ALBANY, NY — Money and lobbying hold sway in the State Capitol, but there’s little pressure like an old-fashioned deadline to get important legislation across the finish line.
With New York’s annual legislative session set to end on June 2, state lawmakers are rushing to finalize a wide variety of legislative packages, from efforts to strengthen gun and reproductive rights laws to a deal to overturn New York City’s authority. to renew his schools.
The legislature, controlled by Democrats, has already passed a steady stream of legislation in recent weeks, including a landmark law to allow adult victims of sexual assault to sue their abusers, and legislation to prohibit the sale of animal-tested ban cosmetics. The Senate has passed bills to tackle monopolies and limit the cost of insulin, though it remained unclear whether the Assembly would follow suit.
Consensus on other hot-button legislation seemed even less certain, with many lawmakers already watching reelection campaigns grappling with the chaos of new district lines that have led to a rushed game of musical chairs.
Here’s a look at five of the most controversial issues facing lawmakers in their final week of session.
Raise the age to buy AR-15 style weapons
New York already has some of the strictest gun laws in the nation, but lawmakers are looking to strengthen them further, something they talked about before the massacres at a Buffalo supermarket and an elementary school in Texas.
The recent shootings, each involving 18-year-old suspects, only added impetus to new gun policies: Governor Kathy Hochul, a Democrat, said on Wednesday she would seek legislation to raise the minimum age for purchasing AR-15-style guns. , and maybe other firearms.
Currently, anyone over the age of 18 can buy a long gun in New York, as long as they pass a background check; long gun permits are required in New York City, but not elsewhere in the state.
Raising the age to buy at least some guns, a move other Democrat-led states have taken, appears to have support from Democratic lawmakers, even though it could be challenged in court by the gun lobby. which recently prevailed in California.
Lawmakers are discussing other gun control measures, including a proposal to “micro-stamp” semiautomatic pistols to help law enforcement trace cartridge cases to the weapons they unloaded.
State lawmakers are wary of the kind of gun laws they pass, wary of not passing laws that the Supreme Court could use in its impending decision on the state’s hidden carry bill, which many Democrats fear will be knocked down. The law imposes restrictions on carrying weapons outside the home.
“We don’t want to tip Supreme Court clerks who may be drafting an opinion and citing New York lawmakers trying to pre-judge their final opinion,” said state senator Brad Hoylman, a Democrat who sponsored the micro-stamping legislation. “So there’s a lot of unease, but also the calculation that these bills don’t touch that area of hidden carry.”
Lawmakers may have some wiggle room in their timing: Ms. Hochul said this week she was willing to convene a special legislative session to pass bills in response to a Supreme Court decision, expected sometime in June.
Lawmakers are weighing the environmental impact of crypto mining
Two environmental laws face hurdles: one would impose a two-year moratorium on the most energy-intensive cryptocurrency mining, while the other would charge the New York Power Authority with building wind and solar power plants with the aim of market for renewable energy.
Supporters of both bills say they are critical to meeting the goals of the Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act of 2019, a landmark law that required the state to have 70 percent renewable energy by 2030 and carbon neutral by 2050. to be. As of this week, New York has received less than 3 percent of its power from wind and solar.
“If the private sector is too slow to help us comply with the CLCPA, which it now appears to be moving too slowly, we have a public entity that can help accelerate the pace,” said Senator Michael Gianaris, Democratic delegate. majority leader, said of the public utility bill, a top priority for progressives.
Opponents say the bill is unnecessary, given the number of private sector renewable energy projects in the pipeline, and will lead to higher costs for consumers.
But it is the cryptocurrency account – the first of its kind in the nation – that has received the most attention.
The bill would temporarily prevent new permits from being issued to facilities that mine the digital currency using non-renewable energy sources. The legislation is a direct response to environmental concerns about old fossil fuel power plants that have been converted into crypto mining facilities, particularly for Bitcoin, in New York State.
The bill was passed by the Assembly in April, but the cryptocurrency industry — a newcomer to Albany politics — has mobilized to try to block legislation in the Senate, where the chamber passed a broader moratorium last year.
The industry has argued that banning the operations would harm New York’s emerging industry and open the floodgates to similar regulation by Congress and other state houses. Ms. Hochul said this week she was “open-minded” about the legislation but wanted to balance job creation in the state with the environmental impact of the facilities, a concern shared by other lawmakers.
“I think there is a way to fossil-free cryptomining without using the stick and instead use carrots to get there,” said state senator Todd Kaminsky, a Long Island Democrat.
Will Mayor Adams retain control of New York City schools?
New York City mayors have regularly traveled to Albany to renew the city’s control over its public schools since Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg first convinced lawmakers to grant him the so-called mayoralty.
While local governments oversee schools in the rest of the state, lawmakers have typically granted the city authority over its schools in one- to seven-year increments.
Mayor Eric Adams, with the support of the governor, has asked for a four-year mayoral extension, which is longer than any extension his predecessor, Bill de Blasio, had received.
John C. Liu, who heads the New York City State Education Committee, said he felt four years was too long an extension. He suggested he would be open to a multi-year deal, provided that certain issues, such as class size and representation for English as a second language students, and people with disabilities would be addressed.
However, the wider issue of school governance remains open, with Queens Democrat Mr Liu saying he believes the state should commission a study on how city schools had fared under two decades of mayorship and how they compare. to those in other large schools. American cities.
Abortion law in the making
Democratic lawmakers have been working on a bill package that would bolster New York’s already robust abortion protections, following a leaked Supreme Court opinion indicating the court was about to overturn Roe v. Wade.
Some of those efforts have focused on shielding providers from patient liability from states where abortion is a criminal offense. Others try to protect patients traveling to New York for sexual health care.
Democrats are also working to enshrine the right to abortion in the state constitution, a move Ms Hochul has expressed her support for. However, it remains unclear whether lawmakers will promote language narrowly focused on abortion, or introduce a more ambitious bill that would provide comprehensive protections against discrimination.
A real estate tax benefit that is about to expire
Democratic lawmakers appear poised to run a divisive fiscal stimulus program that New York City developers have been using to build most major housing projects for five decades.
Both Ms Hochul and Mr Adams have pushed for an extension of the much-discussed grant, known as 421a, or a revamped version of the program, which is intended to subsidize the construction of affordable housing.
But there has been little enthusiasm for revamping the program among progressive Democratic lawmakers who have used the grant as a tax giveaway for developers in exchange for too few units of rental apartments below market value.
“If we want to have a program that grants such generous tax breaks, we need to make sure that the general benefit is proportionate to the tax revenue we’re missing out on,” said Senator Brian Kavanagh, chair of the housing committee. † “I think in the future we have the opportunity to do that. It’s not something that should happen next Thursday.”
The impact of the subsidy’s expiration on June 15 is not expected to be felt for years. Ms Hochul said the state could revisit the program in the future, even as some lawmakers made last-ditch efforts to put together a package of housing bills that could include an expansion of the program.
Lawmakers seemed to agree on a different housing front: legislation to help save New York City’s deteriorating social housing system, home to more than 400,000 low-income residents.
The legislation, which Mr. Adams has lobbied for, would create a Public Housing Preservation Trust aimed at freeing up federal funds to finance the repairs of thousands of council homes suffering from leaks, heat failure and mold.