A (2:11)

has gotten more and more comfortable pushing

B (2:13)

as she has gone further into her tenure. Here we go. Once there's a budget deal, the legislative session will continue through early June. Then the Legislature will be out of session for the rest of the calendar year unless there's extraordinary circumstances for a special session. All 213 seats in the New York State legislature, that's 150 in the assembly and 63 in the Senate, are on the ballot this year, with primaries in June followed by the fall general election. Those elections happen every two years and it's also an election year this year for the governor and other statewide office holders. That's every four years, and Governor Hochul is seeking another term. Some of the major budget and policy decisions being negotiated in Albany right now among state leaders include but are not limited to tax rates and whether there will be any increases on high earning individuals or corporations, something that New York City Mayor Zoram Mamdani is seeking and the revenue from which he's hoping will go a long way to balancing the city's budget, which is due by July 1st. Donnie's seeking more state aid to the city generally in a variety of ways, and he's already secured some additional boost in funding from Hocul, including for an expansion of childcare. And that state aid could be ratcheted up even further if Hochul continues to insist on not raising taxes, which has been her stance. That'll all get washed out in these negotiations with the Legislature, while Mamdani continues to call for those tax increases. The most important thing, he said, is that the city gets more aid from Albany in some way, shape or form, and the two houses of the Legislature seem committed to helping him.

A (3:51)

Now.

B (3:51)

Mamdani and Hochul disagree on tax rates, but she's committed to being helpful to the city on financial aid and other issues like the childcare subsidy expansion. And the governor has support from the mayor on her push to reform the state's environmental review law, known as cecra, to allow more housing to be built more quickly. That's one of the governor's top priorities in budget negotiations as she continues to focus on increasing housing supply apply in New York and other measures, including childcare, that she says will make life more affordable for New Yorkers. In that vein, she's also seeking some significant reforms to laws related to auto insurance, including cracking down on fraudulent crash claims, which she says could help bring insurance rates down for many New Yorkers. She also wants to slow down the state's Aggressive Climate act, which requires more and more movement to renewable energy.

A (4:43)

She says she's worried about an aggressive

B (4:46)

pursuit of that act, continuing that it could increase utility bills and that the state is not quite ready to meet the mandates of that act. The governor is also seeking a new state law to protect entry to houses of worship. There's discussion about enhanced protections for immigrant New Yorkers by limiting local cooperation with federal enforcement. The governor's proposed a four year extension of mayoral control of New York City schools. The list of important topics in state budget negotiations goes on and on, so

A (5:14)

I'll get into some of those here on the show today with Senate Majority

B (5:18)

Leader Andres to her cousins with me in just a moment. Speaking of New York City and its budget, my most recent prior guest on the show here was City Council Member Linda Lee, who chairs the council's Finance Committee, which takes the lead on a lot of budget matters in the city. A really good conversation there with Council Member Lee, who's a Queens Democrat, brand

A (5:38)

new to chairing the council Finance Committee

B (5:40)

in this new class of the City Council and now dealing with negotiations with Mayor Mamdani and of course, City Council Speaker Julie Menon, a key actor in all of that as well. So we got into a lot with

A (5:52)

Council Finance Chair Linda Lee on the show recently.

B (5:56)

Other recent episodes of the show include a really good conversation with New York City Comptroller Mark Levine. That was like a part two of a discussion I had with him in February. He came back on several weeks later and we continued to discuss the city budget. But we also got a lot into the city's economic, economic health and the importance of economic growth in the city. And I recently spoke with State Senator Gustavo Rivera, a Bronx Democrat, chair of the Senate Health Committee. He's one of the members in the majority conference that Andrea Stewart Cousins leads. And we talked over state budget negotiations with him with a heavy focus on health policy, but got into a lot more there. And he's always an interesting guest here on the show. So I'll leave it there. In terms of recent highlights, if you missed any of those or others, there's many good conversations in the Max Politics feedback you to check out after you listen to this one.

A (6:43)

All right.

B (6:44)

I'm very pleased to welcome back to MAX Politics New York State Senate Majority Leader Andrea Stewart Cousins, a Democrat from Westchester who has led the Senate majority since 2019, here to discuss major issues in state budget negotiations, which at some point in the next few weeks we think will result in a roughly $260 billion or so spending plan with some significant policy changes in the package that is very likely to come together here

A (7:13)

in the weeks to come.

B (7:14)

But the two Democratic majorities of the Legislature and Governor Hochul have a lot to iron out still. So we'll get into that now with the majority leader. Thanks for joining me. How are you?

C (7:23)

I'm doing well. Thanks for having me.

B (7:25)

Thanks for taking the time. So we're speaking here on April 9th. You've passed an extender to pay the

A (7:31)

state's bills through the 14th. What's your rough forecast of where we are here in this state budget process? Are we going to have a budget by May 1.

B (7:41)

Is that wishful thinking? You've got a lot you've said to still iron out.

A (7:45)

Where are we here?

C (7:46)

Yeah, I believe we would certainly have a budget given your time frame. We are having productive leaders meetings often just almost on a daily basis. And they've been constructive and productive. And of course, our staff continue to meet on a daily basis as well. So even though the big things are not ironed out, there are things that are not, you know, huge policy issues that are also part of the budget that impact everyone's lives. And so those things are being worked through as we try and grapple with the bigger things as well. So I said I do believe that we are progressing. You know, my hope is that we are able to, as we say, land this plane sooner, sooner than later, and

A (8:38)

to help people understand a little bit of what's going on. You've, you've mentioned that because there is a lot of policy negotiation in the budget. That, that's a lot of where you're spending the time before you get into some of the, as you just got it, there's all sorts of funding issues and mechanisms from education aid to so many other things that are in the budget. But, but most of that carries over from year to year with some slight tweaks perhaps. But most of your attention right now

B (9:04)

is on those major policy negotiations. Is that fair to say?

A (9:08)

And, and, and what of those is sort of the main focus right now?

C (9:13)

Yeah, it is fair to say and I'm glad that you brought that up because, you know, a lot of times we make assumptions that people actually know what's part of the budget negotiations. The, the governor presents her budget in January and then the legislature goes through hearings with each agency, et cetera, through February into March and both houses then in March, around mid March, then pass our one house budgets, which based on A, what the governor has put in her budget and B, obviously what we've heard during our hearings and how we'd like to see the money spent, because as we know, these budgets are policy documents just as well as they are fiscal documents. And then the conversation begins in earnest with everyone having put their issues on the table. So the governor in her budget had put in changes to auto insurance, how, how people are able to defend themselves and how insurance companies are able to pay or not. And she also put in policy around the environmental reviews that have to be done when it comes to say, building housing or anything else in various communities. So those are the two major policy positions that she put in. And Obviously we're all focused on affordability because we know how difficult it is and certainly with a federal government that has frankly been so hostile to so many of things that we know are important, be it healthcare, be it food, be it the environment, and the list goes on and on. So we are all looking at affordability. So those are the two major policy issues that she actually included. In the intervening time, she has asked for a change in our climate legislation and the timing for that implementation and how we actually measure some of the environmental impacts. And on a parallel track was the immigration conversation, which the Senate has been having since late last year. And of course, at the beginning of the year I said that we were really trying to get to a place where we were protecting all New Yorkers, certainly our immigrant population, and trying to get as close to New York for all as possible in those conversations. So we put together a work group and the ideal, of course, is to get a three way agreement so that we can really, again, as I said, protect New Yorkers. So that is moving on a parallel track. So we've got four major policy issues, the environment, the environmental reviews in local communities, as well as the immigration policy, as well as auto insurance, that have really taken up the lion's share of the conversation on the leadership level and has really sort of halted our ability at this point to even start talking about the finances.

A (12:50)

And on those three that are really the sort of focus of the. The governor's been going around the state now doing rallies on those first three, not the immigration protections, but on the other three, on the auto insurance, the adjustments to the climate act and the state environmental review reform that, you know, she's pushing to help create more housing and faster. Is it your sense that on those three big issues there will be compromise? Or could you see a situation where on at least one or two of these, the legislature is just not willing to. To sort of meet her and compromise with her. Is is it your sort of sense that you're just ironing out and negotiating details, or are some of these big issues possibly going to get kicked out of the budget?

C (13:38)

Well, we continue to talk. I mean, one of the things that I have been able to say over the years with working with this governor is that we are generally rowing in the same direction. We are able usually to get to a place where we are meeting the objectives. And generally the objectives are the same. These issues, again, if you look at affordability, we are all certainly focused on that. So the question is, what are we really achieving? I mean, we'll take the automobile policy. I mean, part of what we are trying to determine is how or what is the guarantee that people's insurance rates will actually go down. It's not easy just to say it happened in other places, so therefore it'll happen here. So we want to really get to the data, get to the information and really the accountability of the insurance companies, etc. That changes that are made will indeed lower people's insurance premiums and as well as obviously protecting victims appropriately of crashes, et cetera. So it is a huge policy shift and so much of it really is directly impacting, impacting people who have claims as well as, you know, the attorneys who, who are defending those people and not so much the insurance companies. So again, I would like to make sure, and I think all of us would like to make sure that people obviously will be able to have their, their day in court and obviously be able to, to have their claims taken seriously, but also that there is some accountability with our insurance companies as well. And they have to be part of

B (15:59)

the solution on shifting some of the

A (16:03)

state's environmental review law to allow for housing to be built more quickly and therefore less expensively. And then again the idea there is to shift some things around to create housing supply, but also shift some of the costs of creating housing, which then in theory at least can help shift some of the cost of renting or buying that housing. It seems like there was some agreement from the Senate on efforts to reform the state review law, but. But the assembly left it out. Now the assembly very often leaves lots of policy out because there's more of an orientation in the assembly that they don't want to do as much policy in the budget. But then of course, you know, negotiations are negotiations. So is it your sense that the assembly will also meet you part way with the Governor, that the Senate and the Governor are more aligned there and the assembly will come along, or is that more of an iffy bet at this point because the assembly is hesitant?

C (16:59)

Well, no, I mean, I think you said it right. The assembly has always shied away from putting policy in the budget. The Senate has not done that. We have put policy in the budget as the governor. So the fact that they did not have it in the, in their one house does not indeed indicate they are not interested in the topic. And certainly again on the different levels that meet on these issues, this conversation is happening and people are, you know, engaged in it. So I don't say obviously we not only in our one house put in some of the changes that we certainly agree with. None of us think that you should spend 10 years trying to get approval for housing, for building housing, et cetera. That hasn't served anyone well yet. Obviously, we're interested in making sure that where there are negative environmental impacts, that that is assessed and addressed. So we were very fine with finding a reduced time frame by which these decisions are made. We put in our one House Senator May's bill, which really, really focused on building affordable housing, multifamily housing, and she had a companion bill with Assemblywoman Kellis. So that was the place where we began. And again, the assembly had accounts and part of that bill as well. So I think, again, we're all interested in making sure that we are creating housing. We've moved in terms of looking not just in affordable housing and so on. So we are trying to figure out a way. We just want to make sure again, that the solutions meet the problem. But again, I think we all agree on the problem, we need more housing, we need more affordable housing, and we need to pull down unnecessary barriers to achieving that.

A (19:19)

On the State Climate act, the CLCPA Climate Leadership and Community Protection act, is there general agreement in your chamber and in the legislature that the governor has diagnosed the problem there properly, that the law was passed with great intentions for a, you know, transition to renewable energy,

B (19:41)

a move away from fossil fuels, etc.

A (19:44)

But it was also passed in 2019, before the pandemic, before a huge wave of inflation, before lots of delays in construction. Then you have the president, new president, coming in again, who is opposed to

B (19:56)

a lot of wind projects especially. Do you agree that there's a lot

A (20:00)

of cause for rethinking the timelines of that law? Is that sort of generally agreed upon in your chamber and in the assembly at this point?

C (20:08)

We've been speaking in conference and, you know, the list of things that you mentioned certainly are accurate and valid. And we've never been a conference that, as I've said, is one and done. We try and meet the moment, and we are trying to meet this moment as well. We, however, believe that this climate crisis is real and that we do have a responsibility to keep the ball moving forward, even with myriad difficulties, certainly not the least of which, which is, as you said, federal government, a president who's really hostile almost to renewable energy, paying people, I understand, not to even have wind. And it is a place that I don't think any of us have ever thought we'd be. So we are trying to deal with the reality and make sure that we are able to continue to move the issue forward. And that's really the conversation. So, yeah, we are certainly not ignoring some of the current circumstances, but I think that we really want to make sure that we do both things, that we protect our environment as well, you know, while we're looking at our realistic circumstances. So it's a real conversation that we're having. And, you know, I'm hoping that we will get to a good place.

A (21:57)

I mean, there's another argument on the other side of things that if the state reorganized some of its priorities or raised more revenue, that the state could supercharge more investments in clean energy and you wouldn't need to, you know, delay the timeline or you could at least make an effort at going the other way. Are you, you know, the legislature probably wouldn't have been exploring these changes if the governor hadn't made it a sort of last minute state budget priority. So are you, are you sort of

B (22:24)

frustrated that, that you're in this position?

A (22:26)

Is it, is it, is there more

B (22:28)

frustration in the legislature that this was

A (22:30)

sort of another one of these last minute state budget priorities that the governor put forward that's now taking up a lot of negotiation and energy where the legislature probably didn't really want to move

B (22:41)

on this at this time?

C (22:43)

Well, I think the legislature was not indeed planning to move on this at this time. Yeah, I think there was a confluence of a lot of different circumstances and the governor has pointed on some level to a lawsuit that we are facing because the implementation of the climate laws has not happened. And so, you know, this was an opportunity, as she saw it, to rethink what it is that we're trying to achieve, how we're trying to achieve it, and when these goals would be achievable. As most of your listeners know, the budget is when the executive has the most leverage. There is not a lot of leverage that the legislature has we've tried over the years. And unfortunately, I think the last lawsuit, Pataky v. Silver, which the legislature lost, put us in an even more uneven position in terms of how these things go. We're not allowed to do a lot of things around the budget. And so I think most governors see this moment as a moment to really kind of drill down and through their priorities, and she took that opportunity as well. So I think, again, we want to do two things. We want to make sure that we are taking care of our environment, moving the ball forward. We believe that we will get past an administration that, you know, thinks climate change is a hoax and get to a more Sane position. And you know, we want to do everything we can to make sure that New Yorkers continue to move in that direction. But, you know, yeah, we will, we will, we'll see what we can where we can get with this.

A (24:59)

And of course, part of the, you know, the governor's motivation, there is concerns about, you know, further increases to utility bills and things of that nature. But, but, but there's a lot in that affordability agenda and we didn't even mention, you know, there is a lot of agreement between the legislature and the governor around things like childcare and some other things that you're clearly going to do on the, on the social safety net and other things. These are more the focus on the sort of outstanding big pieces of the negotiations that are, that are the most contentious down the stretch. Here, let me, let me add to

C (25:31)

that list before you leave. Yeah, I want to add to that list. But, but that's also part of this thing. I mean, I never want to conflate which unfortunately has happened, the our climate laws with people's high utility bills because we have not been able to really implement our climate laws. So it has nothing to do with the current state of utility bills which continue to go higher because of now we have a war going on. That being said, we understand that reality as well. So there have been constant pushes. We in our house have put forward utility packages that aim at accountability and transparency and trying to figure out how to make these utility bills make sense and these, these companies accountable and our own Public Service Commission accountable. The assembly in their one house put forward rebates, possibilities for, for consumers. So I do want, and I'm glad that you mentioned this utility for people to understand that we, we got the pain, we feel it, we're trying to mitigate it. In fact, we'll be doing another package next week about how we can wrestle this utility problem. So this is part of the focus too. So, you know, doing a package, you

B (26:56)

mean passing legislation or interesting passing legislation,

C (26:59)

you know, on the Senate side that will again try and tackle this, the where we can the cost of our rising utility bills. And again, I just want to disaggregate our climate laws from the utility bills because the two have nothing to do with each other. But of course people are concerned that, you know, with what's going on here, you know, they're just concerned. But I just want, I think we could do things now and we will do things in our house and hopefully in the budget that will really help people with their utility bills.

A (27:40)

Let me Ask you spend a few minutes on potential state help to New York City. Obviously, that's a lot of what I'm focused on here in the city. And obviously we have a new mayor. Former state assembly member Zoram Dani is asking the state for some combination of

B (27:59)

increased state aid to the city and

A (28:02)

tax increase permission that have to be approved at the state level. He's focused largely on increasing income and corporate taxes on high earners. But there's quite a few potential revenue raising mechanisms that the mayor suggested that are in the Senate. One House budget. The governor has been very opposed to the idea of raising income and corporate taxes. But there are a number of other ways and you outline them in your Senate One House budget resolution to provide aid to the city in a variety of fronts. So where do you see that landing? Is it that the governor considers those certain tax increases as non negotiable or are they still in play? And what's your sort of outlook in getting aid to New York City? And I know you're considered concerned with other cities around the state as well. But what's your, what's your, what's the sense of negotiations around taxes and revenue raisers right now and the prospects for

B (29:01)

that aid to the city?

C (29:03)

Well, as I said, the major focus of all of our conversations have really been on these big policy issues. But there is the recurring discussion and conversation about how we help New York City. It is something that is acutely on our minds. And as you said in our one house, we did put in about $5 billion of opportunity to help the city bridge that gap because we understand the importance of New York City as far as being an economic engine for the state. So we are focused on that. I believe the governor as well wants to be helpful, certainly the assembly and speaker, we all understand the importance of helping New York City. So I, I suspect we will get to, you know, the right answer. I know that the City Council just released its budget and its, its recommendations. And so the conversation between or among, you know, our offices, the mayor's offices, the city Council's offices, everyone will continue so that we can help the city. And as you mentioned, we have other cities who are also needing some assistance from the state. And it's like, again, I cannot emphasize enough how difficult it is in general when you are working with a federal government that does not seem to think that it's important to do so much. I mean, when I heard the president, you know, in this speech that he was making saying, you know, we can't do Medicare, we Can't do, you know, we can't do daycare. We can't. I mean, they didn't want to do, you know, snap food, food for hungry people. The idea that the only thing as government we're supposed to do is have a well equipped army so that we can go to war is not a good reality. So we must really emphasize what government is about. And we want to be able to help not only New York City, but municipalities and our people in meeting the needs so that again, we can all live this American dream. Which, you know, I, you know, I, I think, you know, was working well. I mean, obviously it could always be better. I'm not being idealistic, but we were working towards a more perfect union as opposed to this imperfect disunity with an emphasis on, on war as opposed to general well being of people. And I think it's, it's, it's, it's not a good place to be. But I think we are all committed in New York State to be able to continue, as I said, to push the ball forward.

A (32:14)

Is there anything in this, in the specifics for New York City that you feel confident this point are specifically going to happen, like a return to AIM funding or relief for the city in the, in the class size mandate or. You haven't gotten into those specifics at that level yet. So it's, it's too.

C (32:32)

Really. No. I'd love to be able to break some news for you, but no.

B (32:39)

You see a free bus pilot.

A (32:42)

I had State Senator Gustavo Rivera on the show a couple of weeks ago and he said he felt pretty confident that there was going to be a renewed deal to get a free bus pilot going again now that Mayor Mamdani is in office. And obviously that was one of his big campaign promises and something the legislature and governor have done before. Is that something you see as a likelihood in the, in the budget deal?

C (33:04)

Well, we, again, we put it the pilot in our one house, but you know, we're not up to talking about that as yet. But we did in our one house put a pilot, which I think when we did it last time, there were about five bus lines that tried it out. So I think whatever happens, you know, we're going to deal with, you know, the big issues obviously, first and foremost. But that pilot is on the table because it was part of our one house recommendation.

A (33:43)

And before I let you go, let me just ask you, you mentioned the immigration discussion. You said, yeah, and I've heard you say in other press conferences and interviews that, you know, there's discussions around immigrant protections happening sort of parallel. It could happen as a legislative package separate from the budget. It could happen in the budget.

B (34:03)

Is there sort of a principle to

A (34:04)

that that you're most focused on? Is it about the degree to which you want at the state level to limit local law enforcement cooperation with federal immigration enforcement? Is that sort of the key principle

B (34:18)

to the discussion that you're focused on? Or is there, is there some other

A (34:21)

piece of it that you can share in terms of, you know, sort of

B (34:24)

what the big priority principle is of those discussions?

C (34:27)

Well, I think all of us have been, at least most of us have really been shocked at the aggressiveness and the sort of arbitrary and painful way that ICE has approached people in general, documented or undocumented. Obviously, when we have people who are murdered just because they were standing up for their neighbors, this is not a place, it's just not who we are. I would hope so. Yeah. We want to make sure that we are protecting as many people as we can from being put in a position of having to defend their lives because you know, who they are or what language they're speaking or whatever the reason they're making up. And yeah, that has been kind of a principle. What is that? Interaction between law enforcement and the general public has always been a focus. And certainly in this period where we are looking at these kinds of abuses of power, how do we help as many people as possible and how do we protect them? So we have a number of things on the table that are looking at everything from obviously the sensitive locations and some of the things that the governor had put on the table, which we had put on the table as well, the right of private action, people being able to sue. I know Senator Myre had, had pushed forward that we've got education things that we are looking at. The center mayor has been looking at protecting, you know, kids in school. And so we, we are trying to put as much, you know, we're talking about masks and, you know, and what that looks like. So we are trying to put as much on the table as possible. And as I said, it's, it's only as good as we can get a three way agreement. So we are trying to get agreement on as much as we can. So, you know, I was hoping it could happen outside the budget, but here we are. So it may wind up happening in the budget, but we really, I think, have an obligation to meet this moment and I believe that's what we'll do to the extent possible.

A (37:07)

All right, and I'll let you Go. I just need to ask separate from the budget, because there's been a variety of stories just in the last couple days here and again, we're speaking on April 9th. One of your members, Senator Sepulveda, is the, is the chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee. There's been a series of articles and different news outlets about him as a practicing attorney getting into some, you know, clash with a judge and questions about whether he's showing up for his clients. I wanted to just get your reaction to those reports and just ask if you had any sort of comment on whether that's something that you're reviewing or you already knew about or if there's anything because there's, you know, questions about him being chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee and then also continuing to practice as an attorney and then, you know, getting into some of these situations that have raised some eyebrows. So I don't know if you had any reaction to that or anything you can tell me and listeners just about sort of whether that's a concern for you.

C (38:02)

Well, I want to say no, I didn't know anything about it. I learned about it the way the world learned about some of the allegations through the media. And as far as as, you know, in terms of what he's been doing as a chair, you know, he's been performing his duties as the chair of the, the Judiciary Committee. So, you know, again, these allegations about what's happening in his law practices is not something that we would normally look into. But, you know, I mean, I would hope that, yeah, I would hope that he takes everything seriously. But I said I have had no complaints as it relates to his role as chair of the Judiciary.

A (38:58)

Gotcha. And I want to say quickly here as we're saying goodbye that we're wishing

B (39:01)

Senator Liz Krueger well.

A (39:03)

The Senate Finance.

C (39:04)

Absolutely. Yes, I know, I know she's been

A (39:08)

a regular guest with me and is, you know, a well regarded New York political character and all of that. So we, we wish her well as she recovers from what her, her office said was a mild stroke. So.

C (39:21)

Well, I'll tell you, Ben, she has been texting me and I'm amazed at I told the only Senator Krueger would have, you know, a mild stroke and still be as clear and on top of it. And I urge her please rest. But she seems to be recovering quickly and I appreciate, I'm sure she will your good wishes and you know, I'm sure she'll be back as soon as she can.

A (39:53)

Well, hopefully it's only a sign that she's doing. Well, that. She's doing that and.

C (39:57)

Oh, yeah, yeah.

A (39:58)

Exactly.

C (39:59)

All right.

A (40:00)

State Senate Majority Leader Andrew Stewart Cousins, really appreciate the time and thoughts. Good to check in on all these key issues that you're negotiating. And we'll be in touch.

C (40:08)

Good to speak with you.

A (40:09)

Thanks very much. Sa.

C (40:39)

It.