BREAKING: After hours of debate, New York lawmakers passed a $220 billion state budget, approving changes to bail reform and millions of dollars in public financing for a new Buffalo Bills stadium.
“With neither hesitation nor equivocation, I vote nay on this moral travesty,” state Sen. Jabari Brisport, D-Brooklyn, said on the Senate floor.
The 2019 criminal justice reforms kept judges from enacting cash bail requirements for those charged with most misdemeanor and non-violent felony charges. The criminal justice changes come as Hochul continues to take criticism from her political opponents for a spike in crime in New York City and some other parts of the state. So far, they’ve received a mixed reaction – with some local officials calling them an important step, and activists and public defenders criticizing them as a political reaction to a crime spike that’s happening across the nation.
Mayor Eric Adams, a former police officer who pushed for changes to the bail laws, came down somewhere in the middle. “It is a thoughtful package that reacts not just to a narrative but actually reacts to the need for people to feel safe and for us really to adjust the gun crimes,” said Senate Majority Leader Andrea Stewart-Cousins, a Yonkers Democrat.
The money for the Buffalo Bills stadium was included in a bill that was introduced overnight, just before the Senate put it to a vote. Like the other budget bills, Hochul waived the usual three-day waiting period before legislation can be put to a vote.
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