Gov. Andrew Cuomo and Senate Majority Leader Andrea Stewart-Cousins have both said they’re open to changing New York’s new laws on cash bail, but the two top Democrats disagreed Wednesday on how quickly that could be done.
Stewart-Cousins, D-Westchester, told reporters at an event at the Albany Times Union Wednesday that she doesn’t know if an agreement to change the laws could come before the end of March, which is when the state budget is due.
“I don’t know that it’s going to be possible to get done before the budget,” Stewart-Cousins said.
That’s contrary to Cuomo, who told reporters Tuesday that he thought changes to the new laws could be negotiated and approved by April 1. Cuomo and lawmakers often slip items of policy into the annual spending plan as a way to move controversial items through the Legislature.
“I think that is an appropriate amount of time to have an intelligent conversation, let emotions subside, let people calm down a little bit, actually have some facts you can discuss,” Cuomo said. “So, I think April 1 is, I would say, an appropriate time.”
That’s key, because it means the issue could become part of closed-door negotiations on the state budget, which often yield little information until the day lawmakers actually approve the spending plan.
But as far as three-way agreements go between the State Senate, Assembly, and Cuomo, changes to the state’s laws on cash bail aren’t expected to come anytime soon.
Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie, D-Bronx, has said at least once every week since the Legislature returned to Albany in January that Democrats in his chamber were not in favor of changing the new laws. They want data on how they’re working first, Heastie has said.
Democrats in the Senate recently announced a proposal to change the new laws that would eliminate cash bail altogether, but afford judges more discretion in evaluating when a defendant could pose a risk to public safety.
Stewart-Cousins characterized that proposal as a step forward in the conversation on bail reform in New York.
“It’s not a rollback — if anything it would be a rollback on cash bail, period,” Stewart-Cousins said. “And we would be looking at not only not having it, but giving specific guardrails for judges because the bail that’s existing now still has judges discretion.”
Those guardrails, Stewart-Cousins said, would essentially be a checklist of questions that judges would evaluate when deciding if a defendant should be held before trial. Defendants would only be allowed to be held for violent and serious crimes.
The state’s current laws on cash bail, which took effect at the start of the year, eliminated the option for low-level and nonviolent charges, but still allow judges to place certain conditions on defendants released ahead of trial.
