Greetings from Albany, NY
In this edition, we provide a recap of the end of the NYS Legislative Session and a brief overview of the upcoming primary elections on June 23.
Scheduled Session Has Ended
The NYS Legislature has officially concluded its regular session, with the Senate adjourning at 1:30 a.m. last Friday morning and the Assembly following at 8:20 p.m. last Friday night. Although legislators could be called back to Albany for a Special Session, the evening of Friday, June 5th marked the close of the 2025-2026 Legislative Session!
With more than 22,000 bills introduced in this legislative session, there was a plethora of issues that could have been taken up and debated by the Legislature. The extended budget process delayed action on non-budget legislation for much of the session, leaving only six scheduled days for lawmakers to consider and advance the remaining legislative priorities after the budget was enacted. By the final week of session, there was a noticeable sense of frustration throughout the Capitol as members, staff, advocates, and stakeholders worked through a significant volume of legislation on a highly compressed timeline. Many issues that would normally be debated and negotiated over several weeks were ultimately resolved in a matter of days.
Among the session’s most significant legislation that passed both houses this year were constitutional amendments to modify the State’s redistricting process; a one-year moratorium on the construction of new AI data centers; a five-year moratorium on the sale of toys incorporating AI powered chatbots; the Health Information Privacy Act which would protect digital healthcare information by adding additional rights and protections related to the sale and use of consumers’ health information; and a ban on surveillance pricing, which would prohibit companies from using consumers’ personal data to set individual real-time prices.
Several closely watched proposals, including the 340B Prescription Drug Anti-Discrimination Act and Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) legislation, did not advance before adjournment.
By the Numbers
In total, 759 bills were passed by both houses this year – 97 fewer than last year. Despite the lower overall total, legislative activity accelerated dramatically in the final days of session, with nearly two-thirds of all bills that ultimately passed both houses, doing so during the final two weeks.
The NYS Commission on Ethics and Lobbying in Government (COELIG) produced a report of the 2025 preliminary lobbying data. Excluding budget bills, the most-lobbied legislation was the Health Information Privacy Act, which generated 237 lobbying filings in one chamber, and the EPR legislation, which generated a combined 713 filings across both chambers.
The top five lobbied categories include:
- Miscellaneous business – 6,077 filings,
- Budget / appropriations – 5,166 filings,
- Health – 4,042 filings,
- Real estate – 3,809 filings, and
- Economic development – 2,080 filings.
The top five most lobbied entities are:
- The Office of the Governor – 4,463 filings,
- NYS Senate Majority Program and Counsel staff – 2,396 filings,
- NYS Minority Program and Counsel staff – 2,142 filings,
- Senator Cooney (D-56)- 1,202 filings, and
- Assemblymember Solages (D-22) – 1,048 filings.
Lobbying spending continued its upward trend in 2025, reaching a record $384.5 million – an increase of 1.96% from the $377.1 million spent in 2024. Given the number of high-priority policy issues that remain unresolved, lobbying expenditures are likely to continue rising in the coming years.