NYS “Independent” Redistricting Commission Maps are Anything But
These first-out-of-the-gate NYSIRC maps truly are a case study in what gerrymandering looks like. It is very transparent, but in this instance, not in a good way.
Filling a Vacancy in the Office of Lieutenant Governor: History and Hochul’s Opportunity
Kathy Hochul is the ninth New York lieutenant governor to become governor through the state constitutional process to fill a vacancy.* But she will be just the second to appoint a successor to the office she herself vacates. David Paterson was the first. This provides her a unique opportunity to Read more…
A New Way Forward for Our Schools
It seems that end-of-year testing in schools is one aspect of pre-COVID life that has survived the pandemic. Late last week, the NYS Education Department (NYSED) received notice that the US Department of Education (USDE) rejected its request for a waiver from the testing requirements of the federal Every Student Read more…
A New Way to Fire a Governor
Recent weeks have seen a relentless avalanche of reports of Governor Andrew Cuomo’s alleged sexual harassment of women, and his administration’s cover-up for political reasons of large numbers of Covid-19 deaths in the state’s nursing homes. In response, many of New York’s leading Democrats in national and state government have Read more…
Building Back Better?
by Robin Jacobowitz and Fred Smith This week, the United States Department of Education (USDE) sent a letter to chief state school officers directing them to administer state-level standardized testing in 2021. This annual testing, waived in spring 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic, is required under the Every Student Read more…
Strife over tax breaks and tradeoffs: It doesn’t have to be like this
We shouldn’t have to disadvantage taxpayers and our children to build smartly in the 21st century. Robin Jacobowitz with Kt Tobin and Josh Simons It would be pretty hard to be an Ulster County resident and to not by now have heard about the Payment in Lieu of Taxes (PILOT) sought Read more…
New York and the Veto–Proof Legislature
This post originally ran on the Gotham Gazette Early in 1984 I visited Governor Mario Cuomo’s office in Albany at his invitation. He wanted to discuss a talk I’d given at the New School about his first year as governor. I found myself going on about the growing dominance of Read more…
The population of the Hudson Valley is not going to go up, and if it does, it will not be because of people moving up from NYC.
I know that I promised an article about how the City of Poughkeepsie was going to experience the most transformative change from the current wave of migration from New York City, and that article is coming, but first I wanted to address the notion that this trend is going to Read more…
Who Gets Cheated by an Abrupt End to the Census
It is—and isn’t—who you’d think Article 1, Section 2 of the Constitution requires a decennial census. It is the basis for reapportionment, the drawing of legislative district lines for all levels of government from the federal House of Representatives all the way down to local city councils and some towns Read more…
Opinion: A Redistricting Power Grab
This post originally ran on the Gotham Gazette The New York State Senate and Assembly, both now in Democratic hands, last month gave first passage to several changes to an earlier constitutional amendment, adopted in 2014, creating a so-called Independent Redistricting Commission to redraw district lines every ten years for Read more…