All Over Albany

Andrew Cuomo is calling for the legalization of recreational marijuana (also a Green New Deal and voting reforms and many other big items)

Like a State of the State address, but not. / screengrab via Cuomo admin Youtube video of the speech

So, this feels like a step: On Monday Andrew Cuomo -- the governor of New York -- called for the state to legalize recreational marijuana in 2019.

He made the call as part of a larger speech outlining priorities for the next year, what his administration is calling a "justice agenda." (The speech very much had the feel of a State of the State address.) The list is long and includes a bunch of big issues. And it's very possible there could be legislation passed on many of them now that both chambers of the state legislature will be controlled by Democrats.

As with many of the items on the list, Cuomo didn't mention many details to go along with the call for marijuana legalization. But he framed it as a matter of justice, and what he described an unfair targeting of African-American and minority communities.

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Clickable maps of county-by-county results for the Cuomo-Nixon Democratic primary, and state attorney general

Andrew Cuomo won by a wide margin overall in the Democratic primary, but as in 2014, he didn't fare well in the greater Capital Region.

For easy scanning and discussion: We've rolled together a few clickable maps based on the results of the Democratic primaries Thursday, including Andrew Cuomo's win over Cynthia Nixon in the gubernatorial primary and the crowded race for state Attorney General.

And here are those maps, along with a few notes...

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Quick-scan 2018 Democratic primary results for New York governor, lieutenant governor, and state attorney general

We rolled together a few maps and notes for these primaries.
____
Updated
Andrew Cuomo has won the Democratic primary for governor over Cynthia Nixon.

With roughly 90 percent of election districts reporting, Cuomo was ahead 64-34, a lead of more than 400,000 votes.

Lieutenant governor
Incumbent Kathy Hochul appears to be headed for victory over challenger Jumaane Williams by a margin of just 48-43.

State attorney general
Tish James is headed for victory in the four-way Democratic primary for state attorney general, with 39 percent of the votes. Zephyr Teachout was in second place (29%).

A few bits from that Siena poll about the Democratic primary between Andrew Cuomo and Cynthia Nixon

The primaries for state elections are this Thursday. And the big spotlight matchup is, of course, the Democratic primary for governor between Andrew Cuomo and Cynthia Nixon, which has gotten a lot of attention here in the state and nationally because of Nixon's involvement.

But: The Siena poll released Monday morning has Andrew Cuomo leading Cynthia Nixon 63-22 percent for the primary. That's a wider lead than the 60-29 split Siena reported in July.

There's been a lot of buzzing on Twitter today among state politics people about what that says regarding the primary or just about the poll itself -- mainly, that it could be missing the mark. Because it's roughly correct, it would mean Nixon's in line to not do any better against Cuomo than Zephyr Teachout did four years ago despite much greater attention (and Teachout did pretty well in parts of upstate). Whatever happens this week, it should prompt some interesting interesting thinking/study of state politics and media.

Also: Whatever the polls say, you should show up and vote. Primaries tend to have very low turnout, which makes your vote all the more valuable. That could be especially true in a matchup such as the Democratic primary for state Attorney General in which four candidates are competing and the polling has them all pretty close to each other.

Don't know where to vote or what's on your ballot? Check with the website of your county board of election or the state Board of Election.

Here are a few more interesting bits from the poll...

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Six things from Andrew Cuomo's 2018 State of the State speech

Andrew Cuomo delivered his 8th State of the State speech Wednesday. And, citing the recent Republican tax plan, he continued to play up the theme of a federal government that's taken adversarial stance toward New York -- he argued that 2018 is shaping up to potentially be "the toughest year New York has faced in modern political history."

The State of the State is sort of like the opening ceremony for the new legislative season at the state Capitol. State government is Albany's #1 industry, and politics is probably its favorite sport. But even if you're not connected directly to what goes on there, the actions and decisions do eventually end up affecting you.

So, it's good to know what's up. Here's quick overview of some highlights...

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Executive Mansion Easter open house 2017

The Cuomo admin is again opening the Executive Mansion to the public in celebration of Easter -- this year the event is Saturday, April 15 -- for tours, a chance to meet the governor, and the Easter egg hunt for kids. Blurbage:

All adults over the age of 16 wishing to attend must have a ticket. Individuals who receive tickets will be allowed to bring one guest and any underage children from their household - children must be accompanied by an adult. Tickets to the Open House are required and space is limited.

Registration opened today (Monday) and runs through Thursday at 5 pm -- you can sign up online. Space is limited and if it fills up, there will be a lottery. The Cuomo admin will notify people with spots on the list on Friday.

The Executive Mansion open house is Saturday from 1-3 pm.

Easter open house at the Executive Mansion

The view of the Executive Mansion from the Corning Tower.

The Cuomo admin announced today that the Executive Mansion in Albany will be open to the public on March 27 -- Easter -- this year. There will be tours, a chance to meet Andrew Cuomo, and an Easter egg hunt for kids.

Everyone 16 and older will need a ticket. If you do score a ticket, you can bring one guest and any underage children from your household. Registration for the tickets is open now through next Friday, March 18.

About the tickets: "Space is limited and tickets are non-transferable. In the event that the number of requests exceeds available space, attendees will be selected by lottery. Guests will be notified of their selection via email on Thursday, March 24th."

The Executive Mansion open house is Sunday, March 27 from 1:30-3:30 pm.

4 things from the 2016 State of the State / state budget presentation

In case you were wondering what Andrew Cuomo's don't-interrupt-me face looks like.

Andrew Cuomo delivered his combined State of the State/state budget presentation Wednesday.

There's always a lot stuff packed in there. And this year was no different -- the presentation was 1.5 hours long, and the briefing book has more than 500 pages. But it's an important thing to know at least a little bit because it points toward some of the big issues coming up before state government this year.

So, here's a quick scan of a few highlights...

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Cuomo moving to raise minimum wage for state employees to $15 per hour

The Cuomo admin announced Tuesday that Andrew Cuomo is moving to unilaterally set a $15 minimum wage for state employees.

The increase would be phased in over the next few years, rising to $15 in New York City by the end of 2018, and by 2021 in the rest of the state. It's projected the increase would affect approximately 10,000 state employees -- 9,000 of them outside New York City.

The governor publicly announced the plan at a Fight for 15 rally in New York City. "This is about basic fairness and basic justice," he said of the push to raise the minimum wage both in New York State and across the country. "We're going to lead the way. The nation's going to watch us."

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Getting some sense of a $15-per-hour minimum wage

When Andrew Cuomo recently proposed raising the state's minimum wage for all industries to $15, it created a big stir -- in large part because that's a big jump from the state's current minimum wage of $8.75 (soon to be $9). And it highlights the question: What is the "right" minimum wage?

Here's one way of thinking about that question for different parts of New York State...

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Cuomo: Raise New York State's minimum wage to $15 an hour for all industries

Cuomo announced the push during an event in New York City with Joe Biden.

Updated

Andrew Cuomo announced Thursday that he will be pushing to raise the state's minimum wage to $15 an hour. The announcement accompanied word from the governor that the state Department of Labor has accepted the wage board recommendation that the minimum wage for fast food workers increased to $15 an hour.

Cuomo's push to raise the overall state minimum wage isn't that surprising (even if he had downplayed the push for $15 earlier this year). He had tried to get the legislature to accept an increase to $10.50 ($11.50 in NYC) during the last legislative session. And the fast food wage board plan was pretty clearly an attempt to out maneuver the opposition in the legislature. (State Senate Republicans -- the most likely road block to the minimum wage increase -- criticized Cuomo's handling of the fast food wage increase Thursday.) [NYT] [Politics on the Hudson]

Invoking the memory of both FDR and his father, Andrew called the proposed increase as matter of economic justice. "You cannot support a family on 18,000 a year in New York State, not to mention having a decent living," he said with Joe Biden looking on in New York City. "Every working man and woman in the state of new york deserves $15 an hour as a minimum wage and we're not going to stop until we get it done."

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On order: Another look at the minimum wage

A minimum wage consistent across many industries in New York State dates back to 1962. Here's how it's increased over time, with a comparison in 2015 dollars for some perspective. (Inflation calculations via the federal Bureau of Labor Statistics calculator.)

This chart is recycled from last month, when we put together a bunch of different ways of putting the level of the minimum wage in context. With Andrew Cuomo talking again this week about raising the minimum wage, specifically for fast food workers, we figured it was a good time to highlight that post again.

From Cuomo's op/ed in NYT:

Fast-food workers and their families are twice as likely to receive public assistance compared with other working families. Among fast-food workers nationwide, 52 percent -- a rate higher than in any other industry -- have at least one family member on welfare.

New York State ranks first in public assistance spending per fast-food worker, $6,800 a year. That's a $700 million annual cost to taxpayers.

(Update: See this Capital article about an error in Cuomo's op/ed regarding the number of fast food workers who are raising children.)

The median hourly wage -- that is, the point at which half the people make more and half make less -- for fast food cooks in the Albany metro area was $9.25 per hour in 2014 May, according to numbers published by the federal Bureau of Labor Statistics, with an annual average wage of $20,520. The BLS also breaks out numbers for "combined food preparation and serving workers, including fast food," and the median wage for the Albany metro area was $8.93.

The median hourly wage for restaurant cooks generally in this area was $11.48 per hour, $9.89 for servers, and $9.13 for dishwashers. (Here are the same sets of numbers for New York State generally.)

Elsewhere: Back in March Steve Barnes looked at how an increase in the minimum wage for tipped employees was set to affect restaurants -- and non-tipped restaurant employees such as dishwashers.

5 things from the 2015 State of the State / state budget presentation

Sometimes people have a little too much with Powerpoint.

Andrew Cuomo delivered his combined State of the State/state budget presentation -- the Powerpoint of the State, if you will -- Wednesday afternoon.

It was long (almost an hour-and-a-half). And the briefing book for it is 550 pages.

So here's a quick, 5-things scan of the presentation.

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Fracking to be banned in New York

The Cuomo's administration's long-awaited decision on whether to allow hydrofracking in the state arrived today during a cabinet meeting -- and it will move to formally ban the method of extracting natural gas from the earth. [NYT]

The decision was pegged to the long-delayed state Department of Health study of the issue. A key clip from Capitol Confidential:

While [acting state health commissioner Howard] Zucker took pains to point out that the data on long-term impacts of hydrofracking is not fully conclusive, he turned personal in his decision.

"Would I live in a community with HVHF (high-volume hydraulic fracturing) based on the facts I have now?" Zucker said. "Would I let my child play in the school field nearby, or my family drink the water from the tap or grow their vegetables in the soil? After looking at a plethora of reports ... my answer is no."

Allowing fracking had been pitched as potential economic development for the Southern Tier, which sits atop natural gas deposits in the Marcellus Shale formation. Pennsylvania allows fracking, and a large swath of the state has natural gas wells now. The Southern Tier has some of the highest unemploymen rates in the state. [NPR State Impact]

But fracking also appears to involve some significant environmental risks, especially for ground water, and environmentalists and other advocacy groups have been pushing hard on the Cuomo admin over the last few years to not allow fracking.

Today's moment of post-election whatever

Just trying to enjoy Dunkin with my dad and Governor Cuomo photobombs me! pic.twitter.com/IcTcncO2hJ

— Daria Devaney (@MegaTronDevaney) November 7, 2014

As Andrew Gregory (@lunchboxbrain) joked of a possible Cuomo response: "Did I need the coffee? Yes. Did the baby need to tweet about it? No."

NY Governor 2014: 5 (+1) maps

Updated with a bonus map.

Andrew Cuomo won re-election Tuesday over Republican challenger Rob Astorino 53-39 (according to the official unofficial count this morning with 93 percent of precincts reporting).

And while a win is win, it's not the landslide that the Cuomo team had at one time been trying to pile up. [NYT]

Here are county-by-county gubernatorial results from around the state in 5 clickable maps.

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"Is it Coxsackie?!" "Yes, it is."

Andrew Cuomo appeared on the Late Show with David Letterman Tuesday night to read the top 10 list: "Top Ten Ways New York State Is Better Than Ever." The clip is embedded above. Oh, Coxsackie.

Cuomo has been making the media rounds this week as part of the promotion of his new memoir. He was also on Charlie Rose Tuesday night -- it doesn't look like the video's been posted yet. We caught a good chunk of the interview, which was interesting in a few ways. Among them: Cuomo tried to push back against critics from inside in the Democratic Party that he's not progressive enough by trying to reframe the idea of what "progressive" means.

By the way: Gannett's Joseph Spector bring ups the $16 million CBS is getting from the state to keep to the Late Show in New York after Letterman is replaced by Stephen Colbert.

Clickable county by county results for the Cuomo-Teachout primary

The deeper the blue, the higher the percentage of Cuomo votes. The deeper the yellow, the more Teachout votes. (Unofficial results with 98 percent of precincts reporting.)

Map of the day: The above is a county-by-county breakdown of votes in the Democratic gubernatorial primary.

As you know, Andrew Cuomo beat challenger Zephyr Teachout 60-33. But it was a strong showing for Teachout. And as the map indicates, she ran ahead of the governor in many parts of the state.

There's a clickable large-format map after the jump, along with a few notes.

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Donald Trump, Rob Astorino, and the gun rally on the Empire State Plaza

Donald Trump after his speech at an anti-SAFE Act rally on the ESP Tuesday.

Donald Trump was at the Empire State Plaza Tuesday for an anti-SAFE Act rally -- as were Carl Paladino, the former Republican candidate for governor, and Rob Astorino, who looks to be the next Republican candidate for governor, along with (we're guessing) about 2,000 people.

Trump talked about protecting the 2nd Amendment during his time up on stage, and then talked a bit about maybe buying the Buffalo Bills during a short press session afterward. Then he left, in a helicopter apparently.

The celebrity something-aire wasn't really the interesting thing during the time we listened on the sunny plaza Tuesday. We ended up being more curious about Astorino -- the Westchester County exec -- who we hadn't seen much of before.

Here are a few thoughts and observations, about the rally, about Astorino, and about Andrew Cuomo...

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A quick scan of State of the State 2014

We believe you're familiar with the governor, Andrew Cuomo.

As you know, this year's State of the State speech was Wednesday. There will be all sorts of coverage dissecting for the next few days. This isn't that. This is just a few quick-scan highlights.

And here they are...

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A quick scan of Joe Biden's appearance at the state Capitol

Vice President Joe Biden dropped into Albany today for an appearance at the state Capitol, to talk about rebuilding infrastructure after the storms that have hit the state in recent years, to literally and figuratively give Andrew Cuomo a pat on the back -- and see a Cuomo powerpoint presentation. "I wish everyone could see this presentation," Biden said (really, he actually said that).

Infrastructure is an important issue, but it's one of those topics that tends to make people start to glaze over a bit -- you know, until it breaks. So it's worth paying attention to it, maybe even better if someone else watched it for you. As we did.

Here's a quick-scan recap of Biden's appearance at the Capitol Tuesday...

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How New York's deck of counties split on the casino vote

Red = counties in which a majority voted "yes." Black = counties in which a majority voted "no." (Corrected.)

One of the items up for a vote Tuesday was a proposed New York State constitutional amendment that would allow up to seven full casinos around the state, starting upstate. The Cuomo admin has been pushing the idea as economic development, and framed it that way again after the vote. [NYS BOE] [NYT] [Cuomo admin]

The amendment was approved, 57-43. But support around the state was evenly distributed. In fact, majorities in three of the Capital Region's four core counties voted against it -- one of the majority "no" counties was Saratoga, which has a good chance of ending up with a casino. [NYS BOE]

We pulled the unofficial vote tallies on the casino amendment and mapped the results by county. Two clickable maps are after the jump.

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"Distrustful, even cynical"

Bits from the Siena poll released today:

+ When asked about how they view state politics, 52 percent of respondents said they were "distrustful, even cynical."

+ About 1/3 of respondents said it was either "very likely" or "somewhat likely" that their own state Senator or Assembly member could be arrested for corruption.

+ Percent who said they support: term limits, 82 percent; limiting candidates to one party line, 55 percent; a full-time legislature with no outside jobs, 54 percent. (If that were a Jeopardy clue, the correct response would be: "What are three things unlikely to happen with the New York State legislature?")

+ Andrew Cuomo's "favorable" number was 62 percent (it was 77 percent two years ago). And 16 percent of respondents said he was doing a "poor" job, the highest level so far. Fifty-three percent said they'd vote to re-elect him as things stand now.

+ On supporting full casinos in the state: 49 percent support, 44 percent oppose.

+ On whether to approve hydrofracking: 40 percent support, 45 percent oppose.

crosstabs | poll was conducted April 14-18 | margin of error: +/- 3.4

Earlier:
+ Andrew Cuomo's calibrations
+ State legislation: $10,000

Andrew Cuomo's calibrations

We finally got around to reading "The Albany Machiavelli," the long profile of Andrew Cuomo by Chris Smith in this week's NY Mag. Smith remarks that "Cuomo may be this country's best politician--in the interest-swapping, nut-­cutting, backroom sense--since Lyndon Baines Johnson." And there are a bunch of interesting back room bits about Cuomo's handling of issues, his relationship with the legislature, how fracking vexes the Cuomo political calculations, the potential role of Hillary Clinton in blocking in his presidential ambitions.

This section resonated with us:

So far that experiment has been a solid success, especially for Cuomo. He's been more fiscally responsible than many of his predecessors. He's boldly and forcefully delivered on progressive ideals, legalizing gay marriage and passing some of the toughest gun laws in the nation. He's been rewarded with high public-approval numbers in New York and heightened national stature. Yet there's also a cost, and a considerable irony, to Cuomo's tactics. For all his speechifying about the "us" of government, he runs a government of one, controlling decisions large and small. And the way Cuomo wins his battles--strong-­arming and horse-trading; a mastery of talking past inconvenient questions and facts--tends to antagonize enemies and allies, as in the most recent round of budget wrangling, in which he managed to chafe both liberals and business fat cats. People are afraid of him; David Paterson, as governor, once described feeling like Cuomo was lurking under the floorboards of the executive mansion, holding a saw. In politics, fear can be a highly useful tool, but it is a risky one. The governor doesn't have many friends. ...

As Cuomo looks to score a wide reelection margin in 2014, he has become New York's most successful governor since, well, the early days of Mario Cuomo. Yet he's engendered much more fear than love--an emotion the governor believes is overrated, in politics anyway. The growing turbulence will show whether he's right about the value of affection in Albany--and whether Andrew Cuomo will loom larger in history than his father.

Now a little arm chair political science: We get the sense that everyone respects Andrew Cuomo, even his enemies and detractors (maybe especially his enemies and detractors). But do people like him? You know, in talking with people it's like there's this acknowledgement that Cuomo has imposed a certain order on state politics, and the situation is no longer the embarrassing train wreck it had been. It's just that there isn't much (if any) love or passion for him. And that's a problem if you're running for president -- because as much as issues and all that stuff matter, there's also an emotional part of it for voters.

Anyway. This (here, totally stripped of its context) quote-- "They have needs, and you have needs. And your appetite has to be calibrated thusly." -- kind of us made us a feel a little bit for Sandra Lee.

A quick scan of Andrew Cuomo's 2013 budget

Now with descriptive podium.

Two weeks ago was the State of the State address (the talk), this week: the budget proposal (the walk). The budget is a big deal for the state, because it's the Cuomo administration putting its money (actually, all our money) where its mouth is.

Like last year, this year's budget presentation didn't include the dire pronouncements about gloom and doom that had been so common in previous years. As Andrew Cuomo said at Tuesday's presentation, "It's not supposed to be traumatic." He even called this year's budget proposal "simple and straightforward." (Those are always in the eye of the budget beholder -- we are talking about a plan to spend $130something billion here.)

So let's get to it...

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