Albany Democrats’ latest imperial move: keeping the press away

Opinion

editorial

From the Post editorial team

March 26, 2023 | 8:22 p.m

America’s highest-paid state legislature has just dealt another blow to accountability and transparency: In a party-line vote, the Assembly Democrats rejected restoring Capitol reporters’ access to the halls of power.

On Wednesday, they scuttled the Republican-led resolution to return pre-pandemic reporters’ access to the meeting chamber and adjoining rooms from the ground.

For decades, reporters chattered in the lobby outside the Speaker’s office to ask questions about legislation and politics. Now they have to make an appointment.

This follows rule changes that have restored “empty seat” voting, allowing Democrats (well, anyone who wants to support bills that let Democrats on the ground) to vote on legislation remotely.

The “extraordinary circumstances” that justified remote voting and restricted access to the hemicycle and offices are over with the COVID threat. But speaker Carl Heastie’s members love their perks and hate any semblance of accountability.

In addition, Heastie has reduced the number of cases in which lawmakers can force debate and committee votes from about 200 to just now four a year – Inhibiting dissent and efforts to get individual Democrats on the record on controversial bills.

The Senate Democrat leadership has taken its own ironclad moves, including the brutal ongoing campaign to transform the state’s judiciary into a stamp on the progressive agenda.

Let’s hope the catastrophic excesses of one-party rule will ravage Democrats again in next year’s election, pushing many of them out of their increasingly comfortable $142,000 job jobs.