EROSION OF HOME RULE

I’m always suspicious of laws passed on the last days of session in Albany. It’s never a good sign and generally leads to poor governance. State elected democrats have been trying to tip the scales in elections which already favor their party and have been rebuked for it a number of times, both by the courts and by voters. In this last session, the majority party decided to try again, this time eroding the state’s cherished municipal home rule law.

The home rule law in the state constitution “provides both an affirmative grant of power to local governments over their own property, affairs and government, and restricts the power of the State Legislature from acting in relation a local government’s property, affairs, and government pursuant only special laws upon home rule request or to general laws.”

The state senate, assembly, and governor have repeatedly tried, sometimes successfully, to take over local control in land use and in finances. This is easy to show.

The state is raising your property taxes this year, despite property taxes being under local control. It’s withholding millions in federal Medicaid funds, FMAP money, from counties. This money, almost 1.5 million dollars in Tompkins County, was meant to be pass-through the state directly to the counties. This is a cash grab. There’s no nicer way to say it. It’s so blatant, federal officials are now working on ways to prevent it.

The overriding of land use zoning in towns and cities was also in jeopardy under the governor’s housing plan. That failed to advance, but the state has already done this when it comes to utility scale solar, which will cover thousands of acres of active farmland and will necessitate the redevelopment of thousands of more acres to build the power lines to move that energy from Upstate to Down.

The Democratic Party leadership tried two years ago to make massive changes to election laws including ending the requirement that voters give an excuse to vote by mail and allowing people to register to vote on election day. All the proposals failed by wide margins. The senate and assembly have ignored those rejections by voters. The two houses have decided to override county and town decisions on when to hold their own elections, voting to push those elections all into even years. While I believe this to be political, many do not, but still oppose the move because of logistical reasons and the impact it will have on the debate over loc.al issues.

The Tompkins County legislature voted 10 to 4, asking Governor Kathy Hochul to veto this legislation. All voted for different reasons and politics played no part in the discussion. Lee Shurtleff brought up the size of the ballot. There would be more than a dozen races listed from President to Highway Superintendent, Coroner, Town Board. You may have signed a petition to get someone on a ballot. More likely, you signed multiple petitions at the same time for multiple people. Imagine 10 or 15 petitions. It will be like signing a mortgage.

Our two election commissioners came out against the change, again not for political reasons. It was argued the focus at the board of elections is different for a presidential election than it is local elections. In a presidential vote, there’s a lot of interest in registering, getting the rolls cleaned up, and communications with state and federal people, many of whom have been involved in the process before. In local races, many of the candidates have never been involved before. They need help with petitions and filings with the state. In local races today, the focus is on local issues. If. everything is held at the same time, local issues will be swamped by national issues. 

There are some arguments that this move will save money. It will not. We will still have clerk, sheriff, and judge races in off years. These resolutions also exclude cities so they will still have elections in off years. We all want better turnout, but I can say that about school board and budget votes and about my local library vote. I’d also like folks to be informed about those votes and these resolutions do nothing to address that. Nothing is stopping folks from voting in odd years.

I believe the government closest to the people governs best; it’s the driving force behind home rule. It makes sense that the people you see at the grocery store would be more approachable than someone who lives a few counties away. It would be hyperbolic to say this erosion of home rule is a threat to governing, but it is a threat to better governing. I hope in the future the senate, assembly and governor will be more careful when putting state force behind something better left to the counties or towns.

If you want your towns and county to remain in control of when local elections are held, please call Governor Hochul at 518-474-8390 and ask her to veto the bill moving the date of local elections..