Elana from DMI has a great post over at The Albany Project, pointing out that while New York's legislators are debating ticket scalping and whether sweet corn should be the official state vegetable, quite a few more weighty concerns -- from welfare policy to predatory lending to to family leave (see also Steve WFP's excellent report from the Family Leave Roundtable in Schenectady) -- are waiting to be addressed. She also puts in a plug for DMI's new report:

Some of the issues New York is struggling to handle -- subsidy reform, what to do with criminals when they are released from prison, providing universal access to preschool and the skyrocketing cost of prescription drugs -- are real challenges but they aren't insurmountable. In fact four localities around the country did tackle these battles with great success. Want to know more?

Our new report "Lessons from the Marketplace: Four Proven Progressive Policies from DMI’s Marketplace of Ideas
(And how New York can do them even better)" reveals how it all was achieved.  read more »

Come meet some of our new State Legislators and get to the know the Manhattan Young Dems!

MYD SPRING SOCIAL
“A New Era in Local Politics” Spring Social
Wednesday, April 11th, 7 PM
Senator Bill Perkins
Assemblyman Brian Kavanagh
Assemblywoman Linda Rosenthal
INVITED GUESTS

Dewey’s Flatiron
210 5th Avenue between 25th and 26th Streets
[Take the N, R to 23rd Street or 6 to 23rd Street]

COST: $5 (members) $10 (non-members)
Featuring a 50/50 raffle with Great Prizes, Drink Specials

At the Observer, Azi Paybarah brings us a depressing example of how Albany's anti-democratic culture has taken hostage the hearts and minds of so many in our state government. Paybarah interviews 72-year-old Assemblyman Anthony Seminerio (D-Queens), whose review of the budget battle is so cynical you can feel your soul melting as you read it:

“Eliot may wish he had another way, but there’s only one way the budget is ever going to get done, son,” said Mr. Seminerio, sitting by himself in the Assembly chambers Saturday night, hours before the budget deadline. “It’s three people, each getting a piece of the pie, and that’s it.”

[...]

“I don’t know if he learned anything,” Mr. Seminerio said. “I can’t speak for the Governor. I think maybe he understands the process a little better. I think, like everything else, he’ll learn. You know what I’m saying. He’ll learn. And it’s not that he did anything wrong. He thought the process should be done one way, and he thought, you know, he could accomplish it. And now I think he must understand—I can’t speak for him, certainly; you know he’s a brilliant man. I can’t speak for him—but I think he understands now that, hey, you have to sit down, and it’s a give-and-take.”

Waving his left arm in the air toward the empty room, Mr. Seminerio added: “The only thing that ever changes in Albany are the faces. The system stays intact.”

Don't fight it, son. Just take the pills like everyone else and soon you'll see it's all for the best.  read more »

While the actual budget outcomes are not really known yet, some of the winners are: Long Island school districts got lots more money, Westchester school districts didn't. Indeed, when the Assembly voted on the Education budget, all Westchester Assembly Members (mostly Democrats) voted "No". Monday's NY Times features a good story by Danny Hakim and David Herzenhorn which lays out how LI won and Westchester lost. The victorious statements of the Alliance For Quality Education & Campaign for Fiscal Equity are after the jump.

In addition, advocates of smaller class size in New York City (including me) were successful, it appears in that some language requiring smaller classes made it through the final budget. UPDATE: I ran into UFT Lobby and political people Monday morning who were jubilant and absolutely certain that the class-size language would result in actually smaller classes. NYC will have to build classroom space to accommodate the new classes. There are, unhappily, no fixed targets for class size reduction, so this battle may have to be fought over and over again.

Queens Assembly Member Rory I. Lacmann, who, with Education Chair Cathy Nolan, led the charge on behalf of smaller class size, reports as follows:

" Over Mayor Bloomberg’s fierce resistance, NYC will be required to reduce its overcrowded class sizes under the budget passed today by the state legislature (A.4307-C), a priority of the Assembly throughout the budget negotiations. Specifically, NYC is required to execute a plan to reduce class size over five years, to be enforced by the New York State Commissioner of Education."

Does this mean that your children and mine will actually get smaller classes?  read more »

The Sun reports that marriage equality is making gains in Albany - but the Senate remains a roadblock.

According to the article, Gov. Spitzer seems to be ready to make a push for legalization of gay marriage after the budget fight is over, and it's looking increasingly likely that the Assembly will go along:

The Empire State Pride Agenda, a leading gay advocacy group in New York, says 54 members of the 150-person Assembly have expressed support for a gay marriage bill, up from 35 when it polled the chamber in September.

"We think it has a real shot of passing in the Assembly this year," the executive director of the Empire State Pride Agenda, Alan Van Capelle, told The New York Sun.

One of those 54 Assembly members is Richard Brodsky, a Democrat who represents a district in Westchester. Mr. Brodsky said he senses that support for a bill is growing in his conference. "I think the prejudice is diminishing. People are thinking about it in reasonable terms," he said.

Brodsky's in the weeds on Albany reform, but he's got the right idea civil rights, it seems.

However, not only would a marriage equality bill die in Joe Bruno's Senate, it might not fare much better in a Democratic Senate, either.

(More below the fold...)  read more »