Politics on the Hudson

Sen. Liz Krueger, D-Manhattan, released the proposed new rules that the new Democratic-controlled Senate will look to pass next week when they return to Albany next week.

The new rules seek to reform what the Brennan Center for Justice has called the most dysfunctional Legislature in the country.

From Krueger’s news release, the changes include:—Creating a new Committee on Rules and Administration that consists of 4 majority members, and 2 minority members, with a chair to be appointed by the Majority Leader. The committee would have the power to review rules and administrative procedures of the Senate.
—Ending the use of “canvass of agreement” where individual votes of members are not recorded. This will change the current system of when amendments to bills are brought to the floor there are no recorded votes.
—Motions to discharge will also require recorded votes, and allow for debate times and procedures parallel to those used for all other bills. A motion to discharge comes when a bill has not been allowed to be voted on in committee and the sponsor attempts to bring it straight to the floor for a vote by the full Senate in order for it to be placed on the calendar in the absence of a committee vote to do so.
—The Senate will have open bill sponsorship, which allows for any Senator to co-sponsor any bill of their choice.  Prior to this change, a Senator had to ask the prime sponsor of a bill if they could sign on as a co-sponsor.
—There will be a system of dual reference for bills that impose criminal or civil penalties as is already done in the Assembly. This means that any bill which creates criminal or civil penalties must be passed through the Codes Committee as well as whichever other committee the bill would have normally been passed through.