Alesi last summer: "It's not our job to be moral, it's our job to be functional as a legislature."

State Senator James Alesi, one of four Republicans to cross the aisle and vote for the Marriage Equality Act last summer, announced last night that he's not running for re-election.

He was for same-sex marriage equality even before President Barack Obama, and we got to interview him in Albany just minutes after the historic vote last June. Alesi's bold, historic vote earned him a great deal of financial support, but it also drew the wraith of the state Conservative Party.

Now, he's announced that rather than face getting Lugar-ed in a primary, he'll retire.

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nylcu.org

New Yorkers are legally protected against discrimination based on race, sex, sexual orientation, or disability -- which means people who fall under any of those categories cannot lose access to homes, jobs, and other services because of their racial, sexual, or physical identities.

Currently, however, there are no protections for New Yorkers who are transgender or express their gender differently from societal expectations and stereotypes.

And according to the New York Civil Liberties Union, which is pushing to change the discrimination laws to include this group, New York state is falling behind.

This week, the NYCLU released a report documenting discrimination in the state for transgender and gender non-conforming New Yorkers.

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via nysenate.gov

State Senator Liz Krueger

Some good news today for those of you who pick fights with your landlords, or who are harassed by them for no good reason: New York courts are going to stop selling your names to companies that make it harder for you to secure your next apartment.

This policy change in the New York State Unified Court System is going after a phenomenon called "tenant blacklisting," where landlords basically reject potential tenants whose names are on a list, which says they have been parties in housing court actions. These lists don't say what they've done, or what the situation was, or if the tenant brought the landlord to court, or visa-versa. It just says that the tenant was involved in housing court at some point, and because there's such a high demand for housing in the city, that's often reason enough for landlords to immediately reject an applicant. In some cases, landlords may even mistake a potential tenant for someone on the list with the same first and last name.

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Andrew Cuomo really doesn't like unused office furniture -- or office furniture he thinks is unused, that is.

So, the Times Union reports, his administration instructed staffers to go into the Department of Environmental Conservation offices on the weekend and overnight to transfer furniture and set up offices for the Office of Parks Recreation and Historic Preservation. The idea is that this department will share previously empty office space with the DEC.

One problem: Much of this furniture was still being used by DEC staffers for meetings or for visitors at their cubicles. And they were not told about the removal ahead of time.

The move has caused so much uproar that it prompted the publication of "a satirical memo, complete with official DEC letterhead."

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Sam Levin

Grace Meng, standing in front of Bill Thompson, John Liu, Christine Quinn, and Bill de Blasio, four mayoral hopefuls who endorsed her at City Hall today.

Assemblywoman Grace Meng, who is running for Congress in a crowded race, nabbed the endorsement today of four pols who hope to be the next mayor of New York City.

Public Advocate Bill de Blasio, Comptroller John Liu, City Council Speaker Christine Quinn, and former comptroller Bill Thompson stood on the steps of City Hall under the hot sun this afternoon to endorse Meng, who is the candidate of choice of the Queens Democratic Party and who would be New York's first Asian-American member of Congress if elected.

Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer, another mayoral hopeful, was notably absent.

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Amy Paulin

In response to longtime concerns over how shelters and rescues treat animals, Assemblymember Amy Paulin (D-Westchester) has sponsored the Shelter Access Bill.

The proposed legislation has been in the works for several years. After intense debate -- including outcry from some "no-kill" animal rights and welfare groups -- a revamped version recently got the OK from the Assembly's agriculture committee, and will soon go before the codes committee. If it succeeds there, the bill will go before the entire Assembly.

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The New York State Senate on Monday night passed a budget resolution that would bleed $770 million from the MTA's Capital Plan, part of Gov. Andrew Cuomo's proposed budget, if made into law.

The Republican-led Senate also voted down a plan to up the MTA's bond cap by $7 billion.

While this sounds totally confusing -- as if these public finance facts were being voiced by the teacher's in Charlie Brown, or something -- it's actually quite important to understand.

That's because cap plan cash basically pays for 33 percent of downstate construction gigs. Upstate, it boosted the economy to the tune of 79,869 jobs between 2005 and 2009, according to Transportation Alternatives, a transit advocacy group.

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​With criticisms of stop-and-frisk practices on the rise, one piece of legislation is targeting a police practice that doesn't involve searches for drugs or weapons.

Lawmakers in Albany have sponsored a bill that would stop courts from using the possession of condoms as evidence of prostitution. Currently, if cops stop someone on the street that they suspect is a prostitute, search the person, and find condoms, those contraceptives can be used as evidence in criminal court that the person was in fact engaged in sex work.

Those working to stop this policy aren't just going after this practice because of what they see as a problematic argument -- that condom possession implies prostitution. The lawmakers argue that it's also a major health concern, because it discourages individuals from carrying condoms on them, which in turn promotes unsafe sex.

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Just days after a U.S. District court judge ruled to intervene in New York state's redistricting process, local political leaders in Upper Manhattan are calling for the legislature to redraw district lines to favor the local Dominican community's voting power.

The 15th Congressional District, which includes some storied parts of Upper Manhattan such as Harlem and Washington Heights, is currently 46 percent Latino, according to the 2010 census. Redrawing district lines to create an even stronger Latino majority in the district would increase the chances that another Latino congressional candidate would be voted into office -- but it also means stretching the limits of what is considered a "district" along vague geographical lines.

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