THE PEOPLE’S CHOICE
July 7, 2006 — New York’s highest court yesterday found that a right to same-sex marriage does not reside in the state Constitution - and that any change in the long-standing definition of marriage must come from the Legislature.
Right on.
The New York Court of Appeals found that the plaintiffs - 44 gay couples [...]

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KILLING NEW YORK SOFTLY
July 5, 2006 — While the latest performance of Albany lawmakers was breathtakingly destructive on its face, the damage is even worse when compared to fiscal policies in other states. Rarely inclined to remember - or even to care - that the Empire State must compete economically with 49 other states, New [...]

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Democrat & Chronicle: Editorials
Like New Jersey, New York soon could face a fiscal crisis
(July 6, 2006) — Tempting as it may be for New York state lawmakers to become smug amid the budget crisis New Jersey is confronting, there’s still little for them to crow about.
Actually, it’s beginning to look as if the legislative dysfunction [...]

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Taxes are now defining issue
ALBANY - Attorney General Eliot Spitzer had already been on the defensive about his position on tax cuts. So when the gubernatorial front-runner got word that the head of the state Democratic Party had downplayed the importance of tax breaks, Spitzer tried to avert a crisis on what has become the [...]

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Democrat & Chronicle: Editorials
An independent panel is needed to redraw districts’ lines
(July 3, 2006) — Most state lawmakers have a stranglehold on their seats in the Legislature by design. It’s called redistricting.
The way redistricting works in this state is that usually after the U.S. census results are tabulated every 10 years, state lawmakers redraw district [...]

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Workers’ comp reform remains elusive
For employers and others anticipating reform of New York’s workers’ compensation system and the so-called scaffold law, the wait likely will stretch well past January when the new governor takes office.
At mid-year - the end of the state legislative session before summer break - there was some activity but not enough [...]

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Buffalo News - Medicaid savings could top $10 million
Who would have thought it? Medicaid, of all programs, is providing a benefit for Erie County’s bottom line and taking some pressure off 2007.
It seems that New York’s program to cap the cost of Medicaid for its counties has been underestimated. Under a new advisory from the [...]

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INSIGHT
“In its main features the Declaration of Independence is a spiritual document. It is a declaration not of material but spiritual conceptions. Equality, liberty, popular sovereignty, the rights of man—these are not elements which we can see and touch. They are ideals. They have their source and their roots in religious convictions. They belong to [...]

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At session’s close, everyone a winner
Legislative leaders and governor all made gains and some concessions
By ELIZABETH BENJAMIN
ALBANY — At the close of the 2006 session, both state legislative leaders and Gov. George Pataki declared victory.
In true election-year style, everyone got something. But they also all had to give a little.
The budget was [...]

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Spitzer and Corzine…
New Yorkers wondering what will happen if Eliot Spitzer is elected governor of New York need only look across the Hudson to New Jersey, where the new Democratic governor, Jon Corzine, is conducting a budget negotiation with the Democratic speaker of the Assembly over which taxes to increase and by how much. [...]

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