Churchill: Two moments illustrate one sorry disconnect

By Chris Churchill
Times Union
June 25, 2017

http://www.timesunion.com/tuplus-local/article/Churchill-Two-moments-illustrate-one-sorry-11244771.php

Governor Andrew Cuomo stands with Senate Majority Leader John Flanagan, left, before his presentation of the State of the State message at the Convention Center at the Empire Plaza Wednesday Jan. 13, 2016 in Albany, N.Y. Photo by Skip Dickstein

Much of what's wrong with New York government can be summed up by two moments from the waning hours of the legislative session.

The first came at a little before 5 p.m. Tuesday, when Sen. Majority Leader John Flanagan revealed that there would not be a vote on the Child Victims Act.

The second arrived 28 hours later, when Flanagan introduced an 11th-hour bill to name the Tappan Zee Bridge after the governor's father. It passed the Senate unanimously.

What a juxtaposition. Really, you couldn't ask for a better illustration of how Albany power brokers put the wants of the political class over the needs of ordinary people — especially the weak and the powerless. It was out-flipping-rageous.

The Child Victims Act is about protecting children from sexual abuse. It would do away with a disgraceful statute of limitations — one of the most restrictive in the nation — that bars child sexual-abuse victims from proceeding with cases once they turn 23.

It would allow survivors to bring civil cases until they turn 50 and felony criminal cases until they're 28. It also includes a one-year window to revive old cases.

Victims have been lobbying for the bill for more than a decade. They've made endless trips to Albany to cajole lawmakers. They have worked tirelessly for their cause.

Even if you oppose the Child Victims Act, which easily passed the Assembly, there's no justification for denying it a Senate vote. Advocates deserved that much for their hard work. They deserved to see which lawmakers were on their side.

Flanagan denied them that. The Republican from Long Island couldn't even be bothered to offer an explanation. The arrogance is staggering.

But Flanagan did find it within his heart to do a favor for the governor by offering up a bill to rename the Tappan Zee for Mario Cuomo — a putrid piece of puffery that strokes political egos but does nothing for ordinary New Yorkers. Gov. Andrew Cuomo even made the bill a "message of necessity," allowing it to zoom through without debate.

Think about that. Attaching the Cuomo name to an unfinished bridge is so important that it can't wait for normal protocols or input from the public. But a bill that would protect children and punish sexual predators?

Yawn. We'll get to it next year. Or the next. Maybe.

To his credit, Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie saw no reason to rush the bridge bill to a vote, so it didn't pass. I suspect the governor is mightily miffed and will exact his revenge when the opportunity arises.

The existing Malcolm Wilson Tappan Zee Bridge, as it is officially called, already bears the name of a former governor. Wilson was a Republican from Yonkers who followed Nelson Rockefeller in the early 1970s.

The current governor's attempt to strip the bridge of a predecessor's name to rename it for his father is, to put it gently, tacky — especially since he knows the $4 billion structure will simply be called the "Cuomo Bridge," allowing the son to bask in the associated glory.

An irony is that Mario Cuomo was famously skeptical of having things named for him, once joking that "maybe a stickball court in Queens" would be appropriate. The guy barely wanted his official portrait to hang in the Executive Chamber.

Mario Cuomo also is not especially associated with Rockland or Westchester counties, which are connected by the span, or even the Hudson River.

If the new Tappan Zee must lose its existing name — and I see no reason why it should — there are plenty of worthy New Yorkers. Pete Seeger, dedicated to Hudson River cleanup, is a compelling choice. Or Walt Whitman? Lou Gehrig?

I'm just spit-balling here. The possibilities are many.

But Flanagan and Cuomo, Republican and Democrat working together to blindside the public, tried to ram their chosen name through in the dead of night. That's New York state government, in a nutshell.

The effort didn't go unnoticed by supporters of the Child Victims Act, who were already furious at Flanagan.

"That put salt in our wounds," said Gary Greenberg, a former Albany County legislator who was sexually abused as a child at the old Cohoes Hospital.

Greenberg believes the Child Victims Act had enough Senate votes to pass. It also had Cuomo's support, although Greenberg said the governor did not flex his political biceps to get the bill voted on by the Senate.

Yawn. We'll get to it next year. Or the next. Maybe.