Def Jam legislation

From the NYTimes:

"The Rockefeller Drug Rap

The nation has plenty of strange state legislatures, but lately New York's seems to be edging near the head of the pack. How many, for instance, have called on a hip-hop mogul to negotiate one of the most important reforms in their state's history? In Albany, where the three top leaders always meet in private to decide the fate of all major legislation, this year — for the first time anybody could remember — there was a fourth. Besides Gov. George Pataki, Joseph Bruno, the Senate majority leader, and Sheldon Silver, the Assembly speaker, Russell Simmons of Def Jam records spent seven long hours with the big trio in the sanctum santorum. There they negotiated ways to change the cruel and unusual drug sentencing laws inflicted on New York 30 years ago by Gov. Nelson Rockefeller."