Yet sponsors of the measure and some editorial writers and bloggers inexplicably cited the charging of Rhodes as another reason for its needed enactment. A cause for head scratching? Indeed, but there are several other current examples of legislative silliness. The governor of New York has proposed two curious pieces of legislation, one irrelevant and another which can go nowhere; and, more alarming, the New York City health commissioner is proposing to impose a series of onerous requirements on religious schools without any demonstrated need for them.
Within days of the recent U.S. Supreme Court ruling upholding a federal law banning partial birth abortions, Gov. Spitzer submitted proposed legislation amending New York’s abortion law. While the measure may serve to tighten existing provisions, in no way could it have any impact with regard to the Supreme Court ruling, because federal law always trumps state law.
Gov. Spitzer introduced a bill that would make same-sex marriages legal and recognized in New York. While the governor acknowledged that the law could not get passed, he insisted it was important to get the process going, adding that during his gubernatorial campaign he had promised to introduce this legislation.
Interestingly, the measure does not call for a referendum on the issue, but rather would leave it to the legislators themselves. One would think that such a fundamental societal change should be brought to a vote of all New Yorkers, not just their representatives. (Presented with such an opportunity on this particular issue, voters across the country have invariably given the thumbs-down to same-sex marriages.)
In any event, the process of legislating seems to have been trivialized. But trivialization can have far-reaching consequences. Of great concern is the effort of Dr. Frieden to establish rules for parochial schools through the device of regulating preschool programs operated at public expense. That is, while parochial schools have in the past been exempt from most so-called designer regulations, Frieden says school operations and structures are fair game for his monitoring.
No one would argue that real health hazards should be exempt from regulation – and they are not. But, without any evidence of need, Frieden is seeking to require such things as specific classroom square footage per child and numbers and size of bathrooms. He is also trying to require that parochial school pre-childhood staff have education certificates – again, without showing that the current system doesn’t work or why this is the business of the health commissioner.
New York City Councilman David Yassky recently went public with his concerns about the severe impact the new regulations would have on parochial schools, particularly because those schools do not get the capital improvement funds received by public schools but also because of the distortion of the legislative process.
In a column in the New York Post, he said:
Commissioner Frieden’s proposal might be more understandable if there were some evidence that parochial pre-schools are in fact unhealthy environments. The Health Department went after smoking and trans fats only after accumulating mountains of data to show clear and immediate health risks that regulation could ameliorate.
In contrast, the Health Department has put forward no data whatever to support its parochial-school proposal. This is just a case of an overambitious government agency looking for something to regulate.
Our guiding principle must be that governmental officials – elected or appointed – who have control over how we go about our daily lives, and who want to exercise that power, should not be allowed to treat the process as their own plaything.
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