Surprising no one, the leadership of Carl Heastie's Assembly looks just about identical to Sheldon Silver's. After publicly voting in Heastie to succeed Silver as speaker on Tuesday, Assembly Dems announced top posts and committee chair positions yesterday. There were few changes to speak of, and as expected Rochester rep David Gantt will remain chair of the Assembly transportation committee.
Over the years, lots of good legislation has died in Gantt's committee, including several bills to enable automated traffic enforcement in New York City. But most of those bills eventually made it through, often without a peep from Gantt. Why? Because while Gantt may have sincerely believed that red-light cameras violate driver privacy, Albany observers will tell you that his opinions, like those of other committee chairs, are incidental to the motivations of the Assembly's prime mover, who for the last 21 years was Sheldon Silver.
As Laura Seago, then with NYU's Brennan Center for Justice, told Streetsblog in 2009, "The speaker controls everything that comes to the floor." Bills moved through Gantt's committee when Silver wanted them to move. And so far, there is no indication that Heastie means to diminish the role of speaker.
We reported earlier this week that Heastie's voting record is fairly strong on street safety, though he hasn't shown much interest in improving transit for millions of New Yorkers. More notable may be Mayor de Blasio's reported backing of Heastie's speaker campaign, which could mean the speaker -- and by extension Gantt -- won't stand in the way of City Hall's street safety agenda in Albany.
Like last year, opposition to a more effective speed cam program or stronger statutes to prevent dangerous driving is probably going to be a greater obstacle in the GOP-controlled, de Blasio-hostile State Senate.
