SENATE PUTS OFF DRUG REFORM ISSUE

Democratic Plan to Shift Action to the Budget Avoids GOP "Soft on
Crime" Charges

ALBANY -- Seeking a politically safe path, and possibly lacking the
votes to tackle the measure on its own, the state Senate's Democratic
majority plans to roll Rockefeller Drug Law reforms into its larger
budget proposal to be taken up later this month.

News that Democratic senators, who control their chamber 32 to 30,
won't cast individual votes on drug law reforms came on Friday, less
than two days after Assembly Democrats passed the measure. Senators
spent several hours behind closed doors Wednesday night grappling
with the issue.

Drug law reforms, which would remove some of the mandatory sentencing
requirements for possession of hard drugs and give more discretion to
judges, have been passed repeatedly in the Assembly, which Democrats
control 109 to 41.

But this year marks the first time in more than four decades that
Democrats also have a majority, albeit slender, in the Senate.
Advocates had hoped that would mean easy passage of the reforms.

But Senate Republicans, who hope to retake their chamber in 2010,
have made it clear they would cast Democrats as soft on crime if they
voted for the reforms.

Senate Democratic spokesman Austin Shafran said it would be wrong to
assume his conference doesn't have the votes to pass a stand-alone
drug reform law. "It's clear that it's as much of a budget issue as
it is a sentencing issue," he said, noting that both confining people
in prison and treating them on the outside carry financial costs.

Nonetheless, putting the reforms into a budget bill takes some
pressure off individual Democratic senators, especially those from
rural areas where the reforms would likely mean the loss of prison
jobs, and in suburbs where law-and-order issues can be potent.

Despite that, placing drug reforms in a budget which would have to be
voted up or down in total brings its own set of risks. A fight over
drug laws could conceivably hold up the entire budget process if
Republicans are able to convince two or more Democrats to join them
in opposition.

"Our position is these bills should be taken up on the merits and not
folded into a budget bill," said Senate Republican spokesman Scott Reif.

In one respect, Senate Democrats are placing the ball in Gov. David
Paterson's hands: The governor -- who supports Rockefeller law reform
- -- has more latitude to control policy through the budget process.

"Typically, the governor would include language and the legislature
would vote it up or down," said Robert Ward, deputy director of the
Rockefeller Institute of Government, which is part of the SUNY system.

But as Ward noted, the Democrats' strategy "adds another complication
to a budget picture that is already quite complicated."