Stewart-Cousins: Special session ‘unlikely’ this year to combat Trump

State Senate Majority Leader Andrea Stewart-Cousins seemed to put to bed the prospect of a special session to preemptively address the upcoming presidency of Donald Trump, while avoiding specifics on what her conference will be focused on next year.

Speaking at a breakfast hosted by the Association for a Better New York on Tuesday, Stewart-Cousins said it was “unlikely” that she would call her members back for a special session before the end of the year. Some Democrats from both chambers discussed the prospect at the Somos legislative conference in Puerto Rico earlier this month, but both legislative leaders at the time cast doubt on the idea. Stewart-Cousins remarks Tuesday threw additional cold water on the pitch.

State lawmakers are set to return for their regularly scheduled session at the start of January, so a special session would only give them roughly a month’s head start on legislating. Trump is set to be inaugurated on Jan. 20, giving legislators at least a couple weeks at the start of the year if they want to pass new laws before he officially takes office.

Though some lawmakers and advocacy groups have said they’d like to pass bills that aimed at helping immigrants, addressing climate change and protecting transgender New Yorkers to combat the Trump presidency, Stewart-Cousins offered no specifics on what her priorities will be next year. “I think our priorities remain the same,” Stewart-Cousins said when asked about the next session by ABNY Chair Steve Rubenstein. “I think it’s what continues to bring us our success. We’re focused on the people that we serve, we’re focused on affordability.” Asked whether next year will be focused on combating Trump, Stewart-Cousins said her members would be “focused on the people of New York.”

Stewart-Cousins spent much of her speech at ABNY discussing her chamber’s accomplishments on addressing affordability issues. She cited the expansion of the Empire State Child Tax Credit, capping property taxes and a revised tax credit to spur the production of affordable housing. “Affordability is always in the center of what we are trying to do,” Stewart-Cousins said.

Stewart-Cousins didn’t, however, willingly discuss the recent return of congestion pricing. The newly relaunched tolling scheme, set to begin at the start of next year, has faced backlash as exacerbating economic concerns for cash-strapped New Yorkers who will pay $9 to drive into Manhattan’s central business district beginning Jan. 5. Speaking to reporters after the breakfast, Stewart-Cousins neither praised nor condemned congestion pricing, instead deferring to the fact that the law originally passed in 2019. “We do need to fund the MTA. We do need to take care of our environment, and we do need to deal with congestion,” Stewart-Cousins said when asked about the cost-of-living concerns around the program. “So those things haven’t changed.”