Rising to the Historical Moment: A New York Civil Rights Agenda for 2026

Last year’s state legislative session was an exercise in inaction, despite unprecedented urgency. As President Trump and his MAGA minions made good on their promises to terrorize and deport immigrants, vilify trans people, squash free speech, strip away critical government programs, dismantle democratic institutions and more, Albany dithered.

Last year, the legislature failed to pass a single meaningful piece of legislation to protect immigrant communities. Of the few measures that passed to protect abortion rights, the rights of LGBTQ people, and to enhance transparency and good governance, most were vetoed by Gov. Hochul.

This year, New York leaders must awaken to Trump’s dangerous and deeply-unpopular agenda, act swiftly and boldly, and rise to the historical moment we face. The Trump regime is threatening our fundamental rights and liberties, from our right to speak out and have our votes counted, to the freedom to be ourselves and get a fair day in court. New Yorkers are demanding our state leaders not only defend our freedoms, but also show that New York can continue to drive progress and justice forward.

Our legislative agenda highlights actions that Albany must take to defend our state from Trump’s ongoing assault. It also includes steps to create a positive vision of New York by promoting true public safety, shoring up our social safety net and making our state more affordable. Policies like expanding child care, investing in mental health support, and ending our state’s addiction to mass incarceration are long overdue.

Our state electeds should not bury their heads in the sand and hope the storm passes us by. A protracted budget fight or the fact that lawmakers are up for re-election this year cannot stand as barriers to progress. The Trump tempest is here, and it will only get worse unless Albany seizes this chance to meaningfully, aggressively, and relentlessly fight back.

Create a Stronger and More Inclusive Democracy

The right to vote, a fair democratic process, government transparency, and easy access to accurate information are cornerstones of a functioning democracy.

Barriers and restrictions on democratic participation have diluted the voices of many New Yorkers, especially people of color. For decades, New York lagged behind the majority of U.S. states, failing to improve an outdated system of voting rules and regulations. While we have seen significant progress in recent years, there are still many reforms that our state can, and must adopt in order to strengthen and preserve our democratic system.

Abolish Felony and De Facto Disenfranchisement

Lawmakers should: amend the state constitution to abolish felony disenfranchisement, which bars people in prisons from voting. And adopt laws to make it easier for people detained in jail to cast a ballot.

Many individuals who come into contact with the criminal legal system are denied access to the ballot. Not only does state law deny people who are incarcerated for a felony conviction the right to vote, but qualified voters detained pretrial or on a misdemeanor conviction are also often de facto disenfranchised because they are unable to access a ballot. Disparities in policing and sentencing decisions mean that people of color are disproportionately denied access to the ballot. Further, those with less money who are unable to post bail are also more likely to be disenfranchised.

New York must amend its laws to ensure that individuals who come into contact with the criminal legal system are able to exercise their right to vote. First, the state must amend its constitution to abolish felony disenfranchisement, which bars people in prisons from voting. Felony disenfranchisement is a practice that, in many cases, originated from a desire to suppress the Black vote. To this end, it is perhaps unsurprising that the two states with the highest white populations in the country—Maine and Vermont—do not have felony disenfranchisement laws and allow people in prison to vote. Second, the state must adopt laws to make it easier for people detained in jail—whether pretrial or for a misdemeanor conviction—to cast a ballot.

Allow for Election Day Voter Registration

Lawmakers should: pass a constitutional amendment to allow same-day voter registration.

Voter registration was, in part, established to prevent Black and working-class people from voting in the late 19th century, and it continues to act as a barrier to the ballot box today—disproportionately denying Black and Brown qualified voters from casting a ballot. Today, 22 states and the District of Columbia allow qualified voters to both register and vote either throughout the entire early voting period and/or on Election Day through a process known as same-day registration (SDR), and one state (North Dakota) does not require voter registration. States and territories have been able to effectively implement SDR and, in New York, a recent change in election law actually established a single day of SDR—on the first day of early voting. Jurisdictions that have created opportunities for qualified voters to both register and vote on the same day—throughout the entire early voting period or on Election Day—consistently are among those with the highest rates of political participation.

Currently, the New York State Constitution requires that voters be registered at least 10 days prior to an election. A constitutional amendment to remove this restriction would allow New York to improve voter participation and provide SDR, including on Election Day.

Move Local Elections to Even Years

Lawmakers should: pass legislation to move elections to even-numbered years.

Local politics govern numerous aspects of our day-to-day lives, but when elections are held in odd years we see depressed turnout, with particular disparities in turnout among people of color and younger voters. In order to boost turnout and promote a more representative democracy, New York passed a bill in 2023 to move many county and town elections to even-numbered years. New York should continue this trend and move additional elections to even-numbered years to support a more inclusive democracy.

Promote Student Voting

Lawmakers should: expand civic engagement initiatives at public colleges and universities.

Young adults tend to vote at lower rates. Barriers to the ballot box, such as needing to update registration after a move, can depress the youth vote. New York should expand civic engagement initiatives at public colleges and universities by requiring such institutions: designate Student Voting Coordinators; adopt student voting action plans; and provide nonpartisan election-related information, including access to voter registration and ballot applications, poll site information, key dates, and information on student voting rights.

Allow Polling Place Hours to be Extended in the Event of a Disruption

Lawmakers should: change New York law to allow poll site hours of operation to be automatically extended in the event of an election disruption.

During early voting or on Election Day, equipment malfunctions, natural disasters, medical emergencies, threats to a poll site, and other disruptions can result in pauses to voting or polling locations needing to be down for periods of time. While New York law allows for extended voting in cases of natural disasters, attacks, or power failures, it does not provide for extensions of time for many foreseeable natural, human-caused, or tech-related incidents. Decisions to extend hours require court intervention or approval by partisan boards of elections. New York should amend its law to allow poll site hours of operation to be automatically extended in the event of a significant election disruption.

Protect Checks and Balances

Lawmakers should: pass legislation to remove a mayor’s ability to preempt ballot questions via charter revision commissions.

A healthy democracy requires a robust system of checks and balances to maintain the separation of powers and to provide effective oversight and accountability. That is no less true at the state and local level than it is for the federal government. However, New York law currently gives an unfair upper hand to mayors to control how—and, indeed, whether—New Yorkers get to vote on proposed changes to their most important governing documents: their municipal charters.

A city charter is essentially a local version of a constitution: it lays out the structure of city government, the powers of various offices, and provides the rulebook for local democracy. Amendments to city charters should be approached with the care and deliberation they deserve, but, as New York City residents have witnessed, they can also be weaponized by mayors looking to preserve and expand their own power. State law currently provides a few pathways for amending city charters via referenda, including through voter petitions, legislation first passed by a city council, or charter revision commissions, which are temporary bodies set up to study and propose amendments. But these pathways do not have equal access to the ballot, and a mayor—acting in bad faith to block a referendum on a proposal they don’t like—currently has the ability to convene a charter commission for the sole purpose of displacing a petition—or council-driven measures—from being voted on. That’s because when a mayoral commission proposes ballot questions, state law gives those questions primacy and kicks other questions entirely off the ballot. That’s exactly what happened in 2024, when the mayor of New York City created a commission to block a City Council proposal from being voted on and then went on to use his hand-picked commissioners to rush through the crafting of ballot proposals to expand his own power and weaken the powers of the Council.

The documents that provide the framework for local democracy in our communities are too important to be weaponized for political purposes. Lawmakers must act on legislation to remove a mayor’s ability to preempt ballot questions via charter revision commissions. This legislation should also establish baseline standards for any such commission to ensure that they take the time needed to thoughtfully review and consider any proposals for charter amendments.

End Jury Disenfranchisement

Lawmakers should: restore the right to serve on a jury for people with felony convictions once they’re released from prison.

New York law permanently disqualifies people convicted of felonies from serving on a jury, no matter the type of offense, how long ago the conviction, or where the conviction occurred—making New York’s law more punitive than the majority of states, including states like Florida and Louisiana.

Jury disenfranchisement serves no legitimate purpose and has acute racial impacts in New York. Racial disparities in policing, prosecution, and sentencing mean that New York’s jury disenfranchisement law shuts thousands of Black residents out of civic engagement and strips people of their right to be judged by a jury of their peers.

Jury service is a cornerstone of our system of self-government and, with voting, represents Americans’ most significant opportunity to participate in the democratic process. In 2021, New York passed legislation to restore the right to vote for people with felony convictions automatically upon release from prison. In doing so, the State recognized that the voting process is an essential component of rehabilitation and reintegration. The same is true of jury service. For many people convicted of felonies, civic engagement—including through political participation such as voting and jury service—is a critical means to facilitate sustainable reintegration back into society. Lawmakers must act to immediately restore the right to serve on a jury for people with felony convictions upon release from prison.

Reform and Strengthen New York’s Freedom of Information Laws

Lawmakers should: pass bills to ensure timely responses to FOIL requests.

New York’s open government laws are outdated, and compliance often varies from agency to agency. Compliance among law enforcement agencies is often abysmal, as is compliance in rural areas where smaller towns often lack the resources to produce records in a timely fashion. The legislature must act on a slate of bills to help solve these problems by: reducing wait times for both agency compliance and appeals of FOIL denials; requiring agencies to report FOIL compliance data to the state, so that agencies with a history of noncompliance can be identified and corrected; tightening the commercial FOIL exemption, which allows corporations doing business with the state to maintain certain trade secrets; and strengthening the FOIL’s attorney fee recovery provisions, to make FOIL actions more affordable to the public and more attractive to practitioners.

Ensure Universal High-Speed Internet

Lawmakers should: pass legislation that ensures all New York households have equitable, affordable access to high-speed internet.

Universal and reliable access to the internet is essential to nearly every New Yorker’s ability to live in the modern world and participate in our democracy. Many people rely on the internet to work, attend school, go to the doctor, seek entertainment, and communicate with loved ones.

Unfortunately, New Yorkers do not all have the high-speed internet that would allow us to participate in these necessary elements of our lives. This is a statewide problem; large swaths of rural New York lack the infrastructure to provide affordable broadband to residents—and in New York City, more than 24 percent of New Yorkers do not have a broadband subscription.

Predictably, the digital divide disproportionately affects people who live at the intersection of poverty and structural racism. Forty-five percent of New York City households living below the poverty line do not have broadband internet access. And about 35 percent of Latinx and Black New Yorkers lack broadband internet access. This means that as more of our brick-and-mortar life shifts online, ensuring universal online access is a core racial justice issue. Too many families lack adequate internet access or the devices they need to connect.

The Legislature must work to ensure that all New York households have equitable, affordable access to this critical utility. Access to broadband internet should be a universal right, not a privilege for the few.

Secure Justice for Young People

New York should divest from a punitive education system and invest in the health and wellbeing of all kids. Our public education system too often rewards the privileged, while disregarding and disparaging Black and Brown students and those with greater needs. But education is a right for all New York’s young people, not a privilege.

Promote Solutions Not Suspensions

Lawmakers should: pass the Judith Kaye School Solutions not Suspensions Act to support schools in creating positive, inclusive classrooms.

New York must pass the Judith Kaye School Solutions not Suspensions Act to support schools in creating positive, inclusive classrooms. In New York, students lose hundreds of thousands of days of learning each year because of suspensions, often for normal youthful behavior. Students suspended are disproportionately Black and Latinx and those with disabilities. Across New York State, Black children are two to five times more likely to be suspended than their white classmates. Students who are suspended have higher likelihoods of involvement with the criminal legal system than their peers.

Suspensions limit academic achievement by using education as a reward for good behavior. Students in New York can be suspended for an entire school year, and they are not entitled to continue their regular lessons, homework, or courses during that time. New York is an outlier in allowing students to be removed from school for such long periods.

Instead of suspensions, schools should use positive discipline techniques like conflict resolution, restorative practices, and social-emotional skill building. The Solutions not Suspensions Act will:

• Make suspensions a last resort, not a first response to disciplinary infractions by using practices such as peer-to-peer mediation, counseling, and parent conferences.
• End maximum-length suspension of 180 days (an entire school year) unless otherwise required by federal law.
• Limit the use of suspensions for students in pre-kindergarten through 3rd grade to only the most destructive behavior.
• Mandate that all suspended students receive adequate out-of-school instruction and the opportunity to complete missed credits.
• Require charter schools to follow state education policies regarding discipline.

Ensure Access to Health Care for Young People

Lawmakers should: allow mature young people to consent to their own care. It is imperative that all young people have access to health care when they need it. Timely treatment and preventative care are critical for young people’s health and wellbeing. This care allows them to excel in school and beyond. Most young people involve parents in their health care decisions, and indeed, parent and family support is a primary predictor of a young person’s wellbeing. But not all young people have healthy, safe family relationships. In many cases, and in particular for sensitive care, young people will not seek care if they are required to involve a parent, or if their confidentiality is compromised.

Because New York recognizes the necessity of timely access to health care, the state already permits all young people to consent to certain types of confidential health care and allows certain categories of young people to consent to all types of health care. However, this patchwork of laws leaves some young people without a path to receive needed care.

New York must fill these gaps and support young people in unsafe family relationships by allowing young people to consent to their own care. Importantly, this would only apply to young people who are mature enough to understand the need for, nature of, and foreseeable risks and benefits involved in their care. In order to make young people’s access to health care a reality, New York must also lift the cost and confidentiality barriers that keep this care out of reach for too many.

Deliver Comprehensive Sex Ed

Lawmakers should: pass legislation that requires schools to teach comprehensive sex education.

There is currently no requirement that New York schools provide any sex education.

In the public schools that do offer sex education, curricula are often inaccurate, incomplete, or biased. As a result, many students never receive a single lesson on issues like consent, intimate partner violence, sexual orientation and gender identity, sexual health, or pregnancy.

Without comprehensive sex ed, young people are at risk. Comprehensive sexual health education is a proven tool for building a culture of inclusion and consent and preventing sexual assault and violence. Comprehensive sex ed is also popular policy in New York. 89 percent of likely voters believe it is important to have sex education in middle school, and 98 percent believe it is important to have sex education in high school.

The comprehensive sex education (CSE) legislation would require that public and charter school students receive medically accurate, age-appropriate, and inclusive sex ed. Students who receive comprehensive sex ed are more likely to delay sexual initiation, and when they do become sexually active, they are more likely to engage in risk-reduction behaviors. It is the only tool we have for preventing sexual violence and sexual harassment before they occur. It also helps to create inclusive school communities by showing LGBTQ+ youth that they are not alone and showing their peers that they exist. By requiring comprehensive sex ed in public and charter schools in grades K-12, we can ensure that New York’s youth have access to information to make informed choices about their health and relationships as they move into adulthood.

Protect East Ramapo Students

Lawmakers should: pass comprehensive governance reform for East Ramapo to protect the education rights of tens of thousands of children.

The East Ramapo Central School district is the largest school district in Rockland County, and it educates the highest proportion of English Language Learners and homeless students of any district in the state. The district is also deeply racially segregated, woefully underfunded by local taxpayers, and constantly destabilized by mismanagement and governance disconnected from public school families. Currently, only one in three English Language Learners in East Ramapo will graduate high school. New York must pass comprehensive governance reform for East Ramapo this year to protect the education rights of tens of thousands of children, improve educational outcomes, and appropriately manage taxpayer dollars, ensuring they are used to deliver educational services and not wasted or misspent.

Provide a more equitable, inclusive and transparent process for educational funding for schools on Tribal Nations in New York

Lawmakers should: direct the Division of the Budget to consult tribal nations regarding budget proposals that would impact them.

The Onondaga Nation has had a treaty with the U.S. since the country’s earliest days that requires the state to provide an equal education to Indigenous students living on sovereign land. Unfortunately, the current funding structure fails to achieve that mandate. Critically, Onondaga Nation schools and the other Indigenous schools in New York do not receive funding in the same way as other New York State public schools. They have a different set of rules, barriers, and hurdles to overcome. While nearly every school in New York State is funded through their school district, the three schools on Indigenous Nations must make a direct plea to the New York State Education Department (NYSED) for their funding. Unlike every other public school, there is no funding formula that guarantees Indigenous Nations schools money for capital improvements. Often, this funding request comes with little to no Tribal Nation input. New York must direct the Division of the Budget to consult tribal nations, relevant state agencies, and other stakeholders regarding budget proposals that would impact the state’s tribal nations.

Promote Fairness in College Admissions

Lawmakers should: pass the Fair College Admissions Act to prohibit legacy admissions policies at colleges and universities.

When the U.S. Supreme Court gutted affirmative action in college admissions in 2023, it struck down an important mechanism for ensuring greater diversity in post-secondary schools. Affirmative action was one of our best tools for ensuring that young people of color in New York—who are more likely to be impacted by historical redlining and school segregation—had access to the opportunity and upward mobility provided by a college degree.

This decision, however, left intact meritless admissions practices that disproportionately benefit white and wealthy students, including as legacy preference, which provides preferential treatment in the admission process to applicants related to an alumnus. Eliminating college admissions mechanisms designed to address racial biases and discrimination and increase campus diversity while maintaining ones that will exacerbate racial disparities on campuses represents significant backsliding. New York can resist this backsliding by eliminating legacy preference.

The Fair College Admissions Act would prohibit legacy admissions policies at colleges and universities in New York. This legislation would declare such practices and policies inequitable and discriminatory. This means that any higher education institution in New York that is granted authority to confer degrees by the State Board of Regents would not be allowed to consider an applicant’s relations to an alumnus as a factor in admissions decisions.

Protect Immigrant New Yorkers

A year into a second Trump term, it has become horrifically clear just how far this administration will go in carrying out its mass deportation agenda. U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) has swept through neighborhoods and flooded city streets, detained record numbers of people, and rapidly expanded programs to enlist local law enforcement in its anti-immigrant campaign. Trump and his cronies have created an immigration enforcement regime unlike any in our country’s history, unprecedented in its size, brazenness, and deliberate cruelty.

As lawmakers in Albany return to session, the threat Trump poses to the millions of noncitizens who call New York home is no longer hypothetical. In 2025, Albany failed to pass a single piece of legislation to protect the rights of immigrants. This year, the legislature must act boldly. New York needs to take proactive measures to end complicity in the ICE deportation agenda, guarantee due process for vulnerable noncitizens, and ensure that everyone has access to critical government services regardless of their immigration status.

Create a New York for All

Lawmakers should: pass the New York for All Act to keep New York out of ICE’s cruelty.

Immigration enforcement is the responsibility of the federal government, not state and local authorities. Yet over the past two decades, ICE has built its deportation infrastructure on the backs of local law enforcement, relying on police and sheriffs’ departments to disclose information and unlawfully detain people for civil immigration offenses. This collusion between ICE and local government spreads fear and confusion within immigrant communities and makes New York complicit in tearing people away from their families, livelihoods, and communities.

As ICE terrorizes immigrant communities across the state, New York must firmly establish that it will not conspire with federal immigration enforcement, as many other states and cities have already done. The New York for All Act would follow the lead of California, Washington State, Oregon, and many cities and counties across the country by drawing a sensible line between state and local government and immigration authorities. The bill would prohibit the use of local resources for immigration enforcement, end agreements that make local officers deputies of ICE, and protect New Yorkers’ personal information from improper disclosure.

Ensure Access to Representation

Lawmakers should: pass the Access to Representation Act and the Building Up Immigrant Legal Defense (BUILD) Act to guarantee immigrants facing deportation access to counsel.

For immigrants who have been placed in removal proceedings and are facing the prospect of deportation, losing their case before an immigration judge can mean being uprooted from family and community, or even being put in deadly harm. Unlike criminal proceedings, a person’s functional right to an attorney in immigration court is dependent on their ability to pay for one. This leaves many immigrants in the unfair and dangerous position of navigating an overwhelmingly complex and high-stakes legal process on their own. Though New York has provided funding for immigrant legal services in past years, that funding is not guaranteed year to year, leaving critical access to representation subject to the whims of annual budget cycles. Stable support for immigration legal services is critical at a time when so many new Americans are choosing to make New York their home.

The Access to Representation Act, together with the Building Up Immigrant Legal Defense (BUILD) Act, would create a right to government-funded counsel for immigrants in removal proceedings who are in or have a nexus to New York and ensure that the state invests sufficient resources into creating the infrastructure for a stable immigrant legal defense network. This would ensure that no New Yorker faces the threat of deportation without meaningful representation by guaranteeing the assistance of counsel not only in removal proceedings, but also other legal proceedings critical to a person’s deportation defense.

End Local Support for Immigration Detention

Lawmakers should: pass the Dignity Not Detention Act to prohibit state and local agencies or actors from contracting with ICE to detain immigrants.

Among the cruelest parts of our immigration system is the detention of people for civil immigration violations. Across the country, immigrants who have come to the United States seeking a better life are jailed in county correctional facilities that contract with ICE to fill empty bed space. New York is no exception, and in a second Trump term, the use of county jails to detain people for ICE has multiplied across the state. These detention contracts allow ICE to maintain its massive detention capacity and allow counties to profit off jailing immigrant New Yorkers.

The Dignity Not Detention Act would work together with other immigrants’ rights legislation to curtail the deportation pipeline. It would prohibit state and local agencies or actors from contracting with ICE to detain immigrants, and require those that already have contracts to terminate them.

Bring Justice to the Clemency Process

Lawmakers should: pass the Clemency Justice Act to allow people with an urgent need for clemency to receive an expedited decision on a pardon or commutation.

The power of the executive to grant clemency to people convicted of crimes can be an important tool to mitigate the harsh effects of the criminal legal system, particularly for those facing the prospect of deportation. For immigrants, even low-level convictions can significantly impede their ability to adjust their immigration status or fight deportation. The Clemency Justice Act would allow people with an urgent need for clemency, including pending removal proceedings, to apply and receive an expedited decision on a pardon or commutation. The bill would also bring fairness and transparency to the clemency process by creating guidelines for applications and requiring greater disclosure by the governor on how clemency applications are considered.

Reduce the Harm and Size of Our Criminal Legal System

If locking people up was the best solution for fighting crime, the United States would be the safest country in the world by far. The United States incarcerates more than almost any other country in the world per capita. New York directly contributes to this mass incarceration epidemic—with incarceration rates higher than all but fourteen foreign nations. However, our country’s addiction to mass incarceration does not make us safer. Despite this, there are still calls from reactionary forces to put more and more people behind bars. New York should resist those appeals.

Currently, more than 30,000 people languish in state prisons and more than 16,000 people are incarcerated in New York jails. Discriminatory practices—including policing, prosecution, and sentencing—have created significant racial disparities throughout our legal system, with people of color comprising almost 75 percent of the state prison population and nearly 90 percent of New York City adult arrests.

It is well past time to acknowledge that our criminal legal system targets Black, Indigenous, and Brown people, incarcerates them at disproportionate rates, and treats them as less than human while they are behind bars. We must shrink our state’s incarceration footprint through sentencing reform, decriminalization, diversion, and the adoption of reforms that allow people to more effectively challenge wrongful convictions, as well as parole practices and other mechanisms that allow for early release. We must also protect the rights and dignity of individuals at the time of interrogation, pre-trial, and during any period of incarceration, and reduce the harms exacted by the criminal legal system that trap people in debt and create obstacles to successful re-entry.

Decriminalize Massage Work

Lawmakers should: pass the Massage License Decriminalization Act to remove criminal penalties for the practice of unlicensed massage.

While there are nearly three dozen licensed professions in New York, massage workers are one of the only two professions where unlicensed workers are routinely arrested. Over 90 percent of those arrested are Asian women. Many are non-citizens, who are functionally excluded from obtaining massage licenses due to cost or limited English proficiency. Arrests often involve law enforcement seizing the cash or other personal effects of the workers, and police frequently use the precarity of criminalization to exploit workers. Many massage workers report officers demanding sexual favors in exchange for leniency, though in many instances these workers are arrested on felony or misdemeanor charges anyway.

The Massage License Decriminalization Act removes criminal penalties for the practice of unlicensed massage. This brings massage into parity with other professions, where the criminal law is rarely if ever used. Moreover, it prevents police from seizing the property of workers. The bill does not erase distinctions between licensed and unlicensed massage work or remove noncriminal sanctions, rather, it enables massage workers to live without the fear of criminalization.

Decriminalize the Transmission of STIs

Lawmakers should: repeal the law that criminalizes people with STIs for simply having sex.

New York makes it a crime to have sex if you know you have a sexually transmitted infection (STI). This crime carries no intent requirement and no transmission requirement, and open disclosure to one’s partners is no defense. New York prosecutors have weaponized these statutes to prosecute people living with HIV who have sex.

This is bad public policy. Laws that criminalize people living with HIV/AIDs and STIs discourage people from learning and disclosing their status, ignore science, harm patient relationships with counselors and doctors, and perpetuate stigma. Recognizing these realities, 18 states have amended or repealed their laws criminalizing HIV/AIDS since 2014. New York must join these states by repealing its law that criminalizes people with STIs for simply having sex.

Decriminalize Consensual Sex Work

Lawmakers should: pass Cecilia’s Act for Rights in the Sex Trades (Cecilia’s Act) to remove criminal penalties for the consensual sale of sex between adults.

The enforcement of laws against the sale and purchase of adult, consensual, commercial sex in New York impinges on personal autonomy, polices marginalized communities, and is an ineffective way to combat trafficking.

Sex workers of color and LGBTQ+ sex workers disproportionately experience the harms of criminalization. Indeed, policing operations focus on neighborhoods and communities where sex workers are often living on the margins, or which are stereotyped as having a large sex worker population. Approximately 90 percent of those arrested are Black or Brown. Arrests are often violent, and police use charges or the threat of charges to coerce sexual favors and to denigrate sex workers.

Further, because sex work is considered a “crime involving moral turpitude,” a conviction can make someone deportable, or make it difficult for sex workers or those profiled as sex workers to adjust their immigration status. Criminalization pushes sex work deeper into the shadows, which makes it more difficult for sex workers to screen clients and employ harm reduction strategies. There is also increasing consensus that criminalization exacerbates the factors that cause trafficking and prevents sex workers and trafficking survivors alike from seeking assistance.

Cecilia’s Act for Rights in the Sex Trades (Cecilia’s Act) removes criminal penalties for the consensual sale of sex between adults; it does not remove penalties from trafficking laws that criminalize coercion or force. Further, the bill vacates prior sex work related convictions, which can prevent people from securing employment, housing, child care, or immigration relief. The inability to access these necessities can make someone more economically dependent on sex work, even if they would like to leave the profession.

Cecilia’s Act decriminalization model is recognized by leading scientists, researchers, harm reduction organizations, Amnesty International, and many sex-worker led organizations as the best way to reduce violence, STI transmission, and coercion from police, and to empower sex workers.

Embrace Harm Reduction for People Who Use Drugs

Lawmakers should: pass legislation that decriminalizes low-level drug possession and establishes a safe harbor against prosecution for life-saving drug checking services.

The war on drugs has been raging for more than half a century and we have nothing to show for it other than the devastation it has caused in our communities, especially communities of color. Rather than taking a public health approach that addresses the negative consequences of drug use, the United States has wasted a trillion dollars on policies that have targeted and criminalized communities of color while needlessly swelling jail and prison populations.

Every 25 seconds in the U.S., someone is arrested for the mere act of possessing drugs for personal use. And even though rates of use are similar across racial lines, Black New Yorkers are more than five times as likely as their white neighbors to be arrested on a possession charge. The stigma of a drug arrest can make it harder for people to find work, secure stable housing, maintain custody of their children, or remain in the country. We cannot arrest our way out of the public health crisis posed by opioid addiction—and we cannot fully respond to the true scale of unmet public health needs if the only thing we have to offer people who use drugs is a criminal conviction.

It is time to end New York’s role in the failed, racist war on drugs and to instead embrace an evidence-based public health approach to drug possession and use. This means passing legislation that ends the criminalization of life-saving medication like buprenorphine, decriminalizes low-level drug possession, and that establishes a safe harbor against prosecution for life-saving drug checking services. Nobody’s life should be destroyed forever because of drug laws.

Support Overdose Prevention Centers

Lawmakers should: pass the Safer Consumption Services Act (SCSA) to allow the State Department of Health and local health departments to authorize and regulate Overdose Prevention Centers in communities across the state.

The opioid crisis has had a devastating impact across the United States and here in New York. Epidemic levels of opioid use disorder and overdose deaths have overwhelmed communities. Deaths from drug-related overdoses have reached record-high levels in recent years, hitting Black and Latinx communities the hardest. In 2021, New York City became the first jurisdiction in the United States to adopt a proven harm reduction tool that prevents overdose deaths and increases access to drug treatment and preventative health care. It opened two overdose prevention centers (OPCs). OPCs offer evidence-based harm reduction services by allowing people to use pre-obtained drugs in a clean setting under medical supervision, where staff can intervene to treat and reverse overdoses or other medical complications.

While New York City now operates the first and only OPCs in the nation, OPCs have a long and consistent record of success around the world. In more than 30 years, no one has died of a drug overdose at any of the more than 100 OPCs operating in over 60 cities worldwide. New York’s OPCs have already successfully reversed hundreds of overdoses that could have otherwise resulted in death.

New York can build on these successes and prevent even more deaths statewide by enacting the Safer Consumption Services Act (SCSA). The SCSA would allow the State Department of Health and local health departments to authorize and regulate OPCs in communities across the state. By doing so, New Yorkers will have access to these facilities’ life-saving interventions and their ability to provide connections to other medical, educational, and social services. OPCs offer a critical, evidence-based tool for saving lives and reversing the upward trend of overdose deaths in New York.

Provide Youth a Right to Counsel in Interrogations

Lawmakers should: pass legislation that requires that a child under the age of 18 speak with an attorney in person, by phone, or by video before any police questioning.

When questioned by law enforcement, young people are biologically more likely to tell law enforcement officers what they think that officer wants to hear in order to end a stressful encounter. This is the case whether what they’re saying is true or not. The youth interrogation bill requires that a child under the age of 18 speak with an attorney in person, by phone, or by video before any police questioning. This will provide children a better understanding of their rights, allowing them to make informed choices about whether or not to speak with police officers before being placed in more coercive environments.

Ensure Due Process in Protective Orders

Lawmakers should: pass the Promoting Pre-Trial Stability (PromPT Stability) Act to codify uniform rules around protective orders, standardize notice and protections for those seeking the orders, and ensure New Yorkers subject to these orders have an opportunity to be heard promptly.

During New York Criminal Court arraignment—the first appearance in a case—judges issue full temporary orders of protection (TOPs) as a matter of course on nearly every case where there is a complainant. Judges issue these orders when they have very little information about a case, and these orders frequently exclude people from their homes or jobs. This has immense consequences for the most marginalized New Yorkers, including young people, non-citizens, LGBTQ+ people, and other people with limited resources. Survivors of violence, particularly Black and Brown women and LGBTQ+ people, are often criminalized for defending themselves. While a 2021 appellate court decision requires courts to hold a hearing to determine whether these orders are proper, this practice has been inconsistent throughout the state. Unlike most other states and the District of Columbia, New York does not have a codified process for accused persons or protected parties when these orders are issued.

To correct this inequity, the Legislature must pass the Promoting Pre-Trial Stability (PromPT Stability) Act without delay. This bill will codify uniform rules throughout the state, standardize notice and protections for those seeking the orders, and ensure New Yorkers subject to these orders have an opportunity to be heard promptly after they are separated from their homes, employment, or families. At the hearing, judges would have complete discretion to maintain the TOP, vacate it, or modify it to make it limited, such as by allowing some contact between the parties while making it clear that harassment, threats, or illegal interactions will result in additional criminal penalties.

This bill would permit judges to respond to the unique needs of the parties, including the protected party, and it will enable judges to make decisions as to the propriety of TOPs based on more complete information than they have at arraignment. Importantly, those filing for protective orders would be entitled to notice of these hearings, but the bill does not require them to appear or testify.

Unnecessary TOPs do not make New Yorkers safer. Rather, they destabilize some of the most marginalized people by making housing, employment, and education even more difficult to keep or obtain.

Stop Punishing Poverty

Lawmakers should: pass the End Predatory Court Fees Act, which would eliminate a range of mandatory surcharges tied to criminal convictions and registries.

Across New York, Black and Brown New Yorkers who are targeted by the criminal legal system for arrest and incarceration endure an additional burden: predatory fees that attach to every conviction and traffic ticket, including the most minor offenses. Many people do not have the money to pay a court fee or fine that can cost hundreds of dollars in one lump sum. For these New Yorkers, missing a court payment can lead to steeper consequences, including having an arrest warrant issued or being incarcerated.

Civil rights investigations have exposed how local governments raise their revenue off the backs of poor and over-criminalized residents through a myriad of fines and fees. Yet while many places across the country have moved to reduce or eliminate what are essentially taxes on poverty, New York State continues to rely on these regressive fines and fees as a source of revenue. These practices overwhelmingly target Black and Brown New Yorkers, exacerbate economic inequality, and keep people trapped in debt and in the grip of the criminal legal system.

Lawmakers must pass the End Predatory Court Fees Act, which would eliminate a range of mandatory surcharges tied to criminal convictions and registries, mandate fair and reasonable payment schedules for fines, and vacate existing warrants and sentences of incarceration for the failure to pay fines or fees.

Give Youthful Defendants a Chance to Rehabilitate

Lawmakers should: pass the Youth Justice and Opportunities (YJ&O) Act to let young people re-enter society without the black mark of a permanent conviction.

Over two decades of neurological research shows that most young people’s minds are still developing into their late twenties. One of the last areas of the brain to completely develop is the prefrontal cortex, which is responsible for decision-making and impulse control. However, our criminal legal system does not currently recognize this reality.

The Youth Justice and Opportunities (YJ&O) Act recognizes these basic biological realities and lets young people re-enter society without the black mark of a permanent conviction. It recognizes that criminal convictions can have a debilitating, life-long impact on young people as they begin to establish themselves.

The YJ&O Act enables more young people to replace criminal convictions with youthful offender or young adult adjudications. These adjudications carry a maximum sentence of four years, do not create permanent criminal records like convictions do, and allow judges to consider alternatives to incarceration—such as treatment and rehabilitative programs. The YJ&O Act would give judges discretion to consider any criminal defendant up to 25 years old for adjudication instead of conviction. Whether to grant these adjudications is in the sentencing judge’s discretion, based on the facts and circumstances of the individual before them, and the facts of the underlying case.

Invest in Young People’s Futures

Lawmakers should: guarantee that at least twenty percent of each year’s Raise the Age funding goes to community-based organizations to provide programming to those ages 12 through 25 years old.

Young people deserve to be treated as young people, with the support and services that allow them to grow and thrive. New York closed a terrible chapter when the legislature enacted Raise the Age in 2017, which moved the age of presumptive adult criminal responsibility to 18. Before this, New York was one of the last two states (along with North Carolina) to charge all 16- and 17-year-olds as adults.

Raise the Age has successfully prevented many young people from being ensnared in the adult criminal legal system while promoting lasting public safety. Statewide, there has been more than a sixty percent drop in youth arrests while serious crimes have declined by at least fifty percent. In New York City, young people account for less violence than they did a decade ago.

Raise the Age could improve the lives of many more youth if New York finally delivered on its promise to fund alternative to incarceration and reentry programs. So far, only a third of the funds appropriated for Raise the Age have been spent. New York City has not received any funding. Of the funding that has been distributed, a majority has gone to detention, placement, and law enforcement—not preventive or rehabilitative programs. New York must invest more, not less, in community-based approaches to youth accountability. The state can create safer communities by guaranteeing that at least twenty percent of each year’s Raise the Age funding goes to community-based organizations to provide programming to those ages 12 through 25 years old.

Increase New Yorkers’ Ability to Challenge Wrongful Convictions

Lawmakers should: pass the Challenging Wrongful Convictions Act to allow a conviction to be challenged when there is credible, new, non-DNA evidence of a wrongful conviction.

In New York and across the country, many innocent people plead guilty because they are coerced, do not think they can win at trial, or face incredibly harsh penalties if they elect to go to trial. This is borne out in the facts: in the last several decades, more than 350 New Yorkers have been exonerated—the third-most of any state—and, according to data from The National Registry of Exonerations, over eight percent of those exonerated had pled guilty. Despite this fact, New York currently allows New Yorkers who plead guilty to challenge their conviction only if new DNA-related evidence is uncovered.

The Challenging Wrongful Convictions Act recognizes that principles of justice and our basic humanity require that those who are wrongfully convicted be granted an opportunity to clear their name. This bill allows a conviction to be challenged when there is credible, new, non-DNA evidence of a wrongful conviction, such as an expert backtracking on their testimony or a technological advancement that calls into question a prior piece of evidence. It would also provide a right to counsel for those with wrongful conviction claims. Presently, New York is one of just five states in the U.S. that does not provide indigent people a right to an attorney in post-conviction cases, trailing states like Texas and Alabama.

Overhaul New York’s Sentencing Laws

Unnecessarily long prison sentences do not enhance community safety—they destabilize communities. We must work to overhaul New York’s cruel, unnecessary, and counterproductive sentencing regime by eliminating mandatory minimum sentences, giving people a chance to have excessive sentences reviewed for reconsideration, and funding and rewarding programs for incarcerated people that support re-entry into their communities.

Eliminate Mandatory Minimums

Lawmakers should: pass the Marvin Mayfield Act to end mandatory two- and three-strike sentencing laws, mandatory consecutive sentencing, and plea restrictions.

Mandatory minimums—or minimum sentences that judges are required to impose by law—are perhaps the biggest catalyst to New York’s over-incarceration epidemic. These laws were passed during the 1970’s Rockefeller Drug Era, when tough-on-crime rhetoric was coupled with racist fearmongering to justify harsher prison sentences.

Mandatory minimums coerce people into agreeing to unfair plea deals and result in unduly harsh prison sentences. Further, New York’s two- and three-strike laws devastate Black, Brown, and low-income communities by requiring excessive or lifelong sentences, even when the initial offense was committed when the individual was young.

The Marvin Mayfield Act would end mandatory two- and three-strike sentencing laws, mandatory consecutive sentencing, and plea restrictions, all of which enable prosecutors to coerce accused people to give up their constitutional right to trial because they are scared of receiving a harsher sentence. Importantly, the bill creates a presumption against incarceration, which requires judges to consider mitigating factors and rehabilitative alternatives to incarceration before sentencing someone to prison.

Give Sentencing a Second Look

Lawmakers should: pass the Second Look Act, which would afford incarcerated people the right to receive a resentencing hearing after serving either ten years or half of their sentence.

Thousands of incarcerated New Yorkers are serving sentences of ten years or longer. While the past several decades have made clear the urgency of our mass incarceration crisis, there are no formal structures for those serving long sentences to petition courts to reduce or reconsider their sentences.

The Second Look Act would afford incarcerated people the right to receive a resentencing hearing after serving either ten years or half of their sentence, where they would have the right to an attorney, and where any intervening update to the sentencing laws can be considered. Rather than solely looking at the underlying offense that led to a person’s incarceration, judges will also consider post-sentencing rehabilitation and other mitigating factors. Moreover, the bill creates a presumption that sentences should be reduced for those who were under 25 or over 55 at the time the offense was committed. This provision recognizes the unique health burden prison places on older people, and the evidence that young people continue to develop impulse control and decision-making skills into their mid-20s.

Provide People Meaningful Opportunities to Earn Good and Merit Time Credit

Lawmakers should: pass the Earned Time Act to allow all incarcerated people to earn “good time” and “merit time” credits that provide time off sentences for successful participation in rehabilitative services, educational programming, or work release.

As New York enacted more punitive sentencing laws over the past decades, the state also divested from programming in prisons. Not only did this programming enable incarcerated people to earn time off their sentences for successful participation, but it also provided incarcerated people with skills and services they could use to successfully re-enter society at the end of their sentence.

The Earned Time Act would allow all incarcerated people to earn “good time” and “merit time” credits that provide time off sentences for successful participation in offerings like rehabilitative services, educational programming, or work release. Importantly, the bill includes a presumption that each incarcerated person is entitled to earn these credits, which will incentivize prisons to offer programs if they do not currently offer them. Participation in programming is a powerful way to incentivize prosocial behavior for incarcerated people and to aid in successful rehabilitation and re-entry into the community.

Reform New York’s Parole System

The New York Parole Board has the authority to release people before the end of their sentences if they demonstrate rehabilitation, but the number of people granted parole by the board has decreased in recent years. We must revisit our parole practices and policies to ensure people are provided with meaningful opportunities for release.

Provide Parole for Older People

Lawmakers should: pass the Elder Parole Bill to ensure every person 55 and older who has served 15 consecutive years or more is considered for release by the parole board.

Decades of draconian prison sentences during the so-called wars on drugs have increased the number of elderly people in prison. Few are brought before the parole board to be considered for release, despite the fact that most will not reoffend. Instead, they remain behind bars, with limited access to health care as they age.

New York should pass the Elder Parole Bill so that older people in prison have a chance to be free. The Elder Parole Bill will ensure that every person 55 and older who has served 15 consecutive years or more is considered for release by the parole board. It will also create a pathway to allow older people in prison an opportunity to demonstrate that they are ready to be released back in their community.

Research shows that prison speeds up a person’s aging: A person in prison who is 55 years old has a health profile that is more like someone who is 65, or even older. Giving older people a chance to come home to their families after years in prison can give them more time to acclimate to society and be with the people they love. It will also help reduce the high cost to taxpayers of keeping older people in prison.

Create a More Just Parole System

Lawmakers should: pass the Fair and Timely Parole Bill to ensure that parole decisions are based on evidence that a person has been rehabilitated and their current risk to public safety

Our criminal system should not be centered on vengeance. Parole should be granted based on who a person is when they come before the parole board, not on the crimes they have committed.

The Fair and Timely Parole Bill would ensure that parole decisions are based on evidence that a person has been rehabilitated and their current risk to public safety. The bill could make up to 12,000 people eligible for consideration for release.

End New York’s Unjust Prison Labor System

People incarcerated in New York State are often forced to work in unsafe conditions, in jobs that do not set them up for successful re-entry into the workforce upon release. Refusal to work can result in serious repercussions, including the loss of family visits, time in solitary, and extended periods of incarceration.

In addition, workers who are incarcerated are paid only pennies on the dollar. There has not been a raise in the wages for incarcerated workers since the early 1990s, while the costs associated with incarceration—like the prices of basic goods from commissary—have skyrocketed. Families, who may have already lost one of their primary wage-earners and are living paycheck-to-paycheck, often struggle to make ends meet while supporting their incarcerated loved ones. Further, the current system prevents individuals from amassing savings during incarceration and provides only $40 upon release to help people cover immediate expenses and reintegrate into their communities. It is far past time to reform the system of forced labor in New York’s carceral institutions.

Abolish Slavery and End Forced Labor in New York Carceral Institutions

Lawmakers should: pass the No Slavery in New York Act, which would establish that no one in our state can be compelled to provide labor against their will.

The modern-day system of forced prison labor was created in New York State. For 150 years, New York has been dependent on the exploitation of incarcerated people—disproportionately Black, Brown, and Indigenous—forcing people to work for 10 to 65 cents an hour, sometimes in unsafe conditions, under threat of punishment like solitary confinement, delayed parole, or the revocation of family visits.

The No Slavery in New York Act is simple and straightforward. It would establish that no one in our state would be compelled to provide labor against their will, and it would prohibit people from being punished or threatened with punishment for refusing to work.

Increase the Wage of Incarcerated Workers and Establish a Cap on Commissary Costs

Lawmakers should: pass measures that increase income for incarcerated workers, and reduce the costs of commissary items.

The wages of incarcerated workers have been stagnant since 1993, while the costs of goods in commissary have seen steep increases. While the prices of goods in the U.S. increased almost 12 percent in 2022, people in New York prisons saw increases of between 39 to 333 percent, with the median increase of basic staples increasing by about 71 percent. It is essential that the legislature pass measures that increase income for incarcerated workers, and make the dollar stretch further by reducing the costs of commissary items.

Provide Labor Protections and Job Opportunities for Incarcerated Workers

Lawmakers should: pass the Fairness and Opportunity for Incarcerated Workers Act to provide incarcerated workers labor and health protections.

Instead of providing opportunities for rehabilitation and pathways for employment post-release, the Department of Corrections and Community Supervision (DOCCS) uses the labor of incarcerated workers for cost savings and profits. The most flagrant use of prison labor, however, is a multi-million-dollar state revenue source, now a permanent fixture of the state budget. Every year, Corcraft, a corporation run by DOCCS that is staffed by incarcerated workers, earns over $65 million for the state by producing items like furniture for New York’s public schools and universities, city garbage cans, eyeglasses worn by New Yorkers receiving Medicaid, and license plates.

The widespread and largely invisible use of prison labor sustains an immoral system founded on the denial of incarcerated New Yorkers’ basic humanity. The Fairness and Opportunity for Incarcerated Workers Act will end this manifestation of modern-day slavery in New York for good by providing incarcerated workers labor and health protections and creating a prison labor board staffed by multiple agencies and individuals—including people who are incarcerated or formerly incarcerated and re-entry professionals—to ensure that people are provided meaningful employment opportunities that support successful re-entry upon release.

Increase Gate Money

Lawmakers should: increase the amount provided for gate money by both raising the amount provided upon release and giving them continued support for at least six months.

New Yorkers are provided only $40 (known as “gate money”)—along with a ticket for public transportation—upon release from prison to help them cover basic necessities. This meager sum, found inadequate by a court over 50 years ago, simply does not set people up for success upon release. The legislature must increase the amount provided for gate money by both raising the amount provided upon release and providing continued support to individuals for at least six months.

Reduce the Harm Inflicted on Incarcerated People

Lawmakers should: pass the Rights Behind Bars bill to clarify the HALT Act. New York prisons have long been sites of abuse, violence, and neglect.

In recent years, corrections officers have brutally killed prisoners, and flagrantly and systematically violated the Humane Alternatives to Long Term Solitary Confinement (HALT) Act. Passed in 2021, the HALT Act prohibits prison officials from sending people who are young, elderly, pregnant, or have serious mental illness or disabilities to solitary. It also bars prisons from putting people in solitary for more than 15 consecutive days, except in limited circumstances.

The Rights Behind Bars bill would clarify the HALT Act by, for example, expounding on what constitutes a disability. It would also reduce violence by requiring that staff use de-escalation techniques and employ force only as a last resort and to the minimum extent necessary. Rights Behind Bars would also reduce the harm that the criminal legal system inflicts on both incarcerated people and their loved ones by capping visitation wait times at one hour and allowing care packages to be provided at a less prohibitive price.

Stop Abusive Policing

New York must fundamentally transform the role of policing in our state. The Legislature has an opportunity to present a bold new vision for community safety that starts with removing police as the default solution to address mental health needs, housing and food insecurity, and school safety and discipline. That vision must include moving beyond reforms that simply reinforce the role of police officers in the daily lives of Black and Brown communities and people experiencing poverty. It must also include creating stronger mechanisms for the public to identify abusive officers and hold them to account when they engage in misconduct. New York should stop relying on police as mental health responders, end no-knock raids and pretextual stops, ensure that police disciplinary proceedings are transparent and independent, restrict police access to military equipment, and ban rogue DNA databases.

Help People in Crisis

Lawmakers should: pass Daniel’s Law to ensure that professionals and peers who have experience with mental health, drug use, and disability set the rules for responding to a mental health crisis.

We must end our over-reliance on police as first responders in every crisis. In March 2020, Daniel Prude was experiencing an acute mental health crisis when his family called 911 for help. He was naked in the street and posed no risk to any other person. Yet, Rochester Police responded in large numbers, handcuffed him, placed a hood over his head, and held him face down on the cold pavement until he stopped breathing. Daniel Prude was a man experiencing an obvious mental health crisis, and he deserved care and dignity—but he was denied both.

Studies show that up to half of people who become victims of police violence have a disability, and the overwhelming majority of those people have a mental health disability. Tragically, for many New Yorkers, 911 has become the only option for people looking for mental health crisis intervention. Police often arrive at the scene armed with deadly weapons, a lack of mental health training, and an inability to deescalate the personal crises they are so often assigned to handle.

We need policy change that shifts our whole vision of how our community responds to people in crisis. This starts by treating mental health and substance use as public health issues—not public safety issues for the police. Daniel’s Law would ensure that professionals who have experience with mental health, drug use, and disability set the rules for responding to a mental health crisis. These experts would run regional and state councils that develop training and rules for all calls to dispatch, and all responses to mental health emergencies. The law would ensure that responses to people in mental health crises are driven by evidence-based practices, and that trained mental health professionals—not police—are the first to respond to New Yorkers experiencing a mental health crisis. This approach is supported by the findings of the Daniel’s Law Task Force, which was established in 2023 to examine crisis response models and whose December 2024 report called for prioritizing a health-led, non-police response for people in crisis.

When our friends, neighbors, or community members are experiencing a mental health crisis, they deserve to be treated with compassion, care, and understanding—not cops and the threat of jail. With Daniel’s Law, the Legislature holds the possibility for real community safety that starts with removing police as the default solution.

End No-Knock Raids

Lawmakers should: pass legislation that ends no-knock raids for drug and property offenses.

No-knock and quick-knock warrants and raids have severe and deadly consequences for communities targeted for aggressive over-policing. It is time for these raids to end. Lawmakers must pass legislation ending no-knock raids for drug and property offenses and demilitarizing warrant executions altogether. The Legislature must also end the practice of police departments and municipal governments profiting from seizing people’s property during these searches and arrests by putting a stop to civil asset forfeiture.

End Pretext Stops

Lawmakers should: pass legislation that creates a category of non-safety related infractions that cannot serve as the sole basis for stopping a vehicle.

Any police encounter involves the potential for escalation and tragedy. This is even more true for people of color, who face police stops and use of force at disproportionate rates. Many of these encounters are entirely needless and do nothing to advance public safety, serving only as an excuse for otherwise unlawful searches and harassment. One example are pretext stops, where an officer pulls someone over for any number of minor traffic infractions as a pretext to engage in a criminal law investigation. The officer in these situations otherwise lacks a legal basis for stopping someone (e.g., pulling over a diver for having something hanging from their rearview mirror as a pretext for searching the car for drugs). More than just being an end-run around probable cause, these stops often serve as cover for officers to engage in racial profiling. And critically, these stops do not make New Yorkers safer. Lawmakers must put an end to the use of pretext stops in New York by passing legislation that creates a category of non-safety related infractions that cannot serve as the sole basis for stopping a vehicle. This will sharply reduce the number of unnecessary and bad-faith encounters and close off a key avenue for racial profiling in police encounters.

End Police Transparency Excuses

Lawmakers should: enact measures to ensure that the repeal of 50-a is fully implemented.

In June 2020, state lawmakers took a historic step to end the regime of secrecy that had kept police discipline and misconduct records hidden from the public. For over 40 years, police departments had used Civil Rights Law Section 50-a to conceal critical information on whether and how officers were held accountable for misconduct. 50-a became the go-to excuse for hiding everything from complaint histories of officers who killed New Yorkers to basic data on use-of-force incidents to footage from body-worn cameras. That came to an end in 2020 when lawmakers fully repealed section 50-a and made it clear that the public is entitled to all police discipline and misconduct records. Unfortunately, police departments across the state are continuing to resist full transparency, with many departments refusing to turn over records of misconduct allegations where the department itself did not ultimately impose discipline on the officer, claiming that records are still secret under police union contracts, and even arguing that records that were created prior to the repeal of 50-a get to remain secret in perpetuity.

The Legislature cannot let its historic repeal of 50-a be undermined by the same forces who have always resisted any measure of police transparency and accountability. New York must enact measures to ensure that the repeal of 50-a is fully implemented in practice. Lawmakers can put an end to the bad-faith excuses from police departments and police unions and guarantee that the full universe of police misconduct and disciplinary records be made public under the state’s Freedom of Information Law. And they should also pass legislation to require the creation and maintenance of a centralized, statewide database, where summary information on law enforcement misconduct and disciplinary records are published and made freely accessible. This would remove the burden of filing and fighting long and costly FOIL requests from everyday New Yorkers.

Ensure Independent Police Discipline

Lawmakers should: repeal Chapter 834 as a necessary step toward challenging police abuse.

For too long, police departments in New York have fought for the power to hide their misconduct, avoid accountability, and act with impunity. Some state laws give police leadership near total control over all discipline and misconduct proceedings, including Chapter 834 of the Laws of 1940, which prohibits local governments from appointing impartial judges to preside over police disciplinary cases.

In New York City, independent judges preside over disciplinary trials for all public employees except for NYPD officers. When an NYPD officer is accused of misconduct, the NYPD controls the entire process. Police department employees act as judges, hearings take place in police headquarters, and police departments set their own rules. Because of Chapter 834, these proceedings cannot happen anywhere else.

We have seen repeatedly that police departments are incapable of policing themselves. New York must empower localities to independently administer police disciplinary proceedings. While much more work will still be needed, repealing Chapter 834 is a necessary step toward challenging police abuse.

End Militarized Policing

Lawmakers should: advance measures to eliminate law enforcement access to military weapons and armored vehicles, to restrict police use of drones, and to restrict the use of chemical and acoustic weapons.

Americans have a First Amendment right to engage in peaceful mass protest. But across New York, protesters are too often met with a heavily militarized police response, including military weapons obtained through the federal government. These weapons are extremely dangerous. They include tear gas and indiscriminate pepper spray, and acoustic weapons like long-range acoustic devices (LRADs), which can cause pain and hearing damage, including the potential for permanent hearing loss. These weapons of war have no place in New York and no business being used to target and suppress protest. Lawmakers must shore up basic First Amendment guarantees by codifying affirmative protections for protesters. Lawmakers should advance measures to eliminate law enforcement access to military weapons and armored vehicles, to restrict police use of drones, and to restrict the use of chemical and acoustic weapons and crowd-control munitions.

End Rogue DNA Databases

Lawmakers should: ban the NYPD’s DNA database and make clear that state law governs all genetic information held by the government.

The government’s collection of DNA implicates New Yorkers’ ownership of private and sensitive information—our own genetic code. For good reason, New York law mandates a comprehensive and exclusive set of rules governing testing and data-banking of DNA samples. This existing law balances the rights of individuals and the interests of law enforcement and contains clear provisions designed to limit abuse of our genetic material.

Yet, New York City has developed a sprawling and unregulated DNA database that flouts the state law. There are no privacy protections for individuals whose genetic information is contained in the database, and the database exists without any independent oversight. Reports suggest that the NYPD’s methods of collecting samples for this database have been secretive, racially discriminatory, and have targeted children. The city is now in unregulated possession of the genetic material of people who have never been convicted of, charged with, or even suspected of a crime. The Legislature must act to ban this rogue database, order its data destroyed, and make it clear that state law governs all genetic information held by the government.

Safeguard Digital Privacy and Personal Autonomy

New York should protect our personal information, protect workers from surveillance and the use of discriminatory algorithms, ban biometric surveillance, and update our warrant protections to be in line with technological advancements.

New and invasive technology can pose a serious risk to our civil rights and civil liberties. Companies surreptitiously harvest our personal data for profit. Facial recognition and other biometric technologies collect physically identifiable information in secret. Algorithms used by government agencies foster discrimination while promising neutrality. And law enforcement can access our private digital communications without a judge’s approval.

New Yorkers’ civil rights should extend fully to the digital world. This means ensuring algorithms do not undermine anti-discrimination laws, guaranteeing meaningful access to and control of our personal data, banning biometric surveillance technologies, requiring tailored warrants to access our online communications and data, and providing equitable and safe technology access to those in most need.

Protect Our Personal Information Online

Lawmakers should: pass the Digital Fairness Act to require businesses to maintain our personal information securely and use it only as we intend.

It is no longer possible to participate in society without providing personal information to private companies and other entities that can reveal the most intimate details of our lives. And as other states, and now the federal government, move to ban abortion and gender-affirming care—and to use personal information that private companies harvest to prosecute people for seeking, providing, or helping others to obtain that care—the stakes have gotten higher. People often do not know or consent to the ways that companies collect, use, retain, share, and monetize our personal information. And when we try to exert control, we wind up mired in the inscrutable fine print of privacy policies and user agreements.

The consequences of privacy abuses can be profound. Precisely-targeted pricing, advertising, and other automated decision tools are used to exclude people of color, women, and older individuals from housing, credit, and employment opportunities in ways that would be unthinkable in the offline world. Government agencies increasingly turn to automated decision systems to determine everything from teacher evaluations and child custody to sentencing, probation, parole, and more. Computer-generated decisions have the veneer of objectivity, but these systems are built on human inputs, and they produce biased results. These technologies all too often replicate and amplify harm towards people who already face bias and discrimination.

New York needs comprehensive privacy protections that show us—and let us control—when our personal information is collected, how it is used, and where it goes. The Digital Fairness Act would do exactly that by building on existing law to require businesses to maintain our personal information securely and use it only as we intend, place needed safeguards on the use of our most intimate biometric data, and ensure that anti-discrimination rules apply fully to the digital world.

Empower Workers Against Workplace Surveillance and Discriminatory Algorithms

Lawmakers should: pass the Bossware and Oppressive Technology (BOT) Act to empower workers against exploitative surveillance and prohibit the use of discriminatory algorithms in hiring.

Worker surveillance and the use of artificial intelligence in hiring have been allowed to run rampant for far too long. Biased, ineffective, or unfair hiring tools are deciding who gets employed. And invasive electronic monitoring systems are used to track workers’ every move and interaction, enforce unrealistic and inhumane quotas, or penalize workers for taking breaks.

New York must pass the Bossware and Oppressive Technology (BOT) Act to empower workers against exploitative surveillance, prohibit the use of discriminatory algorithms in hiring, and make New York a leader in setting labor protections for the digital age.

Ban Biometric Surveillance

Lawmakers should: pass a ban on biometric surveillance by government agencies.

In recent years, New York has seen a rise in the use of biometric recognition technologies—like face, voice, and gait recognition—by police, in housing, in transit, and in places of public accommodation. In 2020, the Legislature recognized the threat that biometric surveillance poses to our children, and rightly placed a moratorium on its use in New York schools. It is time to extend these protections to other areas where people’s basic needs and livelihoods are at risk. Biometric surveillance presents an unprecedented threat to our privacy and civil liberties, aiming to track who we are, where we go, and who we meet. Yet, despite its invasive nature, biometric technologies are notoriously inaccurate and racially biased. Numerous studies have shown that face surveillance technologies are particularly inaccurate for women and people of color. In addition, many biometric technologies rely on the remote monitoring and collection of your personal biological characteristics without your consent or knowledge. Unlike a password or credit card number, this information cannot be changed if it is compromised or stolen.

Lawmakers must pass a ban on biometric surveillance by government agencies, in particular by law enforcement, and in other areas where our fundamental rights are at stake, such as in housing and public accommodation.

Protect Against Warrant Overreach

Lawmakers should: require law enforcement to obtain a search warrant before they can physically or electronically access digital information.

Warrants are a central tool for law enforcement investigations, but they need to be narrowly targeted, specific, and based on probable cause. Dragnet warrants, which are often based on overly broad factors like search engine keywords or location, do not meet this baseline standard and harm the privacy and safety of countless people who happen to meet the stated criteria. Broad warrant requests could place hundreds or thousands of unsuspecting and innocent people in the crosshairs of law enforcement, potentially violating their Fourth Amendment rights. As technology providers and data brokers capture ever-more detailed data trails, dragnet warrants must be banned.

Furthermore, New York’s warrant protections remain woefully outdated: Law enforcement has long been taking advantage of inadequate privacy laws to turn mobile phones into tracking devices and to access emails, documents, and text messages without proper judicial oversight. The Legislature must require law enforcement to obtain a search warrant before it can physically or electronically access digital information.

Advance Reproductive, Gender, and Family Justice

This moment in history is an inflection point that calls on feminist and LGBTQ+ movements to show up with force. Black, Brown, or white, Native or newcomer, transgender or not, we all deserve the freedom to be ourselves and pursue our dreams. But without the protections of Roe v. Wade, the Trump administration and its backers pose an existential threat to abortion access, reproductive freedom, and the rights of LGBTQ+ people, women, and families. They seek to deny us the health care we need, divide us by race and gender, and even decide who we can be.

New York must lead as a beacon for reproductive freedom and trans justice. And while abortion access is critical, it is just one piece of a whole. Caregivers and pregnant people, women and families, LGBTQ+ people, and those at the intersection of gender, race and class discrimination, need us to do more. This moment demands a comprehensive commitment to equity, autonomy, accountability, community, and caregiving. From child care to abortion access to gender-affirming care, these policies respond to the attacks our communities face and lay the groundwork for the transformation necessary to heal from the wounds inflicted by our violent history and form a society that supports inclusive, lasting gender justice.

Protect Family Rights in Child Protection Investigations

Lawmakers should: pass legislation requiring child protective workers to give parents notice of their rights when they initially investigate families.

Real reproductive justice, as envisioned by the Black women and movement leaders who coined that term, demands that families be supported to thrive together in safe and sustainable communities. Yet, particularly in Black and Brown communities, child protective services plays a intrusive and harmful role, surveilling families’ personal lives and separating children from their parents. This system of family regulation—often referred to as “the new Jane Crow” because of its parallels with policing and the criminal legal system—has deep roots in legacies of slavery, under which enslaved Black women were forcibly denied the right to parent their children. The echoes of this history live today in the racist stereotypes that permeate the family regulation system, informing and controlling who is and is not considered deserving of parenthood.

Families of color are disproportionately reported, investigated, and brought to court over allegations of child neglect—often for dubious reasons that have more to do with poverty than maltreatment. A knock on the door from a child protective investigator can lead to a parent’s children being taken away for months—if not years.

Despite these high stakes, parents are not entitled to a “Miranda warning” like they would receive in the criminal context. Many parents are therefore confused about their rights in such situations and are coaxed into making statements or agreements against their own interest.

The Legislature must pass legislation requiring child protective workers to give parents notice of their rights when they initially investigate families, including the right not to make statements or sign releases and to consult with an attorney. New York should also ensure that all parents have access to legal representation during a child protective investigation. Access to a lawyer has been shown to dramatically reduce the likelihood that a case will be filed in family court and it also lessens the chance that families will be separated.

Increase Awareness of Lead Dangers in Homes

Lawmakers should: pass legislation that requires public water systems to replace lead service lines, as well as legislation that requires municipalities to provide tenants with notice and information in the event of a positive lead test.

Across the state, parents living in lead-positive units have received notice from the Department of Children and Family Services (DCFS) that they were under investigation for child neglect due to an alleged failure to provide adequate housing. Some tenants have also lost, or are at risk of losing their public housing benefits as a consequence of an elevated lead-paint test in their home. In addition to these government-imposed consequences, tenants frequently face an impossible choice: their landlords refuse to make required lead-paint remediation, but they can’t afford to move to a lead-free home. This creates a pattern of unintended consequences stemming from well-meaning housing code enforcement, whereby residents are effectively being threatened with homelessness and family separation because of their landlords’ failure to comply with the law.

Municipalities must provide tenants with notice and information in the event of a positive lead test. Tenants should be told about the health impacts of elevated lead levels and the possible repercussions that a positive test could have on their rights as tenants and as parents. Further, New York must move towards an enforceable right to clean, safe drinking water by requiring all public water systems to identify and fully replace lead service lines by 2037 at no cost to residents, prioritizing traditionally disadvantaged communities, schools, daycares, and households with children.

Protect Maternal Health by Requiring Consent for Drug Testing Pregnant People

Lawmakers must: pass legislation to ensure all pregnant and postpartum patients give explicit, informed consent for themselves and their newborns before drug testing.

No New Yorker should have to fear seeking health care during pregnancy. However, pregnant and postpartum people and their newborns are often subjected to medically unnecessary drug and alcohol testing by their health care providers without their knowledge or consent, exposing them to an avalanche of unwarranted and devastating consequences. Positive tests are frequently reported to Child Protective Services (CPS), triggering traumatic investigations and even family separation in the first days after birth. This “test and report” practice can deter people from seeking vital prenatal care, undermining maternal and infant health. Tests are usually conducted at the discretion of health care providers and are subject to their unconscious bias. Unsurprisingly, drug and alcohol testing disproportionately targets Black and Latinx pregnant people, despite similar rates of substance use by white patients. Women of color already suffer from disproportionately high rates of maternal mortality and family separation by CPS. Non-consensual and medically unnecessary drug and alcohol testing exacerbates these inequities.

New York City public hospitals now require pregnant and postpartum people’s consent for drug testing, which has helped preserve family integrity without compromising infant safety. People across the state deserve these same protections. New York must pass legislation to ensure all pregnant and postpartum patients give explicit, informed consent for themselves and their newborns before drug testing.

Provide Universal Child Care

Lawmakers should: pass legislation to support a sustainable child care workforce, reduce barriers to access, and put New York families on the path to truly universal child care.

Universal access to high-quality childcare enables parents to work and fully participate in their communities. For single parents and for women, who are often the primary caregivers of their families, the lack of accessible child care can have dire consequences for their income, job retention, and children’s educational outcomes. New York State ranks among the most expensive states for child care in the nation. The average cost of child care exceeds rent and college tuition. Child care remains out of reach for most undocumented children, and almost two-thirds of New Yorkers live in child care deserts where they are unable to find quality care in their neighborhoods. Moreover, for those who perform child care work—traditionally women of color—the work is so undervalued and underpaid that almost 60 percent of the families of people who care for young children must rely on public income-support programs.

We are grateful that recent state budgets have contained meaningful investments in child care that take steps to expand eligibility for New York’s poorest families. But more transformative investment is needed to support a sustainable child care workforce, reduce barriers to access, and put New York families on the path to truly universal child care. These measures should also work towards separating our child care infrastructure from Child Protective Services (CPS), including the Office of Children and Family Services (OCFS) that oversees it. Many families live in fear of having their children taken by CPS, especially in the low-income Black and Brown neighborhoods where CPS over-surveillance is rampant. A truly accessible universal child care program cannot require these parents to trust the same agency that over-surveils them and too often separates them from their children. If our state is to provide all New Yorkers with a pathway to achieve their full potential, universal child care must be a priority.

Protect Pregnant and Parenting People in the Criminal Legal System

Lawmakers should: ban the use of restraints on pregnant and recently pregnant people any time they have their freedom of movement significantly restricted by law enforcement.

Every pregnant person—including those who are incarcerated or in law enforcement custody—has a right to be treated with dignity. They are also entitled to information and resources that enable them to exercise agency in their reproductive decision-making. And all new parents, including those who give birth while incarcerated, should have the opportunity to bond with their child. But these fundamental rights are denied to far too many people in the criminal legal system. Much remains to be done to protect the rights of pregnant people to physical safety, quality health care, and family integrity in New York prisons, jails, and law enforcement custody.

For years, New York has prohibited correctional personnel from using shackles or restraints on people during pregnancy, labor, and post-pregnancy. However, these protections only apply to prisons and jails. The Legislature must act to ban the use of restraints on pregnant and recently pregnant people any time they have their freedom of movement significantly restricted by law enforcement. This includes settings such as police stations, holding facilities, prosecutors’ offices, medical areas and hospitals, and anywhere people are held in detention or transported in connection with criminal or juvenile delinquency charges.

Additionally, lawmakers must improve health and safety conditions for pregnant and recently pregnant people who are incarcerated. They need access to critical resources to facilitate breastfeeding and lactation. They must be able to give birth in safe, dignified, well-supplied settings with access to a support person. Pregnant people who are incarcerated should also have access to a trained professional who can lay out their pregnancy options, including their right to an abortion. Further, when a person becomes a parent while incarcerated, they must have meaningful access to a nursery that allows them to care for and bond with their newborn.

These commonsense measures are an important step towards upholding the reproductive health, rights, and dignity of incarcerated pregnant and parenting people.

Increase Hospital Transparency

Lawmakers should: pass a hospital transparency bill that would provide New Yorkers with the tools to determine whether their hospital provides the care—including reproductive and gender-affirming care—they seek prior to admission.

No one should be turned away from a hospital when they need health care. Yet hospitals often deny care based on the bureaucratic decision making of non-medical personnel rather than sound medical science. This leaves patients in regions of the state without access to reproductive health care, end-of-life care, gender-affirming care, and other types of sensitive health care. To make matters worse, because information about what services hospitals provide is often impossible to access, patients cannot determine whether their local hospital provides the care they need. The hospital transparency bill would provide New Yorkers with the tools to determine whether their hospital provides the care they seek prior to admission and would help the state to identify communities where particular services are completely unavailable. In doing so, the bill lays the groundwork to expand access to care in health care deserts around the state.

Protect Health Data Privacy

Lawmakers should: pass the New York Health Information Privacy Act to give New Yorkers control over the electronic health data.

It is impossible to have an abortion—or to help someone obtain one—without leaving a digital trail. There will be search histories, email exchanges, phone records, travel itineraries, or Fitbit or period-tracker app data. The same is true for gender-affirming care. In fact, electronic health data has already been used to prosecute people for supporting others to access abortion care. The New York Health Information Privacy Act will give New Yorkers control over the electronic health data generated when they use apps, devices, and digital tools like Fitbits, smartwatches, and period tracking apps. This bill is what New Yorkers need to broadly protect their electronic health data.

Give People Control of Their Electronic Health Records

Lawmakers should: pass legislation to require electronic health record companies to create the ability to segment health records and suppress sensitive information at a patient’s direction.

Most health care providers keep electronic health records, which make a patient’s entire medical record—including information about abortion and gender-affirming care—automatically available to anyone with access to an electronic health records system, even across state lines. This automatic sharing supports continuity of care but can expose New York patients and providers to criminalization, especially if they travel or move to a state that bans abortion or gender-affirming care. It can also expose them to discrimination by other providers within New York State. In fact, the primary way that people who are criminalized for their pregnancy outcomes come to law enforcement’s attention is because a health care provider reported them. New York must pass legislation to require electronic health record companies to create the ability to segment health records and suppress sensitive information at a patient’s direction. This will enable patients to reap the benefits of electronic health records without the risk that information about their abortion, gender-affirming care, or other sensitive health care will be used against them.

Support the Economic Security of Pregnant New Yorkers

Lawmakers should: pass legislation to raise the Temporary Disability Insurance benefit cap and align it with Paid Family Leave benefits.

Most New Yorkers do not have the ability to take time off of work to address serious health needs without putting their job and economic security at risk. New York’s Temporary Disability Insurance (TDI) program provides benefits to New Yorkers who need time off from work to tend to their own health needs, including those related to pregnancy, pregnancy loss, and neonatal loss. But it does not include job protection, and it has been capped at $170/week since 1989—far below the current cost of living. Adding insult to injury, while a worker who needs time off to recover is forced to make impossible choices, under New York’s Paid Family Leave (PFL) program, their partner is eligible for job-protected time off and a substantial portion of their normal wages while they take care of them.

The status quo is particularly harmful for Black, Brown, and Indigenous pregnant people, who experience disproportionately high rates of maternal mortality and morbidity. These New Yorkers would especially benefit from job-protected time off to keep themselves and their pregnancies healthy, and to keep them from being plunged into poverty.

New York must support workers who need to take time off to attend to their own health needs. Lawmakers should pass legislation to raise the Temporary Disability Insurance benefit cap and align it with Paid Family Leave benefits. This legislation should also ensure that people using Temporary Disability Insurance can keep their jobs and their health insurance, and permit people to use TDI intermittently so that they can take leave when they need it.

Protect the Rights of Transgender, Gender Non-Conforming, Nonbinary, and Intersex Individuals in New York Prisons and Jails

Lawmakers should: pass the Gender Identity Respect, Dignity, and Safety (GIRDS) Act to keep TGNCNBI people safer when they are incarcerated.

Transgender, Gender Non-Conforming, Nonbinary, and Intersex (TGNCNBI) New Yorkers are notoriously policed and criminalized, and as a result, disproportionately likely to be incarcerated.

Incarceration is dehumanizing for anyone, but TGNCNBI people, especially those who are Black, Indigenous, and other people of color, are particularly likely to experience harassment, degradation, and violence. During processing and while in custody, people whose gender expression does not conform to their sex assigned at birth are frequently misgendered and referred to in demeaning ways. Most TGNCNBI individuals are placed in facilities that do not match their gender identities or that otherwise put their safety at risk. Improper housing regularly leads to violence, and when TGNCNBI people are attacked, they are often put in involuntary protective custody—which is functionally the same as solitary confinement—for extended periods of time.

New York must pass the Gender Identity Respect, Dignity, and Safety (GIRDS) Act to keep TGNCNBI people safer when they are incarcerated. The bill requires prisons and jails to presumptively house people consistent with their gender identities, unless they opt out. It also mandates that staff respect a person’s gender identity in all contexts, including name and pronoun use and during searches. Finally, the legislation mandates that people have access to clothing, toiletry items, and grooming standards consistent with their gender identity, and puts limits on the use of involuntary protective custody.

Protect Privacy in Name and Gender Marker Changes

Lawmakers should: pass legislation to require that name and sex marker changes be kept private.

The vast majority of name changes—including those related to marriage, divorce, adoption, and citizenship—are private. Name and sex marker changes that proceed through the courts are a glaring, and dangerous, exception to this rule. Those who must rely on the courts to change their names or sex markers are often the most in need of confidentiality to protect their safety: namely transgender New Yorkers and survivors of intimate partner violence. In 2021, New York passed the Gender Recognition Act (GRA), streamlining the process to change the name and sex marker on a New York identity document and making the process more protective of an individual’s privacy. However, since the GRA was enacted, mandatory electronic filing, or e-filing, has become standard, and when a person applies for a name or sex marker change through the courts, a clerk must put the file in a public database before a judge can see the papers and sign a sealing order. Because of e-filing, data aggregators easily scoop the intimate, legally sensitive information required as part of a name or sex marker change application and make it available and searchable online. As a result, people’s new names, old names, addresses, and other personally identifiable information are posted online. So are birth certificates, driver’s licenses, immigration documents, medical records, orders of protection, and more. These records can easily expose individuals to danger by outing a person as transgender or revealing an intimate partner violence survivor’s current address to their abuser. In order to prevent this problem and keep people who use the courts to change their names and/or sex markers safe, New York must pass legislation to require that name and sex marker changes be kept private.

Update New York’s Prescription Monitoring Program to Protect Access to Gender-Affirming Care

Lawmakers should: pass legislation that removes testosterone from the state’s Prescription Drug Monitoring Programs.

State Prescription Drug Monitoring Programs (PDMPs) were originally intended to curb opioid abuse by tracking the prescribing and dispensing of controlled substances. Because testosterone is a controlled substance, New York’s PDMP requires the reporting of testosterone prescriptions, and New York shares PDMP data across state lines, including with states that have banned gender-affirming care. This means that transgender patients who rely on testosterone—and the providers who care for them—risk having sensitive, identifying data shared across state lines and with hostile law enforcement or agencies. The threat is not hypothetical. Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton has already queried PDMPs to seek information about those receiving and prescribing testosterone in an attempt to identify and punish trans people and their health care providers. Meanwhile, Louisiana has classified mifepristone as a controlled substance so that state officials can identify and track abortion patients and providers.

Although mifepristone and other medications used for abortion care are not controlled substances in New York, the state must proactively ensure that these medications are never added to our state’s PDMP. New York must also remove testosterone – prospectively and retrospectively – from the PDMP. And to curb the kinds of fishing expeditions we see in hostile states like Texas. New York must ensure that law enforcement can only access PDMP data with a probable cause warrant issued by a court of competent jurisdiction.

Expand the Reproductive Freedom and Equity Program to Assist People Seeking Abortion

Lawmakers should: enact legislation to expand the Reproductive Freedom and Equity Program so that state funding can be used to cover travel, lodging, and other expenses.

Since the Dobbs decision eliminated the federal constitutional right to abortion, New York State has taken steps to help more people access abortion care through new grant funding to abortion providers and, importantly, by enacting the Reproductive Freedom and Equity Program in the FY2025 state budget. Still, abortion remains out of reach for many New Yorkers because they cannot afford travel, lodging, child care, and other associated costs. New York must enact legislation to expand the Reproductive Freedom and Equity Program so that state funding can be used to cover these types of expenses for people accessing abortion care.

Codify Insurance Coverage and Expand Anti-Discrimination Protections for Gender-Affirming Care

Lawmakers should: ensure that transgender New Yorkers can rely on their health insurance to access the health care they depend on to live as their authentic selves.

New York has long required both private and public health insurance to cover gender-affirming care. As the Trump administration threatens to eliminate federal Medicaid coverage for gender-affirming care, New York must codify our state coverage requirements to ensure that transgender New Yorkers can continue to rely on their health insurance to access the health care they depend on to live as their authentic selves.

Similarly, New York’s human rights law has long explicitly prohibited clinics and hospitals from discriminating based on race, creed, color, national origin, citizenship or immigration status, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, military status, sex, disability, marital status, or status as a victim of domestic violence. New York must advance legislation to clarify that these protections apply to all actors in the health care delivery ecosystem.

Establish a Gender-Affirming Care Fund

Lawmakers should: create a dedicated funding stream to support access to gender-affirming care.

The Trump administration is laser- focused on eliminating transgender people’s access to health care, and one of its primary strategies is to eliminate federal funding for this care. New York currently has no dedicated funding stream to support access to gender-affirming care and must create one to ensure continuity of care in the face of federal cruelty. There is precedent for such a fund: New York City has invested $3.5 million in a Gender-Affirming Care Contingency Fund, and a number of our peer states—California, Colorado, Connecticut, Massachusetts, and Minnesota—have created similar gender-affirming care funds.