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The house will come to order. Good morning and happy last day of session, everyone. In the absence of clergy, let us pause for a moment of silence. Visitors are invited to join members in the Pledge of Allegiance.

A quorum being present, the Clerk will read the Journal of Thursday, June 4th.

Madam Speaker, I move to dispense with a further reading of the Journal of Thursday, June 4th, and let the same stand approve.

Madam Speaker, members have on their desk a main calendar, and before any housekeeping or introductions, we probably will be calling for rules after Ways and Means is done. These committees are going to produce an A and a B calendar, of which we will take up today. We'll begin our floor work today by taking up consent from Rules Report 530 from Mr. Farrell. Then we're going to take up the following bills on debate. Rules Report 506 by Mr. Boers. And if this is necessary, Madam Speaker, we'll announce further floor activity at that time. That's a general outline of where we're going. Perhaps you can start with introductions and any housekeeping you may have.

Thank you very much, Madam Speaker. Today is special because, like the majority leader, this is my last day in session. And I recall some eight years ago, this young man was born and celebrated at that time my election and was sworn in, took office in November 2018 At that time my family came up with me And today they basically saying let take him back home because now with Matthew Neshwat being the first grandkids born he now turning eight in August right But there's seven other grandkids, so we've come a long way. We got involved here, making political decisions, but at the same time expanded family, expanded our working community. And today it's really my pleasure to introduce not only Matthew Nashwat, my oldest grandson, but a role model who, among family events, already takes the lead in introducing birthday greetings and other celebratory things. So therefore, they're saying, boy, he's following the footsteps of grandpa. So it makes me very proud. And I have with me two of my five daughters. You know, with my wife, Senna, we raise five beautiful daughters. One is a radiologist, Samia, who's here with me. Hannah, who's an educator. Mary, who's a pediatric dentist. Lana, who's an educator. And Teresa, who's an attorney. So it's really for me a success, a pleasure to have served here, to have initiated a lot of positive discussions and met a lot of wonderful people. So Madam Speaker, please, if you can give the full cordialities of the House to my wife, Senna, Sam Yelena, and especially my grandson, Matthew.

Senate 9051B, Rules Report 506.

An explanation has been requested. Mr. Boris. In late 2024, Adam Rain was 16 years old. and thinking of harming himself. Like many teenagers, Adam had been turning to ChatGPT for months for homework, for his driver's test prep, for everyday questions. So when the darkest thoughts came, he turned to ChatGPT for those too. According to his parents' lawsuits, it told him that his suicidal feelings made sense. It gave him specific instructions on how to end his life. It told him it would write the first draft of his suicide note. And when Adams said he wanted to leave evidence out so his family would find it and stop him, ChatGPT urged him not to. We're here to make sure that no other parent has to go through the unthinkable, what Adams' parents went through. We're here to hold Chatbot developers to the same standard that any responsible parent would. This bipartisan bill simply requires that if you cannot make a chatbot safe for children, you should not make it available for children. It does have substantial opposition from TechNYC, the Business Council, the IT Industry Council, and companies like Anthropic. But we cannot look New York parents in the eyes any longer and tell them that we are not taking the safety of their children seriously.

Mr. Speaker, Ways and Means has completed your work. Could you please call Rules Committee to the conference room? Rules Committee members, please make your way to the Speaker's Conference Room. Rules Committee Speaker's Conference Room.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. Would the sponsor yield for some questions? Will the sponsor yield?

Mr. Boris, thank you for explaining why this bill is so important. I just have some clarifying questions. If that would be okay with you?

So can you explain the difference between an AI companion and a general AI assistant?

Okay. So to be a little bit more specific, so would like ChatGPT, things like Gemini Cloud or similar products fall within the bill's definition?

Okay. And then what specific products operating today would become illegal under this bill?

Okay. And then does this bill require companies to determine whether a user is a minor?

How would they go about doing that?

Okay. So will the companies that are required to do age verification, would the user then have to show some type of identification, send that into the company?

So it will not be reliant on a government ID?

Got it. So how do you foresee, then, these companies getting that age verification? And I hope they do. I'm just trying to understand.

Okay. Okay. So within this bill, or is it going to be up to each individual company as far as data protection for when it comes to those IDs or any information that's inputted, trying to make sure that age verification is done?

Okay. And now is there any penalties within this bill or rules that may be promulgated by the AG's office if a minor falsely claims that they are of age?

So that's, and that leads me to my next question. If a minor or anybody is to use false identification because obviously you not requiring ID and are able to get on to one of these programs but they are a minor By using false identification, is the company then held liable?

Okay. So just to get an idea of what would be covered, so educational AI tutors be covered with this?

so if they were using it in let's say a school setting in an elementary school, middle school even high school because most of the time they're minors in high school unless you're 18 is it going to be the user that's using the program so in other words the teacher, the teacher's assistant the school itself that has to be the for the adult? Or can the children in the school, you know, my kids have their own iPads for school, if that program is downloaded to their computer, are they allowed to have that even though they

Thank you. That's a good thing. But again, just making sure and just trying to understand this because I'm literally learning this as we're speaking about it. Those chatbots that are on certain programs that are going to be asking for identification to make sure an adult would have to have separate features. You're saying if a miner is using it, correct?

Understood. So just so I understand it, and I apologize again, if that program is downloaded by the school, let's just say, or a tutoring service or anything, an adult is probably downloaded. Then that download is getting shared within whatever type of laptop, computer all the students have throughout the school who are all minors. so does the original download of that program by an adult and then put onto each individual computer even though it's it's the same program right have to have individual features for each individual computer that it is downloaded onto if i'm not making sense you know i'm trying to explain it and no no no again my daughter has certain programs on her laptop that everybody in the school has. Obviously, she's a minor. She didn't download it, though. The school did or the teacher or whoever. How does that work going from the teacher who an adult downloading it to a child having it on a program on their computer It about who the user is So by way of slight analogy here right you can have an operating system that has multiple user accounts on it You could have a you know a

Thank you. And then obviously, regardless of feelings on it, could this bill discourage companies from making AI tools available to New York miners altogether?

Thank you

Thank you so much Madam Speaker will the sponsor yield for the sponsor you Yes. Sponsor Yields. So I just have some more questions surrounding some of the

engage in flattery or psychopathy with the user. Yes. How do you define psychopathy within the text of the bill.

I'm concerned a little bit with some contradictory nature of some of these, and I was curious if you could explain it to me. So in section 1808i, it requires that a bot steer a kid away from self-harm, which means being typically supportive and kind or maybe being very flatline and saying, don't do that. yet in 8-D of the same section, it bans flattery, and E bans unprompted emotional check-ins.

I'm not exactly following how those can play.

or at no point should it do anything but refer you to a mental health professional? What's the expectation of how this is supposed to go?

So but let's say someone expresses a minor, expresses some concern. And then within that concern, in the response to that concern, the chatbot responds, I'm so sorry to hear that you feel that way. You know, your life is worth something. Could that be defined as flattery under the definitions or the broad nature of the definition of flattery?

So with regards to the application when it comes to the age verification, I know that's been a concern for many in the industry. I have an Alexa in my home. Many people, millions of Americans and many New Yorkers have some form of home device like Alexa or Apple Home with Siri and others. You said it's based on the user, correct? Not necessarily based on the individual who's speaking to that Alexa in that moment. I'm unsure what the difference is between the user and the person speaking. I have little sisters. They would fall under the category of this bill. They live in a family home with parents who have set up the Alexa. They actively participate and talk to the Alexa on different levels throughout the day. they're a child interacting with the platform, yet they're not the ones that set it up. So how is Amazon supposed to know that the interactions they're having with the user is with a child and not the actual user who signed up?

but I'm not sure if the Alexa is now programmed to sext people or to encourage self-harm, but I don't think these are features that are built into most of these products. If those are features that these companies want to build into the products, then yes, they should make sure that they have some way of ensuring kids don't engage with that. I mean, your bill expands more than just the negative feedback loops they can get in because it bans certain ways that they can purely interact with the individual it's speaking to. A, because you require age verification for usage, and B, because it also makes the device delete memory if it is under the suspicion that it's talking to a minor. So how enforcement seems difficult here when typically, especially with family devices like that, you don't necessarily know who you're speaking with.

So you bring up a really good point. So let's say the setup would be, you know, I'm setting up my Alexa for my home. They ask a question, is there other family members within the home? Your memory requirement of after 12 hours of deletion and a requirement that there can't be a memory basis for minors. Let's say I'm an adult in the home and I like that I use my Alexa to remind me to take my medications every day or to play my favorite music. Would it be unlawful for a device like an Alexa to do that for me if I have a child in my home in order to comply with this law?

Or personal in nature, correct? That's the second prong of that?

So a matter personal to a user, how do you define what is personal to a user?

So I do understand and I think the objective is laudable. Where I'm concerned is what if a child asks, Alexa, play me sad songs. Alexa I like X type of music That could be interpreted as the sort of communication that might be banned in this legislation no I don think so I don think that about their deep mental health But your bill doesn't just say things related to mental health or personal issues. So there seems to be a catch-all there that is of concern.

Even if there's an emotional connotation to the music?

If a child were to say, and I'm sorry to keep saying this word, and I should have said we should have a content warning for this debate, but if they were to say something like, give me songs I can commit suicide to, that would be a different thing.

So if a child goes up to an Alexa in a family and it's a device that's covered and would know it's a child, if they went up to Alexa and said, Alexa, I'm sad today, what is Alexa's response? They're not allowed to be affirming at all, either saying anything positive to the child anymore?

But if it's an expressed emotion by the Alexa, wouldn't it be engaged in an emotional interaction?

So it can have a... I don't think Alexa has reached a level of sophistication at this point

I think that's fair. So can you state for the record whether Alexa, Siri, Google, or other assistance, similar voice assistants, are covered by this bill? And whether or not you think that there should be an exception written for some of those home products that may have some concerns and issues in compliance?

I don't think that would be covered. If it starts putting into it some generative AI to have a conversation to pretend to be a user, then it would likely be covered. I think it is dependent on the features. So Amazon is a great example because Amazon has quite the umbrella. Amazon provides medical services and pharmaceutical services now. As part of its future features, maybe it would connect you to remote medical services. How would a company like that have to walk a fine line when it comes to connecting two services,

But don't you think, given, like HIPAA data, there's a pretty clear set to find sets of guidelines and rules and regulations surrounding what the words on the page mean? I find that within the context of this bill, again, I think it's a great concept.

and is that up to the AG to determine whether or not that case is going to be?

I will. Okay.

including how they have to test what a minor is in the A-jurification. Has the AG's office been in communication with you as far as equipping themselves with the expertise to deal with, like the Child Safety AI Act and this act, their ability to actually prosecute and participate in this process?

Okay. All right. Thank you. I have no more questions.

Mr. Norber.

Sponsor yields.

Yes.

Yeah, so Section 1802 deals with enforcement, and the Attorney General can come upon this information from many ways. Obviously the most tragic is after something occurs and becomes a big news story as we seen far too frequently But Clause 2 of that section also says the Attorney General shall maintain a website to receive complaints information, or referrals from a member of the public. So it becomes a way of gathering that information as well.

I agree. It would be great to see even additional monitoring or other ways of this coming about. Right now there's what's reported in the media. We're making a website so that it can be reported more directly. And we're also, honestly, by having debates like this and passing on us spreading the news, that parents should be looking out for this and be aware of what's coming.

But that is a great idea. And anytime someone has asked me a question like that before, I've been able to say I would love to work with you on that next year. And unfortunately, this time I'm going to have to say I would love to support you from the outside on that.

The penalties are up to twenty five thousand dollars for the violations.

Yes.

Okay, very good. So if let's say they're noticing, because you touched upon that a little bit before on the sad songs, the depressed situation, will CHAT-GBT even be able to recognize when somebody is going through some type of mental health issue in general, not just minors but anybody in any situation. Do we know?

Okay, very good. All right, thank you very much for answering my questions.

Thank you, Ms. Walsh.

Yes. Sponsor yield. Great. Thank you. Thank you. So as expected, the last day that we'll be here, I'm running around doing a lot of different things. And so I apologize in advance if I'm duplicating some questions that you've already tackled. I've tried to keep an ear open and kind of cut the list down. These are important issues and happy to clarify. Disclaimer right up front. Okay. All right. So the bill's justification cites harm from AI companion chatbots specifically designed for emotional relationships, but the bill's definition captures all generative AI with a natural language interface. Why didn't you just limit the bill to the systems causing the documented harms? Well, my apologies, I said this in my open, but one of the cases that we, this bill was really inspired by, was that of Adam Rain, a 16-year-old that turned to ChatGPT for help with homework, and then ChatGPT ended up, within six months, coaching him into suicide, bringing up the topic itself something like 1,200 times, I believe, telling him to hide evidence of his distress. And so the harm is coming from broad AI chatbots, not just those that are designed to be a smaller subset of companions. And so it's about the specific features that cause the risk versus specific designs of the chatbots themselves. Okay. All right. The bill exempts customer service chatbots only if they are, quote,

Yes, actually. There are certain architectures where that might not be true, but AI is a broad field, and there certainly are some in there that can be much more deterministic. But I would also add that even systems that are purely probabilistic, we as a society are okay putting some of these hard requirements on. So we ban any of the AI systems from generating CSAM, child sexual abuse material. Certain models, it's tough to say that you can do 100% guarantee that it never would, but we still as a society say, you have to figure it out, and if that goes wrong, you're going to be liable for it. It's a similar approach here.

No. It's about chatbots referencing things of a deeply personal nature related to someone's mental or physical health. The idea is that we've seen chatbots, once a child or someone of any age, references a particular insecurity or specific thoughts or ideas correlated with depression or with topics that bring them down, that some chatbots will then continue to reference that idea and push people further and further along a path. And so this is meant as a check and a stopgap on that, that if it's something of a deeply personal nature, the chatbot shouldn't be continuing to remember it. If it's about what chapter you were on on a book, that's not a deeply personal feature.

Exactly right.

I believe that they can. My belief is based on the fact that OpenAI has released models and users have responded, oh, this one's really sycophantic, oh, this one is not. And they've clearly tuned it internally and responded in training. So this is something they're already tracking quite well, and all of the operators are tracking quite well. And so I think there is enough sort of common understanding of what that means.

Okay, already.

I don't think so in that that's sort of like a phrase that people say, I'm happy to help. It's more, you know, I'm feeling happy. I have this emotion. I'm feeling sad. Where you're personifying the chatbot itself, that is what this is aimed at avoiding. It's representing that it has its own feelings.

It's about making that feature available to a user. Like in any of these per-violation rules, often it's part of a settlement and a negotiation as opposed to something that's hard imposed. It's about what the statutory max would be. And I think it per being made available if it is sent out to every child in the state of New York yes that a far bigger impact That should come with a far bigger fine

Yeah, it's about what the statutory maximum is. Yes, it could go up to that.

It builds off of that, so the companion chatbots are a subset of what is covered in this bill. per your first question, where ChatGPT probably wasn't perhaps covered by that, and it explicitly is as part of this. And this is also much more focused on children and specific features that are being applied to children.

I worry that that would exclude cases like Adam Raines.

And I want to ensure that the chatbots that are most frequently used are covered by this bill.

Thank you, Madam Speaker.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. May I speak on the bill?

Thank you. This appears to be one of the very rare occasions that we see a bill here that's so deeply thought out that really, for me at least, really begs no question. This is the kind of bill that finds the right mix, doesn't get in the way of technological advancements, and simply establishes a burden on developers. Don't let kids access dangerous stuff. It's easy. We know that AI today really runs the gamut from everything as simple as looking at a product on Amazon and then the AI box pops up and you can ask questions about it and it's a computer that's giving you the answers to a company that I toured a number of months ago. It was a startup, and they have the ability to take a human picture, a face, and put it into AI and develop a human body and voice like a custom service representative that they market to customers, where you can actually talk to the computer and you see a person, not a person, talking back to you. and to the unindoctrinated, you may actually think you're talking to a person. The ban that we talking about today is to make sure that kids don find themselves in a place where through the kind of circumstances that the gentleman spoke of in his opening statement the loneliness the despair that we know that children have from time to time and they find themselves turning to a computer for companionship. When some of us were younger, AOL was just coming out, and you can go online and talk to anyone, anywhere, And then over time, we realized allowing kids to go online and talk to anyone anywhere by computer with anonymity was really a bad idea. And we needed to make sure that we're putting safeguards in to protect kids from that. The key that when we pass these kinds of bills, in my view, is let's not lock New York back from the availability of technological advancement such that we're A, denying our constituents things that are good for them to have, and B, that we're denying our state the ability of business to do business here. We want people to do business here, and we want people not to hate us and go somewhere else with their business. But this bill is so perfectly, in my mind at least, thought out in the way that it puts this burden on developers. Now, look, if you can't figure out a way to keep your product from being dangerous to kids, then don't put your product out in the marketplace. Keep it out, keep it safe, keep it down until it's ready. And when these products, and in the case that the gentleman spoke of earlier, goes from a simple question about homework over a several-month period to the point where the product is simply, there's no human watching it, and the product is able to get to the place where it's encouraging this kind of dangerous behavior. And even if it's not life-threatening, even if it's just mentally dangerous to the point where it's teaching kids things that they ought not know at an age-inappropriate time, Now, this is a place that we can step in, stop it right now, and make sure that companies understand their responsibilities to society. And the question – I don't like voting on bills that have fines and penalties and taxes and things like that. I hate those, and I frequently find myself – I look at a bill, and it looks like a good idea, and then I look at the penalty, and it's like, I don't want to vote for this. But a penalty of, as the gentlewoman spoke of earlier, $250 million. You know, to be honest, if you put out a product so irresponsibly that it takes a child's life, I don't know that $250 million is too high a price. It may be too low. I think we have to, every once in a while, really step back from the mindset of that we don't want to get in the way of industry. for those of us who consider that to be a guiding factor, and many of us do, or some of us do, that we don't want to get in the way of New York's ability to lead in this nation and that we want people to do business here. We've got to take a step back every once in a while from that and say, but what are we doing to society? And is this the small place that we can insert ourselves? I hate when government inserts themselves in people's lives and starts telling them what to do, but when we're trying to protect children's lives this is the right place to do it so I am very grateful to the sponsor for this bill I intend to vote in favor of it and I know that while this may be the last time that we get to hear the sponsor debate on this floor I look forward to at some point turning on TV in January and seeing him debate somewhere else and I'm very grateful for service here on this floor. Thank you very much, Madam Speaker. Thank you. Ms. People-Stokes.

guilty of these actions? How will it be enforced? Enforcement is done by the Attorney General.

Yes. So injunctive relief, disgorgement of profits, and a civil penalty of up to $25,000 for violation.

Thank you. Read the last section. This act shall take effect immediately. Clerk will record the vote. Thank you. Mr. Boris to explain his vote.

Thank you. Thank you.

Thank you very much. Thank you, Mr. Brown.

Thank you, Ms. Gonzalez-Rujas.

Mr. Jensen in the affirmative.

Mr. Yeager in the affirmative. Ms. Walsh to explain her vote.

Thank you, Ms. Walsh. In the affirmative. Let's have a door check it out. Are there any other votes? Announce the results. Ayes 135, nays 0. The bill is passed. Ms. Peoples-Stokes.

On Ms. Peoples-Stokes' motion, the A and B calendar are advanced.

If we could just go right to Rules Report 534 by Mr. Jacobson, please. Thank you. On debate, a calendar, page 3, Rules Report 534. Clerk will read. Assembly number 5036C, Rules Report 534, Mr. Jacobson. Concurrent resolution of the Senate and Assembly proposing an amendment to Section 21 of Article 6, Article 13, and Section 6, Article 4 of the Constitution. On a motion by Mr. Jacobson. The Senate bill is before the House. The Senate bill is advanced. An explanation has been requested. Mr. Jacobson. Thank you, Madam Speaker. This constitutional amendment will move to even-year elections the remaining offices outside of New York City, which were not previously moved to even-year elections.

Mr. Slater.

Yes, I will. Sponsor yields. Thank you very much, Mr. Jacobson.

Yes, we did.

Well, I'm sure that if you compared the turnout in the recent even years, there'd be much higher than those in odd years.

Sure. You can measure it.

No, because some of the town offices have not come up yet.

No, I could tell you right now, if you compare the turnout in your county in 2024, I guarantee you it was a lot higher than in 2023 or 2021.

Well, they were elected.

Well, we're confident that there will be greater turnout.

Well, I didn't say that. I said there's more turnout.

Well, that's your interpretation. I'm just saying there's more turnout,

That's true.

And at the time, there were complaints, some on your side of the aisle, some here on my side, saying, well, why aren't we moving all of it? It's going to be terrible because we'll be having all these town and county elections, and yet the county clerk or the DA or the sheriff won't be in the same year. And I would have to explain that we needed a constitutional amendment.

please change this or I might be the only race on the ballot in an odd year.

My question, again, is why are our cities and counties throughout the rest of New York being treated differently than New York City?

And what happens in New York City gets covered nationally. So they have a different situation.

And this is an incremental process.

So, but basically, again, my interpretation of your answer is because of the media that New York City gets, they're being treated differently.

That this proposal what?

Well, it's not relevant to this. There was a referendum. It was an opinion referendum. And the result of that referendum was that New York City voters rejected that referendum.

They're not included in this, so it really doesn't make any difference.

Well first of all we not changing the Constitution to say that the entire state can vote on a constitutional amendment And it was only it wasn a binding referendum in New York City

They're not dictating anything.

and then the voters of the entire state will get to vote. That's the process.

Well, there's always, in a constitutional amendment,

formally opposes this proposal? I've heard some of that, but I also know that once, I think once things get, moves along, it'll be a lot better.

there's more voter fatigue when you have a lot of elections in one year, very few in another. And then it's just like when you, voter fatigue is when you have a lot of elections, when you have school board elections and you have fire elections, you have all these different things, and that's voter fatigue. This way, it'll be in even years and there'll be less confusion by the voters, which will also mean more turnout. So do you, as a sponsor, then disagree that local races may become overshadowed by federal

I don't think so.

I have no opinion on that, and I think that it's irrelevant.

Sure, because if we didn't change that, the judges' cycle would stay the same in the town. And if they were elected in an odd year for four years, then they would have it again in another four years. They'd be the odd years, while everything else will be in an even year in that town.

That's correct.

That's right. You should like that.

During the implementation, will any elected officials serve shorter than voters originally expected?

Will you have to adjust the terms for the offices to match up with the odd year transition?

Did we have to adjust the terms of offices for those elections, either on the ballot now or coming in the future, to transition to this even-year cycle?

Then there would be considered a vacancy.

So if it's a town judge, then the supervisor or the council, whatever the local charter says, would get to make that appointment.

So then really you're taking away the ability for the people to choose. since it's going to be a vacancy fill. And it's going to be a select few that are going to choose an extension of one's term.

And a supervisor such as yourself, who was elected by the voters, would have a say in the appointment. But aren't we facing a situation right now, as we deal with the other local elections, that we have in fact changed the terms so that they get on to even-year elections? For example, in my town, there was a local election last year. And this year, the town supervisor is running for election. So rather than a two-year term, he is having, or she, is having a one-year term. But in this instance, you're saying, we're not going to take that model up. We're going to do it differently, even though we're trying to accomplish the same thing. and we're going to allow for a vacancy committee to approve either extension or a new person in a situation like that judge seat that you were describing. I disagree with the term vacancy committee because that's a very specific term when you're talking about elections.

An appointment.

But it's still, you're taking away the people's ability to choose that individual, again, using the town judge as an example. The people are not going to decide that that person should be able to serve for an additional year. They will be appointed by the town council or city council or whoever it is.

That's true.

and then more people would choose

And so is it the same model for every other constitutional office that we're changing? So, for instance, a district attorney. So a district attorney runs for four years. So if a district attorney is running, has run last year, right, in 2025.

Their expiration is in 2029. They have a four-year term. So who's going to be the DA for that one-year gap?

So even if the people elect someone for four years, we are now setting up a trap door where they will not be able to hold office for a year. And now you're telling me that the governor is going to be able to appoint somebody else to hold that position for a year. I'm going to continue going. Thanks. to hold that position for a year and essentially and potentially run for re-election based off of an incumbency situation.

You're just creating a trap door for all those other elected officials so that the governor can appoint somebody in those situations. That's what you're creating here.

That's how it is now.

That's how it is now. Right, but obviously the legislature isn't setting up a situation where you're going to actually cause someone's death in that role. So I think that's a bit of an extreme example that you provided. What you're doing here is you're creating a trapdoor because you're not either elongating or truncating the years of term like we have for those elections that are currently transitioning to an even year cycle. So you've actually created two different standards.

Right, but four is an even number, and so you're still going to create this trapdoor situation. That's fine. And it's also terrible. I want to just, if we can, we actually recently talked about the texts, the text of these referendums. So will the ballot question explain that New York City is exempt from this referendum?

It would talk about that. Okay. Well, I mean, we talked about something similar in this realm and I'm just, this is the kind of collaboration that I think is important to have. Now if the law that if the bill that we passed yesterday gets signed the legislature can make sure that it an accurate portrayal of accurate description of the amendment Right. The same legislature that's creating a trap door for our sheriffs, district attorneys and judges. Will the ballot question explain that New York City voters previously rejected a similar proposal?

So we're not going to be honest with the voters when they're voting on something like this?

I would disagree. When you have an amendment, you do not put in, and by the way, we adopted a certain thing. You don't put the bill history on that.

Well, this is a very complicated matter because of some of the structural deficiencies that we've identified. And so if we're going to be honest with the voters so they understand at an eighth grade level what this is going to do, I just want to make sure we're clear of what we're telling them. Will the ballot question explain that the legislature is granting itself future authority over the implementation of this transition?

No, he's talking about the implementation. I hear yes and no.

But it's going to become an issue because we have to ask the voters to approve it.

Mr. Blumer-Krantz, if we –

Mr. Slater, if we could make sure –

but the ballot questions are not part of this proposal.

There's another question. I forgot what he said.

Yes.

because whenever there is a constitutional amendment, the legislature always enacts statutes to implement it. We do that with the executive branch. We do that with the judicial branch. So that's just standard operating procedure.

we'll be carrying out the intent of the amendment.

You're not. or it says that we can pass legislation to implement the amendment. So we will not change statutorily anything that has to do with the transition of constitutional offices from odd to even years if this is passed The legislature will not pass a bill a piece of legislation, do no changes whatsoever. Section 10 is to effectuate the purpose of the amendment. We will not pass any bill that would not be effectuated this amendment.

The voters, it's not about voters. We're not talking about the ballot question. We're not talking about the reference question.

We're not. All we're going to do is pass legislation to implement this amendment. And if we have to make adjustments for that implementation, we are giving ourselves the ability to do it without going back to the voters. We are just going to implement the amendment.

Mr. Sempolinsky.

Yes.

So the process for this, we learned a lot about constitutional process this week. We would pass it this term, presumably it would come up again after an intervening election, and then we'd go before the electorate. Is that correct?

Would it be your intention to put this before the electorate in 2027 or 2028?

So, because I know in the past, for instance, when we did Prop 1 a little bit ago, it got pushed to an even year, for whatever reason you want to think it got pushed to an even year, I think it would be profoundly ironic if this particular amendment came up in 2027, wouldn't you?

Oh, because 27 is an odd number, just for the record. Would anybody in their current term finish, just to make it crystal clear, would they finish the current term to which they are elected?

That's how we handled the previous statute.

Okay, well how would it work then?

Assuming you're talking about when somebody's term gets done in an odd year?

If it gets done in an odd year, then there would be a vacancy at the end of the completion of the term.

So I don't want to put words in Mr. Slater's mouth. I think this is the trap door that he was referring to. So you're going to force there to be a period of time for all folks that are elected on odd-numbered years where there would be a year where the electorate is not choosing who is holding that office? They'd be appointed by the governor or the local board or whatever?

But you're potentially and almost inevitably creating some very long vacancies. In this case, as you do the transition, if it goes as you described it, you've got a year where enormous numbers of offices as you're transitioning are going to be unelected people. That's pretty dangerous for democracy, wouldn't you think?

But it happens occasionally. It happens in the case of some sort of tragic death or some sort of resignation. It doesn't happen wholesale across the board, across the state.

Well, what I'm saying is we had a different solution the last time we did this, but okay. Also with vacancies, if you have somebody resign under this proposed amendment, if you had somebody resign or die early in an odd-numbered year, you might have an unelected replacement for almost two years.

Yeah, so imagine somebody, heaven forbid, dies on January 1st of an odd-numbered year. You not going to have anybody in the public having a say over that office until November of the following year The office would be filled by people who have been elected Okay but the people wouldn be choosing that

You keep saying we're using the same process, which is correct, but that process was never intended to fill offices for multiple years. It was intended to fill until the next general election, in which case that would never be less than a year under our current system.

All right. Did you catch everything? Are all offices included? Because I know this is sort of a mop up from things that couldn't be changed in the last statute.

So the intention is that there's no elections at all outside of the city of New York, which we'll get to in a minute, in an odd-numbered year.

I have a sort of technical question. A lot of party positions, state party committee, county party committee, they're elected not at the general election, but they're elected in primary elections. If more than one person runs for a county committee slot or a state committee slot, that is adjudicated in an open primary. oftentimes in an odd-numbered year. The Republican Party elects their state committee in an odd-numbered year. I know about half of the Republican County committees do it in an odd-numbered year. Are they going to be the only thing on the ballot in a primary in an odd-numbered year?

But my point is, if you miss something like that, a party official, which is handled through the Board of Elections, now you're not saving any money because they have to run an election. Well, I think that the cost of running a district committee race is a lot less than running countywide.

Quite probably.

You could. You could have a primary in every one of those election districts.

Okay. New York City, the largest city in America, largest city in the state, is excluded from this. Your answer to Mr. Slater was because they have more intense media coverage.

And what we're doing is, this is a piecemeal, this is a process that we're taking incrementally, I should say.

And so now we're dealing with the even-year elections outside of New York City. But all you would have to do is just delete the words, you know, New York City, and you could do the whole state all at once.

If this is so important that it has to change the entire electoral system of the part of the state that I'm from, why not do it for everybody all at once? You could change it in two seconds.

So that the county court, the county clerk, and the sheriff will be in the same year as the county executive in the county legislature. Right. But I still don't understand why New York City would be excluded other than you have an answer about media and just that it is excluded and maybe you'll come back to it.

Do you not?

New York City is different.

We treat it differently in different ways.

And so this has nothing to do with the partisan makeup of the city of New York?

Okay. Well, I'm going to go on the bill. On the bill. So if I'm counting right, I'm a little punchy because it's been a rough week. I think this is blatant power grab number four, but I may be off one or two. I don't know. I think we should not be mixing local elections with state and federal elections. We have such a problem in this country of hyper-partisanship, hyper-polarization, and one of the few areas of our political system that has avoided that is some of our local. I represent a lot of really small towns, towns where the number of people are measured in the hundreds, and in some cases less than 100. And you don't have a lot of hyper-partisanship there. People just want to make sure the roads are plowed and services provided and tax money is handled appropriately. And we're going to inject the disease of hyper-participation and polarization into those local elections by tying them to what's further up the food chain. And as I said, this has been a very disappointing and offensive week for what has happened here with the manipulation of our election system. And I'll say the same thing I said with the last silly amendment. Please stop messing with the state constitution.

Yes, Madam Speaker. Will the sponsor yield for some questions? Will the sponsor yield?

Sponsor yield.

This will improve the democracy, improve participation in our democracy.

I think there'll be greater turnout.

I trust the voters. I think anybody that seeks the voters' trust should trust the voters.

Either next year or the year after.

Well, that's a very good suggestion, and I will pass that along.

I might like that idea.

I'll pass that along, and whoever makes that decision can consider that.

Well, villages are not included.

Possibly.

It will not have an impact. It also will save the boards of elections money.

We did speak or they contacted us. I forget how it happened. The Office of Court Administration. No, I'm just saying they thought that the prior process was not good because some judges would have longer than others. And so they suggested that we do something that would not extend terms for some and not for others.

No. I'm sorry, you didn't ask him? Is that what you said? Yeah, we didn't reach out. And the thing is, what this does, it puts all those few offices that were not previously moved to even years, in alignment with the others. So we think that makes a lot of sense. So I understand you believe it makes sense, so you chose not to reach out to these groups. Now, I know the time you put this in came so quick, so you couldn't get resolutions of support or opposition from local communities. But when we had the even-year election a couple years ago, legislation that we did, my office received a lot of memos of opposition from communities saying, we want our local control, we want local control over these elections, we want to decide. So was that considered in this argument at all, knowing that there was widespread opposition to the previous one that was a statutory change, this being a constitution? Did you get any feedback? Does that not play into the discussion here, or you just feel like we know best? We'll have an opportunity to make them voices heard over the next year, so I don't want to say it has to happen. If we pass this, then the group she mentioned and people in general can make their voices heard before we take it up again for a vote. I hope they do, and I'm sure they will. I want to get on to the counties and the town elections aside. I want to talk about the DAs, the sheriffs, and the judges. My colleagues brought this up before. Those under the Constitution, if there's a vacancy, the governor appoints that vacancy, correct? Correct. And that was for the remainder of the term or that calendar year? they would appoint, if there's a vacancy in an odd year, or if there's a vacancy any time, the governor appoints, and then the election would be at the next general election in an even year. So the next general election, okay. So you would agree, wouldn't you, if there's a vacancy that takes place and the governor is able to appoint that vacancy, now there's a power of incumbency that comes with that position. That individual who the governor appoints is going to be off to a stronger advantage going into that general election, correct? That could happen, or they could do a terrible job and have no chance of being reelected to the position. No, I understand what you're saying, but you would agree someone who is appointed by the governor comes in and is an incumbent in that position right from the start, right? No, like I said, some people who are in office are reelected because people like them and other people don't like what they're doing. I agree with that. And I know you said this doesn't change that appointment process the governor appoints. That's been part of the Constitution forever. So that doesn't change. It's just following that same process, correct? Correct. Correct. But what is changing with this process, because then we talked about, well, maybe someone dies and then there's a vacancy. Then the governor would appoint or something else happens and someone moves out of state or whatever. Then that's the process. But this legislation changes that significantly, doesn't it? Because now you talking about every local election every town board county executive sheriff and then the DA but no I a DA county clerk and others Because it affects all of us, so there's widespread implications for these appointments that the governor would make across the 62 counties. So this is a significant... Well, the appointments are not for town board, the appointments are just for these few offices. Mr. Jakes, I corrected myself. I know I misspoke. It's for the DA, it's for the sheriff, it's for the county clerk, it's for the judges. I corrected myself. I just misspoke. I think I'm just a little jacked up on this bill, if you haven't noticed. But this legislation changes that dynamic now because now it goes through all this process. You're a wide-ranging impact. Now the governor is going to have that appointment in all these instances, correct? Well, I understand where you're coming from. I'm glad. All right. And I want to talk about the language. So now you guys will control the language that gets put on that ballot, right? Yeah. So instead of the county board elections. Well, I won't, but the legislature will. Yeah. Well, would you agree that should be a full discussion of the legislature? not just the majority leader, the speaker, the minority leader, or the Senate, wouldn't that be all of us? I can't really speak to that. That's not in this amendment. I understand. But you could do the language, if you wanted to name it, the Voter Participation Protection and Fair Access Act, you could name it that, couldn't you? You would have the power to name it that way, right? Yes or no? I think that the ballot, as far as the explanation on the ballot, it's not part of it, and I think it has to accurately and fairly describe the amendment. All right. Thank you, Mr. Jacobson, for your time. Thank you, sir.

On the bill.

Thank you, Mr. Palmisano. Respectfully, just reminding colleagues that impugning the motives of other members is not permitted in debate. And remarks should be related to the proposal currently before the House. Ms. Bailey.

Yes.

That's correct for these officers.

Sure.

Yeah, it was introduced in 25, so that's a new legislature.

It could have been introduced, yeah.

Well, you get a chance to vote for it now.

As they are now.

I also heard you say that those positions, as it is now, they're appointments by the governor.

If this passes and then the voters approve, yes, it would be if this this would be in effect.

Excuse me, sorry.

That person that got elected in 25 would serve out the term, which would be through the end of 29, and then there would be an appointment.

There would be a vacancy at the end of the term, and then the vacancy would be filled as in law now, and that's with the governor.

Yes, there will be savings of money. I spoke, for example, to the commissioner of Dutchess County, which is a medium-sized county. Very familiar with it. About 300,000 people. They have 169 election districts. And she told me it costs generally around $450,000 a year. So I think in your county, you will see savings.

So what is your question?

That's not part of this amendment. But if there are concerns, I'm sure we will work with the local commissioners and the state board to address those concerns.

It's not part of this. They didn't approach me, but it's not part of this. If that is a concern, we can address that by statute. But this is a constitutional amendment with limited authority and we go from there I appreciate it very much and that what I wanted to hear

And I appreciate you answering my questions very much, Mr. Jacobson.

Ms. Giglio.

Sponsor yield.

We're doing this to move those constitutional offices that were not able to be moved by statute to even years with the rest of the elections.

Like policymakers, they are advocating for local issues, for county issues, for state issues, for federal issues.

Well, you have county, you've got the county exec, you've got the county legislature in an even year.

Those are policymakers.

I think it makes sense that they also be elected in even years when people are focused and they have the county issues there.

We want everybody to vote I don understand your question

That's correct.

Absolutely not.

No, because most of the, well, a lot of the work is done by civil servants and people there all the time.

So do you think that we should have consistency and importance in objectives that they are working on that are known by locals to not get diluted on the ballot, actually?

No, it's actually going to enfranchise voters because they're more engaged about other things.

Not off the top of my head.

I trust the voters.

To the sponsor.

On the bill.

Thank you. Ms. Resna. Thank you Madam Speaker. On the bill? On the bill. So I

Thank you.

Yes.

So that we know is not going to happen, right? Correct.

Well, that person's term expires in 2033.

Right?

So there's a vacancy.

And then there would be an appointment. And then that following November in 2034, that position would be up for a full term.

That's correct.

You know, it's with advice and consent.

The appointment is with the advice and consent of the Senate, unless the Senate is not in session.

Yes, yes.

For those—yes, not for the local, but for the others.

Yes and also surrogate Yeah court Family court as well

I think it could be anything. It could be a local person saying, hey, we want another judge here because we're at a judge, and please make an appointment.

The other judges, the presiding judge in that district could say, we need another judge.

Then it's vacant.

You know, I mean, it does happen sometimes when you, a judge has to go outside their district and they cover, so it'll be dealt with, but I am sure that whoever the governor is, and I like to remind people that the governor's election hasn't been done yet, so whoever the governor is would want to fill it.

True, but if it's that great a number, there would be more of an impetus for the governor to make that selection. So I think then there would be more pressure on the governor to act and there would be a lot of local interest the court administration a lot of people saying hey we need appointments Right I do agree with you I think that there would be but there nothing constitutionally or statutorily that mandates that she or he, the governor, fill that vacancy.

I don't think we can write it that the governor shall. You know, that gets very strange. Heaven forbid we should do something that strong, right?

Yeah, you'll still have staggering in the sense that it'll always be, or generally speaking, will be on an even year, but it might not be the same even year.

So there will always be judges up for election.

On the bill.

Thank you. Mr. Levine.

Will the sponsor yield?

Sponsor yields.

Nobody is being disenfranchised.

Oh, to define it?

You want me to define it?

Disenfranchisement is actions that discourage or, in the extreme, prohibit people from voting, to do things that would make it more difficult for people to vote.

No.

Yes.

How did they do at our highest court, the Court of Appeals of the state of New York?

That's correct.

They won, didn't they?

No, they actually lost.

Point of order. Madam Speaker, I'm so sorry to interrupt, but this does not seem at all germane to the bill that we're taking up right now.

but talking about what's going on at the Supreme Court or several years ago does not appear to be germane to this discussion.

Give me one second. While the point is not sustained, I will continue to remind my colleagues that the outcome of a court decision may be relevant, but criticism of the federal administration in court is beyond the scope. Thank you, Madam Speaker. Please proceed.

and would therefore not continue their investigations?

No, I haven't heard about that.

That's correct.

All constitutional amendments after passed in two successive legislatures that are elected separately are presented to the voters of the entire state.

No, and I don't believe in disenfranchisement and that all the voters in the state have the right to vote on every constitutional amendment that is presented for a vote.

Yes, and there was a positive opinion that it met the standards.

Well, I don't want to guess, but I would assume that that would be unconstitutional and would not work.

And do you think this would cause undue confusion?

No, I wasn't aware of that, and I'm glad that you're enlightening me and this body.

No, nobody has contacted us on that.

So that would be my assumption.

Mr. Ari Brown.

Yes.

I wasn't going to debate this, Bill. I was very fascinated by the first debate you had with our esteemed colleague, Assemblyman Slater. It was just one question for clarification. When you were asked, Assemblyman, you stated, I think, that New York City is exempt because voters there receive greater, was it media attention or exposure, and therefore already had sufficient voter engagement? Did I get that right, or am I misrepresenting your statement?

All right. Thank you. And then if later on we decide, or if we decide based on what we know, we can present that. But at this point, we just have a limited constitutional amendment. Thank you. You know, the borough of the Bronx I was looking at and Nassau County each have a very similar population of about 1.4 million people. In 2021, Nassau County's executive election generated more than 283,000 votes, while the entire borough of the Bronx cast approximately only 126,000 votes in the mayoral election. If the greater media exposure, as you had stated, leads to greater voter participation, how do you explain Nassau County generating more than twice the voter engagement of the Bronx, despite having similar population? And for that matter, if New York City does not already demonstrate a higher voter participation, why exempt it from the very reform being imposed on the rest of the state or even from all the great ideas we heard from our esteemed colleague, Assemblyman Levine? Why not let him do it? What could be the harm is my question.

Thank you. I apologize. So why can't we just implement the great ideas that our nameless esteemed colleague had proposed?

Thank you.

You know, what strikes me most is that Albany seems to have developed a very simple answer to every election question. Change the rules. If turnout is lower than some people would like, let's just change the rules. If one election cycle produces different results than another election cycle, of course, change the rules. If the electorate does not believe the way political experts expect it to behave, once again, let's change the rules. At some point, we should just ask this very simple question. Why is it always the voters who need to be adjusted? Why is it never that the politicians who need to do a better job persuading them? This proposal is being presented as a good government reform. Maybe it is, and maybe it isn't. But what it unquestionably does is change who shows up, when they show up, and when elections they are participating in. That's not a minor administrative change. That goes to the heart of our electoral system. And before we amend the Constitution, I think the burden should be much higher than simply saying more people might vote. For that reason, I'll be voting in the negative.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. On the bill?

I just wanted to thank my colleague on the other side of the chamber for putting this constitutional amendment forward. As a former town supervisor, I know that it was always very, very difficult to get voter turnout in the off years. And as much as it could be said that it's not about turnout but about engagement, I think that we all know, even if just anecdotally and not by the numbers themselves, that people really don't pay attention in the odd years. They pay attention in even-year elections because of the folks who are at the top of the ballot. But, and as much as I wish that, and I don't really want to throw them under the bus, my in-laws, who I spend time with up here when I'm in Albany, actually knew when their school board election was, or when the election was for town supervisor, or when the election was for a village trustee. They just don't. They're not engaged. But they are paying attention to congressional votes. They are paying attention to gubernatorial votes, and clearly paying attention to presidential votes. So when we talk about people actually being engaged in elections, it makes a lot more sense for us to have people running in those even years. Again, as much as we'd love that people were paying attention to the sheriff's election or the judges, it's very difficult to actually get people to pay attention to those other elections because they aren't advertised as much, whether in the media or otherwise. And again, as much as we can do a better job knocking on doors and engaging with voters and sending out mailers, they're just not attuned to these types of things. Those folks who are engaged voters and are coming out to vote in those off-year elections are going to continue to come out in the even-year elections, and we will have much more, again, much more robust turnout and much more, hopefully, much more robust voters who are really seeking to find out who's on the ballot, what it's all about. So as much as I wish people were tuned into these off years and that it made so much sense when it was first constructed to to balance everything out we know it just not the case and again knowing having seen that firsthand running in those off years i know this to be true and i hope that with the even your elections that much more people are going to pay attention to who's on the ballot at every level of government and come out to vote. So thank you again and when we get to the point of voting, which I hope will be soon, I will be voting in the affirmative. Thank you, Mr. Durso. Thank you,

yields. Thank you, Mr. Jacobson. Just to get some clarity, you had said earlier, so I just want to understand this, that obviously this is moving those DAs, sheriffs, other judges, races to those

elections to even years, correct?

In your opinion, why didn't we do them all at one time then?

But we passed that.

Okay. So you're saying it's a fix, essentially?

No.

And now with a constitutional amendment, we're completing the process.

Okay. So when we did that constitutional amendment, it was set that if someone was term would have been up in an odd year, right? If they had a four-year term and because of that constitutional amendment being passed, they would only maybe do a three-year term just so it would match up on an even year, correct?

Okay.

Well, but that was part of it, correct?

Okay.

No.

You said yes, then no.

In 2023, it was a statute.

And then it did pass about how to get the different offices in even years by the different election means.

Why are we not following the same with this to where now we're going to have vacancies? vacancies. Why wouldn't we make it in this amendment or in this change of statute so that there is no vacancies and maybe just do shorter terms so that there is no vacancies? So people could be elected by the person that they voted for.

Well, just part of it, the wall constitutional officers, so we treated them all the same. But the judges have, how long is the term, 14 years?

Understood. But the term that you would normally be elected for, which for a DA is four years, would be changed, correct?

You're mandating it's a four-year term if you're elected in an even year.

Okay. So again, could we have changed the statute so that it would have followed the same way that the last constitutional amendment, when it was put into place was done, where someone may have a shorter term, but could fill out a term when they were elected by the people of their county, town, wherever it may be? It could have been done as we did the statute before, not the Constitution.

Right. But we didn't. So this is what we have. Okay. So we're not changing the statute so we, again, can have vacancies in a DA's position, sheriff's position, so on and so forth.

And the governor, as you said earlier, can appoint to fill the rest of the term.

So let me ask you this, since we talked about democracy and voter suppression and all these other words that we've talked about. How is that democracy when we're specifically making this, possibly making this new law?

but then saying, well, these people that you are now electing will not fill out their full term, and we're just going to have another elected official put someone else into place.

So basically what you're saying is this is all about voter turnout, getting people out to vote.

So why not include villages, school board elections, fire election districts, district elections in this?

So why are we leaving them out if this is about getting people out to vote in their local elections?

Well, why do we have to keep piecemealing it together? Why didn't we just do it at once?

Understood.

Okay. So just touching back on something else, you had spoke about New York City obviously did their own charter, correct? And put it to a vote?

That we heard about or did it happen?

It was what?

Oh, it was on, yeah, it was a ballot measure. It was a bad, so we didn't just hear about it, it happened. So now because they did that, we're not including them in this, correct? Because the people of New York City already spoke, is essentially what you said, correct?

How?

Is there a definition to New York City that's different?

Roughly 8 million people, correct?

There's roughly 12 million people in the rest of the state, so the rest of the state's not different?

Or as important? Is that what you're saying?

So it wasn't because they did their own referendum, is what you're saying? It had nothing to do with that? Because earlier you said it was because they did their own referendum.

Okay.

So that was considered their larger media market, correct? That was part of the consideration?

You put all those things together and came to that conclusion, correct? You said you put all those things together. So somewhere like Long Island has the same media market as New York City. So that's one checkmark.

I'm sorry?

Oh, so it's about what the media covers.

How is that scientific? How is that political?

So because they're different, their size is different, the media coverage is different, even though we have the same media market. If Nassau County or Suffolk County or a city within one of those, like Long Beach, did their own referendum, would they be excluded from this? If their voters decided in the county or the town or the city of Long Beach or the city of Glen Cove, put a referendum on the ballot and said, do we want this? Would they be excluded? Because you're excluding New York City because the voters already spoke. So if the voters in another town, county, city said, we spoke, are we going to tell the voters they're wrong in that instance and tell them that just New York City is different?

Well, we're getting into hypotheticals here. Well, it's not hypothetical. We could –

What if I told you, Mr. Jacobson, that there was two cities, actually one city, one town on Long Island that did do this? Would they be excluded?

No. So it's just we're just doing this for New York City blanketly because, like you said, they're special.

Yes, we do. And they usually, as you said, the cities are more than one million. Right. But it doesn't say that here doesn't say cities are more than one million. It just says New York City. And your answers to why, amongst others, was that the voters spoke, which this is all about the voters' voice, and we trust the voters. The voters spoke. They have

There's 8 million people there. So again, if the city of Yonkers did their own referendum, they're not New York City, so they're not special. If Westchester County did it, they're different.

If they don't want to have it, they can vote against it. I completely understand. I'm not disagreeing with how the process is going to go working forward. I'm just trying to understand is you've excluded 8 million people, right? The five boroughs, New York City, roughly 8 million people from this, yet they get to vote on it, which I understand is part of the Constitution.

But the reasons why they are excluded are different media market. they've already voted and they're special so i just want to understand if another town county

is the fact of the matter is is you have no answer so what i'm going to question is what is the real answer you said they did a referendum so if another town or county on long island or anywhere else has already done this will they be excluded

Mr. Jacobson, I appreciate that. I really do, and I understand that you have a job to do, as do I, and we're both doing them now. But I'm just trying to understand, again, now, going past the city portion of it, we've talked about greater voter turnout, right?

You said because villages and towns are not part of the Constitution, we can't force them.

Maybe we'll have some suggestions on that. I have plenty of suggestions, Jake. We talk about fairness all the time here, right? We talk about fairness, equity, making sure that the voters have a voice. It's just that the voters' voice in New York City, because they already did a referendum, we think, spoke. But if they spoke in my county or the two counties I represent or somewhere, like I said, in Westchester or Erie County, their voices don't matter. If they did their own referendum, they wouldn't be included in this. This is just because New York City is special. I'm just talking about fairness.

Right. And I'm 100 percent fine with that. But the D.A. in Manhattan and the position is just as important as the D.A. in Erie County. The D.A. in the Bronx is just as important, the position, as the D.A. in Suffolk County. So why are they being treated differently? What's the difference in New York City?

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I appreciate you answering that for me.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. On the bill.

You know, I approach this, I think, from a different perspective than some of my other colleagues here, because I have actually had the privilege of running with a village that has local elections on the evens in November. I have run my entire career with the village of Fairport, and I've seen the impact on voter turnout of local elections, which is, I think, surprisingly outsized to what you might expect. You know, we all see, we are all the same kind of nerd in this room. We all look at voter data. There's actually a study out of the MIT election lab from, I think it was 2018, pre-COVID, which I think is relevant to a lot of our election discussions, that showed that when When you add local elections to even year, larger state and federal elections, the combined vote total is 5% more than what you might expect if you just added the two together, because more people come out to vote overall. I have seen as I walk through the village with people who are running for local offices that voters are engaged in what they care about. And some voters really care about the president. Some voters really care about the corner store. Some voters really care about potholes. Some voters really care about sidewalks. And it's just kind of what motivates you. But what's been really interesting for me as a political science major who just finds this stuff interesting is the ability to educate those voters about all of the things their government does and the way they interact. Because when I get to walk around with a village trustee, we get to talk about the fact that there is an intersection between state and local offices. The village of Fairport has amongst the highest voter turnout in every race we run, even when they run in the odds, because they also have odd year elections. I think just because they're more informed voters. We also, for whatever it's worth, we're also one of the top census returning areas. I think people just like to have their opinion known in my district. But the impact that I see on voter engagement, on interest in issues, in turnout overall, says to me that when you combine these races, you're going to create a more informed, engaged electorate that participates in government. And I don't think that that is a partisan issue, Because I can tell you that the Village of Fairport, having these even-year elections, has been controlled by both parties on and off over the years. You see it flip. So it's, for me, an overall good government, in addition to good government efficiency issue, to combine these races. When we talked about this several years ago in relation to moving the seats we've already moved, I raised some concerns about including everyone at once. Because some of our villages are complicated. I know I have villages that run in March. I know I have villages that run a January primary for a June election But I will say there actually nothing in this constitutional amendment that I am aware of that requires a date It just says what year So I think if a local government really felt like they needed to segregate themselves out to highlight their candidates or highlight their race, they could do so by their own town rules or own county rules. I know there might be some complicating factors in other places where there are three-year terms. These were things we were considering, which is why we were doing it piecemeal. This is why we were taking our time and not doing it in one fell swoop. But I think what we've seen as we transferred to two-year elections in this last cycle, more voter engagement, exactly what we were looking for, more people voting, more people caring, and it's not taking focus away. I can tell you one of the hottest issues in races that were happening around me in 24 were some local things, things that had nothing to do. True zoning issues in one of our towns, using a property for a particular location. These were the things people were talking about at the doors. The town of Penfield, no matter what I do, every year, they just want to talk to me about leaf pickup. I keep saying to them, I am not the leaf pickup lady. But that's what they care about, even though I am running for a state seat. When I think about concerns around voter confusion, I think this makes things less confusing. I'm sure all of you have run into the same problem, where half of the job we do when we run for office is explaining that an assembly exists. Explaining that our job is a thing we do. The amount of times I have to explain that there are different levels of government, that your village and your town operate together, that there's a county and a state. This will allow people to see all those races at once. And when we talk about concerns around fall-off, that people won't get to the end of the ballot, is that fall-off going to be more on a ballot line than we see year to year when people just don't show up? We're looking at odd-year elections with 30% turnout. We had 27% in an odd year in Monroe not too long ago. That's abysmal. And I think you're going to see more people stay on the lines than turnout over the course of odd years versus even years. If our guiding principle is an engaged and informed electorate, I think combining elections into as few voting instances as possible is the best thing we can do. I care tremendously about making sure that the voters' voices are heard. And I think this really gives us an opportunity to amplify that, to ensure that our voters know about what all of their elected offices do, about how they can be helped, about how they can be impactful. Because I'll also tell you that when I'm walking around with my village candidates, we find people who want to be on boards. We have a tree board where they talk about the trees in the town. And we got people to know the tree board existed and run for the tree board and ask for an appointment. This is how you engage people. Door knocking is one of my favorite activities. And when we get to talk to voters together as teams, people know more and they do better. And our government works overall better for the people. That's why I support this legislation. And I look forward to voting in the affirmative when the opportunity arises.

Thank you Mr Bologna Thank you Madam Speaker Will the sponsor yield Will the sponsor yield Yes Sponsor yield Thank you Mr Jacobson I want to go back to some of the stuff that you were talking about with my colleague from Long Island Massapequa In terms of New York City being different, and I want to hone in on the media portion of that. You said that New York City is different because their media market is different.

It's part of it. It's part of it.

No, I didn't quite say that. But go ahead. Okay. Is that an acknowledgement that an informed electorate is an important thing? We want an informed electorate?

and to your points wouldn't you agree that media coverage media buys helps inform that electorate

and money so in the 2022 election cycle in new york state alone and again this is a difficult number to aggregate i had to do a lot of math but it's well over a billion dollars that was spent between federal congressional races, gubernatorial races, the federal Senate races, state Senate races, state assembly races, everything that was on the ballot in 2022, over a billion dollars was spent throughout this state. So I guess the question is, if you're a local dog catcher or running for office for the first time, how are you supposed to compete? Because we've acknowledged now that an informed electorate matters. And when you have governor candidates and Senate candidates flooding mailboxes on the airwaves, and you're a local dog catcher running for a town board, and you only have five minutes, or sorry, $5,000 to spend on a campaign. How are you supposed to break through, and how is that helping inform the electorate?

campaign. Oh no, we're adding more people onto the ballot.

And if having it in an odd year was so good to get through to voters, they would have the same type of turnout as we do in even years.

I still think this is a First Amendment issue, Mr. Jacobson, where we are flooding, because Again, you acknowledged that the media market matters, that the media that people are consuming and the way they consume it matters. And that's why New York City was carved out, because they're just different. So again, my point is, is that how is someone that may not have the resources supposed to compete with presidential, gubernatorial, and congressional races? I mean, look, some congressional races spend over $40 million. How is someone on a local ballot supposed to compete with that? Because now we're adding even more to the ballot.

So we don't care about the formula. But let me finish.

with voters, when they go door to door, when they work with other candidates, they're able to get their message across.

electorate then. I don't care about what? The informed

people are informed. No, that's an absolute

Of course I care about.

And I explained that to you.

They can work with other candidates.

They can do that.

So I just want to clarify that. So I've also heard you say throughout the course of this debate that this is a cost savings measure.

Yes.

Is that, that's your classification of this, correct?

Okay, so the bill memo says none under fiscal implications to the state. So I guess I'm asking you directly, on the record, what is the actual dollar figure being saved?

I can just tell you, I got one example, what it would cost in Dutchess County not to have an election for the year.

So every county will be different. All right, so you can't produce an actual tangible number of any cost savings to anyone, and any individual county analysis has been done on this?

Okay. And then I guess I have one more question. One of our colleagues brought up earlier that no good government groups had their hair on fire about this. Can you tell me when did the most recent version of this bill, the C-print, when did that come into existence?

No, no, no. When did the C version of this bill that I'm looking at right now that's on my screen, when did that come about?

The bill was first introduced last year.

That was just, that was recently.

Thank you very much, Mr. Jacobson.

I'm the bill. I want to be direct about what this bill actually does. The memo calls this a logical step, but I call it doubling down on a policy that we have not had a single chance to look at of whether or not this thing has actually worked. And now we're here. Less than two full years and election cycles later, the proposed constitutional amendment to expand before we've seen one shred of data, one municipal report, one board of elections analysis telling us that it's working.

And when you're amending the constitution of a state, assumptions are not good enough, ladies and gentlemen. So let's talk about money, because that's really at the heart of the issue here. 2022 election cycle, as I said, over a billion dollars was spent on campaigns. Let me give you a sense of scale. Gubernatorial races alone can cost tens of millions of dollars, congressional races. when you add up statewide offices every state assembly rates you get a number approaching well over billion now i want you to picture a candidate in town council in like sullivan county or a candidate for surrogate court in schaharie or a local sheriff running for the first time they going to share a ballot with congressional races and candidates that are going to drown them out and as i said earlier that is not an informed electorate How does that person compete How does their voice carry How does a voter that just waded through federal races and two statewide contests get to the bottom of the ballot with any real acknowledgement of who those candidates are? I've, uh, I also want to talk about the cost saving measure here. I read the bill. And as I said earlier, it says that there's no fiscal impact, Not a projection, not a county-by-county analysis, none. So either this bill saves money, in which case the sponsor is unable to tell us what that is, or the savings are real, but, I'm sorry, in which the sponsor has been saying something false on the floor, or the savings are real and we just can't produce what that is, multiple times.

at the county board of elections, again, I still don't, that number is not being produced. That money, if it exists, does not come back to the state. It doesn't reduce your property tax bill. It doesn't show up at any one energy cost, and it doesn't lower a single health insurance premium, and that's what matters. We just passed a $268 billion budget, $268 billion. And at the closing hours of the session, the last 36 hours, we spent our time on congressional redistricting, ballot engineering, and now a constitutional amendment to restructure the way people vote. not whether they can vote, not how to make their lives better, but just when they vote, in a way that happens to be very convenient for one party. The word of this legislative session, the word of every member of this House, has been saying all year is affordability. Affordability, but yet we still can't produce numbers on how this is making people's lives more affordable. This bill does not lower energy costs. Yet we did give people a $200 rebate check last week that they're going to look at and laugh. We ban data centers, we raise taxes, we're taxing tobacco cessation products, we're driving emerging businesses out of the state.

On the bill. I'm getting there. I want to take a second to talk about something a little personal. we spoke about a number we've had a number of election bills come up including this one in the constitutional amendment and I've had a number of Democrats and Republicans reach out say that the subject feels very heavy the conversations feel serious people say that they've heard in the past couple days that we've talked about the fall of democracy in this building in this room and I don't think that we're being dramatic when we say that. I think they mean it. And here's what's sad to me. I'm going to have a lot of practice at these types of speeches in this chamber. And that's sad because every time I look at this body, I really do believe that we should be making people's lives tangibly better. But yet we're here kind of talking about the erosion of democratic norms. I mentioned my kids on the floor of the assembly the other day, and I'm really excited. I'm going to get home to see them tonight, maybe early tomorrow morning. But I'm leaving with a heavy heart because I can't look at them in the eye and tell them that we've made much better this session or we've enhanced or improved the democratic process or democracy in this state this session Actually it quite the opposite I can tell them that we made it easier for them to start a business I can tell them that we protected the integrity of their local elections What I can tell them is that we spent the final hours of the 2025-2026 legislative session engineering the ballot to protect political power. I can tell them that the legislature that talks constantly about democracy in its closing days is making democracy smaller, quieter, and more convenient for those who are already in power. My kids are growing up in this state. And so are yours. And to be perfectly honest with you, they deserve better than what we've produced in the past 48 hours. So with that, Madam Speaker, I yield back my time.

Thank you, Madam Speaker.

Will the sponsor yield?

Sponsor yields.

That's correct.

Because if the Board of Elections is putting out these machines every year, yet they have a lower turnout, it's more cost effective to have it in just an eight. So they have more people and they only put the machines out one time instead of twice in two years.

So I think there's real clarity around where the cost savings can come from.

as well as bring down the cost of running our board of elections, which they can get kind of pricey, and actually bring down the cost of government while doing so. So I'm all set with you, sir. Thank you very much for your legislation. I trust things will go well for you as the vote comes up. Thank you, Madam Leader. Thank you.

Speaker, will the sponsor yield for some questions? Will the sponsor yield?

Sponsor yields.

Yeah, we could, if necessary, to implement the amendment, we'll pass legislation.

No, that's what it is now if there's a death.

They say they serve their full term and then there's vacancy.

The person elected in the odd year would serve their full term. At the end of the term, there would be a vacancy, and then there could be an appointment.

Correct. Whoever that might be.

Say that again.

Upon the advice and consent of the Senate.

With the advice and consent of the Senate.

Yes. There's nothing in the statute that restricts who the governor could appoint or they're subject to the advising consent of the Senate.

Yeah, a lot of possibility. But, you know, now we're getting into all kinds of what-ifs, but go ahead.

No. No.

Yeah, just like we do now. Just like when there's a vacancy on your town board and somebody gets appointed, they can run. Same thing.

Vacancies would be filled with the current law.

Correct. the appointment would be made according to the charter of that city. So however the city does it, usually it's by the remaining members of the council. But however it's done, that doesn't change.

for the state constitutional offices, as it is now.

Supreme Court, Family Court, the judges, and sheriff and DA.

On the bill.

Thank you, Mr. Tate.

Yes.

It's probably my last time debating a bill here in this chamber, Mr. Jacobson, and it's, you and I have always gotten along quite well, and so I'm glad that it's you and I for the last time. Just a few brief questions. First of all, why are we changing the law that's already in place? What is the big problem with how we do it now?

Well, one other issue that I have with this, and maybe you can explain it, maybe you cannot, but why did the majority put a date for an electoral vote on an even year for the ERA, even though we passed the legislation for the second time in 2023, but it didn't come up until the 2024 election? On what?

I'm wondering why, when we pass this bill, okay, and then we turn around and pass it again next year, how come it's going to be on the ballot in 2027 when we know turnout is going to be low? We're talking about moving elections to even year, but we're going to vote on this constitutional amendment on an odd year. but I want to know why the ERA, we passed it in 2023, but it wasn't on the ballot until 2024. And listen, we're big folks here. We know the reason why, because we knew turnout was going to be high in a presidential election for the majority party. And to me, that's wrong. That's absolutely wrong.

Well, but this is what I'm trying to talk about. When you have something that going to be the constitution and the constitution of the state of New York don we want all the voters and all the residents of the state of New York to really know what in it When you go out and buy a tractor or a new car they give you an operator manual right No go ahead Yes or no I sorry I didn hear you I sorry they get to vote I'm sorry. No, no, I asked you, it's no different than when you go and buy something new, whether it be a car or a tractor. You get an owner's manual from the dealership. Not only does it tell you what type of oil to use in the vehicle, but it tells you what type of filter you need to use, how many times you have to change it, and how to do it. But that's not what we're doing here. This is not what we're doing here, and this is supposed to be part of the Constitution. So let me ask you another question. Is there anything in this bill that has anything to do with the size of ballots or what type of ballots, how many ballots we're going to be able to use? I mean, you take some of these areas, you might have 30, 40 candidates per party.

But you talked about saving money by this. So what happens if we have to go out now across the state and we have to change voting machines across the state because the ballots that we're using right now doesn't work? I mean, there's a lot of thought that needs to go into something when you're making a constitutional amendment. Am I right?

And what are we going to do with our boards of elections? You know, I don't know about anybody else, but I've actually went when the board of elections meets here in Albany when they have their annual meeting. I actually was their speaker a couple years ago. I went and I asked questions when it was my turn to be the speaker instead of going up there and giving them a ha-ra-ra. I asked them what we could do in this body and the body over there to actually help them do their jobs better and to make them more efficient. A lot of them on both sides of the aisle were not in favor of moving elections all to one time. They're having a tough time now finding poll watchers, having a tough time to have people that even work in the boards of elections. So now we're going to make their work harder. And then let's throw in primaries and school board elections. I just do not understand why we always got to touch something. Well, I do understand because it's always about having control and power. And it's upsetting. One other question that I wanted to ask, two of my colleagues and you had answered that there was no good government groups that came out in opposition or in favor of this bill. And I want to go one step further. one step further. Why did we not have this discussion or take this bill up in election law committee I can I don know That not I don decide the calendar If I did I be voting on more of my bills this year Well Mr Jacobson between you and I that is why I get frustrated because I have sat on the Election Law Committee since the day I got in this assembly. And you know what? I might not agree with every piece of legislation that's brought up in that committee, but I can tell you that there has been discussion, especially when Mr. Levine was the chairman, there were discussions that were brought up in that body that sometimes amendments were made before the bills came to the floor to make them better and more efficient. And I think that we do a big disservice to the people of the state of New York when we bypass committees, because in most of those committees, sir, we have people that are actually professionals or know what they're doing. And take Republican-Democrat politics out of it. It's troubling to me as a taxpayer and a New York State resident. I want fair and honest elections. No matter whether I'm on the winning team or the losing team, it's my right to go vote. And when it seems like things are being shrouded one way or the other, I think it's a serious problem. Madam Speaker, on the bill.

You know, like I said, this is probably my last time to stand up and debate a bill. And the problem is nothing's changed around here. It's very, very disappointing that we don't follow the rules or follow the way we talk about democracy. Well, democracy would have been bringing this amendment up or this bill up in the actual committee. That's what we're all tasked to do. We come here, we go to session, and on certain days of the week we go to committees. And I can tell you that just not election law committee, but ag committee, all the committees that I've sat on at ENCON, there has been times where discussion is brought up during the committee, and amendments have been made to those bills prior to them getting to the floor. It's not going to happen here. We're going to rush this. We're going to stuff it down the throat of the people like we always do. And it has nothing to really do with the best interest in the people. It has to do with the best interest of one political party that already controls the governor's mansion, the judicial branch, and both houses in the legislature. I mean, it's laughable. It's laughable that people don't get it. I was hoping that we'd be fair and honest. That's why I came here. I came here to be fair and honest and represent the best I could for the people in my district. And I've tried my hardest to always have the best interests of the majority of the people in my district. They're going to be angry about this, even some Democrats, because some of them have voted against legislation like this as far back as 2014. We always do everything in the heat. We always do everything in the dark of night or when nobody else knows what's going on. I didn't know about this bill until yesterday. Didn't know about it at all. Didn't really have that much time to prepare to even what I was going to talk about. There's probably other stuff in this bill that I haven't even had an opportunity to look at or see. that I could bring up in this debate, but I didn't have the time. Beans, we didn't get out. I didn't get home until 3.15 this morning and then had to be back here at 9 o'clock. I hope we find a different way of doing business and we find a different way of doing things for the people in New York. Madam Speaker, I'll be voting no on this and I hope that my colleagues that have common sense and really care about democracy and care about people no matter what party affiliation will do the same. God bless you and thank you. Thank you, Mr. Gandolfo. Thank you, Madam

Appreciate it. So just sitting here listening to the debate, it sounds like we're moving this constitutional amendment forward for two reasons, cost savings and voter turnout. Correct. Is that correct? Okay. What's the estimated cost savings that the state will see or that a local board of elections might see? I don't have figures throughout the whole

to put on an election. $450,000. Yeah. Okay, so that's why we're advancing this. Okay. So as we've discussed, New York City is not included in this constitutional amendment because they're different. But given the whole discussion around the budget, the financial situation of New York City, why wouldn't we include them to help save them some money and help with their dire financial situation?

If the purpose is cost savings and we have to keep sending money and doing financial hijinks to help New York City, was it considered to add them to this amendment?

If it was, I don't know if you'd be voting for it, but I mean, that's besides the point. Maybe I would have. I don't know. Now, on the voter turnout side, in even years, I happen to look it up, voter turnout is higher in New York City. So why wouldn't we want to move all of New York City's elections as well, just like we're doing for the rest of the state, to even years to increase their voter turnout?

Are they unique in regard to voter turnout? Because it seems like their voter turnout trends between even and odd years track very similar to pretty much the rest of the state. So even in regard to voter turnout, they're unique?

It's not part of this amendment. Okay. All right. So the people of New York City, the referendum they voted on was non-binding or was it binding?

So and just to be clear, because there was some back and forth about this before another county, let's say Suffolk County, can't put forth a non-binding resolution express. If they put that forth and the voters approved it to say we don't want to touch our elections, just like New York City didn't want to change theirs, they would not have the opportunity to exempt themselves from this amendment? No.

and then the voters then if this passes this year and in the next term the voters throughout the state get a chance to decide Okay And just to be clear and just back to cost savings the only actual figure we have is that Dutchess County may save $450,000?

You could tell me how many election districts you have. We have a lot.

I mean, there's only about 200,000 voters, not even that much, but there's 300,000 people and 169 districts.

How many election districts are in New York City?

But just moving on. So moving all of these elections to even years, by me, a ballot could potentially have a candidate for U.S. President, U.S. Senate, U.S. Congress, State Senate, State Assembly, County Executive, County Clerk, District Attorney, County Legislator, Town Supervisor, Town Counsel, Town Clerk, Town Tax Receiver, potentially a highway superintendent, and a dozen judges. So that's a pretty large ballot. Would you agree?

Where do we expect the average person to find the time to do the research on 25 different candidates each time they have to go and vote? on top of their everyday responsibilities. You might be a parent like I am of the non-gestating variety, exhausted by the end of the day, come home from work, take care of the kids, tidy up the house, put the kids to bed, and now I have to sit down and research 25 candidates. Do you think I'm going to be able to do that? Where am I going to find the time?

Is there enough ad space in some region, some media markets to even buy ads if there's this many candidates fighting for that ad time? Is there any concern that some candidates might be frozen out from actually getting advertising space?

I don't have one.

Madam Speaker, on the bill, please.

So, again, this bill is moving even more elections to even years to the point where now you can have 25 candidates on your ballot when you go to vote, and we expect that voters are going to have enough time and energy to research this many people on top of their daily lives, their jobs, their family obligations, and we're going to pretend that they're going to be even more informed somehow by asking them to research 25 people each election cycle. I don't see how that's the case. On the topic of voter turnout voter turnout is up in even years across the state So what good for voter turnout in Suffolk County Nassau County Dutchess County Orange County should be good for New York City. But as the sponsor said, unfortunately, New York City is special and does not get included in something like this. Even on the cost saving side, New York City apparently has 5,300 election districts. Imagine the cost savings that can be realized if they were included in this and maybe we would stop having to send them so much extra money. I will be voting no. Thank you, Madam Speaker.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. Would the sponsor yield? Will the sponsor yield? A couple questions.

I was going to speak on the bill and I will, but where the savings at the Board of Elections, What will these employees be doing in the odd years? They'll be very busy in the even years, but what, are we going to furlough them? Are we going to lay them off and bring them back in an even year because we really won't need them in an off year? Or maybe a smaller staff just to administer or get people registered to vote. But what are all of these employees going to do in the off year, in an odd year?

I don't, that's not a good answer. We need, can you give me specifics? Because if we're gonna do all of this work in an even year with a tremendously long ballot, we haven't even figured out how we're going to adjust the ballot. Are we looking at mail-in voting next year? Maybe passing a statute to put in mail-in voting to make it easier? Is that what the goal is here? What was that? How are we going to deal with this very large ballot in even years. What arrangements are going to be made?

Okay, very good. Thank you, Mr. Jacobson. Madam Speaker, on the bill.

The sponsor has said many times this afternoon that I trust the voters. I have confidence in the voters. I think what he's really saying is I only trust the voters in even-numbered years. I don't trust at least my base voters to come out and vote in odd-numbered years. You know, we're all elected officials, which means we all practice the game of politics. and some of us are very good at the game of politics. And I enjoy political theater as much as anybody else. You know, to the viewers, all three of them watching us this afternoon, what's really happening here is just the raw execution of political power to gain advantage. I think the majority's goal is to make the minority party a permanent minority party in the state of New York, and that's okay, that's their prerogative. And they're putting that into practice this week. This is what the fourth bill designed to give them that permanent majority. So, you know, as I said the other day, I'm not mad at what they're doing. I don't like it, but I'm not mad. Look, we're going to have to have this debate again next year, and then the voters will trust the voters to make that decision do they want to put this proposal into practice or not I hopeful that they You know I hopeful that they don because you know no voter is going to be disenfranchised Everyone will have an opportunity to vote But what I do think we're doing here is we're disrespecting the voters, because, as my floor leader said very eloquently before, there's a reason we stagger these terms. There's a reason why we don't put everything in one basket. You shouldn't put all your eggs in one basket, And that's exactly what we're doing with our elections here. If you have a ballot of 20 to 30 candidates, you know, you're really disrespecting the voters. They deserve the opportunity to vote for local officials in one year and statewide officials in another. Now, the gentlelady from Fairport made reference to how their local elections were held in an even year. But I think the reason it was successful there is because you only had a state senate candidate, a congressional candidate, and an assembly candidate, maybe a federal senate candidate, and the local officials. So you did not have an overloaded ballot in Fairport that year. So yes, it's a lot easier. But when you have 25, 30 candidates on a ballot, that's a different story. It's a different issue. So, I think it's, look, this is going to pass. We're going to do it again next year, early next year. And then we're going to have a battle for the mind of the voter. And that's what we're in every single day, a battle for the mind of the voter. And we're going to have a good discussion, some great debates, I think, on whether this is a good thing or a bad thing. I don't think it's a good thing. I don't think it's good for the voters. I don't think it's good for the candidates. Good luck trying to get radio time or ad space or TV time when you're competing with, you know, federal election, you know, federal races and all these other races. It's going to be very expensive to run these campaigns because the increased demand for media time and media space. So we're really doing the voters, I think, a disservice here. But, you know, it's all about power. This game is about power. You know, we like to think we have a level playing field. Neither side wants a level playing field. We saw that this week with the redistricting bills. You know, it's about tilting that playing field in your direction, and that's what the majority is doing. It's plain and simple for all to see. And that's, you know, that's okay. Go ahead and do it. If the shoe were on the other foot, we might be doing the same thing. That's why, you know, we're in a deep blue state. We need to become a purple state because I remember years ago sitting next to Mr. Vito Lopez, God rest his soul, and he said something very prophetic. He said, you know, Mike, he said things were better here when there were fewer of us, meaning Democrats, and more of you, meaning Republicans.

Thank you. Read the last section. This act shall take effect immediately. A party vote's been requested. Ms. Walsh.

Thank you, Ms. People-Stokes.

Thank you. The clerk will record the vote. Ms. Bailey to explain her vote.

Thank you, Ms. Bailey. How do you vote?

Ms. Bailey, in the negative. Thank you. Mr. Smullen, to explain his vote.

Mr. Smolin in the negative, Mr. Jacobson to explain his vote.

Mr. Jacobson in the affirmative. Mr. Norbert to explain his vote.

Mr. Norber in the negative Thank you. Thank you Thank you Thank you. Thank you. the results. Ayes 88, noes 46. The bill is passed. Ms. Peoples-Stokes. Madam Speaker, if we can now

On the A calendar, page 4, rules report 3. Oh, sorry. On the A calendar, page 3, rules report 531. Clerk will read. Assembly number 509B, rules report for 531. Ms. Paulin, an act to amend the public health law and the education law. On a motion by Ms. Powell, the Senate bill is before the House. The Senate bill is advanced. Read the last section. This act shall take effect on the 180th day. The Clerk will record the vote. Thank you Thank you. Ayes 134, nays 0. The bill is passed. Assembly number 1942, Rules Report 532, Ms. Paulin, an act to amend the public health law. On a motion by Ms. Paulin, the Senate bill is before the House. The Senate bill is advanced. Read the last section. This act shall take effect on the 60th day. The clerk will record the vote. Thank you. Are there any other votes? Announce the results. Ayes 133, nays 1. The bill is passed. Assembly number 4007A, Rules Report 533, Mr. E. Brown, an act authorizing Congregation Kal Mekshei Hashem, Incorporated to receive retroactive real property tax exempt status. On a motion by Mr. Brown. The Senate bill is before the House. The Senate bill is advanced. Read the last section. This act shall take effect immediately. Clerk will record the vote. Thank you. Thank you. . Are there any other votes? Announce the results. Ayes 131, nays 0. The bill is passed. Assembly number 5113B, Rules Report 535, Mr. Anderson, an act to amend the insurance law. This bill is laid aside. Assembly number 6194C, Rules Report 536, Mr. Hevesy, an act to amend the insurance law. amend the domestic relations law and the Family Court Act. On a motion by Mr. Hevesy, the Senate bill is before the House. The Senate bill is advanced. Read the last section. This act shall take effect on the 270th day. The clerk will record the vote. Ms. Walsh to explain her vote.

Thank you, Ms. Walsh, in the affirmative. Mr. Levine to explain his vote.

Mr. Levine in the affirmative. Mr. Narber to explain his vote. Thank you, Madam Speaker. Just a few words I'd like to say. Kira

Mr. Norber in the affirmative. Are there any other votes? Announce the results. Ayes 131, nays 0. The bill is passed. Assembly number 7250A, Rules Report 537, Mr. Sempolinski, an act to amend the town law and the public officer's law. On a motion by Mr. Sempolinsky, the Senate bill is before the House. The Senate bill is advanced. Read the last section. This act shall take effect immediately. The clerk will record the vote. Thank you. Number 7893A, Rules Report 538, Mr. Gallagher, an act in relation to authorizing Lieutenant Thomas Clear to receive certain service credit. Animation by Mr. Gallagher. The Senate bill is before the House. The Senate bill is advanced. Home rule message is at the desk. Read the last section. This act shall take effect immediately. The clerk will record the vote. Thank you Thank you any other votes? Announce the results. Ayes 131, noes 0. The bill is passed. Assembly number 7960, rules report 539, Mr. Miller, an act to amend the tax law. On a motion by Mr. Miller, the Senate bill is before the House. The Senate bill is advanced. Home rule message is at the desk. Read the last section. This act shall take effect immediately. The clerk will record the vote. Thank you. Thank you. Assembly number 8340C, Rules Report 540, Mr. Hawley. An act to amend the highway law. On a motion by Mr. Hawley, the Senate bill is before the House. The Senate bill is advanced. Read the last section. This act shall take effect immediately. The clerk will record the vote. Thank you Thank you. Are there any other votes? Announce the results. Ayes 131, nays 0. The bill is passed. Assembly number 8579A, rules report 541, Mr. Tanousis. an act granting retroactive Tier 4 membership to New York City Teachers Retirement System. On a motion by Mr. Tenousis, the Senate bill is before the House. The Senate bill is advanced. Read the last section. This act shall take effect immediately. The Clerk will record the vote. Thank you. Thank you. Are there any other votes? Announce the results. Ayes 132, nays 0. The bill is passed. Assembly number 8814A, Rules Report 542, Mr. McDonald, an act to amend the education law. On a motion by Mr. McDonald, the Senate bill is before the House. The Senate bill is advanced. Read the last section. This act shall take effect July 1st. The clerk will record the vote. Oh, R-G-I-S, div. R-G-I-S? R-G-I-S? Oh, no, rules. Oh, rules. Mr. McDonald to explain his vote.

Mr. McDonald in the affirmative. Are there any other votes? Announce the results. Ayes 132, nays 0. Bill is passed. Assembly number 9074A, Rules Report 543, Mr. Gray, an act to amend the public officer's law. On a motion by Mr. Gray, the Senate bill is before the House. The Senate bill is advanced. Read the last section. This act shall take effect immediately. The clerk will record the vote. Thank you. Thank you. Are there any other votes? Announce the results. Ayes 132, nays 0. The bill is passed. Assembly number 9199A, Rules Report 544, Mr. Barclay, an act to amend the not-for-profit corporation law. On a motion by Mr. Barclay, the Senate bill is before the House. The Senate bill is advanced. Read the last section. This act shall take effect immediately. The clerk will record the vote. Thank you Thank you. 545, Ms. Solange, an act to amend the general business law. On a motion by Ms. Solange, the Senate bill is before the House. The Senate bill is advanced. This bill is laid aside. Assembly number 10280, rules report 546, Mr. Friend, an act to amend the retirement and social security law. On a motion by Mr. Friend, the Senate bill is before the House. The Senate bill is advanced. Home rule message at the desk. Read the last section. This act shall take effect January 1st. Clerk will record the vote. Thank you. Thank you. Any other votes? Announce the results. Ayes 132, nays 0. The bill is passed. Assembly number 10450B, Rules Report 547, Mr. Simpson, an act to amend the highway law. On a motion by Mr. Simpson, the Senate bill is before the House. The Senate bill is advanced. Read the last section. This act shall take effect immediately. Clerk will record the vote. Thank you. Thank you Are there any other votes? Announce the results. Ayes 132, nos 0. The bill is passed. Assembly number 10706, rules report 548, Ms. Chandler Waterman, an act to amend the public authority's law. On a motion by Ms. Chandler Waterman, the Senate bill is before the House. The Senate bill is advanced. Read the last section. This act shall take effect immediately. The clerk will record the vote. Ms. Chandler Waterman to explain her vote.

Ms. Chandler Waterman in the affirmative. Are there any other votes? Announce the results. Ayes 132, nays 0. The bill is passed. Assembly number 10739A, Rules Report 549, Mr. Durso, an act in relation to authorizing the assessor of the town of Babylon. Automation by Mr. Durso. The Senate bill is before the House. The Senate bill is advanced. Read the last section. This act shall take effect immediately. The clerk will record the vote. Thank you Thank you. Are there any other votes? Announce the results. Ayes 132, nays 0. Bill is passed. Assembly number 10902, Rules Report 550, Mr. Smullen, an act to amend the not-for-profit corporation law. On a motion by Mr. Smullen, the Senate bill is before the House, the Senate bill is advanced. Read the last section. This act shall take effect immediately. The clerk will record the vote. Mr. Smullen to explain his vote.

Mr. Smolin in the affirmative. Are there any other votes? Announce the results. Ayes 132, nays 0. The bill is passed. Assembly number 11061A, Rules Report 551, Mr. K. Brown, an act to amend Chapter 63 of the Laws of 1971. On a motion by Mr. Brown, the Senate bill is before the House. The Senate bill is advanced. Read the last section. This act shall take effect immediately. Clerk will record the vote. Thank you. Thank you. Are there any other votes? Announce the results. Ayes 132, nays 0. The bill is passed. Assembly number 11085A, Rules Report 552, Mr. Jensen, an act to amend the highway law. Animation by Mr. Jensen, the Senate bill is before the House, the Senate bill is advanced, read the last section. This act shall take effect immediately. The clerk will record the vote. Thank you. Thank you. Are there any other votes? Announce the results. Ayes 133, nays 0. The bill is passed. Assembly number 11179, Rules Report 553, Ms. Paulin, an act to amend the state finance law. On a motion by Ms. Paul and the Senate bill is before the House. The Senate bill is advanced. Read the last section. This act shall take effect on the 180th day. The clerk will record the vote. Thank you Are there any other votes? Announce the results. Ayes 133, nays 0. The bill is passed. Assembly number 11246, Rules Report 554, Mr. McDonough, an act to amend the highway law. On a motion by Mr. McDonough, the Senate bill is before the House. The Senate bill is advanced. Read the last section. This act shall take effect immediately. Clerk will record the vote. Ms. Walsh to explain her vote.

And as a point of personal privilege and on behalf of our members, I wanted to note that this is the last bill that will be passed from our colleague Dave McDonough. So I wanted to just talk about him and his service. He was elected in 2002 and served 24 years. He's a U.S. Coast Guard and U.S. Air Force veteran. He served for all that time in the 14th Assembly District. He was known for his dedication to public safety, support for veterans, and transportation issues. He's been a strong advocate. He has been a community leader, a long-term public servant. His commitment to service leadership and civic engagement has left a lasting impact on countless New Yorkers. It's been a privilege to serve alongside David and benefit from his experience, his wisdom, and his friendship. We all thank him for his service, and we wish him continued health in the years ahead. Thank you very much, Madam Speaker. I vote in the affirmative.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. The Republican conference will not be supporting generally this legislation, but if there are exceptions, they may be noted now at members' seats. Thank you.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. The majority conference will be in the affirmative on this piece of legislation. For those that would like to be an exception, they could do so at their desk. Thank you.

Mr. Fall. Madam Speaker, can you please call on the Rules Committee to meet in the Speaker's Conference Room. Rules Committee members, please make your way to the Speaker's Conference Room. Rules Committee, Speaker's Conference Room.

Mr. Foll. Thank you, Madam Speaker. Can we now turn our attention to several bills? We'll start off with one bill on consent, followed by the rest on debate. I'll start with Rules Report 408 by Mr. Steck, Rules Report 392 by Ms. Simon, Rules Report 483 by Mr. McDonald, Rules Report 470 by Ms. Rosenthal and Rules Report 291 by Ms. Forrest.

Thank you, Madam Chair. This bill bans synthetic kratom, also known by an abbreviation of its chemical name, 70H, or as gas station heroin because of where it is often sold in packaging resembling children's bubble gum. Kratom is a leaf that grows in Southeast Asia. Chewing it produces a mild sedative effect. However, chemists have isolated the active ingredient in kratom and multiplied it 100 times so that it is the same as other opioids such as heroin. People get addicted, have rapidly declining health, and go through withdrawal the same as any other opioid. Indeed, it takes the maximum dose of Suboxone to address withdrawal from synthetic kratom. Synthetic kratom can be fatal like any other opioid overdose. Therefore, it presents a clear and present danger to the people of New York. I thank my colleagues, especially members Blumenkrantz and Walsh, for their bipartisan support and vote in the affirmative. Thank you.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. I want to take this time to thank the sponsor for his diligent work on this topic. as well as my many other partners in this body, a piece of legislation like this is going to save lives from what could be the fourth wave of the opioid crisis. Synthesized forms of kratom are being utilized and are targeting our children and our youth and ending the sale of these horrible synthesized drugs will make our community safer Getting this done in a bipartisan fashion shows how this building can work effectively And I appreciate the support of many of the members who joined us on this cause. Thank you.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. I just wanted to rise briefly and thank the sponsor for the work that he has done in this important area, along with Assemblymember McDonald and other colleagues. I mean, this is the latest bill in a series of bills to really try to take a hard look at this substance that provides benefit for some but is extremely harmful to many, including a former neighbor of mine who became a very strong advocate following her son's death from aspirating following the use of kratom. So I think that this is very important. I think that this will definitely save lives. And this is the type of regulation in New York State that I think we need to do and that I can certainly get behind. And I'm very grateful to see that it appears to be a unanimous vote and has support from this entire body. So I'm proud to cast my vote in the affirmative. Thank you.

Mr. Molisor.

So this bill will create a sea change in our incompetency law and the criminal procedure law. And not for the better. So under the current criminal procedure framework, if someone came into court and was experiencing hallucinations or something, the court with the defense counsel could ask for a competency evaluation and two independent psychiatric experts would evaluate that individual and determine whether they were competent to stand up. in trial or not. If the individual was found to be incompetent, that individual would go to a psychiatric center. And while that individual was in the psychiatric center, that individual would have an attorney from the Department of Mental Hygiene representing them. There's a finite amount of time that individual can stay in a psychiatric facility before they have to be re-evaluated, and there has to be a new retention order from the court. And if that individual, over time, is found to be competent, they're brought back for their criminal proceeding, and the criminal proceeding can continue. And it doesn't matter what the charge is. It could be murder, arson, kidnapping, whatever it may be, that individual is brought back to be tried and, you know, if found guilty will suffer the repercussions. This bill changes all of that. First of all, this bill will remove judicial discretion for judges when setting bail, an issue that we've had problem with, I think, in this legislature before. So when a court is trying to get somebody evaluated for competency and they can't do it because that individual is not in their right mind and is maybe out in the community committing crimes or is just not acting in a reasonable manner, a court will no longer be able to set bail in order to have that person properly evaluated. It changes the legal standard of what competency is. Under this law, it will require the court to predict the future, to determine whether the person will ever be restored to competency, something no one is capable of doing. There's a clause within this particular bill that prevents medical evidence from being used against the individual at trial. Right now, if someone is found incompetent, all of those privileged communications that exist between the provider and the defendant can be used against the defendant if the defendant asserts a mental disease or defect defense. This eliminates it. But probably the biggest problem with this law is it gives judges the ability to dismiss cases, what we would call unilaterally, without really any input from the prosecution, which is no wonder why the DA's association, every one of the DA's in all of your counties, is against this. Not only that, but if a court finds that someone cannot be restored, it moves the case from a criminal case to a civil case without any really mechanism or explanation for how that will be done. So this bill, I think, is fatally flawed. Not only is it a bad idea, but it doesn't work in practicality. And if that not enough I think what it does is it unfortunately sacrifices public safety for money Because the big reason for this bill is that it costing counties too much money to keep individuals in psychiatric facilities because they have been found incompetent to stand trial. And I sympathize with our counties. I do. Which is why I think the state should pick up the tab. But this is not the way to fix that issue. This is only going to compromise safety in the state of New York. So I would encourage all my colleagues to vote no on this bill. I certainly will be. Thank you.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. The Republican Conference will not be supporting this piece of legislation, but if there are exceptions, members may vote differently at their desks now. Thank you.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. The majority conference will support this piece of legislation. For those that would like to be an exception, they can do so at their desk.

Thank you, Madam Speaker, for permission to explain my vote. This bill addresses an ongoing crisis in our courts and jails across the state, where people accused of crimes who are not fit to stand trial, but languish for months in our jails, awaiting both evaluation and then treatment. They have not been convicted of anything. and misdemeanor cases, for example, when the defendant is not competent, are always dismissed. Mental illness is not a crime, and court involvement is often the result of a lack of appropriate support. This bill will both relieve the burden on our counties while also creating more opportunity for people to receive the treatment they need outside of a jail setting. When we open up access and support to treatment in the communities where people live, We're supporting access and a commitment to long-term behavioral health care that creates better outcomes for all New Yorkers. And that includes, let me just say, that once a person is restored to competence, that person can stand trial. That will also protect the public safety and give assurances to the public. This bill is actually a faster path to restoration and usually retention orders, for example, are for a year at a time. And I just also want to say that a bail decision is made first. This bail has nothing to do with this. So I appreciate the opportunity to share my reasons for voting, and I will be voting in the affirmative. Thank you.

Yes.

Quite simply, this bill is actually relatively straightforward. A couple years ago, we approved in the budget a new payment philosophy using a cost-plus formula for the New York State Medicaid program. This bill takes that formula and applies it to commercial health plans in New York State. Mr. Jensen. Thank you, Madam Speaker. Would the sponsor yield? Will the sponsor yield? Of course I'll yield.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Why is this bill necessary? Why is this bill necessary? Well, first of all, I think it's what I call fairness. Without getting into a very lengthy conversation, as you know, in health care, we have vertically integrated networks. We have health insurers who own PBMs, who own health systems, who own a variety of different entities. And sadly enough, what we've seen with some, not all, of these PBMs is that they have what I call preferential reimbursement. You have Pharmacy A, B, and C, and they'll pay Pharmacy A, which they happen to own, more than Pharmacy B or C. And quite honestly, that's not fair. At the end of the day, many people may not realize this, as much as pharmacies are abundant throughout this state, pharmacies do not set the prices for prescription drugs. The PBMs do. And the reality is, more than enough evidence, particularly in states like West Virginia and Oklahoma, where attorney generals are extremely active, they've identified thousands of cases and instances where the PBMs have been paying their own pharmacies more than others. And quite honestly, it's predatory reimbursement. It's unfair. It's why we're seeing pharmacies lost in urban areas, in rural areas, and sadly enough, the people who are most impacted are the patients. Thank you for that enhanced explanation. I do appreciate it. Is there language in this legislation that would exempt collective bargaining agreements? There is language in this to exempt those self-insured trusts who have agreements with their employer. What's the reasoning for... It was a request of the labor groups. They feel that they just didn't want to be a part of this for whatever reason. and both Senator Skouvitz and I listened to them and agreed that we would do that. So what we're really focusing on is those commercial plans, which are actually overseen by the Department of Financial Services. All right. I know you mentioned in the original explanation when asked by our floor leader that we had done something in the budget previously, and I know in 2023 DFS had rolled out proposed regulations that were never adopted. How does this align or not align with what DFS had originally proposed through regulation? This actually follows through on what DFS had proposed I think at the time there were concerns raised by some labor groups and therefore they decided to hold off on that This just follows through on that original proposal This is something that has been accepted in many other states throughout the country and by the way as evidenced by both the Biden and Trump FTC, is the direction of where pharmacy reimbursement is headed in the future. I know there is some estimate that there could be a cost both to the essential plan and to insurers on the commercial market because of the potential for expense to both of those entities. Why didn't we do this during the budget? So I don't know where that estimate comes from. I'm a little bit surprised to even hear that being mentioned. You know, the reality is pharmacy reimbursement is, one, very complex. and it is a very huge black box. The reality is the prescription benefit managers, who actually do do a very good job in regards to managing the plan, negotiate fees, negotiate rebates, have GPO agreements. They have a whole list of items that goes into determining what the patient is going to be charged. What we're doing is we're changing the reimbursement methodology. Instead of the old-fashioned program where there's a discount off AWP, which is average wholesale price, plus a small fee. We're actually putting in a standard fee, but what people don't realize is we're putting in a federally required cost reimbursement called NADAC, the National Average Drug Acquisition Cost. For information purposes, pharmacies are required monthly to submit their invoices to a consolidator for the federal government to see what the true cost of the drugs is, because there's always been a question of what the true cost of the drugs is. NADAC, at this time, is the best estimate that I can speak of, but I've only been doing pharmacy for 40 years. So the idea was we're going to get a lower cost, a net cost, but yes, we're going to have a stabilizing fee, which is being adopted at much higher rates, I will say, in other states throughout this country. So I have to be honest with you. I know who is saying this is going to raise costs. It's the people who have had the luxury of managing the benefit for the last 20 years in this giant black box. I don't blame them. They don't want to give up the puck. I get it. That being said, we're here worried about patients. We're worried about payers. And, yes, we want stability in the pharmacy community. But to say it's going to raise costs is bunk. All right. Not to get bunk another again. But depending on when, if this passes, which my guess is based on the number of co-sponsors, it will, if and when this is adopted, the requirements would take effect halfway through the commercial rate year. And DFS is halfway through its rate-setting process for 2027, with the final rates for 2027 to come out in August of this year. what would be the impact on their determination of rates should this become adopted? Yeah, I personally don't believe there will be a negative impact on rates. What people might not be aware of, and we approved this last year in the budget, is that for the first time in this state's history, we are actually requiring the PBMs and the health plans and actually to manufacturers to actually provide what rebates they've been receiving all these last 20, 30 years. Our health care premiums have been calculated on some kind drug spend, but no one has been monitoring the rebates that these PBNs have been negotiating. No one is monitoring where those rebates are going. I'm not saying they're doing anything wrong with it. On the other hand, I don't know why anybody has told me their prescription drug costs or their premiums have gone down. We will now have full transparency on those numbers to really get a better idea of what the true cost of medications are. Does that answer your question? I want to thank the the Honorable Gentleman from Coase for his answers and Madam Speaker I do want to say it has been a pleasure to serve with you these past six years and I wish you the best of luck as you continue to serve your community in whatever way shape or form it happened so with that thank you Madam Speaker

colleagues for their support. They have been remarkable. The number of sponsors on this bill I haven't seen so high in such a long period of time. I just want to reiterate a couple things. PBMs do play a critical role in the health care system, but at the same token many of them have enjoyed this black box, this lack of transparency, this opaque environment for a long period of time. At the end of the day, this is about taxpayer money, it's about our constituents' money, what they pay in premiums, what they pay in co-pays. The claim that this will raise prescription drug costs is a very feeble attempt to maintain their control over a several hundred billion dollar a year industry. The reality is we want them to do their job properly. We want them to negotiate with the pharmaceutical companies. This does not interrupt that negotiation for rebates by any stretch of the imagination. But at the same token, we should actually know where that benefit is going. It's very easy to blame rising drug prices for the costs and blame pharma, and they do share some responsibility. But in the same token, the rebates, sometimes approaching almost 50%, and the GPO agreements as well, gives us the question, where is the money? And this is one large step in that transparency. Thank you, Madam Speaker.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. I'd like to explain my vote. I rise today in support of A-5882 and want to begin by thanking the sponsor, Assemblyman McDonald for his work on this important legislation. I've been a proud co-sponsor of this bill early on because I understand just how important local pharmacies are to our communities. In many of our rural areas, access to health care services can already be limited, and for many constituents, that local pharmacy is often the most accessible health care resource they have These pharmacies do far more than fill prescriptions They provide trusted advice vaccinations and critical health care services close to home When a local pharmacy closes, it can mean residents, especially seniors and those with limited transportation, must travel long distances just to access medications and the care they need. This bill is also important because many of these pharmacies are small businesses. I have worked with pharmacies throughout my district and have heard firsthand about the challenges they face. They are employers, community partners, and an essential part of our local economies. By supporting our independent pharmacies, we are helping preserve access to health care while also supporting the small businesses that keep our communities strong. For those reasons, I proudly vote yes and encourage my colleagues to do the same. Thank you, Madam Speaker.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. And first of all, thank you to the sponsor of the bill, Mr. McDonald. Thank you very much. I'm proud to support this bill, proud to vote yes on this bill, and I'm a big supporter of local pharmacies. I want to thank my pharmacy that I shop at Pharmacy at the Wave. Thank you, great service. And I just want to say that independent pharmacies are unfortunately closing across New York because they're too often reimbursed below the actual cost of the medications they dispense. When a local pharmacy closes, seniors, working families, and entire communities lose access to essential health care services. So this bill helps ensure pharmacists are paid fairly for the medications they provide and can continue serving our neighborhoods. For this reason, I vote yes. Thank you, Madam Speaker.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. To explain my vote, let me first say thank you, Mr. Sponsor, for the incredible work that you've done in this arena. You and I have engaged in many different conversations, and I've talked with all of my constituents in the area. And there was a lot of conversations that we needed to make sure that we could all get on the same page. But what we arrived on is the thing that this chamber knows, is that rural America, rural America is having a tough time with health care. and that we need to open the aperture to the entire system of our health care to really be able to lean in and to make sure that we're protecting our community. Our pharmacists are at the very center of it. From the newborn to the senior, they are caring for our community. This bill helps protect small businesses and also helps to protect our community. And for that, I vote in the affirmative. Thank you.

Thank you for allowing me to explain my vote. Madam Speaker. I want to thank the sponsor for bringing this measure forward. I was proud to co-sponsor and advocate for this bill because this legislation is about lowering prescription drug costs for patients, keeping neighborhood pharmacies open, and adding transparency to drug pricing practices. Our small neighborhood pharmacies are disappearing, and access to high-quality, affordable care is diminished every time a local pharmacy is forced to close their doors Local pharmacies are the front lines of our health care system We know the benefits services and informed personal touches that our local pharmacies provide in our communities and we must ensure that they are given the tools and the resources they need to keep their doors open. Thank you. I vote in the affirmative. Ms. Glick to explain her vote. Thank you very much to

and they are vitally important to our community. And so I want to thank the sponsor for this measure, and I also want to thank the sponsor for his friendship through the years and the way in which he has helped me navigate some particular issues relative to health care. And so I want to thank him, and on a point of personal privilege, I want to thank my colleagues for their friendship and for sharing their lives with me because we spend so much of our time here. I withdraw my vote and vote in the affirmative. Thank you.

Ms. Walsh. Thank you, Madam Speaker. I'll just go on the bill. So this bill, well, let me back up. The correction law currently prohibits the use of restraints on incarcerated pregnant women during labor, delivery, and postpartum recovery, except in limited, extraordinary circumstances. There's also existing notice of these protections and training for correctional personnel. What this bill does is it expands it. I would say greatly expands existing restrictions. and it broadens current protections to apply not only during labor and delivery, but also during transport and medical care related to pregnancy outcomes and for up to 12 weeks following birth, abortion, miscarriage, or stillbirth. The bill generally prohibits the use of restraints during these periods, except in limited emergency circumstances involving an immediate risk of serious injury that cannot be reasonably addressed by other means. So that's the essence of why there will be no votes on this bill. It raises operational and public safety concerns. It substantially limits the discretion of correctional and law enforcement personnel. It also imposes extensive documentation reporting and training requirements on correctional facilities and law enforcement agencies which some may contend would create significant administrative burdens and increased compliance costs particularly for smaller local jurisdictions For those reasons, it is opposed by the New York State Sheriff's Association. They oppose the bill's expansion of anti-shackling restrictions and limits on the use of force involving pregnant individuals in custody, and they argue that the proposal is operationally unworkable and could undermine officers' ability to safely maintain custody and prevent escape. So for those reasons, I'll be voting in the negative. I would encourage my colleagues to do the same. Thank you very much, Madam Speaker.

Thank you, Madam Speaker, to explain my vote. month, Samantha Randazzo gave birth while in law enforcement custody in a Brooklyn courtroom. She was there on a low-level charge, but because she was in police custody and not incarcerated, our anti-shackling laws did not protect her from this horrific experience. Her water broke as she was seated on a courtroom bench with her hands still cuffed behind her back. The charges were dismissed two days later. Over the years, we've protected incarcerated women from this barbaric practice, I'm proud that we will soon offer women in law enforcement custody the same protections. These are vital protections that will help ensure these women can give birth with dignity and receive the humane and respectful care that they are entitled to. I must thank Chair DeLon, Jen Ashley and her team, the program and counsel, and the many advocates who have offered their knowledge and expertise, including Dori Lewis, Sophie Gabrielsi of Legal Aid Society, Jenna Lauder of NYCLU, Serena Martin of New Hour, Planned Parenthood, and so many more. And of course, the speaker for getting this bill to the finish line. I cast my vote in the affirmative.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. I'll just go on the bill. Thank you. So this bill...

Oh, of course, yes, thank you.