Legislative Session In Its Second Phase, Concludes In A Month
As the world of politics and government goes in New York state, April turned out to be a wacky month. Governor Kathy Hochul spent the month trying to seal a budget deal, which was three weeks late. The Buffalo Democrat then hit the road as if she were a rock star on tour to tell New Yorkers in various parts of the state how the budget impacts their area.
Cracking down on illegal cannabis shops, using mental health professionals instead of law enforcement as the default response to illegal activity due to mental illness, closing up to five prisons, adopting artificial intelligence (known as the Empire AI initiative), starting a first-in-the-nation program to provide paid leave to expecting mothers, combating retail theft (better known as shoplifting), and modifying good cause eviction practices are just some of the top results Hochul has been touting.
The massive 10-bill budget package increases the state’s non-public school security program from the current $45 million to $70 million, an increase of more than 50 percent. The budget also retains an additional $35 million in competitive grants for non-profit organizations at risk of hate crimes.
One of the measures included in the $237 billion budget is an increase in the Mandated Services Program (MSA) aimed at reimbursing schools for services they provide at the behest of the state, such as attendance taking, pupil data, testing, and similar items. The budget allocated more than $239 million for claims made under the Mandated Services Aid/Comprehensive Attendance Policy (MSA-CAP), which will likely make up for the two-year shortfall as well as fund all of the upcoming reimbursements.
New York City Mayor Eric Adams was pleased with the outcome of the budget, cheering how he received everything he set out to accomplish, including extending mayoral control of New York City public schools for two more years. “With the inclusion of mayoral accountability in the state budget, our administration has now secured every single one of our legislative priorities in the budget. Every. Single. One,” Adams wrote in a prepared statement. In January, Adams, a former state senator, visited the Capitol and said he would “respect the process, because if you respect the process the process will respect you.” Of course, Adams has a phalanx of staff at the ready to assist lawmakers and the governor’s office as needed.
“From the beginning of this process, we carried our bold agenda to Albany to achieve several key requests, including legislation that will allow New York City to build the affordable housing New Yorkers need and deserve, regulatory authority to finally close down illegal smoke shops plaguing our streets, and funding for the unprecedented migrant crisis that New York City has overwhelmingly shouldered.
“We are thrilled that there has been agreement on most of our core priorities, including the major package of legislation to grow our affordable housing supply and protect tenants, municipal enforcement of illegal smoke shops, and $2.4 billion for migrant support,” Adams concluded.
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The Senate Republicans, who are in the minority in the upper house, sent Governor Hochul a letter on April 24, signed by 16 of the 21 conference members, calling for Governor Hochul to send in the National Guard following “a week of pro-Hamas protests at Columbia University and neighboring campuses expressing support for violent terrorists, harassing and instilling fear into their Jewish classmates, attacking NYPD officers with bottles, and calling for the death of Jews. The Columbia protests follow the horrifying attacks of October 7, 2023, and subsequent months of hate-filled demonstrations on college campuses across the country. Chants heard at Columbia over the past week have included, ‘We are Hamas,’ ‘Hamas, make us proud,’ and ‘Kill another soldier now.’”
“What we are seeing right now on Columbia University’s campus is antisemitic, anti-American, and in many cases illegal,” wrote Senate Republican Leader Rob Ortt (R – North Tonawanda, Niagara County). “Hamas is a known terror organization with a similar world view as Al Qaeda and ISIS. The situation calls for leadership. Instead, Columbia’s administration has feebly asked Jewish students to stay home and take classes virtually. These students have done nothing wrong. They deserve to be able to attend their classes safely, and Columbia’s leaders have failed them. Governor Hochul needs to join us in demanding President [Minouche] Shafik’s immediate resignation and do her job as Governor, deploying the National Guard to restore safety and order to protect Jewish students where nobody else will.”
The letter concluded, “President Shafik has shown herself to be incapable of restoring safety and order on her campus. What are these students getting in exchange for the sky-high tuition Columbia is charging them and the multiple billions of dollars in its endowment fund? They clearly aren’t getting a quality education when they can’t safely step foot on campus. It’s time to stop submitting to political extremists who sympathize with violent terrorists, put people on this campus who know how to resolve this situation quickly, and get back to the business of education. Governor Hochul can do this today, and we demand she do so.”
Not signing the letter were senators Bill Weber of Rockland County, Dean Murray of Suffolk County, Rob Rolison of Dutchess County, Mark Walczyk of Watertown, and Patrick Gallivan of Erie County. Weber supports the wording of the letter but told The Jewish Press he “preferred the New York City Police Department be called in to handle the matter, as they did in an exemplary fashion, shortly thereafter.”
At the university gates on Friday, May 3, four Senate Republicans criticized Democrats for their silence on the protests, calling the National Guard at Columbia’s expense and ousting Shafik.
Subsequently, on Monday, May 6, Shafik cancelled the university-wide graduation ceremony scheduled for Wednesday, May 15, opting for “smaller-scale, school-based celebrations” at each of its 19 schools. The Ivy League university also will be relocating the ceremonies from the iconic South Lawn of the Morningside campus, where hundreds of protesters were arrested for refusing to leave a massive tent encampment erected there. “The majority of these ceremonies will be hosted at Columbia’s Baker Athletics Complex,” the statement read.
The campus enclaves have now spread to SUNY New Paltz, the New School in Manhattan, Fashion Institute of Technology, and New York University. Most of these tent cities have been dispersed by law enforcement.
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On an unrelated note, but similar to the anti-Israel sentiment crossing the state, on Tuesday, April 14, a bipartisan coalition of 14 (of 150) Assemblymembers signed a letter urging SUNY Chancellor John King to look into a matter at a large university promoting boycotting companies doing business with Israel.
The Student Association at Binghamton University, a campus with the largest Jewish population in the 64-campus SUNY system, “has engaged in conduct that is directly and obviously in contravention of New York state law,” the letter read in part. A 2016 executive order mandates that state entities divest all public funds that support the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) campaign against Israel, America’s ally. “That first-in-the-nation measure guarantees that no New York agency or authority engages in or promotes any investment activity that would further the harmful and discriminatory Palestinian-backed BDS campaign.
“For that reason, Binghamton University’s Student Association is not, under any circumstances, allowed to engage in BDS activity. The resolution is inherently suspect in that it is hard to imagine that the association does any ‘business’ with companies that financially support Israel. The cynical action leads us to wonder why the Association would engage in such rash and ill-advised action without doing the most basic research into its legal authority to so act. Perhaps the emotion of the moment got the better of those who advanced and voted to support the resolution. This comes at a time when cooler heads need to prevail. Alternatively, there are certainly some who now find it most convenient to use the word genocide as an antisemitic trope in the context of the Gaza conflict,” the statement read.
“[We] call on the association to withdraw its resolution. Should that not occur, we demand that the university rescind the association’s charter as it has made a conscious decision to violate the laws of the State of New York prohibiting state agencies, which include our public university system, from discriminating against Israel.”
The letter was spearheaded by Assemblymember Charles Lavine (D – Glen Cove, Nassau County); president of the National Association of Jewish Legislators New York Chapter and Assemblymember David Weprin (D – Holliswood, Queens); the co-president of the National Association of Jewish Legislators, and five other Jewish lawmakers. The other seven lawmakers are sympathetic to Jewish causes and represent Jewish communities.
