POINT OF VIEW

There's a new majority, but what's next for Albany?

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Every once in a while, it seems, things do change. Democrats, with the help of labor and groups like the Working Families Party, Indivisible and No IDC New York, routed the Republican-allied Independent Democratic Conference, led by our own Sen. Jeff Klein.

Along with flipping some Republican seats, Democrats will hold their strongest majority in the state senate since before almost all of us were born. Progressive legislation and reforms that would have routinely died in the Republican-controlled senate are poised for possible passage.

The political landscape of New York has certainly changed. Important criminal justice reforms like bail reform and marijuana legalization, electoral reforms like early voting, and measures to protect a woman’s right to choose seem on track for enactment. There’s even hopes for ethics reform, but this is Albany, so …

While some of the faces have changed, the beneficiaries of the old Albany arrangement remain. Real estate and financial interest, big money and corporate donors are busy figuring out how to blunt, divert and undo this unexpected progressive turn in New York politics. Reforms that directly impact their interest — like eliminating limited liability corporation loopholes and big money in politics, restoring rent regulations and implementing a statewide universal health coverage system to name just a few — will be contested terrain.

Expect to hear a lot about “fiscal responsibility.” State Republicans will turn up the volume about “tax-and-spend” Democrats and social programs that “we can’t afford.” They may even bring up the old bogeyman of socialism, especially when it comes to health care. Expect to hear it, too, from Gov. Cuomo and some Democratic senate and Assembly members.

The prior Albany arrangement ensured they could safely support progressive reforms with little chance of them actually happening. The governor, who can rightly claim some important progressive accomplishments, when it comes to spending (and taxing), is firmly planted in the center (and maybe a little to the right).

Fiscal responsibility isn’t a bad thing — we all have to live within our means. But that isn’t what this debate is about. State government isn’t a family budget as much as fiscal conservatives would like to say it is. The question isn’t can we afford to change. It’s can we afford not to.

The status quo is costing us in ways both concrete and existential. Getting fired for lateness due to delayed and derailed subways. Lost hours of productivity, because sick workers aren’t productive workers. Health care still remains an unaffordable luxury for too many, and a burdensome expense for some businesses.

While Democrats don’t deny climate change, corporate lobbyists and donors still hold too much sway in shaping policy on the issue. Half measures and “bottom-line” thinking won’t be enough to save the planet for our children and grandchildren.

Corporate subsidies like the recent Amazon deal, with questionable benefits, siphon billions of taxpayer money into the private sector. A regressive tax system burdens working families and rewards the very wealthy as critical infrastructure and social needs remain unfunded.

These are all hidden costs of the status quo that need to be brought front and center by folks who want meaningful reforms, and not just window dressing.

There is reason to be hopeful. There is a growing broad consensus that change is needed. A recent New York Times article found conservative David Brooks arguing for a generous welfare state to help “free market” economies function better. In another, economist Paul Krugman made the case for a robust political sector, especially in the areas of education and health care, but not limited to.

In Albany, veteran progressive legislators will be joined in a new governing majority by energetic new ones who pledge to do things differently. Astute politician that he is, my hope is that Gov. Cuomo will get himself out ahead of these changes, rather than using his office as a roadblock.

In the end, politicians don’t make change, people do. And people are understandably cynical about politicians, politics and the possibilities of meaningful change. The election of Donald Trump and the realization that New York isn’t quite as progressive as we thought it was rattled enough New Yorkers to show up on Election Day in record numbers.

When people vote, things happen.

If we want things to continue happening for the better in Albany, we’re gonna have to put cynicism aside and keep showing up.

The author is a resident of the Amalgamated Houses, and is a local state committee member of the Working Families Party.

David Mirtz,

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