{"id":218078,"date":"2026-05-03T04:56:09","date_gmt":"2026-05-03T04:56:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/218078\/"},"modified":"2026-05-03T04:56:09","modified_gmt":"2026-05-03T04:56:09","slug":"ny-dem-pitches-bill-to-make-state-lawmakers-exempt-from-internet-utility-bills","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/218078\/","title":{"rendered":"NY Dem pitches bill to make state lawmakers exempt from internet, utility bills"},"content":{"rendered":"

(NewsNation<\/a>) \u2014 A state lawmaker in New York wants herself and her colleagues to be free from paying utility and internet bills, at least under certain circumstances.<\/p>\n

Democratic Assemblywoman Larinda Hooks recently pitched<\/a> legislation to establish automatic utility payment deferment protections for New York State employees during periods when budget delays result in payroll interruptions.<\/p>\n

\u201cNew York State employs over 130,000 individuals whose compensation depends on timely budget enactment,\u201d a memo accompanying the bill said<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen budget negotiations extend past the April 1 deadline, affected employees may be unable to meet utility payment obligations during the interruption period.\u201d<\/p>\n

Majority say ethics, honesty in government have declined under Trump: Pew <\/a><\/p>\n

The proposal has drawn criticism from Hooks\u2019 fellow lawmakers, with one even saying, \u201cIt makes us all look bad and another reason for people to hate politicians when they write laws to take care of themselves.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIt hit me like a brick that a member of the assembly was basically trying to take care of themselves,\u201d said Assemblyman Joseph Angelino, a Republican.<\/p>\n

Added Republican Assembly Minority Leader Ed Ra: \u201cWe don\u2019t need to pass laws to benefit ourselves because we do our, one of our most basic parts of our job, which is passing a budget. It\u2019s kind of a silly conversation to talk about having utility relief that\u2019s only going to be for us.\u201d<\/p>\n

The New York State budget is seven weeks overdue.<\/p>\n

Copyright 2026 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.<\/p>\n

For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to NewsNation. <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"(NewsNation) \u2014 A state lawmaker in New York wants herself and her colleagues to be free from paying…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":218079,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[85997,64436,9,11,10,49,51,50,85998],"class_list":["post-218078","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-york","tag-assemblywoman-larinda-hooks","tag-budget-negotiations","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-headlines","tag-new-york-news","tag-new-york-state","tag-new-york-state-headlines","tag-new-york-state-news","tag-utility-payment"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/218078","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=218078"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/218078\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/218079"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=218078"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=218078"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=218078"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}