Advocacy Training/Lobby Day
This year’s Lobby Day was a major success! Thank you to all of the members who spent their Tuesday in Albany lobbying for voting reforms, health care, women’s issues, and environmental conservation. Although the day was a bit chaotic, we managed to fit in a very exciting press conference on the need for comprehensive voting reforms. Several legislators attended and spoke at the event including Senate Democratic Leader Andrea Stewart-Cousins and CO-Sponsor of the Assembly bill, Assemblymember Brian Kavanaugh. Many media outlets attended and we received a significant amount of attention on social media. Over all it was a very fun day and we were delighted to see so many eager League members meet with their legislators. Photos and the handouts from the training will be available on the website shortly. If you attended Lobby Day please don’t forget to send your Lobby Report to Jennifer at Jennifer@lwvny.org
Legislative Update
The budget passed earlier this month after a 9 day delay. The legislature included many progressive reforms in the budget package including Raise the Age, College Affordability Plan, Uber for Upstate NY, and a $2.5 billion investment in water infrastructure. Unfortunately ethics and voting reforms were not included in the final package. You can read our full analysis of the final budget package on our blog here.
Now that the budget has passed and session has resumed, we will be focusing on our push for voting reforms. We are adamant about getting something done on voting before the end of session. We have already held a large press conference on the issue and will now focus our efforts on trying to work with Senate Republicans and the Independent Democratic Conference.
Jennifer Wilson, Director of Program & Policy, jennifer@lwvny.org
