News

ICYMI: NY Post – “Rockefeller Reform Could Backfire If Dope Fiends Are Released”

Assemblyman Alessi voted in favor of “Get Out of Jail Free Cards” for
drug dealers – some of whom may be rapists and other dangerous criminals

“In case you missed it (ICYMI), the New York Post has a frightening story on the estimated 1,500 convicted drug criminals waiting to be sprung from prison under newly enacted Rockefeller Drug Law reforms including one drug dealer who “took part in a vicious gang rape, another outfitted his pad with closed-circuit TV to thwart cops, and a third swiped a car with a child in the back seat and led police on a high-speed chase.”

Democrat Assemblyman Marc Alessi (D-Wading River) voted in favor of this controversial measure as part of state budget bill A.156-B, which allows almost all convicted class B felony controlled substance offenders, including drug dealers, to apply for re-sentencing before a court.

Among those who could potentially see their sentences reduced or even be freed are criminals who sold drugs to children or sold drugs on school grounds. Other drug dealers that may be released committed crimes such as operating meth labs. According to the Drug Policy Alliance, up to 1,500 inmates will be eligible for re-sentencing. (more…)

ICYMI: New Feature Story in The Capitol: “Assembly Republican Target Number One? Staten Island’S Hyer-Spencer”

Huffington Post picks up on The Capitol’s article about RACC “keeping Assemblywoman honest” on her votes to hike taxes, kill jobs

In case you missed it (ICYMI), The Capitol has a new article on how the New York Republican Assembly Campaign Committee (RACC) is keeping Assemblywoman Janele Hyer-Spencer (D-Staten Island, Brooklyn) honest about her repeated votes to hike taxes and kill jobs.

The Huffington Post has already picked up on The Capitol’s story.

This year alone, Hyer-Spencer voted for the largest tax hike in New York’s history ($4.4 billion in A.157-B) and to eliminate STAR property tax rebate checks (A.153-C). Hyer-Spencer raised taxes on beer and wine sales (A.157-B and A.156-B) and voted for a series of tax and fee increases on health insurance, auto insurance and home purchases (A.158-B and A.156-B).

Perhaps most notoriously, Hyer-Spencer hiked DMV fees by 25 percent on driver’s licenses, vehicle registrations and license plate renewals (A.159-B) — a vote so reviled that it has galvanized the public and a wide swath of local and state officials to successfully reverse the new DMV license plate plan.

“In the article, Janele claims to be the quickest, best, and brightest. Yes, Janele, we agree you are when it comes to hiking taxes in Albany,” said Kathleen Hennessey, Spokeswoman for the New York Republican Assembly Campaign Committee (RACC).

The Capitol’s article is linked above and pasted below.

The Capitol
Assembly Republican Target Number One? Staten Island’s Hyer-Spencer

Kolb touts plan to run in every district, but so far mostly focused on one Democrat
Andrew J. Hawkins
Tue, 17 Nov 2009 12:00:00
To hear the Republican Assembly Campaign Committee tell it, two-term Staten Island Democrat Janele Hyer-Spencer is responsible for all the dysfunction in New York, from joblessness to soaring energy costs to the state’s overwhelming tax burden.

“Staten Island Assemblywoman voted to allow drug dealers who sold to kids to apply for re-sentencing and possibly be freed from state prison,” screams one press release.

“Staten Island, Brooklyn jobless rate near 10 percent, as Assemblywoman Hyer-Spencer hikes taxes, spending,” wails another.

Unsatisfied with their position as a permanent minority, Assembly Republicans, down to a new membership low, are determined to capitalize on what they believe is an anti-incumbency mood among voters by winning as many seats back from the Democrats next year as they can.

Minority Leader Brian Kolb went a step further recently, declaring the ambitious goal of running a Republican candidate in each of the 109 districts held by Democrats in 2010.

But so far, most, if not all, of their attention appears to be focused on Hyer-Spencer.

“I’m really livid,” she said of the Republican attacks. “It has nothing to do with me or my legislative career. They want the seat and that isn’t going to change.”

Hyer-Spencer said that she will always be a target for Republicans as long as her district represents such a narrow margin between Democratic and Republican voters.

“It could be me or Mother Teresa holding the seat,” she said. “It’s not the person they give a shit about, it’s the seat they want back.”

Hyer-Spencer narrowly won the seat vacated by Republican Assembly Member Matthew Mirones in 2006, beating her opponent by less than 1,000 votes. Two years later, buoyed by an intensive door-to-door campaign, a strong-looking legislative track record for a freshman legislator and the Obama-Democratic momentum, Hyer-Spencer beat Joseph Cammarata by more than 3,000 votes. But Republicans are still encouraged by the large number of registered independents in the district—over 15,000—and say they will be looking for any opportunity to tie Hyer-Spencer to a deeply unpopular Democratic governor and a general level of disgust among voters with Albany.

“Her last races were closer than she would have liked for an incumbent,” said John Friscia, chair of the Staten Island Republican Party. “She may even be target number one next year.”

As for the progress of Kolb’s grand strategy to run a candidate in every district in 2010? Kolb says things are going swell so far.

“There’s been a great influx of people that are interested and feeling now they have a reasonable chance at running,” he said.

Kolb declined to discuss any particular seats he had hopes of flipping, but said he believed the results from the 2009 elections, where Republicans made huge gains in Westchester and Nassau counties, portend a strong showing in 2010. But he stressed that he is also a realist, noting that the odds in New York have never been in the GOP’s favor.

“You know I usually just tell it like it is, but I think right now I’d like to just be saying: I’m very, very optimistic,” he said, when asked to predict how many seats his conference will pick up next year. “It’s going to be more than a handful.”

Friscia and Brooklyn GOP chair Craig Eaton recently met with Kolb to begin plotting a strategy for 2010, with Hyer-Spencer’s seat presenting the best opportunity for a pick-up.

“Matt Mirones did a great job bringing back resources to the district,” Eaton said. “We want to return that seat to a Republican.”

But Hyer-Spencer’s district, which covers the eastern coastline of Staten Island and a small portion of Brooklyn, may have moved far beyond the Republicans’ grasp. Working Families Party-backed Council candidate Debi Rose’s solid victory against Kenneth Mitchell, a moderate Democrat and former staffer to Rep. Michael McMahon, shows how parts of the district are trending leftward, Hyer-Spencer said.

“The district went overwhelming for Debi,” she said. “For the first time in a while, this district is voting for the person, not the party.”

She countered criticism that she rarely attends rallies, steers clear of giving interviews with the borough’s main newspaper and is a close ally to Speaker Sheldon Silver by talking up her attributes.

“I am the quickest, I am the best and I am the brightest,” she said, sounding every bit like the former beauty queen she is. “[Republicans] should come up with something original. I’ve been very vocal about what I support. I don’t owe them bullshit press releases.”

###

Mid-Hudson News: GOP assembly members talk up “People’s Constitutional Convention”

NEWBURGH – Assembly Republican Minority Members Nancy Calhoun and Marc Molinaro met with the public Friday afternoon at the SUNY Orange Newburgh campus to discuss legislation proposed by Minority Leader Brian Kolb that calls for the enactment of a “People’s Constitutional Convention” to address issues in New York State’s government and economy.

The goal, said Molinaro, is to motivate New Yorkers on the concept that they have the power to reform state government.

Calhoun said it is required by law that a constitutional convention be considered every 20 years, 1997 being the last year it was brought into question.

“The People’s Constitutional would empower the average person; it would not have partisanship,” she said.

The Kolb plan would start the process of convening a people’s constitutional convention seven years early by putting it before voters on the ballots in the 2010 elections, said Calhoun.

“I think 2010 is a particularly unique opportunity for this,” said Newburgh resident Margaret Conroy, because of the large number of voters that will turn out to decide the significant amount of leadership positions that will be up for re-election. “Everyone, whether they agree with me or not, should voice their opinion. We ought to have a vigorous discussion in the state and in the country.”

http://www.midhudsonnews.com/News/2009/November09/14/GOP_peop_conv-14Nov09.html

Public Outrage Mounts Against New DMV Fee Hikes Supported By Assemblyman Reilly

Reilly voted to increase consumer fees at the DMV for
driver’s licenses, vehicle registrations and license plate renewals

While state officials spent the week unveiling new license plates, public outrage continued as New Yorkers learned more about the new DMV fee hikes passed into law by Assemblyman Bob Reilly (D-Latham).

Taxpayers now must pay 25 percent more to obtain a driver’s license — an increase for Class D driver’s licenses from $50 to $64.50. Registration fees for an automobile weighing 3500 lbs climbed from $45 to $56.
(more…)

Buffalo News Editorial: A Call to Action: Contact Your Elected Officials to do Something About Your High Taxes

The Buffalo News

First, stop the bleeding.

New York State, especially upstate New York, is losing its lifeblood of jobs and, as the jobs drain away, its population. There are other consequences as well: Two more congressional seats are likely to be lost after the 2010 Census.
The most frustrating of the reasons for the decline is this: New York is killing itself through state government policy choices, dictated by elected officials, that pander to special interests and political powerhouses.

New York’s governor at least warns of the danger. The State Legislature ignores it, and is largely responsible for it.

The most dismaying aspect of that is that the members of the Senate and Assembly, particularly their leaders, refuse fully to acknowledge the problem, refuse to recognize that their failure to act responsibly deepened the problem and are singularly focused on what they always have done — taking care of themselves, the public sector unions and other vested interests that help them with cash to get re-elected.
The Legislature’s strategy has been to wait and see if the problem goes away. It won’t. Even if the recession is ending, experts foresee a “jobless recovery” and a retrenchment that will not return either New York or America to the unregulated euphoric expansion that was mistaken for sustainable prosperity.

Other states, most notably California, face the same fiscal problems and have reacted with necessary cuts. In the meantime, New York’s policies have been based far more on politics than on principles of good governance. The focus of lawmakers has centered on the preservation of political power rather than on doing what’s right for everyday New Yorkers. The advent of single-party control of both houses allowed that badly-rooted practice to bear rotten fruit.

On the extra editorial pages that follow these, we have outlined the problem. And we call on you to make your voice heard, by contacting the legislators who supposedly work for you but continue to raise your taxes. Tell them to do what’s right.

That starts with cutting spending, just like regular people do when facing money problems. It should not…must not…involve another round of new taxes and fees, because New Yorkers already lead the nation in state and local tax burden and the new taxes already imposed on high incomes are driving individuals, businesses and jobs from the state. And it should not involve more borrowing, because New Yorkers also already shoulder the heaviest state debt burden in the nation.
What’s called for is rolling back taxes and fees, rather than increasing them, to make New York more attractive to employers who have to decide whether to stay or move out of state.

During the past three years New York has added the equivalent of 12,990 new full-time positions in the state work force. Some 8,000 workers were hired after Gov. David A. Paterson called for a hiring freeze last fall. Lawmakers should roll back the state government work force to the levels of just a few years ago, saving billions of dollars. They could enact pension reforms that might have relatively small impacts now but provide major long-term relief for the state, for municipalities and for school districts � and the taxpayers who fund them.

They could enact structural reforms that would increase transparency in the way the state does business, fold off-budget state authorities back into the budget process to clarify what state costs really are, make state agencies and office-holders more accountable to the public and less open to special-interest influence.

They could consider benefit changes in the costly Medicaid programs � New York is the national leader in Medicaid spending � that would protect basic services for the poor but bring New York more in line with the national average in terms of the costly extra services covered here.

They could consider a property tax cap so that governments don’t repeatedly penalize those with the greatest ownership stakes in this region.

Everything costs more in New York, from health insurance to education to the cost of doing business. The only people who can fix that are the elected officials in Albany. If they won’t, or can’t, they should step aside and allow those who can to take charge. If the current Legislature doesn’t fix it, voters… who already have expressed their lack of confidence in them… should exercise their rights to set things back in order with an entirely new Legislature.

Your lawmakers will do nothing unless they’re told to.

http://www.buffalonews.com/opinion/editorials/story/854856.html

New Water Bottle Tax to Nickel and Dime Consumers, Small Businesses

Assemblywoman Russell voted for so-called “Bigger Better Bottle Bill”
which could kill jobs, raise consumer prices on water bottles

Starting this Sunday, November 8th, New York consumers will have to pay more for bottled water thanks to a new state law.

The so-called “Bigger Better Bottle Bill” was passed into law by Assemblywoman Addie Russell (D-118th A. D.) in state budget bill A.159-B and adds a 5-cent returnable deposit to water bottles and flavored water that contains no sugar – an additional $1.20 for a 24-pack of bottled water.

In addition to New Yorkers paying an additional 5-cent deposit, customers can expect to pay higher retail prices per bottle due to a hike, from 2 cents to 3.5 cents, in the state’s bottle handling fee. For bottle retailers the situation gets worse as the law allows the state to seize 80 percent of their Refund Value Account each quarter. The Refund Value Account was designed to hold money from bottle deposits to be used for offsetting expenses of bottle redemption.

Small businesses already struggling to stay afloat will be hit with yet another unfunded state mandate as they will need to allocate staff resources or hire outside help to handle the processing of the expanded bottle bill. Funds collected by the state from this bill will go into the state’s General Fund — not the state’s Environmental Protection Fund.

Russell passed the water bottle tax in addition to $4.4 billion in other taxes (A.157-B) to pay for her spending addiction in the state budget that benefits New York City over Northern New York.

“This new water bottle tax is yet another example of how Assemblywoman Russell can’t quench the state’s thirst for collecting higher taxes and fees on working families and small businesses. Assemblywoman Russell’s tax and fee hikes add up to more than nickels and dimes: they lead to lost jobs and lighter wallets,” said Kathleen Hennessey, Spokeswoman for the New York Republican Assembly Campaign Committee (RACC).

Mid-Hudson News: Farms in Dutchess feel economic pinch

RED HOOK – Farmers in Dutchess County are feeling the effects of the continued weak economy like all other businesses and many told their tales of woe to the Assembly Minority Agriculture, Tourism and Outdoor Recreation Task Force on Friday.

The committee held a hearing at the Migliorelli Farm in Red Hook and heard their concerns that ran the gamut.

Assemblyman Marc Molinaro of Red Hook was among those on the panel. “Because we are in Dutchess County, the MTA payroll tax was a top priority and a concern,” he said after the meeting. Other concerns included “the multiple layers of regulation that make it difficult for farms to continue to success and quite generally, the high cost of doing business that despite the fact that farming is a very unique industry, the State of New York overburdens it as it does every other industry.”

Task force Chairman Assemblyman Clifford Crouch of Guilford said the state must “focus on the support and resources needed” to ensure the continued success of the farming industry.

http://www.midhudsonnews.com/News/2009/October09/24/DC_farms-24Oct09.html

Gouverneur Times: Be Afraid…

Dear Editor:

This Halloween and beyond, be afraid North Country residents…be very afraid of all the terrifying tax hikes on middle class families passed into law by Assemblywoman Addie Russell(D-Theresa).

The nightmare for North Country homeowners starts with a vote by Russell to eliminate the popular STAR property tax rebate checks that helped seniors and families afford to pay their property tax bills (A.153-C).

This year, Assemblywoman Russell also voted for a haunting series of tax and user fee hikes on everything from going to a state park to renting a car to enrolling in a SUNY/CUNY school. Even holiday spirits will cost more this Halloween because Russell voted to increase taxes on beer and wine sales (A.157-B and A.156-B).

Assemblywoman Russell also voted for a frightening series of tax and fee increases on health insurance, auto insurance and home purchases (A.158-B and A.156-B) not too mention her vote to hike DMV fees by 25 percent on driver’s licenses, vehicle registrations and license plate renewals (A.159-B). Russell also voted in favor of a potential real-life horror story: “get out of jail free cards” for up to 1,500 drug criminals (A.156-B). As if that wasn’t enough, Assemblywoman Russell voted to hike 41 separate license and fee hikes for sportsmen (A.159-B).

Given these votes by Russell to raise taxes and put public safety at risk, residents have a reason to be scared.

Sincerely,

Kathleen Hennessey

Spokeswoman

New York Republican Assembly Campaign Committee (NYRACC)

Wall Street Journal: Why One Democrat Thinks New York Needs a Strong GOP

The Wall Street Journal

By DAVID PARKER
Last month, about 240,000 registered Democrats in New York City—myself included—voted in a runoff election for public advocate and comptroller, two of New York’s three directly elected citywide offices. Facing only nominal Republican opposition in November, the winners of the runoff—John Liu in the comptroller race, and Bill de Blasio in the public advocate race—are essentially guaranteed victory in the general election. In other words, two of the top three municipal offices in the nation’s largest city were chosen by 6% of the city’s electorate. That isn’t democracy. It’s oligarchy. And it’s not working.

It wasn’t so long ago that we Democrats were celebrating our dominance. Last November, I joined hundreds of my fellow Democrats at an election night event hosted by the New York state Democratic Party. We celebrated the election of a Democratic president, a Democratic landslide in Congress, and with equal excitement the news that the New York state Senate, that last bastion of Republican control in our home state, had fallen into Democratic hands. For the first time since 1935, Democrats would control the governorship and both chambers of the state legislature. 2009 was going to be a great year.

Yet it hasn’t been—not for the Democratic Party and not for New York.

In June, the state Senate was thrown into disorder when two Democratic members—Pedro Espada Jr. and Hiram Monserrate—staged a parliamentary coup and attempted to reinstall the Republican leadership. Last month, New York’s Democratic Gov. David Paterson lost the public support of our party’s national-standard bearer, the president of the United States. Meanwhile, New Yorkers continue to pay among the highest taxes in the nation, footing the bill for the backdoor borrowing of the state’s hundreds of barely regulated authorities, a bloated public workforce rife with redundancies, and of course, the salaries of indicted state legislators (including Sen. Monserrate, recently convicted of misdemeanor assault—and still collecting a paycheck).

New York has seen tough times before. This time, however, we Democrats have nobody to blame but ourselves. Single-party rule has been a disaster for New York. New York needs competition. New York needs Republicans.

To begin with, democracy demands meaningful competition—and Democratic primaries alone rarely provide it. In what consultants call “low-turnout, low-information” campaigns, a tiny percentage of the electorate makes decisions that are often heavily influenced by the opinions of an even smaller elite: the editorial boards, political committees of labor unions, and elected officials whose endorsements often carry the day for candidates. Since candidates in primaries rarely have substantive differences of opinion, the electorate is robbed of a back-and-forth discussion on the issues.

In New York City, we are so often told that victories in Democratic primaries are tantamount to election that we have forgotten what a perversion of functional democracy such a statement represents. There are about 1.2 million registered Republicans and unaffiliated “blanks” (independent voters) in New York City—28% of the total electorate—who are effectively disenfranchised every time the winner of a Democratic primary faces no real opposition in a general election.

Ironically, Democratic primaries—in which party bosses often play an outsize role—have also had the effect of disenfranchising Democratic voters. Currently, the Democratic leadership has discouraged any primary challenges to Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, who was appointed to finish Hillary Clinton’s term. If the Democratic Party has its way, Democratic voters will have about as much say in electing Sen. Gillibrand as we had in selecting her. That is to say, absolutely none.

Democrats have also used their muscle to fight structural reforms. When Mike Bloomberg (full disclosure: the mayor is a former client) pushed to replace primaries with nonpartisan elections in a 2003 referendum, the Democratic Party pulled out all the stops to defeat the measure.

Lack of competition has lulled Democrats into a complacency that borders on corruption. In recent years, two of the signature achievements of the New York City Council have been orchestrating a massive fraud against taxpayers by allocating money to phony nonprofits and parking the money in a slush fund for later use, and voting to extend the term limits of its own members. Some of these members rarely show up for work, while others take public funds for essentially uncontested general elections. Both actions could be considered stealing from taxpayers. Is it a coincidence that the Council is composed of three Republicans and 48 Democrats? Without effective checks on the power of the majority, the Council acts in its own best interests—not those of the people.

To be sure, Republicans played a major role in helping construct the current broken edifice of state government. And the Republican Party must address its own identity issues: Many New York Republicans share little in common with each other, much less with the more conservative forces that dominate the national party.

More important, Republicans need to field competitive candidates in more races. Outside of safe districts, Republicans rarely contest legislative contests at the local, state or federal level. This may be a practical decision based on limited resources, but it’s not the path to viability. After all, many voters are willing to cross party lines: Despite its overwhelmingly Democratic electorate, New York City hasn’t elected a Democratic mayor in 20 years. And before the election of Eliot Spitzer in 2006, New York state—also with far more Democrats than Republicans—elected Republican Gov. George Pataki three times in a row.

Most of all, lust for power has diminished the integrity of both parties. In a just world, cynical opportunists like the state senators who led the summer’s coup should find themselves without political homes, not the subject of a bidding war. (Democrats gave Sen. Monserrate, then under indictment, a committee chairmanship and attendant stipend. The chaos in the Senate ended when final holdout Sen. Espada returned to the Democratic fold—as Democratic majority leader).

Democracy does not work without real competition, and contested elections between candidates with material differences provide voters with meaningful choices. New York doesn’t need less partisanship. It needs more.

Mr. Parker is a political consultant and writer in New York.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703298004574459554239536952.html?mod=googlenews_wsj

SKARTADOS VOTES FOR BILLIONS IN TAX HIKES BEFORE HE SAYS HE’D VOTE AGAINST THEM

In new statement, Assemblyman Skartados says taxes are “already too high” but fails to mention he’s responsible for highest tax hike in New York’s history

This week, Mid-Hudson Valley Assemblyman Frank Skartados (D-100th A. D.) was caught doing a tax two-step with voters by saying taxes are “already too high” without disclosing that his votes in Albany to hike taxes and fees by billions of dollars are to blame.

In an October 16th statement, Skartados said:

“We can not afford to balance the budget by increasing taxes and fees because they are already too high.”

“Hudson Valley residents, in particular, can’t afford to pay more taxes and fees than we’re paying now.”

However, Skartados failed to mention he already voted this year for the following tax hikes:

• (A.157-B) which included $5.7 billion in tax hikes, the largest in New York State history. This bill raised several taxes including on rental cars, beer, and wine sales and led to a SUNY tuition hike of $620 per student.
• (A.153-C) that eliminated STAR property tax rebate checks costing homeowners $386 and seniors $458 more this year to pay off their property tax bills.
• (A.159-B) includes 41 separate license and fee hikes for sportsmen including increases for fishing, hunting, and outdoor recreation for a total of $62.9 million. This same bill also hiked taxes on utility bills by $561 million.
• (A.157-B and A. 158-B) allows for $649.9 million in health care tax hikes that makes it harder for working people to afford the medical treatment they need and deserve.

“Assemblyman Skartados repeatedly voted to hike taxes on working people and now he’s complaining that taxes are ‘too high’. That’s called the tax two-step: hike taxes and fees in Albany when no one is looking and then tell the folks back home that we’re getting over-taxed without taking responsibility for causing that pain,” said Kathleen Hennessey, Spokeswoman for the New York Republican Assembly Campaign Committee (RACC).