For Immediate Release
Tuesday, November 14, 2006
Contact
Susan Lehman, 212.998.6318
Albany, NY Suzanne Novak of the Brennan Center for Justice at NYU School of Law today discussed government reform at a meeting with New York State Governor-elect Eliot Spitzer, Lt. Governor-elect David Paterson and members of the incoming Governors transition staff. Novak, the deputy director of the Centers Democracy Program, joined reform advocates from Common Cause, Citizen Action, Citizens Union, the League of Women Voters and NYPIRG at the session.
The Brennan Center is urging the Governor-elect and Lt. Governor-elect to reform judicial selection, support http://www.brennancenter.org subpage.asp?key=’38&init_key=105” http://www.brennancenter.org http:>touch-screen voting machines that fail to count every vote at election time.
What unites our agenda is a focus on making democracy work for all New Yorkers. Until we stop picking judges through back-room deals, create a state legislature that is open and accountable and have voting machines that are secure and count every20vote voters will continue to lose faith in20our leaders in Albany, said Novak.
Eliot Spitzer and David Paterson made it clear that they are serious about fixing New Yorks broken state government, continued Novak. We urged them to use their first 100 days in office to make these and other key reforms to make government in New York State work again and we promised our assistance every step of the way.
In addition to reforming judicial selection, legislative rules reform and voting machine selection, the Brennan Center is actively engaged in supporting comprehensive campaign finance reform as well as non-partisan redistricting in New York State.
We were encouraged by the new administrations focus and commitment to reform and look forward to working with them to make state government work again for all New Yorkers.