Pubdate: Wed, 19 Jan 2005
Source: Times Union (Albany, NY)
Copyright: 2005 Capital Newspapers Division of The Hearst Corporation
Contact:  http://www.mapinc.org/media/452
Website: http://www.timesunion.com/
Author: Andrew M. Cuomo
Note: Andrew M. Cuomo is a former secretary of housing and urban 
development and a former candidate for governor.
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/find?140 (Rockefeller Drug Laws)

PRISON INMATES, REPUBLICAN CONSTITUENTS

Nothing was more striking in Gov. Pataki's recent State of the State
address than his use of the word "reform" no fewer than 31 times in a
69-minute speech. It's striking, because if there's anything New
Yorkers will not get from this administration, it's genuine reform.

For the governor to pursue real reform, he would have to challenge
some entrenched Albany special interests and Republican Party
politics. A look at how the governor "reformed" the Rockefeller-era
drug laws reveals how unwilling or unable he is to do that.

Last year, after a decade of promises to revisit the state's
30-year-old drug laws, the governor finally signed a "reform" measure.
The need for real reform was obvious; the Rockefeller laws are a
well-established failure. They impose harsh minimum mandatory
sentences on first-time, nonviolent drug offenders, stripping judges
of the freedom to base their sentences on the facts of each individual
case. Under rigid sentencing guidelines, judges are forced to lock up
thousands of nonviolent young people who would be better served by
effective drug treatment. The "reform" legislation did little to
change this injustice.

The Rockefeller laws have wasted millions of dollars, to say nothing
of the unnecessary waste of prisoners' lives that can never be recovered.

As the Times Union editorial page has highlighted, the Supreme Court
just last week affirmed the importance of judicial discretion -- which
is absent in New York's law.

When the need for real reform of these laws is so obvious, why would
the governor look the other way? Because, arguably, Mr. Pataki is more
interested in protecting the interests of New York's Republican Party
than in serving the interests of the people of New York.

Let me describe one example of this dysfunction. The population of
upstate New York, the political base for the state's Republicans, has
been steadily declining in recent years. We have the greatest
out-migration of any state in the nation. Our upstate communities are
losing jobs, too, and state government has pushed the problem from bad
to worse by increasing the cost of doing business. Sadly, jobs in the
prison industry are among the few employment opportunities the Pataki
administration has protected upstate.

There are New Yorkers moving upstate, but they are prison inmates. In
fact, prisoners from downstate represent a full 30 percent of all
those "moving" upstate since 1990. While only 24 percent of New York
prisoners come originally from upstate, 91 percent of all New York's
prisoners are incarcerated there.

This works out nicely for New York's Republican Party. Why? Because
the population figures that determine Senate and Assembly districts
include prison inmates. It's simply not in the Republicans' political
interests to support measures that would let those locked up under the
old drug laws go free.

According to data from the Prison Policy Initiative, nearly 44,000
prisoners -- mainly from downstate and mainly minorities -- are
incarcerated in small, upstate communities and are counted as
"residents" of the communities in which they are imprisoned. Their
presence in a prison adds to a legislator's constituents -- even
though, as prisoners, they can't vote.

This is politically powerful for the Republican Party. There are four
upstate Senate districts that qualify as districts only because they
include a large prison population -- and all four are represented by
Republicans. The Democrats would have to take just four more seats for
the Republicans to lose their majority.

The leading defenders of the Rockefeller-era drug laws are upstate
Republican Sens. Dale Volker and Michael Nozzolio, heads of the
committees on codes and crime, respectively. The prisons in their two
districts account for more than 17 percent of all the prisoners in the
state. It may not be fair to say Volker and Nozzolio actually
"represent" the inmates who make their districts viable. Sen. Volker
told another newspaper that the cows in his district would be more
likely to vote for him than the prisoners. State population statistics
show that, without the inmates, Volker's district is one of the four
that would have to be redrawn.

Are decisions on the Rockefeller-era drug laws being made as sound
public policy or are they politically motivated? The potential
conflict of interests is obvious. We should not count prisoners as a
political base for legislators who do not honestly represent them and
for whom they did not vote. In other words, remove the partisan
politics and secure the integrity of legislative decisions. These are
important keys to "real" reform.

Such an agenda would replace partisan politics with sound public
policy, deliver results not rhetoric and restore integrity to the
process. It would focus on an economic development plan for upstate
New York rather than a prison construction program. It would address
the education-aid debacle and the dysfunction of state government. The
"government for sale" attitude should be replaced with a strong
ethical code for lobbyists and special interests.

For many years, voters ignored the state government's poor
performance. But this past year has brought a new awareness and
justified impatience with Albany. Elected officials who serve in
Albany could not avoid hearing the message and after years of
dysfunction they promised change. Even seasoned Albany veterans are
contorting themselves to appear as "reformers." This year they must
deliver.
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MAP posted-by: Richard Lake