Yesterday the legislative stars aligned - if only for a fleeting moment - as I was able to address the Senate about one of my bills. Currently, I have 16 active bills being considered by various committees, and have publicly addressed my Senate colleagues only once this session. It will also probably be the last time due to the rules that govern the New York State Senate.

Republicans are calling New York a sanctuary city. I say let's make it a sanctuary state.

This week I am introducing a bill (S6738) into the State Senate that will make it the policy of all New York State employees to keep immigration status confidential when providing essential services for law-abiding people.

It is simply unacceptable that so many crimes against undocumented immigrants go unreported because they are afraid to come forward to the police. This bill will go a long way in ensuring that all people within the state of New York are able to feel safe and secure.

Similar to the Governor's original plan to expand eligibility for driver's licenses, this proposal will increase safety for all New Yorkers.

I’ve spent the past month passionately defending the new DMV policy, and if one thing has become clear, it’s this: the other side could use a good public relations firm.

“It’s obvious that you’re Mexican and interested only in Mexican interests,” wrote one person who saw me on CNN’s Lou Dobbs Tonight last week. (I was born in the South Bronx, to Puerto Rican parents.)

Along the same lines: “Despite your assertions, your people are bastardizing American trades … So why don’t you go to Mexico, asshole, and stay. You are a traitor to the people of America.”

As a member of the Senate Environmental Conservation Committee, I was surprised to learn that hundreds of students across the state were selected as winners of the "I’m a Green Nation" contest.

The only problem: all the students were from Republican Senate districts. Click here to read the full article in the Buffalo News. This was the first I’d even heard of the contest.

It’s bad enough the Republicans don’t allow our bills to the floor, or provide equal staffing resource, or a more equitable distribution of member items and capital funds. Now they are snubbing the kids in our district.

I had the opportunity to travel with Minority Leader Malcolm Smith to our nation’s capital this week.

With just two seats needed to re-capture the State Senate, we received a warm welcome from leaders in Washington.

Joe Bruno beware.

Because now is the time when policy and politics collide. When common sense tasks like environmental protection and real campaign finance reform are not likely to happen without a shift in power.

Under the leadership of Senator Smith, we are putting together a formidable slate of candidates for 2008.

We showed our playbook to the likes of Howard Dean, Rahm Emanuel and the New York Congressional Delegation. They were all ears.

It’s the end of June. Legislative session is heating up as fast as the temperature. And New York residents deserve a break in the normal weather pattern.

According to the American Lung Association’s State of the Air: 2007 Report, too many New Yorkers are breathing unhealthy air. The state fairs poorly in particle pollution. And warmer temperatures this summer will boost the number of high ozone days.

Smog, the result of ground-level ozone, irritates the eyes and the respiratory tract, and induces coughing, chest pain and shortness of breath.

It poses a special danger to people with asthma, bronchitis and other respiratory illnesses. Children in East Harlem and the South Bronx, areas that I represent in the State Senate, are hospitalized for asthma at four times the national average.

While there has been little movement at the national level when it comes to climate change, at the state level there are several measures that we can take now to combat the threats of global warming.

This week we mourn the loss of State Trooper David C. Brinkerhoff, the second State Trooper shot and killed in the past year.

But I question why this news has prompted yet another debate on capital punishment. The death penalty does not deter crime. Any studies that claim otherwise "fall apart under close scrutiny."

The facts speak for themselves. Across the country, over 100 people have been exonerated and released from death row. The death penalty costs tax payers more than keeping guilty convicts in jail for life.