New York State Legislative History Research: Brennan Center Reports

In 2004, Brennan Center for Justice issued a stinging report describing New York's legislative process as "broken." 

• See: Introduction (p. 1) to: Jeremy M. Creelan & Laura M. Moulton, The New York State Legislative Process: An Evaluation and Blueprint for Reform (July 21, 2004).

This report identified five key problems:

• Dysfunctional legislative committees (p. 1)
• Barriers to consideration of legislation by the full Senate or Assembly (p. 3)
• No debate, no amendments, inadequate review (p. 4)
• Few conference committees (p. 6)
• Legislative inefficiency and high costs (p. 7)

There also were two updates to the original report.  See:

• Lawrence Norden, Bethany Foster & David E. Pozen, Unfinished Business: New York State Legislative Reform (Oct. 11, 2006)
• Lawrence Norden, Andrew Stengel & Laura Seago, Still Broken: New York State Legislative Reform 2008 Update (published Jan. 2, 2009)

• Stephanie Wylie & Ames Grawert, 2023 Criminal Justice Reform in New York State (July 20, 2023)