THE NEW YORK STATE LEGISLATIVE PROCESS: AN ...

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52 THE NEW YORK STATE LEGISLATIVE PROCESS: AN EVALUATION AND BLUEPRINT FOR REFORM spends more than most, if not all, state legislatures on its staff and operations. In 2001, for example, New York appropriated more funds for its legislature’s operations than all but two other states in the country. 268 Not surprisingly, at least as recently as 1996, New York’s Legislature had “by far the largest payroll, with 3,899 staffers,” of any state legislature in the country. 269 Far from enhancing efficiency, therefore, the current legislative process distorts the allocation of precious public resources and causes unnecessary and costly delays. In addition, New York’s legislature also features an inefficient use of resources in another respect. In essence, the legislative process is at once both too fast and too slow. As we have seen, that process speeds bills through the legislature far too quickly to allow adequate deliberation and consideration to occur. Yet because of the numerous barriers to obtaining the full chamber’s consideration of legislation the Legislature cannot consider and address critical public policy problems in timely fashion. As a result, New Yorkers suffer needlessly from inefficient and inadequate legislative representation. ■ COURTS WITHOUT GUIDANCE Federal and state courts routinely turn to legislative history for guidance in understanding the intentions of Congress and state legislatures in passing a law and the factual bases for such legislation. Transcripts of floor debates, committee reports, and testimony at public hearings on a specific bill often become critical to a court’s understanding and faithful enforcement of a law. Without any of these materials being produced in New York State, courts have that much less guidance to ensure that they interpret New York’s laws faithfully and accurately. Ironically, the wording of the laws themselves – despite having been passed into law without careful review or correction by legislators – becomes all that is available to courts. The result is that New Yorkers are subject to potential injustices in their courts as judges attempt to interpret laws with limited assistance from the people’s representatives.
RECOMMENDATIONS FOR REFORM The reforms proposed here seek to make the New York State Legislature more faithful in its representation, more deliberative and effective in its exercise of legislative powers, more accessible and accountable to the voters, and more efficient in its legislative work. Significantly, the proposed reforms require only changes to each chamber’s rules, rather than legislation. For this reason, these reforms need not become the victim of the very legislative dysfunction they seek to repair. Each chamber may enact them separately, and the Governor need not be involved. Rules changes need not pass through a committee and thus will not be left to languish there. Most importantly, each chamber must vote to revise or maintain its existing rules every two years. For all these reasons, if reforms to the rules are not approved, it will only be because a majority of the members of a chamber expressly rejects them. The next regularly scheduled opportunity to approve such rules reforms will be in January of 2005, though a chamber could adopt such changes at any time before then. The proposed reforms to the rules of the Assembly and Senate are as follows: ■■■BILL INTRODUCTION ■ Each member shall be limited to introducing 20 bills in the Assembly and 30 bills in the Senate in each session. 270 ■■■COMMITTEES ■ All standing committees shall meet on a bi-weekly basis throughout the legislative session without exception. Attendance at such meetings shall be mandatory, except that members may be excused upon good cause and the specific reasons therefor shall be recorded and maintained as a public record. All meetings of standing committees shall be recorded by a stenographer or by other means and transcripts of said meetings shall be available as public records. ■ Proxy voting shall be prohibited in all committees. A certification that no such voting has been used in committee votes in the legislative session shall be executed under oath by each committee chair at the close of each legislative session. ■ No member shall be assigned to more than three committees during a legislative session. ■ All bills reported to the legislative floor must be accompanied by a public committee report that contains, at a minimum, purposes of the bill, change 53
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THE NEW YORK STATE LEGISLATIVE PROC
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The Brennan Center for Justice at N
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CONTENTS Executive Summary. . . . .
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viii THE NEW YORK STATE LEGISLATIVE
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x THE NEW YORK STATE LEGISLATIVE PR
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xii THE NEW YORK STATE LEGISLATIVE
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xiv THE NEW YORK STATE LEGISLATIVE
Page 19 and 20: INTRODUCTION It has become somethin
Page 21 and 22: ■ Accessibility. An accessible le
Page 23 and 24: NEW YORK STATE’S LEGISLATIVE PROC
Page 25 and 26: ■■ REFERRAL OF LEGISLATION TO C
Page 27 and 28: legislation. As a result, the final
Page 29 and 30: ■■ COMMITTEE REPORTS Legislatur
Page 31 and 32: usually adopted by the full committ
Page 33 and 34: Neither of New York State’s two c
Page 35 and 36: FIGURE 5 RESTRICTIONS ON MOTIONS TO
Page 37 and 38: that is overturned; this allows the
Page 39 and 40: of these committees. 142 In 1971, a
Page 41 and 42: into, a bill because the committee
Page 43 and 44: Additional research is necessary to
Page 45 and 46: Finally, analysis of the outcomes o
Page 47 and 48: maybe 20 staff people saw it before
Page 49 and 50: Few other states rely so heavily up
Page 51 and 52: Both the fast roll call (also known
Page 53 and 54: that the leaders exert over which b
Page 55 and 56: Nor is this pattern a recent phenom
Page 57 and 58: A COMPARATIVE SUMMARY OF NEW YORK
Page 59 and 60: State A COMPARATIVE SUMMARY OF LEGI
Page 61 and 62: THE IMPACT OF NEW YORK’S DYSFUNCT
Page 69: the people of New York State by acq
Page 73 and 74: ■ Motions to discharge a bill may
Page 75 and 76: ENDNOTES 1 See, e.g., Albany’s Ad
Page 77 and 78: the New York State Legislature was
Page 79 and 80: 41 MAJOR LEGISLATION COMMITTEE ANAL
Page 81 and 82: Fin. Network, Inc., 830 A.2d 711, 7
Page 83 and 84: ers, the committee chair and majori
Page 85 and 86: 90-day session and the 105th day of
Page 87 and 88: at 244, 547-48. 148 Aubrey Jewett,
Page 89 and 90: 175 MAJOR LEGISLATION ANALYSIS 1997
Page 91 and 92: 210 S4422B passed the Senate on Jun
Page 93 and 94: voted from 1997 through 2001 were a
Page 95 and 96: METHODOLOGY The research for this r
Page 97 and 98: ■ Vote Outcomes for All Bills 199
Page 99 and 100: A9291-A, S6292-A S7833, A1103 A7162
Page 101 and 102: TELEPHONE SURVEY RESPONDENTS Alabam
Page 103 and 104: Montana Legislative Services Divisi
Page 105 and 106: BRENNAN CENTER FOR JUSTICE BOARD OF
Page 108: BRENNAN CENTER FOR JUSTICE AT NYU S
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