Gov. Hochul (photo: Governor's Office)

Governor Kathy Hochul on Tuesday delivered her second State of the State speech, and the first since she was elected to a full term, pledging to tackle crime, boost housing production, advance climate action, and invest heavily in the state’s mental health system to “make New York more affordable, more livable, and safer.”

Speaking in the Assembly chamber at the Capitol building in Albany, Hochul outlined a broad legislative and policy agenda for the year ahead. It was Hochul’s first fully in-person State of the State address, following last year’s speech that came when the Omicron variant of COVID-19 was surging through the state.

“It’s extraordinary how far we've come in this one year from that time when I literally had to address empty seats,” Hochul said to a packed chamber of Assembly members, state senators, executive branch staff, and others. Behind her were seated the state’s other top officials, including Lieutenant Governor Antonio Delgado, who introduced the governor.

Hochul struck an optimistic note in her speech, even as she conceded that challenges lie ahead. “I’m proud to say that the State of our State is strong, but we have work to do,” she said, launching into the highlights of her extensive agenda, covered in more detail in the 277-page policy book released Tuesday that will join with her Executive Budget, due later this month, to form the more full basis of her negotiations with the Legislature.

Public Safety, Bail, & Health
The governor began with a focus on public safety, an issue that her Republican opponent in the 2022 race, then-U.S. Rep. Lee Zeldin, successfully hammered at during the closer-than-expected gubernatorial election last year. “My number one priority has always been and always will be keeping Yorkers safe,” Hochul said. “And a day has not gone by where I've not been laser-focused on this objective.”

While she laid out a multi-pronged public safety agenda, Hochul acknowledged that the most controversial issue in the public safety conversation has been bail reform. As she has before, Hochul said she remains in strong support of the general principle behind the reforms — that people should not have to sit in jail pre-trial just because they are too poor to afford bail — while pleading with Democrats in the Legislature to work with her to improve the law.

“I would say we can agree that the bail reform law as written leaves room for improvement and as leaders we cannot ignore that,” she said. Hochul’s proposal would eliminate the requirement that judges set bail based on the “least restrictive means” for any alleged crime currently bail eligible, while retaining that standard for minor crimes. That change would work in tandem with alterations to bail Hochul insisted on last year, which gave judges more discretion to set bail or hold defendants in jail pre-trial in cases involving gun crimes and repeat offenders accused of various crimes including non-violent felonies and some misdemeanors.

In part to make bail reform more successful, Hochul outlined plans to double funding for alternatives to incarceration to $30 million annually and to triple investments in reentry services to $12 million for those leaving the justice system.

She also pledged the “largest investment ever” in the state Gun Involved Violence Elimination (GIVE) initiative, promised to increase the ranks and resources of the State Police, and to fund the hiring of more prosecutors across the state.

On a related issue, Hochul also promised to make “essential and long overdue” fixes to the state’s mental health system. “We have underinvested in mental health care for so long and allowed the situation to become so dire that it also has become a public safety crisis as well,” she said.

She is proposing a $1 billion investment that will, among other measures, help bring 1,000 inpatient psychiatric beds online, including 150 new beds and 850 that were previously eliminated. Her plan also involves creating 3,500 units of supportive housing, expanded outpatient services, comprehensive wraparound services for discharged patients, expanded mental health services for children, a new interagency task force to tackle the overdose crisis, and legislation to prohibit insurance companies from denying access to mental health services.

“Today marks a reversal in the state's approach to mental health care, and this is a monumental shift to make sure that no one else falls through the cracks,” she said.

After dedicating $20 billion over several years to improve the state’s health care systems, Hochul proposed several additional measures this year regarding broader public health efforts beyond mental health care.

They include a new Commission on the Future of Health Care to study the health care system and recommend reforms, a $1.6 billion capital commitment for health care projects, expanded Medicaid coverage for preventive health services, improvements to the state’s Essential Plan, addressing medical debt, improved access to primary care, a new “nation-leading” health monitoring and surveillance system, and more.

Housing
Perhaps the biggest plan that Hochul presented is her “New York Housing Compact,” a broad policy strategy to create 800,000 units of housing over the next decade. The plan builds on the governor’s $25 billion program to build 100,000 units of affordable housing that was approved in last year’s state budget. The new framework is more focused on leveraging the private market through setting targets, changing zoning, and incentivizing growth so that New York can try to catch up in its housing supply deficit.

“Today, I say no more delay. No more waiting for someone else to fix this problem. Housing is a human right and ensuring enough housing is built is how we protect that right,” she said.

As Hochul noted, while the state created 1.2 million jobs over the last decade, it only built about 400,000 homes, one of the reasons behind the crises of outmigration from the state and a lack of affordability.

“Many forces led to this state of affairs but front and center, our local land use policies that are the most restrictive in the nation,” she said. Her plan includes setting statewide and local targets for housing creation, cutting red tape and expediting environmental review approvals, legalizing basement conversions, easing office conversions, and focusing on transit-oriented development by requiring municipalities to build more housing near MTA stations inside and outside New York City. Under Hochul’s proposal, the state would also offer funding for necessary infrastructure where new housing is built and a fast-track approval process when proposed housing projects are stalled.

Hochul’s housing plan is contingent in part on replacing the expired 421-a housing tax credit. Last year, she proposed an alternative, 485w, which failed to pass the Legislature, and she said she will revisit the issue to restore “this critical piece of the puzzle.” Hochul is not presenting the details of that plan at this time, but starting the conversation with legislators. It is among the various pieces of the housing plan that will require legislative approval and could prove contentious.

Climate and Energy
As New Yorkers experience rising energy bills, Hochul also proposed a new “EmPower Plus” program to help low-income families retrofit their homes with clean heating systems and upgraded insulation and appliances. She also promised $165 million in relief to more than 800,000 utility customers, proposed a plan to end sales of new fossil-fuel-powered heating equipment by 2030, and called for zero-emission construction for small buildings starting in 2025 and for large buildings starting in 2028.

Hochul also announced her support for a new “cap-and-invest” program that will cap greenhouse emissions and require the biggest emissions producers to purchase permits to sell polluting fuels. It marks the adoption of one of the major proposals from the state’s Climate Action Council, which in December released a wide-ranging Scoping Plan of recommendations to meet the emission-reduction and renewable-energy requirements of the state’s 2019 Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act.

Transportation
One of the main challenges the governor, state, and city will face this year is ensuring fiscal stability at the Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA), which runs New York City’s subways and buses and the commuter rail network. The agency was hit hard by the pandemic and has floated by on federal aid but faces a fiscal cliff after that aid runs out in 2025. Hochul did not propose solutions in her State of the State but did pledge to work with her partners in government to address it, with perhaps more detail to come in her Executive Budget.

She also further committed to implementing congestion pricing in New York City, which has been delayed but is projected to help the MTA raise billions in funding for its capital plan.

Hochul did propose several other transit-related measures including a low-cost, flat-fare City Ticket available 24/7 for commuter rails within New York City, moving ahead with her proposal for an Interborough Express connecting Brooklyn and Queens by pursuing the "light rail" option for the route, expanding electric vehicle charging infrastructure, Automated Bus Lane Enforcement cameras on 900 New York City buses, stricter driving regulations, stronger DMV enforcement, and allowing New York City to lower its speed limit.

Child Care, Education, and the Minimum Wage
Building on her four-year, $7 billion childcare plan that was approved in last year’s budget, Hochul announced on Tuesday a series of measures to make childcare more affordable and easier to access. They include streamlining applications for childcare assistance, increased income eligibility for child care subsidies, expediting enrollment for families that already receive other public benefits, a new Workforce Retention Grant Program for childcare workers, and a New York State Employer-Supported Child Care pilot program.

And to directly address the rising cost of living, Hochul proposed a plan to peg the minimum wage to inflation, which she said would affect more than 900,000 New Yorkers. “If costs go up, so will wages,” she said.

Hochul is continuing her administration’s efforts to fully fund Foundation Aid for schools, proposing a $2.7 billion or 13 percent increase this year, for a total of more than $24 billion. She also pledged an additional $125 million to continue the state’s expansion of free prekindergarten. She has also proposed investments in high-impact tutoring programs, a $20 million grant program for new early college high school programs, direct acceptance into community colleges for graduating high school seniors, $200 million in funding for SUNY digital infrastructure, among other items.

More
The governor’s speech was by no means exhaustive, hitting on only some of the contents of her State of State policy book, which contains 147 proposals in total covering, besides the aforementioned ideas, other plans related to reproductive rights access, economic development measures, healthcare, making government work better, and more.

In the upcoming weeks, the governor will also present her budget for the next fiscal year, which will contain a series of fiscal and policy measures that will further set the table for hearings by and negotiations with the State Legislature. During her State of the State address, Hochul expressed her dedication to ensure no income tax increases this year.

State Comptroller Tom DiNapoli had some advice for the governor’s budget presentation. “We are now entering the third year of the lingering effects of COVID-19 on our health and economy. As the nation continues to recover from pandemic aftershocks, the state’s fiscal footing is currently stable, but the economy remains uneven, and inflation is still too high,” he said in part in a statement on Tuesday. “To prepare for future risks and uncertainties, rainy day reserve targets should be met, spending plans should be cautious, and prudent debt practices should be restored.”

Other Reactions
Mayor Adams praised the “ambitious agenda” that the governor laid out on Tuesday. “The governor’s proposals on housing, mental illness, and public safety reflect New York City’s priorities and build on the past year of partnership and collaboration between our administrations,” he said, in part, in a statement.

In particular, he pointed to his own plan to build 500,000 homes in New York City over a decade, which will require state assistance. “The governor’s commitment to ensuring that our state finally builds the housing needed to address the affordability crisis is the type of bold leadership we need, and acknowledges that our neighboring suburbs must do much more to solve what is ultimately a regional problem,” he said.

New York City Public Advocate Jumaane Williams, who challenged Hochul in last year's Democratic primary, similarly said the governor’s housing proposals were “encouraging,” though he insisted that new housing should be income-targeted. “If the government is taking steps to encourage responsible development, whether through subsidizing or streamlining, that support should only come in exchange for deeply affordable housing,” he said in a statement.

“Additionally, no housing plan is real without including preservation strategies, and new housing without sufficient tenant protections and foreclosure prevention will not be enough to keep New Yorkers in their homes,” Williams added. “The progressive path forward to address the housing and homelessness crisis in our state is one that puts people over profits, communities over corporations.”

City Comptroller Brad Lander, another Democrat, issued a note of caution. He is among the vocal opponents of 421-a and noted in a report last year that the tax incentive cost the city about $1.8 billion in lost revenue annually. “We need to expand the supply of housing at all income levels—but simply incentivizing market-rate development with another inefficient tax giveaway program like 421a will not solve the crisis of affordability facing so many New Yorkers,” he said in part in a statement. “Building new housing must go along with significantly increased investments in genuinely affordable rental and homeownership programs, rental assistance vouchers, and good cause protections to keep tenants in their homes.”

Hochul’s priorities even reflected those of Republicans, who sit in the minority in both houses of the Legislature. “Today’s State of the State speech by Governor Hochul follows the Senate Republicans’ call for a safer, stronger and more affordable New York,” said State Senator Rob Ortt, the minority leader, in a statement. “While the Governor echoed our themes, she ignored the stark reality that one-party, progressive policies have made New York less safe and less affordable. New Yorkers deserve action that matches the rhetoric.”

Ortt urged the governor to “ignore the hysterics from the progressive left” on bail reform, mental health, housing, and affordability, while also criticizing her other proposals that he said would increase the cost of living in the state. “Touting unachievable energy policies, new mandates on small business and state-driven housing policies will only drive up costs for overburdened New Yorkers, chasing out even more taxpayers and more jobs,” he said.

Mayor Adams decries victims of gun violence (photo: Michael Appleton/Mayor's Office)

Having come to power on a tough-on-crime message after years marked by criminal justice reform and protests against police brutality, Mayor Eric Adams often says New York lawmakers have done too much to protect the perpetrators of crime and not enough for the victims.

But after a year in office he has not said what additional victims services policies he thinks should be in place.

"What do we do for a family member who's the victim of a homicide and they're the primary breadwinner and now their entire family is thrown into turmoil," Adams said in a December 7 interview with NY1 host Pat Kiernan when asked about similar comments he made previously. "We passed laws to protect the person who killed the individual. What have we done for those who are the victims of crimes, who have [been] devastated?"

Adams made similar statements on the campaign trail in 2021 and throughout his first year as mayor, as he promised to crack down on gun violence and lower-level offenses and invest in "upstream" measures to stem the factors that lead to crime. He has spent much of that time criticizing fellow Democrats over changes made to the state's bail and discovery laws in 2019 (and adjusted in subsequent years). But Adams rarely if ever acknowledges the victim services that are in place or offers any specifics on what he thinks should be done to enhance benefits available to crime victims.

Victim compensation funds and supportive services like emergency housing, medical care, and counseling for people devastated by crime are common throughout the United States, including in New York. And efforts here at the state and city levels are ongoing to expand access to that funding and those services — including some Adams has signed into law.

Adams' campaign material made virtually no mention of specific crime victims services. It did, however, include a proposal to launch a cognitive behavioral therapy program for domestic abusers called the “Family Violence Perpetrator Program,” which has not come to fruition.

His comments echo points made by opponents of bail and discovery reform and other criminal justice measures either passed or proposed. That includes Republican Lee Zeldin, who made similar statements on the campaign trail for governor last year. In other contexts, Adams has said he wants to see state lawmakers revisit the bail law once again to give judges greater discretion to consider a defendant's "dangerousness.”

"Prior to Lee Zeldin wanting to run for governor, this is what I've been saying. Do an analysis of all the laws we've passed, not only in New York but across the country. Analyze them," he told Kiernan. "Where is the law that protects innocent people? That's my question."

Administration officials would not say what specific policies the mayor wants to see enacted or what laws he believes protect perpetrators. His comments appear to ignore the fact that criminal law itself is intended to prevent crime and keep potential victims from harm.

A spokesperson for Adams said the mayor was referring to laws to make victims whole and pointed to the State Legislature for action. The spokesperson noted the mayor, a former state senator, is not in the Legislature and does not introduce bills, and wouldn't elaborate on what those could or should entail. They referred further inquiries to the Legislature.

Adams has in fact released multiple specific proposals for legislation he wants to see passed at the state level this year, including a nine-point state legislative plan released last week on improving the capital construction process, a push for a change to state mental health law, and more.

Crime remains a top priority for the mayor. Murders and shootings rose sharply during the pandemic but dropped during Adams’ first year in office, while overall index crimes (the seven major felonies) increased 22.4%, according to the NYPD. In 2022, 433 people were murdered and 1,566 were victims of gunfire. Thefts, rapes, and assaults all increased in 2022 over 2021.

A vast majority of crime victims are low-income Black or Latino New Yorkers. Crimes also often go unreported, especially in communities where trust in police is frayed, and especially among survivors of domestic and gender-based violence, a growing focus of lawmakers.

At both the city and state levels, lawmakers working on victim services have focused largely on improving access to compensation funds and micro-grants. The mayor's comments have frustrated a number of those officials, several of whom told Gotham Gazette they don't reflect reality or draw a false dichotomy between victims and perpetrators.

"One day a person is the defendant in the case, another day they're the victim or complainant in a case, and another day they might be a witness in a case," said City Council Member Tiffany Cabán, a Queens Democrat and former public defender who chairs the Council’s Committee on Women and Gender Equity, in a interview.

"Ultimately our goals for survivors and for citizens in general should be creating the conditions for stability," she said.

State Services
The state Office of Victim Services funded 228 programs totalling $294 million in State Fiscal Year 2021 (April 2020 through March 2021), according to the latest data available. The services include counseling, emergency shelter, legal assistance, and case management, among others.

The state's victim compensation program – which includes funding for medical expenses, lost earnings or property, burial costs, attorney's fees, and more for qualifying victims of crimes or their survivors – distributed $18.7 million in payments to victims in fiscal year 2021, a more than $10 million drop from fiscal year 2012 and $4 million down from the previous fiscal year.

The victim compensation fund is a payer of last resort, intended as a backstop for people with no other means to cover expenses in the aftermath of a crime, according to Janine Kava, a spokesperson for Governor Kathy Hochul, in an email to Gotham Gazette.

"Financial assistance administered by OVS provides a critical safety net and helps victims, survivors and family members with medical and counseling expenses, funeral and burial expenses, lost wages and support, in addition to other assistance,” Kava wrote. “New York is the only state in the nation with no cap on medical or counseling costs, which means individuals can receive assistance as long as they need it."

"It also is important to note that prior to 2020, New York State experienced seven consecutive years of declining crime, with reported crime reaching an all-time low in 2019," Kava continued. "Access to health care through the federal Affordable Care Act (Obama care) also has resulted in fewer claims being filed because individuals who previously may have been eligible now have health insurance to cover costs."

But the total annual funding for victim and witness assistance programs outside of direct payments has grown over the same period, more than doubling from $40 million in fiscal year 2012 to $91 million in fiscal year 2021, which was up $17 million from fiscal year 2020.

Last year, state lawmakers advanced a number of bills to expand access and eligibility for the victim compensation fund. In June, Hochul signed legislation to make reckless endangerment and the illegal dissemination of intimate images, also known as revenge porn, compensable crimes.

"The Senate Democrats have demonstrably done more to support crime victims than the mayor's administration has," said State Senator Julia Salazar, a Brooklyn Democrat who chairs the body's Committee on Crime Victims, Crime & Correction and has championed the criminal justice reforms Adams often criticizes, in a statement to Gotham Gazette. "I hope they will work together on these issues with us instead of dodging responsibility."

Other bills failed to pass one or the other chamber of the Legislature, like a bill to make victims eligible for payments without having to file a police report. The legislation had the support of the New York City Council via a resolution, and passed the Assembly last spring but failed in the Senate.

"The law enforcement reporting requirement for victim compensation adversely impacts Black and Brown, LGBTQIA+  and the immigrant communities, who are traditionally less likely than other groups to report their harm to law enforcement," said City Council Member Mercedes Narcisse, a Brooklyn Democrat and sponsor of the non-binding resolution encouraging state passage of the bill. "There is no doubt that accessing crime victim compensation is part of a broken system."

Senator Zellnor Myrie, a Brooklyn Democrat who sponsored the bill, also took issue with the mayor's comments.

"Leaders on either side of the aisle who perpetuate this falsehood – that we're protecting the accused and ignoring the victims – aren't serving anyone but themselves," Myrie said in a statement to Gotham Gazette. 

"We can support crime victims right now by passing my bill to expand access to compensation funding and help families rebuild their lives after being impacted by violence," he said. "I look forward to the Mayor helping me advocate for this legislation over the next few months."

City Services
In the fall of 2021, just a few months before the end of the de Blasio administration, the city launched the Office of Crime Victim Services (OCVS), housed within the Mayor's Office of Criminal Justice, to coordinate and expand the city's existing survivor services and ensure parity in assistance programs.

In the last fiscal year, from July 2021 through June 2022, OCVS directly operated 20 programs, including ones to prevent intimate partner violence and an online service finder with 78 providers and 361 locations around the city.

The office's marquee initiative is the Crime Victim Assistance Program, which places service coordinators and advocates in police precincts. According to the OCVS annual report, published in April 2022, the pandemic stay-at-home orders and labor shortages impacted the program's operations in 2021 but the office is "committed to ensuring the program has the supports it needs to resume and expand operations."

Since that report, the OCVS budget has fallen slightly, from $48.9 million in city fiscal year 2022 to "nearly" $48 million in the current fiscal year 2023, according to another spokesperson for Mayor Adams.

In the annual report from April, OCVS promised to develop more emergency housing options for survivors, sexual violence and human trafficking prevention programs, and sommunity-based supports for underserved communities. The office would also explore formal avenues for public engagement.

OCVS and the Mayor's Office of Criminal Justice have not provided any information about any progress made toward those goals despite multiple Gotham Gazette inquiries.

The City Council has put an emphasis on survivor services in the first year of the new cohort, led by Speaker Adrienne Adams and the Council’s first female majority. Speaker Adams pushed to fund "trauma recovery centers" in four neighborhoods with high rates of gun violence and also provided each Council district with $100,000 to fund survivor and community safety services, according to a spokesperson.

In November, Mayor Adams signed a set of laws known as the "Support Survivors" package after it passed the City Council. The center of the package was a law to establish a micro-grant program for emergency housing and other services for domestic violence survivors, to be established by the Mayor's Office to End Domestic and Gender-Based Violence.

The law is based on an pandemic emergency program in summer of 2020 that provided roughly $469,000 to 377 clients at an average disbursal of $1,243 per recipient, according to a final report. The funds went to low-income domestic and gender-based violence survivors disproportionately impacted by the pandemic – 40% of whom were Latino, 32% Black, 16% Asian or Middle Eastern, and 10% white. The program was quickly inundated with applications and distributed more than 50 more grants than originally budgeted, with the result being a smaller average grant size, according to the report.

Cabán was the lead sponsor on the Support Survivors package. She and Adams held a joint press conference to celebrate when the mayor signed it into law. Cabán told Gotham Gazette she is seeking a minimum of $3 million for the program in fiscal year 2024 and that conversations with the Adams administration are ongoing.

"That is it going to be my office's number one priority," she said over the phone. "We plan on running a robust budget campaign and doing the organizing necessary to get as many dollars as possible into that fund."

"It's going to be about making sure that we are investing resources to the scale of the problems that we're facing, which has been a challenge over the past year," Cabán said, referring to Mayor Adams' first year in office. "We've seen some investments in certain places but not nearly to the degree that is necessary to meaningfully tackle some of the issues New Yorkers are facing each and every day."

Richard Aborn, president of the Citizens Crime Commission, a non-profit focused on public safety, believes Adams isn't talking about survivor services at all when he says lawmakers need to focus on victims not perpetrators.

"I think it's a way of expanding the aperture so that we see the real impacts of the lack of bail reform and the lack of discovery reform," he said.

While there has been a justified focus on criminal justice reform in recent years, Aborn said, "we also need to make sure that the criminal law is sufficiently robust that people are not unnecessarily victimized.” That can happen during the initial crime "and then if the law does not respond appropriately the person is revictimized because nothing has happened to the perpetrator," he added.

In this case, the rhetoric of supporting victims refers to ensuring a survivor is not "re-frightened" by the lenient administration of justice, said Aborn, who supports giving judge's more discretion in setting bail and prosecutors more time to turn over evidence as part of the discovery process.

To Cabán, carceral approaches to public safety are misguided and the city could be doing more to materially support survivors of crime. "When politicians and other folks in the city talk about crime victims from that perspective," she said, "they're practically always cynically exploiting the pain and trauma of survivors to make the case for ramping up policing and incarceration, which doesn't prevent further violence, and it practically never actually asks survivors what they need or want to heal and repair their lives, let alone provide those things."

At the polls (photo: Michael Appleton/Mayoral Photography Office)

Democrats in the New York State Senate announced plans to pass a package of voting and election reforms on Monday, marking the fifth year in a row since taking the majority that they have highlighted the issue at the top of the legislation session.

Since 2019 Democrats have ushered in a new electoral landscape, including early voting, automatic voter registration, and the New York State Voting Rights Act, among many other shifts. The latest package in the Senate sets the tone on election issues ahead of Governor Kathy Hochul's State of the State address Tuesday and tees up negotiations with the Assembly, which has in many instances partnered on democratic reforms but in recent years has also trailed the Senate on legislation to make voting easier, reform the New York City Board of Elections, and more.

The slate announced and passed Monday would make voter suppression a crime; allow counties to establish "portable" polling locations for early voting; set-up absentee drop boxes and a statewide elections database; and allow voters to receive refreshments while waiting on line to vote – currently a prohibited form of electioneering. A sixth bill would make it harder to select a preferred court jurisdiction when filing a legal challenge to state election law. The practice, known as "forum shopping," sparked renewed interest last year when Republican challenges to new legislative district lines went before a sympathetic Republican judge in Steuben County who threw out Democrats' chosen boundaries.

"We've worked hard to cut away red tape and to eliminate unnecessary barriers that not only discourage voters from casting their ballots but sometimes even penalizes them in the process," said Senate Majority Leader Andrea Stewart-Cousins in a press conference in the State Capitol on Monday, flanked by members of her conference.

On Tuesday, the Senate is expected to continue the push by passing, for the second year in a row, a bill to restructure and professionalize the New York City Board of Elections, which has been subject to chronic failure in recent years, Stewart-Cousins said. In the past, that has been a tough pill to swallow for the Assembly Democratic conference, whose leaders tend to operate in lockstep with party bosses who currently control election administration.

Asked what discussions senators have had with the Assembly and about their confidence in getting the bill to the governor's desk this year, Senate Election Chair Zellnor Myrie of Brooklyn noted that the bill had previously gone through a number of iterations after discussions with Assembly members. "I think we will continue to work with the Assembly the same way we work with them on many other issues," Myrie told reporters, without getting into a forecast about support in the Assembly.

"We'll continue to work with the other house," he repeated when pressed on whether Senate Democrats have gotten a commitment from Assembly leaders on the bill.

Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie made no mention of voting or election legislation in his first major address of the session Monday, in which he discussed an agenda focused on housing and homelessness, economic recovery, environmental preservation, and factors associated with poverty that contribute to crime.

Asked by email to comment on the Assembly's response to the Senate package and its approach to voting legislation this session, a spokesperson for Heastie simply replied, "No."

The full package expected to pass Tuesday will include new standards for election commissioners and employees including prohibitions on holding public office and other conflicts of interest, according to Stewart-Cousins' office. It will also establish new training requirements, make election commissioner a full-time position, and create new channels for removing commissioners. The package would also raise the wages of poll workers and allow poll-site inspectors and clerks to split up grueling day-long shifts.

The Senate will likely also revisit discussions to extend the pandemic-era provision of no-excuse absentee voting, which had allowed all voters to request an absentee ballot before it expired in 2022. "Last year we faced a similar situation where it was expired and then we passed a bill to extend it," Myrie said. "Obviously subject to the leader, I suspect we'll have a similar conversation this year."

Lawmakers are also strategizing around the reintroduction of a state constitutional amendment to make ‘no-excuse’ absentee voting permanent, after voters rejected a previous amendment in a statewide referendum in 2021.

"I think that's certainly part of the discussion," Myrie said of a potential new amendment.

"I think, again, it just makes [voting] easier and I don't know why New Yorkers should be deprived of the opportunity to send in a ballot," Stewart-Cousins said. "So it is certainly something to discuss."

Good government and civil rights groups applauded the Senate for keeping up the drumbeat of incremental changes to the state's election law in the first weeks of session. "Senate Democrats have consistently advanced critical voter access laws, and we urge the Assembly and Governor to do the same," said Susan Lerner, executive director of good government group Common Cause New York, in a press release issued by the Senate majority.

“Continued improvement to our state’s democracy is contingent on policymakers, scholars, and the public having easy, equitable access to voting and election data," said Perry Grossman, Director of the Voting Rights Project at the New York Civil Liberties Union, in a statement commending legislation to create a database of voting information. That bill would establish the New York Voting and Elections Database and Institute, a centralized public repository of state voting data maintained by local governments in partnership with SUNY and CUNY. The database would include district-level voting information related to race and language minority groups, allowing advocates to more easily track violations of New York's Voting Rights Act.

Senate Majority Leader Andrea Stewart-Cousins (photo: NYS Senate Media Services)

January 6, 2023 - Max Politics Podcast: State Senate Majority Leader Andrea Stewart-Cousins on 2023 Priorities

New York State Senate Majority Leader Andrea Stewart-Cousins joined the show to discuss her 2023 priorities, the new Senate Democratic supermajority, her relationship with Mayor Adams, the governor's nomination of Justice Hector LaSalle to be Chief Judge, lessons of the 2022 elections, and more.

Listen to the conversation and let us know what you think, on Twitter @TweetBenMax. You can listen to the show through the embedded audio below or download the episode wherever you get your podcasts at Max Politics.

New Year's Eve revelers (photo: Michael Appleton/Mayoral Photography Office)

As we usually do around this time of year, Gotham Gazette asked New York politicos to look into their crystal balls for predictions for the year ahead. Below you'll find insights from elected officials, advocates, consultants, analysts, and others who are tuned in to New York politics.

2023 will undoubtedly be another year of importance and intrigue in New York politics, with Mayor Eric Adams entering his second year in charge, Governor Kathy Hochul starting the full term she just won, the full New York City Council on the ballot after redistricting, and much more.

We know that there will be many political races, debates, and decisions. But what *exactly* will happen? Read below for some ideas.

Before (or after) seeing this year's predictions for 2022, revisit last year's predictions for this year here — there were some really good ones, and many that missed the mark.

Have something to add to the conversation? Tweet @GothamGazette with your reactions or predictions for 2022 in New York politics.

Predictions for 2023 in New York Politics

City Council Majority Leader Keith Powers
-2023 will be a banner year for new housing throughout the city and state with Albany & New York City combining to address a citywide crisis in affordability.
-New York City sports teams will make the playoffs across the board in 2023.

City Council Minority Leader Joe Borelli
Eric Adams will discover the virtue of quiet evenings by the Gracie Mansion fireplace. A standard soirée now includes chamomile and comfy flannels. A prompt 8:30 lights out will be the norm, unless it’s Yellowstone night, the Mayor’s new favorite western drama which ends at 9.

Marc Molinaro, Dutchess County Executive & Rep.-Elect NY-19
-Bipartisan solutions will be developed to provide greater federal support for individuals with intellectual and developmental disabilities; and for those living with mental illness.
-Runaway spending will cause New York’s fiscal condition to continue to unravel…somehow this will be a surprise.
-The Mets will win the World Series. Yeah, I still believe!

Dr. Christina Greer, political scientist & co-host FAQNYC
-Eric Adams and Kathy Hochul may have some growing pains but neither will let their differences devolve into a de Blasio-Cuomo street fight.
-Covid will continue to seep into all areas of our lives - school, work, transportation, hospitals - and conversations about Long Covid will become more prominent.
-The lies of Rep.-elect George Santos will continue to unfold but the GOP will double down in support of the troubled lawmaker.  
-The MTA will continue to need influxes of cash and the quality of service will continue to decline leaving riders stranded, frustrated, and sometimes scared.  

Rachel Fee, Executive Director, New York Housing Conference
2023 will be the year of housing in New York. Governor Hochul and the Legislature will pass long overdue land use changes to spur housing supply in response to a decades-in-the-making affordability crisis. There will be pushback, but housing advocates and our allies will hold firm and ultimately win out to the benefit of tenants and communities across the state.

Betsy Gotbaum, Executive Director, Citizens Union
There will be a vibrant discussion about bold, transformative ideas to increase voter turnout in municipal elections in New York City.

Kathy Wylde, President & CEO, Partnership for New York City
Strong and steady, Governor Hochul will prevail over the loud voices of far left advocates on key budget issues as well as winning the confirmation of the first Latino Chief Judge in New York State history.

Olivia Lapeyrolerie, progressive political consultant
The emboldened state Republican Party will leverage their gains in the 2022 election and Eric Adams’ misguided crusade to roll back bail reform to make a serious play for more seats in the New York City Council. It’ll be a hot mess but at least we’ll have (legal) weed to get through it!

Vishaan Chakrabarti, founder, PAU, practice for architecture and urbanism
In 2023 there will be an unprecedented level of coordinated New York City-State land use actions that accelerate Gotham’s recovery from the pandemic including (1) the creation of new public spaces across Midtown to help attract and retain workers and residents; (2) the conversion of vacant obsolete office space into mixed-income housing and social infrastructure; and (3) the widespread approval of affordable housing projects across the five boroughs.

Bradley Tusk, political strategist and venture capitalist
-Finally fed up with all the endless scaffolding and the quality of life problems it breeds, the City Council legalizes building-exterior inspection via drone. This saves residents and landlords billions of dollars and makes the city a much nicer place to live.
-In response to southern states cracking down on tele-abortion, Albany passes the toughest shield law in the nation, protecting New York doctors and medical professionals from civil litigation and criminal prosecution who prescribe abortion pills to patients in red states via telemedicine.
-The Adams administration opens podcast studios in every library in New York City that are completely free for anyone to use. This helps amplify our city’s story to the world and makes people really happy. (Disclosures: Tusk’s venture capital firm has drone investments. Tusk’s foundation is helping run Mayday Health, a tele-abortion non-profit. Tusk’s bookstore, P&T Knitwear, currently has the only podcast studio in NYC that’s free for anyone to use.)

Maritza Silva-Farrell, Executive Director, ALIGN
-2023 will be the year of the worker — we'll see contracts finalized for Starbucks, Amazon, UPS Teamsters, New York's nurses, and more — and with the cost of living continuing to rise, the state will raise the minimum wage to keep up.
-We saw Swifties band together against Ticketmaster this fall; with a Beyoncé tour on the horizon, there will be major progress in breaking up corporate monopolies this spring!
-After New York voters overwhelmingly supported the Environmental Bond Act at the polls, Governor Hochul will make historic investments in climate and green jobs expansion.

William F. B. O'Reilly, political consultant, The November Team
-Buoyed by Asian, Eastern European, and Orthodox voters, Republicans will win seven New York City Council seats for the first time.
-Congressman-elect George Santos will reveal a genealogical link to President Theodore Roosevelt and declare his candidacy for the White House on the Bull(shit) Moose Party line.
-At least one more member of the U.S. Senate will become a political independent. 

 Eli Valentin, political analyst and professor
-Tensions between Mayor Adams and the City Council will dramatically increase, particularly during budget season. 2023 will be a make-or-break year for Adams as he inches closer to re-election in ‘25.
-We will see surprisingly close contests in some City Council districts, making a normally dull election season unusually exciting.
-Governor Hochul will not have enough State Senate votes to pass through her nominee for Chief Judge, setting off an unprecedented fight. 

Annemarie Gray, Executive Director, Open New York
-By June, Governor Hochul will sign at least two major bills that will kick our housing production into a higher gear — building on a moment when we are seeing a consensus among top elected officials that building significantly more housing of all kinds is central to addressing our housing affordability crisis across the city and state, and that we must do so in more comprehensive ways than one-off project approvals.
-A growing coalition will fight for and win tenant protections and policies that increase housing supply, which can go hand in hand in a more holistic approach to how we address our severe housing affordability crisis — having more housing options includes having the option to stay.

Trip Yang, political consultant and founder, Trip Yang Strategies
-The Asian American electorate will continue to make its case as a political force, electing the first ever Asian American City Council Member in Brooklyn.
-Most incumbent City Council Members will sail to re-election, but at least one will lose in the primary election.
-Former Lieutenant Governor Brian Benjamin, who had federal corruption charges recently dismissed but still faces two counts of falsifying records, will attempt to make a political comeback.

Tom Grech, President and CEO, Queens Chamber of Commerce
In addition to the previously announced activity at Willets Point, look for some wonderful visioning at Citi Field to reimagine unused space.

JC Polanco, attorney and professor
-Mayor Adams' popularity increases as his plan to help New Yorkers with untreated severe mental illness shows promise.
-Speaker Heastie and Senate Majority Leader Stewart-Cousins finally agree with me and allow us independent voters to vote in primary elections. The law won't allow Republicans to vote in Democratic primaries or vice versa, but allows independent voters to vote in the primary of their choosing. New York's second largest group of voters, currently without a say in primary elections where 90% of New York City elections are decided, will have their voices valued.
-Dangerousness will become part of conditions on bail. To assure the elimination of racial disparities in bail, new chief judge Hector LaSalle will allow for the creation of a judicial equity panel to evaluate its implementation.
-My Buffalo Bills win the Super Bowl. 

Carol Kellermann, civic leader
-The MTA's critical need for more operating revenue sparks a movement to revive the NYC Commuter Tax on that was killed in 1999 and could generate hundreds of millions from suburbanites.
-Governor Hochul joins with Mayor Adams to press the legislature to adopt the recommendations of the NYC Advisory Commission on Property Tax Reform along with a modified version of the now-expired "421a" program to incentive construction of mixed income rental housing in the City. 

Sara Lind, Chief Strategy Officer, Open Plans
-Mayor Eric Adams will create a Director of the Public Realm and an Office of Public Space Management to foster well-resourced, joyful, and livable public spaces in every neighborhood in New York City.
-New York City’s elected leaders will realize that ending mandatory parking minimums is one of the simplest ways to create the city New Yorkers living in 2023 really want, helping make a more livable city for everyone.
-After much delay, Mayor Adams and the City Council will agree on a framework for the permanent Open Restaurants program, smoothing out logistical challenges, allowing restaurants to offer outdoor seating year-round, and empowering the Department of Transportation to manage our curb space as the valuable public good that it is.
-Recognizing the ongoing tragedies of traffic fatalities and injuries and vehicle emissions, Governor Kathy Hochul will champion the SAFE Streets Act so that every New Yorker can use our streets safely. 

David C. Bloomfield, Professor of Education Leadership, Law & Policy, Brooklyn College and The CUNY Graduate Center
-The New York State Education Department will eliminate Regents Exam requirements for high school graduation, making them optional.
-After 2022's wildly unpopular cuts to schools in the New York City Department of Education budget, the City Council (with elections in redrawn districts in mind), will refuse Mayor Adams' proposed additional cuts, throwing budget negotiations into a tailspin.
-Tens of thousands of ultra-orthodox yeshiva students will still be denied required secular instruction despite new state regulations, New York Times exposés, and a court order while politicians continue the schools' massive subsidies. 

Evan Roth Smith, Slingshot Strategies Founding Partner
-The typical power dynamic of the City Council and Mayor will invert, with Speaker Adrienne Adams leading a body increasingly unified by frustration with Mayor Eric Adams and a growing willingness to confront him. Watch for the Council to move a more aggressive agenda and vision of its own rather than reacting to the Mayor, and for the large class of first-term Council Members to find their footing with increased confidence as both legislators and political actors. The ideological lines dividing Council Members will blur as they find common purpose, and outmoded conventions such as ‘member deference’ will continue to erode. If the Council does indeed assert itself, watch for its emerging leaders to begin teasing 2025 challenges to citywide incumbents.
-The embattled leadership of the New York Democratic Party and the Brooklyn Democratic Party will hold on, despite the sound and fury over party failures in the 2022 elections. The loss of multiple winnable House seats across the state, a close shave re-election for the Governor, and anemic Democratic voter turnout (particularly in New York City) are deeply troubling for insiders, but it will take a front-page political catastrophe to spur a genuine shakeup in New York’s Democratic political establishment. Unfortunately, after this year’s dismal Democratic underperformance, an eventual catastrophe seems possible, if not probable.

Jake Oliver, Vice President, Anat Gerstein, Inc.
-The New York City Council will protect discretionary funding for nonprofits, despite the Mayor's recent suggestion that this funding may be on the chopping block.
-In 2022 the Mayor and Comptroller took steps to improve on-time contract payments and reduce contracting red tape. In 2023, with the Council leading the way, more work will be done to address decades old problems the sector has faced -- including improving wages for frontline workers doing incredibly challenging and important work.

***
Tweet us @GothamGazette to add your predictions for 2023 in New York politics, or to react to something you read here. And happy new year, New York!

Doreen Harris & Basil Seggos (photo: @Doreen_M_Harris)

December 22, 2022 - Max Politics Podcast: The Climate Action Council's Plan for New York's Future

The Co-Chairs of New York's Climate Action Council -- Department of Environmental Conservation Commissioner Basil Seggos and New York State Energy Research and Development Authority President and CEO Doreen M. Harris -- joined the show to discuss the newly-passed NYS Climate Action Council Scoping Plan, "which outlines recommended policies and actions to help meet the goals and requirements of the nation-leading Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act."

Listen to the conversation and let us know what you think, on Twitter @TweetBenMax. You can listen to the show through the embedded audio below or download the episode wherever you get your podcasts at Max Politics.

Lester Chang, left (photo: Chang campaign website)

Though Democrats maintained supermajorities in the State Senate and Assembly after the midterm elections, they lost ground in several communities across the state and ceded several seats to the Republican Party in the State Legislature and in Congress.

One of the most notable Republican flips came in Assembly District 49, an Asian-majority district in Southern Brooklyn which covers parts of Bay Ridge and Borough Park and much of Dyker Heights and Bensonhurst. There, 36-year Democratic incumbent Peter Abbate Jr. narrowly lost to Republican Lester Chang, in a race some have pointed to as evidence of Asian American voters moving from Democrats to Republicans. Now, a new post-election study finds that low turnout among Asian American voters could actually have been the deciding factor.

Chang, who is Chinese-American, defeated Abbate Jr., who is white, 52-48%, a margin of just 582 votes in an election where only 14,287 votes were cast. But according to a new study from the Asian American Federation, an advocacy and research nonprofit, Asian American voters did not turn out significantly in favor of Chang and if they had been more engaged in the election, they could have swung it for Abbate and the Democrats. While there has been some rightward movement of Asian voters, they remain overwhelmingly Democratic in both registration and voting patterns.

There also remains the possibility that Chang may not be able to serve in the seat. The State Assembly is set to convene on Wednesday morning to determine whether he failed to meet the residency requirements to run for District 49 and thus should not be seated for the new term that begins in January.

“The 2022 midterm elections in New York showed us how imperative it is for candidates and parties to forge and sustain meaningful voter outreach to New York’s rapidly growing Asian population,” said Jo-Ann Yoo, executive director of the Asian American Federation, in a statement. “Taking District 49 as a case study, there is a clear lesson that underinvesting in outreach to Asian Americans has electoral consequences.”

AAF’s analysis examined the Asian American population in the Assembly district, which was slightly redrawn in the recent redistricting cycle following the 2020 Census. (The Assembly district maps were later rejected by a judge but were allowed to stand for the 2022 cycle. They are currently being redrawn for the next legislative election in 2024.)

As AAF noted, Asian Americans were the fastest growing population in the 2020 Census and the count showed they had overtaken white residents as the majority in the district. According to AAF calculations, Asian Americans made up 59% of the population of the district, 80,454 residents out of a total 136,258. The district had 60,627 voting age residents, of whom 49%, or 29,704, identified as Asian. Moreover, more than half of those Asian voters were registered as Democrats while only 6.9% were registered as Republicans (40.3% were unaffiliated with a political party).

Overall voter turnout in the district was about 28%, even below the citywide turnout of 33% in the election. But AAF’s study found that turnout in District 49 election precincts with more than 50% of Asian registered voters had turnout lower than the district average, with some as low as 15-16%.

AAF modeled two scenarios if turnout had been different. If there was higher Asian American turnout and all registered voters cast a ballot along party lines, while all party-unaffiliated voters cast a ballot for the Republican, Chang would still win but with a smaller margin of 459 votes.

But, if all party-affiliated registered Asian voters cast a ballot along party lines and unaffiliated Asian voters split among Democrats and Republicans, Abbate Jr. would have won by 473 votes.

“Our examination of District 49 voter data undermined assumptions that the growing Asian population caused the district to swing red or that Asians always vote for other Asians,” said Linying He, AAF’s associate director of research, in a statement. “Asian voters are not a monolith, and we do not always vote along party lines or the ethnicity of a candidate. What matters to us, like all voters, are credible and deliverable promises that our communities and issues will continue to matter to candidates after Election Day.”

To that point, the district went for Democrat Joe Biden in the 2020 election, as he won by a margin of 56.4-43.6 over then-President Donald Trump, a Republican. But in the governor’s race this year, Democratic Governor Kathy Hochul lost the district to Republican Lee Zeldin roughly 38-62% — meaning Abbate outran Hochul by a wide margin even in defeat — expanding on the improved Republican performance by mayoral nominee Curtis Sliwa in the 2021 election.

In their recently released Civic Engagement Report, AAF wrote that the Asian American community is “often considered too socially and linguistically fractured for political campaigns to target effectively.” But, through their own voter outreach efforts through the AAPI Power Coalition of eight nonprofits in the city, they found that culturally relevant and in-language outreach increased Asian voter turnout by 10 percentage points.

The group also recommended several measures to increase Asian American participation in the electoral process including more local surveys to accurately study various Asian American communities, addressing language barriers at the polls, and same-day or Election Day voter registration and no-excuse absentee voting to make voting easier.

[READ: 'I knew the vote would be close, but I didn't think that close': Iwen Chu's History-Making Win in Brooklyn's New 17th State Senate District]

[LISTEN: Max Politics Podcast: Ron Kim on How Democrats Can Win Back Asian Voters]

Assemblymember Zohran Mamdani at Wednesday's press conference (photo: Kara McCurdy)

December 15, 2022 - Max Politics Podcast: Assemblymember Zohran Mamdani on How to 'Fix the MTA' & More

Assemblymember Zohran Mamdani, a Queens Democrat, joined the show to discuss his new plan to 'Fix the MTA,' upcoming state budget negotiations, the 2022 election results, and more.

Listen to the conversation and let us know what you think, on Twitter @TweetBenMax. You can listen to the show through the embedded audio below or download the episode wherever you get your podcasts at Max Politics.

Gov. Hochul signs the Adult Survivors Act (photo: Darren McGee/Governor's Office)

As of November 24, the Adult Survivors Act went into effect in New York State, allowing survivors of sexual offenses one year to file civil claims for cases that occurred even decades ago. 

The Adult Survivors Act (ASA) was signed into law in May by Governor Kathy Hochul, the state’s first female governor, and removes the statute of limitations for certain civil claims regarding past sexual offenses between November 24 2022 and November 24 2023, regardless of when the alleged crime took place. Like the Child Victims Act before it, the ASA’s implementation means that victims can address alleged sexual offenses they experienced years or decades ago but did not bring to court at the time. Reasons for such past inaction can span trauma, lack of resources, threats, and unsupportive environments. 

The Adult Survivors Act does not reopen the opportunity for criminal prosecution, but victims can seek justice through the civil court system.

Rachel Tuchman, a lawyer at Kaplan Hecker & Fink in New York, is one of the attorneys representing E. Jean Carroll in her ongoing defamation lawsuit against former President Donald Trump. The case unfolded when Caroll alleged in 2019 that Trump sexually assaulted her in a New York City department store in the 1990s. Trump publicly denied the assault, saying “I’ve never met this person in my life” and “she’s not my type.” As Carroll was no longer able to press criminal charges, one way she would be able to prove the assault was by trying to prove that Trump’s statements qualified as defamation.

But now the Adult Survivors Act has enabled Carroll to file a second lawsuit against Trump: for battery at the time of the alleged assault, and for recent alleged defamatory statements in October.

Kaplan Hecker & Fink are working with a number of clients filing claims under the ASA. “[W]e are not talking about sending someone back to jail after 25 years,” Tuchman said in an interview, “we are simply talking about monetary relief. Every single person who walks through our doors has incurred enormous costs to try to resolve the mental health struggles they have faced from sexual assault.”

Under the ASA, victims can bring claims against individual defendants but also against responsible entities such as employers, universities, government affiliates, and hospitals. The scope of behavior covered includes violent crimes such as rape, but also other numerous sexual offenses defined in the New York State Penal Code. This includes, but is not limited to: sexual abuse; forcible touching; and ‘spiking’ for sexual assault, when a victim is unknowingly given drugs or alcohol.

Passage of the Adult Survivors Act
Since the #MeToo movement gained momentum in 2017, there has been an ongoing public conversation about why survivors of sexual misconduct often do not come forward at the time of the offense. One common thread has been the existence of power dynamics where the perpetrator holds economic or other influence that coerces the victim to stay silent. Another is that trauma takes time to process and victims may struggle to confront their experience publicly. This is made worse by the fact that social norms have often led to victims being marginalized.

Over the last five years many state and local governments have enacted #MeToo-inspired legislation intended to address sexual harassment, violence, and other misconduct. This includes the passage of ‘revival statutes,’ which suspend the statute of limitations for civil actions related to sexual offenses to give survivors opportunity to seek legal redress. To date, most of these revival statutes have been aimed at childhood sexual abuse, such as New York’s 2019 Child Victims Act (CVA).

Carroll, an established journalist and author, has said she is one example, accusing Trump of sexual assault decades ago. When Carroll was finally ready to come forward about her experience, the statute of limitations meant that she could no longer file criminal charges or a civil suit against Trump, despite the mental and financial toll she has said the alleged rape has taken on her life. In the face of this challenge, Carroll’s legal team decided to advocate for a law that would help survivors seek justice through the court system.

Along with numerous advocacy groups in the state, the team worked to get the Adult Survivors Act in front of lawmakers. Tuchman said that “there was still this deep misunderstanding on the part of many in New York of why it would take so much time to come forward, particularly for adults who were sophisticated and had networks and access to attorneys.”

Ultimately Tuchman believes that this misconception was addressed in part by numerous survivors sharing their stories so publicly. “E. Jean’s story helped individuals understand why it takes so long to process this trauma, and why she was petrified to come forward against someone like Donald Trump – who can represent any other powerful figure, like an employer.”

In June 2021 the Adult Survivors Act passed unanimously in the New York State Senate, but stalled in the Assembly, though both chambers had Democratic supermajorities. But it then passed a second time in the Senate in April 2022, and in May 2022 it finally passed in the Assembly. At its core, the ASA reflects the reality that there are many rational reasons why survivors may wait a long time, some even decades, to come forward about the sexual abuse they endured.ADD 

On May 24, 2022 Democratic Governor Kathy Hochul signed the Adult Survivors Act into law at a bill-signing ceremony in the state Capitol in Albany, attended by survivors and those who had supported the legislation. During the ceremony Hochul declared “to those who thought they got away with horrific crimes they committed I just have one message: Your time is up. Your victims will see you in court and you will be brought to justice.” Drew Dixon, a survivor who attended the ceremony, said, “I'm really overwhelmed with gratitude today, because so many people will be set free.”

State Senate Majority Leader Andrea Stewart-Cousins stated that prior laws had “failed adult survivors and prevented them from accessing true justice” because it takes “time to come forward, particularly when faced with the trauma that accompanies disclosures.”

State Senator Brad Hoylman, a Manhattan Democrat who sponsored the ASA alongside Assemblymember Linda Rosenthal, released a statement of appreciation to survivors saying: “We would not be here today without the courage of your convictions that propelled you to share your deeply personal stories about the sexual abuse that upended your lives and made legislative passage possible.”

This is not the first time that New York lawmakers have lifted a statute of limitations where disclosure of the crime involves complex circumstances. In 2019 the Child Victims Act (CVA) allowed victims of child sexual abuse to file civil claims retroactively within a two-year window and extended the deadline for future cases until the age of 55.

During the period between August 2019 and August 2021, over 9,000 lawsuits were filed in New York State by alleged victims who had suffered trauma without retribution since childhood – though experts suggest that this number represents merely a fraction of the victims eligible. Nearly 65% of claims were filed against entities related to the Catholic Church; the CVA also led to plaintiffs bringing forward cases of child abuse against high-profile individual defendants such as the actor Kevin Spacey and Prince Andrew. In September 2022, President Biden signed into law the Eliminating Limits to Justice for Child Sex Abuse Victims Act of 2022,  which removed the statute of limitations entirely for federal civil lawsuits relating to child sex abuse including forced labor and child sex trafficking. However this law does not apply retroactively.

Why Wait?
Amid the #MeToo movement and debate in New York over the Child Victims Act and Adult Survivors Act, one question that has come up repeatedly is: why do so many victims not come forward at the time of the alleged abuse?

As explained by Lucia Osborne-Crowley, a specialist in sexual offense trials, “there is a very overwhelmingly common pattern among young adult survivors called delayed disclosure. This essentially means that people who are sexually abused almost never report at the time, or even immediately afterwards...It is by far the most common outcome.”

In the Ghislaine Maxwell trial, a sexual abuse expert testified that many of the victims had delayed their disclosure about the alleged abuse they had faced at the hands of Maxwell and Epstein until well into adulthood. This is possibly because they were not able to articulate the severity of their experiences due to trauma, or even that they could not immediately identify the incident as a crime. Similarly, the expert in Anthony Rapp’s civil trial against Kevin Spacey concluded that the victim had experienced delayed-onset PTSD years later as an adult. Ultimately, the jury in this trial found Kevin Spacey not liable for battery.

In the United States, RAINN (Rape, Abuse & Incest National Network) estimates that the vast majority of sexual offenses are perpetrated by someone familiar with the victim. Studies have shown that a delayed disclosure reaction is even more likely when a victim is targeted by someone close to them, such as a partner, friend, relative, boss, coworker, or other important figure. “Often, the first thought is ‘I’ve done something to cause this’ or ‘I’m going to get into trouble,’” explains Osborne-Crowley. “There is a lot of self-blame that goes into delayed disclosure.”

Osborne-Crowley noted that the abuse often goes along with manipulation and grooming, which are used to keep victims silent; “these are psychological weapons which cause victims to not trust their own perception of what happened.” To make matters more complicated, Osborne-Crowley notes that memories become repressed because victims store trauma in a different part of the brain that may be harder to access. This can be difficult for a jury to understand; “most people don’t know that traumatic memory is stored differently and retrieved differently. No one knows that instinctively unless they have experienced trauma.”

Before the #MeToo movement, survivors of assault and abuse often faced a broader environment that did not support victims – and experts say there is still a long way to go. Tuchman said that “the #MeToo movement was a watershed movement that educated so many people on why it took survivors so long to come forward. [There is] a counter-narrative that women are coming forward with false stories in droves or only seeking a financial reward. That counter-narrative silences women further, and it is important to educate individuals publicly about how trauma often inhibits immediate reporting.”

Historically, women who experienced inappropriate groping in a workplace environment were told to go along with it or ridiculed, and more often than not stayed quiet in favor of job stability. When Kaplan Hecker & Fink began taking on cases of this nature, Tuchman quickly noticed that “it was very clear that silence was a systematic problem. So many women had not come forward as a result of being threatened silently through demand letters and defamation threats, threats to their employment and livelihood, a loss of community.” Many victims internalized shame because they feared serious ramifications in their personal, professional, and social lives.

During the Harvey Weinstein and Ghislaine Maxwell trials, many survivors were called forward to present witness testimony but were unable to file their own civil lawsuits due to the statute of limitations. With the implementation of the Adult Survivors Act they can now take their cases to court. Having spoken to a number of these survivors for an upcoming book, Osborne-Crowley said, “for them it’s absolutely life-changing. It is validating to acknowledge that the legal system is not fit for purpose.” However, the witness testimonies in the Maxwell trial led Osborne Crowley to believe that justice systems are still not suited to victim disclosure. 

“In initial police interviews you are in a room with strangers, often men, which is not conducive to giving graphic details of an assault,” Osborne-Crowley said, “you will often see defense teams say that victims have made up or changed their stories to seem more credible.” In reality, working through sexual trauma is a complex and lengthy process in which authorities must be specially trained in order to support victims rather than undermine them. Osborne-Crowley said that sexual offenses must be considered uniquely because “we will continue to see these patterns as long as the system mistreats victims.”

Due to a combination of these factors, the majority of sexual offenses are unreported to authorities. The federal Centers for Disease Control (CDC) estimates that over half of all women have experienced physical sexual violence in their lifetime. One in four women has experienced attempted rape and one in three women has experienced harassment in a public space. But the NYC Alliance Against Sexual Assault estimates that only 3% of rapes are actually reported to the police, a number that is only lower historically. Of the sexual assaults which are actually reported, RAINN estimates that only 8% result in incarceration. With such a criminal justice system that fails victims so often, it is difficult to estimate just how many individuals in New York may seek retribution in civil court this year under the Adult Survivors Act.

Help for Victims
It is clear from the statistics of unreported sexual crimes that both legal and societal shifts are necessary to bring perpetrators to timely justice. New York’s Adult Survivors Act only allows sexual offenses to be brought to civil court, not criminal court, meaning that no perpetrator will face imprisonment.

Questions remain about how to create an environment that supports victims seeking criminal justice for sexual offenses when they occur.

Osborne-Crowley suggests that there are many tangible improvements that could be made, including: ‘trauma-informed’ first interviews with women who are experts in handling sexual offenses; training across police forces for understanding sexual trauma; and specialised task forces dedicated to sexual crimes.

Tuchman believes that the response within the criminal system is already improving, but that “we should be continuing to encourage this training and ensure that the types of questions being asked to a survivor do not come off as hostile, abrasive, or re-traumatizing.”

On a societal level, Osborne-Crowley is adamant that safe spaces must be created for victims. People must be more sensitive when discussing sexual offenses, she argues, as the subject matter can be triggering to many women who have experienced abuse but are yet unable to come forward. This is especially pertinent in the wake of high-profile trials and more to come, which she describes as “a lightning rod for vitriol and abuse from the public...they give ‘permission’ for people to speak about victims in a very abhorrent way.” On the other hand, E. Jean Carroll’s work on the Adult Survivors Act has helped show that these high-profile cases can pave the way for survivors; but commentators should be conscious when discussing the sensitive elements of sexual offenses with others, considering that more women than not have experienced some form of sexual violence in their lives and the topic itself may be a source of trauma.

Shawn Crowley, a partner at Kaplan Hecker & Fink, is hopeful that the Adult Survivors Act is already changing society’s perception and support of victims for the better. “Until pretty recently, it was not clear to most people that unwanted touching and groping [which are covered under the Adult Survivors Act] were wrong, and they were dismissed as an unfortunate part of being a woman. The more we can do to normalize the fact that it is not OK, that you should come forward, that you will be believed when you do come forward, creates a safer environment for survivors.”

Filing Claims Under the Adults Survivors Act
Crowley notes that the greatest difficulty in trials for sexual offenses is that “cases become harder to prove the further we are from the incident.” DNA becomes harder to find, memory fades, and records become less accessible. Yet it is hardly impossible, and legal teams are already preparing evidence for decades-old cases to present within the one-year lookback window under the Adult Survivors Act.

Tuchman and Crowley detailed some examples of evidence that can be used retroactively: 

Sexual Assault Forensic Exam: otherwise known as a rape kit. If the victim went to the authorities at the time and had DNA samples taken, this information may still be available. Even if the DNA is no longer available, there may be ER admission records that could support the claimant’s case and verify alleged timeframes.

First-hand contemporaneous records: victims may be surprised to know that evidence like diary entries or writing at the time can be fundamental to their case. Any firsthand account, if available, can prove the timeframes and details of an alleged offense.

Secondhand testimony: similarly, if victims told someone else – parents, friends, authority figures – at the time, it can be powerful supporting evidence.

Record of Change in Disposition: it can be particularly difficult to establish a timeline in retroactive sexual offense trials. If someone close to the victim, like a therapist, guidance counselor, or teacher, was able to record a notable change in behavior around the alleged timeframe, this can support the victim’s testimony – even if the victim did not attribute these changes to the sexual abuse they faced.

Traditional Evidence: there are many types of evidence that you could find in a typical crime scene such as physical objects, video evidence, notes and emails, relevant voicemails, et cetera.

Hardly an exhaustive list, it shows that despite many challenges it is in fact possible to gather evidence for claims of sexual offenses alleged to have happened well in the past.

Another obstacle survivors face is the perceived inability to hire decent legal counsel. “On the civil side, many individuals feel as though they may not have the resources to come forward with the support of an attorney,” said Tuchman, a leading attorney specializing in sexual offenses. “It is important to understand that, depending on the circumstances, lawyers may be able to take their case on either on a pro bono basis or on a contingency basis (meaning that the individual does not have to pay anything up front, and the lawyer will recover a percentage of any award ultimately granted).”

There are many resources available for victims of sexual offenses, including mental health support and legal aid. Survivors in New York may consult the Sexual Assault Bill of Rights; there is a free hotline (1-800-942-6906); the state’s Rape Crisis Prevention Program; the National Sexual Violence resource center, and free legal aid through the New York Legal Assistance Group.

Assemblymember Stacey Pheffer Amato (far left, photo: @Stacey23AD)

Assemblymember Stacey Pheffer Amato, a Queens Democrat, is leading by just one vote over her Republican opponent, Thomas Sullivan, after a manual recount for the District 23 election concluded on Wednesday. But, the race is still not over as a court battle for nearly 100 additional ballots remains to be decided.

On election night, Amato trailed Sullivan by 246 votes in an election with more than 32,000 ballots cast, a close enough margin to trigger an automatic hand recount. More than 1,000 absentee and affidavit ballots remained uncounted at the time, and Amato’s campaign also filed a lawsuit to ensure that ballots that were improperly invalidated should be counted. On Tuesday, Queens Supreme Court Justice Joseph Risi ruled in her favor, ordering that 94 absentee ballots and 4 affidavit ballots that were initially deemed invalid by the Board of Elections should be added to the tally.

In the case of the 94 absentee ballots, the court found that the BOE had failed to notify voters that their ballots had been invalidated and did not give them the opportunity to cure their ballots or inform them of their other options for voting as required by state law.

“There is no question that the Board’s failure to provide this required notice impaired these voters’ ability to participate in the electoral process,” the judge ruled. He also said that the election law “shall be construed liberally in favor of…protecting the right of voters to have their ballot cast and counted.”

The additional four ballots, he wrote, were “mistakenly marked as invalid” for varying reasons.

Sullivan’s campaign has appealed the court decision, with the next hearing in the case set for Monday, December 12. According to Adam Fusco, a lawyer representing Sullivan, the campaign is fighting to exclude the 94 “fatally defective” absentee ballots. However, neither side has questioned the inclusion of the four affidavit ballots, which will be counted regardless of the outcome of the appeal.

“It's those four affidavit ballots that may very well decide this race,” Fusco said in a phone interview. “Those four affidavits are sealed. Other than guessing, there's no way to know who, if either, of the candidates that those four voters voted for.” Fusco expects the case to be decided quickly next week.

Doug Forand, a spokesperson for Amato’s campaign, expects to prevail despite the appeal and predicted that Amato’s margin of victory will only increase since the 94 absentee ballots contain more Democratic votes than Republicans.

“Voting is the cornerstone of our American democracy,” Forand said in a statement after the court ruling on Tuesday. “We will not allow anyone to silence the voices of voters who have exercised their constitutional right to have their votes counted. We are grateful to the courts for following the law and rightfully ruling that these ballots must be counted.”

Pheffer Amato has been in the Assembly since 2017, representing the 23rd District, covering Rockaway, Howard Beach, Lindenwood, Ozone Park and parts of Hamilton Beach. She had to outrun Democratic Governor Kathy Hochul, who lost the district to Republican Rep. Lee Zeldin by nearly 8,000 votes.