State Senate Regularly Outpaces Assembly on Reform

*Reposted from Gotham Gazette, Written by Ethan Geringer-Sameth *

For years the Democratic majority of the New York State Assembly advanced bills its members knew the Republican-controlled State Senate wouldn't pass. Still other legislation, especially related to government ethics, transparency, and elections, stewed on the backburner with neither majority moving it forward. Those were the days of two-party rule in Albany, of a group of breakaway Democrats who buoyed Republicans, and a governor happy to straddle the middle.

Since Democrats took over the State Senate in 2019 those dynamics have shifted. The floodgates opened to a stream of progressive and reform legislation that had long been blocked by Republicans, aided by the Democratic faction known as the Independent Democratic Conference (IDC), or remained on the Assembly's cutting room floor of one-house bills. But for the last three years of one-party rule, even as they passed a long list of priorities, a new sticking-point has emerged in the path of several reform efforts: Assembly Democrats.

"The Senate has its foot on the gas and the Assembly has its foot on the break, generally speaking," said Blair Horner, executive director of the good government group NYPIRG. "Now of course that's not always true," he added, "and sometimes there are good reasons to have your foot on the brake."

In the first week of the 2019 session, lawmakers passed major changes to elections and gender discrimination statutes that had been in the offing for years. Since then, both chambers have passed a slew of weighty legislation dealing with climate change, reproductive rights, rent regulation, bail and discovery, and campaign finance, to name a few.

For full article please visit: https://www.gothamgazette.com/state/10924-ny-state-senate-outpaces-asse…