GOVERNOR OFFERS LEGISLATION TO SOFTEN HARSH DRUG LAWS

ALBANY, July 15 -- Gov. George E. Pataki today released the details of
his latest plan to soften New York's mandatory sentences for drug
crimes, putting forward a bill he urged the State Legislature to pass.

"I think it's a very sound compromise, and I think it represents,
really, a historic opportunity to reform these laws," Mr. Pataki said.

But any chance of consensus seemed to evaporate quickly, as the
speaker of the State Assembly, Sheldon Silver, a Democrat, laced into
Mr. Pataki's proposal, saying it fell far short of reforming the
Rockefeller-era drug laws, which all sides in Albany agree are too
harsh.

In the next breath, Mr. Silver opened the door for more negotiations,
calling for the Senate to join a conference committee on the matter.
But officials in the Senate rejected that move as insincere and an
effort to stall.

"The conference committee is a vehicle that is useful when the
Legislature is in session, not out," said John E. McArdle, a spokesman
for the Senate majority leader, Joseph L. Bruno, a Republican. "And
you have to question his motives for calling one when the Legislature
is out of session."

By the end of the day, one thing was clear: A debate that has dragged
on for years in Albany was still not resolved despite another round of
heated rhetoric, an earnest last-minute scramble at the session's
close in June to find middle ground and another push by the governor
to reach an agreement to change the laws.

The perennial effort could be called Exhibit A for Albany's
dysfunction, many outside the state capital say.

"This is a great public relations move, but it is bad public policy,"
Andrew Cuomo, an advocate of changing the laws, said today of the
governor's proposal. "Now, we don't know what the bill actually means."

In many ways the reactions of Mr. Bruno and Mr. Silver answer the
question of whether the governor's proposal has a chance. The two men
must agree to pass legislation, in exactly the same form, for it to
get to the governor for signing. It is a feat not often achieved.

In this case, aides to Mr. Silver attacked everything about the
governor's latest proposal, including the form in which it was
written, its content and, more important, what was left out. They
questioned the governor's commitment to the issue, saying Mr. Pataki's
proposal could not be declared dead on arrival because it had not
officially arrived: it was slipped under the door of an Assembly
lawyer on Monday night while lawmakers were out of session and out of
town.

"We are most disappointed by the complete lack of judicial discretion
and the absence of any drug treatment diversion provision or funding
for low-level offenders under this proposal," Mr. Silver said in a
joint statement with Jeffrion L. Aubry, a Democratic assemblyman from
Queens who has made changing the laws a focus of his political career.

Earlier in the day, Mr. McArdle said that from the Senate's point of
view, the governor's bill reflected the thinking of the Legislature's
top leaders when the legislative session ended on June 20.

"It is an approach that we could be supportive of as part of an agreed
upon bill," said Mr. McArdle, who added that the bill was delivered to
the Senate staff on Monday evening. "The solution is to get all three
parties -- the governor, the Senate and the Assembly -- on board to
pass it."

Mr. Pataki, a Republican, has been trying for more than two and a half
years to reach an agreement with the Assembly on the issue.

The current laws, enacted in the 1970's under Gov. Nelson A.
Rockefeller, often require judges to impose long sentences on addicts
who were paying for their habits by selling drugs. The laws do not
give judges the discretion to send people facing drug charges into
treatment programs instead of prison. A sticking point has been how
much leeway judges should have.

Last year, the Senate passed a bill from Mr. Pataki that would have
given judges discretion, among other things.

After the Legislature adjourned on June 20, Mr. Pataki's staff worked
to draft legislation that the governor's aides said embodied an
agreement reached when the rap impresario Russell Simmons and his
allies met seven hours on June 18 and 19 with the governor and the two
top legislative leaders.