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Testimony to the New York State Senate Rules Reform Committee
I appreciate your interest in democratic reforms and the opportunity to speak to you today on the topic.
In some sense, it is quite amusing that you are soliciting input from citizens as whether we would like you to be more democratic and less dysfunctional.
More seriously, the democratic process matters. It matters a lot, especially in a representative democracy. I would like to have you reflect briefly upon the democratic process a little more broadly then just senate rule reform, and will address my remarks accordingly.
First, the genius of representative democracy is that representatives carry the interests of all of the citizenry to legislative process and all of the citizenry interests bear on the legislation. Properly executed, democratic processes ensure all interests are represented and no interest is over-represented. When all of the citizenry’s interests bear on the process, creative, synergistic solutions that balance the needs of the individual, community, business, and environment emerge. Everyone wins and people prosper.
The problem in New York is that we have representative democracy in name only. Democratic processes are not followed. Representatives do not carry the citizen’s interests to the legislative process. The governor, senate majority leader, and assembly speaker represent the interests of the largest campaign contributors and conduct the legislative process behind closed doors. This oligarchy rules, because the majority leader and the speaker control the majority party representatives in their respective houses and in doing so control the budget and legislative processes.
In New York, the senate and assembly leaders use chair appointments, lulus, representative office staffing and resources, and campaign contributions to control majority party representatives. They draw districts to give their party’s representatives a significant election advantage. They appropriate taxpayer funds for community projects, or member items, so majority party representatives appear as heroes in local newspapers.
These advantages enable majority representatives to run without major opposition in one-third of the races, and have 20 to 100 times more to spend than their opponents in another third of the races. The partisan voting districts, party campaign funds, member items and the resulting favorable public relations destroy the link between legislator performance and election results. They cause voters to like their local representatives, re-elect them 99% of the time, and blame the state government’s failings on legislators in other districts.
In New York State, organized interests, largely the teachers, healthcare workers’, and civil service unions, provide the largest campaign contributions and greatest support to the governor, majority leader, speaker, and the majority party representatives’, and it is their interests that each year bear disproportionately on the legislative process.
Though there is more than one reason for New York State’s decline relative to other states, the predominate reason is the state’s undemocratic ways and the compromised policy that emanates from Albany.
In the 1950’s New York State was one of the most prosperous places on the planet and the envy of most every state and country in the world. Today this is clearly no longer the case. Today our citizens face crushing taxes and expenses. Property taxes run 3% of property values or 79% over the national average. Sales taxes run over 8% of purchases. Income taxes run 7.25% and are 123% over the national average. Gasoline taxes run 25 cents a gallon.
New York State’s combination of taxes is the most burdensome of the fifty states and a whopping 55% above the national average. In New York State Health insurance costs $14,000 per family per year, and the cost to send a child to elementary or secondary school is $15,000 a year. New York spends more to educate a child than any other state, yet has the 42nd lowest high school graduation rate.
Similarly, our businesses face crushing taxes and expenses. Business taxes are the second highest of the fifty states and run 165% above the national average. Similarly the cost of doing business in New York is only exceeded by Hawaii and is 131% above the national average.
In short, many businesses can no longer remain competitive and operate in our state and more and more conscientious, hard working people can no longer get ahead. Employers, high paying jobs, and conscientious, able, and hard-working people flee the state; while less responsible people remain. Though a net migration of people moving from New York to other states has been occurring for 30 years, since the year 2000, New York State has lost 200,000 citizens every year. We have and continue to lose a city the size of Syracuse every 12 months.
If you are serious about reform and improving the democratic processes in New York State, I recommend the following initiatives:
1) Equitably distribute resources and member items among representatives and the voting districts.
2) Enact rules that enable the minority, as well as the majority party, to bring legislation to the floors for votes.
To deny the minority party representatives in the Senate, who represent over 40% of the people in the state, and a much larger portion of upstate residents, is to deny an important form of democratic involvement to almost half of the state. To use the rules to exclude so many districts from the legislative process is outrageously undemocratic and harmful to upstate.
3) Use conference committees rather than the senate majority leader and assembly speaker to resolve differences between senate and assembly legislation.
A greater use of conference committees would distribute legislative power from the majority leader and speaker to our elected representatives and better tap representatives’ knowledge and creativity. It would free legislative logjams and enable the legislature to be more responsive to state challenges.
4) Enact local and state government spending caps such that the growth of spending cannot exceed the growth of inflation and population without the voter approval.
When one benchmarks our state and local government relative to other states, it becomes painfully evident that we have a debilitating borrowing, taxing, and spending problem. Particularly revealing is the fact that Arizona, Florida, Indiana, New Hampshire, North Carolina, and Texas, all states with much faster growing populations and personal incomes, borrow, tax and spend on a per capita basis 55%-65% as much as New York State.
There is no legislation that would more effectively end the out-of-control borrowing, taxing, and spending, ignite an economic renaissance, and increase future tax revenues than capping the growth of state and local government. Were the cap to allow spending to grow faster than inflation and population with voter approval, then at least any larger increases in spending would reflect citizens’ rather than organized interests’ preferences.
5) Form a bipartisan panel of reputable judges to draw voting districts in a non-partisan manner.
Current voting district boundaries are completely indefensible, distort the representation of citizen interests, and fuel the state’s decline.
6) Enact legislation that limits fund raising to the twelve months prior to an election and limit contributions to candidates to $250 per citizen per election cycle. Bar campaign contributions and all other forms of campaign support from all organizations, including corporations, unions, and political action committees.
Such a limitation might be challenged all the way to the Supreme Court, but its implementation would be worth the fight. Are you aware that lobbyists gave in excess of $350 million dollars to influence legislation within the state during the last election cycle, and that this is up from $13 million in the 1980 election cycle? This is a 27 fold increase in 28 years. Large campaign contributions have destroyed New York State’s democratic government and prosperity.
7) Enact Voter Initiative.
Direct democracy is the most democratic form of government and Voter Initiative is a form of direct democracy. Voters need this mechanism to further their interests when they collide with the elected representatives’ self interests. Voter Initiative provides this mechanism by enabling citizens, who obtain enough supporting signatures to propose laws to voters in the general elections.
In the 2004, 2006, and 2008 elections senate Democrats enthusiastically embraced democratic reforms. Being the minority party prior to the 2008 election, senate Democrats had everything to gain from democratic reforms and nothing to lose. Now being the majority in party, some will argue meaningful democratic reform will weaken the Democratic Party’s hold on the senate. I would argue otherwise, especially in light of the large voter registration advantage the Democratic Party holds in the state. When people see leaders act in ways that are not self-serving and clearly in the people’s interests, they become more devoted to those leaders. Senate rule reforms are a tremendous opportunity for the senate Democratic leadership to show that they are willing to do the right thing and place their constituency’s interests before organized interests.
Whether you acknowledge it or not, senate and assembly leaders have rigged our state’s election process. They have done so by controlling voting district lines, the senate and assembly rules, party resources, representative resources, and member items. Except for the top four to five leaders, currently state representatives impotently represent their districts and are little more than pawns in the Democratic and Republican struggle to control the state government.
The first three of my recommendations above come directly from the landmark 2004 New York University, Brenan Center for Justice, rule reform recommendations. Senate rule reform, which properly implemented these three recommendations, would be a powerful step toward putting our state government back in the hands of the people and toward creating a more prosperous New York State.
Mark Bitz is the former owner of Plainville Farms, creator of FreeNYS , author of Creating a Prosperous New York State, and current owner of three Upstate New York businesses.
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