Lawmakers Return to Albany After Post-Budget Break

April 20th, 2018

State lawmakers return to Albany today after taking a two-week post-budget break.

This is the first time that the Senate will meet since Gov. Cuomo, Senate Democratic Leader Andrea Stewart-Cousins and Senator Jeff Klein announced the reunification of the mainline Senate Democratic Conference with the eight-member Independent Democratic Conference in order “ to protect against Washington’s attack on New York and continue New York’s bold, progressive path forward.”

The reunification of the Senate Democrats may mean that the conference has overcome one of the biggest obstacles that prevented them from taking control of the State Senate in recent years.

This is obviously something of major concern to taxpayers and the business community. For example, it was the Senate GOP who blocked more than $1 billion in new and increases taxes and fees proposed that the Governor proposed in his Executive Budget.

But first, Democrats have to win two special elections to fill vacancies on April 24^th. If they can do that, they will have 31 seats – one short of the number needed to control the chamber. The big question would then be which conference – Republican or Democrat – State Senator Simcha Felder (D-Brooklyn) will sit with. He has sat with the Republicans since he joined the Senate in 2013, but he’s not saying what he plans to do after April 24^th.

If the Democrats were to take over the Senate, we could expect to see a conference that has a very different set of legislative priorities setting the Senate’s legislative agenda.

The state’s 2018 legislative session is scheduled to run through June 20.