Albany lawmakers prepare for mad dash on Trump fund, redistricting as session wraps

Entering the national redistricting wars, considering new rules for pricing goods and reviewing ticket-scalping laws are on the agenda in Albany as New York state lawmakers convene for their final week.

The annual legislative session is scheduled to end Thursday, but lawmakers acknowledged it may stretch into Friday. Many members of the state Senate and Assembly are eager to return to their home districts in time to campaign in primary elections on June 23.

Normally the Capitol operates around two peaks of activity: the passage of the budget in late March and early April, and the close of session in June. Because this year’s budget was only adopted last week — nearly two months after the April 1 deadline — everything is crashing together.

“It crowds out the opportunity for lawmakers to tackle controversial items after the budget because there simply won't be enough time,” said Blair Horner, senior policy adviser for the New York Public Interest Research Group and a longtime advocate at the Capitol.

Last year, 920 bills passed either the Senate or Assembly during the last week of session — roughly half of all the legislation that moved. Lawmakers have so far advanced more than 1,000 bills through the houses this year. Horner said he’ll be curious to see how the protracted budget talks affect the final tallies.

Lawmakers acknowledged that some of their priorities, like new regulations on e-bikes, won’t get done because of the truncated timetable. But other measures are very much on the table, setting up a furious scramble this week.

“It's unpredictable,” said Assembly Minority Leader Ed Ra, a Nassau County Republican who worries Democrats will pass bills that increase costs for businesses and consumers. “Things that you think are dead come back to life. Things that you think are happening end up not happening. So, I think we wanna all get out of town before we do anything that is gonna make New Yorkers' lives more unaffordable.”

Here are five things to watch in the final week:

Redistricting

Democrats control what bills come to the Assembly and Senate floors, and leaders in both chambers say they’ll start the process of amending the state constitution in order to change how New York draws its congressional districts.

Several states have updated their maps this year, a deviation from the normal redistricting process that takes place once a decade after the completion of a U.S. Census. President Donald Trump urged Republican-led states to start the process. New York Democrats say they want to respond.

“It's unfortunate that you're fighting fire with fire, but to sit there — the options are terrible,” said U.S. Rep. Paul Tonko, a Capital Region Democrat.

Ra said Republicans oppose the changes. Horner said his group is open to changing the structure of the independent commission that currently draws New York’s legislative districts but that he wanted to keep constitutional language prohibiting partisan gerrymandering intact.

State Senate Deputy Majority Leader Mike Gianaris said Friday that the exact redistricting plans are still being worked out in consultation with House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, a Brooklyn Democrat who is urging New York to act.

Gianaris said multiple options will be passed this year. A constitutional amendment must be approved by voters and can’t go on the ballot before 2027.

Responding to the Trump fund

Gianaris is also sponsoring a bill that would tax 100% of payouts from a new federal fund that Trump is trying to create. The Republican president says the $1.8 billion “Anti-Weaponization Fund” is needed to reimburse people he says were unfairly prosecuted during the Biden administration.

Democrats and some GOP federal lawmakers are pushing back. As they do, Democrats in California and New York are considering plans to tax any payments.

”This fund is incredibly corrupt and unprecedented and we should do what we can to hinder it,” Gianaris said.

Plastic reduction and bottle deposits

Environmental organizations are hoping to convince lawmakers to pass a bill requiring companies to reduce the amount of plastic they use in their packaging.

The key provisions include a 30% reduction in single-use plastic packaging over the next 12 years, a 75% recycling rate for all packaging by 2055 and a ban on using a number of toxic chemicals, including PFAS and lead.

Judith Enck, president of Beyond Plastics, said this year’s budget was “the most anti-environmental budget in recent memory,” pointing to a measure rolling back some of the state’s landmark 2019 climate law.

“So post-budget, I think legislators need to ask: Is there something positive and affirmative that they can adopt that actually protects the environment and saves tax dollars?” said Enck, a former regional administrator for the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. “And that's this bill.”

Another bill would double the state’s 5-cent deposit on bottles and cans while expanding it to more beverages, like iced tea. The Business Council, the state’s top business lobbying group, opposes both bills.

“The burden falls directly on businesses, but the impact is going to be felt by consumers through increased costs and reduced choices in the stores,” said Ken Pokalsky, the Business Council’s vice president.

Surveillance pricing

Some Democratic lawmakers are hoping to pass a pair of bills cracking down on “surveillance pricing” — or using an algorithm to change the price of a product based on a consumer’s personal data.

One bill would ban businesses from engaging in the practice, with an exception for loyalty or discount programs that a customer willfully signs up for. Another bill would ban grocery stores and pharmacies from using electronic price tags on their shelves, an effort to prevent them from being used to instantly change prices depending on who’s in the store.

Attorney General Letitia James is backing the legislation. So too are labor unions who represent grocery workers, in part because electronic price tags could lead to fewer workers in the stores.

Business groups have generally opposed the bills. That includes Chamber of Progress, a wide-ranging trade group representing tech giants including Amazon and Apple, which argues that it would severely curtail loyalty programs even with the language in the legislation meant to protect them.

Ticket scalping

A state law that allows tickets to concerts and sporting events to be resold on places like StubHub is expiring, and a Hudson Valley lawmaker is again hoping to increase consumer protections as it is renewed.

State Sen. James Skoufis, an Orange County Democrat, wants to prohibit people from selling tickets for more than face value. He also wants to cap the percentage of fees that ticketers and resale platforms can charge.

“Fans are really angry, and rightfully so,” Skoufis said. He said the current system is rigged by bots and scalpers who increase prices.

Resale platforms say the proposed changes will push people into the black market.

“Price caps might sound like consumer protection, but in practice these misguided policies limit consumers’ choice, force fans onto unregulated social media platforms that are rife with fraud,.

Includes reporting by Rosemary Misdary.