Electronic Bills Pre-Tedisco

In my attempt to mirror the efforts of the Capitol Press I got caught up in the inane process that often dominates coverage at the expense of substantive issues and people with meaningful things to say.
I'm specifically referring to Wednesday's coverage of the announcement by Assemblyman Jim Tedisco, R-Glenville, referring to his proposal to save money by eliminating the automatic printing of thousands of bills that the state Legislature introduces every year. This release, which was rolled out with great fanfare, was given far too much ink by me and people of my ilk, because the assemblyman was only introducing a version of a proposal that has been floating around the Legislature for years and has been introduced this year.
A measure that would allow bills to appear before members electronically (via computer) has been in the Assembly since 2001, from Assemblywoman Sandy Galef, and in the Senate since 2003, from Sen. Joe Robach.
Their same-as proposal would allow people to get printed versions if they wanted and guaranteed a record of any deletions or additions that might be made to a bill.
The major point that their legislation made, which was never addressed by Tedisco, was the fact that the state constitution guarantees that no bill shall be passed or become law unless it shall have been printed and placed upon the desks of members. Because of this provision, their legislation was a constitutional amendment that added language that specified that a bill shall be deemed "printed and on a members' desks" if it was presented in an electronic format and met a few other conditions.
This proposal has already been introduced again this session, in the form of Assembly Bill 5274 and Senate Bill 357.
Anyway, just thought it was important to give this original proposal its proper due and so I could feel clean. Oh yeah, and Tedisco, whose proposal is more expansive, is a co-sponsor of Galef's bill this year.

Tedisco's Cost Saving Future

With the New York State Legislature on pace to introduce a record number of bills this year, Assemblyman Jim Tedisco, R-Glenville, is suggesting we don't print all those bills so that the state can lower its bills.
Tedisco, who doesn't want to limit the creativity of legislators, mildly endorsed a limit on the number of bills members can introduce, but he argued that a better solution would be to not automatically print every bill that is written.
Tedisco will be introducing legislation that would eliminate the practice
of automatically printing every bill that is introduced, which includes
over 5,000 bills in the Assembly so far this year, and instead providing
digital copies to legislators that can be viewed on laptops and mobile
devices, with the option to print if they want.
“Going digital will stop the waste of taxpayer dollars on needless printing, not too mention its positive impact on our environment," said Tedisco. "With the availability of 2011 technology such as laptops, smart phones and e-reader tablets, there’s no reason why the New York State Legislature should be stuck using the same process that existed 100 years ago." He added that about 95 percent of the legislature could use a cell phone, so adapting to a new system of reading bills would be easy.
It is hard to gauge the entire amount of money wasted on the current system, as there is no detailed printing costs, which I found out after submitting FOIL requests to numerous entities. The Legislative Bill Drafting Commission has a budget in the millions, so it would be fair to say that each year's costs are at least in the millions. Tedisco estimates that the burden could be as much as $26 million.
Going forward, Tedisco said he expects bipartisan support for his proposal, citing a similar plan recently passing the U.S. House of Representatives by a vote of 399 to zero. He added that 18 other states have implemented a digital plan, with Ohio, a state that produces far fewer bills than New York, saving $1.5 million since they went digital.
Another burdensome printing cost singled out by Tedisco was The Legislative Digest, which he characterized as a 200 plus page pointless redudancy, because it is essentially a weekly reprinting of previously printed bills that the legislators get every week without asking for it. "That's a total waste of taxpayer dollars," said Tedisco.
To illuminate the burden of the Digest, the president of printing company IBT, John Paeglow, said that his company, which was recently stripped of the contract to print the Digest, had done it cheaper. He said that state Legislature didn't have the same printing capacity as his company, so IBT would always be able to provide the service cheaper. Based on a figure from the Assembly Majority and an estimate from Paeglow, IBT prints at 50 percent cheaper a page, which is a difference of about 1.25 cents per page.