Cuomo unveils 2020 theme and proposals: Making Progress Happen – Hudson Valley 360

ALBANY Gov. Andrew Cuomo started off the week dropping pieces of his agenda for the 2020 State of the State and unveiled his theme for the year: Making Progress Happen.

Two of Cuomos proposals were released Tuesday, first one of which would tighten penal law against sexual offenders by deeming voluntary intoxication a form of incapability to consent.

Under current penal law, a person is considered incapable of consent if theyre mentally incapacitated from forced ingestion of drugs or alcohol, not voluntary. Cuomo plans to release a legislation that would close what he calls this legal loophole.

While New York has some of the most aggressive laws in the nation when it comes to combatting this insidious disease, a loophole in current law allows rapists to walk free and vacate their heinous crimes based on a legal technicality, Cuomo said in a press release. Our laws must protect the people of this state not condone rape as a punishment for consuming alcohol. With this proposal we are saying enough is enough and taking action to close this nonsensical loophole and help end the culture of abuse once and for all.

There were nearly 300 reported rapes total in Columbia, Greene, Genesee, Jefferson and St. Lawrence counties in 2018, according to data from the state Division of Criminal Justice Services. The data also showed most New York counties have seen a gradual uptick in reported rapes from 2014 on.

Cuomo also revealed Tuesday that he would be pursuing legislation to ban single-use styrofoam containers.

With the top Republican Assembly voting record on the environment, I agree we need to make progress in removing more Styrofoam from circulation, Assemblyman Mark Walczyk, R-116, said in a statement. I look forward to reviewing the Governors plans and getting input from the businesses and people impacted.

Monday brought another two proposals from Cuomos office, the first of which would create legislation to ban fentanyl analogs, a highly potent synthetic opioid. With this new legislation, the posession and sale of fentanyl analogs would be subject to the same penalties as other controlled substances.

Drug dealers have turned to lacing opioids and other illicit drugs with fentanyl analogs a deadly synthetic opioid that current law does not ban, Cuomo said in a statement. This two-pronged proposal will tackle that problem by banning these dangerous fentanyl copycats and providing treatment to people suffering from opioid addiction before its too late.

Fentanyl, which is 50 to 100 times more potent than morphine, is not currently illegal to use or sell in New York because, unlike on the federal level, it is not listed in the states controlled substances schedule. Cuomos proposal would not only make fentanyl illegal, but would also authorize the DOH commissioner to add more analogs to the list of controlled substances as they are discovered.

Recently, data from the state Department of Health revealed that New York saw its first decline in opioid overdose deaths in a decade, dropping nearly 16 percent between 2017 and 2018. But while the state saw an overall decrease in overdose deaths, it also saw a major jump in overdose deaths caused by fentanyl a 124 percent increase outside of New York City in 2016.

On the treatment side, Cuomo is proposing an aggressive expansion of access to medication-assisted treatment, or MAT. This includes growing a program that provides MAT to patients in emergency rooms, allowing them to be imimediately transitioned into long-term treatment; providing MAT through teleheath, which would be particularly useful for spread-out rural communities with limited access to health care; adding 10 mobile clinics across the state; and making MAT available to incarcerated individuals.

But to state Sen. George Amedore, R-46, Cuomos office could have taken similar actions a long time ago to combat the opioid crisis.

If theyre really truly serious about helping the disenfranchised and those who are bound with addiction, they would pick up the handbook that I helped lead as a majority member in... the Senate Task Force on Heroin and Opioid Addiction, Amedore said Monday. We laid out a multi-pronged approach with a plan that took money, policy, changes of insurance coverages, more treatment, more recovery services, more education, inspiring more case workers, counselors, jail based services all the efforts that were needed to help those who are bound by addiciton.

Also on Monday, Cuomo announced his plan to create legislation that would require an automatic manual recount of votes in close elections, where the margin of victory for a candidate or ballot proposition is 0.2 percent in statewide elections or 0.5 percent in all other elections.

Right now decisions about whether to proceed with recounts in closely contested races almost always get bogged down in costly and unnecessary litigation because theres a hodgepodge of standards around the state, Cuomo said in a statement. By establishing clear rules mandating when a recount should be triggered and a process for local governments to follow, well boost confidence in the democratic process and take another step toward transforming our electoral system into a model for the rest of the nation to follow.

Lastly, Cuomo on Sunday proposed a gun safety restriction that would prohibit an individual from getting a gun license in New York if they have committed certain misdemeanors in other states.

Under the current SAFE Act, people are barred from receiving New York gun licenses if they have committed misdemeanors deemed serious offenses, such as domestic violence, forcible touching and unlicensed possession of a firearm, in the state but the law does not apply to those who committed the same offenses across state lines.

Until the federal government acts, states with weak gun laws will continue to endanger New Yorkers at home, and I will not tolerate it, Cuomo said. This new law will keep guns out of the hands of dangerous people and save lives. Im proud that New York continues to show the country that we dont have to live like this - that we can and will end gun violence.

To Republican legislators, this move from Cuomo is yet another impediment on Second Amendment rights.

It sounds like the same old partisan issues, wedge issues, fear issues of the Democratic mantra, Amedore said. More gun control, more of the same old thing they think is going to solve the problems of New York when we already have the strictest gun laws in the nation.

Assemblyman Will Barclay, R-120, said he doesnt support gun control, but would have to read the detailed legislation Cuomo is proposing to take a stance.

Its not so much that Im worried about people committing felonies in other states and equivalent felonies in New York that would bar them from getting a gun license that seems reasonable, Barclay said. But Im not sure what the governor is trying to accomplish on this. Im not sure where this has been a problem. This stuff isnt going to solve any gun violence issues we have.

State Sen. Daphne Jordan, R-43, Assemblymember Didi Barrett, D-106, and Assemblyman Jake Ashby, R-107, did not respond to requests for comment.

Massarah Mikati covers the New York State Legislature and immigration for Johnson Newspaper Corp. Email her at mmikati@columbiagreenemedia.com, or find her on Twitter @massarahmikati.

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Cuomo unveils 2020 theme and proposals: Making Progress Happen - Hudson Valley 360