New York’s Democrat-led state Legislature capped off its 2026 session Friday in what was ultimately a mixed bag for the nation’s second most populous blue state, intent on counteracting President Donald Trump’s administration in an election year in which Gov. Kathy Hochul and every member of the state Senate and Assembly will face reelection.

From more than 300 miles away, Trump’s fingerprints could be found on both the successes and the setbacks for Democrats during this year’s six-month rite in Albany.

Democrats largely blame the president’s economic and environmental policies for a controversial rollback of the state’s 2019 climate law, and entirely for the first passage of a constitutional amendment that would authorize the state to join the nationwide redistricting wars and allow Democrats to realize a long-standing goal of altering guardrails put in place via a previous constitutional amendment in 2014.

That effort was opposed by Republicans in the minority who leaned heavily into a ‘two wrongs don’t make a right’ argument and largely led in the state Legislature by outgoing Deputy State Senate Majority Leader Mike Gianaris.

Gianaris is retiring from the Senate at the end of the year, largely seen as the most significant of a slew of departures.

“We did some really great things,” he said of his last legislative session. “I know it’s a point of great controversy but the fact that we’ve begun the process of change redistricting in New York is a very big deal that will have national implications.” 

Lawmakers also squabbled over how best to address the Trump administration’s immigration policy and ultimately settled on a plan largely crafted by Hochul that limited formal cooperation between U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and state and local governments and incorporated other legislative work, including a ban on ICE agents wearing masks and protections intended to limit ICE enforcement in sensitive locations.

“I do not want to take my foot off the gas and allow for local governments to say we’re deputizing our local police, paid by local taxpayers, to do ICE’s job,” Hochul said. “Last time I checked, ICE was a very well-funded agency,” adding, “If crimes are committed, we’ll be there to help.”

Progressive lawmakers wanted to go even further on an immigrant protection package, pushing for broader limits on both formal and informal cooperation, among other measures, demonstrating the governor’s ability to keep some of the state Democrats’ most progressive inclinations at bay.

Republicans have blasted the measures as endangering public safety. Tom Homan, Trump’s “border czar,” even hinted that ICE presence in New York could increase because of the law.

“I’m grateful that the governor and the Legislature worked together to protect immigrant New Yorkers, including to unmask ICE,” said Assemblymember Tony Simone, who said New York will fight back if Homan makes good on his promise. “Nowhere in America should immigrants be terrorized by masked agents. Citizens and immigrants alike should feel safe.”

The climate law rollbacks and immigration package were part of the latest budget enacted in 16 years, as Hochul squeezed the state Legislature for nearly two months after the budget deadline to adopt her policy agenda, which has proven to be a key strategy for a governor who has grown to rely on the budget process to make her mark in Albany. Hochul’s budget battle left only one week for normal legislative business.

“These are not just Kathy Hochul priorities,” the governor said last week. “They’re my priorities because they are important to New Yorkers, and I am the vehicle to get that done.”

The lengthy negotiation over the bloated $268 billion spending plan caused a flare-up of tensions between Hochul and Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie, who blasted the state’s executive-driven budget process, telling reporters, “I’m never doing this again,” after Hochul claimed victory on her policy agenda three weeks before the budget was ultimately finished.

Heastie told reporters to stay tuned for what exactly that means in terms of future guardrails or changes. Some lawmakers are pushing to put a constitutional amendment before voters that would water down the governor’s influence over the process, but Heastie has acknowledged the challenges of selling such a proposal to voters.

“I’m still saying stay tuned,” he said this week, though he clarified that no legislative action would be taken before lawmakers left town for the summer.

If Hochul and Trump’s fingerprints were on many of the policy decisions, New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s were on many of the fiscal ones.

Hochul was forced to walk a tightrope in the thick of her second election season, assisting the new mayor in realizing a portion of his policy agenda while addressing the city’s fiscal crisis and simultaneously resisting calls from Mamdani and progressives to raise taxes on the state’s highest earners. Last summer and fall, Republican Rep. Elise Stefanik insisted the governor would raise taxes as she prepared for and initially launched a short-lived bid for governor. It was a mantra swiftly picked up by Nassau County Executive Bruce Blakeman, Hochul’s current opponent in the race.

In an effort to walk that tightrope, Hochul championed a “pied-à-terre” tax on luxury second homes in New York City to raise revenue while resisting other broader tax hikes.

As part of the state budget, Hochul also proposed and ultimately achieved significant steps toward universal childcare, a key Mamdani election promise. The effort included rounding out the state’s quest for universal pre-K by 2029, expanding New York’s 3-K program, launching a 2-K program and establishing pilots in three upstate counties to expand pathways to universal childcare in the rest of the state.

“No parent should have to choose between a job they love and a child they can’t afford to care for,” she said this week. “That’s why we’re putting this city and state on a path to universal childcare, delivering relief for working families and ensuring every kid gets the strong start they deserve.”

The budget overall saw increased investments to assist the city more broadly and an intense push to ensure that upstate cities received relief as well, though a high-profile effort to sweeten the state’s Tier 6 pension system as part of the budget has been slammed by some for increasing pension-related costs on those same municipalities.

It comes as state leaders have been forced onto the defensive when it comes to climate issues after years New York Democrats have spent working to cement the Empire State as a leader on the environment.

Hochul was able to beat back opposition from the state Legislature to roll back the state’s landmark 2019 emissions-slashing climate law, drawing furious opposition from environmental groups and many Democratic lawmakers. The changes will allow the state to wait until December 2028 to release regulations for how it will drop emissions by 85% by 2050, enact a soft 60% goal in 2040 and alter how the state tracks emissions, which Hochul says will simply put New York in line with other states.

“New York will continue to be a climate leader. We truly are committed to the goals,” Hochul said in a recent interview with sister station NY1. “I put a billion dollars out there to fund projects for renewable energy, sustainability measures to help homeowners convert to more energy-efficient appliances, etc. So we’re committed, we’re committed to meeting the goals. The ultimate goal in 2050 remains the same from what it had been set up, just we needed a longer runway because of what’s happening in Washington.”

One of the most significant casualties of the 2026 legislative session was the Packaging Reduction and Recycling Infrastructure Act, a measure aimed at reducing plastic waste and toxic chemicals in packaging. Despite years of advocacy, the bill did not come to the floor in either house this year.

The bill passed the state Senate two years in a row but failed to gain traction in the Assembly, a streak that was broken this year when the Senate decided not to spend debate time on the bill because of the Assembly’s resistance amid the compressed post-budget timeline.

Many advocates, including Judith Enck, former regional EPA administrator under former President Barack Obama and the bill’s most visible proponent, have argued that passage of the measure would help Democrats soothe concerns from progressives over rolling back the climate law, especially considering lawmakers also enacted a five-year delay on New York’s zero-emission school bus mandate.

“The one ray of sunshine would have been passage of the Packaging Reduction bill, which would save taxpayer money and protect health,” Enck said. “But in the end, special-interest lobbyists outspent advocates for PRRIA, resulting in the Assembly missing a great opportunity to do something helpful to protect our environment. Plastic pollution is not going away, and neither are we.”

State Senate sponsor Pete Harckham told Spectrum News 1 that the effort will continue next session, though because Assembly sponsor Deborah Glick is retiring, the bill will need a new sponsor in the lower chamber.

Senate Majority Leader Andrea Stewart-Cousins defended New York’s position on climate Thursday, pointing to the $1 billion in additional climate funding secured as part of the state budget and the passage of legislation around climate issues, including green-lighting plug-in solar.

“Being climate leaders and using a methodology that no one else in the country or in the world is using is difficult. It was difficult to measure against and it was difficult to even know what was being accomplished. It was those kinds of conversations and insights and comparing ourselves to the world and the country,” she said. “I don’t think that we have come down a peg, but we, like everything else, have to adjust to an environment, have to adjust to a federal government that doesn’t believe in climate change and thinks coal is king. There are just so many circumstances that are existing now, and we’re just trying to adapt.”

During the week between the passage of the state budget and the mass exodus of lawmakers from Albany, the state Senate and Assembly did manage to accomplish a good deal.

That included a heavy emphasis on regulating the tech industry and emerging issues around artificial intelligence.

Both houses approved a first-in-the-nation one-year moratorium on new data center construction, part of an omnibus bill package intended to give the state time to gather data and craft regulations for further development amid concerns over water and energy usage.

“We’re not saying you can’t build here, but we are saying we want to take a look at all of the aspects and all of the impacts, and that’s what we will do, and we will continue to adjust as we move forward,” said Stewart-Cousins.

The one-year pause has earned pushback from Republicans in the minority but also from a range of business, tech and construction groups who argue it sidelines New York economically and disadvantages upstate communities.

“No one in this chamber wants reckless growth, and the questions around energy, water and all of the other concerns are real questions, but the moratorium is not an answer. It’s a sign hung on the front door of New York that says ‘we’re out to lunch’ for a year. It pauses every region of New York state that is working to attract growth,” said North Country Republican Assemblymember Scott Gray.

It will have to be signed by Hochul to become law.

“I’ve been clear that we need to have safeguards around data centers. I think that much more should be done to ensure that communities are benefiting and there is not a drain on the power sources,” she said this week. “I will look at this one-year moratorium in the context of also knowing that the status quo can’t continue, that much more needs to be done to derive benefits if they are in the state of New York.”

The Legislature also approved measures to regulate the practice of surveillance pricing, which targets the use of artificial intelligence and algorithmic tools to customize prices to fit the consumer.

Additionally, in the waning hours of the legislative session, lawmakers approved a bill to give the Legislature control over constitutional amendment ballot language. They also approved first passage of a constitutional amendment to move local elections outside New York City to even years and a bill to protect digital health data.

For Senate Minority Leader Rob Ortt, the cumulative impact was disappointing.

“At the start of this session, the buzzword was affordability. New Yorkers are facing an affordability crisis, and we had a real opportunity to provide relief from skyrocketing costs that are burdening New Yorkers — but as we leave here, New Yorkers are not seeing more money back in their pockets,” he said. “Instead of making New York safer, sanctuary policies and laws that tie the hands of our law enforcement continue to deteriorate public safety. And while we did not address affordability and public safety, there was time to take a knife to our state constitution for political self-preservation. Session may be over — but our work does not stop, and we will continue to advocate for a better New York and a stronger quality of life in our communities.”