By The TimesLedger
This is a test.
In upcoming elections in Queens for the state Legislature, there will be few primaries in September and, most likely, no close races in the November general elections. This is because:
A. The state Legislature has done such a good job who on earth would want to change it or
B. Nobody cares because the public has come to expect nothing but lethargy, bumbling and incompetence from elected officials in Albany.
C. The advantages of being an incumbant are so great challengeres don’t have a chance.
Once one is elected to the state legislature, he or she becomes a senator or assembly member for life.
It does not matter that the Legislature fails year after year to produce a state budget on time. Nor does it matter that Albany killed the commuter tax, depriving the city of hundreds of millions of dollars or that the state has been shortchanging the city's public schools for decades.
No one is held accountable for what goes in New York City. Like the budget, important legislation can languish forever. It took four years for Assemblywoman Nettie Mayersohn – one of the few people in Albany who actually earns her pay – to get her baby AIDS bill passed. This law allows hospitals to tell a mother that her baby is HIV positive. Similarly, for more than a decade activists have tried to scrap or at least amend the harsh Rockefeller Drug Laws. Most people in the corrections community and, for that matter, most legislators, agree that these laws were a mistake and that they have reduced drug abuse. But no one can break the Albany logjam.
Perhaps the time has come to consider term limits in Albany just as we have imposed them in New York City.
Editorial: Justice is blind
Barry Smiley is off to prison. His wife Judith is doing time in Rikers. Before they go home to New Mexico, New Yorkers will spend hundreds of thousands of dollars to keep this couple, formerly of Queens, behind bars, even though there is no one who believes that they will ever break the law again.
As almost everyone now knows, 22 years ago the Smileys ran away with the child they were trying to adopt when a Family Court judge ordered them to return the baby to his birth parents. Matthew Propp, the man who they loved and raised as their son is distraught. He is not happy with the plea bargain, but he realizes that if they had gone to trial, the Smileys could have faced up to 25 years in jail.
Even the birth father isn't happy. Matthew has returned to New Mexico to care for the Propp home while Barry and Judith are in prison.
The district attorney will argue that the Smileys broke the law and had to be punished. But the DA would be hard-pressed to argue that keeping the Smileys behind bars is protecting the public – and isn't that what prison is for?
Nor do we see much likelihood that showing mercy to the Smileys would have encouraged future abductions or acts of custodial interference. This case is as unique as it is tragic.
The justice system in Queens should have had the wisdom and courage to send the Smileys home with nothing more than an admonishment and an order to pay the legal expenses of the birth father.
Instead you will pay the bill while Mrs. Smiley, confined to a wheelchair, spends six months in the infirmary at Rikers Island.
