'I’m not talking about my personal life'

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Mar 18, 2024 View in browser   By Bill Mahoney With help from Shawn Ness Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie is not commenting on his relationship with a lobbyist. He said that there is no conflict of interest and that there are protocols to prevent it. | Hans Pennink/AP Photo Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie is declining to weigh in on his relationship with a lobbyist. “I’m not talking about my personal life,” Heastie told reporters today. “My life will never be in conflict with my job.” New York Focus reported on Thursday that Heastie has been dating lobbyist Rebecca Lamorte, who represents building trades unions. Heastie said that he has been “very clear that protocols are in place” to avoid potential conflicts. But he had never actually spoken on those protocols. The extent of the public’s knowledge about his recusal policy is a brief letter from his counsel that was not made public before it was published by New York Focus. It says that Heastie won’t sit in any meeting with groups like the Mason Tenders’ District Council and that unspecified “senior staff” will develop “a consensus decision to the Speaker for any matters specific or unique to” organizations like this. Unlike recusal policies issued by other top New York officials in recent years, that does not include a pledge to avoid working on the issues that these groups are lobbying on. And it’s clear the speaker isn’t completely avoiding these subjects. Heastie was asked last week about where negotiations stand on housing in this year’s budget. He specifically singled out the importance of the building trades reaching an agreement with the Real Estate Board. “REBNY and the unions have to come to a wage deal,” Heastie said. “If they can come to a wage deal, then I think the other elements can be discussed.” Particularly since the trial of Heastie predecessor Sheldon Silver revealed details about the ex-speaker’s affair with a lobbyist, it’s been the norm for top policymakers in Albany to publicly detail recusal policies when they have any personal entanglements with individuals who have business before the state. Ex-Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s administration was hammered with questions about lobbyist Giorgio DeRosa from the minute Cuomo named DeRosa’s daughter Melissa his top staffer in 2017. “If it was an issue my father was lobbying on, I wouldn’t deal with it, even if it came in through a different lobbyist,” Melissa DeRosa said. “When we were in a leaders’ meeting, if an issue came up that my father lobbied or represented on, I would physically leave the room.” DeRosa said the administration’s ethics officer created a list every month of issues that her father was involved with. “And my assistants were made aware of those issues, so if anybody attempted to call me for any of those matters, they would be rerouted,” she said. Recently, Gov. Kathy Hochul released a detailed plan disclosing how she would deal with issues lobbied on by Delaware North, the concessionaire that employed First Gentleman Bill Hochul. The governor’s administration created a list of issues that Delaware North lobbied on. Hochul then delegated decision-making powers on these subjects to her counsel. “She had a formal written recusal policy that she published that was probably better than anything to date,” said Reinvent Albany executive director John Kaehny. Kaehny prefers recusal plans that are overseen by independent third parties rather than internal staff, which neither Hochul nor Heastie created: “Who’s enforcing the recusal policy? It’s the speaker’s staff. They report to the speaker,” he said. But “the next best thing,” he said, “would be to fully publish the detailed conflict of interest policy as the governor did.” — Bill Mahoney From the Capitol Senate and Assembly Housing Committee chairs Sen. Brian Kavanagh and Assemblymember Linda Rosenthal are advocating for the inclusion of good cause evictions in the final budget after real estate lobbyists began advocating for the roll back of the 2019 rent laws. | Shawn Ness/POLITICO GOOD CAUSE EVICTIONS: The Democratic conference is urging for the inclusion of good cause evictions to be in the final budget amid a push from the real estate lobby to roll back the 2019 rent laws, which overhauled the rent-stabilization measures. A good cause eviction law was only conceptually mentioned in the one-house bills last week, and it’s faltered in previous years to win approval in the Legislature and with Hochul. “We’ve seen since then [2019], especially for tenants that were not protected by rent stabilization… that there continues to be unnecessary and unreasonable amounts of displacement for no good reason,” state Sen. Brian Kavanagh, the Senate’s Housing Committee chair, said at a news conference today. Many lawmakers made it clear: the bill would still allow for landlords to evict tenants who do not pay their rent or are causing problems. State Sen. Gustavo Rivera, a Bronx Democrat, said he has heard a lot of misinformation being circulated regarding the bill from lobbyists that good cause evictions would destroy the state. “Ladies and gentlemen, let's stop the nonsense. Good cause, it's not only in the name, it's in the actual bill. Had people actually bothered to read it, they would see it,” Rivera said. “Good cause, of course you can kick out someone for not paying their rent. Of course, you can kick out somebody for her for destroying your apartment. It's in the bill. Have y'all read it? Perhaps you should.” According to an analysis from Housing Justice For All, a housing advocacy group, 67 percent of renters living outside of New York City can be denied the right to fight evictions and rent hikes. “What good cause would do… is it would provide a rebuttable presumption in court. It is a defense that tenants can use if their landlord seeks to raise the rent by an unreasonable amount, or they seek to evict them for no good reason at all,” state Sen. Julia Salazar, the bill’s sponsor said. “The bill enumerates what would constitute a good cause to evict.” Still, the bill has faced significant pushback from landlords, and it hasn’t won legislative approval. But the sides are looking toward a housing deal as part of the budget, and good cause will clearly be part of discussions. — Shawn Ness FROM CITY HALL Lorna Beach-Mathura filed a complaint in Manhattan Supreme Court today alleging that Mayor Eric Adams sought to extract sexual favors from her in exchange for career advice. | Peter K. Afriyie/AP NEW DETAILS, IN ADAMS ACCUSATION: Mayor Eric Adams pushed back today against newly detailed sexual assault allegations stemming from his time as a transit cop, POLITICO reports. Lorna Beach-Mathura, whose career at the New York City Transit Police Department overlapped with the mayor’s, filed a complaint in Manhattan Supreme Court alleging Adams sought to extract sexual favors from her in exchange for career advice one evening in 1993. “While we review the complaint, the mayor fully denies these outrageous allegations and the events described here; we expect full vindication in court,” the mayor’s corporation counsel, Sylvia Hinds-Radix, said in a statement, following news of a suit regarding an alleged incident 31 years ago. “Additionally, in 1993, Eric Adams was one of the most prominent public opponents of the racism within the NYPD, which is why the suit’s allegations that he had any sway over promotions of civilian employees is ludicrous,” Hinds-Radix added. The complaint is far more detailed than an initial legal claim Beach-Mathura filed in November under the state Adult Survivors Act, which allows civil lawsuits over certain sexual offenses that would otherwise be barred by statute of limitations. “The details of this suit are disturbing,” state Sen. Jessica Ramos, a Queens progressive who is considering challenging Adams’ reelection in 2025, said in a statement to Playbook. “I want to commend Ms. Beach-Mathura for her bravery in coming forward.” — Joe Anuta and Jeff Coltin TOUGH ROAD AHEAD FOR SCHOOLS: Education budget cuts previously proposed by Adams. Nearly $1 billion in waning federal stimulus money supporting key initiatives like preschool special education, 3K and school social workers. A costly state law requiring lower class sizes in city public schools. Those are some of the challenges plaguing the nation’s largest school system, schools Chancellor David Banks told city lawmakers today. He made a plea to City Council members: help the Department of Education determine how best to allocate its finite resources. The notion that all programs can be maintained without any tradeoffs is “unrealistic,” he charged. “I believe in being very transparent with our school communities, and I am very open to your suggestions on how we should navigate the impact of our multiple, compounding budget challenges,” Banks said during a preliminary budget hearing. “We all must grapple with these tough choices if we are going to continue to advance our mission for students and families.” Ahead of the hearing, the Emergency Coalition to Save Education Programs — a group of more than 160 organizations — rallied on the City Hall steps. Council Member Lincoln Restler called the absence of a plan from the mayor and the chancellor to save programs financed by federal dollars “disgraceful.” He signaled fighting $170 million in reductions to 3K and prekindergarten is a top priority for the Council. “Working families in New York City are moving out because child care costs more than rent. It is wrong,” Restler said during the demonstration. “And so in this budget, this City Council is gonna fight back for restorations in funding for early childhood education.” During the hearing, Banks maintained he’s “fighting like heck” to ensure that funding is restored. Restler welcomed the news. But he urged the city to boost efforts to connect families to free child care, pointing to under-enrollment in the programs. — Madina Touré On the Beats Assemblymember Nily Rozic hosted the Neutra family, whose son is being held hostage by Hamas. | Shawn Ness/POLITICO AMERICAN HOSTAGES IN GAZA: Ronen and Orna Neutra, the parents of Omer Neutra, who is believed to be one of Hamas’ hostages, visited the Capitol today to speak with lawmakers and to join Assemblymember Nily Rozic to raise awareness of their son’s captivity and to discuss options moving forward. “We're raising awareness for a man and all the American citizens who are still hostages. And we're saying this is completely unacceptable. It's actually a threat. We need our government to do more. I want people to understand the gravity of this situation,” Rozic, a Queens Democrat, said. Omer Neutra, the grandchild of Holocaust survivors who is from Long Island, joined the Israeli Defense Forces in 2020 and was serving as a tank commander near Gaza during Hamas’ Oct. 7 terrorist attack. “For over 164 days, over five months, we received no sign of life. What we have heard are other hostages’ stories of abuse, torture and starvation. The situation is dire. Every day the remaining hostages, five of them American, draw closer to death. You're running out of time to bring them home live,” Orna, Omer’s mother said. — Shawn Ness ASSEMBLY FLIRTS WITH CLIMATE SUPERFUND PROPOSAL: The Assembly Democratic conference has moved closer to embracing a charge on fossil fuel companies for historical pollution. But they stopped short of a full-throated endorsement of the Superfund-style climate damages measure that the Senate has previously passed and included in their one-house budget again this year. “The Assembly is supportive of holding fossil fuel polluters accountable for costs related to climate change via a cost-recovery method; however, any such approach cannot impact consumers who are already overburdened by adverse price increases,” the Assembly’s summary of its budget proposal reads. The conference is open to discussing the climate superfund measure but concerns remain about how it would impact consumers, according to Assembly staff. The “Climate Change Superfund Act” would raise $75 billion from fossil fuel companies based on the quantity of fossil fuels they sold from 2000 to 2018. The bill has gained significant support since it was first introduced in 2022 with more than 70 sponsors. Assembly Energy Chair Didi Barrett, a Democrat from Columbia County, recently signed on as a co-sponsor of the measure. “My job is to figure out how we’re going to get there and how we’re going to pay for it,” Barrett told POLITICO. “It’s kind of a cliche, but having all tools in the tool chest available to us is the only way we’re going to get there.” Proponents argue that companies won’t be able to pass along costs directly because the assessment will be based on historical sales and they’ll be competing with other companies with fewer liabilities under the law. “I don't think there's anything that we're doing that isn't going to impact consumers,” Barrett said. “This is a tool that I support and want to move forward with, but to pretend that this is not going to impact consumers is pretty, quite naive.” Hochul hasn’t supported the proposal. The Business Council of New York State, Inc., opposes the measure and raised concerns that the bill is “impractical” and “disingenuous” because it penalizes only fossil fuel producers, not consumers and others, for the negative impacts of emissions. — Marie J. French ASSESSING THE CANNABIS MESS — Hochul is tasking the Office of General Services with reviewing the state’s troubled cannabis market rollout. OGS commissioner Jeanette Moy will lead a team that will embed with the Office of Cannabis Management to figure out how to improve the agency’s processing times and develop a way for the governor’s office to monitor licensing activity. Moy’s team will focus on how to improve the process for reviewing license applications and speed up the timeline for operators to get open. The review will last for 30 days and could continue into a second, longer phase with an outside consultant. — Mona Zhang IS MORE SCHOOL AID ENOUGH?: A report by the Empire Center explores New York's continual push for more school aid while highlighting some of the state’s shortcomings in education. The report supports some of the justification that Hochul used when rolling out her proposal to eliminate “hold harmless” and change the inflationary factor in the foundation aid formula. According to the fiscally conservative think tank, 81 percent of school districts outside New York City have fewer students than they did in the 2018-19 school year. Since 2000, enrollment in public schools (including charters) has dropped by 2.9 million, a point Hochul has highlighted when speaking to criticism on her proposal that could cut funding to 337 school districts statewide. The group again noted that New York has by far the highest per-pupil spending of any state, and that state aid per pupil doubled between school year 2011-12 and school year 2023-24, from $7,264 per student to $14,304 — almost triple the rate of inflation. “Rather than increasing state aid, Governor Hochul and lawmakers should be aiming to rightsize New York’s costs, with the goal of matching both the superior outcomes and lower per-pupil spending levels of higher-performing peer states,” the report said. — Katelyn Cordero AROUND NEW YORK — Donald Trump is unable to secure the $464 million bond in his civil trial case. (POLITICO) — State legislators are reexamining property tax foreclosure laws. It could open up some counties to lawsuits. (Times Union) — Two schools sharing a building on the Upper West Side are clashing as one’s enrollment shrinks while the other gains migrant students. (The New York Times)   Follow us on Twitter Joseph Spector @JoeSpectorNY   Subscribe to the POLITICO Playbook family Playbook  |  Playbook PM  |  California Playbook  |  Florida Playbook  |  Illinois Playbook  |  Massachusetts Playbook  |  New Jersey Playbook  |  New York Playbook  |  Brussels Playbook  |  London Playbook View all our political and policy newsletters Follow us

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