On Tuesday, NARAL Pro-Choice had their annual lobby day in Albany. Before that actually began, a few legislators in support of the organization spoke to the group before they started knocking on doors. As you might expect, several Democratic lawmakers addressed the crowd, like Senators Andrea Stewart-Cousins (Yonkers) and Liz Krueger (Manhattan) but there were two Republican members of the Assembly there as well. Teresa Sayward (Adirondacks) and Joel Miller (Poughkeepsie), incidentally both retiring at the end of the year, also addressed the crowd. Miller, one of the more commanding speakers in his chamber, is not your traditional conservative Republican. He’s voted for same-sex marriage three times in the Assembly and started off his speech by telling the audience about his recent experience as a Planned Parenthood volunteer. For more on the event, tune into New York NOW this weekend.
State legislators and Governor Cuomo have been touting the on time budget for the second year in a row that also, for the second time, reigns in spending.
Cuomo admits that most people would view that as lawmakers simply doing their job. But he says in a state that has almost never met the budget deadline for over two decades, it’s a “big deal”.
“For many years it wasn’t done on time,” said Cuomo, who says it became a “metaphor” for the dysfunction in Albany.
