Regular Session - May 10, 2023
3787
1 NEW YORK STATE SENATE
2
3
4 THE STENOGRAPHIC RECORD
5
6
7
8
9 ALBANY, NEW YORK
10 May 10, 2023
11 11:09 a.m.
12
13
14 REGULAR SESSION
15
16
17
18 SENATOR SHELLEY B. MAYER, Acting President
19 ALEJANDRA N. PAULINO, ESQ., Secretary
20
21
22
23
24
25
3788
1 P R O C E E D I N G S
2 ACTING PRESIDENT MAYER: The Senate
3 will come to order.
4 I ask everyone present to please
5 rise and recite the Pledge of Allegiance.
6 (Whereupon, the assemblage recited
7 the Pledge of Allegiance to the Flag.)
8 ACTING PRESIDENT MAYER: Reverend
9 Melvin D. Boone, from Vanderveer Park
10 United Methodist Church in Brooklyn, will deliver
11 today's invocation.
12 REVEREND BOONE: Good morning.
13 (Response of "Good morning.")
14 REVEREND BOONE: To Majority Leader
15 Andrea Stewart-Cousins, to Senator Kevin S.
16 Parker, my Senator, brother and friend, to
17 members of this august body, and to everyone
18 under the sound of my voice, please join me in a
19 moment of prayer.
20 Gracious, loving, eternal and
21 merciful God, we bow humbly before You this
22 morning, first to thank You for the opportunity
23 to be of service in this world You have made.
24 You've given us dominion, authority, and great
25 responsibility. Help us to remember that to whom
3789
1 much has been given, much is required.
2 Lord, You have also taught us that
3 there are none who are righteous in and of
4 themselves. And so we come this morning
5 petitioning the presence of Your Holy Spirit even
6 in this place. By Your grace, may Your
7 Holy Spirit lead and guide us in this day. By
8 Your grace, may we receive Your righteousness
9 that You have made available to us.
10 In the thoughts we have, in the
11 words we speak, in the actions we take, and in
12 all that we do, we seek to honor and glorify You
13 as we serve in our various capacities. And You
14 have told us what is good and what You require of
15 us -- that is to do justice, love mercy, and walk
16 humbly with our God.
17 In a time when many have grown
18 fearful, in a time when many have lost confidence
19 in our government, in a time when many have
20 become overburdened with concerns about our
21 climate, our economy, gun violence, healthcare,
22 personal and political rights, freedoms and
23 responsibilities, race and cultural disunity,
24 education, and much more, in a time when so many
25 people have lost hope, may You show Yourself to
3790
1 be mighty and strong.
2 May You in all Your omniscience and
3 omnipotence grant that this body, and everyone
4 under the sound of my voice, would use this day
5 to restore hope, to make lives better.
6 May You give us the courage, inspire
7 us and help us, in the words of John Wesley, to
8 do all the good we can, by all the means we can,
9 in all the ways we can and in all the places we
10 can, at all the times we can, to all the people
11 we can, for as long as ever we can.
12 O God, may our will be lost in
13 Thine, and may Your grace be with us this day,
14 for Lord, Your grace is sufficient.
15 Amen.
16 (Response of "Amen.")
17 ACTING PRESIDENT MAYER: Reading of
18 the Journal.
19 THE SECRETARY: In Senate, Tuesday,
20 May 9, 2023, the Senate met pursuant to
21 adjournment. The Journal of Monday, May 8, 2023,
22 was read and approved. On motion, the Senate
23 adjourned.
24 ACTING PRESIDENT MAYER: Without
25 objection, the Journal stands approved as read.
3791
1 Presentation of petitions.
2 Messages from the Assembly.
3 The Secretary will read.
4 THE SECRETARY: Senator Sanders
5 moves to discharge, from the Committee on Banks,
6 Assembly Bill Number 1153A and substitute it for
7 the identical Senate Bill 1144A, Third Reading
8 Calendar 83.
9 Senator Stec moves to discharge,
10 from the Committee on Health, Assembly Bill
11 Number 3238 and substitute it for the identical
12 Senate Bill 2780, Third Reading Calendar 383.
13 Senator Addabbo moves to discharge,
14 from the Committee on Agriculture, Assembly Bill
15 Number 3552A and substitute it for the identical
16 Senate Bill 1677A, Third Reading Calendar 675.
17 ACTING PRESIDENT MAYER: So
18 ordered.
19 Messages from the Governor.
20 Reports of standing committees.
21 Reports of select committees.
22 Communications and reports from
23 state officers.
24 Motions and resolutions.
25 Senator Gianaris.
3792
1 SENATOR GIANARIS: Good morning,
2 Madam President.
3 We're going to begin with a
4 privileged resolution that's at the desk,
5 privileged Resolution 947. Please take that up,
6 read its title, and recognize Senator Kennedy.
7 ACTING PRESIDENT MAYER: The
8 Secretary will read.
9 THE SECRETARY: Senate Resolution
10 947, by Senator Kennedy, commemorating the
11 one-year anniversary of the mass shooting at
12 Tops Friendly Markets in Buffalo, New York, on
13 May 14, 2023, and honoring the victims,
14 survivors, families, and community at large in
15 wake of this devastating tragedy.
16 ACTING PRESIDENT MAYER: Senator
17 Kennedy on the resolution.
18 SENATOR KENNEDY: Thank you,
19 Madam President.
20 I want to thank Majority Leader
21 Andrea Stewart-Cousins for allowing this
22 privileged resolution to come to the floor today.
23 I rise today with a heavy heart to
24 recognize a day that has changed the City of
25 Buffalo, our state, and our nation forever: May
3793
1 14, 2022. One year later, and I can recall that
2 day down to the minute.
3 I was away for the weekend with my
4 family when I got a call from my staff member
5 Zeneta Everhart, who serves as my director of
6 diversity and inclusion. Zeneta was sobbing,
7 telling me her son Zaire had been shot. A gunman
8 had opened fire at a community grocery store on
9 Jefferson Avenue in the heart of Buffalo's
10 East Side, a grocery store that the neighborhood
11 fought for years to get, right in the heart of
12 the community.
13 The following hours were a blur of
14 emotion, of action, of heartbreak. Over that
15 time we learned that the gunman was a white
16 supremacist who specifically targeted that
17 grocery store because he meticulously researched
18 the demographics of the neighborhood, where more
19 than 80 percent of the residents are
20 African-American.
21 We learned of the 10 lives that this
22 racist terrorist stole so callously that day.
23 These people were loved. These people were part
24 of us, part of the fabric of our community.
25 Roberta A. Drury of Buffalo, age 32. Margus D.
3794
1 Morrison of Buffalo, age 52. Andre Mackneel of
2 Auburn, age 53. Aaron Salter of Lockport,
3 age 55. Geraldine Talley of Buffalo, age 62.
4 Celestine Chaney of Buffalo, age 65. Heyward
5 Patterson of Buffalo, age 67. Kathrine Massey of
6 Buffalo, age 72. Pearl Young of Buffalo, age 77.
7 Ruth Whitfield of Buffalo, age 86.
8 One year later, and yet their
9 absence is still just as profound. One year
10 later, our grief is still overwhelming, and we
11 find ourselves mourning their memories often.
12 But also one year later, as we look
13 back on that day, we choose to celebrate their
14 lives. Buffalo is a unique city. We are the
15 City of Good Neighbors. Time and again, in our
16 hardest moments, we come together, stronger,
17 hopeful, lifting each other up.
18 I've never hugged as many people as
19 I did in the days following May 14th. Complete
20 strangers embodied the City of Good Neighbors
21 nickname, stepping up to bridge the gaps in food,
22 to connect individuals with mental health
23 resources. And at the end of seemingly endless
24 days, just to listen. We can heal so much when
25 we simply listen to each other.
3795
1 Today, Zaire is healing. He still
2 has shrapnel inside his body when bullets pierced
3 his neck. But his mother will tell you he is
4 resilient. And by the grace of God, he is still
5 with us. In fact, our community came to together
6 just days after May 14th to join Zaire as he
7 celebrated his 21st birthday. And by a miracle,
8 we will be able to celebrate again later this
9 month.
10 Tragically, not every family can say
11 the same. I pray for those we have lost, and I
12 know my colleagues do as well. In their memory
13 we must do everything in our power to call out
14 hate in every form, denounce racism, and create a
15 more inclusive and just society for everyone.
16 That is how we can honor them.
17 Thank you again to all of my
18 colleagues and to people all across this great
19 state and nation and the global community for
20 thinking of Buffalo and coming to our aid in our
21 time of need. Let us work together to prevent
22 this cycle from repeating anywhere else in
23 America.
24 May those 10 beautiful souls rest in
25 peace. Thank you, Madam President.
3796
1 ACTING PRESIDENT MAYER: Thank you
2 Senator Kennedy.
3 Senator Comrie on the resolution.
4 SENATOR COMRIE: Thank you,
5 Madam President.
6 I rise today to speak on the
7 resolution commemorating a year since the
8 shootings in Buffalo, which has been a tragedy to
9 our state in many different ways.
10 The fact that we've had in this
11 country over 300 shootings since then, the fact
12 that we had a young person that came from the
13 middle part of the state that had been
14 indoctrinated in hate because he never had a
15 chance to be acculturated to the beauty and
16 culture of what made New York State so great,
17 which is the assimilation of people that come
18 from all over the world to try to come to
19 New York to have a better life.
20 We must realize that we have a
21 responsibility as legislators to ensure that all
22 New Yorkers can understand who we are as
23 New Yorkers, where we come from, that we're all
24 immigrants to this state. That we all have to
25 understand and appreciate each person that we
3797
1 encounter, because you never know what that
2 person can do or who that person knows in your
3 life or who that person may have relationships
4 to.
5 We must work as a state to make sure
6 that we create opportunities for our young people
7 to be acculturated to all different types of
8 culture, all ethnicities, to have an
9 understanding so that they don't gain hate in
10 their heart from the internet, where they want to
11 go find a minority community and shoot people or
12 a community that they're not familiar with and
13 take life because someone on the internet told
14 them to do so.
15 We have responsibilities as
16 legislators to make sure that there is a
17 curriculum of inclusion throughout every school
18 in this state, to prevent young people from going
19 down these negative paths, to prevent people from
20 being indoctrinated by the internet for things
21 that are totally sick, that are creating
22 opportunities for divisiveness as opposed to
23 creating an opportunity to bring our state
24 together.
25 We are at a critical stage in our
3798
1 country where divisiveness seems to be the rule
2 of the day, as opposed to trying to build
3 bridges. Where we're trying to allow people to
4 come in to try to start a life, but we're
5 hindering them by not giving them an opportunity
6 to immediately work. Where we'd rather denigrate
7 people for their inadequacies rather than to
8 embrace them and give them an uplift.
9 We've gotten away from the
10 traditions of this country. We need to get back
11 there.
12 The shooting that happened in
13 Buffalo was only emblematic of that, that we're
14 not training our young people properly, where
15 this young man all of a sudden decided that he's
16 going to be a racist and a bigot and he wanted to
17 kill minority people.
18 We must do something to change our
19 young people's hearts and minds in New York.
20 It's only through education that we can do this.
21 I would submit, Madam President, we have to have
22 a curriculum of inclusion in every school in
23 New York State. We have to get away from these
24 precepts that are going to cause divisiveness or
25 overacculturate people or try to make excuses for
3799
1 what happened.
2 We've got to focus on making sure
3 that every child in this state gets an
4 opportunity to understand and appreciate that
5 every person they encounter is someone that they
6 should respect, someone that they should embrace,
7 someone that they should learn to understand and
8 appreciate, and someone that they can grow with
9 and not be dismissive of.
10 We have the people in Buffalo that
11 are still suffering from the after-effects of the
12 shooting, because something like this will hurt
13 and imprint someone for the rest of their lives.
14 And I hope that we can continue to provide all
15 the resources we can to that community and to
16 every individual that's a victim of gun shooting.
17 Thank you, Madam President.
18 ACTING PRESIDENT MAYER: Thank you,
19 Senator Comrie.
20 Senator Bailey on the resolution.
21 SENATOR BAILEY: Thank you,
22 Madam President.
23 Thank you, Senator Kennedy, for not
24 just introducing this resolution, but I know it's
25 very difficult for you to speak on this one
3800
1 because it's home. And when things hit closer to
2 home, they have a reverberating effect not just
3 for you but for -- not just for your family, not
4 just for your constituents, but for your staff
5 like Zeneta and Zaire and all of the families of
6 those individuals that we lost.
7 And, you know, when we speak on
8 resolutions sometimes -- sometimes,
9 Madam President, I have a conception of what I
10 think I'm going to say, but sometimes life's
11 eternal highway gives me a detour provided by
12 Senator Comrie. And I thank you for that,
13 Senator Comrie.
14 You know, a lot of the times in this
15 chamber the only thing that people that we
16 represent, when they're watching the legislative
17 channel, they're seeing the debates, is conflict.
18 All they see is conflict. All they see is
19 Senator Rhoads and I debating about discovery,
20 but they don't see us in the lounge talking about
21 the Mets. All they see is Senator Palumbo and I
22 debating bail, but they don't see us talking
23 about life and family. They don't see that.
24 We are 0.00000001 of the population,
25 and we represent a hundred percent of the
3801
1 population. I -- we're not going to be the cure
2 to racism. There is no cure to racism. But
3 there are eventual steps that we can take towards
4 that, and it is -- it starts in this chamber.
5 And I'm not saying don't represent
6 your district to the best of your ability. We've
7 got to message better. That the people across
8 the aisle and the people that they represent are
9 not bad people. They're not evil people.
10 They're not people that should be shot and killed
11 for being Black. They're not that. They are
12 deserving of life and acceptance and gratitude
13 just like anybody else.
14 So it's about the curriculum in the
15 schools. It's also about the curriculum in the
16 chamber. In every chamber, in state -- not just
17 state legislature, county legislature, a
18 municipal body and governing body where anybody
19 that has a mouthpiece that people will listen to
20 have to speak what the good pastor would have
21 said is the good news, that there is good in
22 everyone's heart. You've got to dig a little
23 deeper sometimes, Madam President, but there is
24 good in everyone's heart.
25 How do we find that? How do you
3802
1 make sure that you learn from an early age --
2 when we talk about, in the medical profession,
3 early intervention. Right? Stop the problem
4 before it becomes a larger one. Right? You
5 know, if you have a warning to get diabetes, then
6 you should start a diet that will stop you from
7 getting diabetes.
8 Well, if you don't want racism to
9 affect our country and our society, well, start
10 that diet now. Start feeding our kids
11 responsible information. Start showing them that
12 it's okay to be different. Your echo chamber
13 might work for you, but there's life beyond the
14 echo chamber.
15 You know, I had the privilege of
16 going to the Tops Supermarket in Buffalo in July,
17 like on the one weekend that Tim Kennedy wasn't
18 there.
19 (Laughter.)
20 SENATOR BAILEY: And
21 Madam President, it was like walking near holy
22 ground. You could feel the spirit. You could
23 feel the love there. And the artwork, the --
24 there were writings on the ground, there were
25 messages from people from throughout the country
3803
1 who had gone there to pay their respects.
2 And I don't know that the display is
3 still there in that same form, but in the Tops
4 Supermarket there was a waterfall that was built
5 in the waterfall -- excuse me, that was built in
6 the supermarket, with the names etched of those
7 that we lost. Madam President, and I stopped and
8 I just kind of stared at it dumfounded, probably
9 about a minute. And I thought about the anguish
10 that the families feel and I thought about the
11 anguish that the City of Buffalo feels. But I
12 thought about, what's my responsibility in this
13 moment? What am I going to take out of this?
14 And, you know, life is complicated.
15 So are people. And the message that I ultimately
16 believe that I've gotten is that I need to
17 continue to take steps towards making sure that
18 acceptance is real. And that while I -- while I
19 know that it must be much more difficult for
20 those in the City of Good Neighbors, this is
21 something that we felt throughout the country,
22 especially in Black communities.
23 You know, being targeted for who you
24 are is never okay. And it's tough in death when
25 life seems scary. And to be afraid to go to
3804
1 certain places was a common refrain for Black
2 folks throughout the country.
3 As I close, I just want to say I
4 thank -- I thank the leader for putting this
5 resolution on. And I know that there will be
6 commemorations throughout the weekend in the City
7 of Buffalo. And, you know, I give my best to the
8 city. But we've got to do more. Each and every
9 one of us in here has an audience, we have a
10 group, we have responsibility. And as the pastor
11 said, I couldn't even leave it off for a better
12 moment: To whom much is given, much is required.
13 Thank you, Madam President.
14 ACTING PRESIDENT MAYER: Thank you,
15 Senator Bailey.
16 Senator Sanders on the resolution.
17 SENATOR SANDERS: Thank you,
18 Madam President.
19 I want to thank my colleague Senator
20 Kennedy and the leader for understanding that
21 this is a necessary thing that we do and to mark
22 this tragic occasion.
23 And like most people in America, we
24 all cry out, how long will this go on? How many
25 times will this have to happen before we as a
3805
1 country decide that we're going to stop this
2 madness?
3 This madness in Buffalo, of course,
4 has been predated time and time again. We can go
5 back to Timothy McVeigh, the archvillain of the
6 Oklahoma City bombings. He was from New York.
7 He was raised in New York.
8 We can go to the Black church in
9 South Carolina, the slaughter there. We can go
10 to the Jewish synagogue in Pittsburgh. Or we can
11 just go back to Buffalo and say this: Where and
12 when are we going to stop and deal with this
13 issue? We're now faced with the white
14 supremacists in Texas, two or three -- Texas
15 seems to be generating an increasing amount,
16 faster and faster. In fact, all of the nation
17 seems to be going faster and faster. More and
18 more of these, the tempo is just increasing.
19 We need to get serious. Perhaps
20 there is one thing that we can do. We can look
21 at the gun of choice of the madmen and say that
22 the AR-15, which is the civilian counterpart of
23 the M-16, has no place -- it's a terrible weapon
24 for hunting. Anything except people.
25 It's a terrible weapon for hunting.
3806
1 There are far better weapons for hunting. This
2 one is made for one purpose, to see how many
3 people you can get in as short a period of time
4 as possible.
5 We all need to just get serious
6 here. What is the -- what is the number that we
7 as society will accept? How many more Buffalos
8 will we accept before we decide to say that we've
9 reached it? Is it 20 more? Because we may get
10 to that by next week if we don't watch ourselves.
11 Is it a hundred more? What is the number?
12 To the people of Buffalo, our hearts
13 go out to you. To the people of Texas. I could
14 go on, but I'd have to name every state in the
15 nation.
16 Thank you, Madam President. Thank
17 you, Senator Kennedy.
18 ACTING PRESIDENT MAYER: Thank you,
19 Senator Sanders.
20 Senator Martins on the resolution.
21 SENATOR MARTINS: Thank you, Madam
22 President.
23 I too rise to thank the sponsor for
24 this resolution.
25 It is important that we remember,
3807
1 that we not forget. There is an open wound in
2 the state, currently in this country. And it
3 speaks to a mental health crisis that we have.
4 And we talk about policy in this chamber, and we
5 discuss policy all the time. But we have to do
6 more.
7 Our children are suffering, whether
8 it's because of social media, whether it's
9 because, as Senator Bailey said, we live in echo
10 chambers and we choose to follow those voices
11 that are most appealing to us. We don't
12 diversify. We don't open our minds to other
13 cultures and to other ideas. But hate in any
14 form has to be opposed. And that's what we're
15 supposed to do right here in this chamber.
16 So when we discuss policies, let's
17 discuss policies globally. Let's talk about
18 those things that we can do to make our kids'
19 lives better, our future better. Let's talk
20 about education. Let's talk about social media
21 and the effects that social media has on our
22 children, on their minds, on their
23 preconceptions, and on people out there who are
24 predisposed to listening to certain hateful
25 messages.
3808
1 You know, the Reverend Dr. Martin
2 Luther King said that the arc of the moral
3 universe is long, but it bends towards justice.
4 And I believe that. I believe that we can be
5 better.
6 You know, Senator Sanders asked how
7 many is too many. The first one was too many.
8 Every one is too many, and every one is a
9 reminder of the failure that we have as a
10 society. And certainly here in the state we bear
11 our brunt of that as well. Every one of them is
12 a reminder of what we need to do here in this
13 chamber to prevent the next one from happening.
14 What are we prepared to do? Let's
15 have that discussion. Because as Senator Bailey
16 said, we sit here oftentimes and we discuss and
17 we talk at each other. But there are things we
18 can all agree on, and this is one of those things
19 we should all agree on, every one of us in this
20 chamber.
21 We have a responsibility to do
22 better. We have a responsibility to figure out
23 why this is happening. We have a responsibility
24 in this state to do something about it.
25 So to the points that were made
3809
1 earlier, let's take this as our call to work
2 together to find that solution. Let's use this
3 as the opportunity to understand that we're one
4 state, regardless of what our background is,
5 regardless of what ethnicity it is, whatever race
6 we have, whatever religion we have. We have a
7 responsibility as New Yorkers to do better,
8 because we have failed, and this is just one
9 latest example of how we failed.
10 So Madam President, I proudly vote
11 aye. I thank Senator Kennedy for bringing this
12 resolution. And I commit myself with the rest of
13 my colleagues to work together to figuring this
14 out. Thank you.
15 ACTING PRESIDENT MAYER: Thank you,
16 Senator Martins.
17 Senator Webb on the resolution.
18 SENATOR WEBB: Thank you,
19 Madam President.
20 I rise to thank Senator Kennedy for
21 bringing forth this resolution, and also to our
22 Majority Leader.
23 And so I was thinking about what I
24 wanted to offer in this moment, so I wanted to
25 share this piece here. "But we must go on to say
3810
1 that while it may be true that morality cannot be
2 legislated, behavior can be regulated. It may be
3 true that the law cannot change the heart, but it
4 can restrain the heartless. It may be true that
5 the law cannot make a man love me, but it can
6 keep him from lynching me, and I think that is
7 pretty important.
8 "Also, there's a need for executive
9 orders. There is a need for judicial decrees.
10 There is a need for civil rights legislation, on
11 the local scale within states and on the national
12 scale from the federal government."
13 This was a quote, a part of
14 Dr. Martin Luther King's speech at Western
15 Michigan University on December 18, 1963. And
16 this particular quote, for me, resonates in the
17 work that I have done over the years as a public
18 servant in asking this question, how do we
19 through legislation create a more equitable
20 society, a more equitable community.
21 And so in commemorating this day,
22 knowing that we lift up and honor the names of
23 all the victims who were impacted by this
24 travesty, and those who are surviving in the
25 larger community, what can we do in this chamber
3811
1 to not have more days like this?
2 And it's -- there's several things.
3 One, it requires us to acknowledge that white
4 supremacy is a problem. It is a danger not just
5 to people of color, it is a danger, an impediment
6 to everyone's growth and ability to have a better
7 quality of life.
8 It also requires us to look at the
9 issues around domestic terrorism, and what are
10 those policies and practices that we can put in
11 place to avoid and prevent the spreading of that
12 vitriol that permeates people's minds and their
13 spirits and then they enact in behavior that
14 creates harm for generations to come.
15 Now, the massacre that happened in
16 Buffalo, significantly tragic, and as some of my
17 colleagues already alluded to, reverberates
18 across the community of Buffalo, but across our
19 state and nation as a whole. And at the same
20 time, we have actions that we do every day on an
21 interpersonal level that are driven by bigotry,
22 and we can and should to better.
23 And so I think it is important in
24 this moment to honor the victims and their
25 families. What can we do in this chamber on this
3812
1 day and every day is to name the thing what it
2 is. Racism is not only an epidemic, it is a
3 pandemic. It is a public health issue. And it
4 requires leadership to recognize it and actively
5 address it, whether it's through us here in
6 government, healthcare, every institution that
7 makes up our society. We have a responsibility
8 to address it.
9 And so I think it is important and
10 we are reminded on days like this of why we sit
11 in these seats and also, more importantly, what
12 are we doing to make things better for those
13 coming after us, not just simply that will be
14 sitting in these seats, but in our respective
15 communities? Because we all deserve to live in a
16 community where we don't have to question or
17 wonder, if I go to the grocery store, will I be
18 shot? Or will I be treated differently for a job
19 because of the color of my skin?
20 Madam President, we have an
21 obligation here to not only honor the memory of
22 the victims of the Buffalo massacre, but also all
23 the ways in which racism permeates our state and
24 our society.
25 Again, I want to thank Senator
3813
1 Kennedy for bringing forth this legislation, all
2 my colleagues and the remarks that they have
3 shared thus far and those that will happen
4 subsequently.
5 I will be voting aye on this
6 legislation. Thank you, Madam President.
7 ACTING PRESIDENT MAYER: Thank you,
8 Senator Webb.
9 Senator Krueger on the resolution.
10 SENATOR KRUEGER: Thank you,
11 Madam President.
12 I also rise to thank Senator Kennedy
13 and our leader, Andrea Stewart-Cousins, for
14 bringing the resolution to the floor, because we
15 actually can't talk about this enough.
16 It's not just the story of Buffalo.
17 It's a story in every newspaper of our country it
18 feels like every day of our lives now: Mass
19 shootings, driven by ignorance and hatred. And
20 it's not all traditional racism. Of course it is
21 towards Black and brown people. It's
22 antisemitism, it's anti-Asian violence, it's
23 Islamophobia violence.
24 Hatred and violence are both growing
25 in our country, in correlation to each other, and
3814
1 that's what's so terrifying to me, that there's
2 always some level of people not understanding
3 each other and some people hating each other, but
4 the level at which it's going on now in our
5 country -- we almost forget mass shootings two
6 days later because a new one showed up in some
7 other state, in some other town. We go, Well,
8 now it's them. Well, it's not them, it's all of
9 us. And it's impacting all of us.
10 And the growth in the violence
11 correlated to the growth in access to guns and
12 more and more dangerous guns, with less and less
13 rules that can be applied, is what's also
14 literally triggering the amount of violence
15 that's done in any given incident.
16 So I don't have all the answers. I
17 don't think anyone in this room does. But it is
18 absolutely correlated to our doing a better job
19 of educating our children, educating each other,
20 making clear that none of it will be stood for.
21 Reporting in when you think something's happening
22 or could be happening. And forcing ourselves to
23 say we are America, we are New York State, we are
24 not going to let this continue. We are not
25 simply going to read about the next incident and
3815
1 shrug our shoulders and go, What can we do?
2 There is absolutely more we can do at every level
3 of government, and we must.
4 So my heart goes out to everyone
5 who's been impacted by this violence throughout
6 this country. And yet I know in my heart I'm
7 just waiting for the next incident, hoping it's
8 not anywhere near us.
9 Thank you, Madam President.
10 ACTING PRESIDENT MAYER: Thank you,
11 Senator Krueger.
12 Senator Borrello on the resolution.
13 SENATOR BORRELLO: Thank you,
14 Madam President.
15 I first rise to thank
16 Senator Kennedy for this and certainly send my
17 condolences. You know, we are all western
18 New Yorkers myself, and we were rocked by what
19 happened on that day.
20 You know, Western New York is
21 actually a small community in many ways. That
22 day a good friend of mine who I've known for
23 30 years, a pharmacist, usually working on
24 Saturdays, was not there that day. But yet, you
25 know, so much tragedy, so much pain. It affected
3816
1 us all.
2 You know, on those days afterwards I
3 was very proud of the response from our Western
4 New York delegation. We all gathered together
5 for a food distribution, because the loss, the
6 painful loss there was also followed by a
7 critical grocery store being closed. And the
8 food that those folks needed was not there any
9 longer.
10 So we all -- we all went to a food
11 distribution, and we all worked together. And so
12 many people from all across the state, all across
13 the country, supported that effort. That's the
14 thing that shows that in the end, we are good
15 people. As Senator Bailey said, that we do have
16 good things in our heart.
17 You know, I look at the list of
18 bills and, you know, we debate, we fight, but in
19 the end most of the bills we all agree on, most
20 of the time. Outside this chamber, we work
21 together on lots of things. In these waning days
22 of our session we will push and work together to
23 get all those local bills that are important to
24 everyone, no matter Republican, Democrat, what so
25 be, they will get done. That is the spirit that
3817
1 we need to share with the outside world.
2 So in closing, I will say that we
3 mourn the losses, that we are all affected by
4 this, and we will do better and must do better.
5 So thank you, Madam President.
6 ACTING PRESIDENT MAYER: Thank you,
7 Senator Borrello.
8 Senator Brouk on the resolution.
9 SENATOR BROUK: Thank you,
10 Madam President.
11 I want to start by thanking my
12 colleague Senator Kennedy and the rest of the
13 Buffalo delegation, both in the Senate and in the
14 Assembly, for honoring and remembering those that
15 were lost and for all that you've done to support
16 your community. And we know the things that make
17 headlines, and the things that don't, that you
18 all have put into supporting your community.
19 I also want to say, to the families
20 who lost loved ones in Buffalo, that we love you,
21 we stand with you, and we are mourning with you.
22 A lot of folks talked about today
23 some of the things that we face here in the
24 United States and in New York. And the only way
25 I can think to describe it is deadly diseases.
3818
1 We are suffering from the deadly disease of
2 racism in this country, in this state, in this
3 community, and we are suffering from the deadly
4 disease of an obsession with guns and assault
5 weapons.
6 Racism -- and I say this not just as
7 a Black woman, as the chair of the Mental Health
8 Committee -- racism is not a mental illness.
9 Racism is a disease that this country was founded
10 on and that we have failed to cure, that we have
11 failed to make the most meaningful advances
12 against. And while here in New York we have made
13 advances against the deadly disease of gun
14 violence, as a nation we have failed terribly.
15 And I think we really need to face
16 the fact that there are other countries that have
17 prevalent mental illness. There are other
18 countries that have prevalent racism. Ask any
19 nonwhite person who's traveled outside this
20 country to know racism exists, colorism exists
21 all over this world. And yet it's only here in
22 the United States that we have to sit here
23 mourning the losses, putting forward resolutions,
24 time and again and again and again and again,
25 because we have a pairing of two deadly diseases
3819
1 of racism and a proliferation of assault weapons.
2 There's no reason why someone with
3 hate in their heart, indoctrinated to hate Black
4 people, should have easy access to a weapon whose
5 sole purpose is to destroy multiple lives.
6 So we sit here and we mourn and we
7 feel the pain, we feel the fear in our own hearts
8 of going into grocery stores, of going for jogs,
9 going through drive-throughs, of living our
10 lives.
11 But that's not enough. Where
12 there's action that needs to be taken, we need to
13 stop acting like we don't know what those actions
14 are, and we need to start showing the courage to
15 take those actions.
16 I'll end with this. The news of the
17 Buffalo massacre happened as I sat at home with a
18 one-month-old baby. And I thought to myself, how
19 dare I bring this beautiful Black life into this
20 world that does not deserve her? And I
21 recommitted to myself and to all of our families,
22 all of us, that I have to do every single thing
23 that I can every single day to make this world
24 and this state one that deserves this beautiful
25 baby girl. And that's what I've recommitted
3820
1 every single day since.
2 And I'll say once again, Senator
3 Kennedy, thank you for your leadership, for the
4 leadership of many of my colleagues, to our
5 leader, Andrea Stewart-Cousins. And I beg of
6 anyone who hasn't done the work they need to do
7 every day -- not just legislating, but in how you
8 talk and treat people -- that we do more.
9 And I vote aye. Thank you.
10 ACTING PRESIDENT MAYER: Thank you,
11 Senator Brouk.
12 Senator Jackson on the resolution.
13 SENATOR JACKSON: Thank you,
14 Madam President.
15 My colleagues, I rise to speak on
16 this matter.
17 Senator Kennedy, thank you for your
18 leadership.
19 To the families that are here, your
20 lives and the lives of so many people have been
21 changed forever.
22 I thought about the assault weapons
23 that were used in this particular matter and
24 around our country, and I think about what I've
25 said even several years ago, and after listening
3821
1 to our president, President Biden, speaking about
2 a ban on assault weapons after the Nashville,
3 Tennessee, shooting. I've said a long time ago,
4 if I was the president of the United States I
5 would have banned all assault weapons.
6 And some people said, How would you
7 do that? Get Congress to pass a law that we will
8 pay everyone what they paid for that assault
9 weapon. And if you did not hand it in, you will
10 be brought up on charges of committing a crime.
11 Because if we look around and think
12 about everything that we have seen, thousands of
13 people have died in our country as a result of
14 assault weapons.
15 And some people will argue, Well,
16 it's my right under the Second Amendment of the
17 Constitution to bear arms. Well, that's your
18 right, but it doesn't say it has to be an assault
19 weapon. What if I wanted to bring a bazooka at
20 home, in order to take it at home? Is that okay?
21 Of course it's not. Lives have been lost and
22 people's lives have changed forever as a result
23 of these mass shootings all over the place.
24 And, yes, racism is a part of it.
25 But today we mourn the tragic life and bodily
3822
1 injuries of people from Buffalo, New York.
2 And as someone from New York City,
3 NYPD sends out an alert every time there's an
4 incident. And as a member of the State Senate
5 from New York City, I see too many reports of gun
6 violence where people are being shot and killed.
7 And the majority of those people in New York City
8 are people of color.
9 It's crazy. We need to get ahold of
10 this as a country and ban assault weapons and
11 reduce guns in our homes and protect one another
12 with whatever we can do.
13 So with that, Madam President, I
14 vote aye. I wish I had the magic solution to
15 wave a wand and to eliminate all racism,
16 eliminate all guns in our country, but I don't.
17 So we work together.
18 ACTING PRESIDENT MAYER: Thank you,
19 Senator Jackson.
20 Senator Persaud on the resolution.
21 SENATOR PERSAUD: Thank you,
22 Madam President.
23 You know, it is -- every time there
24 is a mass shooting -- first, thank you to
25 Senator Kennedy and to our Majority Leader for
3823
1 allowing this resolution to the floor.
2 Every time there's a mass shooting
3 across this country, the first thing we
4 instinctively say is "our thoughts and prayer."
5 We say "our thoughts and prayer." Because at
6 that time, everyone believes in religion.
7 And then a little after that, people
8 start to squabble about the rights of the person
9 who committed that heinous crime. And it always
10 comes back to saying, Well, he has a right to
11 have a gun. He has a right to have a gun.
12 Ask ourselves, when we look in the
13 mirror every day, do I have a right to walk up to
14 you, Senator Borrello, do I have a right to walk
15 up to you and punch you in the face and just walk
16 away? Do I have a right?
17 Someone can say, Yeah, I'm
18 expressing my frustration, so I have a right.
19 But do I really?
20 And then we say, it's my right, you
21 know -- do you have a right to have weapons and
22 ammunition in your home? Are you arming a small
23 militia? Are you? That's the question we should
24 ask whenever we hear that someone walked into a
25 church, a supermarket, a mall, a shopping mall,
3824
1 and just started shooting with a rifle or a gun
2 that they purchased legally in another state.
3 And then they come to express the
4 hatred that they've been taught. And I say
5 taught. No one is born hating, no one. We walk
6 in, we see each other, we're different cultures,
7 different ethnic groups. But we are taught to
8 dislike someone who does not look like us.
9 And for the vast majority of people
10 who are taught to dislike the person who does not
11 look like them, it's about power. It's about
12 control. That's what that hatred is about. If
13 you can control someone who does not look like
14 you, you are showing the people of your groups
15 that you are better than everyone else. That's
16 what it's all about.
17 A few years ago there was an event,
18 and a little boy ran up to his mom in tears. He
19 was four years old. She says, "What's the
20 matter?" He says -- I'm going to say
21 Little Johnny. Little Johnny says, "My dad said
22 I should not play with brown kids." That's what
23 he said.
24 Why are we telling our children that
25 it's not okay to play with a child because the
3825
1 child looks different from him or her? That's
2 what we see every day. That's what we see every
3 day. And that's why across this country we are
4 seeing more and more mass shootings, because
5 young children are taught that when you see
6 someone who does not look like you, you must hate
7 them.
8 And we always say hate is a strong
9 word. But that's exactly what it is. It's a
10 word that's used in families because they don't
11 like someone who looks like them. We see every
12 day, we hear every day people in circles that
13 we're all part of: Oh, I don't want them moving
14 in next to me. Why? Because they're different.
15 They look different to you. They're going to
16 change the makeup of our community.
17 What have they done to you? They've
18 done nothing to you. But you've -- it's been --
19 you've been so indoctrinated in the hatred of
20 others that you don't see and you can't for
21 yourself figure out that's wrong.
22 Each of us in here has a
23 responsibility to break that cycle. Each of us,
24 when we look in the mirror, should say when I go
25 out there today, I'm going to be the one that's
3826
1 going to start that conversation.
2 Don't be afraid of the person who's
3 standing next to you because they look different
4 than you are. They're not your enemy. The
5 person who walked into Tops and decided to kill
6 those people, walked in there and did that
7 because he was told that Black people were his
8 enemy. That's it. They had done nothing to him.
9 But he was told that they were his enemy.
10 Don't be afraid of someone who does
11 not look like you. We have a responsibility to
12 break that cycle. That little child that's
13 sitting in the gallery up there, let's show that
14 little child that we are responsible people and
15 we are going to change that conversation in the
16 State of New York. Don't hate. Don't hate
17 someone who doesn't look like you. Don't do
18 that.
19 When you go to your school or you're
20 walking and you see a little kid who's different
21 from you, say hi to them. If you hear adults
22 tell you, Come on, they're not one of us, don't
23 believe that. We are all human beings.
24 Many of us in here sit and say we're
25 Christian or whatever religion. Well, if you
3827
1 really deep inside of you believe in the God that
2 you believe in, you will also believe that we are
3 all one people. That's what you will believe.
4 And you will change that conversation that you
5 have when you walk out into the public.
6 So to all of you and to everyone in
7 the gallery, remember, we are all one people. We
8 may look different, but we were all created to be
9 the same. I bleed the same as you bleed. No
10 different.
11 So to the people of Buffalo, we will
12 continue to stand with you. And we continue -- I
13 hope to God that Senator Krueger is wrong, that
14 we're not going to have another mass shooting.
15 That's what I hope for.
16 So to Senator Kennedy, thank you.
17 Thank you, thank you. And again, to all of you,
18 remember: We are one people. Let's behave that
19 way.
20 Thank you, Madam President.
21 ACTING PRESIDENT MAYER: Thank you,
22 Senator Persaud.
23 Senator Ryan on the resolution.
24 SENATOR RYAN: Thank you,
25 Madam President.
3828
1 Thank you to my colleague from
2 Buffalo, Senator Kennedy, for bringing this
3 resolution. And thank you to my colleagues from
4 around the state for their expression of support
5 and grief.
6 There was 202 mass shootings in the
7 United States so far this year. And, you know,
8 you read the list and -- last year we opened
9 January with welcoming in a mass shooting in
10 Milwaukee, then a mass shooting in Dumas,
11 Arkansas. Then a mass shooting in Sacramento.
12 Then a mass shooting in Brooklyn. Then a mass
13 shooting in Milwaukee.
14 And you try to digest this -- you
15 know, as an American, you read about these things
16 and you think, I feel so bad for those
17 communities. And you try to have empathy and you
18 try to imagine their pain. But then May 14th
19 happened, and suddenly you realized all the
20 empathy you thought you had for all those other
21 communities, it was sort of -- it was an
22 illusion. Because the grief and the feeling of
23 helplessness is so compounded, you know, when
24 it's a mile and a half from your house.
25 I was doing yard work in the
3829
1 backyard, I'd been to some community events, and
2 there was a lot of helicopters buzzing overhead.
3 And we don't have a lot of helicopters in
4 Buffalo, and I just couldn't imagine why there
5 would be helicopters. But you just don't think
6 these things can happen to you. You know,
7 it's -- when tragedy comes to your town and you
8 don't know what to do with it.
9 And we passed laws after, we passed
10 regulations after, as I'm sure that people in all
11 those other communities who suffered these
12 profound tragedies do. But on my cynical side I
13 wonder if those really have impacts. And you go
14 through all these shootings, and you think, Well,
15 let's look at what brought this person to that.
16 Right? That's what the press always wants to
17 find out, what brought this person to it. You
18 can never figure it out.
19 But I've sort of gone off this
20 looking at -- into the hearts of these shooters.
21 And instead I think we have to look into the
22 hearts not of Americans, but maybe into America's
23 heart. You know, why is it that -- like after
24 this happened in Buffalo, you would think this
25 can never happen anywhere else again. But before
3830
1 the month was over, it had happened. And the
2 profound grief that we suffered you realize is
3 being suffered all over the United States of
4 America.
5 And this goes to the American heart,
6 right? You know, we're a couple of miles from
7 the Canadian border. They don't suffer mass
8 shootings like we suffer mass shootings. I have
9 a daughter who lives in Japan. They have a
10 handful of gun deaths a year.
11 Like, what is it with us that makes
12 us behave so savagely to ourselves? I don't have
13 an answer. I mean, everyone who's spoken has
14 spoken so eloquently of it. I have no answers.
15 But I know that 10 people were murdered in
16 Buffalo. And you can't think about it without
17 crying. And you think about the lives lost and
18 then the suffering of each and every one of their
19 family members, and then the ripple goes out once
20 more to their cousins, aunts, nephews, friends.
21 The ripple goes out once more.
22 Then you think about the people who
23 just went to work at Tops that day. Their lives
24 are never going to be the same. No physical harm
25 came to them. How do you go on living after
3831
1 seeing that?
2 And then the EMTs who have to come
3 as part of their job. The firefighters, the
4 police officers, the construction workers, people
5 who had to clean up. It's -- the ripple of pain
6 is so immense. And I know that's a ripple that
7 we feel so profoundly and so deeply in our hearts
8 as Buffalonians.
9 But then you look at 2023, 202 other
10 communities have experienced what we experienced.
11 We don't want anyone to experience anything like
12 this again. I wish I had an answer for you, but
13 I think the heart lies somewhere in the heart of
14 America.
15 ACTING PRESIDENT MAYER: Thank you,
16 Senator Ryan.
17 Senator Harckham on the resolution.
18 SENATOR HARCKHAM: Thank you,
19 Madam President.
20 First I want to thank Senator
21 Kennedy for this resolution and the really
22 powerful discussion that it has brought about. I
23 also want to thank Senator Kennedy for taking me
24 to Tops Supermarket a few short weeks after the
25 shooting to reflect on the carnage and the loss
3832
1 of life that had happened there.
2 This has been a very powerful debate
3 for me, a confluence of a lot of things -- of
4 hatred, of our obsession with firearms. As we
5 just heard from Senator Ryan, why this happens
6 nowhere else in the world but the United States
7 of America.
8 And I just wanted to comment on one
9 other angle of this, is the nexus of weaponizing
10 hate on social media, which is a common thread in
11 all of this. In all of these mass shootings
12 there seems to be a thread of hatred on social
13 media that is weaponized.
14 And, you know, we're dealing with a
15 case of this in my own district. In this case it
16 has to do with homophobia and transphobia, a
17 nexus of hateful social postings, and the next
18 thing we know a restaurant was vandalized, the
19 owner's car was vandalized, he was harassed with
20 his children in the car.
21 And so these things are weaponized.
22 And as you well know, Madam President, we met
23 with some young middle-schoolers last week
24 talking about antisemitism and how it was
25 weaponized in their schools through social media.
3833
1 And one of the young men that, Madam President, I
2 met with as we spoke about all of these issues,
3 at 12 years old, had the wherewithal to say, It's
4 not okay. It's not okay. And yet so many adults
5 think that hate speech is okay.
6 So it's a challenge. You know, we
7 live in a society with free speech. How do we
8 regulate hate speech? But so much of hate speech
9 is now being weaponized, and to the tragic
10 results that we've seen.
11 And I remember when I was in
12 elementary school, the worst thing we had were
13 fire drills. And when that bell went off, we
14 loved it. It got us out of class, it got us out
15 of the building, it got us outdoors. And now our
16 students have mass shooting drills, live-fire
17 drills. Our police departments, even the
18 smallest ones, now have to train on
19 active-shooter situations in school districts.
20 And this is what we've come to.
21 And so it's not a good state of
22 affairs by any imagination. And it just, as
23 other colleagues have said, leads us to know that
24 we have so much more work to do, both in this
25 chamber and back in our districts.
3834
1 So I thank you, Senator Kennedy. I
2 will be voting aye. Thank you, Madam President.
3 ACTING PRESIDENT MAYER: Senator
4 Hoylman-Sigal on the resolution.
5 SENATOR HOYLMAN-SIGAL: Thank you,
6 Madam President.
7 And thank you, Senator Kennedy, for
8 those moving words. And Senator Ryan, my heart
9 goes out to you and to your constituents and to
10 the families who lost loved ones and to the
11 families who were injured and no doubt will
12 suffer decades of posttraumatic syndrome.
13 The harm, the carnage that an AR-15
14 inflicts upon a body is incalculable. And even
15 if you survive a mass shooting, you really
16 didn't, as the studies will show.
17 And I want to thank my colleagues
18 for their thoughtful words on this very solemn
19 occasion.
20 And to put a finer point on the
21 number of mass shootings, 202 just this year
22 alone. Madam President, there have been only
23 been 130 days in 2023. We witness a mass
24 shooting at least once a week in this country.
25 And if it's not going to be Buffalo, it could be
3835
1 New York City, it could be Binghamton, it could
2 be any part of our state or our community.
3 And I just want to say that, you
4 know, activists like Moms Demand Action and
5 New Yorkers Against Gun Violence have done
6 everything they can in their power, as I think we
7 have, to make certain that our communities are
8 safe. But boy, we have so much work to do at the
9 federal level -- and even in this chamber, as we
10 try to move legislation like the Grieving
11 Families Act, which is going to lift up families
12 who have been devalued, those victims in the
13 Buffalo shooting, due to a 175-year-old statute
14 here in New York.
15 But also holding gun manufacturers
16 liable, which is what we did in this chamber.
17 I'm so proud that we were one of the first states
18 in the nation.
19 We have to respond to these
20 tragedies with laws that have meaning and protect
21 our communities. And when my 5-year-old comes
22 home and describes the lockdown drill that she
23 experienced, you know, I wonder what is the
24 impact on her growing brain and emotional
25 stability. It's extremely frightening for young
3836
1 children. If we're nervous about it, try to put
2 ourselves into their shoes.
3 And I appreciate the bills we have
4 on social media responsibility, continuing our
5 efforts in gun safety, reforming our laws around
6 protecting victims and ensuring that they get the
7 support they need after these tragedies. But
8 I want to commend my colleagues for their work.
9 And I welcome the support -- not just the words
10 from our colleagues across the aisle, but the
11 courage to stand up to the gun manufacturers, to
12 stand up to members of your own party,
13 particularly at the national level, to do what's
14 right for our communities and ensure there's not
15 another incident like Buffalo, in our lifetime or
16 ever.
17 Thank you, Madam President.
18 ACTING PRESIDENT MAYER: Thank you.
19 Senator Fernandez on the resolution.
20 SENATOR FERNANDEZ: Thank you,
21 Madam President.
22 And thank you, Senator Kennedy, for
23 bringing this resolution, this conversation to
24 the floor today. Because one way or another, we
25 have to keep talking about it. We have to keep
3837
1 recognizing that the hate, the fear, the killings
2 is not a normal thing.
3 When it comes to mass shootings in
4 this country, yesterday I saw it online -- an FBI
5 ad teaching people how to get away from a mass
6 shooter, what's the best tactics, how to hide,
7 how to stop him, how to survive. Like it was a
8 natural disaster and we needed to duck and cover
9 because at any point a hurricane could come.
10 And it scared me. It scared me that
11 this is now something that we want to normalize,
12 that the FBI feels we have to normalize, because
13 it's just not stopping. And that's wrong.
14 It's been said -- and I'm so
15 grateful that my colleagues recognize it, say it,
16 and talk to each other about it -- that this is a
17 problem in this country and it is very obvious
18 we're the only ones with this problem. And the
19 common denominator always is the access to
20 assault rifles and guns that allow those that
21 have hate in their hearts to kill others.
22 And for those that suffered at the
23 hands of hate and racism, and someone who had
24 easy access to a gun, I pray every day for you
25 and I'm sorry that that had to happen to your
3838
1 family. And I know that I stand here today ready
2 to continue to fight and to push back on those
3 that say you have that right.
4 Because no, we don't have that right
5 to hate. And it's really sad that in my life,
6 fighting for my constituents, that I still face
7 racism in my own district. I've had people tell
8 me that they're not going to vote for me because
9 I'm Latina. Literally those words. And I'm very
10 grateful that a majority of the district saw
11 aside from that and have me -- and they put me
12 here today.
13 But this is a real crisis, and I
14 think we're reaching -- we've been at the peak.
15 We haven't reached it, we've been at the peak.
16 And I hope that everyone in this room and in this
17 state can see that if we're not going to make
18 drastic changes to what we're teaching our
19 children, to what we're allowing access to, we're
20 going to keep passing resolutions mourning.
21 I will never forget those that have
22 suffered at that. But it hurts to keep mourning
23 every single day, because we're seeing this every
24 single day.
25 Thank you, Senator, for bringing
3839
1 this conversation today. And I absolutely vote
2 aye on this resolution. And I look forward to
3 all of us in this room to continue working to
4 stop the evil that is happening in this state.
5 Thank you.
6 ACTING PRESIDENT MAYER: Thank you,
7 Senator Fernandez.
8 Senator Cleare on the resolution.
9 SENATOR CLEARE: Thank you,
10 Madam President.
11 I'm a little under the weather
12 today, and I wasn't planning on speaking on this,
13 but I feel so moved to do so.
14 Senator Kennedy, thank you. I know
15 this was tough for you. I remember when it
16 happened and I saw the pain in you and others of
17 my colleagues as well.
18 You know, this wasn't so abstract.
19 It was right there. It was home. This wasn't
20 across the country, this wasn't down South. This
21 was in New York State. People were killed
22 because they were Black.
23 Yes, we have a problem with assault
24 weapons. But we have a problem with race. And
25 I'm encouraged by today's conversation in this
3840
1 chamber. I think it is the most conversation we
2 have had about race and racism.
3 I think we have to have more
4 conversations. It's a hard topic. It's
5 difficult for all of us. We have to examine what
6 are we doing, or what are we not doing that
7 contributes to the problem. And when you see
8 disparities across the board -- you may not think
9 it's the case, but disparities in healthcare,
10 disparities in education, disparities in
11 employment, one after the other. You look at any
12 topic, disparities.
13 The people who are impacted feel not
14 valued, and the people who hate, it is reinforced
15 that they have no value when we don't provide
16 these services, when we don't do things for
17 everyone in society, when we don't recognize that
18 we have a problem of racism in this country and
19 in this state.
20 Starting with our curriculum in
21 school. We have to teach it. We have to teach
22 Black history. Black history is important not
23 just to Black children. It's important to white
24 children. It's important to all children.
25 Because this is what teaches people the value of
3841
1 other people, that they have a value. They have
2 a place. And they're not people to just be shot
3 and killed.
4 Diversity is important. It's
5 important to meet other people, learn other
6 cultures, have compassion for others. I can't
7 imagine anybody doing such a horrible thing, and
8 I've questioned it long after the event happened,
9 what could be going on in this person's mind. It
10 is so inhumane, today, in this day and age, where
11 we think that education is available and we think
12 we've come a long way and we've gone through the
13 worst that this country had to offer.
14 But it remains because we don't get
15 rid of it. We have to make a conscious decision
16 that we are going to get rid of all of these
17 disparities, that we're going to address racism
18 wherever it lives. We're going to cut it out.
19 Because people like this gentleman think they
20 have a right to kill people that have no value in
21 his mind.
22 So today, Senator Kennedy, I thank
23 you for continuing to honor these families. I
24 know you had someone close to you affected. And
25 though he survived, I know there are scars that
3842
1 will never go away, not for him or his family.
2 It is frightening to think that that
3 could happen to anybody doing anything. So we
4 have to continue to remember, and I thank you for
5 bringing this resolution.
6 And I proudly vote aye.
7 ACTING PRESIDENT MAYER: Thank you,
8 Senator Cleare.
9 All those in favor of adopting the
10 resolution signify by saying aye.
11 (Response of "Aye.")
12 ACTING PRESIDENT MAYER: Opposed?
13 (No response.)
14 ACTING PRESIDENT MAYER: The
15 resolution is adopted.
16 Senator Gianaris.
17 SENATOR GIANARIS: Madam President,
18 can you recognize Senator Oberacker for an
19 introduction, please.
20 ACTING PRESIDENT MAYER: Senator
21 Oberacker for an introduction.
22 SENATOR OBERACKER: Thank you,
23 Madam President.
24 You know, I'm so happy to have a
25 group from the 51st Senate District, from my home
3843
1 county, with me here today.
2 Leadership Otsego is a program
3 coordinated by the Otsego Chamber of Commerce,
4 focused on developing community stewards from all
5 walks of life.
6 This program, which was -- and has
7 existed since 1997, concentrates on the many
8 challenges we have locally. A true bottom-up
9 approach that has helped develop and inspire our
10 next generation of leaders.
11 You know, certainly there's nothing
12 more educational and inspiring than a visit to
13 the great New York State Senate chamber. And I'm
14 honored to have the 2023 class of
15 Leadership Otsego here today and hope that this
16 visit will enhance their learning experience.
17 Welcome to all. Enjoy your time
18 here at the Capitol. And I would ask,
19 Madam President, that we extend all the
20 courtesies of the chamber to this wonderful
21 group.
22 ACTING PRESIDENT MAYER: Thank you,
23 Senator.
24 To our guests, we welcome you on
25 behalf of the Senate. We extend to you all the
3844
1 privileges and courtesies of the house.
2 Please rise and be recognized.
3 (Standing ovation.)
4 ACTING PRESIDENT MAYER: Senator
5 Gianaris.
6 SENATOR GIANARIS: Can we now move
7 to previously adopted Resolution 523, by
8 Senator Cleare, read its title and recognize
9 Senator Cleare.
10 ACTING PRESIDENT MAYER: The
11 Secretary will read.
12 THE SECRETARY: Senate Resolution
13 523, by Senator Cleare, commending Robert
14 McCullough for a lifetime of public service to
15 the youth of Harlem, New York, upon the occasion
16 of commemorating the 57th Anniversary of Each One
17 Teach One, Inc.
18 ACTING PRESIDENT MAYER: Senator
19 Cleare on the resolution.
20 SENATOR CLEARE: Thank you,
21 Madam President.
22 Bob McCullough is a one-of-a-kind
23 beloved institution in East Harlem, Harlem, and
24 New York City. Bob may be best known for some of
25 his basketball exploits, such as averaging
3845
1 36 points a game in the 1964-1965 college season,
2 or for his streetball skills at the famed
3 Rucker Park.
4 However, the Bob McCullough that so
5 many know and love is a selfless and powerful
6 advocate for our community, our youth, and our
7 future.
8 After college, Bob decided to
9 immediately give back to his community through
10 his life's work. In 1966 he founded Each One
11 Teach One, in honor of his mentor
12 Holcombe Rucker. Each One Teach One has now
13 existed for over half a century, providing
14 mentorship, educational, social and youth
15 development services in Harlem and beyond.
16 Many famous Each One Teach One camp
17 counselors exist, such as Dr. Jay, Julius Erving;
18 Nate "Tiny" Archibald; Willis Reed; Wilt
19 Chamberlain; Connie Hawkins; Kareem Abdul-Jabbar;
20 and Bill Bradley, among others.
21 After his playing career,
22 Bob McCullough earned a Master of Science degree
23 from Lehman College and studied additionally at
24 NYU, Cornell University, and Hunter College. He
25 served for many years as a guidance counselor and
3846
1 social worker.
2 His mark on our youth and our
3 community has been a shining achievement. Due to
4 his inspiring mentorship, multiple successive
5 generations have learned core values, focused on
6 education, excelled on the court and off,
7 attended college, received degrees, played in the
8 NBA, and have given back to their community.
9 Bob was and is, but was the violence
10 interruption before it became a term. He was
11 always dedicated to the Harlem community. And I
12 believe strongly in celebrating our community
13 here. He served on Community Board 10 for
14 30 years. Always giving back.
15 Today, Bob, I want to let you know
16 how much you mean to the Harlem community, to the
17 New York community, for all the work that you've
18 done over these years. It is an honor to know
19 you and an honor to honor you today.
20 Thank you, Madam President.
21 ACTING PRESIDENT MAYER: Thank you,
22 Senator Cleare.
23 To Mr. McCullough and your guests,
24 we welcome you to this house and extend all the
25 privileges and courtesies of the Senate.
3847
1 Please rise and be recognized.
2 (Standing ovation.)
3 ACTING PRESIDENT MAYER: The
4 resolution was previously adopted on May 2nd.
5 Senator Gianaris.
6 SENATOR LIU: That would be me,
7 Madam President.
8 (Laughter.)
9 ACTING PRESIDENT MAYER: Oh,
10 Senator Liu. I didn't look up, I apologize.
11 SENATOR LIU: That's okay. He had
12 some business to take care of.
13 At the request of the sponsors, both
14 resolutions are open for cosponsorship.
15 ACTING PRESIDENT MAYER: At the
16 request of the sponsors, all resolutions are open
17 for cosponsorship. Should you choose not to be a
18 cosponsor, please notify the desk.
19 Senator Liu.
20 SENATOR LIU: Please take up --
21 Madam President, please take up the reading of
22 the calendar.
23 ACTING PRESIDENT MAYER: The
24 Secretary will read.
25 THE SECRETARY: Calendar Number 83,
3848
1 Assembly Bill Number 1153A, by Assemblymember
2 Vanel, an act to amend the Banking Law.
3 ACTING PRESIDENT MAYER: Read the
4 last section.
5 THE SECRETARY: Section 3. This
6 act shall take effect on the 30th day after it
7 shall have become a law.
8 ACTING PRESIDENT MAYER: Call the
9 roll.
10 (The Secretary called the roll.)
11 ACTING PRESIDENT MAYER: Announce
12 the results.
13 THE SECRETARY: In relation to
14 Calendar 83, those Senators voting in the
15 negative are Senators Ashby, Borrello,
16 Canzoneri-Fitzpatrick, Gallivan, Griffo, Helming,
17 Lanza, Martins, Mattera, Murray, Oberacker,
18 O'Mara, Palumbo, Rhoads, Rolison, Stec, Tedisco,
19 Walczyk, Weber and Weik.
20 Ayes, 38. Nays, 20.
21 ACTING PRESIDENT MAYER: The bill
22 is passed.
23 THE SECRETARY: Calendar Number
24 226, Senate Print 1059, by Senator May, an act to
25 amend the Executive Law.
3849
1 ACTING PRESIDENT MAYER: Read the
2 last section.
3 THE SECRETARY: Section 2. This
4 act shall take effect on the 60th day after it
5 shall have become a law.
6 ACTING PRESIDENT MAYER: Call the
7 roll.
8 (The Secretary called the roll.)
9 ACTING PRESIDENT MAYER: Senator
10 May to explain her vote.
11 SENATOR MAY: Thank you,
12 Madam President.
13 All over the state there are people
14 who are living in unsafe conditions in their
15 apartments. And there are a lot of reasons for
16 this, but one of the reasons is because we simply
17 don't have enough code enforcement officers to do
18 the inspections and determine if the living
19 conditions are safe.
20 So this is a particular problem in a
21 lot of rural areas, not because there aren't
22 people who want to do code enforcement but
23 because they can't get the training. And this
24 bill is going to make it much easier for
25 especially rural communities to train code
3850
1 enforcement officers so that tenants across the
2 state can live in safer conditions.
3 So I'm grateful to my colleagues for
4 supporting this and to the leadership for
5 bringing this forward.
6 I vote aye.
7 ACTING PRESIDENT MAYER: Senator
8 May to be recorded in the affirmative.
9 Announce the results.
10 THE SECRETARY: Ayes, 58.
11 ACTING PRESIDENT MAYER: The bill
12 is passed.
13 THE SECRETARY: Calendar Number
14 383, Assembly Print Number 3238, by
15 Assemblymember Jones, an act to authorize certain
16 healthcare professionals licensed to practice in
17 other jurisdictions.
18 ACTING PRESIDENT MAYER: Read the
19 last section.
20 THE SECRETARY: Section 2. This
21 act shall take effect immediately.
22 ACTING PRESIDENT MAYER: Call the
23 roll.
24 (The Secretary called the roll.)
25 ACTING PRESIDENT MAYER: Announce
3851
1 the results.
2 THE SECRETARY: Ayes, 58.
3 ACTING PRESIDENT MAYER: The bill
4 is passed.
5 THE SECRETARY: Calendar Number
6 545, Senate Print 2241, by Senator Weik, an act
7 to amend the Executive Law.
8 ACTING PRESIDENT MAYER: Read the
9 last section.
10 THE SECRETARY: Section 2. This
11 act shall take effect immediately.
12 ACTING PRESIDENT MAYER: Call the
13 roll.
14 (The Secretary called the roll.)
15 ACTING PRESIDENT MAYER: Senator
16 Weik to explain her vote.
17 SENATOR WEIK: Thank you,
18 Madam President.
19 March 21st is World Down Syndrome
20 Day. On this day people with Down syndrome and
21 those who live and work with them throughout the
22 world organize and participate in activities and
23 events to raise public awareness and create a
24 single global voice advocating for the rights,
25 inclusion and well-being of people with Down
3852
1 syndrome. That's one of them (indicating).
2 Down syndrome is a condition in
3 which a person has an extra chromosome.
4 Chromosomes are the small package of genes in the
5 body. They determine how the baby's body forms
6 and functions as it grows during pregnancy and
7 after birth.
8 Typically a baby is born with
9 46 chromosomes. Babies with Down syndrome have
10 an extra copy of one of those chromosomes,
11 chromosome 21.
12 Why March 21st? The 21st day of the
13 third month was selected to signify the
14 uniqueness of the triplication of the
15 21st chromosome which causes Down syndrome.
16 I was blessed to get a letter last
17 year from constituent Marisa Bryant, who was kind
18 enough to share this.
19 "Dear Senator Weik, I wanted to
20 sincerely and wholeheartedly thank you for your
21 time and effort and support in helping us pass
22 legislation to designate March 21st as
23 Down Syndrome Awareness Day in New York.
24 "As a New Yorker and an expectant
25 mother to our fourth child, Noah James, who is
3853
1 likely to be born with Down syndrome later this
2 summer, it gives my family such comfort and
3 encouragement to see members of our state's
4 leadership championing acknowledgement and
5 awareness of Down syndrome. To know that there's
6 positive strides in understanding and accepting
7 this chromosomal condition makes the uncertain
8 road ahead seem lighter and brighter for myself
9 and so many others.
10 "So thank you again on behalf of
11 myself, my family, and your soon to be
12 constituent Noah."
13 And then later in July last year I
14 got another message saying that she wanted to
15 follow up to let me know that Noah James was born
16 on July 27th, "and he's the light of our lives."
17 And to know someone with Down
18 syndrome is to be touched by a blessing that
19 softens your heart and brightens your life.
20 And -- excuse me -- and so today I'm so proud
21 that New York State will forevermore recognize
22 March 21st as Down Syndrome Awareness Day.
23 And I'd like to recognize Marisa and
24 her strong-as-a-stone husband, her three -- four
25 adorable children, Ella, Daniel, Sylvie, and Baby
3854
1 Noah, who is with us here today in celebration of
2 New York State recognizing Down syndrome
3 awareness.
4 ACTING PRESIDENT MAYER: So first
5 we will say Senator Weik to be recorded in the
6 affirmative.
7 Announce the results.
8 THE SECRETARY: Ayes, 58.
9 ACTING PRESIDENT MAYER: The bill
10 is passed.
11 To our guests, welcome to the
12 Senate. Thank you for sharing with us here
13 today.
14 Please rise and be recognized.
15 (Standing ovation.)
16 ACTING PRESIDENT MAYER: The
17 Secretary will read.
18 THE SECRETARY: Calendar Number
19 561, Senate Print 5178, by Senator Brouk, an act
20 in relation to establishing a task force to study
21 aging in place in mental health housing.
22 ACTING PRESIDENT MAYER: Read the
23 last section.
24 THE SECRETARY: Section 2. This
25 act shall take effect immediately.
3855
1 ACTING PRESIDENT MAYER: Call the
2 roll.
3 (The Secretary called the roll.)
4 ACTING PRESIDENT MAYER: Announce
5 the results.
6 THE SECRETARY: Ayes, 58.
7 ACTING PRESIDENT MAYER: The bill
8 is passed.
9 THE SECRETARY: Calendar Number
10 596, Senate Print 6056, by Senator Ryan, an act
11 to amend the Economic Development Law and the
12 New York State Urban Development Corporation Act.
13 ACTING PRESIDENT MAYER: Read the
14 last section.
15 THE SECRETARY: Section 4. This
16 act shall take effect immediately.
17 ACTING PRESIDENT MAYER: Call the
18 roll.
19 (The Secretary called the roll.)
20 ACTING PRESIDENT MAYER: Senator
21 Ryan to explain his vote.
22 SENATOR RYAN: Thank you,
23 Madam President.
24 If we didn't know it before the
25 pandemic, we know it now, that reliable
3856
1 high-speed internet is essential to our way of
2 life. We use it for work, school, telemedicine.
3 You know, you name it, we figured it out during
4 the pandemic that life is really hard without
5 internet -- or without good internet.
6 But a lot of communities throughout
7 New York State have internet service that doesn't
8 work as advertised. These communities are often
9 rural communities, underserved communities, urban
10 communities that have been plagued by
11 disinvestment.
12 But we're doing two things to bring
13 internet into New York State. The Urban and
14 Community Development program and the Restore
15 New York Communities initiatives are both
16 programs designed to bring internet into
17 underserved communities.
18 We're making a big investment in
19 internet, but we have to make sure we're making
20 the right investment, and fiber optic is the
21 state-of-the-art way to deliver internet to
22 people's homes. This bill would add end-to-end
23 fiber optic broadband as a factor to consider
24 when you're figuring out how to spend state
25 money.
3857
1 It will get broadband into
2 underserved communities but, more importantly, it
3 will get good broadband into those communities.
4 Because dealing with slow or unreliable internet
5 puts people at a major disadvantage in 2023.
6 We're engaging in a major program in New York
7 State to bring internet throughout the state. We
8 have to make sure we do it right.
9 Federal broadband grant programs
10 already consider fiber optic to be the projects
11 as priority. This bill will make it so New York
12 joins the federal standard in putting the bias
13 towards fiber optic to be able to get the
14 high-quality fiber optics to our communities of
15 need.
16 So I vote aye, Madam President.
17 ACTING PRESIDENT MAYER: Senator
18 Ryan to be recorded in the affirmative.
19 Announce the results.
20 THE SECRETARY: Ayes, 58.
21 ACTING PRESIDENT MAYER: The bill
22 is passed.
23 THE SECRETARY: Calendar Number
24 673, Senate Print 142, by Senator Gianaris, an
25 act to amend the Agriculture and Markets Law.
3858
1 ACTING PRESIDENT MAYER: Read the
2 last section.
3 THE SECRETARY: Section 4. This
4 act shall take effect on the 90th day after it
5 shall have become a law.
6 ACTING PRESIDENT MAYER: Call the
7 roll.
8 (The Secretary called the roll.)
9 ACTING PRESIDENT MAYER: Announce
10 the results.
11 THE SECRETARY: Ayes, 58.
12 ACTING PRESIDENT MAYER: The bill
13 is passed.
14 THE SECRETARY: Calendar Number
15 674, Senate Print 761, by Senator Krueger, an act
16 to amend the Agriculture and Markets Law.
17 ACTING PRESIDENT MAYER: Read the
18 last section.
19 THE SECRETARY: Section 2. This
20 act shall take effect immediately.
21 ACTING PRESIDENT MAYER: Call the
22 roll.
23 (The Secretary called the roll.)
24 ACTING PRESIDENT MAYER: Announce
25 the results.
3859
1 THE SECRETARY: In relation to
2 Calendar Number 674, voting in the negative:
3 Senator Brisport.
4 Ayes, 57. Nays, 1.
5 ACTING PRESIDENT MAYER: The bill
6 is passed.
7 THE SECRETARY: Calendar Number
8 675, Assembly Print Number 3552A, by
9 Assemblymember Pretlow, an act to amend the
10 Agriculture and Markets Law.
11 ACTING PRESIDENT MAYER: Read the
12 last section.
13 THE SECRETARY: Section 2. This
14 act shall take effect immediately.
15 ACTING PRESIDENT MAYER: Call the
16 roll.
17 (The Secretary called the roll.)
18 ACTING PRESIDENT MAYER: Announce
19 the results.
20 THE SECRETARY: Ayes, 58.
21 ACTING PRESIDENT MAYER: The bill
22 is passed.
23 THE SECRETARY: Calendar Number
24 677, Senate Print 5325, by Senator Martinez, an
25 act to amend the Agriculture and Markets Law.
3860
1 ACTING PRESIDENT MAYER: Read the
2 last section.
3 THE SECRETARY: Section 3. This
4 act shall take effect on the 180th day after it
5 shall have become a law.
6 ACTING PRESIDENT MAYER: Call the
7 roll.
8 (The Secretary called the roll.)
9 ACTING PRESIDENT MAYER: Announce
10 the results.
11 THE SECRETARY: In relation to
12 Calendar Number 677, voting in the negative:
13 Senator Brisport.
14 Ayes, 57. Nays, 1.
15 ACTING PRESIDENT MAYER: The bill
16 is passed.
17 THE SECRETARY: Calendar Number
18 678, Senate Print 6365, by Senator Hinchey, an
19 act to amend the Agriculture and Markets Law.
20 ACTING PRESIDENT MAYER: Read the
21 last section.
22 THE SECRETARY: Section 2. This
23 act shall take effect immediately.
24 ACTING PRESIDENT MAYER: Call the
25 roll.
3861
1 (The Secretary called the roll.)
2 ACTING PRESIDENT MAYER: Announce
3 the results.
4 THE SECRETARY: Ayes, 58.
5 ACTING PRESIDENT MAYER: The bill
6 is passed.
7 THE SECRETARY: Calendar Number
8 680, Senate Print 3552, by Senator Breslin, an
9 act to amend the Education Law.
10 ACTING PRESIDENT MAYER: Read the
11 last section.
12 THE SECRETARY: Section 4. This
13 act shall take effect two years after it shall
14 have become a law.
15 ACTING PRESIDENT MAYER: Call the
16 roll.
17 (The Secretary called the roll.)
18 ACTING PRESIDENT MAYER: Announce
19 the results.
20 THE SECRETARY: Ayes, 58.
21 ACTING PRESIDENT MAYER: The bill
22 is passed.
23 THE SECRETARY: Calendar Number
24 683, Senate Print 5616, by Senator Mayer, an act
25 to amend the Education Law.
3862
1 ACTING PRESIDENT MAYER: Read the
2 last section.
3 THE SECRETARY: Section 3. This
4 act shall take effect on the first of July.
5 ACTING PRESIDENT MAYER: Call the
6 roll.
7 (The Secretary called the roll.)
8 ACTING PRESIDENT MAYER: Announce
9 the results.
10 THE SECRETARY: Ayes, 58.
11 ACTING PRESIDENT MAYER: The bill
12 is passed.
13 THE SECRETARY: Calendar Number
14 687, Senate Print 2894, by Senator Rivera, an act
15 to amend the Public Health Law and the
16 Surrogate's Court Procedure Act.
17 ACTING PRESIDENT MAYER: Read the
18 last section.
19 THE SECRETARY: Section 5. This
20 act shall take effect on the 90th day after it
21 shall have become a law.
22 ACTING PRESIDENT MAYER: Call the
23 roll.
24 (The Secretary called the roll.)
25 ACTING PRESIDENT MAYER: Announce
3863
1 the results.
2 THE SECRETARY: In relation to
3 Calendar 687, those Senators voting in the
4 negative are Senators Ashby, Borrello,
5 Canzoneri-Fitzpatrick, Gallivan, Griffo, Helming,
6 Lanza, Mannion, Martinez, Mattera, Murray,
7 Oberacker, O'Mara, Palumbo, Rhoads, Rolison,
8 Skoufis, Stec, Tedisco, Walczyk, Weber and Weik.
9 Ayes, 36. Nays, 22.
10 ACTING PRESIDENT MAYER: The bill
11 is passed.
12 THE SECRETARY: Calendar Number
13 694, Senate Print 5707, by Senator Kennedy, an
14 act to amend the Vehicle and Traffic Law and the
15 Insurance Law.
16 ACTING PRESIDENT MAYER: Read the
17 last section.
18 THE SECRETARY: Section 7. This
19 act shall take effect on the 180th day after it
20 shall have become a law.
21 ACTING PRESIDENT MAYER: Call the
22 roll.
23 (The Secretary called the roll.)
24 ACTING PRESIDENT MAYER: Announce
25 the results.
3864
1 THE SECRETARY: In relation to
2 Calendar 694, those Senators voting in the
3 negative are Senators Ashby, Gallivan, Griffo,
4 Lanza, Murray, Oberacker, O'Mara, Palumbo, Stec,
5 Walczyk, Weber and Weik.
6 Ayes, 46. Nays, 12.
7 ACTING PRESIDENT MAYER: The bill
8 is passed.
9 THE SECRETARY: Calendar Number
10 737, Senate Print 6323A, by Senator Gonzalez, an
11 act to amend the General Business Law.
12 SENATOR LIU: Lay it aside for the
13 day.
14 ACTING PRESIDENT MAYER: The bill
15 is laid aside for the day.
16 THE SECRETARY: Calendar Number
17 739, Senate Print 1902A, by Senator Cleare, an
18 act to amend the Labor Law.
19 ACTING PRESIDENT MAYER: Read the
20 last section.
21 THE SECRETARY: Section 3. This
22 act shall take effect on the 120th day after it
23 shall have become a law.
24 ACTING PRESIDENT MAYER: Call the
25 roll.
3865
1 (The Secretary called the roll.)
2 ACTING PRESIDENT MAYER: Announce
3 the results.
4 THE SECRETARY: Ayes, 58.
5 ACTING PRESIDENT MAYER: The bill
6 is passed.
7 Senator Liu, that concludes the
8 reading of today's calendar.
9 SENATOR LIU: Madam President, on
10 behalf of Majority Leader Stewart-Cousins, I hand
11 up the following subcommittee, commission and
12 task force assignments of the Majority Conference
13 and ask that it be filed in the Journal.
14 ACTING PRESIDENT MAYER: The handup
15 is received and shall be filed in the Journal.
16 SENATOR LIU: Madam President, on
17 behalf of Majority Leader Stewart-Cousins, in
18 consultation with Senator Ortt, I hand up the
19 following subcommittee, commission and task force
20 assignments of the Minority Conference and ask
21 that it be filed in the Journal.
22 ACTING PRESIDENT MAYER: The
23 handups are received and shall be filed in the
24 Journal.
25 Senator Liu.
3866
1 SENATOR LIU: Is there any further
2 business at the desk?
3 ACTING PRESIDENT MAYER: There is
4 no further business at the desk.
5 SENATOR LIU: Madam President, I
6 move to adjourn until Monday, May 15th, at
7 3:00 p.m., with the intervening days being held
8 legislative days.
9 ACTING PRESIDENT MAYER: On motion,
10 the Senate stands adjourned until Monday,
11 May 15th, at 3:00 p.m., intervening days being
12 legislative days.
13 (Whereupon, at 12:43 p.m., the
14 Senate adjourned.)
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25