is close to being reached, especially since Republicans who favor the charter sector no longer have clout in Albany. There are some Democratic legislators who are supportive of charters, but it is unclear how loud those voices will be in their conferences, and whether Cuomo will put any political capital into another expansion of charters’ ability to grow.

And if it isn’t charter schools, it’s unclear what, if anything, Cuomo may try to trade for extending mayoral control.

7. What will marijuana regulation look like?
This is one particularly burning question that has more answers than the others. Cuomo proposed a regulated program to legalize adult recreational marijuana use and raise $300 million in revenue annually, though it allows counties and municipalities to opt out. His budget puts forward the Cannabis Regulation and Taxation Act, which would impose three taxes on the cultivation and sale of marijuana for recreational use. He has also insisted that regulation must be accompanied by decriminalization for those already convicted on marijuana-related arrests and set a legal use age of 21.

But as legislators negotiate what Cuomo has outlined, questions remain about where the marijuana revenue will go and what the new regulation will look like in practice, particularly for businesses, among other details to be decided. The governor is a more recent convert to the cause of legalization and he has heeded the advice of advocates and other elected officials who have long supported legalization and have insisted it should come with benefits for the communities that have been most adversely impacted by marijuana enforcement.

“Now we just have to put it in place, and we have to do it in a way that creates an economic opportunity for poor communities and people who paid the price, and not for rich corporations that are going to come in to make a buck,” Cuomo said in his speech.

New York City is expected to comprise a majority of the state’s marijuana market and de Blasio, who was until recently opposed to legalization himself, also warned against the “corporate takeover of the marijuana industry.” Speaking at a news conference in Albany after the governor’s speech, he said, “[T]his should be a community-based form of business, a small business focus, and a focus on those who are economically harmed by the previous policies.”

8. Will Cuomo’s ‘Green New Deal’ have legislative backing?
Cuomo proposed a “Green New Deal” to increase New York State’s investment in renewable energy and reach 100 percent clean energy by 2040. It was a sweeping declaration from the governor, who has long faced criticism from activists that his environmental record has not been strong enough. At the same time, Cuomo failed to mention the Climate and Community Protection Act, a bill that seeks to accomplish similar goals but has not moved in the state Legislature, though it may this year.

It’s unclear what compromise might look like, or whether the Legislature will force Cuomo’s hand -- the proposals have differing timelines for achieving certain milestones, among other differences, and advocates say the governor’s ideas don’t go far enough. With legislative action, the proposed environmental regulations would also have the strength of law rather than being enacted administratively and being vulnerable to cuts in the future. Senator Todd Kaminsky has indicated that he will continue to pursue the CCPA, potentially setting up a clash between the governor and lawmakers.

9. Will the Legislature advance the New York Health Act for single-payer health care?
While running for reelection, the governor was ardent that he supports a single-payer health care program, the likes of which would be established by the proposed New York Health Act -- but he has repeatedly said it should be mandated and funded by the federal government rather than the state. New York would have to increase overall state government revenue by $139 billion by 2022 to pay for the program, according to a RAND Corporation study. It would provide health coverage to all New Yorkers -- they wouldn’t have to purchase insurance or receive it from employers -- and patients would not have to pay deductibles, co-payments or out-of-pocket costs. The study estimates that total health care spending in this case would be similar to what current levels are expected to be in 2022, and would be about 3 percent lower by 3031, “with the ten-year cumulative net savings being about $80 billion, or 2 percent.”

The bill -- which its sponsors say will be altered in a new version soon to be introduced -- has passed the Assembly but not the Senate, though both houses are now under Democratic control. Still, legislative leaders have not listed the New York Health Act as a top priority for this year. Several Democratic state lawmakers successfully flipped seats last year on platforms that included support for the New York Health Act, and some legislators, especially the lead sponsors, Assemblymember Richard Gottfried and Senator Gustavo Rivera, are expected to continue pursuing it, which could create a significant fissure both within the Legislature and with the governor’s office.

“It was clear in the country and New York that healthcare was the number one issue on voters’ minds,” Gottfried, chair of the Assembly Health Committee, said in an interview with Gotham Gazette right after the November election. “A solid majority of the new state Senate has either been a cosigner, voted for it in the Assembly, or campaigned on it. So I think we’re on track to get it passed in the Assembly and state Senate.”

10. Will the Legislature fully close the LLC loophole and pass stronger ethics reforms and a public campaign finance system?
The state Legislature passed several ethics and campaign finance reforms within the first few days of the new session, including severely limiting donations that can be made by Limited Liability Companies and requiring increased disclosure of the ownership of those firms. But that measure did not completely close the so-called ‘LLC loophole,’ which has allowed untold amounts of money to flow into state elections from moneyed interests and has drawn the ire of good government advocacy groups.

Cuomo, the biggest beneficiary of LLC donations of any elected official in the state, has said he wants to close the loophole entirely, a pledge he reiterated at his State of the State while also calling for a ban on corporate contributions to political candidate campaigns -- under the new law passed by the Legislature, LLCs, like corporations, can donate a maximum of $5,000. The Legislature is expected to take up further campaign finance reforms as well, which could mean that LLC and corporate donations may soon become a thing of the past, while a state public campaign finance system could be put into motion.

Cuomo has also proposed a broader agenda of reform that includes curtailing contribution limits across the board, a proposal that could meet with some resistance, and expanding the state’s Freedom of Information Law to cover the Legislature, to which lawmakers have been strictly opposed, among a variety of other reform measures.

[READ: Cuomo's 2019 Agenda of Election, Campaign Finance and Government Ethics Reforms]