Regular Session - March 24, 1999
1375
NEW YORK STATE SENATE
THE
STENOGRAPHIC RECORD
ALBANY, NEW YORK
March 24, 1999
11:08 a.m.
REGULAR SESSION
LT. GOVERNOR MARY O. DONOHUE, President
STEVEN M. BOGGESS, Secretary
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P R O C E E D I N G S
THE PRESIDENT: The Senate will
come to order. I ask everyone present to
please rise and repeat the Pledge of
Allegiance.
(Whereupon, the assemblage recited
the Pledge of Allegiance to the Flag.)
THE PRESIDENT: In the absence of
clergy, may we bow our heads in a moment of
silence, please.
(A moment of silence was observed.)
THE PRESIDENT: Reading of the
journal.
THE SECRETARY: In Senate,
Tuesday, March 23rd. The Senate met pursuant
to adjournment. The Journal of Monday, March
22nd, was read and approved. On motion Senate
adjourned.
THE PRESIDENT: Without
objection, the Journal stands approved as
read.
Senator Skelos.
SENATOR SKELOS: Madam President,
there will be an immediate meeting of the
Rules Committee in the Majority Conference
1377
Room.
THE PRESIDENT: There will be an
immediate meeting of the Rules Committee in
the Majority Conference Room.
Presentation of petitions.
Messages from the Assembly.
Messages from the Governor.
Reports of standing committees.
The Secretary will read.
THE SECRETARY: Senator Alesi,
from the Committee on Commerce, Economic
Development and Small Business, reports:
Senate Prints 3483, by Senator
Alesi, an act to amend the Economic
Development Law;
3484, by Senator Alesi, an act to
amend the Economic Development Law;
3485, by Senator Alesi, an act to
amend the State Administrative Procedure Act.
Senator LaValle, from the Committee
on Higher Education, reports:
Senate Prints, 1753, by Senator
Padavan, an act to amend the Education Law;
2709, by Senator LaValle, an act to
amend the Education Law;
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3497, by Senator LaValle, an act to
amend the Education Law;
3611, by Senator Wright, an act to
amend the Education Law.
All bills directly for third
reading.
THE PRESIDENT: Without
objection, all bills ordered direct to third
reading.
Reports of select committees.
Communications and reports from state
officers.
Motions and Resolutions.
Senator Marcellino.
SENATOR MARCELLINO: Thank you,
Madam President.
I move to commit Print Number 2885,
Calendar Number 385, on order of third reading
to the Committee on Finance.
THE PRESIDENT: So ordered.
SENATOR MARCELLINO: Madam
President, I wish to call up Senator Holland's
bill, Print Number 1922, recall from the
Assembly, which is now at the desk.
THE PRESIDENT: The Secretary
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will read.
THE SECRETARY: By Senator
Holland, Senate Print 1922, an act to amend
the Education Law.
SENATOR MARCELLINO: Madam
President, I now move to reconsider the vote
by which this bill was passed.
THE PRESIDENT: The Secretary
will the roll on reconsideration.
(The Secretary called the roll.)
THE SECRETARY: Ayes 46.
SENATOR MARCELLINO: Madam
President, on behalf of Senator Holland, I
offer the following amendments.
THE PRESIDENT: The amendments
are received.
SENATOR MARCELLINO: Madam
President, on behalf of Senator Velella,
please place a sponsor star on Calendar
Numbers 327 and 329.
THE PRESIDENT: So ordered.
SENATOR MARCELLINO: Thank you.
THE PRESIDENT: Senator Larkin.
SENATOR LARKIN: Madam President,
there is a privileged resolution at the desk
1380
by Senator Meier, and I ask that the title be
read and move for its immediate adoption.
THE PRESIDENT: The Secretary
will read.
THE SECRETARY: By Senator Meier,
Legislative Resolution Number 775, commending
George Farber Aney upon the occasion of his
designation for special honor by the Mohawk
Valley Chapter of the American Red Cross.
THE PRESIDENT: The question is
on the resolution. All in favor signify by
saying aye.
(Response of "Aye.")
THE PRESIDENT: Opposed, nay.
(No response.)
THE PRESIDENT: The resolution is
adopted.
Senator Bruno.
SENATOR BRUNO: Madam President,
I believe that there is a resolution at the
desk. I would ask that the resolution be read
in its entirety and move for its immediate
adoption.
The PRESIDENT: The Secretary will
read.
1381
THE SECRETARY: By Senator Bruno,
Legislative Resolution Number 773 honoring
Edward J. Cleary, President of the New York
State AFL-CIO upon the occasion of his
retirement after many years of dedicated and
distinguished services.
Whereas, it is the sense of this
Legislative Body to acknowledge and recognize
the life and accomplishments of those
individuals who have contributed greatly to
this state and its communities, devoting their
lives and careers to enhancing the quality of
life of its citizens, and
Whereas this Legislative Body is
justly proud to comment Edward J. Cleary,
President of the New York State AFL-CIO upon
the occasion of his retirement after many
years of dedicated service to the cause of
working men and women in New York State.
Born in June 1930 in Astoria,
Queens, New York, Edward J. Cleary first
joined the labor movement in 1948 as a member
of Local Number 3, International Brotherhood
of Electrical Workers, and became a journeyman
electrician in 1955.
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He was elected a member of the
examining board of Local Number 3 in 1958 and
by 1964 had ascended to the presidency of
Local Union Number 3, the largest electrical
union in the City of New York and the local of
the revered Harry VanArsdale.
In 1976 Edward J. Cleary was
simultaneously elected secretary treasurer of
the New York City and New York State building
and construction trades counsel and became
vice president of the New York State American
Federation of Labor Congress of Industrial
Organizations.
Edward Cleary was honored to be
chosen President of New York State AFL-CIO in
1984, the office once held by Samuel Gompers
and George Meany. In the highest post in
organized labor in New York, representing 2.1
million members. He also served as an
executive board member of the New York City
Central Labor Council, secretary of the
Educational and Cultural Fund of the
Electrical Industry as a director of the
American Arbitration Association and president
of the Northeast Council of State AFL-CIO
1383
officers.
Edward J. Cleary spent
approximately 50 years unifying the labor
movement here in New York State, 15 as
president of the State AFL-CIO, bringing
together public and private union members
under the banner of one movement, one voice,
one agenda, working with five governors, five
speakers and four Senate Majority leaders to
bring about positive change for the working
men and women of New York State, including
greater unemployment insurance and Workers'
Compensation benefits, tougher child labor
laws and safer work places, as well as of
meaningful pension improvements.
A firm advocate of education and
community service, Edward J. Cleary has also
contributed significantly as a member of the
board of directors of Group Health,
Incorporated and the Greater New York Blood
Program. The New York State Coastal
Management Advisory Committee of New York
Harbour Maritime Industry, the Board of
Trustees of the George Meany Center of Labor
Studies, the New York State Education
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Department Office of Vocational an Educational
Services for Individuals with Disabilities
Advisory Counsel and the New York State
Department of -- New York State AFL-CIO
scholarship awarded annually to a New York
State graduating high school senior who
intends to pursue a career in labor relations
or a related field.
Through his long and sustained
commitment to community services, Edward J.
Cleary has encouraged many to participate
generously as well as demonstratedly advanced
the perception of New York State as a caring
and united of communities.
Whereas, throughout his career
Trudy, his wife of 50 years and three children
and nine grandchildren all of whom are
privileged to be part of his life, rejoice in
his achievements.
Rare indeed is the impressive
dedication shown by an individual for the
benefit of others as that which has been
demonstrated by Edward J. Cleary throughout
his life and distinguished career.
Resolved that this Legislative Body
1385
pause in its deliberations to extend its
highest commendation to Edward J. Cleary upon
the occasion of his retirement after many
years of distinguished service, and be it
further
Resolved that a copy of this
resolution suitably engrossed be transmitted
to Edward J. Cleary.
THE PRESIDENT: Senator Bruno, to
speak on the resolution.
SENATOR BRUNO: Madam President,
we've just heard a resolution that I am proud
to be one of the sponsors of. And it really
chronicles 50 years of a man's life, and there
isn't any labor leader in this state that has
had the impact on working people in this State
that President Ed Cleary has had over the last
50 years.
When we talk about giants among men
Ed truly can be referred to as a giant and
labor leader not just in New York State, but
in the entire United States.
When I think back and I listen to a
resolution about what he has accomplished over
his 50 years, 50 years, an adult lifetime, he
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has been responsible for any major improvement
on behalf of labor, on behalf of industry, on
behalf of the people of this State has taken
place. And the one gift that Ed has had is in
bringing people together, cutting across
political lines, bringing people together.
And when people work together, when they are
on a team, things get done.
Ed Cleary knew that. When people
are not on a team then things don't get done.
And as part of a team we can be proud that we
were with President Ed Cleary as we changed
all of the things that were chronicled in his
resolution.
And during this 50 years he has had
a lovely wife of 50 years, Trudy, three
children, three grandchildren, and he is now
going on into his retirement, I believe
effective tomorrow. And he is a person who
will be honored and respected throughout the
years in whatever else he has done because of
the positive impact that he has had on the
lives of all New Yorkers over this past half a
century.
Thank you, Madam President.
1387
THE PRESIDENT: Senator Spano, to
speak on the resolution.
SENATOR SPANO: Thank you, Madam
President.
Over the years for those of us who
have been here awhile we see people come and
go in terms of their representation of their
members of their organizations. Every once in
a while we come across someone who makes a
real impression on the process, makes an
impression upon us, and that person certainly
is Ed Cleary.
Through his leadership of the
AFL-CIO, the unique relationship that the
AFL-CIO and its affiliate members across the
State have had with the Senate Majority is
something that is unparalleled across this
entire nation. And Ed Cleary started as an
electrician for Local 3, which is one of the
largest electrical unions in this State. And
he worked hard. And he worked hard and took
that same commitment as he headed up a very
difficult AFL-CIO with diverging interests and
he kept it all together, kept it together
because of the determination, kept it together
1388
because he had one interest at heard, and that
interest was to protect the working men and
women across the State, to provide a better
wage, to provide a better working condition,
to make sure as we negotiated Workers'
Compensation reform that there was a vocal
voice there saying yes, we should reform the
system, yes, the system should work better,
yes it should be less expensive, but at the
same time not at the expense of the injured
worker. And he did that in a way that was
valuable to the process and it was critical to
the process once we were at the point where we
actually negotiated Workers' Compensation
reform under the leadership of Senator Bruno,
we were able to get a measure passed that did
pay attention to the issues of the AFL-CIO and
paid attention to the issues of the injured
workers in this State. So we all owe a debt of
gratitude to Ed Cleary.
As members of this Legislature, as
members of the Legislature representing all of
the people across the State of New York we
should say thank you. Thank you to the
AFL-CIO. Thank you to Ed Cleary. And say to
1389
Dennis Hughes who will follow in his foot
steps that to the executive board of the
AFL-CIO, you could not pass the torch to a
better advocate for working men and women than
Dennis Hughes, and we look forward to working
with him and having the same type of close
working relationship as we did with Ed Cleary,
who is a straight shooter, no nonsense guy and
a guy who just stood up for the best interests
of his members across the State.
Thank you, Madam President.
THE PRESIDENT: Senator Lack.
SENATOR LACK: Thank you, Madam
President.
I too rise to thank Ed Cleary for
the service he has done for the AFL-CIO and
through them for all the people of the State,
and for eight years before Senator Spano, I
chaired the Senate Labor Committee and I got
to know in that capacity a different Ed
Cleary.
Senator Bruno and Senator Spano
have certainly talked about his professional
accomplishments, but I got to know Ed Cleary
the man, the person, his wife Trudy. It was
1390
at a time in which my children were growing up
and because of events that brought us together
all over the country I would often be with my
children at the same time that Ed and his wife
Trudy were in the same place and we would go
out and be together and they were just a
magnificent couple, very kind to myself, very
kind to everybody who they came in contact
with. And at the same time always networking
and being part of the labor movement as it
existed in this State and as it existed in the
United States.
And I got to tell you, I mean, Ed
Cleary of course is a life long Democrat, and
we, the Senate Majority are Republican, and Ed
was with me when I spoke to the public
employee division of the AFL-CIO at its
national meeting, the first Republican in
their history to ever address them. And as he
listened and we interwove what the Republican
Majority and this Senate over the years has
been able to do with labor and our ties with
organized labor, the AFL-CIO and specifically
its head, Ed Cleary, you could see a little
smile coming on his face, because truly in
1391
this State, the relationship between those who
run government, be they Republicans or
Democrats, with the AFL-CIO has been a very
close one.
Senator Spano spoke about the hard
transition that Ed Cleary had when he first
took over as president between the traditional
trades unions and the growing weight of the
public unions in this state, and Ed Cleary,
although he started working with his hands and
was an electrician, a long time, life time
member of Local 3, was able to put together
both the public part of the AFL-CIO, the
public employee unions, and the trade unions
and bring them together in a harmonious
relationship representing the entire over two
million members of organized labor in this
state and to work with the government of this
State to certainly better, on behalf of
everybody in this State, working conditions.
A generation is certainly changing.
Ed Cleary's retirement to me is bittersweet.
He has been the strongest voice for labor in
the last generation in New York. It is time
to move on in his case and to allow Dennis
1392
Hughes to come forward. But for me always the
head of the AFL-CIO in the State of New York
will certainly be Ed Cleary.
Thank you, Madam President.
THE PRESIDENT: Senator Marchi.
SENATOR MARCHI: Madam President,
certainly Senator Bruno, Senator Lack and
Senator Spano have not over stated this case
at all because this is a real giant, someone
who has made an indelible mark and expanded
the horizons of the labor movement in this
state in a very constructive way and
responsible way.
I am very proud to say that 25 and
30 years ago and before you were born, Madam
President, there was somewhat of a gulf
between our Majority and some of the labor
movements and I played a very active role and
Ed Cleary was a very, very cooperative member
in that process. He expanded the community of
interest that this entire membership has in
that type and kind and character of
relationship.
And I am also proud to say, since
his name was brought up, Ed Cleary also leaves
1393
a tremendous heritage to Dennis Hughes, who I
am very proud to say is a native of Staten
Island and I am sure that imbued with the
contributions and spirit that has animated Ed
Cleary will continue and be exemplified by
Dennis Hughes.
THE PRESIDENT: Senator Waldon.
SENATOR WALDON: Thank you, very
much, Madam President.
Let me again thank our leader,
Senator Bruno, in his wisdom for recognizing
people who are great and have rendered great
service to the people of the State of New
York.
Mr. Cleary has been an icon in the
labor movement for as long as I can remember,
well before I became involved in politics.
And though I was not an intimate of his, at a
distance I watched him operate in many venues,
at Democratic functions, at labor functions,
at national conventions, but the times that I
remember most are those times when Trudy, his
wife, and Barbara, my wife and I, would sit
and have breakfast together or lunch together
and just talk like real people.
1394
He was a real man. Someone who
rose from nowhere to somewhere. Someone who,
by the sweat of his brow and the determination
of his will and the work of his hands rose to
the leadership of one of the most powerful
labor unions in the country. We are greater
for having had him as a president of the
AFL-CIO and all of the other organizations he
was affiliated with. He had a ready smile.
He was a soft spoken man to be so strong and
so powerful, but I think that for someone like
myself who was relatively insignificant as a
politician, the fact that he would befriend me
and spend time with me had a great and lasting
effect on me and I am certainly glad that I
have gotten to know him over the years. I wish
that he could stay forever in the labor
movement, but being that he has chosen to go
onto higher things and better things I wish he
and his family well. I don't know if he is in
the chamber, but wherever he is, Mr. Cleary, I
wish you all the best.
Thank you, very much, Madam
President.
THE PRESIDENT: Senator
1395
Stachowski.
SENATOR STACHOWSKI: Madam
President, it is my pleasure also to rise and
say a few words on this resolution. Having
been a ranking member on the Labor Committee
when Senator Levy was chairman and then
Senator Pisani and then Senator Lack and then
Senator Spano, I got to work with Ed Cleary
for a long time and he was always fair and he
had the best interest of the workers and he
was always very nice to us at any function we
attend with him.
I would say that the highlight of
my working with Ed Cleary was when he gave me
the opportunity when Lech Walesa first came to
New York to greet him on behalf of the Senate,
seeing, George, I was the only Polish American
then, so I had that opportunity, even though
you would have probably seen eye to eye with
him. But it was a wonderful opportunity. I
will never forget it and it was a very nice
gesture on Mr. Cleary's part to allow me to do
that.
But as stated in the resolution and
stated by the previous speakers, Ed was not
1396
only a nice man, he did great things for the
labor movement. There have been a lot of
changes for the better for the working men and
women of this State while Ed was in charge.
And we wish him well in whatever he chooses to
do, and hope that he and his wife have a long
time of traveling around, which they like to
do so much and eating in good restaurants and
enjoying the rest of his life.
Thank you, very much.
THE PRESIDENT: Senator Farley.
SENATOR FARLEY: Thank you, Madam
President.
I rise to wish Ed Cleary a very
happy and healthy and successful retirement.
He has served the labor industry very, very
well in a difficult time. He has worked well
with both Houses of the Legislature. As a
union member myself, a dues paying union
member of the UUP, I certainly was one of his
charges. And let me just say that Ed Cleary
has always been perceived by anybody in the
Legislature as somebody that has been well
received and somebody that has done a terrific
job for the working men and women of this
1397
State.
He has served well and of course we
wish Dennis Hughes good fortune in the job
that he takes over and I just want to wish Ed
and his family a very happy retirement. I
believe his daughter is also a constituent of
mine in Schenectady County and I know that -
have known him for a number of years having
served, as Senator Stachowski said, under the
late Senator Levy on the Labor Committee right
up through Senator Lack and Spano and I just
have to say, good luck and best wishes to Ed
Cleary. Job well done.
THE PRESIDENT: Senator Bonacic.
SENATOR BONACIC: Thank you,
Madam President. I first met Ed Cleary in
1990 when I came to Albany in an special
election. And at that time the AFL-CIO was a
supporter of mine and subsequently when I
served in the Assembly I was the ranker of
Labor and I had many conversations with Edward
J. Cleary. And some of the things -- and I
don't want to repeat the attributes that have
been said of him, but he was a tremendously
loyal person if he felt that you were an
1398
advocate for the working men and women of this
State.
He was a tremendous fighter. He
was very committed to the values of the labor
movement. And he always had a passion to
fight for the men and women in the labor
movement.
For me personally I would like to
thank Ed for his loyalty and his support for
nine years, even when I ran for the Senate in
a primary, rarely does the AFL-CIO jump in.
They jumped in for a Republican before a
primary and I will never forget that
commitment to me and I wanted to thank him.
But in conclusion, I want to share
one other thought. How do we define success
in life? Is it by how much money we have
made? What is our net worth when we leave our
occupation? Is it how many homes we own? Is
it expensive cars that we drive? I define
success by the amount of friends we have when
we enter the twilight of our career. And if
you look at Ed Cleary he is one of the most
successful individuals that I know. He has
friends of course in the working men and women
1399
of the unions. He has got elected officials,
business officials, people from all cross
sections in life. So we wish Ed and his
family continued good succe -- success and
health. Not good sex. Good success. But we
wish him that too, by the way. And good
health, in whatever endeavors he chooses.
Thank you, Madam President.
THE PRESIDENT: Excuse me,
Senator I had to turn my microphone back on.
Senator Waldon.
SENATOR WALDON: I'm sorry, I
didn't get him in time. I was going to ask
the gentleman to yield to a question, but I
will let it go this time.
THE PRESIDENT: Senator Hoffmann.
SENATOR HOFFMANN: I have to
follow that?
I would like to compliment Madam
President on her excellent choice of attire
today. See if I can do anything else to
change the subject briefly from Senator
Bonacic's rather remarkable remarks.
Those of us who know Ed Cleary well
know him not only as a labor leader of
1400
remarkable power and persuasion, but as a rare
gentlemen and a coalition builder. I think it
behooves us to take a brief stroll back
through history to consider what Ed Cleary had
to contend with during the time he was at the
helm of the AFL-CIO. These were some of the
bleakest days for organized labor in the
United States as well as in the State of New
York. And New York, known as a big labor
state was constantly under attack by people
who were anti-labor. And there were and still
are people who would blame any of the economic
woes of this State on unions. It became a
convenient catchall, an easy scapegoat for
anything that was wrong. And like any other
type of stereotypical attack, it was wrong but
it presented a problem for the very
individuals who were trying to build and
maintain a strong labor movement and the
reasons that they wanted to build it, maintain
it and to help it grow has as much to do with
the future of this state and the well being of
the rest of the citizens as with the members
of the unions in the AFL-CIO because it was Ed
Cleary and his other leadership team who
1401
understood that there is much more than hourly
wage at issue here, that it includes
significant concepts like apprenticeships,
training programs, retraining programs in the
face of job loss, retooling to meet new needs
and the pension and the health benefits,
making workers feel whole, making them feel
vibrant, and in fact making them the best work
force in this country. And it is the best
work force in this country. Under Ed Cleary
we have seen the AFL-CIO grow to unbelievable
stature in this State and on a national level.
And as a smart man Ed Cleary knew that he had
to work with everyone. That included people
in business. That included people in
government who did not always understand or
even respect his goals and his responsibility.
It also included working with people on all
sides of the political aisle from the very
conservative to the most liberal spectrum. And
he was able to that do with grace. He was
able to do that with humor. He was able to do
that with style.
And I note with great respect the
fact that several of my colleagues have spoken
1402
with Ed and his commitment to the working men
and women of this State because Ed Cleary did
understand long before some of his other
contemporaries that women are a critical part
of the work force of this state and are, in
fact, an important part of organized labor in
this State. So I compliment him for that as I
compliment my colleagues for citing it today
on the floor.
It is a proud moment for this
Senate to be able to reach out and shake
hands, wish well in his retirement a giant in
organized labor, Ed Cleary.
THE PRESIDENT: Senator Trunzo.
SENATOR TRUNZO: Madam President,
I know a lot has been said about Ed Cleary and
the work that he has done for the working
people of the State of New York.
Ed has been a close friend of mine
over many, many years. In the 14 years that I
have been the chairman of Civil Service and
Pension Committee I have to work very closely
with him, especially his public employee
group. It was a group that many people feel
that the AFL-CIO only had to do with the
1403
trades labor people, but Ed used to invite me
year after year not only to their state
convention but also to their national
convention to speak before the public employee
groups, and he really took it all very well in
working very closely with me and with the
Senate Republican in many areas in getting
many of the endorsements that were required
during the various elections that we all go
through.
He has been a true friend, not only
a political leader but a very true friend of
mine and he will be missed as the leader of
the AFL-CIO.
I also worked very closely with
Dennis Hughes who now will take over the
reigns and we will continue to have the same
relationship with Dennis as we had with Ed
Cleary.
Ed will be greatly missed. With
that, I say, God Bless Ed Cleary.
Thank you.
THE PRESIDENT: Senator Bruno.
SENATOR BRUNO: Madam President,
can we open the resolution for cosponsors and
1404
anyone that would like not to be on it, please
address the desk. Other than that we will put
both conferences on the resolution.
THE PRESIDENT: Thank you,
Senator.
Any members who do not wish to be
sponsors on this resolution should so notify
the desk.
The question is on the resolution.
All favor signify by saying aye.
(Response of "Aye.")
THE PRESIDENT: Opposed, nay.
(No response.)
THE PRESIDENT: The resolution is
adopted.
Senator Bruno there is a
substitution at the desk.
SENATOR BRUNO: Take the
substitution, please.
THE PRESIDENT: The Secretary
will read.
THE SECRETARY: On page 12,
Senator Spano moves to discharge from the
Committee on Labor, Assembly Print 3089 and
substitute it for the identical third reading
1405
241.
THE PRESIDENT: The substitution
is ordered.
Senator Bruno.
SENATOR BRUNO: Can we at this
time take up the non-controversial calendar,
Madam President?
THE PRESIDENT: The Secretary
will read.
THE SECRETARY: Calendar Number
144, by Senator Alesi, Senate Print 183, an
act to amend the Vehicle and Traffic Law, in
relation to extending.
THE PRESIDENT: Read the last
section.
THE SECRETARY: Section 2. This
act shall take effect on the first day of
November.
THE PRESIDENT: Call the roll.
(The Secretary called the roll.)
THE SECRETARY: Ayes 58, nays 1.
Senator Duane recorded in the negative.
THE PRESIDENT: The bill is
passed.
THE SECRETARY: Calendar Number
1406
145, by Senator Skelos, Senate Print 1014, an
act to amend the Vehicle and Traffic Law, in
relation to increasing.
THE PRESIDENT: Read the last
section.
THE SECRETARY: Section 2. This
act shall take effect on the first day of
November.
THE PRESIDENT: Call the roll.
(The Secretary called the roll.)
THE SECRETARY: Ayes 59.
THE PRESIDENT: The bill is
passed.
THE SECRETARY: Calendar Number
146, by Senator Velella,
Senate Print 1214, an act to amend
the Vehicle and Traffic Law and the Criminal
Procedure Law.
THE PRESIDENT: Read the last
section.
THE SECRETARY: Section 5. This
act shall effect on the first day of November.
THE PRESIDENT: Call the roll.
(The Secretary called the roll.)
THE SECRETARY: Ayes 59.
1407
THE PRESIDENT: The bill is
passed.
THE SECRETARY: Calendar Number
147, by Senator McGee, Senate Print 2451, an
act to amend the Vehicle and Traffic Law, in
relation to requiring school bus.
THE PRESIDENT: Read the last
section.
THE SECRETARY: Section 2. This
act shall take effect on the first day of
September.
THE PRESIDENT: Call the roll.
(The Secretary called the roll.)
THE SECRETARY: Ayes 58, nays 1.
Senator Duane reported in the negative.
THE PRESIDENT: The bill is
passed.
THE SECRETARY: Calendar Number
228, by Senator Bonacic, Senate Print 1211, an
act authorizing the village of Hunter, Greene
County, to discontinue.
THE PRESIDENT: There is a home
rule message at the desk. Read the last
section.
THE SECRETARY: Section 4. This
1408
act shall take effect immediately.
THE PRESIDENT: Call the roll.
(The Secretary called the roll.)
THE SECRETARY: Ayes 59.
THE PRESIDENT: The bill is
passed.
THE SECRETARY: Calendar Number
305, by Senator Fuschillo, Senate Print 560,
an act to amend the Vehicle and Traffic Law,
in relation to establishing.
THE PRESIDENT: Read the last
section.
THE SECRETARY: Section 4. This
act shall take effect on the first day of
November.
THE PRESIDENT: Call the roll.
(The Secretary called the roll.)
THE SECRETARY: Ayes 59.
THE PRESIDENT: The bill is
passed.
THE SECRETARY: Calendar Number
306, by Senator Skelos, Senate Print 971, an
act to amend the Vehicle and Traffic Law, in
relation to out of state conviction.
THE PRESIDENT: Read the last
1409
section.
THE SECRETARY: Section 3. This
act shall take effect on the first of
November.
THE PRESIDENT: Call the roll.
(The Secretary called the roll.)
THE SECRETARY: Ayes, 59.
THE PRESIDENT: The bill is
passed.
THE SECRETARY: Calendar Number
307, by Senator Johnson, Senate Print 1432, an
act to amend the Vehicle and Traffic Law, in
relation to limiting.
THE PRESIDENT: Read the last
section.
THE SECRETARY: Section 2. This
act shall to take effect on the first day of
November.
THE PRESIDENT: Call the roll.
(The Secretary called the roll.).
THE SECRETARY: Ayes 58, nays 1.
Senator Kuhl recorded in the negative.
THE PRESIDENT: The bill is
passed.
Senator Bruno, that completes the
1410
reading of the non-controversial calendar.
SENATOR BRUNO: Madam President,
can we return to reports of standing
committees.
THE PRESIDENT: Reports of
standing committees. The Secretary will read.
THE SECRETARY: Senator Bruno
from the Committee and Rules reports the
following bill directly for third reading:
Senate Print 1638, by Senator
Maltese and others, an act to amend the Penal
Law in relation to the crime of partial birth
abortion.
THE PRESIDENT: Senator Bruno.
SENATOR BRUNO: Madam President,
can I move to accept the report of the Rules
Committee.
THE PRESIDENT: All favor of
accepting the report of the Rules Committee,
signify by saying aye me anything.
(Response of "Aye.")
THE PRESIDENT: Opposed, nay.
(No response.)
THE PRESIDENT: The report is
accepted.
1411
Senator Bruno.
SENATOR BRUNO: Madam President,
can we at this time take up Senate Number
1638.
THE PRESIDENT: The Secretary
will read.
THE SECRETARY: Calendar Number
398, by Senator Maltese, Senate Print 1638,
act to amend the Penal Law, in relation to the
crime of partial birth abortion.
THE PRESIDENT: Senator Maltese.
SENATOR MALTESE: Madam
President, the debate on the legislation
before the Senate at this time has been heard
and reheard not only in this chamber but in
the chambers of our Federal Congress.
The subject is one that is viewed
as reprehensible an hideous to a significant
portion of the people not only of New York
State but of our country, of both major
political parties. It has been castigated and
criticized from the pulpits of churches and
synagogues and by all -- by many -- by most
religions as a procedure that should not be
permitted in a civilized society.
1412
My bill is a bill to ban the crime
of partial birth abortions. A summary of the
provisions indicate that the bill would ban
abortions that are performed by a physician
who delivers a living fetus into the vagina
and then kills the fetus. The bill
specifically defines a partial birth abortion
as an abortion in which the person performing
the abortion partially vaginally delivers a
living fetus before killing the fetus and
completing the delivery.
Physicians who violate the law
would be subject to criminal penalties, but no
penalty could be applied to the woman who
obtained such an abortion.
Madam President, this bill has been
changed from the original legislation that was
before the house in '95-'96, '97-'98. And
that change was made in order to answer
objections to the bill as to clarity and
definition of the term. The only change is
the addition of the sentence, this procedure
is characterized by the American Medical
Association as, quote, "in-tact dilation and
extraction," unquote. Or intact DNX.
1413
In the prior meeting of the Codes
Committee I did not have the source for that
change. I now have that source. And it took
place at a conference of the American Medical
Association and a board of trustees meeting.
And the paragraph itself indicates -- reads as
follows: "The term partial birth abortion is
not a medical term. The American Medical
Association will use the term intact dilation
and extraction or intact DNX to refer to a
specific procedure comprised of the following
elements; deliberate dilation of the cervix,
usually over a sequence of days, instrumental
or manual conversion of the fetus to a
footling breach, breach extraction of the body
excepting the head and partial evacuation of
the intracranial contents of the fetus to
effect vaginal delivery of a dead but
otherwise intact fetus. This procedure is
distance from dilation and evacuation, D and
E, procedures more commonly used to induce
abortion after the first trimester. Because
partial birth abortion is not a medical term
it will not be used by the AMA."
I would like to, in that context,
1414
refer to the fact that in May of 1997 the
American Medical Association endorsed a
federal prohibition on partial birth abortions
saying the procedure should be criminalized
because it is, quote, "not good medicine,"
unquote.
Prominent medical authority such as
former U.S. Surgeon General C. Everett Koop
have testified that the procedure is never
medically necessary to preserve a woman's life
or health. As recently as August of 1998 in
the August 26th 1998 issue of the Journal of
the American Medical Association doctors M.
Leroy Sprang and Mark Neirhoff convincingly
argue that partial birth abortions is unsafe
for pregnant women, unethical because of fetal
viability and causes extreme pain to the
partially delivered living child.
Madam President, there are many of
us that are pro-life. There are many of us
that are pro-choice. Whether pro-life or pro
choice, this is not the question before us
today. The question is whether an in-tact, as
described in medical terms, and I deliberately
read the medical terms, whether a fetus who is
1415
alive but for brief seconds should be
destroyed and killed is the question before us
today and whether this procedure should be
sanctioned or permitted in the State of New
York is the question before us today.
This is not a right to life issue,
this is an issue that indicates where a
society comes from, where a society is going.
It indicates whether we would permit a
procedure that, except for brief seconds,
would produce a living child, a citizen of
this state entitled to all of the rights and
protections of the law and of this body.
I would like to also, and there are
many, many, I guess at this time hundreds of
pages of debate not only before this House but
in the Congress, but I would like to read the
description of this procedure by the foremost
practitioner of this hideous art, and that was
who termed the termed, who coined the term,
and his name was Dr. Martin Haskell. He, an
alleged doctor named McMann, who has gone to
his, I hope, just reward, were the foremost
practitioners of this art and I would like to
read. He spelled out in his book, which
1416
recommended the procedure, the partial birth
abortion. And he was from Dayton, Ohio. And
he indicates, and these are his words from his
book.
The procedure requires a physician
to extract a fetus feet first from the womb
and through the birth canal until all but its
head is exposed. In 1992 he wrote a paper on
this method and called it as we termed it in
the bill, dilation and extraction. And that
procedure first spells out what the surgical
assistant should do with the use of a sonogram
to determine where the fetuses lower
extremities are so that the physician could
then introduce a large grasping forceps
through the vaginal and cervical canals into
the corpus of the uterus. Based upon his
knowledge of fetal orientation -- what a
warped use of the sonogram -- so that he could
see where the feet are, where the legs and
feet are, he moves the tip of the instrument a
carefully toward the fetal lower extremities.
When the instrument appears on the sonogram
screen, the surgeon is able to open and close
its jaws to firmly and reliably grasp a lower
1417
extremity. The surgeon then applies firm
traction to the instrument, causing aversion
of the fetus and pulls the extremity into the
vagina. With the lower extremity in the
vagina, the surgeon uses his fingers to
deliver the opposite lower extremity, then the
torso, the shoulders and the upper
extremities. The skull lodges at the internal
cervical us. Usually there is not enough
dilation for it to pass through. The fetus is
oriented dorsum or spine up. An the reason
that, just as an aside, there is not enough
dilation to pass through as has been indicated
in the literature that we have before us in
prior debates, this is a procedure usually
used in the third trimester, a procedure that
in the literature that we have seen is
indicated only from at earliest the twentieth
week, but going into the twenty-fourth week
and on up and in many cases used right up
until the ninth month by Dr. McMann.
At this point the right handed
surgeon slides the fingers of the left hand
along the back of fetus a hooks the shoulder
of the fetus with the index and ring fingers
1418
palm down. Next he slides the tip of the
middle finger along the spine towards the
skill while applying traction to the shoulders
and lower extremities. While maintaining this
tension, lifting the cervix and applying
traction to the shoulders with the fingers of
the left hand the surgeon takes a pair of
blunt curved Metsenbaum scissors in the right
hand. He carefully advances the tip, curve
down, along the spine and under his middle
finger until he feels a contact the base of
the skull under the tip of his middle finger.
The surgeon then forces the scissors into the
base of the skull or into the foramen magnum,
having carefully entered the skull, he spreads
the scissors to enlarge the opening. The
surgeon removes the scissors and introduces a
suction catheter into this whole and evacuates
the skull contents. With the catheter still
in place he applies traction to the fetus,
removing it completely from the patient.
Madam President, I submit that what
we are talking about is the killing of an
infant almost, and in some cases I firmly
believe, born.
1419
Some of my fellow -- my colleagues
here know that I spent three and a half years
in the DAs office in Queens in homicide. I
submit that this is infanticide delivered -
the actual delivery of a child. None of us,
or almost none of us could conceive of
participating in a loathsome endeavor as has
been described. We have a situation today
where we can make a statement, not pro-life or
anti-life, not Democrat or Republican. We can
make a statement that we are, in fact, a
civilized society that will not condone the
killing of its almost born.
There are those persons, and we had
during one of the prior debates a nurse that
was here with us, that described participation
in this procedure and as a result she changed
her way of life and came here and to some of
us talked to us and participated in a
conference and spoke about the fact that she
felt that such a procedure should never be
condoned or permitted.
I think that is the approach that
we in this House should take. The approach is
that we are making a statement. We are making
1420
a statement that we will not permit these
almost born children to be killed, to be
slaughtered at this stage of their lives.
There is absolutely no question whether we
argue about life or we argue about choice,
there is no question that this specific
procedure, which we have attempted to define
as well as can be, should be prohibited by the
State of New York and should be not permitted
by physicians or alleged physicians operating
in the State of New York.
THE PRESIDENT: Senator Connor.
SENATOR CONNOR: Thank you, Madam
President.
I have an amendment at the desk and
I ask that its reading be waived and that I
explain it.
THE PRESIDENT: The amendment has
been received at the desk. You may proceed.
SENATOR CONNOR: Thank you.
Essentially what this amendment does is
provided that -- I should say the main bill as
Senator Maltese has presented it provides that
the section shall not apply to an abortion
performed by a duly licensed physician that is
1421
necessary to save the life of a mother whose
life is endangered by a physical disorder,
illness or injury where no other medical
procedure would suffice for that purpose. My
amendment would substitute the following
language. The provisions of this section
shall not apply to an abortion performed where
in the medical judgment of the attending
physician the abortion is necessary to
preserve the life of the woman or avert
serious adverse health consequences to the
woman.
Madam President, I offer this
amendment because I would point out that the
procedure, the part of the procedure frankly
that Senator Maltese has pointed out is
invariably performed in the third trimester of
a pregnancy and that third trimester abortion
is already illegal, I believe under New York
law, although the courts have carved out an
exception in the event of serious adverse
health consequences for the women.
Now, you know, I understand why in
some ethical and religious or philosophical
traditions perhaps the partial entry of a
1422
fetus into a birth canal is of significance.
For me it is not. Third trimester, a viable
fetus is viable whether in utero or elsewhere.
And our present law protects that where
appropriate, but on the other hand preserves a
woman's right to protect her life or herself
from serious adverse health effects. And the
purpose of my amendment is to recognize this,
to advance it as part of Senator Maltese's
measure.
I can say for one, for me, if this
amendment would carry I would have no
hesitation whatsoever in voting for the bill
as amended. So I urge my colleagues, I have
offered this amendment in the past to this
bill and my position remains the same. I
think we have an obligation to recognize that
every women has a right to protect her life
and to protect herself from serious adverse
health affects.
Now, I know some will rise and say
what does that mean, what is a serious adverse
health affect. Well neither the law nor the
Legislature can be a physician in every case.
Obviously it calls for judgment. I think we
1423
have to accord both to the patient and to the
licenses physician a degree of good faith. A
physician I think could read this language and
certainly make a determination together with
his patient as to what a serious adverse
health effect would be. We can not anticipate
every case where that would apply. If, in a
few cases, that kind of exception be abused,
well I suggest it is just as likely to be
abused in a few case where the exception is,
you know, as Senator Maltese would present it,
to preserve, to save the life of a mother
whose life is in danger. That calls for a
medical judgment too on the part of a
physician and a patient.
So anticipating that that objection
will be raised I say we can't cover every
situation. We can only set forth the
principles to which we adhere, and for me I
adhere to the present law that such a late
term abortion is illegal except where the
woman's life is in danger or there will be
serious adverse health effects.
Thank you, Madam President.
THE PRESIDENT: On the amendment.
1424
SENATOR CONNOR: Slow roll call.
THE PRESIDENT: I see five
Senators standing. The Secretary will call
the roll on the slow roll call.
THE SECRETARY: Senator Alesi.
(No response.)
THE SECRETARY: Senator Balboni.
(No response.)
THE SECRETARY: Senator Bonacic.
SENATOR BONACIC: Yes.
THE PRESIDENT: Senator Bonacic.
SENATOR BONACIC: Madam
President, I would like to change my vote to a
no, and I thank you.
THE PRESIDENT: You're so
recorded as voting in the negative, Senator.
The Secretary will read.
THE SECRETARY: Senator Breslin.
SENATOR BRESLIN: Yes.
THE SECRETARY: Senator Bruno.
SENATOR BRUNO: No.
THE SECRETARY: Senator Connor.
SENATOR CONNOR: Yes.
THE SECRETARY: Senator
DeFrancisco.
1425
(No response.)
THE SECRETARY: Senator
Dollinger.
SENATOR DOLLINGER: Explain my
vote, Madam President.
THE PRESIDENT: Senator Dollinger
to explain your vote.
SENATOR DOLLINGER: Thank you,
Madam President, I want to echo the sentiments
of Senator Connor. Without this amendment,
make no mistake about it, there isn't a lawyer
in the room who believes that this bill is
constitutional.
You remember constitutional.
That's the adjective that we use to describe
the principles laid out in the Constitution of
the United States in which our forefathers
said, Government can not take certain rights
and privileges away from the people of this
country. That constitution is interpreted by
the United States Supreme Court says that the
government can not interfere with the choice
of a woman and her family in this critical
life and death and adverse health consequence
situation, can not, can not interfere if the
1426
woman's life or her health is at risk. That
is what the Constitution of the United States
says.
Without this provision this is
nothing but a charade and I would just
suggest, I join Senator Connor, add this
language to this bill and I am prepared to
vote for it as well. Without this language I
will not do that.
I vote aye in favor of the
amendment, Madam President.
THE PRESIDENT: The Secretary
will continue to read.
THE SECRETARY: Senator Duane.
SENATOR DUANE: No.
THE SECRETARY: Senator Farley.
SENATOR FARLEY: No.
THE SECRETARY: Senator
Fuschillo.
SENATOR FUSCHILLO: No.
THE SECRETARY: Senator Gentile.
SENATOR GENTILE: Yes.
THE SECRETARY: Senator Gonzalez.
(No response.)
THE SECRETARY: Senator Goodman.
1427
(No response.)
THE SECRETARY: Senator Hannon.
SENATOR HANNON: No.
THE SECRETARY: Senator Hevesi.
SENATOR HEVESI: No.
THE SECRETARY: Senator Hoffmann.
(No response.)
THE SECRETARY: Senator Holland.
SENATOR HOLLAND: No.
THE SECRETARY: Senator Johnson.
SENATOR JOHNSON: No.
THE SECRETARY: Senator Kruger.
SENATOR KRUGER: Yes.
THE SECRETARY: Senator Kuhl.
SENATOR KUHL: No.
THE SECRETARY: Senator Lachman.
SENATOR LACHMAN: Yes.
THE SECRETARY: Senator Lack.
SENATOR LACK: No.
THE SECRETARY: Senator Larkin.
(No response.)
THE SECRETARY: Senator LaValle.
SENATOR LAVALLE: No.
THE SECRETARY: Senator Leibell.
SENATOR LEIBELL: No.
1428
THE SECRETARY: Senator Libous.
SENATOR LIBOUS: No.
THE SECRETARY: Senator Maltese.
SENATOR MALTESE: No.
THE SECRETARY: Senator
Marcellino.
SENATOR MARCELLINO: No.
THE SECRETARY: Senator Marchi.
SENATOR MARCHI: No.
THE SECRETARY: Senator
Markowitz.
SENATOR MARKOWITZ: Yes.
THE SECRETARY: Senator Maziarz.
SENATOR MAZIARZ: No.
THE SECRETARY: Senator McGee.
SENATOR McGEE: No.
THE SECRETARY: Senator Meier.
SENATOR MEIER: No.
THE SECRETARY: Senator Mendez.
(No response.)
THE SECRETARY: Senator
Montgomery.
SENATOR MONTGOMERY: Yes.
THE SECRETARY: Senator Nanula.
SENATOR NANULA: Yes.
1429
THE SECRETARY: Senator Nozzolio
(No response.)
THE SECRETARY: Senator Onorato.
SENATOR ONORATO: Yes.
THE SECRETARY: Senator
Oppenheimer.
THE PRESIDENT: Senator
Oppenheimer to explain her vote.
SENATOR OPPENHEIMER: I think it
is worthy of repetition to say that without
this amendment that similar bills as this
legislation, that similar bills have been
stuck down in all 19 states where this type of
legislation has appeared, indeed every court
that has ruled on this issue has struck it
down without this is amendment.
I vote yes.
THE PRESIDENT: You will be
recorded as voting in the affirmative,
Senator.
THE SECRETARY: Senator Padavan.
SENATOR PADAVAN: No.
THE SECRETARY: Senator Paterson.
SENATOR PATERSON: Yes.
THE SECRETARY: Senator Rath.
1430
SENATOR RATH: No.
THE SECRETARY: Senator Rosado.
(No response.)
THE SECRETARY: Senator Saland.
SENATOR SALAND: No.
THE SECRETARY: Senator Sampson.
SENATOR SAMPSON: Yes.
THE SECRETARY: Senator Santiago,
excused.
Senator Schneiderman.
SENATOR SCHNEIDERMAN: Yes.
THE SECRETARY: Senator Seabrook.
SENATOR SEABROOK: Yes.
THE SECRETARY: Senator Seward.
SENATOR SEWARD: No.
THE SECRETARY: Senator Skelos.
SENATOR SKELOS: No.
THE SECRETARY: Senator Smith.
SENATOR SMITH: Yes.
THE SECRETARY: Senator Spano
(No response.)
THE SECRETARY: Senator
Stachowski.
SENATOR STACHOWSKI: No.
THE SECRETARY: Senator Stafford.
1431
SENATOR STAFFORD: Aye. No, no.
Sorry. No. No, no. Thank you.
THE SECRETARY: Senator Stavisky.
(No response.)
THE SECRETARY: Senator Trunzo.
SENATOR TRUNZO: No.
THE SECRETARY: Senator Velella.
(No response.)
THE SECRETARY: Senator Volker.
SENATOR VOLKER: No.
THE SECRETARY: Senator Waldon.
SENATOR WALDON: Yes.
THE SECRETARY: Senator Wright.
SENATOR WRIGHT: No.
THE PRESIDENT: The Secretary
will call the absentees, please.
THE SECRETARY: Senator Alesi.
SENATOR ALESI: No.
THE SECRETARY: Senator Balboni.
SENATOR BALBONI: No.
THE SECRETARY: Senator
DeFrancisco.
SENATOR DeFRANCISCO: No.
THE SECRETARY: Senator Gonzalez.
(No response.)
1432
THE SECRETARY: Senator Goodman.
(No response.)
THE SECRETARY: Senator Hoffmann.
(No response.)
THE SECRETARY: Senator Larkin.
SENATOR LARKIN: No.
THE SECRETARY: Senator Mendez.
(No response.)
THE SECRETARY: Senator Nozzolio.
SENATOR NOZZOLIO: No.
THE SECRETARY: Senator Rosado.
(No response.)
THE SECRETARY: Senator Spano.
(No response.)
THE SECRETARY: Senator Stavisky.
(No response.)
THE PRESIDENT: The Secretary
will announce the results.
THE SECRETARY: Ayes 18, nays 35.
THE PRESIDENT: The amended is
defeated.
Senator Marchi, on the bill.
SENATOR MARCHI: On the bill,
Madam President.
Madam President, this question
1433
which has been addressed in terms of exquisite
detail by Senator Maltese presents the problem
analytically with a fineness and precision
that should appeal to our conscience.
We make reference to constitutional
implications of the Roe v Wade act bearing in
mind that it was monumented in three different
semesters, some of which, the predicates of
which have been changed by observance and
physiological observances and medical
analysis, but as the Senator pointed out, we
are not dealing with pro-choice, we are not
dealing with life. We are dealing with the
moment of life.
Have there been prominent
supporters and present supporters of pro
choice who have altered their position with
respect to the application that took place
here. Yes, there have, Madam President.
Mayor Edward Koch, former mayor,
who is pro-choice has taken an absolutely
positive anti-position on the definition that
has been supplied now by the so called partial
birth procedure. Daniel Patrick Moynihan, our
senior Senator from this State has taken a
1434
similar position and there have been others
around the country of prominent responsibility
that have recognize its failure.
We are not defining the threshold
of life with the little mental herniation
where do we stop?
It is not that our distinguished
Minority Leader offered an insensitive
amendment, but where do we stop? Is there any
threshold now that abortions have gone beyond
the 35 million mark?
On the basis of the original
holding and the subsequent events that have
taken place where do we stop? Is there any
threshold where life becomes sacred in the
eyes of the law?
As Senator Maltese so eloquently
presented it to us it simply is not there.
We are going beyond living with the
dead unborn whose life have been snuffed out
before they experienced actual birth. We have
now mentally herniated to apply that to a
person who is now among the living and the
life is extinguished, arousing the serious
concerns of people who have championed another
1435
position and continue in most cases to do so.
So I suggest, Madam President, that
it is time that we reevaluate. How far are we
going to allow the threshold to be extended,
when they are bouncing around on the table,
because it might fit in with the original
concept that -- the enlarged concept that it
applies to any reproductive consequence that
should be under a control. I don't think, I
don't think even Justice Blackman, and I don't
want to attribute anything to him, he had made
the original decision, but I don't think, I
don't think it is the rational product of the
sober thinking that went into the amendment
that was presented and sanctioned also by the
statement that he made by the American Medical
Association.
So I would hope that many of you
will find it possible to recognize this
dilemma and vote to at least make a statement
in this State that we will not support that.
And we are not going into the fundamental
question that everybody -- that is on
everybody's mind. But this the threshold of
life and we should defend it to our utmost.
1436
THE PRESIDENT: Senator Farley.
SENATOR FARLEY: Thank you, Madam
President.
I rise to support the outlawing of
this obscene disgusting procedure. As been so
eloquently said by Senator Maltese, this is
not a pro-choice, pro-life measure. All kinds
of people have crossed the aisle on this one.
Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan called it
infanticide, infanticide. Ted Kennedy's son
voted to ban this. There is nobody that could
really rationalize how a mother's life is in
danger when this child has been born really
all but its head, and then that disgusting
procedure of sucking out the brains of the
child. There is no way that this could be
saving a mother's life.
And Senator Dollinger, here's one
lawyer that thinks it is constitutional. And
incidentally what is constitutional is what
the last court says.
This a procedure that passes this
House overwhelmingly, veto proof. The
Governor has said that he would sign this.
And for those that are interested in polls,
1437
they say 85 percent of the public wants this
disgusting, obscene procedure outlawed. We're
here to represent, I feel very deeply on the
life issues, but I'll tell you that this is
something that really needs to be taken out of
our society. There is no place for it. It is
outrageous, it is wrong, and it is time New
York State recognized that.
And I will tell you what, if this
bill every reached the floor of the Assembly
it would pass in a heart beat. I think
everybody knows that. That's why they won't
let it on the floor of the Assembly.
Senator Maltese, I applaud you for
bringing this bill to us. I applaud you for
the way that you described it. And it is
difficult to talk about these issues. It is
difficult to describe what this is.
When I spoke to my wife about what
it is she was appalled and didn't want to hear
any more. But it is something -- and I
applaud my colleagues on the other side of the
isle that stand up on this one because you
really need to.
I am going to vote aye and I hope
1438
that all of us would.
Thank you, Madam President.
THE PRESIDENT: Senator Goodman.
SENATOR GOODMAN: Madam
President, this must always rank as the most
unpleasant day of the year for those of us who
care deeply about this issue. It comes up
time and again despite the fact that at the
outset we must make it very clear this bill
can not become law irrespective of the action
taken in this house. We may pass it over and
over again and we may parade before us all the
horrors and the horrendous consequences to the
unborn fetus of this procedure. The bill will
not pass in the Assembly and so what we are
going through today is nothing more nor less
than a charade.
Now let me say, I don't doubt for a
moment the sincerity of those who are the
proponents of the bill. They have already
stated to you in the most stark terms the
horrors that attend the delivery of a fetus in
the manner in which this bill would permit.
And the question is, has society gone mad?
Have we taken leave of our senses? Why would
1439
there be any desire to keep a bill of this -
a procedure of this sort available to the
medical profession?
There are compelling reasons why,
Madam President, and these compelling reasons
are consistently apparently beyond the grasp
of certain members of this House who don't
have the medical sophistication to understand
what is going on. They take literally the
fact that you are sucking the brains out of an
unborn fetus and forcing it be delivered dead.
And they say this is murder and its homicide
and those with prosecutorial background insist
that this is an appalling act of human
degradation.
The simple fact is that it is
precisely the reverse. That the underlying
intent of this bill is to protect women and to
protect their right to have further
opportunities to bear children, not to abort
children. And let me give you a little
clearer understanding if I may once again of
the underpinnings of this medically. My dad
was a surgeon and my mother was very heavily
involved in various aspects of the breast
1440
cancer campaign. And so even as a young
person I became involved with various aspects
of medical anatomical discourse, and let me
just explain for a moment to you what I think
even a young child could understand if the
case were put clearly.
The fact of the matter is that in
the course of a pregnancy a child can become
hideously deformed, an unborn child. I will
call it a child because there are those of us
who feel that after a certain point the fetus
is, indeed, viable. But there can be a fetus
without a -- literally without a head, with
the brains growing outside of the head, with
various bodily organs hideously misformed and
improperly placed. There can be all sorts of
things which are freakish in their
implications and are disastrous in the event
that a child is born.
Now what has that got to do with
the case? Well it is very clear and very
simple if you understand the anatomical
fundamentals of this situation. When those
things occur the fetus can degrade, and in the
degradation of the fetus, the rotting if you
1441
will of the fetus, the unborn fetus, this
creates a grave health risk to the mother.
The mother is in jeopardy of dying as a result
of the toxic excrudesence that these fetuses
create within the mother's womb and this is a
potentially tragic situation
And so we ask the question, Well,
why can't we use certain methods for delivery
of the fetus earlier? Take, for example, the
possibility of a Caesarian. The fact is that
prior to 36 months Caesareans are most unsound
and they are almost never done for the simple
reason that structurally the woman is given a
very grievous disadvantage with respect to the
future bearing of children. The fetus can not
be permitted to be put in that position and
thus the premature Caesarian is bad practice.
There are other things that might be done.
There might be induction techniques, inducing
the birth of the fetus, and those too involve
various toxicity problems of a very serious
nature. And so the responsible physicians who
care about the woman and who care about her
ability to bear children in the future say we
must have in reserve in our armamentarium of
1442
medical techniques something that we do not
ever wish to use unless it is impellingly
necessary, and that is the so called later
term abortion concept.
By using this procedure we do
clearly save the life of the mother and
preserve her health. We deliver a fetus which
would have no future even if it were born, and
that is something which is repeatedly ignored
by the opponents of this procedure.
The only occasions on which this is
done by responsible physicians, and let us
admit at the outset that there could be rogue
physicians who misuse the procedure. There
are rogue physicians who misuse all sorts of
medical procedures. That is not a reason to
condemn the procedure as irresponsible,
illegal or murderous.
So what we are faced with is this
very unpopular situation. It would be a cinch
to climb on board this bill. It is
politically clear and simpler to explain it to
people, I am stopping murder and therefore I
vote for the bill. But you are not stopping
murder, you are doing something which is dead
1443
wrong because you are hurting people. You are
hurting the mothers and you are hurting their
future possibility to have their children.
This is paradoxically the exact reverse of
what the pro-lifers wish to do. So there is
something very wrong about this debate. It is
addled and it is off kilter and out of
equilibrium.
My friends, let me just say that
there have been some interesting statements
made about this. One from the White House I
think is worth taking a moment to consider.
This was made before the White House's
reputation in various regards was diminished
so I think it is valid to read the quote. A
man named William Jefferson Clinton has the
following to say about this bill. Several
years ago he said as follows: He said, "The
bill does not allow women to protect
themselves from serious threats to their
health. The decision to have an abortion
generally should be between a woman, her
doctor, her conscience and her god. I have
long opposed late term abortions," said the
President, "except where necessary to protect
1444
the life or health of the mother. I can not
support the use of a procedure on an elective
basis -- an elective basis -- where the
abortion is being performed for non health
related reasons and there are equally safe
medical procedures available. Rare and tragic
situations can occur in a woman's pregnancy in
which a doctor's medical judgment for use of
this procedure may be necessary to save a
woman's life or protect her against serious
injury or her health. In these situations in
which a woman and her family must make an
awful choice the Constitution requires as it
should that the ability to choose the
procedure be protected. The Constitution
protects the life of women. It protects the
life of children. It does not advance murder
and homicide as is suggested elsewhere. I can
not support the use of a procedure on an
elective basis where the abortion is being
performed for non health related reasons."
Just a few more excerpts will
suffice to make the point I think.
"Women are advised by their doctors
that this procedure is their best chance to
1445
avert the risk of death and grave harm. These
babies were certain to perish before, during
or shortly after birth and the only question
was how much grave damage was going to be done
to the woman. I can not sign House Bill
HR1833 because by treating doctors who perform
the procedure in this tragic case as criminals
the bill poses a dangerous serious harm to
women. That is why I implore Congress to add
an exception for the small number of
compelling cases where selection of the
procedure in the medical judgment of the
attending physician is advisable."
That's, I think, a fairly succinct
explanation at the Presidential level of why
he vetoed this bill, and that's the same
reason why the Assembly will not pass it. Can
not the Senate rise to the same general level
of common sense as the other House? Generally
it is quite the reverse it seems to me, but I
don't want to case aspersions on the other
House. Suffice it to say this is one of the
great deliberative bodies of the world, if I
don't exaggerate too much, and to say that we
ignore the fundamentals of what goes on here
1446
is to indicate that we not really the
carefully deliberative body that we are
cracked up to be.
So my friends, in conclusion, let
me say this: I have never argued in anybody's
motives. I think there is complete sincerity
on both sides. But what I am saying to you is
there is a lack of perception, my colleagues.
A failure to understand what is really going
on here. Lift up the outer crust of this
issue and look beneath it. This is not
murder, it is not homicide, it is not a
deliberate attempt to create an abortion
because of a cleft palate or some superficial
deformity. This is something where the baby
is being hideously deformed, where this
deformed characteristic threatens the life of
the mother because this fetus may poison the
mother literally. That is why the doctor must
have this in reserve and to call a doctor who
uses this technique a criminal is a cruel
injustice and would in all events in my
opinion be a totally misfired missile on the
part of this House. We are better than that,
my friends. I urge that we please understand
1447
this bill must be defeated for the sake of
good medical science, for the sake of the
unborn which we hope to have continually made
available and be born in the future to mothers
who will be protected by the procedure. It is
a must. It is not optional. We have got to
arise to the occasion, be sophisticated enough
to understand medically what is at stake here
and do the right thing.
THE PRESIDENT: Reads the
section.
THE SECRETARY: Section 3. This
act shall take effect on the first day of
November.
THE PRESIDENT: Senator
Montgomery.
SENATOR OPPENHEIMER: In the
absence, may I be recognized, Madam President?
THE PRESIDENT: Senator
Oppenheimer.
SENATOR OPPENHEIMER: I said this
two years ago when Senator Maltese was
describing the procedure but I said it that
time and if you want to really hear a
disgusting procedure I would be happy to talk
1448
about my open heart surgery.
I think surgery is not something
that is a delectable discussion. And I just
am thankful that there are surgeons that are
willing to perform these very difficult
procedures.
I have a question for Senator
Maltese if he will yield. Can you yield a
second, Senator?
SENATOR MALTESE: Yes.
SENATOR OPPENHEIMER: Thanks,
Senator Maltese.
This is the question that occurs to
me. Is it just this procedure in the third
trimester that is so upsetting to you, or is
it all procedures that might be made in the
third trimester because you are picking on one
procedure.
SENATOR MALTESE: Madam
President, in response to my esteemed
colleague, personally speaking from a personal
point of view it is all procedures that would
be objectionable by me, but this particular
piece of legislation refers only to partial
birth abortion and partial birth abortion as a
1449
procedure that according to at least what I
consider a majority of medical opinion has
stated that there are alternative procedures
available that can be utilized and that it is
hard to conceive of a procedure where the
child or the fetus is completely with the
exception of a few inches out of the mother's
body that the killing of that fetus is
necessary to protect either the life or in
your amendment the health of the mother.
It is -- it just seems inconsistent
and contradictatory.
SENATOR OPPENHEIMER: Here's
another question then, if you continue to
yield.
THE PRESIDENT: Senator
Oppenheimer -- Senator, do you continue to
yield?
SENATOR MALTESE: Yes.
THE PRESIDENT: You may proceed,
Senator Oppenheimer.
SENATOR OPPENHEIMER: Now, this
procedure that you are describing can also be
utilized in the second trimester. What is
your feeling about the second trimester?
1450
SENATOR MALTESE: Well, according
to both Dr. Haskell and some of the medical
authorities that we had it is a procedure that
is almost never used prior to the twentieth
month of a pregnancy. Unlike my good
colleague Senator Goodman, whose father was a
surgeon and therefore perhaps created an
atmosphere where his medical knowledge is
certainly superior to mine, I profess to no
medical knowledge or authority or what have
you, but it does seem that based on the
information we have available that the -- this
procedure is only done after the twentieth
month for a reason and the reason as been
described by Nurse Schaffer, Brenda Schaffer,
who was the nurse that I previously described,
she said that prior to the twentieth month the
muscle tissue and the skin of the fetus is not
formed sufficiently to extract the baby
totally, so as a result, the D and E
procedure, the dilation and extraction
procedure, is the procedure that is used
because, as the forceps grasp the legs of the
fetus, the legs of the fetus come apart and
the extraction is done in pieces.
1451
So I think it is a question not of
viability, but it is a question of the
formation of the fetus and the stage that it
is at. So according to what I have read it
would seem that it is, while a doctor may
attempt it, pulling on the -- what they
describe as the lower extremity, which seems
to me to dehumanize it, pulling on the leg
comes off and they are not able to turn the
baby for the delivery.
SENATOR OPPENHEIMER: But of
course twenty weeks is not the third
trimester. That's the point I wanted to make.
On the bill, Madam President.
THE PRESIDENT: Senator, on the
bill.
SENATOR OPPENHEIMER: You know we
currently have the law of Roe v Wade and that
law says that third trimester abortions are
illegal unless there is a superseding life or
health interest of the pregnant woman.
Therefore infanticide by our law is illegal
and there are penalties. And therefore this
is really just a redundancy because while you
say it is infanticide, if it were infanticide
1452
and the doctor where found guilty of
infanticide he would not be a doctor very
long.
So I want to point out the
redundancy of this. And of grave concern to
me is the many times that legislators think
that they know more than the medical
profession and that we can override a
physician's discretion on how best to protect
a patient, be it the life and fertility of a
woman or in another instant a different
patient.
The prohibition of this basic
medical procedure by imposing criminal
sanctions on doctors who are simply trying to
protect a woman's health is not just
unconstitutional, but as Senator Goodman has
pointed out, it is contrary to the health of
the women and particularly to the future
viability of additional pregnancies.
If you ask any women, any women who
has ever carried a child, there is no way we
would carry into the third trimester while
thinking to abort a viable fetus. These are
actually medical tragedies. These are parents
1453
that desperately want their child. You don't
carry to your seventh, eight and ninth month,
believe me, it is not comfortable. I wish all
of you the experience. It is not a
comfortable experience.
And in addition many of the women
that have come and spoken to us have said that
as quickly as possible after this occurs,
after they have had to abort their fetus in
the third trimester, as quickly as possible,
as soon as the doctor will permit them, they
go on to become pregnant again and to have
viable fetuses and to become the parents that
they so want to become.
The circumstances under which women
and doctors choose this procedure as an option
is unusually rare and it would only be in the
most serious of circumstance. Indeed only one
tenth of one percent of all abortions are
performed in the third trimester, and I say
only when things have gone terribly, terribly
wrong and there are very grave consequences
for the woman.
This bill would just force women
into riskier procedures. And indeed would
1454
compromise their future fertility.
I would think -- I believe every
group that is concerned with women's health
opposes this bill and I think that should tell
you something. The obstetricans, the
gynecologists, the nurses, the social workers
all are opposed to this bill. And the
question is, and I am wearing the pin, do you
trust women. Do you trust your wives to make
the best decision concerning their health? Do
you trust women to make the wise decision for
their health?
I will be voting against this bill.
SENATOR MARCHI: Senator, will
you yield?
THE PRESIDENT: Senator, do you
yield?
SENATOR OPPENHEIMER: Yes.
THE PRESIDENT: Go ahead, Senator
Marchi.
SENATOR MARCHI: I just don't
know whether -- I'm not insensitive to what
you have been saying, but Section 4 provides,
the provisions of this section shall not apply
to a partial birth abortion performed by a
1455
duly licensed physician that is necessary to
safe the life of a mother whose life is
endangered by physical disorder, illness or
injury where no other medical procedure would
suffice for that purpose.
I do not know just how far this
goes in meetings the concerns that you
advance.
SENATOR OPPENHEIMER: Thank you.
I saw you listening very carefully, Senator
Marchi, and that is something you are always
-- your mind is so open that you want to hear
every part of a debate and that's -- we
applaud you.
The issue is the reproductive
health of the women going to be preserved
through this bill. This procedure, and there
are other procedures in the third trimester,
but this procedure is done invariably so that
the woman may continue to have future
children.
THE PRESIDENT: Senator
Schneiderman.
SENATOR SCHNEIDERMAN: Thank you,
Madam President.
1456
Our colleague Senator Goodman said
we should look under the crust of what is
going on on the debate about so called partial
birth abortion ban.
I hope -- -- owe it to our
constituents and the people of the State of
New York at least to look at what is in the
bill we're voting on. Because with all due
respect to the eloquence of my colleagues, all
of these horrific and disturbing statements
that have been made, that is not what is in
this bill.
Section 2 defines a felony, and it
defines it in a few lines. It defines the
term partial birth abortion and says it means
partially vaginally delivering a living fetus
before killing the fetus and completing the
delivery. This procedure is characterized by
the American Medical Association as, quote
intact dilation and extraction, or intact D
and X. That is the definition.
I worked for a period of time in an
abortion clinic, and we use a lot of
euphemisms about reproductive health and
family planning, but the place I worked did
1457
abortions. I have witnessed the aftermath of
the procedures. I have personally handled the
remains. I assure that when I saw this bill,
and I raised this with Senator Maltese in the
Codes Committee, his definition here in my
view covers everything that is being done in
abortion clinics all over the country it is so
vague. In the first trimester, the second
trimester, I don't see the limitation he is
providing.
I requested the backup, the AMA
commentary on this that he cited. And he
graciously provided that to me. The AMA
statement that is cited as the basis for this
states explicitly, partial birth abortion is
not a medical term. The reason that this is
drafted saying the procedure characterized by
the AMA, and again, this is not even the AMA,
this is a presentation by one doctor that was
referred to a committee at a board of trustees
meeting. The AMA refuses to use the term and
yet we hear it over and over again in this
debate. It says twice the paragraph cited by
Senator Maltese, this is not -- partial birth
abortion is not a medical term. It will not
1458
be used by the AMA.
Lets be honest about what we are
talking about here. This is an extremely
vague provision. The reason that 18 courts
have already struck down similar statutes and
a nineteenth decision is pending is because
this is something that -- and I believe that
my colleagues are sincere in their statements
that this is not an attack on freedom of
choice, I believe that the way this is drafted
this is an attack on freedom of choice, and
the courts have held that it is so vague that
it can easily be construed as an attack on
abortion rights that go far beyond the
horrendous procedures that have been described
here today.
The second point that I want to
make is, as Senator Oppenheimer has discussed,
there is no time limit here. I understand
everyone has got this vision of eight and a
half months into a pregnancy the delivery of a
child and I was present at the birth of my
daughter and there is -- you know, I fully
appreciate what is involved and the emotions
that are involved in that.
1459
There is no time limit here. When
it was suggested in the Codes Committee that
there might be a time limit inserted that was
rejected. This will ban a type of vaguely
defined category of procedures starting with
the first day of the pregnancy. And I
appreciate Senator Maltese's references to
what some doctors say is the medical reality.
But what we are -- we are not doctors, we are
legislators. We are trying to pass a law. And
the law as stated here is so vague I believe
this to be an attack on freedom of choice.
And the fact that it does not include a time
limit makes it clear that we are really
talking about a political agenda here which
does not have to do with all of the visions
that are being conjured up by my colleagues,
although I think I am not meaning for a moment
to suggest that they are not sincere.
This is not a bill to ban
infanticide, this is a bill to come between a
woman and her doctor and if she is a believer
her god. Let them make their own decisions.
I urge you, lets at least have some honesty in
terms of what we are talking about. Lets not
1460
pass a bill with a definition that doesn't
relate in any way to the comments that have
been made here today. I am voting against the
bill.
THE PRESIDENT: Senator Waldon.
SENATOR WALDON: I pass.
THE PRESIDENT: Senator Duane.
SENATOR DUANE: Thank you, Madam
President.
I agree with those of my colleagues
who have spoken on the floor here today
regarding the terrible problems with this
legislation and as well as for the reasons
that I and my colleagues raised in committee
regarding this billing being vague and
technically flawed and potentially far more
restrictive of reproductive rights and
services than I think the sponsor even
intended for them to be, but that said, even
if this bill were perfect, perfectly crafted
and amended to everyone's liking I would still
vote against it. I think that government
should have no role in reproductive decision
making except in so far it helps to guarantee
a safe environment for the services to be
1461
provided and medically safe environment for
the services to be performed.
Reproductive health decisions
should be made by a women in consultation with
the health care providers of her choice and in
consultation with whoever else she may decide
to consult with, pure and simple, that's it.
Her decision.
I urge my colleagues to vote no on
this legislation.
Thank you.
THE PRESIDENT: Senator Hevesi.
SENATOR HEVESI: Thank you, Madam
President.
On the bill, first let me say that
I greatly appreciate the level of discourse
among my colleagues on all sides of this
issue. This discussion has been visceral and
impassioned and important.
I would point out in the context of
this proposal that is before us that despite
how you feel about the particular abortion
procedure we are considering, and I too would
agree with many who have suggested it is a
particularly gruesome procedure, as are most
1462
abortion procedures, that we can not, despite
that, ignore the potential ramification of the
particular bill that is before us.
So having said that, let me address
two particular issues. The first is, I have
stated publicly on numerous occasions and I
will do it again right now, that I will
support a ban on partial birth abortion if two
conditions were satisfied, neither of which
are satisfied in the bill that is before us.
The first, and I think Senator
Goodman did an extraordinary job of
articulating some of the reasons why there
must be a provision which exempts -- which
provides that the health of the woman is a
primary consideration in restricting or
failing to restricted the penalty phase of
this particular piece of legislation. I
couldn't agree with this aspect of it more,
and without this, and I voted in the
affirmative on the amendment, without that
included in the legislation I can not support
it.
Secondly, and Senator Schneiderman
has done an excellent job in dissecting in
1463
some respects the definition that is used in
the bill of partial birth abortion. It is
exceedingly vague and I would suggest to
Senator Maltese, who I have a great respect
for, Senator, if the definition that you wish
to be ultimately included is the one you read
to us earlier, then I would suggest that that
definition should be included in this
legislation specifically in the bill and not
take the words of the American Medical
Association or the suggestion of one
particular doctor speaking on behalf of a
committee that sanctioned a study as what
would be the triggering factors governing the
law in the State of New York.
And Senator Maltese also pointed
out to us that the AMA last year endorsed a
Federal ban on abortion procedures and I would
highlight for you one sentence from a New York
Times article last year to provide the proper
context for this discussion. Washington,
December 3rd, Investigators hired by the
American Medical Association say the
organization, the AMA, ignored its own
decision making procedures, got swept up in
1464
politics and failed to protect the welfare of
patients when it endorsed a Republican bill
banning a specific abortion procedure last
year.
What happens if the AMA -- this was
the definition that is accepted, lets assume
that for a second, the AMA at some point
decides to change that procedure. If we
adopted this legislation or we adopt this and
it becomes law such a change by an
organization that has had a questionable
history on this subject would then trigger an
automatic change in how we implement the law
in New York State as it pertains to this
particular procedure.
Let me be very clear. I didn't
like partial birth abortions. If it is
possible to ban them and in the event that
they are not medically necessary, and there is
some question that they maybe on certain
circumstances and that's why we need that
provision in there, but that having been said
and those two provisions that I just suggested
and laid out being satisfied, I would support
this legislation.
1465
And the reason I am stressing this
and getting into this because my colleagues
have gone through these issues, I am a little
leery here of what it means, because it seems
to me that the lack of our movement in the
direction of satisfying these two provisions,
which don't in my estimation eviscerate the
intention of the bill, lend me to believe that
something else is at the heart of the
motivation of this legislation, which is,
presumably, to have a greater breadth in
encompassing other procedures and outlawing
what we already know and the courts have
already decided is a constitutionally
protected right. And although I believe,
Madam President, that Roe v Wade already
provides an exemption for both the life and
the health of the mother, I will not support a
piece of legislation that does not
specifically have that provision, nor will I
support a piece of legislation that does not
narrowly define what we mean by a partial
birth abortion or somebody down the road at
some point could conceivably outlaw a
procedure we did not mean to outlaw, and that
1466
the courts in this country have determined can
not be outlawed.
As a result, I vote in the negative
on this bill.
Thank you.
THE PRESIDENT: Senator
Dollinger.
SENATOR DOLLINGER: Thank you,
Madam President.
My views on this legislation are
well known in this chamber. I have addressed
this bill every year we have had it.
I couldn't help but be struck by
one thing that happened during Senator
Maltese's discussion. You remember the
gruesome details that he described? This is
not a happy thing. But what I was most
astounded about Senator Maltese is that it was
not until the very end you described how parts
of anatomy were involved, you talked about
implements. And then the very last thing you
said was that's the end of the experience, and
maybe I'm quoting you wrong, for the patient.
For the patient.
That is not a patient. That is
1467
someone's daughter. That is someone's mother.
That is someone's wife. That is my wife.
That is my seventeen year old daughter. And I
would just suggest to you Senator Maltese,
that you took us through the gruesome details
of what it would be like to be there. What I
would like to do, Senator Maltese, is to
invite you to the other details of what
happens before it.
I would suggest to all those who
support this bill, I would invite you, we'll
give you beepers, you can become the partial
birth abortion police. You can show up in the
maternity room when a women in her late
trimester faces exactly what Senator Goodman
talked about, a horribly deformed child in
utero. And you can sit there, Senator
Maltese, and say it is terrible, but guess
what, you hysterical young lady who wanted to
have a child and now find out that your child
may only live for 24 hours outside the womb.
A grieving husband who looks at his own wife,
crushed by that news who is trying to figure
out what the right thing to do is. A
grandparent standing there thinking about
1468
their grandchild to be born wondering what has
gone wrong. What happened? What can we do to
correct it? And the answer is nothing. And
you stand there and you listen to a family
grieve over the most difficult decision they
will every make in their lives, and I want you
Senator Maltese, and everybody who votes for
this bill to walk in that room and tell them
that they can not terminate that pregnancy.
And I want you to took in the eyes of that
grieving mother and I want you to say, guess
what, we in this State have decided that the
power of government is going to prevent you
from terminating that -- the life of that
fetus, even though your physician has already
told you that you maybe paralyzed.
THE PRESIDENT: Senator
Dollinger, please address your remarks through
the Chair, please.
SENATOR DOLLINGER: I would be
you glad to, Madam President.
THE PRESIDENT: Thank you.
SENATOR DOLLINGER: Even though
the physician has told that young lady, told
that mother, told that granddaughter, told
1469
that child, that you maybe paralyzed, you may
never, ever be able to have a child again, and
I want you to walk in there, Senator Maltese,
and all those who vote for this bill and stand
there and say, guess what, we the government
of this state have decided that you have to
let this child be born.
I resent the notion that if it is
my family and my 17 year old daughter that
anyone who votes for this bill would ever have
the gall to walk in and say to me as the
potential grandfather of that child, we took
your choice away.
I dare you to come into that
maternity room with me. I will do what every
father should do and what every grandfather
will do. I'd throw you out.
THE PRESIDENT: Senator, I am
going to ask you again, and direct you to
address your remarks to the chair.
SENATOR DOLLINGER: Thank you,
Madam President.
THE PRESIDENT: Your welcome.
SENATOR DOLLINGER: Anyone who
walks in and interferes with that decision
1470
involving my family or my wife or my daughter
deserves to be tossed out.
We will handle that grieving
process ourselves. And I would just say to
everybody who votes for this bill, I don't
want to be in the maternity room with you,
don't you dare be in the maternity room with
me, my daughter, my wife and my family. And I
think I say that on behalf of every person in
New York and the women of New York who can be
trusted to make this decision with their
families and themselves.
This is about interfering with the
most critical life and death decision that any
family would have to face. And personally I
resent the fact that we are debating about
whether government in the form of the police,
in the form of prosecutors, will be present in
those maternity rooms. There is enough
tragedy in that room without government
getting involved.
Lets put an end to this now.
THE PRESIDENT: Senator Maltese.
SENATOR MALTESE: Madam
President, first I would like to address my
1471
good colleague Senator Hevesi's well reasoned
statements and simply indicate with the
reference to the AMA report that that report
was AMA report 26 of the board of trustees
1997. And in fact rather simply some mere
report, it is a report that has been referred
to in not only United States Supreme Court
cases but in the most recent case which held
in Wisconsin the partial birth abortion bill
unconstitutional but that was the Wisconsin
Court in the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals,
Wisconsin versus Doyle.
With reference to other statements
that have been made, I suggest that -- and I
share my colleague Senator Hevesi's statement
that the discourse, the debate has been a
reasoned debated based on the facts and based
on a very, very difficult decision by both the
woman and the doctor and we in this chamber.
And addressing the statements made
by my good colleague Senator Dollinger, I
suggest that -- and I in this chamber
especially and some of my colleagues know it
that sometimes the volume of my voice is
proportional to the intensity of my feelings
1472
on a question before this House. But quite
frankly, in this specific question I'm not
saying that Senator Dollinger or any of his
colleagues on the other side but I feel that
we are in the support of this legislation are
in, quote, the side of the angels. We're
speaking on behalf of not only the patients
and the women but we are speaking on behalf of
the almost born. And in some cases near born.
All of us can recite so called,
quote, horror cases and situations and
sometimes say bad cases make bad law. This is
a situation where if we want to refer to the
gruesome procedures which had been referred to
of necessity in this chamber in describing a
procedure that even by opponents of the bill
has been described as gruesome and loathsome
and not a preferred procedure that we can talk
about the unborn. We can talk about the near
born. We can talk about the dismembering of a
fetus. We can talk about the extraction of a
fetus and statements that had been made to us
by physicians and nurses who came up here in
connection with the bill in prior debates and
indicated that but for the pressure of those
1473
fingers as was described by Dr. Haskell that
the child not only would have been extracted
but was already breathing and living and was a
living human being entitled to the protection
of our law.
So if it is level of rhetoric, I
think anybody that knows me knows that I can
rise in volume and equal any member of this
chamber. That is not the question here. The
question is what are we to do to protect the
near born, to protect society. The level -
the civilization, the level of civilization is
determined by whether a society and a
legislature protects its citizens, not the
lesser citizens or the high born or the
aristocrats, but all its citizens.
A decision was made in Roe v Wade
that the unborn would not be included in that
protection. That was a decision that I
indicated in this chamber I disagree with.
But persons of repute, persons of good
judgment and conscience can differ on that
question. There is absolutely not question
requested about it.
I suggest that if any of in my
1474
colleagues, and Senator Dollinger included,
look at the difference between the amendment
and our proposed legislation now the
objections that had been made by my good
colleague can also be made to that amendment.
So here we have people of goods
conscience I believe who are trying to
consider a very thorny and difficult issue.
And we have come to different conclusions or
varying conclusions on the matter. I suggest
that we have an obligation to define society
just as in so many issues that are going to be
coming up in the future, whether it is
cloning, whether it is euthanasia, any of the
decisions of the day are going to ultimately
come in some form to this House. And we have
to confront those thorny issue and come to a
decision. And sometimes it is the right
decision and sometimes it is the wrong
decision. But I think if we in good
conscience make a decision in most cases, in
most cases, I think the vast majority of the
cases in this great country of ours it will be
a decision that is, quote, on the side of the
angels.
1475
THE PRESIDENT: Senator Marchi.
SENATOR MARCHI: Just one point.
Perhaps it was a lapsis lingua or lapse of the
tongue, but my distinguished colleague who
presented very forcefully and certainly very
sincerely the concern that we would have if we
walked into a procedure and attended a
procedure that was about do take place. And
all of references that had been made before
that was about the unborn or the almost born
or the fetus, but he said this is my child or
my grandchild. Now when we're talking about
my child or my grandchild we're talking about
the threshold of life. And at that point this
is what this amendment is all about when we
have crossed that threshold and have a life
and being, a child not an almost child but a
child however we may characterize it.
This is a most important
consideration and I think it begs an
affirmative answer to the proposal that
Senator Maltese has given us.
THE PRESIDENT: Senator Goodman.
SENATOR GOODMAN: Madam
President, in these debates there has been an
1476
extraordinary emphasis placed upon the
findings of the American Medical Association,
a respected group of doctors, and I think it
is extremely important to set the record
straight with regard to their finding in this
matter.
I would like to quote you from a
New York Times article dates December 1998
with the headline, "Inquiry Criticizes AMA
Backing of Abortion Procedure Ban."
"Investigators hired by the American Medical
Association say the organization ignored its
own decision making procedures, got swept up
in politics and failed to protect the welfare
of patients when it endorsed a Republican bill
banning a specific abortion procedure last
year. In a scathing report the investigators
said trustees of the group had abandoned its
long standing positions on abortion and rushed
to embrace the bill even though it did not
meet the criteria previously set by the
Association for such endorsement. The report,
part of a larger investigation of the Board of
Trustees concludes that the AMA blundered in
its handling of a bill to outlaw the procedure
1477
that opponents call partial birth abortion."
This report was done by Buzone and
Hamilton. A highly respected management
consulting firm. It drew considerable
criticism from all around the country on the
fact that the AMA did not come forth with a
legitimate critique of this so that I think
that this blunts considerably the attempt to
use it as the sharp instrument to try to
pierce partial birth abortion.
Now, finally, let me if I may pick
one -- stress one point which I did not touch
upon heavily in my earlier remarks. The
simple fact is, my good friends, that by
passing this bill we will bringing on a
procedure which not only outlaws abortion in
the third trimester, but as has been touched
upon earlier, it will outlaw abortion by this
technique frequently done in the second
trimester, which is absolutely legal and
absolutely appropriate medically. In other
words, this is accidentally going to hit a
target far broader than I think was intended
by its sponsors.
By outlawing the so called
1478
dilatation and extraction technique we are
preventing the safest method of aborting a
fetus during the period when it is
unquestionably legal under the law of the
land. Therefore I would appeal to you not on
the grounds earlier taken, which I think are
valid in and of themselves, but on the special
grounds that this bill is inappropriately
drawn, it is very breadth defeats its own
purpose because it does say that you can not
perform any kind of an abortion in any period
along the cycle of pre-birth development by
using this type of dilatation and extraction,
which is generally conceded to be the safest
and best method of aborting a fetus.
Now, nobody likes the idea of
destroying a human being, however microscopic
its size or however slight its development,
and that is of course the debate that keeps
centering around the question, are we
destroying human beings. Keep in mind that in
the Roe versus Wade decision a critical
distinction is made by the Supreme Court which
remains intact to this day. And that
distinction says that prior to the viability
1479
of the fetus we are not dealing with a human
being. It is impossible for this fetus to
survive outside of the womb and therefore the
line has clearly been drawn. It is a bright
line which should never be ignored in this
debate, which says we are not killing any
human being, we have a pre pre-human being
concept which is not even a human being, it is
simply a fetal development which is pre
quickening of the fetus and therefore not to
be regarded as murder.
This has been a point made in the
early days when we debated this bill going
back to the first time I recall having lead
the debate in bringing on the legality of
abortion in this State. That was two years
prior to Roe v Wade. And all of the years
since and every year we have seen an effort on
this floor to try and roll back that
fundamental distinction. It can not be rolled
back unless science can prove that the fetus
is viable in an earlier stage than has ever
been thought possible before. We must
continue to guard the rights of women to make
their decisions within this time frame.
1480
So please let me just sum up again
these two points. Number one, we must realize
that there is a clear line of demarcation
between the pre-quickening fetus and the post
quickening fetus which can then be regarded as
human development.
Secondly, we should understand that
the technique which would be embodied in this
bill will absolutely prohibit physicians using
the most common form of abortion technique
which is considered the safest and the best by
very general practice among ob-gyn
specialists. So lets not tamper around with
something that we don't understand. We are
playing with dynamite in this. We are playing
with a time bomb that is going to go off an
hit the wrong people and kill people that we
don't intend to have it kill.
Please lets look at it carefully.
Lets take the time to analyze what is going on
here. This is not an emotional question. I
deliberately lower my voice to say I don't
think we need to attack one another personally
or to make this an affair of the heart. It is
an affair which can be analzed in cold
1481
scientific terms and we must never roll back
the Roe v Wade concept unless it's your desire
to attack that directly. This bill
inadvertently attacks Roe v Wade directly.
It would undue the Roe v Wade
benefit, the opportunity for a woman to make
her choice with her physician and her
clergyman. That is not its intent, but that
is unfortunately its effect. It must be
stopped dead in its tracks and stopped right
now.
ACTING PRESIDENT MEIER: Read the
last section.
THE SECRETARY: Section 3. This
act shall take effect on the first day of
November.
SENATOR SMITH: Slow roll call.
ACTING PRESIDENT MEIER: I see
more than five Senators standing. There will
be a slow roll call. The Secretary will read.
THE SECRETARY: Senator Alesi.
SENATOR ALESI: Yes.
THE SECRETARY: Senator Balboni.
(No response.)
THE SECRETARY: Senator Bonacic.
1482
SENATOR BONACIC: Yes.
THE SECRETARY: Senator Breslin.
SENATOR BRESLIN: No.
THE SECRETARY: Senator Bruno.
SENATOR BRUNO: Yes.
THE SECRETARY: Senator Connor.
SENATOR CONNOR: No.
THE SECRETARY: Senator
DeFrancisco.
SENATOR DeFRANCISCO: Yes
THE SECRETARY: Senator
Dollinger.
SENATOR DOLLINGER: Explain my
vote, Mr. President.
ACTING PRESIDENT MEIER: Senator
Dollinger to explain his voted.
SENATOR DOLLINGER: I appreciate
my friend, Senator Maltese the comments about
my oratory. This is an issue that touches my
heart because I have a seventeen year old
daughter who I pray to God never, ever faces
this problem. But I would just suggest that
we continue to have this analytical debate
about procedures and all the rest of this, and
I would just like to ask everybody as they
1483
vote on this bill to focus on the tragedy
present in a maternity room when the news is
bad. I have been through those moments, those
terrible moments. The greatest anxiety of
your life sitting there while your wife gives
birth to a child and you keep thinking, what
if something is wrong. The most anxious
moment of our lives. And I would just suggest
think about that moment and think about
someone walking in and saying, sorry, we have
already decided something and you have no
choices left.
I would just suggest that the great
tragedy of this circumstance is that
unfortunately we live in a world where this
happens. But I would suggest that the greater
tragedy would be to compound that situation in
that maternity room with an anxious mother,
with an anxious father and their support
network we would compound the tragedy by
passing this is bill.
I vote no, Mr. President.
ACTING PRESIDENT MEIER: Senator
Dollinger will be recorded in the negative.
The Secretary will continue to call
1484
the roll.
THE SECRETARY: Senator Duane.
SENATOR DUANE: No.
THE SECRETARY: Senator Farley.
SENATOR FARLEY: Yes.
THE SECRETARY: Senator
Fuschillo.
SENATOR FUSCHILLO: Yes.
THE SECRETARY: Senator Gentile.
SENATOR GENTILE: Yes.
THE SECRETARY: Senator Gonzalez.
SENATOR GONZALES: Yes.
THE SECRETARY: Senator Goodman.
SENATOR GOODMAN: No.
THE SECRETARY: Senator Hannon.
SENATOR HANNON: Yes.
THE SECRETARY: Senator Hevesi.
SENATOR HEVESI: No.
THE SECRETARY: Senator Hoffmann.
SENATOR HOFFMANN: No.
THE SECRETARY: Senator Holland.
SENATOR HOLLAND: Yes.
THE SECRETARY: Senator Johnson.
SENATOR HOLLAND: Aye.
THE SECRETARY: Senator Kruger.
1485
SENATOR KRUGER: No.
THE SECRETARY: Senator Kuhl.
SENATOR KUHL: Yes.
THE SECRETARY: Senator Lachman.
SENATOR LACHMAN: Yes.
THE SECRETARY: Senator Lack.
SENATOR LACK: Aye.
THE SECRETARY: Senator Larkin.
SENATOR LARKIN: Yes.
THE SECRETARY: Senator LaValle.
SENATOR LAVALLE: Yes.
THE SECRETARY: Senator Leibell.
SENATOR LEIBELL: Yes.
THE SECRETARY: Senator Libous.
SENATOR LIBOUS: Yes.
THE SECRETARY: Senator Maltese.
SENATOR MALTESE: Yes.
ACTING PRESIDENT MEIER: Senator
Maltese to explain his vote.
SENATOR MALTESE: Mr. President,
with reference to the statement made earlier
by my good colleague, Senator Goodman, as to
Roe v Wade, in the intervening years in many
judicial decisions and in many legislative
halls there have been many references to Roe v
1486
Wade. I take issue simply to the statement by
Senator Goodman as to the Supreme Court's
interest in the infant prior to viability.
And I quote from Mr. Justice Blackman's
majority decision in that case. "The third
reason is the state's interest, some phrase it
in terms of duty in protecting prenatal life,
emphasis prenatal life, the state's interest
and general obligation is to protect life then
extends it is argued to prenatal life only
when the life of the pregnant mother herself
is at stake, balanced against the life she
carries within her should the interest of the
embryo or fetus not prevail. In assessing the
state's interest recognition may be given to
the less rigid claim that as long as at least
potential life is involved the state may
assert interest beyond the protection of the
pregnant women alone.
Mr. president I vote aye.
ACTING PRESIDENT MEIER: Senator
Maltese will be recorded in the affirmative.
The Secretary will continue to call
the roll.
THE SECRETARY: Senator
1487
Marcellino.
SENATOR MARCELLINO: Yes.
THE SECRETARY: Senator Marchi.
SENATOR MARCHI: Aye.
THE SECRETARY: Senator
Markowitz.
SENATOR MARKOWITZ: Absolutely
no.
THE SECRETARY: Senator Maziarz.
SENATOR MAZIARZ: Absolutely yes.
THE SECRETARY: Senator McGee.
SENATOR McGEE: Yes.
THE SECRETARY: Senator Meier.
SENATOR MEIER: Yes.
THE SECRETARY: Senator Mendez.
SENATOR MENDEZ: Yes.
THE SECRETARY: Senator
Montgomery.
ACTING PRESIDENT MEIER: Senator
Montgomery to explain her vote.
SENATOR MONTGOMERY: Mr.
President, briefly on this is bill, in honor
of Women's History Month that we celebrate
now, they say that all politics is local and
certainly to some extent it is also personal.
1488
And so this is a personal issue for me as well
a local and political one, and I believe that
it would be very presumptious of me if I were
to suggest that we should be debating and
passing legislation which would restrict when
and under what circumstances and how men would
decide with their doctors to have a vasectomy
or some other procedure that they felt was a
personal decision that they should be making.
And so I, as a woman after all, not
withstanding my color, ain't I a women, and
ain't I fifty percent of the population. I am
told 52. And should I not be allowed if I
should find myself in a doctor's office, in my
doctor's office having to make this decision
with him or her, and if it is a situation as
described so eloquently by Senator Goodman and
I am there to make this crucial decision and
my doctor has to look at me and say to me, Oh,
but Senator Serph Maltese said that you and I
are not able to make this decision, Senator
Serph Maltese has made it for us.
So I resent this as a woman. I
think that this certainly begins to erode the
ability of women to have that choices between
1489
themselves, their families, their doctor and
their god or whom ever is their higher
authority.
So Mr. President, I vote no and I
urge my colleagues also to vote no for all of
the reasons that have been given today,
including the reason that I just described.
It is anti-woman.
Thank you.
ACTING PRESIDENT MEIER: Senator
Montgomery will be recorded in the negative.
The Secretary will continue to call
the roll.
THE SECRETARY: Senator Nanula.
SENATOR NANULA: No.
THE SECRETARY: Senator Nozzolio.
SENATOR NOZZOLIO: Aye.
THE SECRETARY: Senator Onorato.
SENATOR ONORATO: Yes.
THE SECRETARY: Senator
Oppenheimer.
ACTING PRESIDENT MEIER: Senator
Oppenheimer to explain her vote.
SENATOR OPPENHEIMER: Just
briefly I am reminded of something that we
1490
hear very often when women are together, which
is if men could become pregnant then abortion
might become a sacrament.
I vote no.
ACTING PRESIDENT MEIER: Senator
Oppenheimer will be recorded in the
affirmative. I'm sorry, in the negative. I
caught you and you didn't catch me either.
THE SECRETARY: Senator Padavan.
SENATOR PADAVAN: Aye.
THE SECRETARY: Senator Paterson.
SENATOR PATERSON: No.
THE SECRETARY: Senator Rath.
SENATOR RATH: Aye.
THE SECRETARY: Senator Rosado.
SENATOR ROSADO: Aye.
THE SECRETARY: Senator Saland.
SENATOR SALAND: Aye.
THE SECRETARY: Senator Sampson.
SENATOR SAMPSON: No.
THE SECRETARY: Senator Santiago,
excused.
Senator Schneiderman.
SENATOR SCHNEIDERMAN: No.
THE SECRETARY: Senator Seabrook.
1491
SENATOR SEABROOK: No.
THE SECRETARY: Senator Seward.
SENATOR SEWARD: Aye.
THE SECRETARY: Senator Skelos.
SENATOR SKELOS: Yes.
THE SECRETARY: Senator Smith.
ACTING PRESIDENT MEIER: Senator
Smith to explain her vote.
SENATOR SMITH: Thank you, Mr.
President.
We must vehemently oppose any
legislation which erodes or diminishes a
woman's right to choose.
Therefore I and every woman in this
world that has the opportunity to should be
voting no and I vote no.
ACTING PRESIDENT MEIER: Senator
Smith will be recorded in the negative.
The Secretary will continue to call
the roll.
THE SECRETARY: Senator Spano.
(No response.)
THE SECRETARY: Senator
Stachowski
(No response.)
1492
THE SECRETARY: Senator Stafford.
SENATOR STAFFORD: Aye.
THE SECRETARY: Senator Stavisky.
SENATOR STAVISKY: To explain in
my vote.
ACTING PRESIDENT MEIER: Senator
Stavisky to explain his vote.
SENATOR STAVISKY: I am troubled
by the legislation. I understand the
motivation but I do not understand why the
exemption is limited only to the life of the
mother. Why not try to bring us together and
include some reference to the health of the
mother, which I believe would be a worth while
amendment to the wording of this bill.
I would be inclined to vote with
great enthusiasm if an attempt was made to
reconcile these two positions by including
reference to the health or mental health of
the mother.
Nevertheless I am troubled by the
procedure, the lateness of the procedure, and
the violence of the procedure. Not
withstanding those factors I am reluctantly
inclined to vote for the bill with the
1493
understanding that it could have been improved
by making some reference to the health of the
mother.
Thank you.
ACTING PRESIDENT MEIER: Senator
Stavisky will be recorded in the affirmative.
SENATOR STAFFORD: That's
correct.
ACTING PRESIDENT MEIER: The
Secretary will continue to the call the roll.
THE SECRETARY: Senator Trunzo.
SENATOR TRUNZO: Yes.
THE SECRETARY: Senator Velella.
SENATOR VELELLA: Yes.
THE SECRETARY: Senator Volker.
SENATOR VOLKER: Yes.
THE SECRETARY: Senator Waldon.
ACTING PRESIDENT MEIER: Senator
Waldon to explain his vote.
SENATOR WALDON: Very briefly,
Mr. President and my colleagues, all across
the Capitol today I have seen women with
buttons saying, "Trust Women". "Trust Women".
"Trust Women".
Despite what we try to say with the
1494
rhetoric of this bill, this proposal with the
rhetoric that you have seen displayed so
eloquently here today, the bottom line is that
we are intruding upon the rights of women.
The crafting of the bill should be
the conscience of the woman who is carrying
the child. The committee should be herself
and her husband and her family. And if they
report it out to rules, the Rules Committee
should be her faith. Her god should tell her,
yes, what you are doing is right. And when it
gets to the floor the doctor should be there
in a leadership position counseling her, yes
what your doing is right.
But the bottom line is, all of
these forces are forces unique and needed by
the woman, by the woman.
There are a bunch of men in this
place. Very few women in comparison to the
number of men. And I feel we violate a
woman's rights when we impose our decisions on
her right to determine whether there should be
life or not life. I think it is arrogant for
us to do so.
So I encourage my colleagues to
1495
trust women and vote no.
ACTING PRESIDENT MEIER: Senator
Waldon will be recorded in the negative.
The Secretary will continue to call
the roll.
THE SECRETARY: Senator Wright.
SENATOR WRIGHT: Aye.
ACTING PRESIDENT MEIER: The
Secretary will call the absentees.
THE SECRETARY: Senator Balboni.
SENATOR BALBONI: Explain my
vote.
ACTING PRESIDENT MEIER: Senator
Balboni to explain his vote.
SENATOR BALBONI: I rise not as a
man, I rise as a representative. I have great
counsel on this one. I have my wife, my
sisters and my mother who vehemently want this
procedure ended. They are great counsel.
But you know what is also terrific
is at least in this House we can address this
issue. In the Assembly they don't do that.
They go through every single procedural hoop
they can to try to avoid this type of
discussions. Though we may disagree on the
1496
issue itself, it does credit to this House to
have taken this issue up and explored its many
facets.
Mr. President, I vote yes.
ACTING PRESIDENT MEIER: Senator
Balboni will be recorded in the affirmative.
The Secretary will continue to call
the absentees.
THE SECRETARY: Senator Spano.
SENATOR SPANO: No.
THE SECRETARY: Senator
Stachowski.
SENATOR STACHOWSKI: Yes.
ACTING PRESIDENT MEIER: The
Secretary will read the results.
THE SECRETARY: Ayes 41, nays 19.
THE PRESIDENT: The bill is
passed.
Senator Skelos.
SENATOR SKELOS: Mr. President,
if we could return to motions an resolutions,
I believe there is a privileged resolution at
the desk by Senator Nozzolio. I ask that the
title be read and move for its immediate
adoption.
1497
ACTING PRESIDENT MEIER: We will
return to the order of motions and
resolutions. The Secretary will read the
title.
THE SECRETARY: By Senator
Nozzolio, Legislative Resolution Number 782,
commemorating the 80th Anniversary of the
American Legion George Aidan Brown Post,
Clyde, New York.
SENATOR SKELOS: Move the
resolution.
ACTING PRESIDENT MEIER: The
question is on the resolution. All those in
favor signify by saying aye.
(Response of "Aye.")
THE PRESIDENT: Opposed, nay.
(No response.)
ACTING PRESIDENT MEIER: The
resolution is adopted.
Senator Skelos.
SENATOR SKELOS: Mr. President,
is there any housekeeping at the desk.
ACTING PRESIDENT MEIER: Senator
Velella.
SENATOR VELELLA: Thank you. The
1498
bills were starred already. I wanted to star
two bills, they were done.
Thank you.
ACTING PRESIDENT MEIER: Thank
you, Senator Velella.
Senator Skelos.
SENATOR SKELOS: If we could now
go to -- I believe the Minority has some
motions to make.
SENATOR CONNOR: Thank you, Mr.
President.
I call up my motion to discharge
which has been on the calendar.
ACTING PRESIDENT MEIER: The
Secretary will read.
THE SECRETARY: By Senator
Connor, Senate Bill Number 3804, an act to
amend the election law in relation to
campaign.
SENATOR CONNOR: Thank you, Mr.
President.
Mr. President, my colleagues,
nothing seems to turn off the American voters
more than the day after day accounts and
stories about campaign financing. And a
1499
variety of measures have been put forward to
address this issue, both from the standpoint
of seemliness, from the standpoint of
reassuring the public that undue influence by
campaign contributors isn't exercised over
public officials at every level of government
from legislative to executive and local
officials.
There were stories in Washington
for a number of years about fund raising.
There have been stories in Albany and else
where. And I have just a little bit of
experience with Election Law, and I can assure
you that New York State's Election Law, first
adopted after the Watergate scandals in 1975,
'74 has now been reduced partly due to our
neglect at constantly updating the statute
that when first put on the books some
twenty-five years ago was viewed as in the
forefront of the nation in regulating and
campaign finance, limiting campaign finance
contributions, and requiring public disclosure
is now so antiquated and so riddled with
holes, my colleagues at the bar in both
parties have been more than adept in finding
1500
tiny little holes an driving trucks through
them when they turn out to be large loopholes.
We now have a system in New York
State, when combined with loopholes in the
federal system that fundamentally are large
enough to drive truck loads of money through.
We permit now under the law there
is transfers between federal committees and
state committees. And indeed our Governor's
political advisors seem to find the venue of
Virginia to be a nice place to establish a
campaign account because they have even looser
laws than New York. And I'm not suggesting
anyone has done anything wrong or illegal. In
fact, I stand by my legal opinion as to some
of these loopholes properly existing under
present law.
But it is not right. It is not the
way it ought to be. The public doesn't like
to hear about it. Our limits have become far
too large. And I think the only way to
wrestle with this is to grab this issue by the
throat and do some rather drastic things that
are straight forward, unambiguous, and tightly
regulated. And does it effect all of us
1501
politically? Yes. But we should do it. It
is the right thing to do.
So the bill I wish to put on the
floor for a vote by this motion which I have
introduced would limit campaign contributions
to a thousand dollars by individuals, and
$5,000 by political action committees per
election cycle. It would lower the
contributions to $25,000 for individuals and
$25,000 to PACS, to party and constituted
committees per election cycle.
You say, How does that change?
What is the limit now?
For example in the last instance,
party and constituted committees, what are
they? Well, constituted committees are things
like the Democratic State Committee, the
Republican State Committee indeed the state
committee of all the other political parties
recognized in New York. Constituted
committees are also the county committees of
the parties.
The party committees are the state
committees and things like the Republic Senate
Campaign Committee and the Democratic Senate
1502
Campaign Committee and the Democratic Assembly
Campaign Committee and the RACC -- the
Republican Committee in the Assembly.
What are the limits now? Well now
they are, I think $74,000 per individual or
PAC per -- not per cycle, per year. What does
this mean? This means for example that a
married couple could give a hundred and forty
some thousand dollars a year to one of the
these committees. $280,000 out of one checking
account, one joint checking account in a two
year election cycle. No wonder the public and
press thinks that's unseemly.
I think we ought to take a
realistic view of this. I think there is
nothing shabby about a $20,000 individual
contribution. There is nothing shabby from a
political perspective about a $25,000
contribution from a PAC. But there sure is a
lot shabby in appearances to go much beyond
that as our present law does.
The other thing we would do is
reduce the total political contributions that
an individual can give per year to New York
State races to $50,000. Now, I know some
1503
people may say, well, a very, very wealthy
individual may want to give more than $50,000
to all his or her favorite candidates. Well,
I don't think we can allow any one contributor
to amass that much political influence. And
to those very, very wealthy individuals who
have a need to give away more than $50,000 a
year in New York State, I say look at our
many, many needy charities. There are many
many worthy causes besides Republicans,
Democrats, Liberals, Conservatives, etc. to
which that person can give the balance of
their largess. And indeed I think all of us
would recognize, welcome and be happy to give
a caring ear to a person who said, Yup, I gave
$50,000 to all of New York's politicians and
$300,000 to feed the homeless or take care of
the elderly. They certainly don't have to
give it to politicians to get the kind of
recognition and attention from us that they
may want.
Big, big loophole. You know it was
in the law. This election law I said was
around for 25 years. A lot of us read it and
thought, yeah, its there, yeah, you can do it.
1504
Maybe you can pay a phone bill. The
housekeeping account. But you know what,
unlike the federal system we don't really
define housekeeping in New York State law. A
lot of the things that people have been doing
in the fund raising area are not because, oh,
the statute sets its out here's how, oh, you
can have a housekeeping account and you can do
this and this and this and this. A lot of
what people do are because of some peculiar
words that creep in the Election Law. Things
like notwithstanding or with the exception of
or a contribution shall not be deemed to mean.
And how we come full circle is a party
committee or a constituted committee is
allowed to have, separate and apart from
campaign funds, an account to pay the routine
party maintenance; phone bill, rent, you know,
some staff and so on.
That has grown and grown and grown
to where I think it includes computers, voter
files, all sorts of party building activities.
But because the law says that any contribution
to that kind of account is not a political
contribution the answer then is if it is not a
1505
political contribution it is not limited. And
therefore contributions to party housekeeping
accounts, and we all have one, all the party
committees have it now. All of the
legislative party committees have it. Are
unlimited. An individual or PAC or union or
whom ever can give unlimited amounts to these
committees. And we all know in the past years
that fund raising, you see the invitations, we
all do it where you on the invitation say, by
the way if you are somebody who is not allowed
to give to our committee, you know, you can
still come to our big March fund raiser and
bring a big, big check to our housekeeping
account because, gee, there is no limit there.
And you know, when we adopted this
law 25 years ago we put a corporate limit in
and that was that corporations could not give
to New York races more than $5,000 in the
aggregate in a calendar year. But because of
all the not withstandings and exclusions from
definitions in the Election Law, a
corporation, which is, first reading of our
statute severely, severely limited in what it
can contribute is able to give unlimited
1506
amounts to housekeeping accounts.
Madam President, it is almost as if
these housekeeping accounts were like
inaugural funds, you know, just the wild, wild
west, you could give all you wanted if you
were a corporation.
I appreciate the public
spiritedness of corporations, but lets face
it, corporations that have lobbyists here and
have business here with the executive, with
legislative, with local governmental bodies
are now able to write substantial hundred
thousand dollar, hundred and fifty thousand
dollar checks. And believe me somebody, while
you can't use it in your campaigns, I am sure
when somebody shows up at the door of a
fundraiser with a hundred thousand dollar
corporate check and says, I'm sorry, all you
can give to is housekeeping, I'll bet they get
on the "A" list and get their picture taken
and the guest of honor and get treated well. I
am sure they do. I certainly hope they do.
So we would eliminate the
housekeeping exception in this bill. No more
housekeeping funds. Take your regular
1507
campaign accounts, raise the money the way you
can, pay the phone bill out of that.
The other thing we would do in this
is, for of closing an important loophole, we
would mandate that all corporations controlled
by a single entity be deemed to be one for
purposes of corporate limitations.
Right now, you know, if you owned,
I don't know, 50 dry cleaning stores and each
one was a separate corporation you could -
the same individual controlling all 50
corporations could give 50 times the corporate
limit. It just doesn't make any sense if you
are going to have a corporate limit.
We would also prohibit the use of
campaign funds for anything unrelated to a
political campaign. We permit in this law
only one authorized campaign committee per
candidate, per election. That makes
disclosure meaningful. You go to the board of
election, look up the candidates committee,
see what they have raised, see what the
candidate spent and be reasonably assured that
that tells you the story in a public
disclosure way the story of what happened in
1508
that campaign, where did that candidate get
his or her contributions, where did that
candidate spend his or her money.
Now, we all know there are
candidates who have multiple committees and
people who have tried it assure me that you
can never really, when you are chasing
different committees around some of which get
filed at county boards of elections instead of
state boards of elections, it is very, very
hard to figure out what a campaign, who really
funded a campaign and where the money was
really spent.
We would also increases the civil
penalty for failure to file financial
disclosure forms to a thousand dollars. A
modest fine.
The other thing this bill requires
is that campaigns in their final disclosure
form itemize all vendors who received more
than a thousand dollars because some campaigns
will contract with a consultant or other
vendor, and that vendor will then have
subcontractors and sub vendors who often get
the bulk of the money and from the standpoint
1509
of disclosure it is very, very difficult to
find out, you know, gee that is an awful big
printing bill, but I thought these nine people
were working in the campaign and I don't see
their name any where. Oh, the printer took
care of them. We ought to disclose to the
public exactly who received more than a
thousand dollars in campaign expenditures from
a campaign.
So this is a very important -- I
believe this bill should be brought to the
floor. Campaign finance reform is a national
issue. It is a state issue. It is one that
politicians, because we are part of the
system, are all too prone to close their eyes
to, run from confronting. It is not an easy
thing to confront, and I'm not suggesting that
people who play by today's rules are doing
anything wrong because as long as the rules
are the rules that is a what you play by. I
just think it is time to change the rules,
make the rules makes sense. It is as if we
have a set of rules, Madam President, that
only covers the first and second inning and
the last inning and there are no rules in the
1510
third through the eighty inning and you can do
whatever you want.
It is time to have rules that begin
at the beginning and end when the campaign is
over and comprehensively look forward to all
of the eventualities, have meaningful limits,
close all these loopholes because the loop
holes are shocking. The loopholes are a
credit to my fellow colleagues at the Election
Law Bar. They seem to come up with -- the
more creative ones come up with a different
loophole every year and while their creativity
is certainly to be credited, they are playing
with an antiquated 25 year old statute that is
easy to riddle with holes.
So I urge my motion to discharge.
Lets get this on the floor. Lets debate it.
I am open to amendment and suggestions, but we
really ought to do this.
Thank you, Madam President.
THE PRESIDENT: On the motion.
All those in favor of -
SENATOR CONNOR: Party vote in
the affirmative.
SENATOR SKELOS: Party vote in
1511
the negative.
THE PRESIDENT: The Secretary
will call the roll.
(The Secretary called the roll.)
THE SECRETARY: Ayes 24, nays 36.
Party vote.
THE PRESIDENT: The motion is
defeated.
Senator Dollinger, why do you rise?
SENATOR DOLLINGER: Madam
President, I believe there is a motion to
discharge my bill with respect to the
inaugural committees at the desk.
THE PRESIDENT: Yes, there is
Senator, the Secretary will read.
THE SECRETARY: By Senator
Dollinger, Senate Bill Number 1098, an act to
amend the Election Law.
SENATOR DOLLINGER: Thank you,
Madam President, it is before the House, the
motion?
THE PRESIDENT: Senator
Dollinger.
SENATOR DOLLINGER: Thank you,
very much, Madam President.
1512
This is a very simple motion to
discharge what is a very simple good
government, all American, all New York bill.
Simple. Where this bill if it is debated in
this House, would simply require that an
inaugural committee, a transition committee be
subject to the same rules with respect to
raising money that everybody in this chamber
is subject to. And what it would clearly not
permit is what I think is the most outrageous
conduct in the history of the New York State
Election Laws that occurred in 1994 after
November 4th of that year and before January
15th, but apparently continues to go on, and
that is when the newly elected governor of
this state set up two private corporations,
for profit corporations, corporations that we
still don't know who owns them. We haven't
been able to find out why they were created.
We haven't found out who the officers and
directors were. We haven't found out who the
shareholders were. Set up two private
corporations and when out and solicited $2.6
million in something. I do not know what it
was because it clearly wasn't campaign
1513
contributions, these were not campaign
committees. They clearly were not gifts
because the corporations that gave them, in
some cases 50 to a hundred thousand dollars
are not capable of giving gifts to anything
other than not for profit corporations. So
all of industry in New York State gave large
amounts of money from one privately held in
some cases public corporation, in some cases
private individuals, gave $2.6 million to two
corporations which were apparently under some
circumstances controlled by the governor elect
of this state.
By the way, all of those
corporations, many of those corporations gave
far in excess of the $5,000 limitation that a
corporation has in its aggregate gifts under
the Election Law of this State. All of that
happened without any oversite. All of it
happened without any review by the Election
Law. All of it happened without a filing with
the State Board of Elections. In fact, the
Assembly has had to subpoena the very
documents that I am talking about.
It seems to me that we can leave
1514
this enormous loophole sitting in the law. We
can leave this full bath of campaign related
money that is given in the absolute certainty
of a campaigns election, what better campaign
contribution to give than one that has no
limits, doesn't have to be disclosed, and is
given to somebody who has already won
election. Absolutely outrageous conduct. It
ought to offended all of us that we would
allow anyone to so easily evade the laws that
are passed by this body.
I would simply ask all of those who
support the current law, who support the
current law, those of you have who voted to
create the current law, you have to bring this
to the floor because without it we have got a
loophole, I would just advise everyone, stop
raising your campaign funds through a campaign
committee, just create a transition and
inaugural committee and you can raise as much
money as you want. You don't have to disclose
it. You don't have to be bound by any
limitations. We need to plug this loophole.
We ought to have a debate about plugging this
loophole for fear that what has happened this
1515
year, what happened in 1994 and in 1995 when a
Republican was elected, I guarantee that the
day that a Democrat is elected governor in
this state and he does the exact same thing I
will attest to at least 35 outraged members of
this House who will stand up here and say we
can't lets that Democrat do what that Republic
did because it would be wrong. 36, excuse me,
Senator.
SENATOR SKELOS: We're delighted
that you are acknowledging that far in the
future also, that there will be 36
Republicans, if not more, in this chamber.
SENATOR DOLLINGER: Thank you,
Mr. President. I understand that Senator
Skelos is out of order in his line up, but I
appreciate his comment.
I would simply suggest Madam
Chairman, that there will be an outrage. You
will all be standing up here, and I dare say
you will ask to sign on as cosponsors to the
Dollinger bill. And you know what? I'll
stand up and I'll still lead the fight then
because we've got to plug this loophole.
Otherwise we have a way to avoid the campaigns
1516
laws of this State that is just a huge gaping
hole. It really makes a mockery of everything
we have done.
I would simply as that this bill be
brought to the floor. And who knows, maybe
when we do elect that Democratic governor the
members of the minority will be up howling
again. There may be a different majority.
But Madam President, on a serious
note, lets fill this gap. Every recognizing
it is the right thing to do.
THE PRESIDENT: To discharge.
All those in favor.
SENATOR PATERSON: Party vote in
the affirmative.
SENATOR SKELOS: Party vote in
the negative.
THE PRESIDENT: The Secretary
will call the roll.
(The Secretary called the roll.)
THE SECRETARY: Aye 24, nays 36.
Party vote.
THE PRESIDENT: The motion is
defeated.
THE PRESIDENT: Senator Hevesi.
1517
SENATOR HEVESI: I believe there
is a motion at the desk. I ask that the
motion be read and I wish to be heard on the
motion.
THE PRESIDENT: The Secretary
will read.
THE SECRETARY: By Senator
Hevesi, Senate Print 3188, an act to amend the
Public Officers Law.
THE PRESIDENT: Senator Hevesi,
do you wish to be heard?
SENATOR HEVESI: I do. Madam
President, first I wish to, for context
express my support for the underlying
motivation behind what Senator Connor and
Senator Dollinger and I and this conference
and hopefully everyone on both sides of the
aisle are trying to do here today.
There is a cynicism among the
population, amongst the electorate that is
palpable and it is having an extremely
corrosive effect. People do not participate
in the electoral process. Some of the things
that we have failed to address here in this
Legislative Body, particularly in the Election
1518
Law breed an apathy that is extremely harmful
to this process. And specifically we have a
chance today to remedy in a very simply way
some of the reasons why we have individuals
who view what we do in this institution, who
view elected officials and who view the
process that we have dedicated our lives to
with the utmost of contempt.
And when we stand before them, and
I have done this, Madam President, and suggest
that we want to change the process, they look
at us incredulously. They don't believe it.
But we have a chance to prove to them, as we
say to them back in our districts, we do want
to prove it, even though in some ways you can
make a reasoned argument that not changing it
is in our own political interest.
Now is the time when we can prove
back to our constituents who don't believe us
when we say it for the most part that we are
acting in the interest of the better good in
society of this institution. And in keeping
with that I am introducing today a package of
three legislative proposals that I must add
have been introduced year after year by my
1519
esteemed colleague, Senator Nancy Lorraine
Hoffmann, who I am troubled both for personal
and policy reasons is sitting so far away from
me today. But I will express on the floor of
this body that I commend her on her foresight
in advancing these legislative proposals and I
intend to carry them as far as we can in this
process.
Having said that, on the
legislative piece that is before us, Senate
3188, this is a piece of legislation that
simply requires that all party conferences be
open to the press and to the public and this
would essentially remedy a travesty which
occurred back in 1985 where this Legislative
Body and the Assembly and subsequently enacted
into law amended the Public Officers Law to
provide an exclusion that meant that party
conferences would then be closed to the
public. And this is very simple. The problem
is simple. The remedy is simple. And the
result is also simple but exceedingly
important. This is taxpayer business we are
doing here. We are on taxpayer time. This is
a taxpayer institution. There is policy
1520
ramifications to what goes on in those party
committees and this legislation recognizes the
fact that there may be times when there are
political discussions that need to take place
and provides an adequate exemption pursuant to
proper that party conferences could then be
closed.
Aside from that, it is important
that we sent the message to the public, to
everyone who is watching us, that the business
that we conduct in all facets, not just on the
floor of this Legislative Body, not just in
the committees that do the important work of
the people of the State of New York, but in
our own party conferences that this should be
an open process as we deliberate, as we craft
the approach that translates here, directly on
the floor of this body, into policy positions
and ultimately and hopefully into law that
effects the people of the State.
So I strongly urge my colleagues to
support this legislation, which would require
the public and the press to be admitted to
party caucuses.
THE PRESIDENT: All those in
1521
favor of accepting -
SENATOR PATERSON: Party vote in
the affirmative.
SENATOR SKELOS: Party vote in
the negative.
THE PRESIDENT: The Secretary
will call the roll.
(The Secretary called the roll.)
THE SECRETARY: Ayes, 25, nays
35. Party vote with exception.
THE PRESIDENT: The motion is
defeated.
Senator Hevesi.
SENATOR HEVESI: Thank you, Madam
President.
I believe there is a motion at the
desk. I ask that the motion be read.
THE PRESIDENT: The Secretary
will read.
THE SECRETARY: By Senator
Hevesi, Senate Bill Number 3189, an act to
amend the Election Law.
THE PRESIDENT: Senator Hevesi.
SENATOR HEVESI: Madam President.
THE PRESIDENT: Senator Hevesi on
1522
the motion.
SENATOR HEVESI: On the motion.
Madam President, this second piece of
legislation has a similar flavor and tone and
follows nicely after what Senator Connor has
introduced, which was unfortunately defeated.
This is a reform that would
essentially require that political committees
itemize all expenditures made on behalf of
candidates when those expenditures are in
excess of $2,000, and also to require that the
Board of Elections, attach a schedule of
expenditures on an individual candidate's
filings.
And let me articulate the
importance of that. Under current law and as
is the current practice political committees
are not required to itemize, they are not
required to specifically break out and break
down what the -- first the amount of the
expenditure and then the purpose of the
expenditure that has gone in support of a
particular candidate. As a result, what you
may see is a political committee simply
reporting that they had made a contribution or
1523
expended monies in the aggregate, a certain
amount, lets say its 20 or $30 thousand in
support of a particular candidates. And the
problem with this is, this obscures what the
political committees are actually doing. This
is an enormous loophole in the law that is
really anathema to the system that we are
trying to create here, which is one of
accountability, one of openness where we don't
stand up and say that in the political process
we are going to obscure where the money comes
from at the same time when we are constantly
under attack that we are beholding to special
interests. Having the provisions as they
currently exist or the lack thereof reaffirms
for the electorate that special interest money
may have some corrosive effect on the process
and we're not going to tell you about it.
We're going to hide it to the best of our
ability because we don't want you to know.
This legislation would provide a terrific
remedy for that, requiring that the number of
contributions, the amount of the contributions
and the purpose of the contributions made from
a political committee on behalf of a candidate
1524
specifically be laid out. And secondly, be
attached to the individual candidates filings.
The public has a right, Madam
President, to go in and say, Dan Hevesi, I
want to know where you got your money from and
what the money was used for. This piece of
legislation would correct the current
injustice. I urge all of my colleagues to
support it.
THE PRESIDENT: All in favor of
accepting the motion to discharge signify by
saying aye.
SENATOR DOLLINGER: Party vote in
the affirmative.
SENATOR STAFFORD: Party vote in
the negative.
THE PRESIDENT: The Secretary
will call the roll.
(The Secretary called the roll.)
THE SECRETARY: Ayes 25, nays 35.
Party vote with exception.
THE PRESIDENT: The motion is
defeated.
SENATOR HEVESI: Madam President.
THE PRESIDENT: Go ahead, Senator
1525
Hevesi.
SENATOR HEVESI: Thank you. I
believe there is another motion at the desk.
I request that it be read.
THE PRESIDENT: The Secretary
will read.
THE SECRETARY: By Senator
Hevesi, Senate Bill Number 3190, an act to
amend the Election Law.
THE PRESIDENT: Senator Hevesi,
on the motion.
SENATOR HEVESI: Thank you Madam
President.
THE PRESIDENT: You're welcome.
SENATOR HEVESI: This third piece
of legislation, Senate 3190, would require
that any piece of literature or political
advertisement that is paid for by any
political committee be submitted to the Board
of Elections by the candidate that the
literature supported.
Let me tell you the importance of
this, and I will just use an example that I
have seen in my experience in electoral
politics.
1526
There are many occasions where
there are candidates, and I don't want to make
value judgments or moral judgments on their
motivation, but there is a system right now
that permits something that we should not be
permitting. And what is that? It is the fact
that I may want to send a message out to the
electorate in the context of a political
campaign either in support of myself or in
opposition to a particular candidate or a
particular issue that I may not want myself
associated with for whatever reason. And that
reason may be that I want to mount a full
frontal assault on my opponent and do it in a
vile and scouralous way that most of us in
this body have been subject do that at some
point or another, and sometimes they come from
some nebulous committee or you don't even know
what committee it came from or who put the
money up for it and there is zero
accountability, none.
It is exceedingly frustrating for
those of us who are participating in a
legitimate discourse and a legitimate
political debate not to have the
1527
accountability imposed on anyone else who
wishes to participate in that political
discourse and that political debate. And all
too often there are fliers and palm cards and
literature circulated on behalf of candidates
that list from one entity that support one
candidate for this district and oppose the
same candidate in a different district. And
generally speaking the knowledge that the
public has about this threatens the entire
process. The public gets disgusted with this.
They don't understand. It clouds the issues.
It is another problem that we have
encountered. It is another problem that, as
Senator Hoffmann has repeatedly pointed out,
has a very simple and specific remedy. The
remedy, my colleagues, is before us today.
Please enact this legislation, Senate 3190,
which would require anybody who puts out any
piece of literature in support of a candidate
to have to file that piece of literature with
the Board of Elections and therefore it is on
record, on file, there available for anyone
who wishes to scrutinize this process, to
clean up this process, to go into the Board of
1528
Elections, take a look, and see what we were
saying to the public and who was saying what
we were saying and who was paying for what was
being said. And in the end, my sense is, and
I -- my sense is also that it would be
difficult to disagree with this. That
accountability will lead to a much more clean,
much more open, much more honest electoral
process that in the end will have a cumulative
effect with these three bills, with Senator
Dollinger's bill, with Senator Connor's bill,
of cleaning up the process and of having the
electorate turn around and say, You know what,
we have a renewed faith, we have a restored
confidence in what goes on in the political
process and we're going to participate. And
because this is not a shot at us Legislators,
but when the electorate doesn't participate
some may say, well, what's wrong with that,
Legislators like when people don't
participate. It is easier for us to control
the process. The problem is that by
definition in this system that we are a part
of we then don't become accountable to the
different interests that have to be
1529
represented in our society. We can't only
represent the interest of the people who come
to the ballot box. We have to represent
everybody's interest, irrespective of whether
they vote or not. And the reality is that when
they don't vote all too often we don't
represent their interests so it is in all of
our interest to make sure that we are doing
the things, and we can do them right here
today, absolute tangible legitimate action
today. Do these things to increase that
electoral participation, increase the
participation in this process, and as a result
we will have restored the confidence in the
public and reaffirmed what we are doing and
give legitimacy to the actions that we take on
the floor of this body.
I move that my colleagues support
this legislation and the entire package.
Thank you, Madam President.
THE PRESIDENT: All in favor of
accepting the motion to discharge signify by
saying aye.
SENATOR DOLLINGER: Party vote in
the affirmative.
1530
SENATOR STAFFORD: Party vote in
the negative.
THE PRESIDENT: The Secretary
will call the roll.
(The Secretary called the roll.)
THE SECRETARY: Ayes 25, nays 35.
Party vote with exception.
THE PRESIDENT: The motion is
defeated.
Senator Dollinger.
SENATOR DOLLINGER: Madam
President, I believe there is a motion to
discharge on my bill, and I would like an
opportunity to be heard on the motion.
THE PRESIDENT: The Secretary
will read.
THE SECRETARY: By Senator
Dollinger, Senate Bill Number 3825, an act to
amend the Election Law.
THE PRESIDENT: Senator
Dollinger.
SENATOR DOLLINGER: Thank you,
Madam President.
As everyone knows, one of the our
chronic problems in the State of New York is
1531
that we are losing our businesses to the
south. We have had many of our business go
south. North Carolina we have had to compete
with. We have had to compete with Georgia.
We have had to compete with South Carolina.
We have had to compete with Alabama. We have
had to compete with Mississippi. And yet what
we have also found, Madam President, is that
there are some people who have decided that
they would rather go to Virginia, a state in
the south, to raise their political campaign
contributions for some purpose, maybe to run
for national office, maybe to fortify their
recovery here in New York, their campaign
dealings here in New York.
But sure enough the Governor of
this State has opened up a -- followed all
those business that he has been trying to lure
back to New York, the guy who claims he has
been trying to stem the tide of people fleeing
the State of New York, low and behold, the
Governor of the State of New York has gone to
Virginia to find a political action committee.
He has gone to Virginia.
Remember that old bumper sticker
1532
you used to see, "Virginia is for lovers." It
now says "Virginia is for politicians".
Virginia loves politicians.
Whatever happened to, "I Love New
York." The campaign ought to be changed. "I
love Virginia." Why? Because you can go to
Virginia and raise political campaign
contributions from political action committees
that have no limits, no limitations.
What a wonderful thing to do. What
a highly competitive thing to do. You want to
compete on the world market place? You want
to compete on the national market place, just
like our businesses? Why not go to a state
were there are no limits on political action
contributions.
What a novel idea. What a
wonderful idea. Just go to Virginia and raise
your money.
I would simply suggest, Madam
President, that what this bill does is this
bill would require out of state political
committees set up by people like the Governor
of this state to file with this state the same
campaign disclosure statements that we, those
1533
who are elected here, who represent this State
and abide by its laws that we do.
I would just suggest with all due
respect to the Governor of this State, if he
is so much infatuated with Virginia, why
doesn't he just buy a house down there and run
for president from Virginia. We have a very
able Lieutenant Governor who is at the podium.
You could move down to the second floor and
take his spot. Why not do that if he is so
enamored with the laws of Virginia, why not go
down and let him make his laws there? What's
wrong with New York? What is wrong with the
state in which the people actually voted for
him? No, he wants to go to a state, form a
political action committee where nobody can
vote for him.
I don't understand it, Madam
President. It seems to me this is another one
of those loopholes. This is another one of
those things in the campaign financing system
that we ought to clog up right now. Because I
can look at all my colleagues from Westchester
County or someplace, I live too far away from
Pennsylvania, but next thing you know, we'll
1534
start opening political campaign committees in
Pennsylvania. Why don't we all open one in
Virginia? Why not use that as an idea? Why
don't we run the Republican Campaign Committee
out of the State of Virginia? Why don't we
just flee there and run it out of there where
there are no limits on campaign contributions?
We could do all those things. Why
don't we do that? It seems to me like its a
great idea. I would just suggest, Madam
President, on a serious note, that we require
the Governor of this State to abide by the
laws of the state in which he is the Governor.
This is the state he ought to form his
political campaign contributions in. He ought
to collect them here. Why is so proud of New
York around the rest of the nation and
apparently so disappointed that he has to
abide by our laws. I don't quite understand
it, Madam President. I didn't understand the
inauguration and transition committee either,
or corporations, excuse me, I misdescribed
them. But it seems to me that unless we take
the approach of the second floor, which is to
do everything possible to avoid the laws of
1535
this State with respect to elections, if that
is our approach, if that is what we are going
to tolerate by the guy who is the leading law
maker in this State, then we are doing a
tremendous disservice to ourselves and the
laws that we create that we require everyone
to abide by.
I would ask that this be discharged
from committee, Madam President. I would ask
that it be brought to the floor so that we can
have a debate as to whether or not we are
simply part of the Commonwealth of Virginia
or, as I at least recall, that is still the
symbol of the great State of New York.
THE PRESIDENT: All in favor of
accepting the motion to discharge signify by
saying aye.
SENATOR DOLLINGER: Party vote in
the affirmative.
SENATOR SKELOS: Party vote in
the negative.
THE PRESIDENT: The Secretary
will call the roll.
(The Secretary called the roll.)
THE SECRETARY: Ayes 24, nays 36.
1536
Party vote.
THE PRESIDENT: The motion is
defeated.
Senator Skelos.
SENATOR SKELOS: Madam President,
Senator Bruno has asked me to inform the
members of the Majority that following session
tomorrow there will be a short conference, and
there being no further business I move we
adjourn until Thursday, March 25th at 11:00
a.m. sharp.
THE PRESIDENT: Thank you,
Senator.
Following session tomorrow there
will be a meeting of the Majority Conference.
There being no further business, on
motion, the Senate stands adjourned until
Thursday, March 25th, 11:00 a.m.
(Whereupon, at 2:10 p.m., the
Senate was adjourned.)