An upstate caucus? Biz groups are pushing

ALBANY - A handful of business groups are urging upstate lawmakers to put aside their party enrollment and focus on their binding tie: Geography.

Unshackle Upstate, a coalition of business organizations, is joining with its member groups to urge the creation of a caucus of state lawmakers who hail from north of New York City's suburbs to push for issues important to upstate.

Former Lt. Gov. Robert Duffy, who now heads the Greater Rochester Chamber of Commerce, endorsed the idea with an op-ed in the Rochester Business Journal this week after Unshackle Upstate first floated it on the Rochester Democrat and Chronicle's opinion page earlier this month.

The vision laid out by the business groups calls for a single upstate caucus including members of both parties and both houses of the state Legislature.

Duffy said the idea would be for the caucus to identify and push for two or three major issues each year in Albany, where the Senate and Assembly are currently led by lawmakers from Long Island and New York City, respectively.

"For years, we've had this upstate-downstate divide," said Duffy, who served as ceremonial president of the Senate from 2011 through 2014. "What we're looking to do is suggest a bipartisan group of legislators from the Assembly and Senate that would focus on some priority issues for upstate economic development growth."

Unshackle Upstate, which counts the Greater Rochester Chamber among its members, has been surveying legislators seeking the group's endorsement to see if they support the idea. So far, results have been positive, Duffy said.

All 213 state legislative seats are on the ballot this November.

Lawmakers from upstate New York have traditionally banded together in less formal groups in recent years, but those efforts have kept within a single party or house.

For example, 18 upstate lawmakers penned a letter to Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie, D-Bronx, earlier this year expressing their priorities and positions. The letter took issue with a proposal from Gov. Andrew Cuomo to use state money to cover a tax credit for frequent Thruway drivers, which ultimately wasn't included in the state budget.

Spokesmen for Senate Democrats and Senate Republicans were both open to the idea Wednesday, but took the opportunity to take swipes at the opposite party.

Scott Reif, a spokesman for the Senate GOP, said there "already is an upstate caucus — it's called the Senate Republican conference." Most of the 31 Republicans in the state Senate hail from north of New York City, though they're led by Senate Majority Leader John Flanagan of Long Island.

"To the extent that this could get the New York City Democrats to understand that upstate New York actually exists, we would certainly welcome it," Reif said.

A spokesman for Senate Democrats said the state "can not afford another two years of Republican control." State legislative terms are for two years, and control of the closely divided Senate is up for grabs in November.

"The Republicans have failed upstate New York and continued to focus only on downstate issues including funneling millions of dollars into downstate charter schools," said Mike Murphy, the spokesman.