Last week lawmakers of the New York State legislature finished their 2019 session; the Senate wrapped up on Thursday and the Assembly pulled an all-nighter completing their blurry-eyed work early Friday morning. Many liberal new laws were enacted because of the shift in the Senate majority, moving from right to left. For a long time the GOP Senate majority either “protected us” or “obstructed us.” Which way you feel depends upon your perspective.

Just to be clear, this is not going to be a pro-Republican, anti-Democrat column. Some of my best and life-long friends and even my mom are Democrats. What will be spotlighted today is the dominance of New York City’s progressive desires against upstate New York’s interests, regardless of which party you belong.

The entire 2019 legislative session, both the budget portion and the law-making phase, can be summed up as in favor of criminals and here’s some of the proof. When January 1, 2020, shows up on wall calendars, everyone will find out what cops and District Attorneys have been worried about all year; hardly any lawbreaker will get locked up on bail. Not just ‘low-level’ criminals, but some people accused of serious drug trafficking charges will be roaming our hometown streets if they haven’t bolted to a far away safe place.

Further, victims and witnesses to crimes will be in danger of reprisal and retaliation from criminals because of a reversal of current laws. Right now our DA doesn’t need to provide names, addresses or telephone numbers of witnesses until it is certain a case is going to trial, and the witness list is only made public just prior to the trial’s commencement. This rule was created because, believe it or not, some criminals facing jail would rather threaten and hurt those about to testify against them instead of going to prison. This safety precaution ends soon in the name of fairness. Remember; no witness testimony means no conviction.

With the new changes not only will DAs be required to provide witnesses information to those charged, but the DAs must also provide ALL evidence to the alleged criminal 15 days after the first arraignment. This may sound reasonable, but in reality, some evidence is still being discovered weeks after an arrest. Another challenge will be evidence which is sent away to a laboratory for analysis. There are a limited number of crime labs which are capable of processing such evidence as; blood, DNA, drugs, fingerprints, computer data, bullets and firearms, footprints, knife blades and more. In my 40 years of police experience, I have never seen crime labs return evidence within 15 days.

The bail and evidence changes were part of the budget process, now we can move to the legislative part of the Albany session. Politicians decided New York would be a safer place if people who entered our country illegally were issued driver’s licenses. Lawmakers in favor of the Green Light law said illegal aliens in our state are burdened by not being able to drive. This law is known as the Green Light Bill. This goes completely against what the majority of New Yorkers said when they responded to a Sienna poll which showed 53% didn’t think it was a good idea. It is also a slap in the face to every immigrant who stood in line, took citizenship classes and became naturalized US citizens.

Dovetailing with the Green Light law was a proposal that all people over the age of 18 with a driver’s license would automatically be registered to vote. Wasn’t that convenient timing? Prior to this being voted into law, someone thankfully noticed this automatic voter registration would include non-citizens allowing them to vote in US elections. When this was brought to light it was explained away as a typographical error.

Of course any of this soft-on-crime legislation passed by the Assembly and the Senate could have been vetoed by our governor before they become the law of the land. The chance that Andrew would kibosh any of these progressive changes was near zero and he quickly signed them into law.

Surprisingly, adult use of marijuana for recreational purposes did not become legal this year. It didn’t pass because not enough upstate lawmakers – from both political parties – would vote yes. I have a feeling the actual reason was not about health concerns, but how to divide up the sales revenue. What the legislature was able to do in order to appease the weed crowd was to decriminalize possession of pot (up to 2 ounces) and expunge past criminal convictions for most marijuana offenses. How such erasure of history works, I have no clue.

If you are part of the crowd in favor of legalizing pot in 2020, there is a slight chance you could be disappointed because next year is an election year. Controversial topics during election years cause the spines of politicians, once in your favor, to turn into Jell-O in the rural and suburban districts which means a definite maybe.

What you can look forward to with some confidence in 2020 is the legalization of prostitution in the Empire State. The sex-for-money-industry lobbyists have been hard at work convincing elected officials the services they provide is no longer criminal. Going one step further, the sex workers say they should be brought into the legal employment fold so they can unionize, get insurance and pay taxes. Ding-ding-ding, the magic words to most New York politicians; pay taxes.