Democrat & Chronicle: Editorials
Crunch time

Finally, lawmakers can be expected to become productive

(June 12, 2006) — As usual for this time of year in Albany as the legislative session winds down, it’s crunch time.

Second only to the flurry of activity around the April 1 deadline for adopting a new state budget, the next week represents the best hope of getting a bevy of substantive work done in Albany in 2006.

Of course, that makes little sense when lawmakers have been in session since the first week in January. But as New Yorkers have learned over the years, little about the way that Albany works is logical.

Anyway, because voters continue to send the same people to Albany every two years, they’ll just have to go along with the status quo and hope for the best until they start to seriously insist on change.

That means, for example, between now and the June 22 scheduled adjournment date, hope that Senate Majority Leader Joe Bruno and Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver see fit to act on stacks of legislation deserving approval.

At the top of the stack are overdue reforms. Take the one that would create a Medicaid inspector general to oversee fraud detection in New York’s nearly $45 billion public health insurance program. The more that lawmakers drag their feet, the more money goes into the pockets of swindlers.

Another needed reform would strengthen or amend laws regarding records access, open meetings and special interests.

Too, it’s time that lawmakers put a stop to the inane practice of using campaign donations for personal purposes. Some legislators, for example, have taken campaign donations and used them to buy luxury automobiles. What gall.

Take, too, the loophole in state law that allows public employees to collect twice for the same injury suffered on the job. It needs to be closed.

And to think that these are only a handful of important bills deserving approval with only eight days left on lawmakers’ calendar.

We cannot continue to send the same people back. Nuff said..