York State Legislature Research Articles

Have Arguments For and Against Medical Aid in Dying Stood the Test of Time?

Have Arguments For and Against Medical Aid in Dying Stood the Test of Time?

Return of the Flap; The Empire State Mandate: A Multi-decade Multi-institutional Analysis of the 2010 New York State Legislature's Impact on Postmastectomy Immediate Flap-Based Reconstruction.

Immediate postmastectomy breast reconstruction plays an integral role in patient care because of its psychosocial benefits. New York State (NYS) passed the 2010 Breast Cancer Provider Discussion Law with the aim of increasing patient awareness of reconstructive options through mandating plastic surgery referral at the time of cancer diagnosis. Short-term analysis of the years surrounding implementation suggests the law increased access to reconstruction, especially for certain minority groups. However, given the continued presence of disparities in access to autologous reconstruction, we aimed to investigate the longitudinal effects of the bill on access to autologous reconstruction along various sociodemographic cohorts. Retrospective review identified demographic, socioeconomic, and clinical data for patients undergoing mastectomy with immediate reconstruction at Weill Cornell Medicine and Columbia University Irving Medical Center from 2002 to 2019. Primary outcome was receiving implant or autologous-based reconstruction. Subgroup analysis was based on sociodemographic factors. Multivariate logistic regression identified predictors of autologous reconstruction. Interrupted time series modeling analyzed differences in reconstructive trends for subgroups before and after the 2011 implementation of the NYS law. We included 3178 patients; 2418 (76.1%) and 760 (23.9%) patients underwent implant and autologous-based reconstruction, respectively. Multivariate analysis indicated that race, Hispanic status, and income were not predictors of autologous reconstruction. Interrupted time series showed that with each year leading up to 2011 implementation, patients were 19% less likely to receive autologous-based reconstruction. Following implementation, there was a 34% increase in the odds of receiving autologous-based reconstruction with each passing year. Following implementation, Asian American and Pacific Islander patients experienced a 55% greater increase in the rate of flap reconstruction than White patients. Following implementation, the highest-income quartile experienced a 26% greater increase in the rate of autologous-based reconstruction compared with the lowest-income quartile. After implementation, Hispanic patients experienced a 30% greater decrease in the rate of autologous-based reconstruction compared with non-Hispanic patients. Our data indicate the long-term efficacy of the NYS Breast Cancer Provider Discussion Law in increasing access to autologous-based reconstruction, especially for certain minority groups. These findings underscore the importance of this bill and encourage its adoption into other states.

NY opioid settlement money in danger of being co‐opted by the state

Advocates across the country have been eagerly awaiting proceeds from lawsuits against the opioid pharmaceutical industry. The New York State legislature passed a bill designed to make sure that the opioid settlement money did not suffer the same fate as the Master Settlement Agreement between the tobacco industry and states' attorneys general in the late ‘90s in which the money that was supposed to go to treatment for tobacco‐related diseases went instead into the state coffers (see Opioid settlement money for treatment? It's up to the states, ADAW Sept. 13, 2021; https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/adaw.33186?af=R). The legislature guaranteed that an independent advisory board would make recommendations on how the opioid settlement money would be spent (see New York law paves way for distributing opioid settlement funds to treatment, ADAW July 11, 2021; https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/adaw.33127). But the first batch of that money, $208 million, has apparently been disappearing into a state‐run secret system in which the advisory board is being shafted. The money is shepherded by the Office of Addiction Services and Supports (OASAS).

New York Redefines “GAMBLING” … and What Could this Mean for Poker?

New York Redefines “GAMBLING” … and What Could this Mean for Poker?

Standard-Bearers of Equality: America's First Abolition Movement by Paul J. Polgar

Reviewed by: Standard-Bearers of Equality: America's First Abolition Movement by Paul J. Polgar Eric Herschthal (bio) Standard-Bearers of Equality: America's First Abolition Movement. By Paul J. Polgar. (Chapel Hill: Omohundro Institute of Early American History and Culture and University of North Carolina Press, 2019. Pp. 342. Cloth, $39.95.) For the past several decades, many scholars have portrayed the original abolitionist societies of the revolutionary era as pale comparisons to their more radical antebellum successors. Unlike the Garrisonian movement, the first abolitionist societies prioritized gradual emancipation laws that promised freedom to enslaved people only after they completed decades of service and only to those born after the law's passage. These societies were composed exclusively of well-heeled white men, who believed that [End Page 107] the best way to defeat prejudice and give freed Black Americans a fighting chance at full citizenship was for free Blacks to uplift themselves through education, sobriety, and moral rectitude. Though early abolitionists helped all six original northern states pass some form of gradual emancipation law by 1804, in less than two decades newly freed Black northerners were stripped of basic citizenship rights, while many early white abolitionists began to see colonization—the voluntary removal of freed Blacks—as the only viable path to nationwide emancipation. In Paul Polgar's audacious account of what he calls "first movement abolitionism," this narrative requires revision. The first abolitionist societies worked closely with free Black northerners and fervently advocated full Black citizenship. While Polgar does not deny early white abolitionists' paternalism or ignore the limitations of their gradualist approach, he convincingly demolishes any presumption that the first abolitionist societies were skeptical about Black people's essential equality or equal place in the new nation. Though first movement abolitionists displayed less militancy and urgency than Garrisonians, they were no less committed to the complete destruction of slavery and racism. Standard-Bearers of Equality focuses on the Pennsylvania Abolition Society (PAS) and the New-York Manumission Society (NYMS), the early republic's most influential abolition societies, as well as their close relationships with the nation's most prominent free Black leaders: Absalom Jones, James Forten, and Peter Williams Jr., among many others. By closely reading abolition society minutes and the papers of free Black northern leaders, Polgar underscores that early abolitionism was far more interracial than an emphasis on the exclusively white membership of the early societies suggests. Moreover, he shows that early white abolitionists' interests in funding free Black schools and churches, rooted in a belief that Black uplift would defeat white racism, was nearly identical to what many Black northern leaders promoted. Though it may have been paternalistic and naive to believe that proper Black behavior would eradicate white racism, it was neither exclusive to white abolitionists nor evidence of anti-Black prejudice. Polgar contends that early abolitionists' support for full Black citizenship can be best evinced in their basic strategy of enforcing and expanding the first gradual emancipation laws—premised on the assumption that enslavement was a violation of what Polgar calls "elemental citizenship" (143). But a more compelling case lies in the mountain of evidence he provides that show Black and white abolitionists routinely challenging any attempt to curb free Black political rights. When the New York state legislature considered its first gradual emancipation law in 1785, slavery's [End Page 108] advocates added amendments that would have denied Black men the right to vote, hold office, and serve on juries featuring white defendants. But the NYMS rallied against the bill precisely because it would have turned freed Blacks into second-class citizens. (The eventual abolition that did pass in 1799 placed no restrictions on Black political rights.) Likewise, white and Black abolitionists successfully defeated the Pennsylvania legislature's numerous attempts to curb Black voting rights between 1805 and 1813. Yet early abolitionists' initial optimism began to sour in the 1820s. In his final chapters, Polgar meticulously reconstructs the reasons why many, if hardly all, white abolitionists began to embrace colonization in the 1820s. The emergence of the American Colonization Society in 1816 reinvigorated a conservative antislavery impulse in the Upper South, convincing many northern white abolitionists that southern slaveholders could...

How Atlantic Mobility Shaped American Naturalization in the Confederation Period

Abstract In April 1787, the New York State Legislature naturalized Spanish ship captain Pablo Vidal under unusual circumstances. Vidal's naturalization was temporary, retroactive, and requested by a third party, New York City merchant Dominick Lynch. The atypical conditions surrounding Vidal's naturalization reveal the existence of an Atlantic-spanning buyer's market for migrants after the American Revolution. With peace came a growing demand for immigrants, causing individual states to compete against one another to offer the most desirable terms to attract opportunistic newcomers. The stories of Pablo Vidal, Dominick Lynch, and many other migrants to Confederation New York detail how the state recognized its position within this broader Atlantic market, how it sought to capitalize on its strengths, and how it attempted to bind these once transient migrants to New York's future. Amid the stories of this scramble for migrants lie the tensions that led to the diminishment of the buyer's market after Congress centralized naturalization standards in 1790.

Beyond Degree Programs: How a Major University Immersed Itself in the Educational Landscape of New York City

In 2006 the Center for Educational Partnerships was established as the “outreach arm” of Fordham University’s Graduate School of Education. In so doing, Fordham reimagined the role of higher education to go beyond degree granting programs, faculty expertise and research opportunities. In this paper, we describe how what began in 2006 as a vision to strengthen the presence of the Graduate School of Education in New York City public schools has grown into a thriving Center that touches the lives of more than 500,000 students in grades PreK to 12, thousands of teachers, and hundreds of administrators and parents throughout New York City. We outline how each phase of Fordham’s involvement and work developed during New York City’s major educational reform agenda, resulting from the New York State Legislature’s granting the City’s mayor control of New York City’s 1,500 public schools in 2002.

Standardizing Climate Education in New York State

In July 2019, the New York State legislature signed the Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act into law. The ambitious act sets targets to establish climate resiliency statewide through initiatives including reducing gas emissions, improving infrastructure, and providing job training. In response, several state senators have called for education reform to accordingly prepare the next generation for the climate crisis. We evaluate three climate education bills (S7341, S6837, and S6877) currently in committee in New York State. S7341, sponsored by Senator Andrew Gounardes and known as the Model Curriculum bill, proposes an environmental education curriculum for K-12 students. S6877, sponsored by Senator Rachel May and called the Regents Climate Amendment, makes recommendations to the Board of Regents on climate science in high school science classes. S6837, a Climate Education Grants Program sponsored by Senator Todd Kaminsky, provides support for teacher training and local climate resiliency projects. We examined these bills with respect to their effectiveness, administrative burden, and efficiency in the delivery of a climate education. We found the Model Curriculum bill to be the most effective way to educate and prepare students for the climate crisis. However, New York State must support educators with proper training and funding to provide quality climate education. We therefore recommend that the New York Senate pass the Model Curriculum bill and the Climate Education Grants Program.

Emile Durkheim Rides Again: The Death of the Western Hero and the Rise of the Moral Individualist

Emile Durkheim Rides Again: The Death of the Western Hero and the Rise of the Moral Individualist Scott Pearce Corrigendum: (updated 10.05.20) Page 79: The last paragraph of text has been updated to read: "At the beginning of the film, Munny is living a law-abiding life as a farmer while raising two children, but it is only an illusion of social integration. At the end of the film, after his rampage, Munny has demonstrated the magnitude of the threat he poses to society. When the epilogue then notes that Munny “prospered in dry goods," signaling his return to an illusion of integration (magnified, in fact, by prosperity), the film holds the myth of a nation’s moral identity in a final contempt." This article examines the function, transition, and ultimate removal of the hero from the Western film genre in the late 1960s. Most examinations of the genre, especially of its mid-twentieth-century heyday, have assumed that the Western requires a “hero.” Even “antihero” Westerns of the late 1960s depend on this assumption, for although the hero is often absent from antihero narratives, the hero and antihero exist on the same spectrum. The result has been a remarkably binary approach to the genre, with heroic figures played by the likes of Errol Flynn, Randolph Scott, Alan Ladd, and John Wayne used as lenses for understanding large-scale cultural movements.1 This article argues instead that revisionist Westerns, which arose as early as The Ox-Bow Incident (Wellman 1943) but flourished in the 1970s onwards, present neither hero nor antihero but, rather, the “moral individualist”—a complex and problematic figure best understood through the work of sociologist Emile Durkheim. Origins of the Western The Western film genre has its roots in “Manifest Destiny,” the nineteenth-century form of exceptionalism in America that conflated westward expansion with Christian hegemony. The concept sprang, in part, from European settlers, who themselves could trace exceptionalism not just to nation-state expansions and retreats over the previous thousand years but to religious crusades and to key theological constructs that required both [End Page 67] domination and sacrifice. But the United States adapted and consolidated that exceptionalism into a new sense of personal and political destiny. Spreading the American republic over the vast North American continent required a relatively modern vision of conquest, in which the land would be dominated not by hierarchy or caste but by the egalitarianism and individualism—even if these values required deception, dispossession, and extermination to effectuate. It was the creed of the exceptional individual, the hero, taken from classical myth but deployed not in service to any single collective but in service to the assorted masses of individuals. The killer was simultaneously the personal liberator. There were clear and deliberate attempts to establish the legitimacy of this national myth towards the end of the nineteenth century. Stephen McVeigh names the four-volume collection The Winning of the West (1889–1896) by Theodore Roosevelt, along with Roosevelt’s presidency itself (1901–1909), as vital to the promotion of the mythology of the West. For McVeigh, at the core of Roosevelt’s work are two directives: the “negation of the Native-American” and “the formation of the American character,” the latter defined by self-reliance, and “the priority of the individual” (21). Roosevelt’s position early on as both a former frontiersman in South Dakota and a former member of the lower house of the New York State Legislature bridged the gap between the east and the west, between the cultivated and the wild. Roosevelt embodied both forms of life in America, winning him broad acceptance among the populace. His presidency, along with his expeditions to Africa and South America, only fortified his position as an authoritative voice on how and why America had flourished. He offered in his own life an example of the exceptional American individual. Roosevelt, however, was supported by other like-minded people, most familiar of whom was Frederick Jackson Turner, whose essay “The Significance of the Frontier in American History,” presented in 1893 at a meeting of the American Historical Association, formulated for academics a new direction and perspective on the foundations of...

Medical and Mental Health Implications of Gestational Surrogacy and Trends in State Regulations on Compensated Gestational Surrogacy

As the New York State legislature considers legalizing compensated gestational surrogacy this legislative session, this report provides insight into (1) the impact of surrogacy on the medical and mental health of women who become surrogates and the children born through gestational surrogacy, and (2) how other state legislatures have addressed compensated gestational surrogacy in recent years. Medical research demonstrates that there is significant growth in gestational surrogacy in the United States. The number of families working with gestational surrogates has quadrupled in the new millennium. Weill Cornell Medicine physicians and medical students reviewed the published literature on the medical and mental health impacts to women who undergo in vitro fertilization (IVF) to become gestational carriers. Although people outside the medical community have questioned the health and psychological impacts of surrogates to prohibit gestational surrogacy, the scientific literature review demonstrates that there are in fact no significant adverse medical or psychological outcomes for women who are gestational carriers nor the children they give birth to.

New York’s Raise the Age Law: Restoring the Juvenile Justice System Leaves Courts Legislating from the Bench

With New York’s enactment of the Raise the Age law, the State’s Legislature codified the omnipresent notion that juveniles processed in the criminal justice system should be treated differently than adults given that they are inherently less culpable for a multitude of reasons, both measurable and incalculable. Flaws emanating from the minutiae of the Raise the Age law have surfaced since it became effective on October 1, 2018, as criminal matters involving sixteen-year-old offenders have been adjudicated in courts following the newly introduced procedures for removal of cases involving these youth to Family Court, or the newly-created Youth Part. Simultaneously, adjudications of matters in which applicants have turned to the courts to seal their criminal convictions pursuant to the Raise the Age legislation have also revealed gaps between the law’s intent and its execution since implementation. Presiding judges have responded by bridging the gap between the legislation and its execution from the bench in accordance with the progressive, rehabilitative orientation of the Raise the Age law through developing case law. This Article will first provide background regarding New York’s juvenile justice system, which provides context for the introduction and recent enactment of the Raise the Age law, before explaining the complexities of the legislation itself. Further, it will comment on periods of New York’s extensive, dynamic history of juvenile justice which has reflected social mores through present day. Furthermore, this article will delve into several key provisions and consequent issues materializing in the courts under these provisions, which may endure into the second phase of implementation of the Law for seventeen-year-old offenders as of October 1, 2019. Finally, this article will suggest that the New York State Legislature should amend the Raise the Age legislation in order to better facilitate processing of sixteen- and seventeen-year-old offenders’ matters, and sealing applications, respectively, under the law’s new provisions. It is vital to the legislation’s permanency to precisely mirror the ubiquitous concept embodied in the spirit of the Raise the Age legislation and the movement that preceded it: that adolescents are simply different than adult offenders, and their status as such should be accorded deference by the courts of the State.

Bad Faith: Teachers, Liberalism, and the Origins of McCarthyism by Andrew Feffer

Reviewed by: Bad Faith: Teachers, Liberalism, and the Origins of McCarthyism by Andrew Feffer Stephen Leberstein (bio) Bad Faith: Teachers, Liberalism, and the Origins of McCarthyism By Andrew Feffer. New York: Fordham University Press, Empire State Editions, 2019. 328 pages, 6" x 9". $35.00 paper. In the first few years of the 1940s, the New York State Legislature authorized a committee known by the name of its dual chairs, Herbert Rapp and Frederick Coudert, Jr., to investigate the state's financing of public education and allegations of Communist influence in New York City's public schools and colleges. By the end of 1941 50 faculty and staff at the City College of New York and Brooklyn College lost their jobs before the Rapp-Coudert Committee suspended its investigation following the Nazi invasion of the Soviet Union. This incident inaugurated the anticommunist purges of faculty at public schools and colleges that lasted until the 1960s. Despite the notoriety of the Rapp-Coudert Committee in its time, no full-length study of it appeared before the recent publication of Andrew Feffer's book, Bad Faith: Teachers, Liberalism, and the Origins of McCarthyism. It remained largely unknown in our time despite its long-term influence, more recent scholarly articles, and an official apology to the surviving victims by the City University's Board of Trustees in 1981.1 Andrew Feffer has done an excellent job of explaining the history of this attack on the faculty of New York City's municipal colleges, mainly Brooklyn and City Colleges. While we might ascribe the purge that resulted to reactionary political forces, he shows how it was liberal intellectuals and politicians who took charge of this attack, claiming that [End Page 147] left-wing faculty were guilty of "bad faith" for their supposed radicalization of students. But he shows the depths of the "bad faith" of investigators who built their case solely on allegations that their suspects were guilty of refusing to admit to membership in the Communist Party. In its 1942 Report to the State Legislature, Paul Windels, chief of staff of the Rapp-Coudert Committee, stated that the committee's real intent was to change the culture of the public colleges, to instill the instinct of self-censorship and self-policing in the academic community, "that amorphous section of the public referred to under the collective heading 'liberals' and 'intellectuals.'"2 In his efforts to purge the public colleges of their troublesome teachers, Windels perversely showed how well he understood the importance of academic freedom for public discourse. If that purge succeeded in its aim of ridding the public colleges of their troublemakers, it did so by substituting the judgment of politicians for the professional autonomy that is the indispensable mainstay of academic freedom. Feffer's new book is an important contribution to a broader understanding of public higher education and its importance in the creation of an informed public forum. Perhaps the University of Wisconsin at Madison said it best when it adopted its inspirational motto in 1894 following the trial of Prof. Richard T. Ely, then director of the university's School of Economics, for participating in a printers' strike in Madison: "Whatever may be the limitations which trammel inquiry elsewhere, we believe that the great state University of Wisconsin should ever encourage that continual and fearless sifting and winnowing by which alone the truth can be found."3 Unfortunately, the Rapp-Coudert Committee rode roughshod over the fragile protection of academic freedom at the municipal colleges. The origins of the attack stemmed from turmoil in the New York Teachers Union, Local 5 of the American Federation of Teachers. In the early 1930s newly hired teachers began joining the union, among them some members of the Communist Party and other left organizations, including Isidore Begun who helped assemble the Rank and File faction which fought for democratization of the union. Among other things, Begun put forward resolutions calling for the union to support the Scotsboro Boys in addition to "democratization" of the union. Other activists in the left factions were especially active in schools in Harlem and Bedford Stuyvesant, allying themselves with parents' groups fighting what they often saw as the...

Testimony, Online Privacy And The Role Of The New York State Legislature In Its Oversight

Written testimony for New York State Senate Hearing, Online Privacy And The Role Of The New York State Legislature In Its Oversight, before the Committee On Consumer Protection & the Committee Internet And Technology (June 4th, 2019).

Suffrage's Second Act: Women in the New York State Legislature, 1919–1930

Suffrage's Second Act: Women in the New York State Legislature, 1919–1930

“The Prison Has Failed”: The New York State Prison, In the City of New York, 1797–1828

“The Prison Has Failed”: The New York State Prison, In the City of New York, 1797–1828 Jonathan Nash (bio) During the evening of April 4, 1803, convicts attempted to escape from the New York State Prison, in the City of New York (commonly called Newgate). This was not the first time that convicts resisted confinement at New York’s first state prison. During its first six years of operation, prisoners frequently rebelled, set fires, and tried to escape.1 Although the historical record for this incident is fragmented—newspaper articles and a report to the New York State Legislature—it provides an opportunity to analyze prisoners’ responses to incarceration. Some inmates, such as Daniel McDonald, a convicted horse thief sentenced to seven years of hard labor, the alleged “ringleader” of the uprising, persistently resisted incarceration.2 On the other hand, Isaac Lytle and other inmates refused to join the uprising. Lytle may have hoped that his good behavior would lead to an early release. Other prisoners, such as Comfort Carpenter, who was convicted of forgery and sentenced to life imprisonment at hard labor, perhaps aligned with keepers (guards) during the rebellion in hope of receiving a pardon that might reunite them with family and friends.3 McDonald and his cohorts may have spent days, weeks, or even months planning their escape. Between five and six in the evening, McDonald and a handful of prisoners set fire to one of the apartments—a room that confined at least eight prisoners. When keepers arrived to extinguish the fire, the men escaped from the apartment and rushed into the prison’s interior [End Page 71] courtyard. A keeper reported that McDonald claimed that he was “unjustly imprisoned” and therefore “he would escape over the Walls of the prison.”4 In the prison’s courtyard, McDonald and his followers encountered another group of prisoners working as blacksmiths and nailers. These men “refused to join” the uprising. Some inmates went further; they pledged to protect keepers “at the risque [sic] of their own lives.” Rebelling prisoners climbed a scaffold in hope of scaling one of the prison’s exterior walls to regain their liberty. A keeper rang the prison’s bell to alert keepers and residents of the surrounding neighborhood that an uprising was unfolding. Keepers ordered prisoners “to desist.” Rebelling prisoners pelted keepers with “very abusive language” and “brick bats and hammers.” Keepers responded by peppering prisoners with bullets, and in time, regained control of the prison.5 Not all prisoners participated in the rebellion. Isaac Lytle attempted to avoid the melee. Lytle stayed inside his apartment and watched the unrest from a window. According to keeper John Bailey, Lytle “was uniformly a well behaved man, and did not discover the least disposition to join the riot, or to have any kind of concern with the rioters.” Lytle’s attempt to secure his safety by staying inside his apartment failed. When keepers shot at the escaping prisoners, a stray bullet penetrated his skull. Later that evening Lytle died.6 Other prisoners, such as Comfort Carpenter, refused to assist the rebelling convicts. Carpenter was a forty-seven-year-old white-male farmer from Rutland, Massachusetts. When two prisoners invited Carpenter to join the uprising, he declined. The two prisoners “seized” him. Carpenter escaped their hold. He “declared that he would die rather than be concerned in such an attempt to break the prison.” Undeterred, uprising prisoners “armed with knives and hammers, threatened vengeance to all who would not join them.” Carpenter and the convicts who refused to participate also armed themselves with knives and other tools from the prison’s workshops. According to keeper Bailey, prisoners Daniel Callahan, George Thompson, and James Dongherry pledged to protect him during the uprising. [End Page 72] After keepers and a militia company opened fire on prisoners, keeper Thomas Hartley declared: Let me entreat you to desist from further violence; consider the danger you are in; you are sporting away your lives as of no value; see that poor unhappy being, who is now apparently breathing his last, and who was with you a few minutes ago; put a stop to your hazardous attempt now, and it...

Conscription, Charity, and Citizenship in the Early Republic: The Shaker Campaign for Alternative Service

The War of 1812 ignited a fierce debate in New York about the rights, duties, and responsibilities of citizens in wartime. Two counties in the Upper Hudson River Valley (Rensselaer and Columbia) openly revolted against Governor Daniel D. Tompkins's draft of local militiamen. In September 1812, opponents of the war met in a countywide assembly where they declared the federal draft of the New York militia an “assumption of power, unwarranted by the constitution, [and] dangerous to the rights and privileges of the good people of this state.” The assembly further resolved to defy the governor's detachment order, and as a result, less than a third of the 860 militiamen drafted from Columbia and Rensselaer Counties appeared at the designated rendezvous points. Within weeks, the governor convened the first of three courts-martial to prosecute militiamen “who failed, neglected or refused to obey the orders of the commander in Chief of the said State.” As late as 1818, the New York State legislature insisted upon making a “salutary example” of men who “disregard the voice of duty and the requisitions of law.”

A Most Glorious Ride: The Diaries of Theodore Roosevelt, 1877‐1886. Edited by Edward P.Kohn. Albany: State University of New York Press, 2015. 284 pp.

A Most Glorious Ride: The Diaries of Theodore Roosevelt, 1877-1886. Edited by Edward P. Kohn. Albany: State University of New York Press, 2015. 284 pp. Edward P. Kohn, assistant professor of history at Bilkent University in Turkey and author of two previous books on early political career of Theodore Roosevelt (or TR), has edited and annotated a collection of Roosevelt's diaries from 1877 to 1886, covering TR's Harvard years, early married life, entry into New York politics, first hunting trip to Dakota territory, years in New York state legislature, and escape to Western territories after tragic loss of his mother and wife on same day in 1884. Remarkably, considering how much has been written about fascinating and eventful of twenty-sixth president of United States, A Most Glorious Ride is first publication of his diaries. Kohn notes in book's preface that Carleton Putnam in Theodore Roosevelt: The Formative Years, 1858-1886 (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1958), Edmund Morris in The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt (New York: Modern Library Paperbacks, 2001), and David McCullough in Mornings on Horseback: The Story of an Extraordinary Family, A Vanished Way of Life and Unique Child who Became Theodore Roosevelt (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1982) made good use of diaries in writing about TR's early years but claims that, for most part, diaries have been underused in exploring Roosevelt's early life (p. viii). Roosevelt began diaries in January 1877, when he eighteen years old and a first-year student at Harvard. The entries for that year are very brief and relate to observations of natural history (bird specimens and wildlife), vacations, friends, wrestling and boxing, sailing and rowing, and fishing and hunting. The diary entries show Roosevelt's intense interest in natural sciences and his very active outdoor life. The next year's entries are dominated by death of his father, Theodore Roosevelt, Sr., at age of forty-six, a devastating blow to young Roosevelt who worshipped his father. Three days after his father's death, Roosevelt wrote, felt as if I had been stunned, or as if part of my had been taken away (p. 19). A month later, he wrote that day his father died the blackest day of my life and oh, how I shall miss his sweet, sympathetic advice! (p. 22). At end of March, TR noted that his father was everything to me; father, companion, friend (p. 25). In early April, he wrote that realize now that days of unalloyed happiness are now forever over, and [s]ometimes when I fully realize my loss I feel as if I shall go wild (p. 26). In June, his grief continued: It is impossible to tell in words how terribly I miss him; O, Father, Father, how bitterly I miss you, mourn you and long for you; [t]here comes a dull pain at my heart whenever I think of dear lost one (p. 34). This mourning went on, month after month, his only solace being his Christian faith and his father's comforting words, Trust in Lord, and do good. …

The Theft of Affordable Housing: How Rent Stabilized Apartments are Disappearing from Fraudulent Individual Apartment Improvements and What Can Be Done to Save Them

One of the largest challenges facing the future of rent stabilization in New York City is the illegal theft of affordable housing through fraudulent individual apartment improvements (IAI). City Comptroller Scott Stringer audited the current system and found, “that fraudulent activity may have expedited the loss of an untold number of rent stabilized units from the City’s regulatory system.” Rent stabilization is set to expire on June 15, 2015 which will force the New York State Legislature to renew debates on the importance of affordable housing as they vote to extend and potentially reform the law. It is the goal of this article to explain how the present system of rent stabilization occurred in the context of struggle between millions of middle and working class tenants and the real estate lobby and how that struggle has led to an affordable housing crisis. The article will then examine how the courts have reconciled the conflicting messages from the legislature in handling rent overcharges with a focus on unsupervised IAI fraud. Finally the article will recommend several changes in law and policy that would increase transparency to all parties, provide greater clarity in the law, and prevent the theft of affordable housing.

Evaluating the 2010 New York State HIV testing law in NYC ambulatory practices using electronic health records.

In 2010, the New York State Legislature made it mandatory to offer an HIV test to people aged 13-64 years receiving hospital or primary care services, with limited exceptions. In this study, we used data from New York City practices to evaluate the impact of the law on HIV testing rates in ambulatory care. We collected quarterly testing data from the electronic health records of 218 practices. We calculated overall and stratified crude testing rates. Using univariate and multivariate generalized estimating equation models, we assessed the odds of testing in the year before the law (baseline) versus the first and second year after the law's implementation (year 1 and year 2). During baseline, the odds of testing did not increase significantly. During year 1, the odds of testing significantly increased by 50% in the univariate model and 200% after adjusting for confounders. During year 2, the odds of testing increased 10%. This was only significant in the univariate model. The crude quarterly testing rate increased from 2.8% to 5.7% from baseline to year 2. Our evaluation showed that after the implementation of the HIV testing law, there was an increase in HIV testing among NYC ambulatory practices. Testing rates remained modest, but considerable improvement was seen in community health centers, in age ranges targeted by the law and in practices that were screening for HIV at baseline. This study suggests that legislation may be effective when used in a comprehensive prevention strategy.

Final Report on an Evaluation of Six Pilot Coordinated Care Projects for High-Needs Medicaid Recipients

Coordinated care programs are designed to assist individuals with multiple chronic conditions who might require attention from several doctors, risking duplicative tests or prescriptions for contraindicated medications. Such programs try to reduce these risks by helping individuals optimize their use of the health care system and represent an important policy tool for high-needs Medicaid recipients.In 2007, the New York State legislature approved funding for the Chronic Illness Demonstration Project (CIDP) to provide coordinated care to chronically ill Medicaid recipients. In 2009, six CIDP projects began providing services to individuals with a high likelihood of being hospitalized. The projects used care managers to assess clients’ health care and social service needs, educate them on their medical conditions, coordinate care across providers, and help them make and keep medical appointments. Projects also attempted to facilitate individuals’ access to appropriate care. The state’s goal was to help individuals use more primary and preventive care, in turn reducing emergency room and hospital use and helping to control Medicaid costs.This report presents results of a study of CIDP conducted by MDRC. The study had two components: an impact analysis of the effects of the projects on health care used through Medicaid, and an implementation analysis of the services provided and challenges faced by the projects.Key FindingsThe projects faced a number of challenges implementing the program. Effective working relationships with other providers and timely information on hospitalization and emergency department visits were difficult to obtain. In addition, inaccurate contact information and residential instability made it difficult to find and enroll individuals in services. Because only 10 percent of eligible individuals enrolled, staff spent time and resources building relationships with a large number of community partners in an effort to locate and serve eligible Medicaid recipients.The program did not appear to reduce Medicaid costs or care from hospitals and emergency departments. The frequency of primary care visits, hospital admissions, emergency department visits, and use of prescription medications were similar for CIDP-eligible Medicaid recipients and a control group. If anything, the program appeared to increase Medicaid costs slightly, reflecting the costs of providing coordinated care.The projects could have been improved in several ways. More effective programs have had frequent in-person contact, focused on the transition from hospital to home, and had close interaction between care managers and primary care providers. No CIDP project adopted all these principles. There was variation across projects in most of these areas, although in general they came closer to meeting these standards than did other recent demonstrations.Although the results suggest the program had little effect on Medicaid costs in its first two years, it is possible that the effects would have emerged after the second year. It is also possible that the program increased the quality of care, the use of social services, or patient satisfaction with care, but the study did not measure these variables.