The session has concluded
It took until Saturday morning, but New York lawmakers concluded their 2022 session by taking up bills dealing with national issues amid the normal flurry of votes.
As I reported in The Wall Street Journal, legislators approved bills to expand New York’s already-strict gun control laws by banning the sale of bullet-resistant vests to civilians, requiring that pistols be enabled with microstamping technology and by raising the minimum age to purchase a semi-automatic rifle to 21 from 18.
“Within the last month, two horrific mass shootings in Buffalo and in Texas have rattled this nation to our core and shed a new light on the urgent need for action to prevent future tragedies,” said Gov. Kathy Hochul. “New York already has some of the toughest gun laws in the country but clearly we need to make them even stronger.”
While a criminal-background check is required for all firearm purchases in New York, people over 18 have been able to buy a long gun without obtaining a permit. Under the new law, people buying a semiautomatic rifle would first be required to obtain a permit similar to what is now required to buy or possess a pistol.
In May, a federal appeals court in California ruled a law in that state which banned the sale of semiautomatic rifles to people under 21 violated the Second Amendment. A federal judge in Florida affirmed that state’s age-based restrictions, which were enacted following the 2018 mass shooting at Parkland High School.
The U.S. Supreme Court will provide more guidance on the limits of state-based gun regulation in a decision expected this month regarding New York’s restrictions on concealed-weapons permits, according to Adam Winkler, a professor of law at the University of California, Los Angeles, who has studied the history of gun laws.
“It’s kind of hard to know whether this kind of law is constitutional or not because the Supreme Court is in the midst of transforming the Second Amendment,” Winkler told me.
The Supreme Court was the impetus for passing several other bills which supporters said will protect reproductive healthcare providers from interstate investigations for care that was performed lawfully in New York. Abortion rights moved to the top of the agenda in early May after a leak of a draft opinion indicated justices could soon overturn Roe v. Wade.
While New York legalized abortion before the landmark 1973 ruling and updated its abortion laws in 2019, Hochul and other Democratic leaders hoped to fortify abortion rights with an amendment to the State Constitution. But the amendment stalled amid a dispute over language, and abortion-rights groups are now calling for a special session later this year.
Members of the state Assembly declined to take up a bill that would have automatically sealed criminal records a number of years after a conviction. This is the second year the Clean Slate bill has died in the last days of the session, despite support from business groups and criminal justice reformers.
Lawmakers did, after an initial balk, pass a bill that would make New York the first in the nation to curtail cryptocurrency mining. The measure—which attracted intense lobbying from both environmental and cryptocurrency groups—now heads to Hochul’s desk. The Democratic governor hasn’t said if she would sign the bill, and said last month that she wanted to balance protecting the environment and new job opportunities.
THE QUESTION: Redistricting has sparked a primary fight between U.S. Reps. Jerry Nadler and Carolyn Maloney, both of whom were elected to Congress in 1992. But which of the two has more seniority, and why?
Know the answer? Drop me a line at jimmy.vielkind@gmail.com. Or just write with thoughts, feedback or to say hi.
THE LAST ANSWER: I crossed over the Chenango and Susquehanna rivers when I went running in Binghamton.