State suffers as Cuomo fixates on U.S. politics
The state Legislature ended its session last week with a whimper. Sports betting, early voting, bail reform, legislation benefitting child sex abuse victims, procurement reform and a database of deals all fell by the wayside when the final gavel struck to end the session.
Governing is the art of compromise. Neither Republicans nor Democrats are going to get everything they want out of any particular piece of legislation, but apparently some in our legislative leadership, and our governor’s office, can’t be convinced of that basic fact from high school civics classes.
It would be easy to say that we should throw all the bums out. All our region’s state representatives are up for re-election in November: Sen. Betty Little and Assemblymen Dan Stec and Billy Jones. On the other hand, we’re not sure they’re part of the problem, and we like much of what we hear from them. Could they do more? Maybe, but we also we don’t know who might run against them.
Perhaps, instead it’s time New Yorkers elect a governor more interested in fixing New York’s issues than he is in bashing President Donald Trump or bolstering his resume for the Democratic Party’s presidential nomination in 2020.
Last week, as the session wound down, Gov. Andrew Cuomo was on NY1 and MSNBC hammering the president on children being separated from parents and writing opinion pieces for the New York Times. There was no indication he was trying to broker compromise between the divided state legislature.
The issues left dangling at the end of the legislative session weren’t a priority for this governor. It’s time for one who prioritizes New Yorkers instead of party politics.