Editorials from around New York

ALBANY, N.Y. (AP) - Recent editorials of statewide and national interest from New York’s newspapers:

The Niagara Gazette on keeping the State of State address in Albany.

Jan. 22

Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo’s decision to turn the State of the State message into a road show has understandably drawn mixed reaction from residents across the Empire State as well as a number of state lawmakers.

Obviously, the governor had little concern for breaking the 90-year-old tradition that framers of the state constitution decreed. Instead of delivering the annual address in the Assembly Chamber, Cuomo opted for six sites reminiscent of a whirlwind campaign tour. It’s fair to question, if he was so intent on reaching out to people through the regional approach, why did he bypass two or three areas where the last election results showed he had fallen out of favor?

While some New Yorkers appeared pleased that he chose their communities to talk about the accomplishments and challenges of his administration, others like those in the Southern Tier must have felt ignored. Maybe the governor simply skipped those sites (e.g. Binghamton) because he abhorred the thought of sign-carrying protesters demanding that he rethink his rejection of hydro fracking which those communities sought to deal with severe job losses.

As expected, many lawmakers considered the all-day trip across the state as an affront. Within a few days, state Sen. Jim Tedisco, R-Glenville, and Assemblyman Phil Steck, D-Colonie, sponsored a bill to ensure that in the future the State of the State addresses be presented in the Assembly Chamber on Capitol.

“New Yorkers don’t need a ’Hunger Games’ style State of the State,” Tedisco said last week, “Let’s hope no president of the United States decides to deliver the State of the Union address in four different continental time zones. We are one New York and we should have the State of the State delivered in the Assembly.”

Tedisco’s colleague, Assemblyman Steck, notes the purpose of the annual address is not to propagandize and then blame the Legislature for what it has not accomplished. Converting the State of the State into a dog and pony show, and now taking that show on the road, is unnecessary, inefficient, and a waste of taxpayer dollars, he said.

On a brighter note, Siena College political analyst Steve Greenberg thought the Cuomo rollout that covered more than 1,200 miles apparently worked for the governor, as evidenced by the countless headlines his talks generated. Why wouldn’t the people embrace a message offering free tuition for college; a plan to reduce property taxes; biking and hiking trails. One proposal hardly welcomed in the Niagara area was to build a kind of grand lodge on Goat Island, what opponents will surely call an intrusion on the scenic parcel dividing the American and Horseshoe Falls.

The sad part is that the governor is starting off 2017 with a Legislature that is angry with him. He’ll need to restore that trust if he expects cooperation in the new session.

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Online:

https://bit.ly/2kj4npc

The Middletown Times Herald-Record on legislative reform in New York.

Jan. 24

There’s been a lot of talk about turning anger into action these days. New Yorkers know more than they need to about that, especially when it comes to corruption and ethics reform.

When prosecutors were picking off a senator here, an Assembly member there, we had a sense that the state was heading toward an inevitable crossroads.

Sometime soon, people said, things will get so bad that even the worst offenders can no longer ignore it. The time will come when true reform, a wide-ranging package of legislation with bipartisan support will sweep through Albany and we can get back to being the model for others to follow instead of the bad crowd that your mother always warned you to stay away from.

Then we reached that pinnacle of corruption with two of the three most powerful people in Albany, one a Democrat, one a Republican, indicted, tried in record time, convicted with even more speed and on their way to prison.

And then …

Nothing happened.

And now, as usual, it’s the start of a new legislative session and talk of ethics reform fills the Senate and Assembly chambers. Yet there is no sense of any movement. If anything, our legislators are more interested in paying back the governor for the role he played in holding up the raise that would have taken them from the second or third best paid state lawmakers in the nation to the undisputed champions having done nothing more than demanded such compensation as their right.

But because there is the usual early session talk of reform, there is once again a chance, a slight chance, that people who have grown tired of waiting could make a difference.

It all depends on strategy. A good one might be to forget about a package of legislation and focus instead of a single issue. The package always brings with it the possibility of resistance to one component, a resistance that is enough to stall legislation on all the other parts.

But if people would focus on one, say a real limitation on outside income instead of the current proposal for an advisory opinion on such earning, then that individual piece of legislation might stand a chance of succeeding.

Instead of lobbying members of the Legislature to become ethical, it would be better if people wrote letters, made phone calls, sent emails, perhaps picketed in nice weather outside local offices demanding that lawmakers give up the outside income that has proven to be so tempting to so many who ended up in jail.

Among all of the proposed ethics reforms, a limit on outside income has the best potential because it matches the approach taken in Congress, so it is not unique, and it should appeal to most of those in both Senate and Assembly because most of them do not make any money beyond their generous state salaries, bonuses and benefits.

Only the leaders and lawyers have a vested interest in keeping things the way they are and there are not that many of them.

It might not work, it probably will not work, but it is worth a try.

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Online:

https://bit.ly/2j5iotJ

The Plattsburgh Press-Republican on the Women’s March.

Jan. 24

Powerful. That’s the best way to describe the message sent by hundreds of thousands of people gathering Saturday in cities across the nation for the Women’s March.

They represented a variety of causes but with one central message: The new U.S. administration must respect the rights of all people.

When women see a wrong, they are more likely to get up and do something about it than to sit and complain. And that’s what women all over the world did by marching on Saturday. They sent a forceful message that their concerns must be considered.

President Donald Trump seemed too caught up Saturday in a “my birthday party was bigger than your birthday party” type dispute over the crowd size at his inauguration to comment on the massive show of solidarity that drew 250,000 people to Washington, D.C., alone.

His first response on Twitter came Sunday, when he pointed out that the people protesting him could have elected someone else, a not wholly invalid point: “Watching protests yesterday but was under the impression that we just had an election! Why didn’t these people vote? Celebs hurt cause badly.”

Apparently, he rethought his approach (or someone advised him to) because about 90 minutes later, he tweeted what he should have said Saturday: “Peaceful protests are a hallmark of our democracy. Even if I don’t always agree, I recognize the rights of people to express their views.”

Imagine how much respect he would have earned had he gone one step further and promised to seriously consider the messages delivered to him in such a public, peaceful and widespread way.

Numerous women from the North Country made the long trip to Washington for the main march, and about 1,000 people total showed up in Plattsburgh and Lewis - the biggest turnout for a local protest in recent memory.

The regional marches should put Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-Willsboro) on notice, too, that though she has supported Trump, she also is congresswoman for the many people in her district who espoused human-rights causes here and in Washington and take issue with his policies.

People who attended the marches tell us it was an inspiring experience. Don’t expect the advocacy to fade away; participants are emboldened and determined to keep the heat on.

We urge them to try to find ways to work with the new administration to guide decisions. Public actions like protests are good for sending a message, but change more often comes from working together with the government.

That, of course, depends on whether the president and his advisers and Cabinet members are listening. They would be foolish not to. Estimates are that 1 million worldwide took part in the global display of solidarity on Trump’s first day in office.

Those voices deserve recognition, and their concerns must be given serious deliberation.

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Online:

https://bit.ly/2jeZFam

The New York Times on President Donald Trump’s tax returns.

Jan. 24

One of the features on the White House website that didn’t vanish when President Trump took the oath of office on Friday is the “We the People” page, which allows ordinary Americans to petition their government to address an issue of importance to them. The Obama White House, which created the feature, responded to petitions that received at least 100,000 signatures within 30 days.

It should come as no surprise that that threshold was easily reached over the weekend after someone created a petition calling on Mr. Trump to release his tax returns. “The unprecedented economic conflicts of this administration need to be visible to the American people, including any pertinent documentation which can reveal the foreign influences and financial interests which may put Donald Trump in conflict with the emoluments clause of the Constitution,” the petitioner, identified as A.D., wrote. The emoluments clause bars the president from receiving gifts and payments from foreign governments. The petition had garnered more than 310,000 signatures by late Tuesday afternoon.

The administration dismisses these pleas for honesty, arguing that only journalists care about Mr. Trump’s tax returns and conflicts of interest - a claim that a recent Washington Post-ABC News poll disproved. It found that 74 percent of Americans, including 53 percent of Republicans, believe that Mr. Trump’s tax returns should be made public.

Kellyanne Conway, counselor to Mr. Trump and his chief obfuscator, told ABC News on Sunday that “he’s not going to release his tax returns,” adding that the election showed that “people didn’t care.” On Monday, she pulled back a tad, tweeting that “POTUS is under audit and will not release until that is completed.” Of course, even that comment is a ruse. The Internal Revenue Service has made clear that being under audit wouldn’t preclude Mr. Trump from making his returns public.

Yet, the Trump campaign used that excuse over and over, and now Mr. Trump has carried it into the White House. White House officials are probably hoping that the longer they stonewall, the more likely that public demands on this matter will be pushed aside as torrents of controversial policies and statements from Mr. Trump dominate the news cycle. Even so, voters and members of Congress who care about ethics in the nation’s highest office should not let up.

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Releasing the returns would provide important insight into Mr. Trump’s finances and businesses. They would reveal if he is as wealthy as he claims to be, what his effective income tax rate is (he said during the campaign that not paying taxes meant he was smart) and how much he gives to charity. The documents would also identify the sources of his income and debt, helping to answer questions about his links to businessmen, banks and governments in places like Russia and the Middle East, and putting a spotlight on potential conflicts of interest.

Presidential candidates have voluntarily disclosed their tax returns since the Watergate scandal ushered in an era of greater transparency. Mr. Trump, whose checkered past as a businessman includes a string of bankruptcies and a $25 million settlement compensating students who said they had been defrauded by Trump University, has chosen to buck this trend, perhaps because he has something to hide.

Congress can force his hand by supporting a bill that Senators Ron Wyden of Oregon and Chris Murphy of Connecticut introduced this month. It would require the current and all future presidents to release their tax returns. State lawmakers could also head off this problem in the future by forcing presidential candidates to disclose their tax returns to get on the ballot. There is one such bill pending in New York.

Mr. Trump’s refusal to release his returns was deeply suspicious during the campaign, and it’s indefensible now that he’s in power. The only logical conclusion is that the candidate who pledged to clean up Washington is hiding damaging information about his past.

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Online:

https://nyti.ms/2kjusEx

The Syracuse Post-Standard on President Donald Trump’s inauguration speech.

Jan. 20

The peaceful transfer of power from the 44th president of the United States to the 45th went off without a hitch on Friday. It was, as President Ronald Reagan said, an event both “commonplace and miraculous” - commonplace because it has happened without fail for more than 200 years, and miraculous because, unlike most of world history, it is bloodless. Given the bitterness of this campaign and deep divisions in the country, we can appreciate that tradition even more.

In his plainspoken and brief inaugural address, President Donald J. Trump put a populist spin on the concept: “Today, we are not merely transferring power from one administration to another or from one party to another, but we are transferring power from Washington, D.C., and giving it back to you, the people.”

Here was Trump saying: Thanks to regular folks like you, I just won the Oval Office, in defiance of the Republican establishment and the Washington elites. My campaign against them is only just beginning.

Trump’s supporters gathered in front of the U.S. Capitol roared their approval, as the president reassured them and the country he would keep hammering the themes that got him elected: restoring the manufacturing economy, rebuilding infrastructure, securing the border and wiping out the Islamic State.

Trump also played to Americans’ fears. In his familiar stump speech cadence, the president advanced a dark and pessimistic view of a nation strewn with vacant factories, crime-ridden cities and broken middle-class dreams. “This American carnage stops right here and right now,” he declared.

“This American carnage stops right here and right now,” he declared. It’s a big promise … How will he keep it?

It’s a big promise that no one would wish Trump cannot keep. How will he keep it? The president has yet to fill in the blanks.

As for unifying the country, Trump said he would vanquish prejudice and bring Americans together by appealing to their patriotism. Waving the flag will not be enough. Just ask black, brown, female and LGBT Americans whose patriotism is no shield against discrimination in every facet of public life.

Trump also sent a message to the world: He will drive foreign policy based on the idea of putting “America First.” The phrase echoes the isolationist movement that sought to keep the United States out of World War II. Does it signal a retreat from America’s post-war role as guardian of democratic principles and ideals? Will it fray old alliances, despite Trump’s pledge to reinforce them?

The president promised to “unite the civilized world against radical Islamic terrorism” - using a phrase President Barack Obama would not use for fear of igniting a religious war. Trump accused Obama of being weak; we hope Trump isn’t being foolish.

The new president struck a sour note by castigating the four former presidents and dozens of lawmakers seated behind him as self-serving and faithless politicians. Surely there’s a well-meaning public servant among them, including his immediate predecessor. Yes, Obama and Trump see the world in starkly different terms. If the new president is serious about tamping down divisiveness, he will need to be more thoughtful and less reactionary as he goes about dismantling Obama’s legacy. Keeping “the people” at the center of his decision-making is a start.

President Trump is only now going to discover why the White House is, in William Howard Taft’s words, “the loneliest place in the world.” His success is the country’s success. So we wish him well.

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Online:

https://bit.ly/2jpOYow