The New York state legislature is the worst among the nation’s 50 states, and citizens must demand reform if it is going to be effective, according to a New York lawyer.

Jeremy Creelan, associate council at New York University School of Law’s Breenan Center, listed several reasons yesterday why the New York’s legislatives bodies are dysfunctional at a presentation to a crowd of about 100 people that included many members of Onondaga County government including County Executive Nick Pirro.

Creelan presented on a study he co-authored entitled ‘New York State’s Legislative Process is Borken: here’s how to fix it,’ which highlighted the complete lack of democratic participation in the state’s legislative process and pleaded to people to get involved in a governmental reform process.

‘There really never has been a sustained campaign that focuses on reform,’ Creelan said. ‘It’s very important for (legislators) to know that voters care about the process and that they want them on board.’

The study analyzed the process in which a bill becomes a law in New York, Creelan said. In most legislatures, when a bill is developed there is a committee where the bill is looked at comprehensively while members debate the pros and cons and ask for both expert and public opinion. It is also the place where a bill gains public recognition and a momentum that can drive it over opposition.

But the New York state legislature does not provide a legislative history of the bill, making it very difficult for anyone but those in charge to know what’s going on.

The fact that staff for the committees are hired and fired by the state legislature also doesn’t allow the committees to establish viewpoints independent of political parties, Creelan said. Other intricacies of the legislative process, such as the difficulties of discharging a bill from the committee for vote, further tie up progress.

Creelan said one part of the problem impeding reform is activist organizations, such as the New York Public Interest Research Group and League of Women Voters, who focus on how the government fails their own particular interests instead of addressing larger flaws outside their issue.

This frays popular support for reform, something that is needed to get momentum behind the issue so it won’t go away.

Fortunately, the system can be fixed relatively simply with a series of legislative rules recommended in the Brennan study, Creelan said, such as opening up the bill committee process to the public and changing the absent seat rule that automatically votes yes for legislators who have signed in to the session but are not present.

These rules do not require a major overhaul, Creelan said, but can be changed when the legislature votes on its rules Jan. 5. If the public places popular pressure on legislative members during their current reelection campaign, they can get the issue on the public record and make them responsible if things don’t change.

‘People need to organize and tell their legislatures to sign onto these resolutions,’ Creelan said. ‘It’s very important for them to know that voters care about this process and that they want them on board.’

The fact that the inadequacies of the state legislature already has voters talking is impressive, Creelan said, as normally voters only focus on issues that deal with with funding, or ‘bread and butter issues.’

‘If there are any legislators that don’t go back to Albany and request reform, they will have to answer to that in the elections of 2006,’ said Nicholas Pirro, Onondaga County executive, who agreed with Creelan’s points.

Also on hand for Creelan’s presentation was Mark Bitz, who recently launched a Web site critical of the state legislature that crashed because it generated too many hits. Bitz thought a popular movement could make members of the legislature more responsive to the people, but that it would be difficult to do because information about the state government is difficult to obtain.

‘I hope the legislators will become more afraid of the voters than the speaker and the heads of legislature,’ Bitz said. ‘If they do that they will start addressing the Brennan Report.’

Published on October 21, 2004 at 12:00 pm