www.nycapitolnews.comVOL. 4, NO. 1 JANUARY 24, 2011

Issue Spotlight: Imagining the future of health care and Medicaid in New York.

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Peter King on gun control, redistricting and other worries.

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The Senate Republicans’ internal and

external strugglesto keep theparty going

LAST LAUGH

The four breakaway Democratic senators aim to be heroes, rather than zeroes.

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www.nycapitolnews.com2 JANUARY 24, 2011 THE CAPITOL

EDITORIALEditor: Edward-Isaac Dovereeidovere@nycapitolnews.comManaging Editor: Andrew J. Hawkinsahawkins@nycapitolnews.comReporters: Chris Bragg cbragg@nycapitolnews.comLaura Nahmias lnahmias@nycapitolnews.comJon Lentz jlentz@nycapitolnews.comPhotography Editor: Andrew SchwartzInterns: Ismail Muhammed, Isha Mitra

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The Capitol is published monthly.Copyright © 2011, Manhattan Media, LLC

BY LAURA NAHMIAS

Even if their conference fails to pass legislation creating a nonpar-tisan redistricting commission,

Senate Democrats may fi nd something to cheer about in new census fi gures due out this spring.

Final numbers will not be out until April, but demographers say a few things are already clear: minorities are moving to the suburbs of Long Island and West-chester, while upstate districts are los-ing residents. Add to that the passage of a state law forbidding prison-based ger-rymandering and new rules from the Su-preme Court on how states can use the Voting Rights Act to draw districts, and several traditionally Republican districts upstate may have to be consolidated or redrawn.

The number of Senate and Assembly districts is not set in stone. While Legisla-tors prefer an even number of districts to avoid giving any one party an advantage, they can always vote to add more. After the 2000 census, for instance, the state added its 62nd Senate district.

But legislators of both parties seem likely to put some restrictions on the pro-cess. Bills introduced by both Democrats and Republicans for the new redistrict-ing suggest “limits placing incumbents against each other” and “preservation of county boundaries” as possible criteria for any new district map.

On the surface, the calculus for redis-tricting does not seem so complex. Take the population of the state (for New York, 19.5 million) and divide it by the number of districts (62 in the Senate and 150 in the Assembly,) and that is how many con-stituents each district should have, give or take about 5 percent from the median. Districts are required to be contiguous, and cannot disenfranchise a linguistic or ethnic group.

Upstate districts will lose a combined 60,000 constituents to changes in prison-based gerrymandering—the process of counting prison populations in the dis-trict where they are incarcerated instead of where each prisoner is from.

“Most of the prison population—over 43,000 people—are from New York City,”

Redistricting, By The NumbersPrison gerrymandering and unevenly growing populations will change the math, independent redistricting or not

said Dale Ho, Assistant Counsel to the NAACP’s Legal Defense Fund. “The next largest chunk are from Long Island, then Westchester. Draw your own conclusions about what that will do to districts in those areas.”

Likely redrawn districts, Ho said, will includes those of Republican State Sens. Betty Little, Joe Griffo, Patty Ritchie, James Seward, Michael Nozzolio and Pat-rick Gallivan, as well as Democratic Sen. Dave Valesky. But Ho doubted counting those prisoners as part of their home dis-tricts would tip any downstate district’s population enough to require creating a new one, likely in New York City.

The end of prison-based gerryman-dering will compound population loss in areas such as Buffalo, Syracuse and Rochester, where the standard deviation from median district size is already hov-ering close to 5 percent. Average popula-tion losses in upstate counties over the past decade varied from 1 to 5 percent, according to preliminary U.S. census fi g-ures. Some districts may not even meet the minimum threshold for being consid-ered a district, Ho said.

The converse is true in downstate dis-tricts—such as those currently held by Malcolm Smith and Shirley Huntley—that already have more than 4 percent more

constituents than the median number. David Carlucci’s district in Rockland is likely to be affected as well. Those dis-tricts could grow too large and require shifting, depending on the fi nal census numbers.

Those numbers will probably suggest the creation of a new district in Nassau County, where there is a growing Hispan-ic and African-American population. The Long Island Senate districts have been reliably Republican for decades, but a push from legislators to create a majority-minority district there could help create a Democratic stronghold.

The federal government can intervene in any redistricting that appears to deny the rights of a minority population to vote as a bloc. If the Legislature deliberately “cracks” that minority bloc, it could draw the attention of the Department of Jus-tice, said Sharyn O’Halloran, a professor of political science at Columbia Univer-sity.

A noisy push by former Mayor Ed Koch and Senate Democrats Mike Gia-naris and Daniel Squadron is being met with ambivalence by Senate Republicans. Senate Democrats are insisting a bill al-ready drafted by Valesky and Gianaris be passed before Feb. 1 by the Senate.

At a Dec. 14 meeting of the State’s Leg-

islative Task Force on Redistricting, the Democratic Chair Martin Dilan listened to the testimony of good-government groups calling for an independent com-mission, which would have to be created before April 1 to have enough time to do the work. Dilan said he favored a “bipar-tisan” commission, selected by legisla-tors.

But a bipartisan, legislatively appoint-ed commission tends to refl ect the bias of the Legislature that created it, said O’Halloran. Six states—Arizona, Hawaii, Idaho, New Jersey, California, Minnesota and Washington—have bipartisan redis-tricting commissions. There is no obvious correlation between those states and the degree to which their districts are per-ceived as gerrymandered, she said. Just three states—Iowa, Florida and Maine—have independent redistricting commis-sions.

Good-government groups and lawyers are hoping New York will more evenly apportion its districts this decade than it did in 2000. While the State Assembly districts are more fairly apportioned, the Senate’s are not, Ho said.

“At the plan level and at the level of individual districts, I don’t think we did too well the last time around,” he said.

lnahmias@nycapitolnews.com

59

54

49

47

48 45

51District 59Pop. : 294,256Prison Pop. : 8,951Pop. change -6.79 %Sen. Pat Gallivan (R)

District 48Pop. : 290,925Prison Pop. : 5,291Pop. change -6.68%Sen. Patty Ritchie (R)

District 54Pop. : 291,303Prison Pop. : 3,551Pop. change -5.99%Sen. Michael Nozzolio (R)

District 49Pop. : 291,303Prison Pop. : 2,881Pop. change -5.77%Sen. David Valesky (D) Source: Legislative Task

Force on Redistricting

District 51Pop. : 291,482Prison Pop. : 3,108Pop. change -5.78%Sen. James Seward (R)

District 45Pop. : 299,603Prison Pop. : 12,989Pop. change -6.36%Sen. Betty Little (R)

District 47Pop. : 291,303Prison Pop. : 3,563Pop. change -5.99%Sen. Joe Griffo (R)

Senate Districts likely to be redrawn in2012 redistricting

THE CAPITOL JANUARY 24, 2011 3www.nycapitolnews.com

MATT COLLINS

BY ANDREW J. HAWKINS

“I want to accomplish things in Al-bany,” said State Sen. Jeff Klein. “I want to accomplish things in my

district.” For most state legislators, these

are the basics. For Klein, David Valesky, David Carlucci and Diane Savino, who kicked off the legisla-tive session by forming the Indepen-dent Democratic Conference (IDC), it will be no easy task. Getting bills passed and securing funding for favored programs largely revolve around an individual mem-ber’s relationship with the leadership. And right now, that relationship is non-existent.

Senate Majority Leader Dean Skelos has yet to acknowledge their existence. And Minority Leader John Sampson did not mince words when he went on televi-sion to say he felt “betrayed” by Klein’s defection.

Klein says he is trying to rise above the pettiness of the internal squabble. As for Sampson, Klein suggests that the minor-ity leader seems to be taking the “whole thing very personally.”

That appears to be an understatement. Long-simmering tensions left over from the campaign cycle have exploded after Klein made his move. Sampson is not only pinning the Democrats’ loss of the majority on his one-time-deputy, but he is also devising plans to marginalize the rogue members, with the assumption that if they do not return, they can expect pri-mary challenges next fall.

For his part, Klein says he is sick of clean-ing up after the scandal-plagued conference and taking the blame for his chairmanship of the debt-ridden Democratic Senate Cam-paign Committee, whose overspending and unguaranteed loans he claims went on behind his back. Those in charge of the Democratic conference and the DSCC call this ridiculous, complaining that Klein had a hand in all policy and spending decisions, and unforgivably walked away when things did not go his way.

Details are starting to emerge about how exactly the IDC can distinguish themselves on the Senate fl oor. Their votes, for example, could free up some Republican members to vote “no” on pris-on closings that would adversely impact their upstate districts. Also, with the con-troversial UB2020 plan still on the table, Republicans could also turn to the IDC on

Rebel YellSorting out the end game for Jeff Klein and the IDC

any vote that could expose rifts between the Republicans’ Long Island delegation and the beefed up Western New York del-egation looking to fl ex its muscles.

They are also hoping to out-maneuver the Senate Democrats on policy. The day after Sampson, Liz Krueger and others presented their plan for rules reform in the Senate, Klein, Carlucci, Savino and Valesky stood in the Senate lobby to pres-ent a series of mandate-relief recommen-dations. The unspoken message was that rules reform may have been all the rage last year, but that spending cuts and tax-payer relief were the new way. And all four made sure to point out that this was their second policy proposal in as many weeks.

Valesky noted that their agenda close-ly resembles that of Cuomo, a clear sign to him that they are on the right path.

“His agenda of moving the state for-ward and our agenda of doing the same thing match up very closely,” Valesky said.

Alignment with Cuomo is about more than policymaking, though. The rebel Democrats are hoping that a closeness with Cuomo would shield them from Sampson’s wrath while endearing them to the state Democratic Party, which they

one, has an active African-American population in her district, leaving her open to a potential primary challenge from someone like City Council Member Debi Rose, who was elected in 2009 with heavy Working Families Party support. Meanwhile, those sources say, unions and Democratic contributors are being instructed to cut ties with the IDC.

Savino has been able to hold her own on fundraising, and Klein has long been one of the conference’s most prodigious fundraisers. But unless the IDC forms its own campaign committee, Klein’s ability to protect Valesky and Carlucci—both the recipients of DSCC largesse in 2010—will be maximum $10,300 individual contribu-tions, under the newly readjusted limits.

“The interest groups and unions are cutting them off because they broke from the conference,” claimed one source close to the conference. “They’ll be broke after they run prima-

ries, and though the DSCC could spend unlimited money on them for the general election, they won’t.”

Savino, who has deep roots in the la-bor community, hotly contested this as-sumption. She said she has been invited to speak to a variety of union delegate meetings about the IDC. And Valesky, she noted, raised $1 million on his own for his re-election last year—no small feat given how the Senate Democrats were viewed in his district.

“This is another attempt by people in-capable of self-refl ection to distract the issue,” Savino said. “They are not willing to examine their own leadership.”

And the cash issue cuts both ways: for the past few cycles, Klein has transferred millions into the DSCC. That money will not be there for the Democrats, who started off the year $3 million in the hole.

No one seems to know what the end-game is or how long it will take to get there. The one thing most Democrats do know, however, is that this is nothing new. Coups and mutinies have become a way of life for the Senate Democrats. But most say they are confi dent that Klein and his band of rogues will be back.

“What they want won’t happen,” said State Sen. Ruben Diaz, Sr., dismissing the idea that the IDC will be receiving the perks and privileges from the GOP that Klein denies they have sought. “They will be back. It’s crazy what they’re doing.”

He drew a distinction between the IDC and his partnership with State Sens. Carl Kruger, Pedro Espada and, briefl y, Hiram Monserrate.

“Amigos?” Diaz said. “That name is taken. Copyright by me, nobody else.”

State Sen. Bill Perkins said that ev-erything will come down to whether the renegade members can convince their constituents that they are acting in their best interest. And if they have not already, they would be advised to start shoring up their power bases.

“Some are tight with their constituen-cies, others might not be so tight,” Per-kins said. “So they’d better get busy.”

ahawkins@nycapitolnews.com

hope can provide political cover if need-ed. To date, though, Cuomo has kept his distance, telling reporters that the Senate split was “none of my business.”

Meanwhile, Jay Jacobs, chair of the state Democratic Party, has been in-volved in efforts to bring the IDC back into the fold.

“I feel badly that this family feud is taking place,” Jacobs said. “All I can say is, I’m hopeful that over a period of time we’ll have unity.”

Jacobs would not say, though, how he planned to bring both sides to the table.

While state Democratic Party offi cials seek a peaceful conclusion, the Senate Democrats’ political brain trust is explor-ing ways to cut Klein’s posse off at the knees. The strategy is to isolate Klein and Savino, while luring Carlucci and Valesky back through a combination of threats and promises.

Carlucci, who fl atly denied this, said that he is not so easily convinced.

“Some people aren’t so happy with me,” he said. “I’m not concerned with that.”

But sources close to the Democratic conference say the four independent Democrats are vulnerable. Savino, for

Diane Savino, David Carlucci, Jeff Klein and David Valesky are struggling to stay united against powerful forces.

And New York State depends on cost-efficient home care services for all of these reasons … and more.

The Home Care Association of New York State (HCA) urges smart, productive, and responsible reforms as part of the Cuomo Administration’s Medicaid Redesign process.

Learn more about HCA’s Blueprint for Home Care Reform and Efficiency

Visit www.powerofhomecare.org

For the sake of all who depend on cost-effective home care services, NY needs a Blueprint for Reform and Efficiency, not a path of destruction.

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Patients depend on NY’s home care system to manage complexhealth conditions at home, preventing illness and costlier care.

Hospitals depend on NY’s safety-net home care system to discharge patients home safely for follow-up services, preventing rehospitalization.

Elderly and disabled New Yorkers depend on home care to support theirindependence, through services otherwise only available in a facility.

$435 million in home care cuts since 200870% of home care providers operating in the redCare for thousands at risk

THE CAPITOL JANUARY 24, 2011 5www.nycapitolnews.com

ISSUE SPOTLIGHT: HEALTH CARE/MEDICAID

Point/CounterpointGov. Andrew Cuomo says the state’s health care budget is bloated and unwieldy. His budget will un-doubtedly contain serious cuts to Medicaid spending. But the Legislature, with deep ties to health care lobbyists and unions, has proven unwilling to make cuts in the past. The Capiton asked Assembly Health Committee Chair Richard Gottfried and Senate Health Committee Chair Kemp Hannon to size up the issue and its various proposals to see how their answers stacked up against each other.

Kemp Hannon Richard Gottfried

Kemp Hannon: The three macro issues will be dealing with the budget defi cit, dealing with Medicaid overhaul, and policy setting for federal health care reform. Those are the three macro issues.

Richard Gottfried: For the Medicaid budget, the big problem is that almost any reform, any intelligent reform other than just slashing, takes a year or two to implement and produce savings. On federal health care reform, maybe the biggest challenge is getting people to focus on it despite the magnitude of the Medicaid issue. We really ought to do some pieces of that this session. With medical marijuana, the two problems are convincing the governor and picking up a handful of Republican votes in the Senate.

Hannon: In many ways, the state budgetary process has resulted in about seven or eight straight budgets, or mid-year budget cuts, all of which have result-ed in reductions in monies to rate pay-ers. It’s been done as an across-the-board way. The two basic questions: when does the rubber band snap on the ability of providers to continue to provide service, and when you take enrollment expansion out of it, why does Medicaid expendi-tures continue to grow?

Gottfried: Well, I think continuing to shift resources into primary care and pro-vide vari ous forms of care management in coordination, especially for complex, high-cost patients, makes sense. And it can produce signifi cant cost control and improvements in quality of care. I think that is also what the Cuomo administra-tion has in mind.

Hannon: Far too often, the Medicaid system has been the “fi eld of dreams” for providers—looking at the speed of pay-ment for providers, which has been pretty fast, and the ability to add on different

component parts, which will result in greater reimbursement. The fact that there will be signifi cantly less money will mean that the providers will have to now manage their own domains far more astutely and come up with cost savings that can be achieved. And whether they can be achieved through proposals or statute, we’ll take a look. I think Gov. Cuomo has attempted to do so by bringing people who are providers, and labor—which is, when you think of it, an essential core provision for delivering health care, since it’s a direct one-on-one taking-care of patients, bringing them all together in a room and seeing what can be done, and making them realize the type of resolve they have to have in order to be successful in a budgetary process.

Gottfried: I think the MRT [the governor’s Medicaid Redesign Team] is a smart approach that will hopefully produce some very sensible and produc-tive change. As I’ve said, the big obstacle there is that those changes will take time to implement and will have limited impact on the current fi scal year.

Hannon: It’s pretty clear from the governor’s State of the State that he was saying, “I have a number, I’m going to have a Medicaid redesign team, and

you can have alternatives—but at the end of the day, I want you to get to that number.” He wants to get to that number, he wants a budget on time. That’s going to be an extraordinary pressure on the redesign team. It’s amazing how people are starting to talk about, “Well, do we really need to do X, Y, Z, or can we streamline that process?” And we’re hearing more and more of that. It’s still going to be challenging, presuming the numbers are what the budget says they were. They did a mid-year projection with a $9 billion bud-get shortfall. Within the weeks after, they expanded that shortfall by $600 million. So we’re getting close to $10 billion. If Medicaid and education are 75 percent of the state’s budget, you can imagine what kind of cutting eye division of budget must have.

Gottfried: Well, right now that effort is focusing around the MRT—I mean the MRT process right now is soaking up ideas. Fairly soon, I assume, we’ll get into something resembling a budget negotia-tion in which we’ll hammer out various proposals.

Hannon: We hope the unions will be a partner. Health care is unique—the very product you’re delivering is delivered by human beings. And those human be-ings have to be kept in the proper frame of mind. They can’t feel that they’re be-ing discriminated against, they can’t feel that they’re being economically picked on. The unions and the hospitals, when they’ve gone out with these massive cam-paigns, they’ve found that to be success-ful. Governors bend! So this is a question of acknowledging that there’s defi cit, and getting them to work on the best ways to overcome that.

Gottfried: There are certainly issues where I expect the Assembly and the Senate will disagree. But, we’ve confronted that diffi culty many, many times before, so to me, that’s not the biggest obstacle. I think trying to fi nd billions of dollars for sensible things to do in the coming fi scal year is enormous-ly diffi cult, and the alternative is, well—there are two alternatives. One is widespread massive cuts in provider rates, which could signifi cantly damage many safety-net providers—or realizing that taxes on upper-bracket taxpay-ers need to be raised. I don’t see how we avoid serious damage to health care and education without that.

Hannon: The Assembly is going to have to confront squarely what costs medical malpractice is adding to the health care system. Especially in a changed nature—not in the ways that doctors do business, but rather be-cause many hospitals have picked up doctors’ practices—it’s hospitals them-selves that are paying tremendous increases in medical malpractice every year, into the tens and twenties of millions of dollars a year in increases, so that it becomes a major cost factor and will not allow those hospital to cover the same number of people they did before.

www.nycapitolnews.com6 JANUARY 24, 2011 THE CAPITOL

innovative programs for retraining the workforce to handle new practices and technology to attain this funding. While we have several world-class health care facilities in New York, we also need to ensure that quality care is accessible at the com-munity level in both preventive and acute care settings all across the state.

Currently, we have home health workers making $13,000 a year for full-time work, while some for-profi t agency owners are making millions upon millions in taxpayer dollars. One good proposal to combat unscrupulous practices is to move to an episodic payment system instead of the hourly system now in place at certifi ed home health agencies. In order to sustain quality services for the long term, we must root out bad actors that routinely bilk the Medicaid system, invest in quality provid-ers and ensure we have a well-trained and fairly compensated workforce.

Daniel Sistopresident of the HealthcareAssociation of New York State

We need to get serious about Medicaid reform in this state. Gov. Cuomo has called for a redesign of the Medicaid system, and we believe only such a fundamental approach will yield a sustainable system. To succeed, we have to acknowledge some truths. For example, it’s not the reimburse-ment rates (how much this service costs or that service costs) that is driving spending. It is the volume of services we are providing that is growing and fueling expenditures. We must fi nd ways to better manage and coordinate care associated with that vol-ume. So we need a reimbursement system that provides incentives for better care management. Across-the-board rate cuts, which totaled a staggering $5.3 billion in just the last three years, only destabilize the service delivery system and imperil patient care. So let’s get real solutions.

I don’t think we have a full agenda from the state at this point to react to. One message that must be understood, however, is that the sacrifi ce that will be necessary to succeed must be shared by all participants in the health care system. Providers can no longer sustain inequi-table and disproportionate hits. Another thing that we must be cognizant of is the impact redesign will have on jobs. The health care sector has been about the only stable economic sector in many regions, upstate in particular. So these efforts must protect these vital jobs.

Elisabeth Benjaminvice president of health initiatives, Community Service Society

The Affordable Care Act brings incred-ible opportunities for New York—in terms of funding, right-sizing our health care system and, from our perspective, guaran-teeing quality, affordable health care for all New Yorkers. Simultaneously, we need

Sound-bitesISSUE SPOTLIGHT: HEALTH CARE/MEDICAID

to protect access to care for the most vulnerable consumers as the State restructures the Medicaid program and as private employers seek new ways to restrict health care costs.

We believe that an insurance exchange should maximize individual, familie’s and employers’ purchasing power by creating a single purchasing pool, establish clear and effective regulation of insurance products,

be easy to use and navigate, build on our existing public insurance programs, and promote health equity.

George GreshamPresident of 1199 SEIUUnited Healthcare Workers East

We must make sure New York is able to take full advantage of the opportuni-ties for enhanced funding available under federal health care reform. In partnership with providers, we will work to implement

The publication for and about

New York State Government

THE CAPITOL JANUARY 24, 2011 7www.nycapitolnews.com

ISSUE SPOTLIGHT: HEALTH CARE/MEDICAID

Primer: With Medicaid Spending In The Crosshairs, Many Paths To Reducing The BloatBy Laura Nahmias

New York State spends roughly a third of its $130 bil-lion budget on Medicaid, with costs increasing at a rapid rate. And though governors from Pataki to Paterson have made reducing the amount of health care spending a prior-ity, they have had limited success.

They historically have faced strong opposition to cuts from the state’s most powerful health care industry lob-byists at 1199 SEIU and GYNHA. The opposition stems from fear that the state will cut Medicaid funding by re-ducing payments to providers, a move unions say kills jobs without increasing the quality of care in the state.

And the health care lobby is not afraid to spend big to get its message out. 1199 SEIU famously mounted a$4.5 million campaign to thwart Eliot Spitzer’s proposed Medicaid funding cuts in 2007. Andrew Cuomo has taken great pains to avoid a similar fate, courting 1199 and other health care unions and shoring up a $4 million war chest as a contingency. He is expected to have help from the real estate and business interests behind the Committee to Save New York, with $10 million raised so far.

Cuomo also hired Jason Helgerson, a health indus-try professional who was praised for his redesign of Wis-consin’s Medicaid system. Helgerson cut 5 percent, or$600 million, from that state’s Medicaid budget over two years. Those savings, though, have been called into question, given that Wisconsin’s overall Medicaid spending grew due to rising enrollment. Helgerson has been accused of creative accounting, shifting present costs into future fi scal years.

Cuomo has set a deadline of March 1 to generate a series of “creative” ideas for reducing the state’s Medicaid budget. The 27 health care industry professionals tapped by Cuo-mo for his Medicaid Redesign Team are holding a series of meetings that were opened up to the public under pressure.

Kemp Hannon, who is back as the Senate Health Com-mittee chair, sponsored his own meeting to discuss the issue, where he and other health industry leaders recom-mended changes such as increasing managed care and re-forming the state’s medical malpractice statutes.

Dick Gottfried, the Assembly Health Committee chair, has suggested the Medicaid Redesign Team might have diffi culty making meaningful suggestions in such a short time frame. Gottfried also expressed concern that the team had little rep-resentation from consumer advocates. He and State Sen. Tom Duane are both skeptical of cuts to the system and the gover-nor’s pledge to balance the budget without raising taxes.

On Feb. 1, the governor is expected to suggest a bud-get that cuts $2.1 billion of the state’s Medicaid funding, as part of an effort to close the $10 billion budget defi cit. Because the state receives matching funds for each dollar it spends on Medicaid, the cuts will amount to a $4.2 billion cut for the statewide Medicaid system.

lnahmias@nycapitolnews.com

New York Medicaid spending, by the numbersMedicaid spending in New York is about $50 billion a year. Spending is projected

to rise to $63.5 billion by 2014. The state’s contribution to Medicaid is projected

to rise more quickly through 2014 – by 18 percent a year – as federal stimulus aid

expires. The state and the federal government evenly split Medicaid spending in New York in

2008. Medicaid spending in New York grew at just over 9 percent a year on average

between 1990 and 2004. The average annual growth rate slowed to 2.1 percent be-

tween 2004 and 2007, a period when U.S. Medicaid spending grew by 3.6 percent.

New York accounts for 14 percent of the country’s Medicaid spending. In 2009, Med-

icaid accounted for 27 percent of New York’s spending. The Medicaid program

serves more than 4.5 million New Yorkers, or about one in four state residents.

Fifty-one percent of 2008 Medicaid spending in the state was on acute care,

including doctor and hospital visits and prescription drugs. Nearly 43 percentwent to long-term care, such as nursing homes and home health care. Medicaid payments

per enrollee in New York were $8,450 in 2007, well above the $5,163 national

average and the second highest in the country.

Sources: Kaiser Family Foundation; Citizens Budget Commission; Ravitch Report on Controlling Increases in the Cost of New York Medicaid; National Association of State Budget Offi cers

James Knickmanpresident and CEO of the New York State Health Foundation

The three most critical issues will be implementing federal health reform effective-ly; reducing the trajectory of health care costs; and focusing on efforts to improve health and prevent disease.

The New York State Health Foundation is playing a role as a funder and a convener to ensure that New York State makes the most of the op-portunities that the health reform law offers. We want to be sure that as many New Yorkers as possible are enrolled in affordable health care coverage and have access to timely, high-quality health care services. We can’t just look at coverage in a vacuum; we need to think about broader system reforms that can improve health care quality and reduce costs.

Clearly, we’re seeing attention to implementing health reform, because we can’t afford to lose any time in that effort. Gov. Cuomo also has been very focused on containing costs, particularly through the Medicaid Redesign Team. Where there’s less attention is on public health and disease prevention—important elements for keeping people healthy and reducing hospital costs.

Kenneth Raskepresident of the Greater New York Hospital Association

The most important health care issue facing New York State is the need to reduce Medicaid costs without compromising health care quality and access to care, and the best way to ac-complish that is through program redesigns instead of reimburse-ment cuts.

Through its participation in Gov. Cuomo’s Medicaid Rede-sign Team, and working with state legislators, GNYHA will share its health care expertise to develop solutions that improve care while reducing costs.

It is critically important that any plan to reduce Medicaid costs includes strategies to reduce the high cost of medical malpractice insurance, particularly in the area of obstetrics, where Medicaid covers half of all deliveries in New York State and 60 percent of all births in New York City.

Sound-bites

Thursday, January 27

10 a.m. – 1 p.m.Baruch College

Thursday, January 27

3 p.m. – 6 p.m.Bronx Community College

Friday, January 28

10 a.m. – 1 p.mHofstra University

Wednesday, February 2

10:30 a.m. – 1:30 p.m.SUNY New Paltz

Thursday, February 3

10:30 a.m. – 1:30 p.m. SUNY Adirondack Community College

Schedule of Medicaid Redesign Team Meetings

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The Way to Reach Elected Officials

Look who’s readingThe Capitol...

THE CAPITOL JANUARY 24, 2011 9www.nycapitolnews.com

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BY ANDREW J. HAWKINS

In his State of the State speech, Gov. Andrew Cuomo said that the only way to make New York the

Empire State once again was through “a vibrant private sector that was creating great jobs.”

But the 10 regional councils Cuomo has vowed to create to drive economic development around the state are still unformed and his plan to remake the Empire State Development Corporation is shrouded in secrecy, with no word on who will get the top spot at the agency.

What can be gleaned from sources close to the discussions is that Cuomo and Lt. Gov. Bob Duffy, who will oversee the regional councils, are intent on mov-ing away from the top-down, New York City-and-Albany-driven models of the past, empowering the regional councils with funding and bond-buying powers, and instilling a sense of competition in the process to encourage growth.

After years of turnover, failed pro-grams and confl icting mission statements, ESDC is widely seen as in desperate need of a jump-start. And the longer Cuomo delays appointing a chair, the more the doubts rise about his commitment to its future grow.

“I’m shocked,” said one person with knowledge of the administration’s eco-nomic development discussions. “This is the crown jewel in the agency pipeline at the state level, and they don’t have any-body [in charge].”

Others saw this as a sign of more delib-eration within the administration.

“This is a work in progress,” said An-drew Rudnick, president of the Buffalo-Niagara Partnership. “The governor has made the budget issues—that are not easy—priority number one. My sense is, other things will take not a backseat, but a side seat, until the specifi cations of what he is proposing in his budget are a little bit further along.”

Several names for the ESDC president have been fl oated, including ex-Rep. Scott Murphy and Mike Carey, an economic de-velopment offi cial under Rudy Giuliani whose father, former Gov. Hugh Carey, is often credited with helping rescue New York City during the fi scal crisis of the 1970s. But neither Murphy nor Carey ap-pear eager to take the job.

“I haven’t heard anything about that,” Carey said when asked whether he has been approached for the job. “I’m not go-ing to comment on the governor. I think it would be inappropriate.”

After years of turnover, failed programs and conflicting mission statements, ESDC is widely seen as in desperate need of a jump-start.

Empire State BuildingDetails about Cuomo’s economic development strategy emerge, but a new ESDC chair does not

A Cuomo chairman said the name of the ESDC president and the membership of the regional councils would be publi-cized in “the coming weeks.”

But while the budget may be a top pri-ority for the administration, Cuomo and Duffy both have raised eyebrows by get-ting involved in development projects. Cuomo has personally called companies

in an attempt to woo them to the state. And even before taking offi ce, Duffy jumped on a plane to visit one business that was considering locating to New York.

“For the last eight years, I haven’t seen anybody on the second fl oor, without us begging, pick up the phone and call com-panies that we’re trying to recruit to New York,” said Rob Simpson, president of CenterState CEO, a Rochester-area eco-nomic development corporation.

So far, Cuomo’s economic develop-ment agenda has revolved around the

formation of the 10 regional councils. Af-ter delivering his State of the State mes-sage in Poughkeepsie on Jan. 20, Cuomo stressed to reporters that the councils would be the most effective outlet to determining the individual development needs in each region.

“One rule is there is no top-down eco-nomic development strategy. These are bottom-up economic development strat-egies, the ones that work,” Cuomo said. “And you have to work with a local re-gion, determine the assets to work up a plan for that region.”

The problem so far is fi guring out how to draw the lines for each of the 10 re-gions. Some sources close to the discus-sions said they have seen several maps drawn up by the administration, but that none appear close to completion. One draft had 12 North Country counties combined to form a single development region.

Economic development experts also note that the councils will be key in get-ting the various regions to concentrate their development strategies on a hand-ful of industries, rather than spread their efforts too thin over a wide variety of businesses. Still, Cuomo stressed that competition will be a key ingredient in his economic development strategy, an-nouncing in the State of the State that the various regions will compete for $200 mil-lion in funding.

Regional economic development councils are not a new idea. Mario Cuomo directed the Urban Development Corpo-ration—which was recast as ESDC in the

1990s—to work with local industrial de-velopment agencies to develop regional economic development plans. And Eliot Spitzer, after bifurcating the leadership at ESDC into upstate and downstate chair-men, announced “regional blueprint” meetings across the state to help spur the upstate economy.

Ken Adams, president of the Business Council—which is a key player in the Cuomo-friendly Committee to Save New York—said the success of the regional council approach will depend greatly on how much power Cuomo gives them.

“The county, the IDAs, the local eco-nomic development organizations, the lo-cal chambers of commerce, all the stake-holders in a regional economy,” he said. “By having everyone coordinated, it’s just more effi cient than the common turf battles, stepping on toes, and this cum-bersome layering of bureaucracies that really create obstacles.”

Cuomo’s plan to eliminate 20 percent of New York’s agencies will almost cer-tainly include local development corpo-rations that have worn out their mission. Several are said to already be in the cross-hairs of Paul Francis, the governor’s point man on trimming government agencies.

Dan Gunderson, the upstate ESDC czar under Spitzer, said Cuomo should pare back the number of local develop-ment corporations, but must not lose the professionals who work out of the state’s regional economic development offi ces. And above all else, he said, the gover-nor should clearly spell out his goals on economic development—jobs created, projects completed, etc.—so voters have a metric by which to judge his perfor-mance.

“You can window-dress and you can change and reorganize and come up with new incentive programs,” Gunder-son said. “What’s it all mean if you can’t say how it resulted in jobs and improved competitiveness?”

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Lt. Gov. Bob Duffy’s role in overseeing 10 regional councils has satisfi ed some offi cials that Cuomo’s development strategy will focus on upstate.

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The Senate Republicans’internal and external struggles to keep the party going

LAST LAUGH

One of the Senate Republicans’ longstanding internal divides has been between the powerful Long Island faction, led by Dean Skelos, and the upstate faction, led by Tom Libous. Skelos has afforded Libous a greater role than that typically afforded a deputy majority leader, in a nod to upstate’s concerns.W

as the 2010 battle for the State Senate, for so long seen as the Republicans’ Waterloo, the end—or just the end of the beginning?

Ask the Senate Republicans that question, and they are almost certain to brush it off.

They will stay on message, say something about a prop-erty-tax cap, the spending cap or STAR rebate checks. They will turn to the Democrats and the past, bring up the

$14 billion of new taxes under Democratic rule or their $14 million in overspending on staff.

They will bring up the new governor, who they say co-opted their platform. They will say the sad state of the state is much bigger than politics. They will talk about making the Senate function again. Session may even start beginning on time.

They will talk about anything but the next election—whenever that happens to be.Ask about the four members pushing 80 or older, and they will say that no retire-

ments are expected over the next two years. The prospects of losing a special elec-tion, which would give the chamber back to the Democrats, are nil, they scoff.

“I think we’re about to see the biggest political shift in the state and country since the Great Depression,” said State Sen. Ken LaValle, once seen as one of the top GOP targets for 2010. “The Democrats can’t even manage the Senate, so I don’t know how they would win an election.”

The Senate Republicans seem to speak with one voice, honed as they railed each day on the Senate fl oor against the Democrats’ spending increases over the past two years. Even freshman Sen. Greg Ball, in a blood feud with Senate Republican leader-ship only a few months ago, seems to have fully joined the fold.

“We’re willing to come together as mature, functioning adults in a way that has not been seen in that other conference,” said Ball, now attributing all past troubles with the Senate Republicans to the maneuverings of his recently-indicted nemesis Vincent Leibell.

But their public front does not mean that the questions about the future are not be-ing raised privately. Even as they bask in the glory of the improbable 2010 comeback, it is hard not to raise them, especially with redistricting looming.

By Chris Bragg

Their grip on the seat that returned the majority is tenuous at best. In one of the biggest political upsets in recent his-tory, Democrat-turned-Republican Mark Gristanti, a brusque attorney from Buffa-lo, somehow beat Antoine Thompson, an incumbent African-American, in a heavily black district where Democrats outnum-ber Republicans 5 to 1.

But in 2012, Carl Paladino will not be on the ticket to drive up white turnout. Barack Obama will be back to drum up Democratic voters, particularly those in minority communities. Just fl ip this one seat and hold the rest, Democrats note, and Lt. Gov. Bob Duffy would be able to cast the deciding vote for a Democratic Senate president. And they are not ex-pecting to fl ip just one seat.

Even more daunting is the ever-ex-panding demographic shift from upstate to New York City. Ten years ago, Senate Republicans created a 62nd Senate dis-

trict where they were able to place some of the expanding downstate population to largely preserve their own districts.

Now, even if they broke all their prom-ises to allow nonpartisan redistricting, even if they were able to create a new dis-trict to take some of the population, even that would likely favor Democrats.

Seven Republican districts do not have the minimum number of residents constitutionally required. Of the 32 Sen-ate districts currently held by Republi-cans, 15 of them have Democratic voter registration advantages. And the dis-tricts may be as gerrymandered as they possibly can be.

So behind every proposal, compro-mise or backtrack, fairly or unfairly, there are whispers about the future. When the conference recently introduced a con-stitutional amendment to require a two-thirds vote in the Senate to raise taxes, it seemed a conventional enough move,

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new governor, as he tries to make good on pledges to cut spending, but with oth-er members of the conference.

If Long Island does get more money this year, others in the conference could get less. For instance, Grisanti, their most politically vulnerable member, represents a district with a number of very needy schools in Buffalo—the very type that Cuomo wants to fund more.

“That would be the spark that starts something,” said one person close to the conference. “They will have to be able to sell to the conference that more money for Long Island is not coming at their ex-pense.”

This is not the only potential split be-tween Long Island and Western New York members. Grisanti and other members of the Western New York delegation are also pushing for UB 2020 and other economic development plans, which do not always square with the Long Island faction’s em-phasis on property-tax relief.

State Sen. George Maziarz, the leader of the Western New York delegation and No. 3 Republican in the conference, has been especially worried that the New York Power Authority, whose surpluses provide the lifeblood of the Western New York economy, will be forced to bail out the $7 billion-in-debt Long Island Power Authority. Maziarz even broached the idea of running for Senate Republican leader this summer over concerns that Cuomo would pursue a merger of the au-thorities, and fears that the current lead-ership would not push back hard enough.

Maziarz also said he feared that his Long Island colleagues would support the move, telling the Buffalo News that without a merger Long Island would have to increase service rates by 100 percent. His Long Island Republican colleagues looked at NYPA “with dollar signs in their eyes,” he added.

For now, Maziarz said he is taking a wait-and-see approach as to how all these issues will play out among the con-ference, growing so animated as he made the point that he slapped a reporter on the knee.

“Talk to me at the end of the session,” he said, when asked if his colleagues would heed Western New York’s de-mands. “Ronald Reagan is my favorite president, so I’ll quote a phrase of his: ‘Trust, but verify.’”

Another dividing line in the confer-ence may be a generational one. There are eight, mostly younger freshmen mem-bers, who, unlike their colleagues, ran without much of the special-interest sup-port of the Republican incumbents. They assumed offi ce in the year of the Tea Party. They do not have the institutional memories nor the pent-up hatred for the Democrats like many of their colleagues.

Even Bonacic, the perpetually tanned reformer from the Hudson Valley who has been in Albany since 1990, said there would be diffi culty overcoming these bar-riers as he pressed for more stringent rules reforms like equal distribution of resources.

“There’s still some of the old way of thinking about things,” Bonacic said.

For many of the veterans, the motiva-tion to continue serving seems somewhat different. They cannot stand the idea of Democrats taking their seats, or the chamber—especially given the way they were treated the past two years, the way bills were never brought to them before votes, all the elbows thrown by Eric Ad-ams, John Sampson’s top deputy.

On a day otherwise dominated by bi-partisan rhetoric, Skelos delivered what was widely seen as a highly partisan speech during the State of the State, even backhandedly referencing the fact that unlike the Democrats, his conference came in $4 million under their staffi ng budget last year.

State Sen. Owen Johnson was as miffed as anyone. As he seconded Skelos’ nomination to be the new Senate presi-dent, the 81-year-old repeatedly paused to draw more breath as he went through a two-minute speech. He elicited a beaming smile even from Skelos, who otherwise looked uncomfortable at all the praise heaped on him during the ceremony.

“He’s now returning to his rightful po-sition,” Johnson said of Skelos, barely audible from across the chamber. “Dur-ing his hiatus of two years he had the strength and the ability to keep us in a good mood.”

When he was fi nished, Skelos tried to shake Johnson’s hand, but the senator had already sat down, visibly exhausted. Only a day earlier, Skelos declared that Johnson had promised to run for another three terms. He was only half joking.

Breaking with the old ways could also include giving committee chairs to Democratic rivals.

Skelos has said he is open to the idea. And this would not be totally foreign to the Republican conference, which gave Carl Kruger a chairmanship in 2007. The formation of the new four-person Independent Democratic Caucus caused enough pause in the Republican conference for initial assignments to be delayed almost a week, according to one person close to the conference.

Still, the idea of giving committee chairs to two members of the new confer-ence—State Sens. David Valesky and Da-vid Carlucci—seems odd, since both will likely be top Republican targets in 2012. When the Democrats gave two chairs away in a show of bipartisanship after the coup, they went to Maziarz and the late Tom Morahan, two incumbents whom the Democrats were not expecting to priori-tize challenges to in 2010.

Some have also pressed the idea that perhaps the conference has grown too conservative for Democrats to be handed committee assignments. State Sen. Diane Savino, another member of the four-per-son breakaway conference, said they had not been contacted about possible chair-manships.

But Maziarz said he expects that three

the follow-up on one of their campaign promises. Still, some wondered whether the real intent was to give Senate Repub-licans a more powerful voice if and when they return to the minority.

The rationale behind Sen. John Bo-nacic’s push for rules reform is to allow minority senators to more ably represent their districts. But another part of the rationale, he acknowledges, is that ma-jorities come and go—an idea that would have been unthinkable back when Bo-nacic fi rst won his Senate seat in 1998.

Even if Republicans win in 2012, these questions will arise again in 2014—and, if they hold it then, again in 2016. And 2018. For all the drama and wounds they cause, Democrats can afford coups, and scandals, and infi ghting, and they can still come back. The Republicans cannot.

“If a nonpartisan committee were to ever draw anything close to fair lines, Democrats would have the majority by something like 38-24,” said Professor Andrew Beveridge, a redistricting expert who has studied New York’s population shifts. “Senate Republicans will always be on the edge.”

Aday before the State of the State, a crowd of about 100 gathered for Lee Zeldin’s swearing-in in the Senate cham-ber, many of them members of Suffolk

County’s Tea Party who had bussed up on a Tuesday afternoon, to gawk at the Siena marble of the visitor’s gallery and revel one more time in their trouncing of Brian Foley.

Also on hand were fi ve veteran sena-tors from Long Island who had come up a day early to celebrate the reestablish-ment of the powerful nine-man Repub-lican bloc—the so-called Long Island Nine—that had been broken by Foley and Craig Johnson.

At fi rst, Zeldin might seem to be an odd addition to the group. A 30-year-old Iraq War veteran, he is at least 40 years junior of many of his Long Island col-leagues. But Zeldin says he is right on the same page with the delegation, which has long been the most powerful and cohe-sive in the Republican conference, if not the Legislature. Joining their ranks was like joining the military, he said.

“Long Island deserves a seat at the ta-ble,” Zeldin said, “and it got it this year.” But the renewed power of this faction could cause internal issues within the conference.

Getting as much school aid as possi-ble has long been the top priority for the Long Island delegation. It has been left to the end of budget negotiations, when the fi nal bargaining chips are played with the governor and speaker. With Long Island the battle ground that has determined control of the Senate, securing funding for school districts has become even more important in recent years. With property taxes among the highest in the country, Long Island voters demand fund-ing for public schools to help ease this burden.

State Sen. John Flanagan, the chair of the Education Committee, has prom-ised that unlike the past two years, when Long Island disproportionately lost out on school aid, the Long Island Nine will get their fair share. LaValle, fi rst elected in 1976, dismissed the idea that school aid funding would have to be cut at all, despite the fact that education funding makes up some one-third of state spending.

“The way I would answer that is to say that we are going to recreate a different delivery system in the way we deliver our services—there will be consolidation of services, mandate relief, pension reform,” LaValle said. “That will hopefully give our school districts and our localities cash in a different way, so that they don’t have to reduce services.”

But Cuomo has stated he wants more education dollars go to high-need urban school districts and rural schools, rather than wealthy Long Island districts. And the Long Island bloc’s insistence that they get more funding this year might not only put them on a collision course with the

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members of the conference currently with two chairs each will cede one of their chairmanships, with those three gavels going to Democrats in a gesture of bipartisanship, though he did not say who those Democrats might be. Giving a few extra resources or committee chairs to sympathetic Democrats could give Re-publicans some breathing room as they assume a chamber that continues to have a tight two-seat divide.

This is far from the only policy-based question infused with the politics of 2012. Even in the minority, Republicans had al-lies in the labor world, especially public-sector unions such as the Civil Service Employees Association and Public Em-ployees Federation.

Yet these are the very unions Cuomo has put squarely on the chopping block.

As Cuomo and the Senate Republi-cans continue to push a spending cap, a property-tax cap and other measures that would reduce the size of state and local governments, offi cials from these unions say they still remain more comfortable with the idea of a Republican majority than a Democratic one.

For now, there seems to be some con-fi dence that Senate Republicans will not completely abandon them.

“We’ve had a relationship with them for a long time,” said PEF President Ken Brynien, whose union is likely to see deep cuts this year. “We’ll have to see. But over the past two years there was a situation where nothing could really get done. And that’s the worst situation of all.”

1199, once a staunch ally that for years helped keep them in the majority under Joe Bruno, will likely face a different situation. The health care workers’ union started almost exclusively supporting Democrats following Bruno’s departure and Republicans’ loss of the majority. Now, the conference has declared Medic-aid the number-one place to start cutting.

“We spend $1 billion a week on Medic-aid,” said new Senate Finance Committee chair John DeFrancisco, who pledged not to raise taxes a penny, nor to extend the millionaire’s tax. “There is plenty of room through cuts, plenty of room for effi cien-cies, all the way through government.”

This stands in direct opposition to the beliefs of 1199 President George Gresh-am, who, unlike the more pragmatic Dennis Rivera, has brought a distinct, Working Families Party-inspired leftward ideological bent to the union. Even with Republicans back in power, many see the union as unlikely to return to the fold. This may not bode well for Gresham, who argued that it would be impossible to bal-ance the budget without raising taxes.

“We all think it’s very diffi cult to talk about a $10 billion defi cit without any conversation about revenue,” Gresham said. “We don’t think there is a cleaver and axe big enough to deal with the kinds of cuts we’re talking about.”

That is not to say that Republicans have completely given up on their old friends. State Sen. Kemp Hannon, chair of the Health Committee, said he still saw

Late last July, the clock was ticking down for Senate Republicans to sign New York Uprising’s pledge to sup-

port nonpartisan redistricting. With re-districting looming, the desire to have Ed Koch robo-calling in their districts, label-ing them Heroes of Reform, was strong.

But in their minds, there was a problem with the way the pledge was constructed. Initially, it had called for all of New York’s statewide elected representatives to get an appointment to this year’s redistrict-ing commission, mirroring a proposal that had been put forward by Democratic State Sen. Mike Gianaris. But Senate Re-publicans said this would unfairly tilt the process towards the Democrats, given the make-up of the state’s electorate.

After intense negotiations, a compro-mise was struck: only legislative leaders would get to appoint representatives. Sat-isfi ed, Dean Skelos and the entire confer-ence signed on at the last minute.

But since the Senate Republicans’ sur-prising return to the majority, their grasp of and commitment to the Koch pledge seems to have become less clear. When Skelos gave his State of the State speech, his failure to mention nonpartisan redis-tricting, when even Shelly Silver found a way to reference it, did not go unnoticed by Koch’s group and others.

Deputy Majority Leader Tom Libous says Republicans are still committed to

some type of nonpartisan redistricting—but was unclear what that would look like. In particular, he said, a law passed last year by Senate Democrats to count upstate prisoners as residents of their home communities in the next census could derail the whole deal.

“You keep hearing, ‘fair and indepen-dent,’” Libous said. “Well, there are a lot of issues that go along with fair and inde-pendent. We want to do fair redistricting where all parts of the sum total are fair. The way some of this stuff is structured right now, it’s not.”

But statements like this are already causing concern.

“We negotiated with the Senate Re-publicans and amended the proposal to make it more acceptable to them,” said Citizens United executive director Dick Dadey. “Senator Libous knows what in-dependent redistricting is. He didn’t sign that pledge lightly.”

Notably, the new law counting prison-ers downstate rather than upstate was passed two weeks after Senate Republi-cans signed the Koch pledge, as part of the extremely late budget.

Still, Senate Democrats say this is just one of many rationalizations likely to come as Senate Republicans back off from the pledge.

“I’ve been in Albany a long time and seen my share of shenanigans, but it’s

something unique to see the way the Re-publicans are literally contorting them-selves to get out of this promise,” said Gianaris, the new chair of the Democratic Senate Campaign Committee.

Of course, Cuomo has promised to veto any redistricting plan that is not nonpar-tisan in nature. If he follows through, the matter could again end up in court.

But there are already whispers about how exactly Republicans will backtrack. Rumors are circulating among insiders who think that Cuomo could perhaps drop his demands for nonpartisan redistricting if Republicans promise to support more politically pressing fi ghts, like a proper-ty-tax cap and ethics reform. They also note that Silver would have to agree to any redistricting plan, and is unlikely to cede one of his major powers to give Re-publicans any cover.

Sen. George Maziarz, one of the more blunt members of the conference, ac-knowledged that he is already thinking about how the city of Buffalo could be taken entirely out of Grisanti’s district in order to protect the party’s most vulner-able new member. And Republicans out-side the conference are already voicing concerns on following the Koch pledge.

“My problem with nonpartisan reap-portionment is that it’s still political,” said Ed Lurie, the former SRCC chair under Joe Bruno, “because it means that it’s go-ing to make it more diffi cult for Republi-cans to keep their majority.” —CB

Older members like Ken LaValle and Hugh Farley are nearing retirement, while power has consolidated among a somewhat younger generation, including new Finance Committee chair John DeFrancisco and Tom Libous.

About That Pledge…

an opening, calling unions the “ultimate realists.”

“When managements change, you ne-gotiate with the new management,” Han-non said.

As Senate Republicans navigate their way through these minefi elds, there will always be the example from across the aisle to remind them what not to do.

When the Senate Republicans were in the minority, they could still exert infl u-ence as a cohesive bloc of 30 votes that

Democrats—and special interests—were still forced to court. With the Democratic bloc down to 26 seats, their power to ap-peal to lobbies looking to pass legislation is severely diminished.

Then there is the Democrats’ $14 mil-lion in overspending on staff while in the majority.

The conference’s $15 million dollar in staffi ng cuts will make it more diffi cult for incumbents to provide constituent servic-es, not to mention provide fewer taxpay-er-funded campaign workers spending their overtime hours out on the trail.

And if a special election occurs over the next two years, the Democratic Sen-ate Campaign Committee will have to convince vendors who might work for them that they will get paid, despite$3 million of unsecured debt.

“Every vendor is going to require a down payment fi rst,” said Republican consultant Susan Del Percio, a former consultant to the Senate Republican Campaign Committee. “I don’t know of anyone who would do business with a person that is $3 million in debt.”

Though Deputy Majority Leader Tom Libous is planning to keep a small offi ce open for the Senate Republican Campaign Committee, he promises that it will not go back to its free-spending ways of the past, even though more dollars are likely to fl ow in now that they are in the majority.

“We are fl ush. We have money in the bank,” Libous said, before adding, “and

I think we’re going to continue to run SRCC as effectively as we did.”

And unlike the Democrats, whose leadership was in question from the day they assumed the majority, Republicans say they have struck an easy peace. There will be no Thanksgiving or June coups, no Pedro Espadas or Hiram Monserrates, they say.

Libous, once thought to be a poten-tial rival to Skelos, is expected to have expanded duties in a nod to the upstate members. He is expected to handle the conference’s political efforts, from re-districting to resource allocation, while Skelos and his staff, which has gotten much younger following the 2008 transi-tion, will focus primarily on policy.

In other words, there are reasons for optimism for the Senate Republicans—reasons to keep fi ghting the sands of time and sobering trends. They are still battle-ready.

The always-energetic Libous seemed especially fi red up as he walked down the hallway towards the Senate chamber on the fi rst day of session. He noted that he had just had successful back surgery, fol-lowing successful treatments for prostate cancer a year earlier.

Libous pointed out his trimmed-down physique, then kicked his knees up in the air several times.

“Just look at me,” he said. “I’ve been doing stairs!”

cbragg@nycapitolnews.com

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Perspectives

If you’re a New Yorker who takes the subway, or sends your kid to public school, or uses a hospital,

or library, or senior center, or goes to the beach, or goes to college, or pays property taxes, things are going to get interesting fast.

On Feb. 1, Gov. Cuomo will present his budget to the Legislature. As he prom-ised, it will be built around the idea of cuts. We just had an election, and voters spoke loudly and clearly. Cutting went from an ancient right-wing slogan to the received wisdom of the political and chattering classes. It is now con-ventional wisdom, the Dominant Idea, the only Idea. Everyone’s a cutter, Democrats and Republicans alike.

But what will be quickly appar-ent is what Albany insiders have always known: Only about one-third of state spending goes to state agencies. The rest is sent to local governments and hospi-tals. In other words, if the executive bud-get cuts $9 billion, the folks who use local schools, hospitals, trains, buses, colleges, county, city, town and village services are the ones who will feel it.

This all seems inevitable, even logical. We’re deeply and truly broke. There is no political will to raise revenues. Keynesian economics, which gave legitimacy to gov-

ernment spending to stimulate economic growth, seems gone. There is no intellec-tual battlefi eld, where ideas like public in-vestment or compassion compete. Foxo-nomics rules. Cutting spending rules.

For now. Watch carefully for the res-urrection of a moral challenge to the Dominant Idea. Americans, even in the throes of economic collapse and the poli-tics of fear and loathing, are fair-minded. They will make the hard decision, if they think it necessary. But they won’t abide a

shirker, they won’t exempt anyone from the consequence of the hard choice, they won’t excuse you from your share of the pain. Inevitably, as the real human conse-quences, New Yorkers will make sure that we’re all in the same boat. And an Old Idea will re-emerge to challenge today’s Dominant Idea.

The Old Idea has a familiar name: Shared Sacrifi ce. In a crisis, everybody shares the suffering, just as everybody shares in the good times. It’s as Ameri-can as a barn-raising or a food drive. It’s

a moral imperative woven through our collective experience, familiar to fans of It’s A Wonderful Life and Casablancaand Huckleberry Finn and Sesame Streetalike. There’s a small voice in our con-science insisting that pain and loss, if they must come, should come for everyone.

On Feb. 1, Shared Sacrifi ce will stir and speak. Is everybody going to contrib-ute to the solution to the Albany mess? It will resonate across kitchen tables, and eventually in the halls of government—

starting in the Assembly and the Senate. Legislators are close to the lives of regular folks, which is why the Legislature is the place where things get stopped or slowed down, where the minority or the unpopular idea gets place and momentum. If

nowhere else, this is where “Shared Sac-rifi ce” will be heard and will collide with “Cut Spending.”

In the swirl of budget politics, how-ever, Shared Sacrifi ce quickly becomes a tax increase for the wealthy, with the ad-ditional revenues going to schools, hospi-tals, etc. Once you describe it that way, political weakness emerges. Everyone is for Shared Sacrifi ce—note the use of the phrase by the business group supporting the Cuomo agenda—but no one is for a tax increase. The specifi c proposal for a

continuation of the millionaire’s tax, as well as reductions in corporate subsidies, will slam up against the no-tax pledges that are everywhere, with little to change the balance of power. The same sort of fi ght took place under Mario Cuomo in 1990, when a mid-year revenue collapse resulted in major cuts and no revenues. This was in spite of editorial, union and some political agitation in the Legislature.

And so the battle will unfold in Albany, with public and press cynicism at legend-ary heights, as “Cut Spending” goes up against “Shared Sacrifi ce.” You may not read about it in those terms when the back-and-forth of interest groups, labor unions and business executives is domi-nating the news. But in the end, a few hun-dred elected offi cials in Albany will battle it out and choose between two competing Ideas. The best advice for legislators is to think beyond the next 120 days.

There will be, there need be, reduc-tions in state spending. But either we’re all in it together, or we’re not. That’s the core decision to be made. Our lives will be different depending on who wins.

It’s the American Way.

Richard Brodsky, a former 14-term Assemblyman, is a columnist for The Capitol.

By Richard Brodsky

When Rhetoric Meets Budget Reality, Shared Sacrifi ce Could Still Beat Spending Cuts

The best advice for legislators is to think

beyond the next 120 days.

To Make Your Reservation Please call 877-462-4441*Per Diem rate based on availability

www.nycapitolnews.com14 JANUARY 24, 2011 THE CAPITOL

BY LAURA NAHMIAS

Already, Department of En-vironmental Conservation fund-ing is half what it was 20 years

ago. And with state fi nances expected to be balanced through spending cuts, the rumor that park rangers might be among the coming layoffs to be proposed by Gov. Andrew Cuomo is not the only bad news for the troubled regulatory agency.

David Paterson was roundly criti-cized for DEC staff cuts and an $11 million raid on the Environmental Pro-tection Fund. The new governor has a better set of tools to make a budget that spares the environment: a pro-business lobbying group committed to helping him fi ght public-sector unions and a Senate Republican majority with an in-terest in deregulation.

For a little while at least, Cuomo also has the goodwill of environmental ad-vocates, whose favor the governor has courted for years.

But in the meeting the governor had with Senate Republicans on Jan. 19 about the state’s new budget, he hinted at a distinct lack of green headed the way of DEC, according to Mark Grisanti, chair of the Senate Environmental Pro-tection Committee.

“He said, ‘It’s not going to be pretty,’” Grisanti said.

In the closing months of the Paterson administration, DEC commissioner Pete Grannis was dismissed for allegedly leaking an internal memo in protest over yet another round of cuts. Cuomo is un-der pressure to increase the agency’s allocation and put money back into the Environmental Protection Fund, despite the $10 billion overall budget defi cit he is trying to close.

Taking money from the EPF, which is funded by a real estate transfer tax, is nothing new for New York governors. But Paterson took so much that he in-terrupted the fund’s liquidity, derailing maintenance and infrastructure repairs and leaving fewer regulators to review permits.

“Unlike prior times, toward the end of the Paterson administration, they were sweeping so much from EPF they were interrupting the cash fl ow of the operations,” said Eric Kulleseid, a for-mer Spitzer administration offi cial and director of the Alliance for New York State Parks.

Grisanti is looking at environmen-tal initiatives past funding, however. As part of his new responsibilities, the

freshman senator said he plans to pro-pose legislation streamlining environ-mental permitting regulations, which he believes will make the state more busi-ness-friendly.

During the campaign and continuing since the election, Cuomo often spoke about the connection between stream-lining and attracting business. His DEC commissioner—notably, one of his early appointments—was Joe Martens, a man with a reputation for streamlining.

Cuomo also is replacing much of the DEC’s top brass, including the deputy commissioner Stuart Gruskin, possibly as a way to reprioritize the agency, said Dan Hendrick, spokesman for the New York League of Conservation Voters.

“Cuomo’s really cleaning house,” Hendrick said.

The permitting problem is part of the reason some business interests have al-lied with environmental advocates to lobby for more DEC and EPF money, according to Rob Robinson, chair of the Chamber Alliance of New York State.

“Businesses across the state are wait-ing months for mandated and necessary permits,” Robinson said. “We can’t af-ford to slow down the shot-in-the-arm that new and growing businesses pro-vide by holding up these critical per-mits at the Department of Environmen-tal Conservation because the agency’s short-staffed—this is a tangible invest-ment in job creation.”

The economic development angle can only go so far, though, say many parks and environmental advocates. The state parks system is estimated to generate $1.9 billion in direct and indi-rect revenue each year, and attendance is on the rise as vacationers seek out cheaper ways to relax. Nonetheless, three parks and one historical site are slated for closure, according to Parks and Trails New York, a parks advocacy organization.

The group’s executive director, Robin Dropkin, said she does not expect Cuomo to announce any more closures, especial-ly after the public outcry prompted by the list of 88 potential closures Paterson re-leased last year.

“Legislators said to the governor, ‘I can’t run for re-election if you close a park in my district,” Dropkin said.

But she said parks could still close if staffi ng levels get too low or maintenance becomes unsustainable.

“Death by a thousand cuts,” Dropkin called it.

lnahmias@nycapitolnews.com

The EnvironmentFor The EnvironmentMore cuts and less regulation expected for the already troubled DEC

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THE CAPITOL JANUARY 24, 2011 15www.nycapitolnews.com

BY JON LENTZ

Scaling back Medicaid, cutting the state workforce and slashing education spending are

among the options Gov. Andrew Cuomo is weighing to close the state’s $10 billion budget gap.

Another idea being fl oated is a tax amnesty, a government program often of-fered for a short period that allows tax-payers to pay unpaid taxes without any penalty or prosecution. Advo-cates argue that amnesties can bring in millions quickly, and with much less controversy than other revenue-raising ideas.

The concept has worked before: New York’s most lucra-tive amnesty program hauled in $587 million in late 2002 and early 2003. Its fi rst, which end-ed in 1986, boosted the state’s coffers by more than $400 million.

Other large states grappling with bud-get defi cits have had success with such programs in recent years, such as a $261 million boost in Pennsylvania last year and $725 million raised in New Jersey in 2009. California drew a whopping $4.3 bil-lion in 2005.

Some experts say that an important consideration is whether the program is worth the cost, even if it provides a quick infl ux of cash during hard times.

Warnings from skeptics as amnesty makes its way into the defi cit-chopping conversation again

For one thing, general amnesties, which include known and unknown tax offenders, bring in a signifi cant amount of money that would, in theory, come to the state eventually. Since the money comes in sooner, these programs often reduce future revenue by speeding up the pro-cess and helping with current cash fl ow.

Amnesties also motivate tax evaders to come clean by reducing or eliminating penalties and interest payments, but this presents other tradeoffs.

New York’s 2002-2003 amnesty may have brought in over half a billion dollars, but it was actually less lucrative than it fi rst appeared. Over $350 million in inter-est and penalties were waived, according to a report from the state’s Offi ce of Tax Policy Analysis. An estimated $74 million was also lost because the offi ce’s staff had to spend time on the program instead of their regular work.

Taking these costs into ac-count, and factoring in the revenue

New York’s 2002-2003 amnesty may have

brought in over a half a billion dollars, but it was

actually less lucrative than it first appeared.

Tax Breaks

Source: Federation of Tax Administrators

1985-86

2010 $56.5 million

$349 million

$582.7 million

$253.4 million

$401.3 million

1996-97

2002-03

2005-06

Money generated from New York tax amnesties:

NOTABLENEW YORKTAX CHEATS:

BERNARD MADOFFperpetrator of massive Ponzi scheme

AMOUNT OWED: $6,009,516.69

DENNIS LEVINEformer banker involved in 1980s insider-trading scheme

ANDREW STEINformer New York CityCouncil President

AMOUNT OWED: $1,604,971.17

AMOUNT OWED: $470,670.65

that simply came in earlier, the pro-gram netted only about $83 million.There are warnings that when amnesties are offered too often, they encourage de-linquent taxpayers to wait until the next one comes along. New York’s last general amnesty ended in 2003, with smaller ones carried out in 2005, 2008 and 2010.

“You have to know, there are taxpay-ers and tax professionals who include in their calculations, ‘Well, we can play au-dit roulette today because there could be an amnesty in the future,’” said William Comiskey, a former deputy commissioner for tax enforcement at the state’s Depart-ment of Taxation and Finance.

Comiskey helped set up a limited pro-gram in 2008 that is ongoing, unlike typical amnesties, which last only a few months. The Voluntary Disclosure and Compliance Program is only open to tax delinquents the state does not know about.

Comiskey said that another amnesty would undermine the voluntary disclo-sure program, which has brought in more than $155 million in two years.

Arthur Kremer, a lobbyist and former chair of the Assembly Ways & Means Committee, said that an ambitious, well-executed amnesty can recoup a sizable portion of the $2.5 billion to $4.2 billion owed to the state in unpaid taxes.

“Some legislators say, ‘Why should we give a general amnesty when I pay my taxes?’” said Kremer. “But the answer is, you have to fi nd ways to collect the mon-ey that’s uncollectible. I think history is on the side of the general amnesty, and, philosophy aside, the money’s out there.”

Kremer said he is hopeful that a new program will outdo last year’s effort that brought in $56.5 million, well short of the $250 million it was estimated to generate.

Kremer said he has spoken with Gov. Andrew Cuomo and Senate Ma-jority Leader Dean Skelos in re-cent weeks to promote another amnesty.

A spokesperson for Skelos said the Senate majority leader was awaiting Cuomo’s budget proposal on Feb. 1 and did not know of any plans for a tax am-nesty, while a spokesman for the state budget division said that the governor’s budget pro-

posal is still in development and declined to discuss the possibility of an amnesty.

Despite the costs, an amnesty is a vi-able option to bring the budget in line, said Verenda Smith, interim executive director at the Federation of Tax Admin-istrators, an association of tax agencies.

“It’s usually cheaper than borrowing,” she said, “or more politically palatable than putting off paying your debts or your workers.”

jlentz@nycapitolnews.com

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THE CAPITOL JANUARY 24, 2011 17www.nycapitolnews.com

step increases on expired contracts. The amendment was passed in 1982

to prevent teachers from striking when school districts would ignore clauses they did not like in expired contracts. The Triborough Amendment required school districts to honor the entire contract un-til a new agreement was reached, and the number of strikes fell drastically.

Liz Feld, the former mayor of Larch-mont and a spokesperson for New York-ers for Growth, said the fi scally conserva-tive group will be leading the charge to repeal the Triborough Amendment this year. She said doing so would be a natural complement to Cuomo’s efforts to rein in state spending and trim the budget.

“Taxpayers don’t even know what [the Triborough Amendment] is, much less the fi nancial consequences,” Feld said. “We consider it one of the dirty little se-crets of collective bargaining.”

Feld argued that the amendment guar-antees built-in pay increases and benefi ts to public-sector unions “in perpetuity” if a new contract is not signed, essentially eliminating a union’s incentive to negoti-ate a new contract in a timely fashion.

Brian Sampson, president of Unshack-le Upstate, said that repealing the amend-ment would allow the state to negotiate better contracts with public workers.

“Nobody wants to take money out of a classroom, nobody wants to take money away from students,” Sampson said. “But you can’t afford the system that’s there. And these laws, Taylor and Triborough, give a signifi cant advantage to unions in collective bargaining, in that you can’t

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BY ANDREW J. HAWKINS

Jaws dropped at the fi rst meeting of Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s mandate-relief task force after chairman Larry

Schwartz said the group would con-sider freezing the pro-union Triborough Amendment.

“I was impressed with the fact that Larry threw the red meat on the table,” said Tim Kremer, executive director of the New York State School Boards Asso-ciation and a member of the task force. “He was putting out stuff and seeing who would nibble on it.”

Unfortunately for Kremer and others who feel the Triborough Amendment benefi ts unions at the expense of the state, the moment was short-lived.

“There were not many takers,” Kremer said. “We quickly moved on to pension reform.”

Repealing the Triborough Amend-ment, a clause of the state’s Taylor Law that allows unions to operate under the provisions of an expired contract while a new contract is being negotiated, has quickly become a political hot potato. Business groups revile the measure, argu-ing it drives up spending and puts pres-sure on the budget.

Under the provision, public employers are required to honor expired contracts and continue paying the standard “step” increases in those contracts. This means public employee pay continues to increase every year regardless of what happens in collective bargaining. Kremer estimates that almost $100 million is paid in yearly

Larry Schwartz, center, said freezing the Triborough Amendment could be a part of the governor’s mandate-relief efforts. Liz Feld, below, would like nothing better.

Contract KillersPro-business groups beyond Committee to Save New York target Triborough Amendment

discuss wages, you can’t discuss health care benefi ts, you can’t discuss contribu-tions, you can’t discuss any of that.”

Sampson said that to avoid layoffs, public-sector unions would need to com-

promise on the Triborough Amendment. But unions seem unwilling to budge

on the measure. And with rumors swirl-ing about Cuomo’s intention to cut thou-sands of public-sector jobs, the mood has reached a fevered pitch.

Michael Mulgrew, president of the United Federation of Teachers, said pro-business groups have tried, and failed, to repeal the amendment in the past. Tribor-ough, he said, was enacted as a protec-tion for municipalities and unions, and even some labor leaders have questioned its effectiveness.

“When you have both sides complain-ing about it, that means it’s probably do-ing its job,” said Mulgrew, whose mem-bers are currently operating under the provisions of their expired contract while the details of a new contract with the city are being hammered out. “Someone trying to take this economic downturn and use it to push a political agenda that they feel is good for the state is really irresponsible.”

Stephen Madarasz, a spokesperson for CSEA, said the Triborough Amendment “provides balance” and ensures that both employers and unions negotiate under good faith. Automatic pay increases are not the spirit of the law, he said.

“Some employees might get their step increase even under an expired contract,” Madarasz said. “But it’s hardly a majority of employees.”

Harry Nespoli, president of the Mu-nicipal Labor Council, said repealing the amendment would essentially remove the incentive for unions to sit at the bargain-ing table with employers.

“We’ve taken zeroes before. We’ve gone years without a contract that we’ve never gotten back money on,” Nespoli said. “Now the governor wants to sus-pend Triborough? What are we turning into?”

ahawkins@nycapitolnews.com

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www.nycapitolnews.com18 january 24, 2011 THE CAPITOL

By Laura Nahmias

There are not many kind words for former governors Eliot Spitzer and David Paterson these days.

But state health care officials and for-mer staffers say the two governors may have been visionaries in their decision to fund electronic health records systems throughout the state.

The systems will uniquely position the state to take advantage of hundreds of millions of dollars in federal funding for health IT systems through the HITECH Act and stimulus legislation.

The federal government has plans to release about $17 billion to help states across the country set up a “health In-ternet,” which the Obama administra-tion believes will drive down health care costs by eliminating misdiagnoses and over-prescriptions, as well as costly pa-perwork. New York State has already been allocated $130 million of that fed-eral funding—and more is likely to be on the way.

And while some states will have only just begun to build their systems, the Spitzer and Paterson administrations be-gan in 2007 to allocate what eventually amounted to more than $929 million in HEAL NY grants to help set up a series of regional health information systems (RHIOs). New York’s preparations will enable much more extensive use to be made of the money than in other states.

“What was done in the Spitzer administration totally set us on the right course,” said Bill Bern-stein, a former Spitzer administration official who helped develop the state’s Office of Health Information Tech-nology Transformation. “Before the feds funded any of this, the state’s HEAL NY program targeted a significant amount of money to support state infrastructure.”

The systems enable doctors to see pa-tient data from hospitals in the region, even if they have not treated the patient

at that location before. About 48 percent of the state’s hospi-

tals are using some kind of health records system, and 14 percent are sharing infor-mation between hospitals, according to New York State’s Department of Health.

Bernstein figures that New York is cur-rently in the top 20 percent of states in terms of how well-built its health IT sys-

tem is. But he and other health industry officials warn that the state has several challenges to face before it can claim vic-tory in implementing a statewide pro-gram, which would eventually cover 20 million patients.

One problem is resolving the question of how to build the system.

The records program is being planned by the New York eHealth Collaborative (NYeC), a public-private partnership that will eventually turn over control to the state’s Department of Health. Some health industry experts warned there could be disagreement between NYeC and the DOH over how much the state should rely on the systems already in place, and how much new infrastructure should be built.

Another problem will be the time nec-essary to build the network, which must, for safety reasons, be much more secure than an average Internet connection. That remains an open question.

“There is no target date,” said Peter Constantakes, a spokesman for the state’s Office of Health Information Technology Transformation. “That is not to say that we aren’t hoping to implement in a timely fashion, but we have to be a bit fluid as we move forward.”

Additionally, there are still doubts about the cost-cutting benefits of elec-tronic health records. A recent RAND Institute study suggests the savings are present only at the very highest levels of health records use.

For now, the target completion date is 2014, said Andrew Moesel, a lobbyist whose firm Sheinkopf Consulting for-merly represents the NYeC. The state’s money from the federal government is guaranteed, so the program will not be among the state government initiatives in play during the upcoming budget battles.

Cuomo did not mention health IT in his State of the State speech or in his campaign policy books, but signaled his interest in the program by his selection of Dr. Nirav Shah as the state’s DOH Com-missioner. Shah is an expert in health in-formation technology and systems-based medicine.

Encouraging health IT could also have the side effect of weaning the state off a small part of its federal Medicaid depen-dence. Part of the reason for the state’s bloated Medicaid budget is its overreli-ance on a 50 percent federal match rate for funds it allocates to the program. But the federal health IT money proposes a 90 percent funding match for health care providers who invest in those systems.

And health IT could become an economic boon for the state. An analysis in Business Week projected nation-wide spending on health IT in the U.S. will grow from $1.9 billion in 2009 to $3.8 billion by 2015.

To a state in a budget crisis, that kind of money potentially coming out of health care is nothing to sneeze at, experts say.

“If in the 20th century, bricks and mor-tar were key to health care,” Bernstein said, “in the 21st century, it’s really going to be IT.”

lnahmias@nycapitolnews.com

HEALTH

New York’s preparations will enable much more extensive use to be made of the federal money than in other states.

Healthy ConnectionThanks to Spitzer and Paterson, New York is uniquelypositioned to reap millions in federal health IT grants

THE CAPITOL january 24, 2011 19www.nycapitolnews.com

The Capitol: Muslim leaders have said they are ner-vous that your hearings will result in more suspi-cion of their community. Should they be?Pete King: There’s nothing to be nervous about at all—unless they’re not cooperating. My number-one criticism of the Muslim community is that since Sept. 11, they ap-pear to be more concerned about themselves than about the security of the country. There’s been virtually no in-cidences of retaliation against the Muslim community. There’s far more incidences of anti-Semitism every year than there are against Muslims. Even one act is wrong. The fact is, they constantly see everything being an at-tack on them. And my point is, there is definite radical-ization of Muslims in the community being conducted. Eric Holder says he can’t sleep at night because of the large number of young Muslims who want to take up arms against their country. They should be the ones who want a hearing like this, to find out the extent of the radi-calization and what they can do to combat this. But to me, they are putting the emphasis totally in the wrong direction.

TC: Any legislative opportunities as a result of these hearings?PK: Possibly. Also possibilities for the Department of Homeland Security to take different approaches. But the main purpose of it right now is to show the country the extent to which there is a threat within the country. Leg-islation could involve more resources, it could involve more training, it could involve more levels of coopera-tion between federal, state and local governments.

TC: Your gun control bill was not well-received by the speaker and the majority leader. Were you dis-appointed by their reaction?PK: I intend to introduce it. Just to be clear, from talking to regular people day in and day out, and also the police officers, virtually no one sees this as any Second Amend-ment threat. What we’re talking about is to not allow a gun to be brought to a public gathering sponsored by the president, vice president, senator or congressman. This is done as much, if not more so, to protect the general public. People will feel a sense of security when they go to an event. Again, if you go to the average person, cer-tainly in New York, and ask, “Do you think you should be able to bring a gun to a meeting with a congressman or senator or the president,” they’ll say “no.” So, do I ex-pect it to pass in the House this year? No. But I think it’s important to have it out there and have it debated. If not this year, than maybe next year, or in two years.

TC: Do you see any aspects of the shooting in Tuscon that fall under your jurisdiction as chair of Home-land Security?PK: I discussed it with Secretary Janet Napolitano. The

department is very much involved in the investigation. That first day, I spoke to her, Saturday night, within six hours of the shooting, and already you had the Depart-ment of Homeland Security itself, you had Customs and Border Protection involved, you had ICE involved. To that extent, Homeland Security was providing assis-tance, whether it’s database or information. To me, un-less you can show this was part of an organized effort or part of a movement, then to me it’s not a Homeland Security effort, it’s an act of a madman or an evil person or a criminal, but not part of an effort against the United States. If you could show there was organized militia ac-tivity or there were right-wing or left-wing groups meet-ing in concert and training or urging him on, but just one person—no.

TC: Will your committee look at the issue of domes-tic terrorism in the future?PK: We’re certainly in conversation with law enforce-ment all the time. There’s only so many hearings you can hold in the year. To hold them, you have to show that there’s some kind of homeland security threat, and that there’s nexus to a hostile organization or hostile move-ment. And so far, there’s none of that.

TC: In light of the shooting, should members of Con-gress be given more security?PK: I have had security details for the last 15 years. I believe, whenever there’s a public event, that the mem-ber of Congress should notify the police and let them de-cide whether they feel security is needed. People in New York City or Long Island have security that is unobtru-sive. They don’t come between the member of Congress and the people. It does provide a level of security. It’s not like you’re in any kind of a bubble. As a member of Con-

gress, yeah, you want security, but it’s as important for the public to have security, because you’re talking about encouraging free speech and public gatherings.

TC: Should the state Legisla-ture adopt a plan for indepen-dent redistricting, as some have called for?PK: This is a disagreement I have with my good friend Ed Koch. I believe that the Legislature should be the ultimate decision-making power. If they did put it out to an independent body, that body should be able to take in le-gitimate political considerations, in that redistricting is a political act. It’s to strengthen the state in Congress. For instance—I always use the example—if you have, for instance, two powerful mem-bers of Congress, just to have a commission arbitrarily designate equal districts of 800,000, you’ll be putting two members that can really help the state in the same district. To me, that’s wrong. You should find a way to make it rea-sonably contiguous in a way that protects the best interests of the state. Obviously, there can be ger-rymandering. I guess the court can be a guardian against that. But I believe there’s a legitimate role for the political process to play as far as congressional redis-tricting. As far as the Assembly or Senate redistricting, that’s up

to them. New York is competing against the rest of the country.

TC: Are the state’s freshman Republicans nervous about redistricting?PK: Back in November, I mentioned to them that I’m sure it wasn’t on their mind, redistricting was going to be a major issue, but that they should keep it out of their mind as much as possible when they’re making deci-sions—not to get caught up in it. I’ve been through one redistricting, and I saw how it can set member against member and create tremendous tension. It’s a tough pro-cess to go through.

—Andrew J. Hawkinsahawkins@nycapitolnews.com

Back Forth

Back & Forth

Back & Forth&

& &

&

Blue JayThe King’s SpeechL ess than a month into his tenure as chair of the Homeland Security committee and senior Republican

in New York, Pete King is already stirring controversy. His plans to hold hearings in February to examine the so-called radicalization of the U.S. Muslim community has drawn comparisons to Joe

McCarthy’s HUAC hearings in the 1950s. And his calls for stricter gun laws in the wake of the Gabby Giffords shooting has elicited a chorus of boos from his own party.

Taking a break from the vote to repeal the health care reform law, King talks about the upcoming hearings, the need for members of Congress to be more vigilant and the looming fight over redistricting.

What follows is an edited transcript.

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