All hail David Paterson

Image by Getty Images via Daylife

David Paterson, New York’s beleaguered governor, hasn’t had a great year. Come to think it, not much has gone right for the governor since the spring of 2008, when Eliot Spitzer’s indiscretions elevated his then humble LG to the top spot in the state. Paterson is perceived to sit atop a state government that’s run adrift, ever more dysfunctional than usual–and, considering Albany’s sordid, sorry history, that’s saying something. Paterson’s most visible failure, of course, was his bungling of the replacement process for Hilary Clinton. Rather than acquiescing to the whims of the White House and name Caroline Kennedy to the seat, Paterson conducted a protracted, pointless contest between the “candidates,” and won himself no friends in the process. His lowest point was probably last month, when President Obama dramatically intervened in state politics and told Paterson to drop out of the 2010 race (an intervention that I think was as much motivated by the Kennedy fiasco–crossing the president’s close friends is never a good idea in politics–as by Paterson’s rock-bottom approval ratings).

But what’s happened today makes me think twice about Paterson’s record.

Today, his repeal of the Rockefeller drug laws goes into effect. A brief primer: for 36 years, the Rockefeller drug laws were New York’s Draconian body of law covering drug arrests that, as a general rule, prioritized punishment over treatment, and, in the eyes of law, made users nearly indistinguishable from major traffickers. The laws were a moral catastrophe, robbing the state of hundreds of thousands of potentially productive people and placing them in jail for excessively long sentences.

A thorough look at the law’s deleterious impact can be found here, but here are the basics: Under Rockefeller, minor crack and cocaine possession charges were met with sentences matching those of murderers. The laws stripped judges of authority when making sentencing decisions, mandating that certain quantities of drug required certain stays in prison–precluding treatment. Perhaps worst of all, the Rockefeller drug laws resulted in an approach to drugs that netted many minor users and low-level dealers for long prison terms, but allowed major league traffickers to cut plea bargains and walk away.

Going forward, judges will have more leeway to send a convict to treatment rather than prison. Some people will even be resentenced. Future convicts will have better access to treatment options. And the state’s approach to drugs will take on a modicum of respect for sanity and commonsense.

All this, thanks to David Paterson’s brave decision to embrace the reforms that have percolated around the state for decades. Come 2010, his ship will likely sink. But let’s have a moment for the governor today. He deserves it.