NEW YORK: State Sen. Liz Krueger To Introduce Bill To Legalize Marijuana

My state senator wants to New York to follow in the footsteps of Colorado and Washington state. Via press release:

Joined by a broad spectrum of drug law reform advocates and fellow elected officials, State Senator Liz Krueger (D-Manhattan) announced that she will be introducing the Marijuana Regulation and Taxation Act (MRTA) today. The legislation would legalize, regulate, and tax marijuana under state law along lines similar to the state’s current system regulating alcohol, and would represent a new approach for New York State after decades of costly, counterproductive policies that have produced racially discriminatory outcomes. “Prohibition of marijuana is a policy that just hasn’t worked, no matter how you look at it, and it’s time to have an honest conversation about what we should do next,” said Sen. Krueger. “The illegal marijuana economy is alive and well, and our unjust laws are branding nonviolent New Yorkers, especially young adults, as criminals, creating a vicious cycle that ruins lives and needlessly wastes taxpayer dollars. Worst of all, this system has resulted in a civil rights disaster: African Americans are dramatically more likely to be arrested for pot possession than whites, despite similar rates of marijuana use among both groups.”

The Weed Blog reports on the ridiculous pot arrest stats for New York state:

New York’s current marijuana policies are widely recognized as broken. Approximately 600,000 people, mostly young Black and Latino men, have been arrested for marijuana possession in NY since 1997, saddling them with criminal records that impede their ability to obtain jobs, student loans, and housing. In New York City, marijuana possession is the number one arrest, and NY makes more marijuana arrests than every other state in the country, including California, Florida and Texas. Nearly 97% of all marijuana offenses in New York were for mere possession. The vast majority of those arrested (85%) are Black and Latino, mostly young men, even though numerous government studies report that young white men use marijuana at higher rates.

Cuomo Might Veto New York Redistricting

NY Gov. Andrew Cuomo says he may veto the ridiculously gerrymandered legislative redistricting just submitted to him by the leaders of the Senate and the Assembly. Looking at the GOP-created Senate map, it appears that I'd be in the new District 28 rather than the old District 26. I have no idea if that means I'd still have Sen. Liz Krueger as her old District 26 office (two blocks from me) sits in the new District 28, which has been the province of Bronx-based Sen. Jose Serrano (D). I don't relish seeing them have to battle each other for the new district, but forcing incumbent Democrats to fight each other seems to be one of the GOP's goals.

RELATED: The redistricting plan magically links together most of Brooklyn's Orthodox Jewish neighborhoods in order to create for them a (presumably Hasidic) state Senator.

October 27th In NYC: LGBT Fundraiser For NY State Sen. Liz Krueger

Embiggen for the details. I blog a LOT about the nonstop clown car that is the New York Senate, but too rarely do I laud its heroes like my own state Sen. Liz Krueger, who is onboard with every LGBT issue.

NY Senate Democrats Back Off Promise For Marriage Equality In 2009

New York Senate Democrats are now telling the press that they may not bring up marriage equality in the upcoming session and may not do so at all until after the 2011 election. This, after encouraging boatloads of campaign donations from the LGBT community with the attached promise of bringing same-sex marriage to a vote.

“We want to get there, but we want to get there the right way or else we risk setting ourselves back another decade,” said Senator Liz Krueger, a Democrat who represents the Upper East Side. “I think the California proposition and the recognition that entities with large amounts of money who oppose same-sex marriage have decided to be large players in this have a lot of people going back to the drawing board.” [JMG: Krueger is my senator.]

In addition, shoring up the state’s depleted treasury and repairing the economy have become the most pressing issues for Albany lawmakers, who return to the capital in January to face a reconfigured landscape. Democrats hold a majority of seats in both chambers of the Legislature, along with the governor’s office, for the first time since the 1930s. Some Democrats are not even confident they have the 32 votes necessary to pass a same-sex marriage bill in the Senate. The Democratic-led Assembly passed the measure last year by a sizable margin, but the Republican-controlled Senate declined to bring it to the floor for a vote.

Openly gay state Assemblyman Daniel O'Donnell, who successfully led the Assembly to approve marriage equality last year, disagrees with the strategy:

“Since when are fixing the economy and civil rights mutually exclusive?” said Daniel J. O’Donnell, an assemblyman from the Upper West Side who led the push for the bill in the Assembly. Mr. O’Donnell added that expectations are high in the gay community that New York will be able to deliver the movement’s next victory. “The leadership of the Senate and others in our community collected a lot of money from a lot of people with the promise — spoken and unspoken — that if the Democrats won the Senate, they would take a vote,” he said.

Some would say that what we're seeing here is the Democratic party in full retreat, terrified by the prospect of a repeat of the Prop 8 debacle in New York. And I can understand that the Democrats are soft-pedaling marriage equality at least until the majority leadership issue is resolved, but check out THIS corker from the above-linked story:

The Empire State Pride Agenda, an organization known for aggressively pursuing news media attention, said through a spokesman that it was in a “quiet period” and would not respond to questions.

A "quiet period"??? What. The. Fuck? And here I had dismissed it when I was told at the marriage equality rally at New York City Hall that the Pride Agenda had been telling people not to attend. Later that same day, somebody else told me they'd called the Pride Agenda to see if that was true, and he said he was told, "We're not telling people to go and we're not telling people not to go."

Here we are in the midst of the greatest resurgence of gay activism seen in decades and our own people are putting on the brakes. The Wicked Witch of the West said, "These things must be done delicately"...and I get that. But fucking hell, this is frustrating.

My Ballot

Unlike those of you burdened with page after page of confusing referenda, New York only has one item about disabled veterans seeking civil service jobs. My Congressperson, Carolyn Mahoney, should coast to an easy win, as should my state Senator Liz Krueger and state Assemblyman Micah Kellner. I'd say it's a straight Dem ticket for me this time, except that Kellner is bisexual. Yuk, yuk.