| | | | | |  | | By Erin Durkin and Anna Gronewold with Jonathan Custodio | Presented by Uber Driver Stories | We've got a deal — for real this time — to legalize marijuana in New York state. Late Saturday night, both Gov. Andrew Cuomo and Democrats in the legislature released legislation laying out the agreement to make the drug legal for recreational use by adults. While the bill still needs to pass — it has to "age" for three days before action — the deal has now been put in official legislative language. It's the most promising sign yet for negotiations that have spanned several years, leaving New York eclipsed by — and leaking tax revenue to — neighboring states that have launched their own legal pot programs. One of the major sticking points has been how New York's program would compensate communities that have been ravaged by the state's drug laws. The deal as it stands now would dedicate 40 percent of revenue to reinvestment in communities disproportionately affected by harsh penalties for marijuana possession, primarily where the majority of residents are people of color. That includes portions set aside for public education, as well as drug treatment, prevention and education. It also includes equity programs for participation in the new legal industry, an elimination of penalties for possession of less than three ounces of cannabis and automatic expungement of records for people with previous convictions for activities that are no longer illegal. Sponsors Assembly Majority Leader Crystal Peoples-Stokes and Sen. Liz Krueger (D-Manhattan) said the proposed program "provides long awaited marijuana justice," and offers "a nation-leading model for what marijuana legalization can look like." It's expected to eventually bring in $350 million a year in revenue for the state. This is good news for Andrew Cuomo, who could badly use a win amid investigations into harassment allegations, a toxic workplace culture and his handling of Covid-19 deaths in nursing homes. Though he's left much of the final heavy lifting to the legislature, Cuomo on Saturday night said he will sign the bill into law. "Legalizing adult-use cannabis isn't just about creating a new market that will provide jobs and benefit the economy — it's also about justice for long-marginalized communities and ensuring those who've been unfairly penalized in the past will now get a chance to benefit," he said in a statement. IT'S MONDAY. Got tips, suggestions or thoughts? Let us know ... By email: EDurkin@politico.com and agronewold@politico.com , or on Twitter: @erinmdurkin and @annagronewold WHERE'S ANDREW? No public schedule available by press time. WHERE'S BILL? Holding a media availability and appearing on NY1's Inside City Hall. | | A message from Uber Driver Stories: Meet Fallon. Delivering with Uber Eats helps her pay for college while allowing her the flexibility to fit her schedule around studies. Fallon chooses Uber because, unlike most other gigs, she can control her hours and spend more time focusing on her future. Watch her story in her own words below. | | |
|  | WHAT ALBANY'S READING | | "A YEAR AFTER becoming a global epicenter of the coronavirus pandemic, New York and New Jersey are back atop the list of U.S. states with the highest rates of infection...About 50,000 people per week in New York are testing positive for the virus, a number that hasn't much changed since mid-February. The two states now rank No. 1 and 2 in new infections per capita among U.S. states. New Jersey has been reporting about 647 new cases for every 100,000 residents over the past 14 days. New York has averaged 548..The lack of improvement or even backsliding in recent weeks has raised concerns that the states are opening too quickly and people are letting down their guard too much, just as potentially more contagious variants of the virus are circulating more widely." The Associated Press's Maria Villenueve and Mike Catalini — "The Empire State has recorded at least 49,928 deaths from the virus as of Sunday afternoon, according to data from Johns Hopkins University. With the seven-day daily average around 76 deaths, the state is on track to surpass the milestone [of 50,000 deaths] this week." — New York launched the nation's first vaccine "passport," an app that confirms the holder's vaccination status or a recent test result to gain entry to events. "THE NEW YORK state attorney general's office has subpoenaed dozens of officials in the Cuomo administration, including his top aide, requesting that they produce documents as part of an investigation of sexual-harassment accusations against the governor, according to people familiar with the matter. Melissa DeRosa, whose title is secretary to the governor and who has been at the center of the state's pandemic response, is among the officials to receive a subpoena earlier this month, the people said. Investigators for the attorney general have also questioned women accusing Gov. Andrew Cuomo of inappropriate behavior about their interactions with Ms. DeRosa, the women and their lawyers said." Wall Street Journal's Jimmy Vielkind, Khadeeja Safdar and Deanna Paul — "The top Republican in the state Senate filed a formal complaint against Gov. Cuomo, calling on the ethics committee tasked with keeping an eye on Albany to probe reports that the governor prioritized COVID-19 tests for his friends and family." | | | | JOIN THE CONVERSATION, SUBSCRIBE TO "THE RECAST" Power dynamics are shifting in Washington, and more people are demanding a seat at the table, insisting that all politics is personal and not all policy is equitable. "The Recast" is a new twice-weekly newsletter that breaks down how race and identity are recasting politics, policy and power in America. Get fresh insights, scoops and dispatches on this crucial intersection from across the country and hear from new voices that challenge business as usual. Don't miss out on our latest newsletter, SUBSCRIBE NOW. Thank you to our sponsor, Intel. | | | | | A MAN Gov. Andrew Cuomo appointed to co-lead a commission on tax reform during his first term is urging the governor and the state Legislature to reject higher taxes on the wealthy if they're looking for equity in the state's tax code. Peter Solomon — whom Cuomo appointed to the New York State Tax Reform and Fairness Commission in 2012 — sent a letter Friday to the governor, Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie and Senate Majority Leader Andrea Stewart-Cousins recommending they avoid proposals to hike taxes that the three have been pushing ahead of the April 1 budget deadline. "Tax systems always reflect ideology, but when bias drives policy, the results can negatively affect taxpayer behavior," he wrote. That could spark a parallel experience to the the fiscal crisis of the 1970s, the aftermath of which Solomon dealt with as deputy mayor for economic policy and development under then-New York City mayor Ed Koch. "[The governor and Legislature] are really playing with fire and it's really too bad. We've gone through this," he said in an interview Friday. "We've done this act. Unless we deal with this seriously, it gets out of hand and it takes a long time to get back. And New York is under too much pressure right now." POLITICO's Anna Gronewold "DURING his long tenure as New York's attorney general from 1979 to 1993, [Robert] Abrams transformed what had been a sleepy backwater office into a major protector of civil rights. He forged a path for the rights of the LGBT community. He fought for fair immigration, consumer rights, environmental protections, and reproductive rights. Abrams' long political career, which took him from the Assembly to Bronx Borough president to attorney general, is entertainingly documented in a new memoir titled "The Luckiest Guy in the World.'" Spectrum's Susan Arbetter FIRST IN PLAYBOOK — Dozens of public information officers from government agencies sent a letter to Gov. Andrew Cuomo and state health commissioner Howard Zucker pushing them to make journalists eligible for the Covid-19 vaccine. Public-facing government workers have been made eligible, but reporters and photographers are among several groups of essential workers still not able to get the shot. "Working journalists face equal or greater risk of exposure than we do, and the Administration previously deemed their work essential," wrote the 57 spokespeople. "New York's continued, unexplained denial of vaccine eligibility for members of the press interferes with their work and ours, and harms the communities we serve." The signers include reps from City Hall, the five city district attorneys' offices, the city Department of Health, the public advocate, comptroller and City Council and a slew of other agencies. #UpstateAmerica: Sen. Chuck Schumer has an "Ithaca is Gorges" mask and basically won't stop wearing it. | | | |   | | | | | WHAT CITY HALL'S READING | | "YANETH OCHOA, a Colombian woman who lives in Queens, was glad to find a job cleaning the subway last summer, as demolition jobs had dried up during the pandemic. But as trains rolled into the Jamaica-179 Street Station in Queens, she learned she would not just be wiping down cars to remove traces of the coronavirus. Like workers at end-of-line stations all over New York City, Ms. Ochoa, 30, was expected to scrub away grime, sputum and even human excrement, she said, without adequate training or special equipment… "When Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo ordered that trains be shut down overnight for cleaning, the Metropolitan Transportation Authority turned to contractors to help undertake the monumental task of scouring the trains in the nation's largest transit system. The thousands of workers the contractors hired — largely low-income immigrants from Latin America — were envisioned as a stopgap measure, as M.T.A. workers were falling ill and dying of the virus. At the same time, ridership and revenue had plummeted and the agency found itself in an intense budget crunch. But nearly a year later, the workers are still toiling at stations all over the city, some paid as little as half as much as the M.T.A. employees who did the same work before the pandemic began, and many without access to health insurance." New York Times' Annie Correal "A NEW LAW was supposed to keep Hiram Monserrate from running for a Queens council seat. He's trying to do it anyway. Monserrate, a former councilmember convicted of misusing public funds, filed petition signatures with the New York City Board of Elections on March 22, less than a month after Mayor Bill de Blasio signed legislation to prohibit ex-lawmakers with corruption records from holding elected office. Monserrate had hoped to unseat incumbent District 21 Councilmember Francisco Moya, who defeated him in 2017. The new law will almost certainly get Monserrate 'bounced from the ballot,' said election attorney Howard Graubard. 'I suspect if someone brings a specific challenge against that, he'll be taken off the ballot,' Graubard said." Queens Eagle's David Brand "EVEN AMONG the hundreds of videos capturing the violent police response to Black Lives Matter protests last year, this one stood out. A muscular male officer, in a navy blue shirt with 'NYPD' across the back, lunged at a young demonstrator, shoving her several feet and sending her crashing to the ground on a street in Brooklyn. In a video shot by a reporter and shared widely on social media, the woman, Dounya Zayer, can be seen clutching her head and writhing in pain after she tumbles to the asphalt. The mayor called the officer's actions 'absolutely unacceptable,' the police commissioner said internal affairs was investigating and, 11 days after the incident, the district attorney announced criminal charges against the officer, Vincent D'Andraia. "Zayer, 21, went on to file a lawsuit alleging that D'Andraia had violated her right to free speech, and last month, the city's Law Department, which almost always represents officers sued for on-the-job actions, told D'Andraia it wouldn't defend him in court. It looked like the city was cutting the cop loose, a step rarely taken in the hundreds of lawsuits filed every year against NYPD officers. But while a city lawyer won't be representing D'Andraia in court, it turns out New Yorkers are still paying the law firm that is representing him in the case. That's because every year, the city treasury effectively bankrolls a union-controlled legal defense fund for officers. The little-known fund is financed in part by a direct city contribution of nearly $2 million a year that is expressly intended to pay for lawyers in civil cases like D'Andraia's, where the Law Department has decided an officer's conduct is essentially indefensible." ProPublica's Jake Pearson "LIKE MOST mayoral hopefuls, Shaun Donovan has a plan he believes can solve one of the city's most vexing challenges: fixing the sorry state of public housing. But unlike the other candidates, Donovan has already played a behind-the-scenes role in the NYCHA saga. From 2009 into 2014, Donovan ran the U.S. Department of Housing & Urban Development (HUD), the federal agency that provides the New York City Housing Authority with 90% of its capital funding and 70% of its operating budget. During the time Donovan was HUD secretary, NYCHA regularly lied to the agency about deteriorating conditions there. And the biggest of those lies — a claim no lead-poisoned children lived in the aging 400,000-tenant system — festered during Donovan's tenure. While at HUD, Donovan also created a program called Rental Assistance Demonstration (RAD), which brings in private operators to upgrade and manage public housing. "Public housing authorities around the nation — including NYCHA — have embraced RAD and the financing it unlocks as key to repairing crumbling buildings. NYCHA has begun an effort to move a third of its 175,000 apartments into the program Donovan invented. And despite the opposition of some tenants to turning public housing over to for-profit real estate firms, NYCHA is now full speed ahead on RAD. Whoever wins the race to City Hall will have to confront a daunting challenge at NYCHA: Management now estimates $40 billion is needed to bring every apartment up to livable condition. Public funding at that scale is hardly available, and there is little belief that NYCHA is up to the task even if it had the funding. 'I'm the only candidate that has a concrete plan on how you get the $40 billion that you need,' Donovan said, emphasizing that real progress won't take place without dramatic changes in the way NYCHA raises funds and manages its properties." The City's Greg B. Smith FIRST IN PLAYBOOK — A group of city faith leaders wrote to state legislative leaders to push for the city to receive more school aid from the federal stimulus bill, rather than having the state use the federal money to pay for the funding city schools were due anyway. In a letter to Senate Majority Leader Andrea-Stewart-Cousins and Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie, dozens of clergy members from several faiths say the federal funding should not be used to supplant state funding. "The costs of the eventual return from remote learning and the supports that children from highly impacted communities will need are in addition to current and ongoing costs for the delivery of education to New York City's youth," they write. Both legislative chambers' proposed budgets would supplement rather than supplant the funding and the letter asks for it to be kept that way in the final budget. — Assemblymember Ron Kim is endorsing City Council Member Brad Lander for city comptroller. Kim (Q-Queens), recently in the spotlight as a prominent foe of embattled Gov. Andrew Cuomo, said Lander would "fight like hell against abuses of power that threaten our ability to support those who need it most." — City Council Member Carlina Rivera is endorsing two candidates for open Council seats in Queens, Tiffany Caban in Astoria and Shekar Krishnan in Jackson Heights. Rivera (D-Manhattan), considered a likely candidate for Council speaker, previously endorsed 13 women running for Council. | | | | THE LATEST FROM INSIDE THE WEST WING : A lot happened in the first two months of the Biden presidency. From a growing crisis at the border to increased mass shootings across the country while navigating the pandemic and ongoing economic challenges. Add Transition Playbook to your daily reads to find out what actions are on the table and the internal state of play inside the West Wing and across the administration. Track the people, policies and emerging power centers of the Biden administration. Don't miss out. Subscribe today. | | | | |
| | FROM THE DELEGATION | | "REP. MONDAIRE Jones isn't beating around the bush when it comes to cannabis. The freshman New York Democrat, who's pushing President Biden to reverse a string of recent pot-related firings of White House staffers, admitted Friday that he has smoked marijuana and said it makes no sense for Biden or any other employer to consider weed toking a fireable offense. 'I have in the past smoked marijuana. I do not currently smoke marijuana, but if I did it wouldn't be a problem,' Jones said in an interview with the Daily News after sending a letter to Biden with 29 other House Democrats calling for the axed staffers to be reinstated. White House press secretary Jen Psaki confirmed last week that at least five staffers were sacked for admitting to past marijuana use." New York Daily News' Chris Sommerfeldt | | AROUND NEW YORK | | — About 25,000 fully remote students signed up to return to in-person school in the first two days of the city's opt-in period. — An NYPD housing police officer died Sunday from Covid-19. — Three years after Keith Raniere's arrest, those involved in the NXIVM cult are divided into 'victims, loyalists, guilty.' — A Rochester man has created a Suez Canal video game. — Tottenville High School students and parents are not pleased with mayoral candidate Eric Adams after a campaign consultant emailed students promising school credit if they volunteered for Adams' campaign. — The state Department of Health says it will continue to require six feet of distance between students at schools for the time being, despite the city's plan to embrace new CDC rules allowing three feet. — Billionaire John Catsimatidis and his daughter Andrea, who leads the Manhattan GOP, are split over who to back in the Republican race for mayor. — A Brooklyn judge dismissed a lawsuit because the plaintiff's attorney refused to wear a mask during jury selection. — Teachers are offering to escort Asian Brooklyn Tech students on the subway amid a spate of anti-Asian attacks. — The city has not collected $100 million in unpaid parking tickets, according to a state audit. — The Staten Island bar that attempted to declare itself an "autonomous zone" to defy Covid-19 restrictions got shut down again. — A man was found dead in Morningside Park's pond. — A slew of Black mayoral candidates are vying to follow the lead of the late David Dinkins in becoming the city's second Black mayor. | | SOCIAL DATA BY DANIEL LIPPMAN | | HAPPY BIRTHDAY: Robert Gibbs is 5-0 ... Nouriel Roubini ... David E. Shaw is 7-0 … AP's Steve Peoples … Liz Jaff … Marissa Padilla of Global Strategy Group … Peter Velz is 32 … Peter Cherukuri is 45 … Lara Logan is 5-0 … Casey Wian … (was Sunday): Rep. Nydia Velázquez (D-N.Y.) ... Hank Paulson … Tevi Troy … Hadassah Lieberman … Ulster, N.Y., County Executive Pat Ryan … Jake Adelstein … (was Saturday): NBC/MSNBC's Jacob Soboroff turned 38 … CNN's Meredith Artley … Walt Mossberg turned 74 … Edelman's Erin Schwille MAKING MOVES -- Brandon Messina has been promoted to be managing director and corporate counsel at Sard Verbinnen. He most recently was principal and corporate counsel at the firm. TJ Tatum has been promoted to be principal at Sard Verbinnen; he most recently was VP at the firm. | | A message from Uber Driver Stories: As a woman of color, Fallon's number one priority is to better herself through her education. And that means finishing her bachelor's degree in business.
At first, Fallon tried to go down the traditional route of working part-time. But she says it didn't offer the flexible schedule that she needed.
"I like the flexibility of driving with Uber," she says. "I can drive when I want to."
With Uber, Fallon can choose when, where, and how long she wants to drive. If she has an exam that needs her attention, she doesn't have to worry about asking her boss or requesting time off—she can take the time she needs on her terms.
To see more stories like Fallon's, click here.
*Driver earnings may vary depending on location, demand, hours, drivers, and other variables. | | |
| | REAL ESTATE | | "GOV. CUOMO'S stealth plan to demolish six blocks around Penn Station and build 10 skyscrapers without a city review has hit a snag, with Albany Democrats trying to yank $1.3 billion earmarked for the project from the state budget. Meanwhile, a group of lawmakers sent a letter to Cuomo Friday saying the plan for his Empire Station Complex — a massive, years-long project in an area bounded by 6th and 9th Avenues and 34th and 31st streets — should not go forward as proposed. "We cannot have a plan for the area around Penn Station and not have a clear understanding, let alone agreement, on what happens to Penn Station," read the letter signed by Reps. Jerry Nadler and Carolyn Maloney, Manhattan Assemblyman Richard Gottfried, Manhattan state Sens. Brad Hoylman and Robert Jackson, City Council Speaker Corey Johnson and Manhattan Borough President Gale Brewer." New York Post's Dana Kennedy "NEW YORK CITY officials suspended a housing employee over a shocking letter that was addressed to three Vietnamese roommates using a racial slur. The missive was delivered to the Manhattan men after the city Department of Housing Preservation and Development responded to a call for heat and hot water issues in their East Side building. The follow-up letter was addressed to "Chin Chong," rather than using the men's real names. 'The employee is suspended without pay & we're conducting a full investigation to determine further disciplinary action,' the agency tweeted. 'We've reached out to the individual affected to express profound apologies. Racism has no place in NYC.'" New York Daily News' Larry McShane "THE SMALL WATERFRONT community of Red Hook, in Brooklyn, is home to a cruise terminal, a 346,000-square-foot Ikea store and one of two Tesla showrooms in New York City. Some residents say they have managed to coexist with a variety of large commercial footprints but have concerns about two future neighbors. Amazon. com Inc. and United Parcel Service Inc. both have plans for package-and-delivery hubs in the area to keep up with skyrocketing e-commerce demand. Other package-distribution sites in the area could be on the way, according to local elected officials." Wall Street Journal's Irene Plagianos
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