Politics Bottle Up Important Legislation

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Ever wonder why legislation that has support from a majority of Assembly members does not make it out of committee and voted on by the full body of 150 members?

Well, it’s all about politics and a little bit of math.

There are 150 members of the state Assembly. It takes 76 votes to pass a bill.

107 members are Democrats (71.3% of the Assembly) and 43 are Republicans (28.7% of the Assembly). In order for the Assembly Democrats to agree to allow a bill to the floor for a vote you might think the threshold would be half the members of the Democratic conference must support the measure. That would mean 54 Democratic members would support the measure. If that were the case, 22 Republicans could claim that without their votes the measure would go down to defeat and that the Democrats needed the Republican votes to get a bill passed. That would make the Assembly Republicans somewhat relevant, which the Democrats avoid from happening at all costs.

In reality, the Democratic conference will not let a bill to the floor for a vote unless 76 members support the measure. That means the bar is much higher for a measure to get considered for a vote of the full Assembly. As a result, 71% of the conference needs to be in agreement before the measure goes to the floor for a vote.

One example where a bill is bottled up because there aren’t enough Democratic votes is the Education Investment Tax Credit. There are 78 members (52%) who support the measure – 46 Democrats (30.7% of the Democratic conference) and 32 Republicans (21.3% of the Republican conference). Technically, this measure should be brought to the Assembly floor for a vote because more than half of the Democrats in the Assembly support the measure. But if that happened, the Republicans would have something to crow about and would say they made a difference. So the Democrats say that’s not happening even though the measure is a one-house bill and does not match the bill that passed the Senate in January.

Another example is legalizing the sport of mixed martial arts in New York state. As of this writing, 52.3% or 56 Democrats support the bill and 37.2% or 16 Republicans support the controversial measure. Since more than half the Democratic conference supports the measure you would think it would be moved to the floor for a vote. Of all members in the Assembly, only 48% or 72 members of the lower house support the measure, four votes shy of certain passage.

Should this mean the measure gets bottled up in a committee until the Democratic conference deems a measure should be moved to the floor for a vote?

Now that’s politics. After Election Day, you often hear the victor saying now that the political season is over it is time to govern. You might also hear there is no Democrat or Republican way to plow snow or pave roads so let’s put politics aside and govern.

In the future, when you hear this, remember to ask about the ability for Assembly members to vote on measures important to you, regardless of whether the bill is sponsored by a Democrat or Republican. Now you know one reason why certain measures languish in Assembly for many years.