| | | | |  | | By Sally Goldenberg, Anna Gronewold and Zachary Schermele | Presented by Compassion & Choices | Perhaps the only talking point Democratic leaders have all agreed upon in the political quagmire that is New York’s bail laws is that any new changes should be data-driven. Good news! The Senate and Assembly are holding a joint hearing in Albany today and it’s all about crime and punishment numbers and what to do with them. The idea is that prior to Gov. Kathy Hochul’s executive budget coming out Wednesday and the chambers’ respective counteroffers to follow, everyone can point to updated facts about whether the current criminal justice efforts are working. Hochul and New York City Mayor Eric Adams have already suggested changes to pre-trial detention laws and policy in their respective “State Of” speeches to target recidivism. And though the two have been reiterating a lockstep partnership, neither of them can do much without state lawmakers. Lawmakers — who are more than happy to remind the executives of their authority — say they need to know whether these ideas are good policy or based on criticism from Republicans and moderates that dogged the Democrats during a rocky midterm election. “I am willing to engage with the governor or whomever wants to have this conversation about bail reform as it relates to public safety,” Brooklyn Democratic Sen. Zellnor Myrie said about Hochul’s State of the State proposal on bail. “But what I'm not willing to do is to have a conversation that is based on anecdotes and scare tactics.” “I think the Senate and the Assembly both have said if there’s data to backup changes, then both houses are open to that,” Manhattan Democratic Sen. Brad Hoylman said. “But we'll need to have evidence. We don't think that we should be flip-flopping on bail without the statistical data to back up any changes.” The thing about data on these laws is it requires a lot of context (an issue they’ll be talking about in Albany today). Even then, different ideological camps can still reach nearly opposite conclusions. (See: This Times Union analysis of July data regarding rearrests after judicial discretion was used to set bail.) Those both for and against addressing bail laws this year have mostly made up their minds. The hearing is a big one hosted by Codes, Crime and Judiciary committees from both chambers. It starts at 10 a.m. and can be livestreamed. IT’S MONDAY. Got tips, suggestions or thoughts? Let us know ... By email: agronewold@politico.com and sgoldenberg@politico.com or on Twitter: @annagronewold and @sallygold WHERE’S KATHY? In Albany with no announced public schedule. WHERE’S ERIC? Appearing on “CNN This Morning.” Later in the day, he has separate meetings with the mayor of a small town in Germany, SUNY Chancellor John King, and the mayor of Hyderabad, India. TWEET(S) OF THE DAY: “How are we going to explain this to all of the other buildings. They looked up to you.” — from @NYC_Buildings to @EmpireStateBldg, which was lit up for a Pennsylvania team last night. “We take out the trash every day...and next year, that'll include the Eagles,” @NYCSanitation also wrote.
| | | | A message from Compassion & Choices: Stacey Gibson's husband, Sid, spent his final days suffering needlessly because lawmakers failed to ensure access to the full range of end-of-life care options, including medical aid in dying. After being diagnosed with non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma, Stacey is now fighting for the right to peace at the end of life for herself should she need it. Tell lawmakers to stop the suffering and pass the Medical Aid in Dying Act in 2023. Learn More. | | | |  | What City Hall's reading | | ERIC ADAMS WEIGHED IN on Hochul judge pick Hector LaSalle to NY1’S “Inside City Hall” on Friday. TLDR? He supports Hochul’s position: “I was impressed by his record. I was impressed by how he rose to the level of the judiciary that he rose to. I think that it should go to the Senate floor. Let's have the debate on the floor. That is what I enjoyed about being in the Senate. You will debate these issues. You will give your colleagues an opportunity to vote or which way they believe it should go. I think it should go to the floor and I'm hoping that we can find a way to allow the full Senate to vote for it.” “Adrienne Adams ‘buying’ support to remain Council speaker,” by New York Post’s Rich Calder: “City Council Speaker Adrienne Adams has donated $1,000 each to 35 fellow Dems on the 51-member council — an unprecedented move as she solicits support to keep her leadership post. Adams’ campaign fund gave another $1,000 check to Manhattan Democratic Councilwoman Gale Brewer, which has yet to be cashed. Brooklyn Democratic Councilwoman Rita Joseph received only $250 from Adams, the speaker’s campaign confirmed.” “New Yorkers sue city over delays to food stamps,” by WNYC’s Michelle Bocanegra and Bahar Ostadan: “New York City officials left tens of thousands of New Yorkers scrambling to buy groceries without their food stamps, a federal lawsuit filed on Friday claims. Over half of Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) applicants in December were left waiting longer than a month for benefits, according to the class-action suit filed in Manhattan federal court.” “NYC will forgive water bill late fees and interest under amnesty program: source,” by Daily News’ Michael Gartland: “People who owe money on past due water bills would still be on the hook to pay for the water they’ve used under the program, but will get a pass on all late fees and interest if they pay off the entirety of the principal, one city official told The News.” “Brooklyn DA Probes Election Allegations Tied to Democratic Party Leaders,” by THE CITY’s Yoav Gonen and George Joseph: “The investigation is an escalation of the ‘review’ the office announced after the first articles were published and puts DA Eric Gonzalez in the unusual position of formally investigating ranking officials of his own party’s county organization. Nobody has been charged with wrongdoing in connection with the investigations, which are ongoing.” Why whale deaths are dividing environmentalists — and firing up Tucker Carlson, by POLITICO’s Ry Rivard: Since December, at least nine whales have been stranded on beaches in New Jersey and New York. The deaths are happening as pre-construction work ramps up on offshore wind farms, which are a key part of the nation and New Jersey’s climate change strategy. There is no evidence the wind work and whale deaths are linked. But Clean Ocean Action, a 40-year-old nonprofit, believes the two things happening at once may be more than just a fluke. Real or rhetorical, the claim is stirring a new political debate.
| | | | JOIN POLITICO ON 2/9 TO HEAR FROM AMERICA’S GOVERNORS: In a divided Congress, more legislative and policy enforcement will shift to the states, meaning governors will take a leading role in setting the agenda for the nation. Join POLITICO on Thursday, Feb. 9 at World Wide Technology's D.C. Innovation Center for The Fifty: America's Governors, where we will examine where innovations are taking shape and new regulatory red lines, the future of reproductive health, and how climate change is being addressed across a series of one-on-one interviews. REGISTER HERE. | | | | | | | WHAT ALBANY'S READING | | “Hochul’s Vow to Boost Ethics and Sexual Harassment Training Falls Flat,” by The New York Times’ Jay Root: “State officials in charge of implementing the new ethics training mandate say they lack the money and infrastructure to offer live classes that the law now says must be provided to roughly 300,000 people, about 10 times the number of state workers who previously received the training, according to records and interviews. "‘We simply don’t have the bodies,’ Sanford Berland, the director of the state Commission on Ethics and Lobbying in Government, told the panel last month. ‘We don’t have the resources to do that kind of training.’ The failure to strengthen the ethics and sexual harassment training falls in line with a pattern of Ms. Hochul’s having struggled to bring about a ‘dramatic change in culture’ in Albany, a place where political dysfunction has thrived for decades.” “New York should pay Cuomo’s legal fees in suit, judge rules,” by The Associated Press’ staff: “New York state should pay former Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s legal bills as he defends himself against a lawsuit accusing him of sexually harassing a state trooper, a judge ruled Friday.” “Emails show Cuomo’s staff working on his memoir at the peak of New York’s pandemic,” from Empire Center’s Bill Hammond: “The records reveal that his government staff were already working on the book during the deadliest phase of New York’s COVID outbreak, months earlier than previously known. In a chain of emails between March 30 and April 18 of 2020, Cuomo’s top aide, Melissa DeRosa, directed staff members to produce a timeline of events and forward it to two of the governor’s speechwriters — who began converting the material into fodder for a memoir.” “NY students ‘deliberately inappropriately’ restrained 214 times in recent years, state says,” by Times Union’s Emilie Munson: “State investigators found staff at New York schools serving children with disabilities intentionally misused physical restraints on students dozens of times annually in recent years, records obtained by the Times Union show. The Justice Center for the Protection of People with Special Needs, a state agency that investigates allegations of mistreatment, substantiated 214 such cases between 2016 and 2021. The center classifies these encounters as a form of abuse.” “Lobbying on LaSalle nomination shows apparent gap in reporting requirements,” by Times Union’s Joshua Solomon: "A Delaware-based group spent between $75,000 to $100,000 on its brief efforts trying to influence the vote of senators on the Judiciary Committee, as they considered Gov. Kathy Hochul's nomination of LaSalle for chief judge of the Court of Appeals, according to a spokesman for the group.” #UpstateAmerica: Lake George ice castles are opening Feb. 6 and there’s an ice bar this year.
| | | | A message from Compassion & Choices:   | | | | | FROM THE DELEGATION | | JEFFRIES’ VOW — Rep. Hakeem Jeffries spent much of Sunday evening promising a packed amphitheater that he would not neglect his home borough now that he has been elected House minority leader, a position from which he nevertheless appears eager to lob criticisms across the aisle. “No matter what responsibilities I will now have down in Washington, D.C., I want you to understand I will never walk away from you, and I will always have your back,” Jeffries said at a community inauguration event. With Democrats out of power in the House, however, Jeffries will likely spend much of the next two years on the national stage trying to draw sharp distinctions between the two parties in the hopes of regaining ground — including four seats flipped by the GOP in New York. He gave a hint of that strategy Sunday by zeroing in on Republican proposals to cut Social Security and Medicare. “That’s why this room is more crowded than a Drake concert,” Mayor Eric Adams, who in the past has had a chilly relationship with Jeffries, said in a speech praising the newly minted minority leader. — Joe Anuta | | AROUND NEW YORK | | — The MTA cut free Wi-Fi service on its buses. — Twitter buzzed yesterday with reactions to the Empire State Building being lit up in honor of the Philadelphia Eagles, the longtime Giants rival, heading to the Super Bowl. — A former parole officer says the Department of Corrections and Community Supervision deliberately mishandled sex offender cases to reduce the prison population. — Majorities of New Yorkers support expanding the state's recycling program to more kinds of containers and greater deposits, according to a new poll. — A man who spent two decades in prison before being exonerated is still at Rikers because of delays in getting his ankle monitor. — The state’s trying to figure out what to do with the free hiker shuttle to the Adirondacks’ eastern High Peaks after low ridership last year. — A bill moving through the Legislature would allow pharmacists to prescribe certain types of birth control, nearly doubling the number of prescribers in New York.
| | | | DOWNLOAD THE POLITICO MOBILE APP: Stay up to speed with the newly updated POLITICO mobile app, featuring timely political news, insights and analysis from the best journalists in the business. The sleek and navigable design offers a convenient way to access POLITICO's scoops and groundbreaking reporting. Don’t miss out on the app you can rely on for the news you need, reimagined. DOWNLOAD FOR iOS– DOWNLOAD FOR ANDROID. | | | | | | | SOCIAL DATA BY DANIEL LIPPMAN | | HAPPY BIRTHDAY: former Rep. Lee Zeldin (R-N.Y.) … CFPB Director Rohit Chopra … CBS News Radio’s Steven Portnoy … POLITICO’s John Sakellariadis … NBC’s Natasha Korecki and Sarah Mimms … MSNBC’s Chris Jansing … Nels Olson of Korn Ferry … Peter Lauria … Marcela Sanchez of the World Bank … Josh Kram of the U.S. Chamber … CNN’s Maeve Reston … Jack Pretto … Rachel Ginzberg … (was Sunday): Bloomberg’s Lauren Dezenski and Eric Roston … Slate’s Jonathan Fischer … Edelman’s Aaron Guiterman … Tom Collamore … Elliot Forchheimer ... Adam Falkoff … Madeleine Lodge … Karen Showalter … Kyle Miskell … Kai Ramos … Emily Tara Weberman … … (was Saturday): Fed Vice Chair Lael Brainard … former Reps. Tom Downey (D-N.Y.) and Antonio Delgado (D-N.Y.) … CNN’s Jay McMichael … Bloomberg’s Justin Fox … Alexandra Thornton … Daniel Remler … (was Friday): Joshua Henderson ... Josh Weinstein ... Ezra M. Friedberg ... Arthur Fleischer (h/ts Jewish Insider) MAKING MOVES — Alex Rosenberg is now scheduler for HHS Secretary Xavier Becerra. He previously was chief of staff for former Rep. Mondaire Jones (D-N.Y.). ENGAGED — Remi Janier, digital product manager at Ligne Roset, recently proposed to Ariel Kliegerman, director at Perrotin gallery in New York. He proposed on their rooftop overlooking the New York City skyline, where they had their first date, with the ring hidden inside a cheese platter.
| | | | A message from Compassion & Choices: Stacey Gibson's beloved husband Sid was diagnosed with a rare degenerative motor neuron disease. When his treatment options ran out and he began to suffer, Sid decided to stop eating and drinking. It took twelve days for him to die. His slow, agonizing death was exactly what he feared and haunts Stacey to this day. Access to the compassionate option of medical aid in dying would ensure that no one's loved one is forced to suffer the way Sid did.
After being diagnosed with non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma, Stacey is now advocating fighting for the right to peace at the end of life for herself should she need it. It’s time for our lawmakers to give terminally ill New Yorkers like Sid the choice to end their life with the peace and dignity they deserve by passing the Medical Aid in Dying Act in 2023. Learn More. | | | | | Real Estate | | A new organization pushing for more residential development in New York City is expanding its base of support. The 5 Borough Housing Movement has new allies in its push for state legislation to lift a cap on development and allow commercial buildings to be converted to residential. Among those joining the group: New York Building Congress, Partnership for NYC, Downtown Alliance, Queens Chamber of Commerce, Greater Jamaica Development Corp., Garment District Alliance, Mechanical Contractors Association and AIANY. “‘The wreckage of decades’: the fight to fix nearly 1K vacant properties in Albany,” by Times Union’s Emilie Munson: “Many of the ramshackle properties, emblazoned with red ‘X’ placards, are just blocks from the state Capitol. They invite crime and can drive down property values, creating a snowballing effect of increasing neighborhood damage for residents. They can also pose health and safety risks. Emergency situations sometimes develop, generating widely felt disruptions and costly bills borne by taxpayers. … More than 800 of Albany’s vacant buildings were once homes. Some have sat empty since the 2008 financial crisis.”
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