REPUBLICANS, DEMOCRATS CLASH ON NEW YORK'S DRUG LAWS

ALBANY - One of the enduring mysteries here in recent years is why the
state has been unable to overhaul the Rockefeller drug laws, which
force judges to sentence drug offenders to lengthy prison terms that
the three most powerful state officials, Gov. George E. Pataki and the
leaders of both houses of the Legislature, agree are draconian.

Officials came within a hair's breadth of rewriting the laws last
year, only to have the deal dissolve in the middle of the night behind
closed doors.

This week, members of the Republican-controlled Senate and the
Democratic-controlled Assembly began negotiating with each other in
public. Their hearings offered a rare chance to see how the sausage
gets made in Albany. They laid bare some of their many policy and
political differences, and showed why even their broad areas of
agreement might not be enough to bring about change.

The problem boils down to this: The Assembly wants to go much further
than the Senate does in changing the state's drug laws. So Assembly
members fear that if they agree right off the bat to the Senate's
proposals to reduce sentences for the most serious drug offences,
which would effect only a tiny fraction of the state's inmates, they
will have no leverage left to persuade the Senate to go along with
their own proposals. They want to reduce the sentences for much more
common and less serious drug crimes, and to give judges the authority
to send some drug offenders to treatment centers instead of prison.

At a hearing here on Thursday, the two sides went around and around.
The Senators tried to persuade the Assembly members to agree to their
proposal on the most serious crimes first, and debate their
differences afterward. Assembly members countered that they should
debate their differences first and agree on their areas of common
ground later. Neither side wanted to budge.

Sen. John A. DeFrancisco, a Syracuse Republican, called for agreeing
to some compromises right away. He noted that both sides wanted to
reduce the sentences for the most serious class of nonviolent drug
offences, which are now punishable by up to life in prison. The Senate
would like to see the sentence reduced to 10 to 20 years in prison.
The Assembly favors eight to 20.

" Let's do 9 to 20," DeFrancisco suggested, splitting the
difference.

But Assembly members were reluctant to agree formally without some
indication that the Senate would consider its other priorities.

"It is merely setting up what is on the table in real terms, so that
we can know that we're getting something done," said Assemblyman
Jeffrion L. Aubry, a Queens Democrat who is co-chairman of the
conference committee. "That's all that I am asking."

Sen. Dale M. Volker, a Republican from the Buffalo area who is the
other co-chairman of the conference committee, tried to assure the
Democrats that their issues would get a fair hearing. "We agree to
talk about it," he said. "We don't agree to agree, but we agree to
talk about it."

Although both sides agree that the most severe sentences are to harsh,
Democrats and Republicans disagree on many other aspects of drug policy.

The Democrats said the current policy has created a system in which 93
percent of the inmates severing time on drug charges are black or
Hispanic, despite national studies showing that the majority of drug
users are white. The Republicans spoke of the rights of victims, and
tried to maintain a tough-on-crime stance while agreeing to soften the
most severe drug laws.