Gov. Andrew Cuomo acted on 23 bills during the day Saturday, but as of 6:30 p.m., much-anticipated action on a bill that would shift the cost of indigent legal services to the state had not yet been taken.
A legislative source said negotiations on the bill were ongoing, meaning that whether the governor will sign it with an agreement that the Legislature will approve chapter amendments in 2017 is still up in the air.
The deadline to take action on the ILS bill is midnight. If no acton is taken, it will age into law.
Among the bills approved by the governor were various occupancy taxes for Westchester County municipalities, which the governor vetoed last year. In his approval message, Cuomo wrote that the Legislature “has agreed to develop a policy that will balance the needs of each municipality’s residents with the state’s ongoing efforts to encourage towns and villages to consolidate and cooperatively develop solutions to economic issues.”
Among the vetoed bills is legislation that would have decriminalized certain types of knives by amending the statutory definition of switchblades and gravity knives. In his veto message, Cuomo noted law enforcement’s staunch opposition to the legislation and his concerns that the bill’s language falls short of its intent.
The governor wrote that gravity knives are designed, marketed and sold as work tools for construction workers and day laborers, but anyone who goes into a store and purchases such a knife can subsequently be arrested for possession.
“This construct is absurd and must be addressed but this bill unfortunately does not address it,” Cuomo wrote.
He wrote that he proposed amendments to the Legislature that would have allowed crafts and tradespeople to possess the covered knives without penalty and create an affirmative defense for those who possess a gravity knife with no intent to use it. Ultimately, lawmakers did not agree with those modifications.
What those amendments were is unclear.
Still, he called for legislative action in the upcoming session.
Approval and veto messages are below:
Approvals #22 35 by Matthew Hamilton on Scribd
Veto #299-305 by Matthew Hamilton on Scribd
The Capitol Confidential team: