Recent editorials of statewide and national interest from New York’s newspapers:
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The Times Union on the 2020 Census
Jan. 28
Politicizing the census process is just another way the Trump administration targets immigrants, regardless of their status.
The Founding Fathers knew how important it was to track the size and movement of our nation’s population, so much so they mandated in the Constitution that a regular count be conducted.
Now, a bill in Congress and actions by the Trump administration threaten to undermine the integrity of the 2020 census. This could have devastating financial impacts and insidious political consequences.
The risks to conducting an accurate 2020 census come primarily in two forms.
First, the Trump administration is slashing the Census Bureau’s funding, which makes its mission that much harder to accomplish. The short-funding of the bureau promoted the nonpartisan Government Accountability Office to designate the 2020 census program as being one of the few federal programs at “high risk” of failure.
Second, the administration and some Republicans in Congress want to require everyone filling out the census questionnaire to list their immigration status. A bill to that effect is pending in Congress, while President Donald Trump is reportedly considering an executive order to do the same thing if that fails.
Even though the Census Bureau may not legally share individual information with other agencies, the mandate could compromise the count in a nation so charged on the issue of immigration, amid intensified roundups of immigrants without proper documentation and threats to deport hundreds of thousands who in good faith registered with the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program.
An undercount of immigrants, legal or otherwise, would especially harm states with large immigrant populations, mostly more Democratic ones.
An accurate count of everyone - not just citizens - is vital in our representative democracy. It determines how the 435 House of Representatives seats are allocated. For New York, the fourth most populous state, it’s a question of whether it gains seats or loses some of the 27 it now has.
Census data is also essential in the distribution of $600 billion in federal funds annually for Medicaid, law enforcement, education, highways and much more. Private businesses also rely on the counts in deciding where they locate stores, offices and shipping facilities. States use the data for drawing legislative districts.
The rationale for collecting immigration status for the first time is specious. Rep. Steve King, an Iowa Republican and lead House sponsor of a bill requiring the immigration status question, argues it will help gain a more accurate count of immigrants without proper documentation.
More likely it will do the opposite. Many noncitizens, even those with legal status, will simply not participate, much as they now fear cooperating with police and governmental agencies or asking them for help.
Turning the census into a political weapon is not some minor stretching of the Constitution. It’s a corruption of an essential mechanism of the republic its framers envisioned.
Online: http://bit.ly/2nrh3xp
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The Poughkeepsie Journal on the state’s medical marijuana program
Jan. 30
Give Gov. Andrew Cuomo credit: He likes to think big. He likes to think the government he runs is capable of almost anything, despite the facts on the ground. And so the governor is proposing an ambitious study to determine what it would mean to legalize recreational marijuana in the state - and whether New York should do it.
Considering how things are going across the country, there is an increasing likelihood that New York will, in fact, go in this direction at some point.
But first things first. It should not be lost on anyone that, while Cuomo wants a commission to look at this issue, the state has struggled mightily to gets its medical marijuana program running in an effective manner, which should be the priority.
Making matters worse, New York, as well as about 30 other states that have such programs, has to try to decipher the meaning of a Trump administration memo giving prosecutors more leeway to crack down on the drug. In a potentially harmful move, U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions has rescinded Obama-era guidelines that allowed federal prosecutors to take a hands-off approach with state-level marijuana laws. Keep in mind this includes not only states that allow marijuana use for recreational purposes - but states like New York that have sanctioned it only for medical reasons.
U.S. Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, D-New York, called Sessions’ decision a “direct attack on patients,” and she’s right. Medical marijuana can provide relief to patients with cancer, glaucoma and other serious illnesses.
Obviously, this new federal direction has to be sorted out, and states, including New York, will have to push back, especially if this in any way impedes medical marijuana programs. New York’s program has about 40,000 certified patients, boosted by the state’s decision last year to add chronic pain to the list of qualifying conditions. It has taken a ridiculously long time for the state to get to this point. And New York’s program is one of the most restrictive in the country. The drug is not permitted in smokable forms, with certified patients instead able to purchase items such as creams, oils and pills.
New York initially allowed only five medical marijuana companies with 20 dispensaries in the state - despite the pleas of many that these numbers would be inadequate. State health officials have now allowed a doubling of both these numbers.
As for the wisdom of legalizing recreational use, New York can at least draw upon the experiences of other states and get deeper into the pros and cons. And, surely, New York should be studying the issue in depth and gaining plenty of public feedback, considering the neighboring states of Massachusetts and Vermont have moved to legalize recreational use and New Jersey may consider it.
As that particular debate ensues in New York, there should be no argument the immediate focus should be on improving an existing but fledging program designed to provide medical relief for those who need it now.
Online: http://pojonews.co/2DRIiaz
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The New York Daily News on immigration reform
Jan. 28
After zig-zagging for a year over the fate of 800,000 young people brought to the U.S. as children, President Trump last week zagged to call for creating a path to citizenship for the Dreamers. Very good.
But Trump yoked that relief to a radical proposed overhaul of America’s legal immigration system designed to choke off the flow of reinvigorating talent and energy that is vital to the American character. Very, very bad.
In its just-released framework on immigration, the White House dangles the possibility of legal status for 1.8 million current and future Dreamers - a seemingly risky proposition for the President given the screams of “amnesty” from his base.
In return, he demands billions to build his wall and otherwise enhance border security, at an initial price tag of $25 billion. Which means, quite officially, Mexico isn’t going to pay for the unnecessary symbol, we are - for roughly what it would take to dig a new rail tunnel under the Hudson.
And no one has yet to explain how a wall makes any sense when roughly half the southern border is a river that the U.S. needs access to.
But the worst piece of the package is embedded in Trump’s sweeping call to end what he calls chain migration. This is another way of saying “take a meat cleaver to family-reunification entry” - sharply limiting new citizens’ ability to sponsor relatives, which now includes parents, adult children and siblings, to spouses and kids only.
The effect would be to cut in half the current 1.1 million legal immigrants entering the country annually - itself a small, easily absorbed percentage of the overall American population.
That would be terrible for the economy. At a time when 10,000 Baby Boomers a year are retiring, when the labor market is tight, we need more workers badly.
It would be terrible for the funding of Social Security and Medicare, which are straining even as population growth has stalled.
It would be terrible for the character of the country. Immigrants, to coin a phrase, are what makes America great. They make New York City, where nearly 40% of the population is foreign-born, especially great.
Trump cheaply pretends a visa lottery that lets in 50,000 people a year is a security risk, because one terrorist got in through that channel. Ridiculous. Still, the lottery is imperfect and surely can be reformed, or even ended.
And Trump’s call to increase “merit-based” immigration, whereby more immigrants are admitted based on skills, has much to recommend it.
The status quo isn’t sacred. But using the cover of reform to clamp down dramatically on the inflow of legal immigrants would be a fateful mistake.
Online: http://nydn.us/2Ev4EA4
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The Syracuse Post-Standard on corruption in state government
Jan. 28
A former top aide to Gov. Andrew Cuomo, an energy company executive and two Syracuse-area development company executives are on trial in Manhattan over their roles in an alleged bribery scheme.
The case is complex. The number of lawyers involved could field a baseball team. After just two days of testimony, the judge is already annoyed with “tedious” questioning. And this is supposed to go on for another five weeks.
Be patient. The larger picture being painted in that Manhattan courtroom is how state government really works, and who it really works for.
Spoiler alert: It does not always work for you.
This is the first of two trials that involve executives from Cor Development Co., the Fayetteville company developing the Syracuse Inner Harbor, and the builder of two state-funded projects in DeWitt, the Film Hub and the Soraa factory.
In this first trial, Cor executives Steven Aiello and Joseph Girardi are accused of paying $35,000 in bribes to Joseph Percoco, the governor’s right-hand man, in exchange for Percoco using his influence to help Cor with its business before state government. All the defendants deny the charges.
The second trial later this year will center on Alain Kaloyeros, the former head of SUNY Polytechnic and the state’s nanotechnology czar. Kaloyeros is accused of steering contracts for the film hub and Soraa buildings to Cor. Again, the defendants deny the charges.
Pay attention to the bigger picture here. The trials are not just about holding allegedly corrupt individuals to account. They are windows on how hundreds of millions of dollars in state economic development money - your money - are being spent. There is some explaining to do.
- Is it a coincidence that lucrative projects go to people and companies who give large sums of (perfectly legal) campaign contributions to the governor? Cor Development and people connected to it have given more than $300,000 to Cuomo since 2010. Money in politics “is the elephant in the room,” a defense lawyer told the court last week.
- Why was there only one bidder - Cor - for the right to build all of Central New York’s nanotech projects, a deal worth $75 million, with the potential for more?
- How did the Film Hub, a project that came out of nowhere, land in DeWitt, where it sits mostly empty?
New York taxpayers are on the hook for all of it - and more. Thanks to delays brought on by the corruption scandal, Soraa pulled out of that $90 million factory in DeWitt, and New York state is spending another $15 million to lure a new tenant.
And the hundreds of good-paying jobs the state’s largesse was intended to purchase? They don’t exist. That broken promise is another reason these trials matter.
Online: http://bit.ly/2EsU5xu
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The Post-Journal on school shooting warning signs
Jan. 29
In the aftermath of violent sprees students seem to launch with some regularity in schools, the question asked often is why no one saw it coming.
Profiling children as potential killers is such a difficult task it does not even fall into the category of “inexact science.” Deciding youngsters who don’t fit in or who sometimes behave strangely are dangerous is foolish and irresponsible on many levels.
But officials in the school district that includes Italy High School, near Dallas, Texas, apparently had every reason to worry about the 16-year-old boy who shot a girl there on Monday. She was rushed to a hospital, where her condition at this writing was not known.
“This could have been avoidable. There were so many signs,” a junior at the school told a reporter.
She explained the boy’s behavior telegraphed trouble, beginning in the eighth grade, when he drew up a “hit list.” Then, just last year, he threw a pair of scissors at another student, then threw a computer against the wall. He was removed from school - but allowed to return.
If the girl is correct - and both school and law enforcement authorities should check on the details - someone misjudged the boy badly.
Should every problem child be kicked out of school? Of course not. But the Texas case is a reminder that violent behavior needs to be taken very, very seriously, because of the potential it may escalate into life-threatening situations.
Online: http://bit.ly/2nu3Enr
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