PRISON INMATES, REPUBLICAN CONSTITUENCIES

Nothing was more striking in Gov. Pataki's recent State of the State
address than his use of the word "reform" no fewer than 31 times in a
69-minute speech. It's striking, because if there's anything New Yorkers
will not get from this administration, it's genuine reform.

For the governor to pursue real reform, he would have to challenge some
entrenched Albany special interests and Republican Party politics. A look
at how the governor "reformed" the Rockefeller-era drug laws reveals how
unwilling or unable he is to do that.

Last year, after a decade of promises to revisit the state's 30-year-old
drug laws, the governor finally signed a "reform" measure. The need for
real reform was obvious; the Rockefeller laws are a well-established
failure. They impose harsh minimum mandatory sentences on first-time,
nonviolent drug offenders, stripping judges of the freedom to base their
sentences on the facts of each individual case. Under rigid sentencing
guidelines, judges are forced to lock up thousands of nonviolent young
people who would be better served by effective drug treatment. The "reform"
legislation did little to change this injustice.

The Rockefeller laws have wasted millions of dollars, to say nothing of the
unnecessary waste of prisoners' lives that can never be recovered.

As the Times Union editorial page has highlighted, the Supreme Court just
last week affirmed the importance of judicial discretion - which is absent
in New York's law.

When the need for real reform of these laws is so obvious, why would the
governor look the other way? Because, arguably, Mr. Pataki is more
interested in protecting the interests of New York's Republican Party than
in serving the interests of the people of New York.

Let me describe one example of this dysfunction. The population of upstate
New York, the political base for the state's Republicans, has been steadily
declining in recent years. We have the greatest out-migration of any state
in the nation. Our upstate communities are losing jobs, too, and state
government has pushed the problem from bad to worse by increasing the cost
of doing business. Sadly, jobs in the prison industry are among the few
employment opportunities the Pataki administration has protected upstate.

There are New Yorkers moving upstate, but they are prison inmates. In fact,
prisoners from downstate represent a full 30 percent of all those "moving"
upstate since 1990. While only 24 percent of New York prisoners come
originally from upstate, 91 percent of all New York's prisoners are
incarcerated there.

This works out nicely for New York's Republican Party. Why? Because the
population figures that determine Senate and Assembly districts include
prison inmates. It's simply not in the Republicans' political interests to
support measures that would let those locked up under the old drug laws go
free.

According to data from the Prison Policy Initiative, nearly 44,000 prisoners

- - mainly from downstate and mainly minorities - are incarcerated in small,
upstate communities and are counted as "residents" of the communities in
which they are imprisoned. Their presence in a prison adds to a
legislator's constituents - even though, as prisoners, they can't vote.

This is politically powerful for the Republican Party. There are four
upstate Senate districts that qualify as districts only because they
include a large prison population - and all four are represented by
Republicans. The Democrats would have to take just four more seats for the
Republicans to lose their majority.

The leading defenders of the Rockefeller-era drug laws are upstate
Republican Sens. Dale Volker and Michael Nozzolio, heads of the committees
on codes and crime, respectively. The prisons in their two districts
account for more than 17 percent of all the prisoners in the state. It may
not be fair to say Volker and Nozzolio actually "represent" the inmates who
make their districts viable. Sen. Volker told another newspaper that the
cows in his district would be more likely to vote for him than the
prisoners. State population statistics show that, without the inmates,
Volker's district is one of the four that would have to be redrawn.

Are decisions on the Rockefeller-era drug laws being made as sound public
policy or are they politically motivated? The potential conflict of
interests is obvious. We should not count prisoners as a political base for
legislators who do not honestly represent them and for whom they did not
vote. In other words, remove the partisan politics and secure the integrity
of legislative decisions. These are important keys to "real" reform.

Such an agenda would replace partisan politics with sound public policy,
deliver results not rhetoric and restore integrity to the process. It would
focus on an economic development plan for upstate New York rather than a
prison construction program. It would address the education-aid debacle and
the dysfunction of state government. The "government for sale" attitude
should be replaced with a strong ethical code for lobbyists and special
interests.

For many years, voters ignored the state government's poor performance. But
this past year has brought a new awareness and justified impatience with
Albany. Elected officials who serve in Albany could not avoid hearing the
message and after years of dysfunction they promised change. Even seasoned
Albany veterans are contorting themselves to appear as "reformers." This
year they must deliver.