Tedisco On Late State Budget

Albany, NY--It’s April 1st, do you know where our New York State Budget is?

The state budget is late…again…for the fourth year in a row (!) under the leadership of Governor Kathy Hochul and Senate and Assembly Majorities --- and there’s no transparency about what a final budget deal will look like and when bills will be available for lawmakers, the public and media to review before being debated and voted on!

Senator Jim Tedisco and members of the Senate Minority Conference today are urging the Governor, legislative leaders, and his colleagues to make government transparency a priority and ensure that when final legislation is agreed upon by the Majorities and Governor, it is allowed to be publicly reviewed for three days as the state constitution requires and that bills are not voted on in the dark of the night.

Tedisco is sponsoring the “NYS Budget Transparency Act” (S.233), a constitutional amendment to stop the abuse of “messages of necessity” and prevent secret government from keeping many legislators, the public and media in the dark when significant legislation is being voted on. The bill would stop the clock on all legislative proceedings between midnight and 8 a.m., and limit messages of necessity except in the case of genuine emergencies such as a security threat, natural disaster, or dire fiscal situation. The bill requires a two-thirds majority vote to take up any message of necessity.

Sadly, it’s a time-honored tradition by governors to use messages of necessity to avoid the constitutionally required three-day aging period and push through a variety of controversial policy proposals by sweeping them into budget bills passed in the middle of the night while most New Yorkers are sleeping to avoid public scrutiny and thorough vetting by the media, public and legislators. This tactic has drawn widespread derision over the years.

“We are on the verge of trying to complete arguably the most important set of legislation we are tasked with doing on a timely basis by April 1st to incentivize people to be able to afford to live and work in New York State. Nobody in our district thinks they can go to work, sit there and not do the most important job their charged with doing and expect not to get fired. Today’s ‘April Fool’s Day’ but it’s more like the movie ‘Groundhog Day’ with the fourth late budget under this Governor and Majorities. When pointing fingers at why the state budget is late, they only have themselves to blame as they control all levers of power in Albany,” said Senator Jim Tedisco.

“A message of necessity should not be a message of political convenience. If the Governor and Majority Leaders won’t police themselves when it comes to transparency, then we need the New York State Budget Transparency Act to keep them contained and stop the abuses of messages of necessity, so the public is not in the dark about what’s going on at the Capitol,” said Senator Jim Tedisco.

“As I’ve said before, if the Governor and Leaders think passing a state budget that’s projected to be billions of dollars above last year’s in darkness is so good for New York taxpayers, then why don’t my colleagues hold their press conferences at 3 a.m. instead of the light of day? Clearly, they don’t because they want a full airing of their ideas to the public through the media so they can be seen and heard. As the famed journalist Bob Woodward popularized, ‘Democracy dies in darkness.’ If an agreement hatched in the dark of night at 3 a.m. is so good for our state then it will still be a good one to be debated and voted on at 3 p.m.,” said Senator Tedisco.