Assembly Action Highlights
The Week Of May 5-9, 2008

Dan Weiller, Press Secretary

Assembly Passes Legislative Package To Addresses Sub-Prime Lending Crisis

Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver and Banks Committee Chair Darryl Towns announced Assembly passage of comprehensive measures aimed at bringing relief to families and communities across New York coping with the national sub-prime lending crisis.

Silver stressed that the package represents the Assembly Majority's continued commitment to assisting the victims of predatory lending practices, stabilizing communities across the state and helping New York address one of the most widespread economic situations facing neighborhoods throughout the United States.

The four-bill package contains legislation which would offer temporary financial assistance to homeowners currently in default or foreclosure (A.10083-A, Silver); require banking institutions to examine a borrowers ability to pay and verify income (A.8972-C, Towns); provide critical consumer information to all residential mortgage applicants (A.10219-C, Peralta); and call for a one-year moratorium on foreclosures to allow residents to remain in their homes while granting them time to work with lenders to modify their mortgages (A.9695-B, Brennan).

Silver praised Towns and Assembly members James Brennan and Jose Peralta for their work in developing legislation to assist homeowners who were victimized by the sub-prime lending crisis and facing the loss of their homes. The bills were delivered to the Senate.

Assembly Holds Public Hearing On New York's Rockefeller Drug Laws

On the 35th anniversary of the Rockefeller Drug Laws, the first Assembly hearing was held in New York City to examine the impact these laws have on drug addiction, drug-related health problems and drug-related crime.

Silver and Codes Committee Chair Joseph Lentol, Corrections Committee Chair Jeffrion Aubry and Judiciary Committee Chair Helene Weinstein called for the hearings in order to take a renewed look at how effective the laws are for the state's criminal justice, social services and health care systems as they deal with drug users.

The forum took testimony on whether judges should have more discretion in the sentencing of certain drug offenders, the proper role of prosecutors and judges in determining which offenders would be diverted to treatment as a possible alternative to incarceration and the efficacy of drug courts throughout the state.