The Update Desk: MBIA (v46)

And... it's a done deal. 

I'm not really surprised that our legislators are going to be the highest-paid in the country, making $142,000 per year, for a 60-day session plus whatever other time they put into their jobs that we don't know about, until we get their newsletters. 

You'll recall I told you about this a little over a week ago in Meanwhile, Back in Albany (v46)

Many New Yorkers are struggling right now, trying to come up with money to pay their rent, their utilities, to buy groceries, and to scrape together money to put even a fair-to-middling holiday celebration together for their families. 

Rural families, suburban families, urban families - it's not just one subset of New Yorkers; all of us are feeling a pinch in one way or another. Which is why it's so insulting to learn that our legislators just gave themselves a $32,000 raise. 

I think this was the fastest I've ever reached out to my elected representatives.

I've emailed Sen. Rachel May and Assemblymember Pamela Hunter, my representatives, for their thoughts and comments on their votes. It's clear from my comments that I don't support this move, so I'll be interested if I get a "thanks, Constituent" letter or if they'll try and convince me this is a good idea.

At the time, I didn't know how they voted, but I had a suspicion. I since confirmed that the count was mostly along party lines, which is no shock. In the Senate, it was 33 - 23, with 7 Dems voting no; in the Assembly, it was 81-52, with 8 Dems joining their Republican colleagues in voting no.

My two? They were both 'yes' votes. And I have yet to get a response from either of them.

I've also reached out to Gov. Kathy Hochul, urging her to veto the legislation and force the two chambers to override her veto, which they can do if they want, and I encourage you to do the same if you don't like being taken advantage of by our legislators. 

I got what appears like a canned response to anyone who writes to her; "thanks, and we've got a lot of work to do together" kind of thing, with no mention of my issue. 

And then we heard, late on New Year's Eve, that she had signed the bill, even though the raise was more than she had expressed support for, and so was the outside income limit. There have been suggestions that she didn't veto it because she needs the legislature to get things done with the budget and all the legislation they pack into it. There've also been suggestions that she should have gotten a guarantee for having her pick to be the chief judge on the Court of Appeals approved, which may or may not happen.

I'm not sure about either of those, but I wish if she was going to approve it anyway, she had made them wait and stew in it for as long as possible.