Here’s what’s on the agenda for the 2025 state legislative session

New year, new legislative session, new administration in the White House. Lawmakers are getting something of a later start in 2025, with the first day of the legislative session scheduled for Jan. 8. Despite that, they’ll have no shortage of issues awaiting them when they return to Albany. The big unknown will of course be President-elect Donald Trump, as some lawmakers and officials fear that new federal policies may harm the state or necessitate some form of state response to protect New Yorkers. Some legislators had floated the idea of a special session before the new year in order to pass bills to proactively “Trump-proof” the state, which didn’t come to pass. Gov. Kathy Hochul indicated after the election that while she will defend New Yorkers from the Trump administration if needed, she is also willing to work collaboratively with the incoming president.

Besides responding to Trump, lawmakers and the governor have a long policy agenda that they’ll debate in the upcoming year. With hundreds of bills to pass and an ever-contentious budget process, they’ll have plenty of issues to address. But the results of the election will loom large as Democrats reevaluate their values and party positions after Republicans picked up ground in the vast majority of the state. Keep reading for the policies that could be driving the next legislative session.

Education

The future of the state’s education system will be one of the biggest issues facing legislators in the next session. Hochul opened the previous legislative session by informing lawmakers she intended to adjust education funding, accounting for smaller class sizes with corresponding funding changes and doing away with “hold harmless” – a provision that ensures school districts can’t receive less funding than the prior year. She also announced plans to change the Foundation Aid formula, a complex system responsible for doling out school aid. The governor suggested basing its inflationary factor on a 10-year average of the consumer price index rather than its current annual rate – the upshot being less funding for some school districts in the upcoming school year. A majority of lawmakers said they would not back her proposal, and the Legislature and Hochul eventually compromised, reducing the inflationary factor from 3.4% to 2.8% and keeping hold harmless in place. They also charged the Rockefeller Institute of Government with studying the issue. Its report recommended a complete overhaul of the data sources used for calculating regional affluence, the end of hold harmless and the elimination of a $500 per student funding floor. The report was nonbinding, so it will ultimately be up to the Legislature and Hochul to decide which recommendations to implement.

Hochul is also focused on schools outside of funding. Her school cellphone ban will be up for debate among legislators, some of whom agree that kids may benefit from an escape from social media and a greater focus on their lessons. But there are also concerns about the impact on communication during emergencies.

Immigration

With the specter of Trump’s mass deportation plan looming over New York, many in the state’s political class were galvanized to do something after his victory in November, with talk of a special session circulating during this year’s Somos conference in Puerto Rico. While an emergency gathering of state lawmakers didn’t happen, many bills are now in their crosshairs heading into the start of the session. The New York for All Act, sponsored by state Sen. Andrew Gounardes and Assembly Member Karines Reyes, would prohibit law enforcement personnel, state officials and municipal corporations from inquiring about a New Yorker’s immigration status. In that same vein, the Dignity Not Detention Act, sponsored by Reyes and state Sen. Julia Salazar, would prohibit government entities from entering into agreements that would see individuals housed in immigration detention centers. Legislation sponsored by state Sen. Brad Hoylman-Sigal and Assembly Member Catalina Cruz would also ensure the right to legal counsel for undocumented New Yorkers in immigration court proceedings. But the push for new immigration legislation comes at a time when Hochul has signaled an openness to certain deportations under the incoming administration, so her support for added protections is unclear.

Housing

Following last session’s landmark housing deal, both housing activists and real estate interests are pushing for further reforms. In 2024, lawmakers passed a comprehensive, albeit unpopular, housing deal that allowed for building incentives like the 485-x tax abatement and key tenant protections like “good cause” eviction. With that progress in mind, lawmakers are expected to consider housing voucher legislation and changes to rent-stabilization guidelines.

The Housing Access Voucher Program – sponsored by state Senate Housing, Construction and Community Development Committee Chair Brian Kavanagh and Assembly Housing Committee Chair Linda Rosenthal – would subsidize the cost of rent for low-income New Yorkers by picking up the balance of their rent after they contribute 30% of their income. While housing activists and the real estate lobby are generally at odds, the bill is one of few that both sides support. But it has faced opposition from the governor. While legislators estimate that the program would cost around $250 million per year, Hochul’s own estimates of the cost are closer to $6 billion per year, which has led her to reject the program as too expensive.

Landlord groups and housing activists plan to seek their own versions of reforms around rent stabilization in the next session. Amid various legal challenges to rent stabilization playing out across the state, landlords are looking for a bill that would make it easier to bring rent-stabilized units out of the program. Meanwhile, advocates want to democratize the New York City Rent Guidelines Board, which is effectively controlled by the mayor, and are pushing for the creation of the Social Housing Development Authority – essentially a statewide community land bank to spur affordable housing development.

Environment

Climate advocates are gearing up for another push for the New York HEAT Act after a near miss at the end of the prior legislative session. The bill, which would do away with a subsidy for gas companies to set up new connections, has passed the state Senate more than once, and the Assembly was reportedly nearing a compromise to approve it at the end of the previous session – until Hochul’s last-minute congestion pricing pause scuttled the discussions. But the legislation remains one of climate activists’ biggest priorities, and they hope to get a jump-start on it next year.

Hochul may yet veto the Climate Change Superfund Act, which passed both chambers of the Legislature for the first time the past session. As of late December, it was one of just a few bills that lawmakers had not delivered to her. Although sponsor state Sen. Liz Krueger said in November she felt “optimistic” that Hochul would sign it, the legislation faces fierce opposition from the business sector. If the governor does veto the legislation, then lawmakers would need to pass a new version of the legislation in 2025.

A two-year moratorium on some forms of cryptocurrency mining ended in November. Although enacting the ban was a major victory for environmental advocates in 2022, the required study on the industry that was meant to take place during the moratorium never materialized. Additional legislative action related to the cryptocurrency industry may come in 2025. Environmental advocates have had mixed success in the courts; a recent ruling could potentially allow Greenidge Generation’s cryptocurrency mining operation to move ahead but also upheld the state Department of Environmental Conservation’s authority to deny air permits under the state’s climate law.

Affordability

Hochul has made it clear that she wants to make tackling the affordability crisis her top issue in 2025 as Democrats grapple with the outcome of the presidential election, where cost-of-living concerns helped drive voters to Republicans. Hochul already began to preview her agenda in December when she announced a proposal to send $300 or $500 “inflation refund” checks to low- and middle-income New Yorkers. But that plan will require legislative approval, so it’s not a done deal. It’s expected to be in the budget.

New York City Mayor Eric Adams also wants to take on the cost of living and has pitched eliminating income taxes on the poorest New Yorkers with dependents. According to the New York City Independent Budget Office, Adams’ proposal would only benefit about 4% of filers in the city. Like Hochul’s proposal, Adams’ plan would require approval from state lawmakers.

Meanwhile, a number of Democratic New York City mayoral candidates have staked out positions on universal child care. Three of those candidates are state lawmakers and are likely to push for state laws that match the policies they’re advocating for on the campaign trail. Lawmakers and advocates have also been disappointed by the governor’s decision to veto legislation that would have removed the minimum wage requirement for low-income parents to receive child care assistance from the state and may attempt to pass another bill eliminating the requirement in the next session.

Criminal justice

Trump’s win has led some Democrats to push for more conservative public safety policies, but that isn’t stopping criminal justice reform advocates from continuing their push for changes to the state’s parole and sentencing systems. Since their big victory on bail reform in 2019, activists and lawmakers have shifted focus to other areas of the criminal justice system, with limited success. They have only passed one of their parole reform bills, which Hochul signed in 2022, and its implementation has been halting at best. But a campaign to pass the Clean Slate Act, which business and labor groups backed, succeeded in 2023 and the law took effect in November. That bill was touted as a public safety and economic development measure, meant to help rehabilitated New Yorkers with past convictions get housing and jobs.

The Earned Time Act, which would allow incarcerated people to receive time off their sentence if they pursue educational programs and vocational training in prison, has similarly been touted as a measure to increase employment and decrease recidivism. But it and other reform measures may face an uphill battle in 2025, as Democrats face internal battles over the party’s position on criminal justice reform and as cost-of-living issues take center stage.

Health care

As part of the previous budget, Hochul managed to push through major changes to the Consumer Directed Personal Assistance Program, a popular Medicaid program that pays loved ones to care for family members at home. The program was allegedly to have some fraud and cost far more than it should, thanks to an abundance of fiscal intermediaries that served as middlemen for payroll services to people participating in the program. Hochul and lawmakers agreed to contract with a single out-of-state fiscal intermediary – a controversial change that has only become more contentious amid charges of bid-rigging and corruption favoring the company that won the coveted state contract. Lawmakers and home care advocates, along with home care companies, are now pushing for legislative changes to amend or delay the shift to a single fiscal intermediary, which is meant to finish by April 1, 2025.

The cost of health care may emerge as a top issue in the new year, given the increased public awareness and outcry over predatory insurance practices following the killing of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson. In the aftermath of that shooting, Hochul publicly criticized Anthem Blue Cross Blue Shield’s controversial decision to place caps on anesthesia coverage. The governor later took credit when Anthem reversed the decision, though some lawmakers had already introduced legislation to require insurers to cover the full duration of anesthesia during surgeries.