Albany lawmakers are poised to leave the capital city until January.
The state Senate finished early Friday morning, and the Assembly is expected to wrap before the weekend.
Early Friday morning, state senators voted on final bills and closed out the year with Italian ices — a tradition started by the representatives representing Syracuse — historically held by politicians of Italian-descent. They wrapped just before 2 a.m. after passing a bill that would ban companies from using artificial intelligence to assess a person’s shopping habits and personal data when setting prices.
Supporters argued it’s in part about protecting consumer privacy.
“The CVS that I bought my shampoo and conditioner [from] and gives me a coupon, how is that permitted if under this section, it seems to be prohibited?” Republican state Sen. Patricia Canzoneri-Fitzpatrick, representing a district in Nassau County, asked during the floor debate Thursday evening into early Friday morning.
“Anyone with the same profile deserves the same discount. So if two people have the same shopping behavior, they should be offered to them equivalently. If they have different behavior, one might qualify for a larger discount,” said bill sponsor state Sen. Rachel May, a Syracuse Democrat.
Sources told NY1 that state Attorney General Letitia James and her aides were actively lobbying legislators late into the evening. They added that James wanted the legislative win.
“It safeguards privacy and ensures that technical innovation works for people and not against them,” Bronx Democratic Assemblywoman Emerita Torres said during her chamber’s floor debate.
Legislators are also on track to pass a bill aimed at protecting minors by prohibiting harmful AI chatbots. Meanwhile, Republicans slammed Democrats for squeezing in last-minute changes they said could weaken GOP control statewide.
“We’ve heard from the governors here in New York state that Republicans and conservatives have no business in New York State and they should move. But that’s the problem!” said GOP Assemblyman Michael Reilly of Staten Island.
Opposing the measure that — if signed into law — would allow the current Democratic-controlled legislature to write constitutional amendments instead of the bipartisan Board of Elections. It’s also opposed by good government groups, like the New York Public Interest Research Group, League of Women Voters of New York, Reinvent Albany and Citizens Union, who said it could let Democrats influence voters by ditching neutral
