>>4000244 (LB)

Hmmmmmmmm……….

Senator Jose Peralta commends Governor Cuomo on signing a sex trafficking package which includes his bill to reclassify sex trafficking as a violent felony

October 21, 2015

State Senator Jose Peralta (D-East Elmhurst) applauded Governor Andrew Cuomo for signing a sex trafficking package into law, a comprehensive proposal that includes Senator Peralta’s legislation that reclassifies sex trafficking as a violent felony. The new measure toughens penalties for first time offenders, raising the minimum jail sentence to five years from the current one-to-three years.

Under the anti-human trafficking bill, promoting prostitution and sex trafficking will be considered a class B felony punishable by a minimum of five years in prison and a maximum of 25 years. The legislation was approved by the New York Senate in January and by the Assembly in March.

“I want to commend Governor Cuomo for signing into law this crucial legislation that seeks to eradicate human trafficking,” Senator Peralta said. “As this is a pervasive issue is in my district, putting an end to modern day slavery is the moral issue of our time.”

Senator Peralta noted, “Men, women and children from around the world and the country are brought here to New York, and especially to Roosevelt Avenue, the mecca, the epicenter of human trafficking in Queens, to be enslaved and forced to have sex for the profit of human traffickers and pimps.”

Although New York State has the most comprehensive human trafficking in the nation, the prior law did not reflect the inherent violence of sex trafficking. This law designates promoting prostitution and compelling prostitution as a class B violent felonies.

“I have worked to fight sex trafficking on many different fronts because there are only a few things more abhorrent than forcing a helpless individual into the sex trade,” Senator Peralta said. “There is a long way to go toward helping victims of sex traffickers and cracking down on the predators who exploit them, but this is a step, a very good step, in the right direction.”

There are an estimated 17,500 foreign national trafficked into the United States every year, according to Restore NY, an organization fighting to end sex trafficking in New York.

Senator Peralta added, “Prostitution is not a victimless crime. The mental and physical torture these women go through is most certainly a violent crime.”

sauce: https://www.nysenate.gov/newsroom/press-releases/jose-peralta/senator-jose-peralta-commends-governor-cuomo-signing-sex

>>4000244 (LB)

Wonder if this has anything to do with it…..

Why the Biggest Story of Last Night’s Election Wasn’t Andrew Cuomo

One of the nation’s biggest blue states might finally start acting like it.

Tim Murphy September 14, 2018 12:45 PM

…..But the real story was down the ballot. In the final primary before November’s midterm elections, pissed-off Democratic voters toppled seven incumbent state senators—they’d targeted nine—all but wiping out a breakaway faction of corporate-backed Democrats who had helped block the left’s Albany agenda for half a decade. Twenty percent of the Democratic caucus was fired in one night, marking a revolution in the state’s politics without recent precedent and the culmination of an organizing campaign that began almost as soon as the dust had settled on 2016.

Those winning candidates, for the most part, fit a very particular mold. Backed by the Working Families Party, they were furious at their elected officials’ failure to pass progressive legislation, including a state-level single-payer health care plan, codification of Roe v. Wade, rent regulations, subway repairs, public school funding, and protections (including driver’s licenses) for undocumented residents.

Now, with the party just one Senate seat away from full control of Albany, a state long maligned for its gridlock and corruption is facing the prospect of a new reality.

“You’re going to have vegetarians running the sausage factory,” quipped NY1 anchor Errol Louis.

Sure, plenty of people don’t like Cuomo. Losing a third of the vote to an underfunded primary challenger—the governor outspent Nixon 10 to 1—for the second time is evidence of that. But the most specific gripe progressives had with Albany was the existence of a group of senators known as the Independent Democratic Caucus…..

As I explained in July, the IDC’s members’ maneuvers were the latest in a series of cross-partisan power-sharing agreements in Albany. IDC senators were all elected as Democrats, and many of them boasted lefty-pleasing platforms—one member who lost Thursday was the sponsor of the state’s DREAM Act—but they agreed to support a Republican leader of the chamber, putting it in GOP hands. What they got in return was subject to debate, but the most tangible result was money. Members received well-paying committee chairmanships, extra funding for their districts, and boatloads of campaign cash, especially from real estate interests. Meanwhile, a Republican-controlled Senate was a lot less likely to actually pass any of the progressive reforms they purported to champion.

The IDC was confusing. Most people can’t identify their state senator, let alone any backdoor scheming they may be involved in. But after the 2016 election, Democrats across the country started taking a closer look at politics in their own backyards. In New York, grassroots groups targeting the IDC popped up. Explainer-style videos started to circulate. And angry residents packed town halls.

At one community forum in Queens in early 2017, not long after Sen. Jose Peralta announced he was joining the IDC, voters who couldn’t get in pounded on the windows to make themselves heard.

sauce: https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2018/09/andrew-cuomo-idc-independent-democratic-conference/

Dems in NY were one seat away from full control. Jose Peralta was in the Independent Democratic Caucus, considered by uber liberals to be a roadblock to their progessive agenda.

>>4000409

>>4000635

Sorry, Anons - I'm a dumbass. My theory doesn't work…

Peralta lost his Senate seat a few weeks ago to Jessica Ramos.