Clean Slate

Good morning from Albany, NY?where, with just 4 scheduled days remaining in the 2023 Legislative Session, things are Q-U-I-E-T.??

We expect a deal on the Clean Slate Act before lawmakers adjourn this week.?The bill , as it is currently written, would automatically seal an individual’s criminal record after three years for a misdemeanor and after seven years for a felony, excluding sex crimes. The legislation has?long?been a priority?of?criminal justice reform advocates, who argue that employment and housing opportunities?can be elusive?long after incarcerated people?have served their?time.?Clean Slate passed?the Senate last year, but failed in the Assembly.?The District Attorney’s Association, among others, is opposed ?with?Morgan Bitton, Executive Director of the District Attorneys Association offering,?the Clean Slate Act, however, “lacks a realistic examination of the law, its flaws and its impact on public safety and an understanding of the massive undertaking sealing volumes of criminal records would require.”

Nonetheless,?lawmakers?and advocates?are confident a deal?will come together, with Governor Kathy Hochul?offering ,?“We're just down to the technical changes that we're having conversations about” and Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie adding, “I'm very optimistic.”??

Late?pushes?on?issues?including?wine in grocery stores, housing,?allowing municipalities to set speed limits,?other changes to alcohol beverage control laws,?421a and tenant?protections?are all expected to fail.?Leadership?in the legislature offered little hope that much else of substance will get done before the end of session. When asked about the bill that would allow wine sales in grocery stores,?Senate Majority Leader Andrea Stewart Cousins said ?“It’s part of the bills that we may or may not discuss, I have nothing definitive on that.” Speaking on the possibility of getting a housing proposal done, Speaker Heastie offered, “When you want to do transformational change, I really think that there really needs to be time for collective buy-in and I'm just not sure that that was able to happen with the housing program.”?

Of course, there are still hundreds of others, mostly?local bills,?that are still being considered in the final week and expect?a flood of appointments to be considered on June 8, the final day of Session.

As always in Albany,?nothing is over until?adjournment sine die.?In June of 2019,?for example, the Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act , which now governs most of?New York's energy, transmission, and environmental conservation policies, was introduced, passed through Committee, and??was approved?on the floor in both Houses all in the final week of Legislative Session . In short, keep your eyes on Albany until the Senate and Assembly adjourn.

In Washington, D.C.,?Congressional?Leadership officially passed the bill negotiated by House Speaker Kevin McCarthy and the White House to lift the debt ceiling and avoid a default.?

Here are a few more details on the deal:??

• The bill will suspend the US borrowing limit until 2025 (after the next Presidential election) and caps non-defense discretionary spending in 2024 with a 1% limit on spending increases for 2025.??
• Roughly $28 billion in unspent funds from pandemic-era relief packages will be clawed back to pay for some of the bill’s programs, including an expansion of veterans healthcare. Similarly, the legislation repurposes $20 billion in IRS funding over the next two years and rescinds $1.4 billion previously allocated by Congress as requested by the agency’s speeding plan.??
• The final agreement will make modest changes the work requirements for food stamp eligibility, increasing the upper limit of the age mandate from 49 to 55. The deal also expands some expeditions of work requirements for the homeless, veterans, and those with disabilities which the White House has said will likely result in the same number of individuals being eligible for food stamps before the bill.??
• The bill formalized the Biden Administration’s plan to restart student loan payments later this summer, but does not roll back his plan to grant $10,000 in relief to every borrower. That measure is currently before the Supreme Court and a ruling is expected in the coming weeks.?

The debt ceiling was expected to be McCarthy’s first true test of his ability as Speaker to keep his fractured conference in line with a narrow majority. In the end, the agreement he negotiated received more yes votes from House Democrats (165) than it did from Republicans (149),?ultimately passing the House by a 314-117 margin . Of the 71 defections, many came from the House Freedom Caucus?which?sought much deeper, longer-lasting spending cuts, and feel McCarthy was fleeced by President Biden and House Democrats. Rep. Nancy Mace (R-S.C.) voted against the deal and?said ,?“Republicans got outsmarted by a President who can’t find his pants.” On the Democratic side, 40 of the 46 no votes came from the Congressional Progressive Caucus over concerns regarding expanded work requirements.?

In the Senate, it was much of the same.?The bill passed 63-36 ?with more Democrats (46) voting yes than Republicans (17). Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell threw his support behind the agreement, describing it as “an urgent and important step in the right direction — for the health of our economy and the future of our country.” Majority Leader Chuck Schumer was quick to credit the White House’s leadership, offering,?“I commend President Biden and his team for producing a sensible compromise under the most difficult of circumstances.”?Schumer, too, gets credit for getting the measure through the?more deliberative House?in record time with all?100 members of the Senate?agreeing to expedite the process ?in exchange for the consideration of amendments, all eleven of which were eventually voted down.?

Interestingly enough, there was some serious deal making going on ?with the debt passage also fast-tracking a once obscure controversial gas pipeline.

Among New York's 26-member Congressional Delegation, their support for the agreement was fractured as well. Ten members voted no— nine NYC Democrats… and GOP freshman George Santos. The other ten Republicans, along with six Democrats, voted in support of the bill. Republican Rep. Mike Lawler, a first-year lawmaker from the Hudson Valley, said of the deal, “Default was never an option. The speaker and the president over the last two weeks negotiated a deal. I think it's a good deal on behalf of the American people.” Congressman Brian Higgins, a Democrat from Buffalo, acknowledged the deal left a lot to be desired, but paled in comparison to the harm that would have inflicted by default?adding ,?“It is?far from perfect. It?raises the debt ceiling to ensure that the government continues to pay its bills and avoids devastating cuts to the programs that people rely on the most, like Social Security and Medicare.”?

The debt limit negotiation exposed the current rift in the GOP and some on the right have entertained the idea of a motion to replace McCarthy as Speaker, which can now be called for by a single member thanks to the rule changes agreed to by McCarthy to become Speaker. So far, only one member, Rep. Dan Bishop (R-N.C.) has?publicly said he would support such a measure ,?but there is plenty of displeasure beneath the surface, including from Rep. Chip Roy (R-Texas) who said, “{If the bill passed}, then we’re going to have to then regroup and figure out the whole leadership arrangement again.”?

While the threat of default should not be used as a leverage point, the messy--?yet bipartisan?--way in which the agreement finally passed was truly how the Founders intended—?different factions?coming together to reach a deal.?The loud reactions on?both?the Right and Left show that the deal got something right.

Here's something else that took a while to get right.?The Connecticut Senate has voted to absolve dozens of state residents who were accused, convicted and executed for the crime of witchcraft in the 1600s.

And finally...

You too can have Beyonce, J-Lo, Smokey Robinson, and other world-famous artists at your family party...?for a price .

-Jack O'Donnell