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\u201cAny effort to establish a\u00a0buffer zone statewide will be unconstitutional and risk criminalizing speech,\u201d said Justin Harrison, senior policy counsel at the New York Civil Liberties Union.<\/p>\n
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Harrison declined to say if the NYCLU would sue the state if Hochul\u2019s proposal becomes law. The group sued Nassau County earlier this month over a local law that created a 35-foot\u00a0buffer zone for protests around houses of worship.<\/p>\n
Hochul said a legal challenge isn\u2019t something she\u2019s worried about.<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t stop because someone says you\u2019re going to get sued someday,\u201d Hochul said. \u201cI get sued every day of the week.\u201d<\/p>\n
But the lawmakers who originated the proposal have also prepared for that possibility. That\u2019s why they set the distance of the proposed\u00a0buffer zones\u00a0at 25 feet, said Assemblyman Micah Lasher, a Democrat who first announced the idea.<\/p>\n
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\u201cA modest 25-foot buffer zone allows people to protest \u2026 but simply says you need not run through a gauntlet of hate on your way into a synagogue, church or mosque,\u201d Lasher said.<\/p>\n
Some Democrats in the state Legislature have countered Lasher\u2019s proposal in closed-door discussions with a\u00a0buffer zone of 100 feet, arguing that worshippers would still be subject to harassment at 25 feet.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe honest truth is that a 100-foot buffer zone would not stand a snowball\u2019s chance in hell of surviving in a court,\u201d Lasher said.<\/p>\n
He referenced the 2014 decision in McCullen v. Coakley from the U.S. Supreme Court, which struck down a 35-foot buffer zone that Massachusetts had enacted around abortion clinics.<\/p>\n
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But the constitutionality of the proposal isn\u2019t the only concern aired by opponents of the proposal. Another is what they view as its impracticality in New York City, where the density of houses of worship and health care facilities could create an incredibly restrictive environment for protest.<\/p>\n
Some Democrats from New York City have suggested in closed-door talks that lawmakers reject the \u201cbuffer zone\u201d proposal altogether and allow police to take the lead in those situations.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s been talked about but some members feel more comfortable leaving it in the discretion of the New York City Police Department,\u201d Assembly Speaker Carl E. Heastie said.<\/p>\n
The New York City Council passed a bill last month that would require police to establish buffer zones around houses of worship when there\u2019s a protest. That has satisfied some Democrats in the state Legislature.<\/p>\n
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Some stakeholders who initially supported the proposal now also view it as unnecessary, said state Senate Deputy Majority Leader Michael Gianaris. He did not say who those stakeholders are.<\/p>\n
\u201cMy understanding is that some of the communities who were initially pushing it have now changed their posture and no longer want it,\u201d Gianaris said.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s one of several issues that remain unresolved as Hochul and lawmakers continue negotiations around the state budget, which was due April 1.<\/p>\n
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Lawmakers do not have a projection for when those talks will conclude.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A protest at the Park East Synagogue in Manhattan first prompted the proposal. Anadolu\/Anadolu via Getty Images Gov.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":207232,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[2659,609,844,75,84,83,9,24,63,530],"class_list":{"0":"post-207231","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-manhattan","8":"tag-election","9":"tag-government","10":"tag-latestnews","11":"tag-manhattan","12":"tag-manhattan-headlines","13":"tag-manhattan-news","14":"tag-new-york","15":"tag-new-york-city","16":"tag-nyc","17":"tag-state"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/207231","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=207231"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/207231\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/207232"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=207231"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=207231"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=207231"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}