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| Affiliation | Democratic |
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| Name | Richard A. Dollinger |
| Address |
Rochester, New York , United States |
| Email | None |
| Website | None |
| Born |
August 13, 1951
(73 years)
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| Contributor | nystate63 |
| Last Modifed | RBH
Mar 23, 2021 01:15pm |
| Tags |
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| Info | Richard A. Dollinger is a lifelong resident of Monroe County. In 1992, he was elected to represent the 54th Senate District, which encompasses most of the City of Rochester and the Towns of Greece and Brighton. He has been reelected by wide margins since 1994.
Born in Rochester in 1951, Dollinger was raised in a family with a history in local government. His maternal grandmother, Margot B. Finigan, was the first women elected to the Monroe County Board of Supervisors. Dollinger's family moved to the town of Brighton in the mid-1960s. Dollinger graduated from McQuaid Jesuit High School in 1969. He obtained his bachelor's degree from Saint Michael's College, University of Toronto in 1973. From 1974-1977, Dollinger worked as a journalist for the Newton-Waltham News Tribune, a daily newspaper in the Boston suburbs. He covered local and state government. In 1977, he entered Albany Law School, graduating cum laude in 1980. He was a Notes and Comments Editor of the Albany Law Review, a legal writing instructor and a member of the Robert Wagner Moot Court team, which reached the national semifinals. He also worked as a student intern with the New York State Attorney General's Office, assisting in the preparation of legal briefs on environmental issues.
After graduation, he worked for several law firms in Rochester, eventually becoming a partner in the trial department at Mousaw, Vigdor, Reeves, Heilbronner and Kroll. His concentration included general trial litigation and employment law. He is now a partner in the firm of Barrett, Greisberger, Dollinger, Fletcher, Peartree & Tallon, LLP, concentrating in civil litigation, personal injury, employment law and construction related matters.
In 1987, Dollinger ran for a seat on the Monroe County Legislature, where he defeated an eight-year incumbent. During the ensuing five years, Dollinger chaired the Monroe County Legislature's Planning and Economic Development Committee and the Public Safety Committee. He authored a local law banning the possession of weapons in public buildings in Monroe County and a policy requiring the County to give local contractors and professionals special consideration in public contracts.
Dollinger also took active roles in the reapportionment of the County Legislature in 1991 and 1992. In 1991, using his legal skills, he brought a lawsuit, which resulted in a declaration that certain portions of the New York Home Rule Law were unconstitutional as applied to a countywide reapportionment plan approved by the Legislature.
In the Senate, Dollinger became the Assistant Minority Leader for Floor Operations in 1999. In that post, he has coordinated debate on bills before the senate and managed the process of amendment and motions to discharge bills from committee for debate.
Dollinger has also been an active leader in legislative reform issues, co-chairing the Senate Democratic Committee on Legislative Reform. He campaigned against abuses in the legislative franking privileges and fought for an accounting of Senate spending. The Senate's mailing practices were reformed and the Senate now publishes a semi-annual accounting of its spending. Dollinger has also co-chaired the informal Assembly-Senate study group that has sought to create a permanent joint conference committee for legislative deliberations.
Dollinger has also served as a member of the Joint Legislative Committee on NYSPAN, a committee to study the televising of the proceedings of the Senate and Assembly. Dollinger helped to spearhead the Internet broadcasting of the legislative proceedings and has made televising the Senate proceedings a top legislative priority for the 2001-2002 session.
Dollinger has also served as the ranking Democrat on the Senate Health Committee and the acting ranking member on the Senate Energy and Telecommunications Committee. As a member of that committee, he sponsored and worked to enact the New York Power for Jobs program to provide power for new job creation in New York. In the Senate Health Committee, he held a series of statewide hearings in 1996 to examine the health care system. He also has been a proponent of community rating for health insurance, which was pioneered in the Rochester community. In 1999, he cosponsored a series of statewide hearings on providing health insurance for the uninsured and worked to enact hospital report card legislation and physician profiling laws.
Reform of the state's debt practices has also been a major initiative for Senator Dollinger. He strongly opposed Proposition Three, a 1995 constitutional amendment that would have changed New York's debt practices. He brought legal action against the State Board of Elections to require changes in wording of the debt proposition and then campaigned against the measures, which the voters ultimately rejected. He also campaigned against casino gaming during the 1995 legislative session.
Dollinger also enacted a law that increases penalties for trespassing on railroad property in Monroe County and sponsored a law to allow senior citizens to cancel their lease if they were required to live with their children. The senator also created the nation's and state's first electronic "e-petition" and presented it -- together with nearly 5,000 electronically recorded signatures -- to the senate in the spring of 2000. The petition supported repeal of the state marriage penalty tax, which was eventually incorporated into the state's 2000-2001 budget. In the same year, the state enacted a repeal of the gross receipts tax on manufacturing, a proposal that Dollinger advanced for several years.
Senator Dollinger was also one of the leading advocates for a constitutional convention in New York in 1997. He made numerous speaking appearances on behalf on the convention and worked to convince voters to make needed governmental reforms through the convention.
In the legislative arena, Senator Dollinger has been a leading advocate for restrictions on assault weapons and worked to pass a series of quality-of-life bills that will improve urban neighborhoods in the City of Rochester. Dollinger has also been active on environmental issues, commencing a legal action in 1999 to prevent a jet ski race and pollution on Canandaigua Lake when evidence demonstrated that the two-cycle engines caused excessive concentrations of MTBEs, a known water pollutant. The legislature later passed laws restricting MTBEs in New York's waterways.
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