It’s budget season again in Albany and if the products in previous years haven’t impressed you, this year’s model certainly will.
Governor Kathy Hochul (D-Hamburg) recently pitched her FY2026 $254 billion spending package to the full State Legislature at last month’s State of the State Address. This is the largest budget in State history, by the way.
Forget anything budgetary about the budget for the moment – at least that’s how it’s done in New York. Unlike in other states, the budget doesn’t begin with the Legislature, but the Governor. The budget then goes to both chambers of the Legislature separately for their respective one-house bills, essentially their own versions subject to negotiations. The budget is then voted on in parts, typically ten, where each section can be approved or rejected separately.
A compartmentalized budget sounds like a good idea, until it isn’t. This is how backwards decisions like bail reform laws and billions in funding for illegal immigrants were pigeonholed into law – tied into specific compartments, often baked in with grant funding or bring-home-the-bacon opportunities for legislators, so a “no” vote is a dereliction of duty, and a “yes” vote is a compromise of your values.
Moreover, the budget shouldn’t come from an executive top-down. If the Legislature is divided into districts – 150 in the Assembly and 63 in the Senate – then the legislators should be able to craft a budget with their ears to the rail in their respective districts.
Instead, that responsibility falls on one individual – plus a team of advisors, we suppose – to then best render the needs of the entire state, and a highly regionalized one like New York, no less.
But what’s even more dysfunctional is how the budget allows any policy at all. In a process that implies finances, policy should be the last thing involved. This unique flavor of democratic backsliding federally and in state governments is why legislatures at both levels get consistently poor marks. Other states have smoother processes, but in New York, of course nothing can be simple.
Enter the latest gripe we have, which is the subject of our cover story this week in all three issues. Sarah’s Law was named after Sarah Goode, of Medford, who was brutally raped and murdered by a Mastic man who would later be sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole. After the appeal of his conviction began, he took the coward’s way out while locked up.
Because of an antiquated legal doctrine called abatement ab initio, the defendant’s conviction was overturned. The initial premise of the doctrine makes sense: if a defendant dies while appealing his/her conviction, either through suicide or not, it reinstates a sliver of the presumption of innocence by default – benefit of the doubt, more or less. Therefore, it seems fitting at face value that such a technicality exists.
But in the age of modern technology, especially DNA evidence, near-constant surveillance, and this time period being one in which going off the grid is practically impossible, most convictions are ironclad and most appeals are just formalities.
And that’s what happened in Sarah Goode’s case. Technically, in the eyes of New York State Law, Goode’s murder has no suspect. Although he was convicted and we all know it, the State shrugs and says that it effectively did not happen.
For some, it might seem pointless that this loophole be criticized. Even though a piece of paper doesn’t say that someone who was undoubtedly guilty was convicted of a crime doesn’t mean that crime didn’t actually go unsolved, and he/she is not out on the street ready to offend again, right?
While that principle is thankfully intact, for the crime victims and their families, it feels like a slap in the face straight from the judiciary. The time, effort, sleepless night, and lifelong trauma and heartbreak faced by victims, their families, and legal counsel to obtain a guilty verdict seemingly blows away in an instant because of a consequence-dodging suicide or just convenient timing after an appeal kicks off.
So, why do we bring up the budget equation of this?
This policy wouldn’t even cost any money. It would simply force the State to no longer recognize the legal doctrine of abatement ab initio. And it’s not like being opposed to this is the liberal or Democratic platform. This bipartisan change has occurred in states even more liberal than New York, such as Massachusetts. Even for one of the most progressive states in the nation, it was a bridge too far.
Governor Kathy Hochul can add this measure to the Executive Budget. It can be signed, sealed, and delivered when the rest of the budget is approved, bypassing the typical legislative process, committee research, debate, and amendments if necessary.
While this proposal has been unveiled only this week, it remains to be seen whether or not Hochul will take the common sense measure this time, or at the very least if legislative Democrats will help pass it. Given their proclivity to let Republican-sponsored bills simply die in committee because of credit-farming, it’s possible that that’s something in play.
Benefit of the doubt?
Even the bill’s sponsor Senator Dean Murray (R-East Patchogue) said that credit doesn’t matter. “You want the credit? I’ll give you the damn bill. Get it done.”
Let’s see if Hochul and company take the damn bill.
