In his second annual State of the State address, New York Governor Andrew Cuomo called for quadrupling the state’s solar capacity by 2013, and called on investors to fund $2 billion in new transmission...
Jackson Morris, senior policy adviser at Pace Law School’s Energy & Climate Center, was interviewed on the Capital Tonight television program on Your News Network about the recently passed Power NY Act, which may...
Professor Bennett Gershman has published an op-ed in The Journal News about the disproportionately large influence of the small Conservative Party in New York State’s government.
Prof. Gershman writes: “Why is such a marginal political party able to wield such a heavy hammer that in effect can undermine the will of a majority of voters? The fact is that New York’s byzantine political system — one of only a few states — allows candidates to run on several ballot lines, giving minor political parties undue and unfair leverage.”
Professor Adele Bernhard told The Gannett Newspapers that a bill being considered in New York State to create a registry of convicted violent offenders–similar to the sex offender registry–wouldn’t reduce crime. In fact, it...
Pace Law School Prof. Randolph McLaughlin, who has litigated major voting rights cases for more than 20 years, is available to speak to the media about the battle over redistricting in New York State.
“Redistricting in New York State has always been held hostage by political parties. In the past, the Senate, which was controlled by Republicans, drew their own lines, and the Assembly, controlled by Democrats, drew their own lines. Inevitably, the lines drawn by either house wound up in a litigation that dragged on for years. Clearly, there’s a need for a non-partisan effort to create lines that are both consistent with the Constitution and the Voting Rights Act. Unfortunately, it seems that neither party is interested in that endeavor.
The problem is, redistricting is all about incumbent protection. It’s not about the voters, it’s not about the community—it’s about the incumbents protecting their own little fiefdoms.
To change this, a Constitutional change would ultimately be ideal, because that would enshrine the process. But in the interim, both the House and Senate leadership could agree to have an independent panel, such as the state Task Force on Demographic Research and Reapportionment, draw lines and to accept those lines.”
Recommendations will be presented to Cuomo administration
WHITE PLAINS, NY, January 6, 2011 –As the Cuomo administration gets warmed up, five Pace environmental law students and their advisors hope to guide its approach to climate change by creating a scorecard on the recommendations of a January 2009 report by the New York State Bar Association Task Force on Global Warming.
The Pace Law students and staff members are taking stock of the state’s progress over the past two years on the report’s 22 recommendations, and what work lies ahead. The report, “Taking Action in New York on Climate Change,” was approved by the state bar association’s House of Delegates on April 4, 2009.
WHITE PLAINS, NY, December 8, 2010 –Influential state conservation leaders came to a Pace Law School symposium recently to hear the latest wisdom regarding New York’s Constitutional forest preserve, vital information should a state Constitutional Convention be held. What made the presentation especially notable was that the experts were students.
The students’ work, presented on December 1, was the culmination of the Research Seminar on Article XIV: “Forever Wild” and Legal Issues of a Possible Constitutional Commission and Constitutional Convention. Attendees included top officials from the Department of Environmental Conservation—including Kenneth Hamm of the general counsel’s office and Robert K. Davies, New York’s State Forester and director of the Division of Lands and Forests—as well as leaders at public policy groups.
