Albany '26: How Many Pets Will Donna Lupardo Condemn to Death?
The pro-kill Assembly obstructionist is nearing retirement. After co-quashing SARA, what's a few thousand more?
The Scoop New York is a website and newsletter covering the movement for a true no-kill New York, from BUF to BK. NYC ACC KILLS, published by TSNY, enumerates and memorializes adoptable cats and dogs who were exterminated by Animal Care Centers of New York City.
The Scoop New York is the only news outlet to consider newsworthy taxpayer-funded cruelty toward homeless companion animals, as well as decades of officials’ deliberate abuse — psychological, physical and financial — of the New Yorkers who care about them.
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For the second year running, it appears state legislators and Governor Kathy Hochul will not reach a budget agreement ahead of the March 31 deadline, mostly because (for the second year running) Hochul is looking to shoehorn unrelated measures into the budget bill.
This is so the governor can please her corporate paymasters (fossil fuel companies; Uber) with relatively minimal blowback from good-government groups and the pesky public. That’s the idea, at least. It also allows legislators to vote for contentious extraneous measures they might otherwise prefer not to be associated with.
As Politico put it, “[I]ssues that aren’t easy to agree on are often the ones members avoid casting stand-alone votes on.”
As far as state politics are concerned, budget machinations will suck up most of the oxygen until the governor and legislators reach a deal. Once they clear that obstacle, state electeds can continue to ignore bills meant to improve the lives of companion animals and the New Yorkers who care about them.
Of the couple-dozen or so relevant bills tracked by The Scoop New York since TSNY went live two years ago, Albany lawmakers succeeded in passing just one, in 2025: a measure to prohibit insurance companies from discriminating against renters with pets based on what breed of dog they have — the same protections the state affords homeowners.
The renter protection bill did not become law, however. Hochul vetoed it.
As for this year’s docket, legislation to establish animal abuser registries; strengthen notoriously weak cruelty laws and streamline cruelty law enforcement; keep abused pets away from their abusers; spare animals from tortuous deaths in vacated rental housing; initiate a recurring revenue stream for shelters statewide; and more await passage.
