Letter to The Editor
Governor Cuomo: Call a special session of the legislature NOW!
With Washington, DC in turmoil on almost every issue facing our nation, a great deal of work needs to happen at the state level. The NYS Assembly passed important legislation in the last session, some of which has been passed multiple times. This includes Single Payer Healthcare, Contraception, Women’s Health & Reproductive Rights, Election reforms, releasing funds to school districts and more. This legislation has been stopped by a reactionary, backwards looking State Senate, with the support of the IDC (Independent Democratic Conference). Many in the IDC are sponsors of this legislation, a number of self-professed moderate Republicans suggest that they support some of these bills, yet they sit in committee year in and year out.
It is time for Governor Cuomo, the Democratic and IDC leaders to call for a special session and move these pieces of legislation out of committee and onto the floor of the senate. There are ways and means to discharge penned in legislation and if all those who are sponsors and cosponsors work together, at the very least a valuable conversation can take place in Albany, something that has been missing for all too long.
I am running for the New York Senate because of this kind of political game playing, where our elected officials hide behind the protections offered them by “leadership” at the expense of the people. The IDC claims it protects progressive legislation by sitting with the Senate leadership, yet these vital pieces of legislation remain landlocked. Any number of Senate Republicans pride themselves in the moderate cloak they wear, yet vanish when their committees refuse to put legislation up for a vote.
If Mr. Klein and others are serious about the agenda they claim to support, they should remember that actions speak louder than words and their actions as of today are nothing short of “screw you New Yorkers”. It is time that all this pent-up legislation, healthcare, education, voting rights and election reform, environmental issues, housing and the rest be addressed by the legislative body that has adopted the worst of all mottos, “No Comment”.
Governor Cuomo, Senators Andrea Stewart-Cousins and Jeff Klein, the ball is in your court. Run with it.
Robert Kesten for NYS Senate District 40
