Bill that would reform NY's rural courts stalled

Read William Glaberson's story in the New York Times. The lede follows:

The most ambitious efforts in decades to reform New York State’s vast network of small-town courts — where sessions can be held in a garage, and where more than 1,450 judges who are not lawyers conduct trials — have stalled in Albany. Even a seemingly modest compromise, one that would allow a defendant to request that
the judge be a lawyer, seems doomed, its sponsor says.