To combat Trump, NY Dems want federal housing protections in state law

A group of New York state lawmakers wants to enshrine federal housing protections in state law as a preemptive defense against any attempt by President Donald Trump to roll them back.

A bill introduced this week would codify what’s known as the federal “disparate impact” standard in the state’s housing law, which ensures that anyone who files a housing discrimination claim under the Fair Housing Act doesn’t have to prove that the discrimination was intentional.

Trump moved to revise and weaken that standard in the final months of his first term, but a court ruling prevented his administration’s rule from taking effect. The disparate impact rule was later fully reinstated by his Democratic successor, Joe Biden, in 2023.

Now, state Sen. Brian Kavanagh and Assemblymembers Jordan Wright and Micah Lasher, three Manhattan Democrats, hope to codify that standard in state law before Trump has a chance to repeal it at the federal level.

“The way that we ensure that housing discrimination can continue to be fought in New York is by putting disparate impact into state law,” said Lasher, a first-term lawmaker from the Upper West Side and the bill’s sponsor.

Under disparate impact, a housing discrimination claim is judged based on an action’s effect, rather than its intent. That means it can be considered housing discrimination if a landlord’s actions negatively affected a protected class, such as a particular race, even if the landlord didn’t intend to do so.

Supporters of the standard fear Trump could move to dismantle it again – this time with the potential backing of a conservative-leaning Supreme Court, should it get to that point. Many of the president’s early actions in his second term have gone toward dismantling federal diversity, equity and inclusion efforts.

Lasher and Kavanagh introduced the bill Friday and touted it with Wright at the National Action Network’s weekly rally in Harlem, where the Rev. Al Sharpton spoke in favor of it.

“We see this as a civil rights bill and we hope that all the Assembly and the state Senate understand what we are doing, and we are doing this in unison,” Sharpton said.

The legislative session in Albany runs through mid-June.