York Legislation Research Articles

Protecting ‘injured female innocence’ or furthering ‘the rights of women?’ The sexual Slander of Women in New York and Victoria (1808–1887)

ABSTRACT By the end of the nineteenth century, reforms across the British common law world—often labelled ‘The Slander of Women Acts’—enabled women to sue more easily for sexual slander by removing the burden of proving economic loss, known as ‘special damage’. Sexual slander was a pressing and highly gendered issue. Women brought actions in the thousands seeking to vindicate their reputations when subject to slurs of prostitution, unchastity, fornication, or adultery. These cases spurred transnational debates about the status of white women in the transpacific New World and English law's failure to incorporate their interests and experiences. This article compares and connects reform efforts in New York with those in Victoria. It argues that whereas New York cases and legislators emphasised the need to ‘protect innocent females’ and employed racially coded language linking sexual morality with whiteness, Victorian judges and politicians framed sexual slander reform as an issue of women's rights.

Deborah Zimmermann, DNP, RN, NEA-BC, FAAN

Deborah Zimmermann, DNP, RN, NEA-BC, FAAN, is chair of the American Organization for Nursing Leadership (AONL) Foundation.

The Legacy of Pediatric Sepsis State Legislation.

In 2013, New York state passed “Rory’s Regulations,” mandating that every hospital have sepsis protocols and report metrics to the state.1 Several states followed with similar laws including Illinois, Ohio, and Wisconsin.2 Do these regulations benefit children? Gigli et al3 sought to answer this important question, examining the impact of the New York legislation in “Pediatric Outcomes After Regulatory Mandates for Sepsis Care,” using the Healthcare Cost and Utilization Project State Inpatient Databases. They compared New York to 3 control states without similar regulations. In children with sepsis, they found no difference in pre- and postregulation 30-day in-hospital mortality in New York compared with control states. Overall, mortality decreased in both groups, from 14.0% to 11.5% in New York, and 14.4% to 11.2% in control states. Despite analyses of trends, adjusting for covariates, and comparing secondary outcomes, no differences were seen in the overall comparison. However, when Gigli et al3 excluded hospitals already participating in the Greater New York Hospital Association sepsis quality improvement, the remaining hospitals in New York decreased pediatric sepsis mortality more than hospitals in control states. … Address correspondence to Halden F. Scott, MD, MSCS, Section of Pediatric Emergency Medicine, Children’s Hospital Colorado, 13123 E 16th Ave, B251, Aurora, CO 80045. E-mail: halden.scott{at}childrenscolorado.org

In the states

The Coalition of Medication‐Assisted Treatment Providers and Advocates of New York State (COMPA) issued support and further encouragement to New York legislators last week for the passage of a package of bills to combat the opioid addiction epidemic by increasing access to medication‐assisted treatment (MAT). “We applaud the Senate and Assembly passing A2904 Quart/S4808 Harckham, which eliminates prior authorizations for all MAT medications for commercial insurance policies,” said Allegra Schorr, president of COMPA. “This will increase access to treatment and reduce barriers for delivering care.” She added, “We urge the passage of A7246 Rosenthal/S5935 Harckham, which provides critical access to all medications to vulnerable Medicaid populations during this opioid crisis. Moreover, in order to ensure that all New Yorkers can access care, we urge the state to implement the policy outlined in A833 Rosenthal/S2161 Bailey that would establish a patient‐centered MAT program for incarcerated individuals in jails and prisons, and COMPA supports A972A Rosenthal/S4643A Harckham, which would prohibit copays during the course of treatment at an opioid treatment program.” COMPA is a nonprofit membership organization dedicated to treating addiction through the use of pharmacotherapy as a part of a comprehensive biopsychosocial approach to treatment. COMPA's program members include both opioid treatment programs and office‐based opioid treatment providers. COMPA is the New York state member program of the American Association for the Treatment of Opioid Dependence.

Who Voted for Woman Suffrage: 1915 & 1917 New York State Suffrage Referenda

Who Voted for Woman Suffrage:1915 & 1917 New York State Suffrage Referenda Rusty C. Tobin (bio) On November 14, 1917 in the village of Andover, New York women representing suffrage clubs from all over Allegany County gathered at the home of Roxanna Bradley Burrows, the Assembly District Leader of the Allegany County Woman Suffrage Party. They came to celebrate their efforts in the successful passage the week before of a New York State referendum granting women full voting rights in New York State. The women processed to the local Methodist Church for a buffet luncheon and then marched to the library for further ceremonies. An American flag, a gift of the Lucy Stone Club, was presented to the village and raised. The women gave the flag salute and ended the ceremony with their suffrage "yell." At some point during the afternoon they probably sang their suffrage song "Its Coming, Its Coming, The Vote for Which We Pray."1 While a week earlier, suffragists in New York City held a much larger victory celebration in New York City's Cooper Union, rural women in New York were equally as jubilant and proud of their victory.2 Click for larger view View full resolution New York State was the first state east of the Mississippi to allow full voting rights to women and the victory occurred three years before women in the nation won the right to vote by the Nineteenth Amendment in 1920. [End Page 422] This was the result of a referendum in which male voters were simply asked yes or no to permit women the right to vote in all elections. Just two years prior, in 1915, however, the exact same referendum was put before the male voters and failed to pass. Some historians attribute responsibility for the victory in 1917 to the turnaround of New York City voters who had voted overwhelmingly against the 1915 referendum.3 Out of 1.3 million votes cast in 1917 the margin of victory was only 102,353 votes (see table 1). While New York City residents passed the referendum by 103,000 votes, the rest of the state defeated the referendum by only 1,510 votes and male voters upstate provided 49.7 percent of the "yes" vote total. Click for larger view View full resolution Table 1. New York State 1915 & 1917 Referenda Source: County by county votes for the 1915 referendum are located in New York Legislative Record and Index. Albany: The Legislative Index Co., 1916, 854–55. The 1917 figures are in The New York Red Book, Albany, NY, 1918, 822. Referenda on the same issue just two years apart offers a unique opportunity to explore transformations in voting patterns. It is important to distinguish where woman suffrage support across the state came from before one can explain the reversal of sentiment between 1915 and 1917. This article examines the voting patterns apparent in the two New York State referenda and demonstrates that support for woman suffrage was statewide and that there was a mix of rural and urban regions among twenty-nine upstate counties that gave a majority vote in favor of woman suffrage in 1917. [End Page 423] Local political context is important in understanding most elections and the woman suffrage victory in New York is no exception. Other amendments as well as political offices that were on the ballot in both 1915 and 1917 strongly influenced voter turnout within different communities and this, in turn, affected the vote. In addition, some rural social groups provided strong organizational support for woman suffrage and the social makeup of each county also affected the vote. While the issue of which male voters changed their minds between 1915 and 1917 may never be known, the organizational work and strategies of upstate suffragists and their opponents is not thoroughly understood. An analysis of the state referenda is a place to begin. Advocacy for woman suffrage in New York State has a long history. Even before the 1848 Women's Rights Convention in Seneca Falls, New York in which a Declaration of Sentiments modeled on the Declaration of Independence was adopted, suffragists engaged in a variety of strategies to gain the...

Height and body mass index values of nineteenth-century New York legislators

Previous studies of mid-nineteenth-century American BMI values have used data created by military academies and penitentiaries. This paper uses an alternative data set, constructed from legislative documents in which the heights and weights of New York State legislators were recorded. The results reveal that middle- to upper-middle class Americans maintained BMI values closer to the modern standard than did students and prisoners. The average BMI value among this group was 24 and their height–weight combinations did not greatly diverge from historical mortality risk optima.

The Rebate "Rip-Off": New York's Legislative Responses to Common Consumer Rebate Complaints

The Rebate "Rip-Off": New York's Legislative Responses to Common Consumer Rebate Complaints

Le « cabaret new-yorkais » : note d'usage

For some, New York Cabaret started in 1911 and died with the Prohibition ; for others, its golden age started after WWII and waned from 1963 onwards; for the current Cabaret Community, the clubs are alive with the sound of Cabaret. This paper attempts to explain why there is so much confusion about the word “cabaret,” tracing its usage in New York popular entertainment and legislation.

Making the Case for Megan's Law: A Study in Legislative Rhetoric

Floor speeches by legislators constitute an important body of legal rhetoric. This article studies the Megan's Law legislative floor debates in both the United States Congress and the New York state legislature. The article begins by setting out three practical purposes of legislative debate. First, it can influence voting decisions. Second, it educates and influences both the media and the voting public. Finally it provides a rich source of interpretive material for the judiciary. The article then sets out a naturalistic description of these speeches, comparing the two jurisdictions. Legislators in both Washington, DC and Albany argued for the new laws primarily by painting a grim picture of the status quo. They offered horrific accounts of individual child victimization, questionable statistical claims about the extent of the molestation and abduction crisis, and dehumanizing descriptions of child sexual offenders. Particularly within the U.S. Congress, legislators spent little time touting bills' virtues or rebutting the many possible criticisms of these controversial provisions. New York legislators, perhaps because of their greater political diversity, offered more nuanced critiques of the bills. The article then assesses legislators' rhetorical tropes and claims. Storytelling, for instance, presented both problems and benefits as a primary rhetorical tool for promoting the new social policy. And despite the apparent value of statistical proof, such empirical data was easily manipulated by savvy legislators. Many issues were underdeveloped during the Megan's Law debates. For example, while virtually all legislators spoke exclusively of white offenders and victims, legislators' rhetoric entirely excluded a discussion of the laws' likely disparate impact on African-Americans. Similarly, few legislators acknowledged that benefits of the law - if any were to be had - would flow almost entirely to suburban, and other low density, communities. Finally, the article considers how the Megan's Law debates educated the public, affected legislative voting, or shaped judicial interpretation of the bills. Because it concludes that the Megan's Law legislative debates did not optimally serve these three practical aims, the article evaluates new approaches to enriching the content of legislative debate. It argues that legislatures could appoint a public legislative advocate - the equivalent of a public defender, within the legislative context - or adopt new codes of debate. In any case, legislators should look for ways to improve and enhance the rhetoric of legislative debate.

Remaking Constitutional Tradition at the Margin of the Empire: The Creation of Legislative Adjudication in Colonial New York

In 1750, Archibald Kennedy condemned New York's legislators for their radical constitutional innovation. “They take upon themselves to be the sole judges,” he stormed, and “‘insist… that no order for publick money shall issue, till their judgment has been obtained for it.’” Kennedy meant the charge literally. For almost half a century, New York legislators had preserved their power over the purse by determining claims made against the colony for money. In an arrangement sharply at odds with later legal doctrine on the separation of powers, the legislature—not the courts—had since 1706 settled contract claims for services and materials, demands for military pay and salaries, calls for compensation for the impressment of property, petitions for disability pensions, and a range of other claims.

NY Legislators Want Reactor Closed

In an unexpected setback for U.S. neutron scientists, two New York legislators said this week that they will introduce a bill prohibiting the Department of Energy (DOE) from reopening the troubled High-Flux Beam Reactor (HFBR) at Brookhaven National Laboratory in Upton, New York. DOE officials described the surprise announcement by Senator Alfonse D9Amato (R-NY) and Representative Michael Forbes (R-NY) as a major setback to their efforts to repair and eventually upgrade the reactor, which had been leaking tritium.

Crime Control Ideology among New York State Legislators

Survey research with members of the New York State Legislature revealed support for differing views on crime causation and control. Scales measuring support for liberal and conservative perspectives toward crime and punishment were developed. Multivariate analyses indicated that legislators' race, gender, and party affiliation were consistent correlates of crime control ideology. The characteristics of New York legislators that are associated with crime control ideology have remained stable over time.

New York Legislation Mandates Some Off-Label Drug Coverage

New York Legislation Mandates Some Off-Label Drug Coverage

AIDS coverage: Ethical and legal issues facing the media today

As the media wrestle with ethical and legal problems in coverage of AIDS stories, such as privacy, terminology, and disclosure, a question is raised about the educational role the media will assume in the face of this health threat. Despite health department hopes for candor in dealing with the threat, blunt‐language ads and commercials have been rejected by most New York City media and legislation may restrict the extent to which media deal with the question. Though the media alone cannot bear the burden of AIDS education, they must provide point‐man services.

Does the Use of Test Assembly Procedures Proposed in Legislation Make Any Difference in Test Properties and in the Test Performance of Black and White Test Takers?

In this study, four simulated verbal and mathematical test forms were produced using variants of test assembly procedures of the type proposed in 1986 California and New York legislative bills. These procedures were intended to minimize score differences between majority and minority groups by manipulating differences in the proportions correct of test items. Item response theory procedures were used to estimate the effects of administering the verbal and mathematical forms to approximately 22,000 Black and 28,000 White high-school juniors and seniors. Content and statistical characteristics differed considerably from form to form when these characteristics were not controlled explicitly in test assembly. In addition, several of the simulated test forms manifested reduced differences between Blacks and Whites in scaled score means. These differences were apparently due, not to the manipulation of differences in item proportions correct, but rather to the indirect effect of including items that functioned ...

The Right of the Elderly to Self-Determination and New York's Legislative Imperative

The Right of the Elderly to Self-Determination and New York's Legislative Imperative

Legislative Program Evaluation: Defining a Legislative Service and a Profession

Almost 15 years have elapsed since New York's Legislative Committee on Expenditure Review was established as the first state agency to conduct legislative evaluations. Since then, at least 34 state legislatures have either expanded the roles of existing agencies or created new agencies to evaluate program effectiveness and efficiency. The use of evaluation in legislative oversight has developed from an innovation to a practice. Although the structures and perspectives of the evaluation agencies are as varied as the legislatures that created them, common issues have emerged. Most attention has been given to process-related topics, such as analytical techniques and project management. However, broader, more intrinsic issues have influenced and, sometimes, have impeded efforts by evaluators to pursue similar concerns. The purpose of this article is to initiate a discussion of these fundamental issues. The focus is the nature of legislative program evaluation as a legislative service and as a profession.

Public Welfare Legislation of the 1965 New York Legislative Session

Public Welfare Legislation of the 1965 New York Legislative Session

Recent New York Legislation Concerned with Family Matters

Recent New York Legislation Concerned with Family Matters

New York Legislative Annual, 1947 Compiled by Elisabeth McK. Scott. New York City, New York Legislative Service, Inc., 1968. vi, 287 pp. $7.50

New York Legislative Annual, 1947 Compiled by Elisabeth McK. Scott. New York City, New York Legislative Service, Inc., 1968. vi, 287 pp. $7.50