Will New York Increase Transparency in State Government?

Dan Clark: We told you how our state government works and if you're a regular viewer, you probably already knew anyway, but what you might not know is how the state legislature operates when things come down to the wire. It's not uncommon for big controversial bills like the state budget to be passed in the middle of the night, and the procedural rule to speed up the legislative process in an emergency called a message of necessity is often used casually and without a clear reason.

For some, those are ways to make the legislative process more efficient. But others say it reduces transparency in state government. That includes state Senator Jim Tedisco, who sponsors a bill aimed at that. We spoke this week about the bill and how it could change things at the state capitol. 
Senator Tedisco, thank you so much for being here. I appreciate it.

Jim Tedisco: My pleasure. It's good. Get out of the rain a little bit here.

DC: We're looking forward to some drier days here.

JT: Praying for some sun and a little bit less humidity. Hopefully we'll get there.

DC: Yeah, I hope so. 
So, this bill is actually a pretty simple bill, but the interesting thing about this bill that we're talking about is I think what's inside of the bill and the intent of the bill are things that the public has no idea about because the bill is kind of targeted towards things that the public doesn't know anything about.

I want to go over the first part which is something called messages of necessity. These are used when a bill is introduced, and usually a bill would have to age three days in the legislature. The governor can issue a message of necessity that just bypasses that at all. So, somebody could introduce a bill and 10 minutes later you could vote on it and pass it.

What this bill would do would require lawmakers to have two thirds of a majority in each chamber to accept that message of necessity and move forward with the bill. So, talk to me about that. Why do you think that that is the right way to go? Why should it be two thirds of people and not just kind of an automatic thing from the governor?

JT: Well, the bill itself is called the New York State Budget Transparency Act, and, you know, we're not only public servants and Senators and Assembly people, we're representatives, and the real purpose of it is transparency. 

You know, someone once said, in darkness, democracy dies, had a little bit to do with the Watergate issue, and that's a fact and that's a truism, but in this case, you're right, the Constitution and our founders were very smart. They said, if you're a representative, you've got to have a bill on your desk and you've got to be able to read it, at least three days, to give us the opportunity to read it. But they also said you may need a message of necessity.

Now, what is a necessity? It's an emergency. 99% of the time, they never use it as an emergency. They use it as a message of convenience not to have to answer to ourselves who are the representatives which should interact with the public so we can get their input and the media, like yourself, and others who can report on it and tell us what direction it's going and what we should debate and the questions we should ask.

So, my bill tries to take care of those two areas and really provide a representative democracy approach where people, not Senators, Assembly people and Governors are the most important part of this government.

DC: Now, you've been in the legislature for about 40 years now, first in the Assembly for a long time, now you're in the state Senate, how have you seen this evolve over time? Has it always been this way since you've been here that they've used messages of necessity pretty, pretty liberally?

JT: I just passed a bill VIP (Veterans Internship Program), it took me ten years to get that bill to the floor, and I finally passed it this year. Believe it or not, I've had this bill for 12 years and for 12 years, in many cases, both sides of the aisle have used messages of necessity. Democrats would blame Republicans for late budgets, Republicans would blame Democrats. But in this case, now, truly, there's only one group to blame because there's only one voice from one political affiliation, from one region of the state, super majority in the Senate, supermajority in the Assembly, and a Democratic Governor who's maybe a little bit more moderate, but still very progressive because they're turning her in that direction.

So, this has been an old chestnut, but this year. I think we made some headway because the other part of this whole thing, when I say in darkness, democracy dies. Besides this message of necessity, where they give us an hour and a half and say, here's a 200-page budget document, and by the way, it's not only for the budget bills themselves, it's for extenders. They know three or four days in advance. They know we can advance with it. They won't give it to us for an hour and a half before so we can’t read it.

You only use message of necessity where it is a necessity because it's supposed to be for an emergency, like a terrorist attack, a financial disaster, an impending storm, maybe a pandemic. You might want to  have used it back when the pandemic was taking place, but not for the convenience of not having to answer questions. 

So, yeah, it's been a long haul. We've talked about it a lot in the past, but this year we put so much pressure on them, they did most of the work between eight and 12, but they still use that message of necessity really as a message of convenience. That's a slap in the face to our constituents and to all the rank and file members as well.

Of course, when I say rank and file, the majorities had the bill way in advance of us, we're the ones who have to catch up and that's an affront to the people who I said are most important in this representative democracy, and those are the constituents, the voters in the people we represent the taxpayers.

DC: Right. The majorities, as you mentioned, have a kind of ongoing conversation within their conferences about how the legislation is developing. So by the time that they get to it and have a deal, they kind of have an understanding of where it's headed or maybe what's going to be in it. The minorities don't get anything unless they're leaked something by another member or the media uncovers it.

That being said, this is such a common practice in Albany to, as you said, I think intentionally a lot of the time, shadow what's happening at the Capitol. The majorities are so entrenched in this. I think when Republicans were in the majority, as you said, they used as two Democrats did to this bill, I should mention importantly, is a bipartisan bill. It's not being just led by one party. 
How do you convince everybody else who is so used to this system to come over to your side and see that you could work in a different way to benefit constituents?

JT: Well, as I said, the most important, but also the most powerful individuals in this representative democracy are not Senators, Assemblymen or Governors. They're the public. Because I'm in the minority, my colleagues in the Assembly are in the minority, and all three parts of government are controlled by one body, and by the way, first time in 40 years, that's the case, but they control this and they really have proven then they can't do a budget in a timely fashion because it was the latest budget in the last ten years, 30 days late. 

So I think we have to do our best to harness the public and say you have to put the pressure on them to help us get the message that you want some transparency, you want your elected officials not only to be Senators, not only to be public servants in Assembly people you want them to be representatives in A representative can only do that if they can tell them what's happening at the Capitol and get their input and find the direction they want their state to be taken it. That's not happening right now.

DC: The second part of the bill would deal with when you work, as you mentioned before, you want to work or should work from 8 a.m. to midnight. This bill would say that the legislature can't pass a bill between midnight and 8 a.m. unless, again, there's a two thirds majority of members who want to do that when there is an actual emergency at 3 in the morning.

JT: Right.

DC: The timing element is interesting to me. Why just 8 a.m. to 12 a.m.? Why not go even from you have to pass bills from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m.?

JT: Well, we want to give a reasonable amount of time because we don't want to rush the debate. That's another part of transparency, because they'd love to limit the debate on some issues that are controversial. That's a part of this whole thing. That two thirds vote is giving them away to really have a message of necessity. If we said you couldn't do a two thirds vote to override the message of necessity when it really is a terrorist attack or something like that, that would kind of be problematic. Sometimes there are real issues, very rarely, I think. But on occasion, like we talked about the pandemic. 

But I think you need that debatable time. We each get 2 hours of debate. So, if my 21 members took 2 hours, of course that would go way past the 8 to 12. So, I think it's reasonable to do that, and we want to give a reasonable proposal, especially when we know they have a super majority, and we'd have to bring them kicking and screaming. 

I think Hochul brought them kicking and screaming to make some type of reforms with the cash bail thing, but she didn't go to the place where I think makes it plausible to have safety like 49 other states have to put in place the judge having discretion to consider danger to a certain extent.

But yeah, I think 8 a.m. to 12 is reasonable. It allows us to debate, but it won't be in the middle of the night, the media can follow through and get a report the next day or the day after and we can get back to the public, our constituents, which as I said, they're the most important part of this representative democracy.

DC: Yeah, you know, the system in place right now is really designed in ways, as we've mentioned, to not be very transparent, to sometimes slip things kind of under the cover of darkness, if you will. It's a strategy that I've never quite understood because as a reporter having to watch a debate at 2 a.m., I'm really not getting the information that's there unless I've had 8 hours of sleep beforehand.
So, for us as journalists, too, it's tough to kind of have to tune in at 2 or 3 a.m. and decipher what you guys are talking about, because it might be a part of the budget that I know nothing about.

JT: Here’s something I just thought about and I've said it before. They like the media, my colleagues, both sides of the aisle. That's the way we get our message across, and during an election period, that's how we get elected. We have press conferences. We tell them what we're supporting, what we've worked on, what we've done. So I say to my colleagues, here's the argument I make. 
If it's so good to do a budget bill, the most important thing we do two or three or 4 a.m. in the morning on the floor when the TV camera has us on TV, why don't you hold your press conferences two or three or 4 a.m. in the middle of the night? You know why? Because the media won't be there. The press conference won't take place.

When you want to talk about something positive you're putting forward or a bill you want support for or honor you've received or something, something like that. You don't do it three or 4 in the in the middle of the night. You do it at 10 a.m. in the morning when the media, they're ready to report it the full extent of the day.

So that's an indication that they want some confidentiality about some of the issues that they feel a little bit uncomfortable about, but they want to still support and get in place. So, I ask them, you know, if you want to do it at four in the morning, you should do your press conferences at the time. But nobody does that right now. Dan, you know that.

DC: I do know that. So this would be an amendment to the state constitution, meaning the legislature would have to pass either this year if they if you come back or next year, and then you would have to pass it again after the next election of the legislature and then it would go to voters on the ballot. We've had an in-depth conversation about this, but if I was a voter watching this, give me your thirty second elevator pitch.

JT: Well, I would just tell them you are the most important part of our representative democracy. I know you have a busy life and this is a problem with that. When you have a lack of transparency, they don't sometimes even know this is a process that is not working right. I think every extender for budget, every budget bill itself this year was voted upon with a message of necessity. There was no reason for that to rush it through, to not inform the public. 

So, if you want Representative democracy, call your Governor, call your elected official and tell my colleagues across the state all sides, southwest, east, north, tell their elected officials and their constituents relative friends. Pass this bill so you have more transparency. So we involve more fully the most important part of this representative democracy and that's the taxpayers in the voters.

So that's the best we can do right now, because we do have that lack of transparency. And that's a key part of representative democracy.

DC: Senator Jim Tedisco, thank you so much.

JT: Thanks for having me Dan. An important issue. I appreciate you taking it up.