Blank Slate: Read all about it

The newly passed Clean Slate Act does not refer to a slate of pristine candidates for elective office. The annals of political mischief are bleach-resistant. But the records of ordinary mortals can be wiped clean, or perhaps preserved in administrative amber. 

It could be called the Clear the Air Act, because it purges the sooty particulates of permanent damnation from the public atmosphere so that some former criminals can have a shot at getting back on their feet and making a fresh start at life.

It automatically seals misdemeanor and most felony convictions of ex-prisoners. They had been, in effect, serving their sentences for the rest of their lives, because their housing and employment applications would be flagged during background checks and they would be rejected outright.

The rest of their lives were non-starters, no matter their degree of rehabilitation, ambition and good faith. The unforgiving wrath of a vengeful society wrecked any chance of a stable and productive future.

Freedom stillborn.

More than 2 million New Yorkers have rap sheets. They were not all guilty of depraved indifference to life or crimes against wallets. Blocking avenues for self-improvement and meaningful survival is another form of solitary confinement. Enabling  the hope of a viable life after prison is a moral necessity. 

Even from a pragmatic economic standpoint it would be indefensible to keep them dependent on society. People will not be compliant pillars of society when indefinitely denied the means to subsistence. The most pious person will raise havoc if desperate enough.

The potential to thrive is a civil right. If not granted it will be seized.

The Clean Slate Act is not  sweeping, irrational, cynical, pro-criminal  "bleeding heart" hogwash for the deluded. It is prudent, astute, measured and conditional.

Criminal history records will not be sealed instantly upon release from incarceration. Three crime-free years for misdemeanors and eight years for felonies must elapse. Violent felonies like murder and sex crimes are ineligible, although most drug-related offenses are.

The devil is always in the details. Like vitamin C in oranges.

We're wise to district attorneys making politically driven decisions that invoke laws while flouting them. And we've beheld juries blinded by the lye of attorneys' charms. And we're not fools to the malleability of statutes and whims of ideologically-driven courtroom strategists. 

We discern the rocky and cushioning game of plea bargains and frivolous upgrades or downgrades of indictments. We strain not to be hoodwinked by the intrigues of "expert" and "character" witnesses and the behind-the-scenes and under-the-table deals.

We're clue-sensitive to the adept use of language that attaches terms like "extenuating" and "mitigating" to acts of savagery so as to defuse and get them re-classified. 

Will mentally ill killers who were never convicted of murder because of their disability be bound by the new law, once they are back on their medication and been cleared by one of the notorious, often corrupt psychiatrists in the industry?

Opportunistic compassion is cruel and foolhardy. True compassion is rarer than cobalt.

The Clean Slate Act has the potential to be humanitarian but wax inhumane. Too much flexibility or inflexibility can make a mockery of an enlightened idea.

If confidence in its integrity is lost, then the act's paradoxical effect could "actually incentivize employers to rely more on the private market for criminal records, if they view the official record as hiding relevant information,” according to unnamed researchers cited by the Daily News.

The Clean Slate Act has its critics. Some feel that a debt to society is perpetually renewable and payment must be compulsory and automatic.  Others note that there is no limit on the number of felony convictions to be sealed for a single individual. A Pandora's box of lawsuits alleging false disclosure is predicted.

The act has safeguards. But they're not fail-safe or foolproof. Neither is parenthood. The Department of Motor Vehicles, public schools, police, employers of people who care for children, the elderly and the disabled are among those whose access to official records will remain unimpeded.

The Clean Slate Act has the endorsement not only of progressives and the NYC Bar Association but much of the business community, including hundreds of CEOS comprising the Partnership for New York City.

It should be welcomed with cautious optimism, not just as a remedial measure to help correct the disparate impact of law enforcement  on specific communities or to deepen the pool of  highly-motivated new workers, but because it is sane and insanely overdue.

At least the CSA got some media coverage. Meanwhile, a significant labor-related development was ignored: a one-day strike at Gannett, the largest newspaper chain in the country. Play "Where's Waldo?" to find this story's thematic connection to the Clean Slate Act.

Prior to the supersonic rise of Politico and Axios, and the extinction of independent journalism and the digitization of books that we could cozy up to, readers trusted their newspapers to keep factual and opinion pieces generally separate.

Gannett is a mass-media chain with more broken links than the Information Superhighway. Among its holdings are USA Today, the Detroit Free Press, The Indianapolis Star, The (Louisville, Ky.) Courier-Journal, the Des Moines Register, the Arizona Republic, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, The Cincinnati Enquirer and the Austin American-Statesman.

Its empire is in bad shape.

Mike Reed, Gannett’s CEO, last month offered to "entertain bids on any of our markets or products,” even though "2023 is off to a great start,” due to "cost management initiatives.”

Reporters, photographers and editors have suffered forced furloughs, frozen salaries and suspension of 401K contributions, even as Reed was compensated a combined $11.1 million in 2021-2022, according to Nieman Lab.

His monumental greed and hubris are dwarfed by his incompetence.

More than half of the company’s U.S. jobs were voluntarily forfeited over four years. Its shares have dropped over 60 percent since 2019. In 2017, they owned 261 daily and 302 weekly papers. By last January, those were down to around 217 and 175, respectively.

On June 5, editorial employees of two dozen of Gannett's around 200 newsrooms across seven states went on a one-day strike during the company's annual shareholders meeting. Only around 17 percent of the more than 11,000 nationwide workers participated, because the remainder were either non-unionized or had a no-strike clause in their contract.

From the standpoint of protection from the virus of exploitation, these workplaces are immune-suppressed.

Seated on a bus many years ago, a relative of mine had her cornea cut by the edge of a standing rider who was reading a newspaper.  I think it was a Gannett publication; certainly it wasn't a labor-oriented weekly.

It damaged her vision but didn't imperil her ability to see the sunset of civilization.

Two shout- outs: one to the far-sighted legislators in Albany. The other to the serfs at Gannett, whose Lord Reed is tone-deaf.