Even though the legislative session is over and every member of the state Legislature is up for reelection in November, meaning all active bills will need to be reintroduced in January, many members of the state Senate and Assembly continue to churn out new legislation.<\/p>\n
When it comes to bills like state Sen. Pat Fahy\u2019s Purple Alert, intended to create an Amber Alert-like response when an individual with a disability goes missing, to state Sen. James Skoufis\u2019 TEXAS Act, which seeks to ensure New Yorkers aren\u2019t footing life insurance costs coming from other states and was introduced in the waning days of session, the work continues.<\/p>\n
The state Capitol in Albany is quiet in late July. Echoing through the stone hallways is only stray chatter from staff stationed here year-round. Occasionally, you can hear tour guides explaining the difficulty of replicating intricate Victorian tile or how the original Assembly chamber ceiling cracked and fell onto lawmakers\u2019 desks in the 19th century.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s a far cry from the regular session, when the building\u2019s ornate staircases are filled every day with rallies demanding more budget money or opposing an initiative gaining traction, as lawmakers duke it out with Gov. Kathy Hochul over increasingly late state budgets.<\/p>\n
Similarly, the neighboring Legislative Office Building is quiet, too \u2014 but that doesn\u2019t mean members are just attending events in their districts.<\/p>\n
Legislators say the quieter months give them time to build coalitions around legislation, refine complicated proposals and demonstrate to constituents that the state is responding to urgent concerns, even if they know they\u2019ll have to go back to the starting line, assuming they\u2019re reelected in November.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe think it\u2019s critical that we do the work now,\u201d state Sen. Pat Fahy, an Albany Democrat, said.<\/p>\n
In Fahy\u2019s case, introducing bills with urgency during the off-session period is often personal, rooted in a desire to immediately address a troubling event or issue affecting her district or the entire state.<\/p>\n
She recently introduced a pair of bills following the death of Harbe Nagi, a 7-year-old boy with autism who went missing in Menands and was later found dead in a neighboring backyard pool.<\/p>\n
One proposal would create a \u201cPurple Alert,\u201d similar to an Amber Alert, to assist in locating and safely recovering individuals with intellectual and developmental disabilities. Fahy said the urgency of the situation requires its own system for cases in which no abduction has taken place.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen someone is lost, they may not have the ability to communicate, and it\u2019s a really critical time,\u201d Fahy said. \u201cWe think it is in the same category as an abduction, and it needs to be treated as seriously.\u201d<\/p>\n
Fahy said the gap in the current system was pointed out to her and other lawmakers by an area law enforcement officer at the time of the search. A second bill would expand adaptive aquatic safety programs for children with autism and other disabilities, also in response to the circumstances surrounding Nagi\u2019s death.<\/p>\n
She said introducing the legislation now allows lawmakers to begin building support while also showing Nagi\u2019s family that the state is listening.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe can\u2019t take back the tragedy that happened to the Nagi family,\u201d Fahy said. \u201cWe can at least know that here in New York, we will do better in serving him.\u201d<\/p>\n
On a more practical note, state Sen. James Skoufis is also using the time outside the regular legislative session to build support for a bill he introduced near the end of this year\u2019s session. The legislation targets the practice of life insurance companies setting New York rates using averages that include states with lower life expectancies.<\/p>\n
Skoufis calls the bill the Terminate Excessive Cross-State Actuarial Subsidization, or TEXAS, Act. He explained that Texas and Mississippi have some of the largest disparities compared with New York when it comes to life expectancy but are nevertheless used in many cases to help determine New York rates.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re paying higher rates to subsidize the lower life expectancy rates in the states that I am talking about,\u201d Skoufis said.<\/p>\n
Although the bill had little chance of advancing when it was introduced in late May, Skoufis said complex financial legislation often requires a longer period of negotiation and advocacy to work out the finer details.<\/p>\n
\u201cI knew that there would be value in having a longer runway into 2027 to build that support that I\u2019m referring to among my Senate colleagues, among the insurance chairs especially and among the legislative leadership,\u201d Skoufis said.<\/p>\n
Former state Sen. David Carlucci, founder and managing partner of David Carlucci Consulting, said introducing legislation early can give lawmakers and stakeholders time to resolve concerns before the busiest months of the session.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou don\u2019t want to be negotiating a bill and then it\u2019s February, March, April, and suddenly lawmakers are concerned about a section of a bill,\u201d Carlucci said. \u201cYou want that out of the way as early as possible.\u201d<\/p>\n
As goes without saying, all members will have to be reelected to continue the push for their bills.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Even though the legislative session is over and every member of the state Legislature is up for reelection…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":310322,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[295,9,11,10,49,51,50,12,112,87,3476,856,200],"class_list":["post-310321","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-york","tag-jack-arpey","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-news","tag-ny-state-of-politics","tag-politics","tag-state-assembly","tag-state-senate","tag-vod"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/310321","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=310321"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/310321\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/310322"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=310321"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=310321"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=310321"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}