NY Assembly to finish session after passing abortion pill protections, noncompete bills

The New York State Assembly was set to finish up its work for the year on Wednesday, one day after approving legislation banning noncompete labor agreements and offering legal protection to New York doctors who provide abortion medication to out-of-state patients.

Taking up dozens of bills more than a week after the state Senate adjourned for the season, the Assembly has been pushing through a two-day special session since Tuesday morning. Assembly lawmakers returned to session shortly before 10:30 a.m. on Wednesday.

The Assembly is sorting through legislation already passed by the Senate.

[ NY lawmakers at special Assembly session pass bills outlawing noncompete agreements, protecting Hudson River ]

Among the bills under review at the close of the legislative session were environmental measures: The Assembly passed a bill on Tuesday that would ban the discharge of nuclear waste water into the Hudson River from the decommissioned Indian Point power plant in Buchanan.

And Democrats hoped to pass the Planned Offshore Wind Transmission Act, a bill that would help clear the way for a controversial offshore wind power development south of Long Island. The measure was on a Wednesday committee hearing agenda, but it was not clear if it would pass.

Legislation passed Tuesday could have far-reaching effects on New Yorkers, and touch people beyond the state’s borders.

The bill banning noncompete agreements statewide, passed over Republican opposition, could put New York at the forefront of protecting workers against contracts that opponents say can shackle employees and depress wages.

About 44% of employers statewide subject some workers to noncompete agreements, according to the Economic Policy Institute, a nonprofit.

“Noncompete agreements are bad for workers, bad for consumers and bad for the economy,” Sen. Sean Ryan, the Buffalo Democrat who sponsored the bill in the state Senate, said in a Tuesday statement.

In January, the Federal Trade Commission outlined a rule that would ban noncompete agreements nationally, but the ban is pending and only a handful of states have barred the contracts.

The abortion medication bill would likewise put New York at the forefront of a fast-shifting issue.

The legislation, passed in the Assembly by a 99 to 45 vote, would shield abortion providers who ship pills out of state — to places where abortion is outlawed — from prosecution by authorities outside of New York.

“As anti-choice extremists continue to roll back reproductive care across the country, New York remains a sanctuary state for access,” Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie, a Bronx Democrat, said in a statement.

“It is our moral obligation to help women across the country with their bodily autonomy by protecting New York doctors from litigation efforts from anti-choice extremists,” Heastie added.

Other Democratic-led states have pursued similar measures. A legal battle waged by challengers hoping to push a primary abortion medication, mifepristone, off the market has been winding its way through the federal courts.

And liberals, meanwhile, have been working to expand abortion access after the Supreme Court erased the half-century right to abortion a year ago.

About one in two abortions in the U.S. are carried out with medication.

Gov. Hochul, a Democrat, has been an outspoken supporter of abortion protections and has sought to position New York as a sanctuary for reproductive rights. She appears all but certain to sign the new pill legislation.

But the governor has broadly shied away from signaling whether she will approve or veto hundreds of bills headed to her desk.

“I’ll be looking at all bills very closely with my team and analyzing them and doing the right thing,” Hochul told reporters in Albany on Tuesday. “I have to read every single one.”

In New York City, street safety activists hoped lawmakers might use the special session to approve Sammy’s Law, a bill that would allow the city to set speed limits as low as 10 mph on some streets, and as low as 20 mph citywide.

The measure passed the Senate by a bipartisan 55-to-7 vote this month, but has faced outerborough opposition in the Assembly.

There did not appear to be signs Wednesday morning that the bill would get a green light this year.