Syracuse – by Michelle Breidenbach
Albany, NY – Opponents of New York’s new gun laws are demanding answers about how Gov. Andrew Cuomo and the New York state Legislature can rush bills into law with little time for anyone to even read the bill.
The NY Safe Act was passed with no hearings, no testimony, no time for opponents to make a case to their legislators.
It’s not the first time a controversial bill was turned into a midnight emergency.
Others include same-sex marriage, pension reforms, requiring annual teacher evaluations, and, in some years, the entire state budget. It was an emergency to pass tax credits for brownfields clean-up, which had the unintended consequence of paying the Destiny USA developers $56 million in public money for a clean-up project that experts say could not have cost more than $1 million.
The New York State Constitution gives governors a tool to use to get a law passed as soon as enough legislators say yes and before anyone else can get to them. In the case of gun laws, it has angered the public like no other rushed bill. But creating emergency legislation is a time-honored practice in Albany.
Bill Mahoney, researcher at New York Public Interest Research Group, pulled together a list of the 415 times a “message of necessity” has been used to pass something the state deemed an “emergency.”
Here’s how it works:
Since 1938, The state Constitution has required a proposed bill to age for three days before a vote. It says:
§14. No bill shall be passed or become a law unless it shall have been printed and upon the desks of the members, in its final form, at least three calendar legislative days prior to its final passage….
Unless the government says so:
…unless the governor, or the acting governor, shall have certified, under his or her hand and the seal of the state, the facts which in his or her opinion necessitate an immediate vote thereon,…
Here is the argument Cuomo made to turn a vote on the gun law into an emergency:
“Some weapons are so dangerous, and some ammunition devices are so lethal, that New York State must act without delay to prohibit their continued sale and possession in the state in order to protect its children, first responders and citizens as soon as possible. This bill, if enacted, would do so by immediately banning the ownership, purchase and sale of assault weapons and large-capacity ammunition feeding devices. For this reason, in addition to enacting a comprehensive package of measures that further protects the public, immediate action by the Legislature is imperative.”
Conservative activist Robert Schulz filed a lawsuit, saying the state violated his Constitutional rights by using a message of necessity when more time was needed to consider the law.
Attorney General Eric Schneiderman, the state’s lawyer, responded in court by saying, essentially, that there is no point in arguing whether the governor’s reason for an emergency was adequate. The process he used fits the Constitution. The attorney general’s office said the argument is not “justiciable,” which means it can’t be decided by legal principles. Courts are mindful that the judiciary – an equal branch of government – cannot easily set aside acts of the Legislature.
“As long as I’ve been in Albany, there’s nothing that’s raised the controversy of the NY Safe Act,” Mahoney said.
People are mad. But NYPIRG’s analysis shows Cuomo is actually using messages of necessity less than previous governors. It was used only 5 times in 2012 and once so far this year.
Gov. George Pataki rushed 84 bills into law this way in 2004, according to NYPIRG.
NYPIRG and other good government groups are opposed to messages of necessity because it leaves no time for public debate. They said a message of necessity should be used rarely and only in a truly urgent situation.
Check out this list and decide for yourself whether the urgency rested with the issue or with a governor’s need to squeeze in a vote before someone changed his or her mind:
Messages of Necessity 2002 to 2013
Contact Michelle Breidenbach at (315) 470-3186, mbreidenbach@syracuse.comor on Twitter @mbreidenbach.
http://www.syracuse.com/news/index.ssf/2013/03/state_emergency_gun_law.html