Will Hochul pass these controversial New York bills before January 1?
Will New York abandon purchasing paper from the Amazon rainforest to help prevent deforestation, or create a commission to study reparations?
Should employers be able to prevent employees from working for competitors?
A strenuous, last-minute lobbying effort to answer these and other questions is intensifying in Albany, where less than two weeks remain before Gov. Kathy Hochul must sign dozens of bills into law by the end of the year. Any legislation not acted upon before then will be automatically vetoed.
This year, state lawmakers have passed nearly 900 bills broadly affecting life in New York. And while Ms Hochul has acted on most of these measures, about a hundred remain, including many of the most consequential and controversial measures.
One such measure – a proposal to address New York’s history of racial injustice – appears to be on its way to passage. Others are less certain.
Here’s the state of play on some of the most watched pieces of legislation.
Reparations for slavery and racism
Ms. Hochul plans to sign a bill on Tuesday that would create a task force to study and report on the impact of slavery and racism in New York and explore the possibility of paying reparations, according to two people familiar with negotiations .
Following their California counterparts, New York lawmakers voted to create a commission with wide latitude to study the connection between historic racism and current inequalities in housing, policing, income and incarceration.
Slavery was legal in New York until 1827, but discriminatory practices such as redlining persisted well into the 20th century. Today, white families in the state have average net worth nearly fifteen times that of black families recent report from New York City Comptroller Brad Lander.
If she approves the measure as expected, the state would not have to act on the commission’s findings. Still, advocates are hopeful that the commission’s report will stimulate productive public dialogue and build momentum for future action.
Non-compete agreements
One of the most closely watched bills is a proposal to ban non-compete agreements, a hallmark of the powerful world of banking and finance that is central to New York City’s economy.
New York’s legislation is part of a growing national movement to curb such provisions, which have proliferated in recent years and have restricted not only Wall Street traders but also doctors, tattoo artists and even camp counselors .
The prospect of a ban has drawn opposition from powerful industries, including banking and the media. A group affiliated with the New York State Business Council has spent more than $1 million on ads warning that the legislation would be a “job killer” that would “cripple companies’ ability to drive innovation and retain talent.” .
Ms Hochul has embraced a potential middle ground that would protect lower-wage workers but exclude higher earners, although it remains to be seen whether she can reach an agreement with the bill’s sponsors.
“We are working on language that recognizes the difference between the average worker and highly paid executives, without limiting anyone entirely,” Sen. Sean Ryan, a Democrat and sponsor of the legislation, said of the negotiations.
The bill was delivered to Ms. Hochul on December 12, beginning a 10-day period in which she could sign or veto the bill.
The clock is also ticking on two transparency-related measures with the potential to change the way money is spent and disclosed in the state.
The first would require government agencies to publish the details of emergency contracts within 30 days of being awarded, an effort intended to reduce the risk of waste and corruption. The second would require companies to list their so-called beneficial owners, a nation-leading effort that would shine a light on the shadowy world of limited liability companies (LLCs).
Such shell companies help house billions of dollars every year, some of which is foreign and much of which is difficult to trace. Huge sums of money are tied up in luxury real estate, leaving dozens of luxury apartments empty even as the city faces a long-term housing crisis.
Under the proposed legislation, ownership information would be provided to the state and made public in a searchable database.
“I hope the governor sees the benefit of transparency around the ownership of shell companies, both for the benefit of law enforcement, but also for the benefit of tenants and employees,” said Sen. Brad Hoylman-Sigal, a Manhattan Democrat who is the Senate sponsor of the bill is. “Most tenants do not know who their landlord is, and many employees have had their wages stolen by anonymous employers.”
The Real Estate Board of New York said in a statement that it did not oppose releasing property information to the state, but believed that by making such information public, the proposed database would “create privacy and identity theft risks for New Yorkers and would risk weakening New York’s policies.” York Economy.”
Ms Hochul has repeatedly pledged to advocate for transparency, although she has not yet taken a position on either proposal.
Blocking state spending to save trees
Environmental advocates are pushing for a different proposal the country’s leading measure that would reduce New York’s contribution to climate change. The sweeping measure would require the state to limit purchases from companies that do not prove their products have not contributed to deforestation.
The legislation would regulate the supply chains of individual products to ensure they were not manufactured on land that was recently forested. Large amounts of the world’s carbon are stored in tropical forests that also serve as export locations for key commodities including palm oil, cocoa and beef.
The European Union adopted a similar ban which is expected to come into force in 2025.
New York’s bill would apply to paper and wood, as well as the food and beverage products sold by government contractors like Sysco, which has registered to lobby for the bill.
Ms. Hochul presented a scaled-down version of the legislation to proponents last week. But the fans did rejected the compromise as ‘unacceptable’.
Changes to the wrongful death statute are emerging again
When the Legislature passed the Grieving Family Act last year, advocates celebrated, believing that a victory thirty years in the making was near.
The bill would rewrite the 1847 wrongful death statute, broaden the category of beneficiaries and allow courts to assess not only a deceased person’s earning potential, but also the emotional pain caused by their death.
But Ms. Hochul vetoed the bill, saying that while she believed changes needed to be made, the existing language was too broad and could have unintended consequences.
This year, lawmakers tried again. They reduced the size of the bill somewhat, limiting the damage and limiting the category of people who would be eligible for benefits.
“What it actually does is expand the number of family members, as family is thought of in 2023, who can recover damages,” explained Assemblywoman Helene Weinstein, a Brooklyn Democrat and bill sponsor, pointing to grandparents and domestic partners.
The legislation remains unpopular with the insurance industry, which warns that its introduction would cause premiums, particularly for medical malpractice policies, to skyrocket.
It remains to be seen whether the changes from last year’s version are enough to win over the governor. If not, Ms. Weinstein said she planned to try again.
‘Laws are like good wine. Sometimes it looks like a Beaujolais and when you introduce it it goes away and sometimes it has to age just right,” she said. “This is one of those that I think is starting to reach the end of its aging time.”
Jay Root And Luis Ferré-Sadurní reporting contributed.