Does being Liberal affect the good of the NY state assembly position?

In the past, lawmakers have been known to usually select a candidate into the state assembly. Many of the previous NY state speakers were selected based on their distance from their normally perceived political caucus as either far Right of far Left. Along with being the first African-American to be appointed as New York State Speaker, statistics show that Carl Heastie is amongst the most liberal lawmakers in the U.S. Professors Boris Shor and Nolan McCarty of Georgetown University and Princeton University, respectively, collected data that measured the state lawmakers in the United States. All 50 speakers' ideological positions are calculated and Heastie falls under the list of the most liberal lawmakers.
With New York Democrats being fairly liberal, this is expected. Heastie falls closer to the far left which makes him more liberal amongst other speakers. Although Shor mentions that being more liberal should have been a deciding factor of not winning the seat, however, the party primaries didn't work that way. Perhaps we will see more significant changes in state policies and newer / more progressive - ala liberal reforms. Other political analysts might argue that liberal or conservative, the New York State legislator might still not be short of political controversy.
Below,  Shor and McCarty provide us with a table measuring state lawmakers in the U.S in correlation to where Heastie stands within the table.




Source Link: http://www.nytimes.com/2015/02/07/upshot/ranking-carl-heastie-by-ideological-score.html?ref=topics&abt=0002&abg=1

Senate Fights Gang Crime

On Monday of this pass week, the Senate passed the "New York State Criminal Street Gang Act"(S1701). The main sponsor of the bill was Senator Martin Golden (R-C-I Brooklyn). Golden is a former cop and has personal experience with the destructive power that gangs can have on communities, schools and families.
The bite of this new law comes in the changes to the levels of punishment for recruitment of children for gang activities. Under the new legislation it becomes a class C felony to solicit a minor under the age of eighteen to street gang activities on school property. This is punishable by fifteen years in prison. For the solicitation of a minor under the age of eighteen to participate in street gang activity off of school property becomes a class D felony and punishable by seven years in prison. This law targets the source of participation in gangs in the recruitment of children.
This bill also establishes a Criminal Street Gang Prevention Fund. This fund is by the Department of Education to start gang prevention programs in schools.An example of this would be the restriction of gang related apparel within schools and education and training for staff on how to implement such policies. It also established the Criminal Street Gang and Violence Prevention Partnership to create services to deter at-risk youth from gang related activities. Under this it would also create the Office of Criminal Street Gang and Youth Violence at the State Division of Criminal Justice Services. Along with this comes the The Department of Corrections and Gang Education and Prevention Program. This program would educate inmates on the impact gangs have on communities.
This bill has been passed on the Assembly.

Press Release: http://www.nysenate.gov/press-release/senate-passes-criminal-street-gang-act

Memorandum of Understanding

Looking at the North County Now website trying to find something to blog about, something caught my eye in Today’s opinion column. Is St. Lawrence County Government Effective? So I click there and took me to an article is called “St. Regis Tribe Land Settlement Facts & Figures (link to article: http://nebula.wsimg.com/eb815f2a70d219bda755043613707491?AccessKeyId=B33829966ED3F9320A8A&disposition=0&alloworigin=1 )

The article was about the Memorandum of Understanding between the county of St. Lawrence, Saint Regis Tribe, and New York State. Being from the Tribe, I had never heard of the Memorandum of Understanding (MOU). The MOU is a potential agreement between the parties and also the New York Power Authority regarding land claim surrounding Akwesasne, which have been going on for years. This agreement will allow Tribe members (not the Tribe) to purchase land in the land claims and be able to considered part of the reservation (but the there is still some legal paper work involved after the purchase, its not like someone from the tribe goes and buys land and then their land is part of the reserve). The article did address some issues and problems like outstanding payments that are owed to St. Lawrence County from the Tribe and Casino (I am not sure if they do it separate or combine because the article to me wasn’t always clear on which one they meant) and the loss of those property taxes on the lands in question.

The article was published by a group called Common cents for St. Lawrence County (link to their website: http://www.commoncentsslc.com/home.html ). After reading the article, it left me wondering where the figures came from because the article didn’t state where the figures came from, like they stated that property tax is $2,000 per acre in St. Lawrence County. So I went to their website and found some links to other news paper covering this issue about the land claims and the Tribe not paying the State and more figures but still not references. So I am glad that this article is only in the opinion piece and not a cover story.

I took the time to read the MOU (I googled memorandum of understanding St. Lawrence County and St. Regis Tribe and there is a PDF but no direct link) and I surprised to see that they included free tuition (not including room and board) to SUNY schools, including graduate school for members of the Tribe. Also, the New York Power Authority was going to get the reserve some money but not free power. I think because in the long run, it would be too expensive instead of a set amount each year.

The Memorandum of Understanding is only in the works right now though and its next obstacle is that it needs to be passed in Franklin County next.

Link to North County Now website: http://northcountrynow.com/ but the Today's opinion part as changed and the link for "Is St. Lawrence County Government Effective?" is no longer on the main page

Democrats battle Republicans over Immigration reforms

Having given a State of the Union address in November on possible reforms for the remainder portion of his presidential term, Obama discussed about immigration reforms for the near future. President Obama seeks to rebuild a immigration system which he describes as broken. This reform is mostly aimed at the millions of immigrants in the U.S, and children who become legal by virtue of their parents. On that faithful day Obama stated "Pass a bill. I want to work with both parties to pass a more permanent legislative solution...Meanwhile, don’t let a disagreement over a single issue be a deal breaker on every issue". A Republican bill to fund the Department of Homeland security has been flagged down by the Democrats for the second day. The bill aimed at undoing the reform plans of president Obama was voted upon by the Republican party in need 6 extra votes from Democrats. However they failed to get the remainder of the needed votes as it is stopped by Democrats. Senator John McCain who is a Republican in Arizona as well as other Republicans warn that it is absurd that such bill have to be passed twice in other to get approval. On the other hand, Democrats argue that the President's action plan should stand rather than have regulations that interrupts the executive actions.
 
What does this signify for New York State? According to Division of Immigrants and Politics Affairs, about 50% of immigrants in New York State make up the work force, which is significantly important for the growing part of the economy. According to the same source “The 10 New York City neighborhoods with the highest level of immigrant residents had stronger economic growth than the rest of the city between 2000 and 2007”. What will be the effect if there is a successful pass of the Republican bill? Will there be a reduction in the growth of the economy for some of these states? Or will Democrats continue to flag down such bills and protect the already influx of immigrants? These are some of the questions that both political analysts and Party representatives will have to confront in the future. 

News sources: 
  http://www.nytimes.com/2015/02/05/us/politics/senate-democrats-again-block-homeland-security-funding-tied-to-immigration.html?ref=politics

Obama's speech:  http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/transcript-obamas-immigration-speech/2014/11/20/14ba8042-7117-11e4-893f-86bd390a3340_story.html

NY state immigration stats:  http://www.labor.ny.gov/immigrants/
 

A New Tappan Zee Bridge

In the 2015 Opportunity Agenda Plan, Governor Andrew Cuomo stated a drastic need to address statewide infrastructure investments.  The Hudson Valley recognizes how important bridges are because they serve as a connection to the west side of the Hudson River to the eat side, an essential link to New York City.  Although maintaining and preserving the infrastructures of the state are extremely important, the state’s budget does not allocate much money to be spent on bridge upkeep.

The Tappan Zee Bridge, one of New York State’s major infrastructures, connects Rockland County and Northern New Jersey to Westchester County and New York City.  The bridge was initially opened on December 15, 1955, making it fifty-nine years old.  The bridge was originally constructed to last fifty years based on the materials used.  The original plan was also to reconstruct the bridge to meet the needs of the increased traffic patterns.  Currently, 138,000 vehicles travel over the bridge daily, making it one of the most traveled roads in the area.  Governor Cuomo states that it is inexcusable that New York has a bridge that was on the History Channel’s “Crumbling America.”  Many have referred to the Tappan Zee as a “hold your breath bridge” because engineers believe it could collapse instantaneously with the occurrence of any small earthquake or structural accident.

With a price tag of 3.9 billion dollars to reconstruct the bridge, New York State has resorted to taking out a federal loan to help pay for the construction of the bridge.  On top of the federal loan, Governor Cuomo is using nearly 500 million dollars in taxpayer’s money to fund the project, which will be used primarily before the federal loan. The planned construction on the Tappan Zee Bridge is to be completed by the end of 2017; however, there is still a large amount of money that needs to be distributed to the reconstruction project.  It is a possibility that the already high toll prices will increase, but ultimately, the Thruway Authority and Governor Cuomo need to produce a plan in order to come up with a way to pay for the remainder of the 3.9 billion dollar bridge reconstruction.

Information found at:

http://www.poughkeepsiejournal.com/story/news/local/2014/09/26/tappan-zee-bridge-spending/16293433/

http://www.newnybridge.com/about/index.html

https://www.governor.ny.gov/news/2015-opportunity-agenda-restoring-economic-opportunity-2

Picture from:

http://www.nyclu.org/regions/lower-hudson-valley/lhv-e-newsletter-winter-2012-directors-au-revoir