The New York governor, clearly concerned about the Latino vote in the fall election, met with New York mothers of the disappeared in Albany yesterday, offering them a bill that would potentially release their loved ones from prison, but would not overhaul the Rockefeller Drug Laws as they have demanded. Randy Credico, director of the Kunstler Fund for Racial Justice, was with the mothers of the disappeared in Albany and met with the governor. Randy, what is the latest as the legislation comes to a close in Albany? Will the Rockefeller Drug Laws be overturned?

Randy Credico: “It was dead yesterday, but it was revived by the mothers going up there meeting with the governor and kind of sandbagging him. The Senate now is staying an extra week to try to deal with this issue. The governor met with the mothers and offered them something that would, you know, bribe them and divide the rest of the movement. And it would help out 0.01% of the population get out of prison. So, New York, with the governor’s plan, would go from having the worst drug laws in the nation to having the worst drug laws in the nation. And that has been stopped. We also gave the governor a copy of Howard Zinn’s ’People’s History of the United States,’ and we hope he reads it.”

Among the ads the mothers have threatened to put in Latino newspapers are “Pataki’s kids go to Yale. Our kids go to jail.”