News
from STATE SENATOR
Liz Krueger
New York State Senate, 26th
District
COMMUNITY BULLETIN – May 2004
Message from Liz . . .
One of the biggest changes I have noticed in
this legislative session is that the leadership of both the Senate and the
Assembly has shown an unprecedented willingness to use conference committees to
resolve differences between competing versions of legislation. There are currently three conference
committees functioning on extremely important issues – budget reform,
sentencing/Rockefeller Drug Law reform, and implementation of the Help America
Vote Act (HAVA). And while we have a
long way to go before we know whether these committees will succeed in their
mission, they are making important progress.
As I mentioned in a previous newsletter, the budget reform committee
came to an agreement on a substantive package of reforms. And this week, the committee working on
implementation of the Help America Vote came to an agreement on a few of the
many important issues facing them.
Implementation of HAVA is one of the most
important issues we will face this year.
The Help America Vote Act, passed in the aftermath of the 2000 election
debacle, provides funding for modernizing election equipment and establishes
new standards for voter identification.
While the conference committee has yet to address the important issue of
establishing standards for new voting technology, they have come to an
important agreement of what kinds of identification will be acceptable for
first time voters. The committee has
agreed that a broad range of forms of identification will be acceptable,
including utility bills, pay checks, and government documents.
This issue is important because one concern is
that HAVA will be implemented in a way that discourages voting. In New York State, one way this could be
done would be by limiting the types of identification that would be accepted,
or by not specifying acceptable forms of identification which would leave it to
the discretion of local election officials as to whether they would allow a
person to vote. This issue is
particularly important in New York City, where a much smaller percentage of the
population has drivers’ licenses, and could thus face disenfranchisement if
HAVA were implemented in an exclusionary manner.
While the issue of voter identification is an important one, there remain many other unresolved issues regarding HAVA implementation. Perhaps the most crucial issues revolve around what standards will be acceptable for new voting technology. Many other states have rushed to adopt computerized voting with disastrous effects that undermine the public’s confidence in the validity of the electoral process. Both Maryland and California had major breakdowns in recent elections, and the California Secretary of State recently decertified electronic voting machines from Diebold, the state’s major vendor, because of serious security problems with the machines in the recent presidential primary, and because of machine breakdowns that effectively disenfranchised thousands of voters. We must make sure that New York does not repeat the mistakes of these early adopters.
The State Legislature must establish standards
for new voting technology, or the decision will be made behind closed doors by
an increasingly partisan Board of Elections.
If we adopt computer technology, new machines must create a voter
verified paper trail that could be compared to machine results. Studies have clearly demonstrated that it is
possible to hack the software of current voting machines, and without a paper
record, there will be no way to assure that votes counts are accurate. New technologies must also ensure maximum
access to people with disabilities and language minorities.
If our new experiment in conference committees
is going to bear fruit, issues such as these must be addressed and
resolved. Both houses already seem to
recognize the importance of a voter-verified paper trail, but as of yet no
formal agreement has been reached on these or other issues related to
regulating voter technology. The coming
weeks will reveal if our legislature is willing to let conference committees
fulfill their valuable role, or whether we will abdicate our responsibility and
endanger the legitimacy of our electoral process.
|
State Senator Liz
Krueger and Assemblymember Dick Gottfried Present a SENIOR/HEALTH CARE
COMMUNITY FORUM: "MEDICARE
CHANGES: WHAT THEY MEAN TO YOU" ·
How
Medicare Discount Drug Cards Work ·
Being
a Good Consumer ·
EPIC
and the new law ·
Advocating
for Change Date:
Thursday, May 13th Time: 2pm –4pm Place: Community Church of New York 40 East 35th Street b/t Park and Madison Call (212) 490-9535 for further information |
Community Spotlight
Rent Guidelines Board Hearing on June
15th:
In a surprising move, the NYC Rent Guidelines
Board (RGB) broke with tradition during its preliminary vote on May 10th
and approved a tentative range of increases for rent regulated tenants -
anywhere from 3 to 5.5 percent for one-year leases and 5.5 to 7.5 percent for
two year leases. Historically, the RGB
has recommended specific guidelines that are then ratified following public
testimony. After rejecting a resolution
by tenant members to freeze rents and a resolution by landlord representatives
to approve guidelines of 6 and 9 percent, the majority of board members stated
that they needed additional time to obtain information and were not prepared to
vote on specific rent increases.
Even if the rent increases ultimately approved
are at the low end of the proposed ranges, I have many serious concerns about
what this decision would mean for the more than two million low, moderate and
middle-income rent stabilized residents of New York City who are already facing
nearly unprecedented levels of unemployment and cost of living increases. During these extraordinarily difficult
economic times, I fear that these increases will lead to further hardships, and
even evictions, for tens of thousands of New York City’s families.
Despite building owners’ legitimate claims
that their operating expenses have risen significantly during the last year due
to rising property tax rates and the cost of insurance, the rent regulated real
estate market continues to be one of the most consistently profitable
investments in New York City. According
to the RGB’s own reports, owners’ net operating income has remained stable,
mortgage interest rates for multifamily buildings are at historic lows and the
overall condition of the city’s rent regulated housing stock continues to
improve. While it is reasonable to
expect tenants and landlords to share the burden of increased operating
expenses, this burden must be shared equitably. It is unconscionable for building owners in one of the most
profitable economic sectors of our economy, to pass the all of their expenses
onto tenants who have a median income under $32,000. I will urge the members of the RGB to reconsider their decision
when I testify before the board on June 15th. I urge you to join me at the hearing, which
will take place at The Great Hall at Cooper Union,
7 East 7th Street, on June 15th
from 10AM to 10PM.
Summer
Volunteer Opportunities:
New York Cares offers volunteer opportunities in a wide variety of interest areas, including homelessness, hunger, kids, education, seniors and the elderly, HIV/AIDS, the environment, urban renewal, and more. For more information, visit http://www.nycares.org/ or call (212) 228-5000.
The Central Park Conservancy seeks volunteers to help with maintaining the park and greeting park visitors. For more information, visit them on the web at http://www.centralparknyc.org/volunteerjobs/volunteerinfo or call 212-360-2741
Lenox Hill Neighborhood House has a number of volunteer opportunities in its youth and senior programs. For more information, call (212) 744-5022.
“Youth Serving Youth” Scholarships
Available to High School Senior Women:
The National
Foundation for Women Legislators (NFWL) and the Christian Science Monitor are
offering a $2500 scholarship for a college bound young woman who is graduating
from high school and has made a significant contribution to the well-being of
young people in her community. The
criteria for the award include outstanding volunteer or paid service work that
promotes the welfare of young people or demonstrates leadership in creating a
new approach, program, strategy or initiative that benefits them. The application deadline for consideration
is June 30, 2004. To obtain an
application or for more information, visit the NFWL on the web at http://www.womenlegislators.org/scholarships,
or call them at (202) 293-3040 ext. 1006.
Learn
about Broadband and Technology Development at the “Intelligent Communities”
Conference:
On June 10th and 11th,
the Intelligent Community Conference will take place at the Marriot Financial
Center in Lower Manhattan. The
conference will explore the possibilities for collaboration between government
and the private sector in building “Intelligent Communities” that treat
Internet bandwidth as an essential utility for creating prosperity and bridging
the Digital Divide between poor and wealthy communities. New York City was named “Intelligent
Community of the Year” in 2001. For more information on the conference, visit http://www.intelligentcommunity.org/html/ICCA2004.html
on the web.
Last month, I introduced S. 7064, a bill that
would amend the public health law, by placing clear guidelines on stem cell,
embryonic, and fetal tissue research, and prohibiting human cloning. This legislation would put New York State at
the forefront of medical research while ensuring that legitimate ethical
concerns are appropriately addressed.
We live in a time of tremendous medical
progress. We are on the threshold of
historic breakthroughs against chronic, degenerative and acute diseases. Stem cell research has clearly shown its
potential to do incredible good for humankind.
The bill that I have proposed aims to encourage and support these
scientific advances, while officially banning human cloning. Furthermore, the legislation puts strong
guidelines on the books to protect New Yorkers from possible abuse of human
genetic material.
An estimated 128 million Americans suffer from
the crippling economic and psychological burden of chronic, degenerative, and
acute diseases, including juvenile diabetes, Parkinson's disease, cancer and
Alzheimer's disease. Stem cell research
or therapeutic cloning offers immense promise for developing new medical
therapies, treatments and cures for these debilitating diseases and a critical
means to explore fundamental questions of biology.
This year we mark the sixth anniversary of
when scientists reported the successful isolation and culturing of human
embryonic stem cells. In the years
ahead these advances will take us to places that we never could have
imagined. We must embrace this progress
and work towards the ethical usage of this landmark technology.
My legislation creates a thorough and
comprehensive set of guidelines that anticipates potential abuses of
therapeutic cloning. Specific standards
of informed consent are created between physicians and potential donors that
both parties must agree to. In addition
the legislation spells out that human genetic material is to be treated with
the utmost respect and sensitivity.
Strict civil penalties are outlined for those who do not adhere to the
rules of informed consent. The
legislation further proposes the creation of a twelve-member advisory
Commission on Cloning & Therapeutic Research. Members would be appointed by the Governor, the Temporary
President of the Senate, the Speaker of the Assembly, as well as the Minority
Leaders of the Senate and Assembly.
Commission membership must include four scientists involved in stem cell
and therapeutic cloning research, two physicians, two medical ethicists, two
patients or former patients involved in stem cell or fertility treatment, one
health care provider and one patients’ rights advocate. The bill would also strictly prohibit human
cloning, which means the practice of attempting to create a new human being
from raw genetic material. Violators of
this statute would be guilty of a Class B felony and could be subject to a fine
of up to $250,000.
New
York's biomedical industry is a critical component of the state's economy, as
it provides substantial employment, pays substantial wages and salaries,
invests billions in research and reports billions in worldwide revenue. With the passage of this bill, New York
State will be able to move to the forefront of stem cell research and we will
surely reap the benefits of future economic development.
Therapeutic
cloning involves removing the nucleus of a human egg cell and replacing it with
the nucleus from a patient's body cell, such as a skin cell. The egg is then
artificially stimulated, causing the egg to develop in a way similar to an
embryo fertilized by sperm. Scientists
envision extracting stem cells -- which have the potential to turn into every
type of cell in the human body -- from the cloned embryo so that it would be a
perfect transplant match for the patient.
Britain recently became the first country to legalize therapeutic
cloning. The move allows scientists to create cloned embryos only for purposes
of extracting stem cells for medical research. The extraction, which is done
when the embryo is a few days old, means the clones cannot develop into
babies. Under the guidelines set forth
by my legislation, the embryos are only allowed to develop until they are 14
days old.
The
legislation that I have proposed puts a system in place that would
appropriately regulate and support therapeutic cloning. The bill features strong consumer
protections, the creation of a well-rounded commission and a thorough statement
of informed consent. Several
states and countries have already passed laws to regulate cloning and New York
must officially go on record in order to prevent possible abuses. Good public policy will result in ethical
and reasonable scientific progress.