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The Assembly Chamber during a recent Legislative Session at the New York state Capitol.
Hans Pennink/AP/Shutterstock
New York’s state constitution requires that the legislature and the governor pass a budget by April 1st. That has not happened, as lawmakers and the governor continue to negotiate issues in the $217 billion budget that will affect millions of New Yorkers.
Thousands of pages of the 10billsthatcomprise the state budget have already been published for legislators and the public to hastily review. This language has been hashed out in meetings of the leaders of the two houses—Senate Majority Leader Andrea Stewart Cousins, and Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie—and Governor Andrew Cuomo, whose negotiating power has been diminished due to the mounting investigations into allegations of sexual misconduct and the mishandling of nursing home deaths caused by COVID-19.