Sorry, Peanut: NY Lawmakers Vanish, Abandon Companion Animals
For the second year running, Governor Kathy Hochul and state legislators declined to pass a single major animal-friendly bill.
The Scoop New York is a website and newsletter covering the movement for a true no-kill New York State, 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.
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There is no Peanut’s Law.
When the state legislature adjourned last week, Albany lawmakers for the second year in a row opted against passing significant legislation to help homeless, abused and abandoned companion animals, again leaving them and the New Yorkers who care for them to fend for themselves.
The last major advance for companion animals from Albany was the ban on the sale of puppy mill puppies, which took effect last December but was signed by Governor Kathy Hochul back in 2022. Regulations to impose new standards on shelters statewide, which take effect this December, were also adopted in 2022, though many shelters say they lack resources to meet the standards and fear they may have to close.
After the media inevitably moved on from Peanut — the pet squirrel seized from a Chemung County sanctuary and summarily exterminated last year by the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation — Assembly Member Jake Blumencranz (R-Oyster Bay) appeared to take up the cause.
Blumencranz touted “Peanut’s Law” as key to reforming DEC protocols by requiring the state to pause 72 hours before killing an animal seized from a non-profit wildlife sanctuary, to give animal caretakers time to appeal. But when a prominent no-kill expert, who is also an attorney, suggested improvements to extend that protection to all New Yorkers, rather than just those who run registered sanctuaries, and to prohibit the state from seizing animals without first obtaining a court order, Blumencranz never responded.
The Scoop New York spoke with one of Blumencranz’s aides after publishing our first story on the incident. When TSNY queried Blumencranz’s office about strengthening the bill for a follow-up story, we received no reply. Peanut’s Law failed to pass either the state Assembly or Senate.
Bills to make it easier for law enforcement to penalize animal abusers — whose offenses are often a product of domestic violence — passed the Senate but failed in the Assembly. Ditto bills to ban devocalization surgeries and require landlords to check vacated properties for abandoned pets.
Many bills that failed this year were also rejected by lawmakers in 2024.
The vacant properties bill was sponsored in the Assembly by Donna Lupardo of Binghamton. Lupardo chairs the Assembly agriculture committee, which most bills that relate to animals must clear on the way to adoption.
Unfortunately, Donna Lupardo is right now possibly the single biggest obstacle to animal-friendly legislation in the state of New York. Lupardo’s bill to save animals from thirsting to death in vacant homes did not survive Lupardo’s Assembly committee, which took no action on the bill.
Of around 20 bills tracked by The Scoop New York since we began publishing in 2024, the Assembly has passed one (to prevent insurance companies from discriminating against renters with pets — it eventually died, too). As demonstrated below, many of those bills were stalled by Lupardo’s committee.
Lupardo’s counterpart in the Senate is Michelle Hinchey of Kingston. Hinchey has done and continues do to her part keep the state’s cat and dog extermination chambers humming, but, as also shown below, the Senate passed at least 10 relevant bills this year, compared to the Assembly’s one. Of the two, Lupardo’s committee is far more dependable when it comes to spiking legislation to save cat and dog lives.
Donna Lupardo is possibly the single biggest obstacle to animal-friendly legislation in the state of New York.
Then there is SARA, the Shelter Animal Rescue Act. SARA is simple: It would require animal control facilities statewide to surrender cats and dogs to qualified rescues, rather than kill them. It is revenue-neutral, meaning it would cost taxpayers nothing. Yet since it was first proposed in the early 2020s, Lupardo and Hinchey have acted as SARA’s key foils. The pair killed SARA in the 2021-2022 session, and oppose its revival.
SARA is also opposed by kill pound managers, who have paid lobbyists in Albany, as well as by prominent national “animal welfare” non-profits including ASPCA and The Humane Society of the United States. According to advocates, pressure from those groups is behind Lupardo and Hinchey’s opposition. Multiple queries to both legislators’ offices from The Scoop New York since 2024 have yielded no straight answers from either.
See our chart directly below, and scroll for details. Note: In addition to official sources, info on bills comes from the New York State Humane Association and the NYS Animal Protection Federation. Follow the links for additional details on these and other animal-related bills. Also, Assembly versions of each bill (when available) are linked from their respective twin Senate bill pages on the state legislation index.
S.364 (Michael Gianaris)/A.893 (Linda Rosenthal): Bars insurance companies from discriminating against renters with pets, aligning with state code that protects homeowners from same. A version of this bill passed the Senate last session but died in the Assembly. A similar bill cleared the Senate, but not the Assembly, in the 2023-2024 session.
Current status: Passed Senate; amended in Assembly and sent back to Senate, where it died
S.3026 (Gianaris)/A.8551 (Landon Dais): Bans devocalization surgeries on cats and dogs with exceptions for medical necessity. This bill cleared the Senate last year but was killed in the Assembly — which also happened this year.
Current status: Passed Senate; failed in Assembly agriculture committee, chaired by Donna Lupardo
S.1784 (Michelle Hinchey)/A.5505 (Donna Lupardo): Requires landlords to inspect properties for abandoned animals within three days of a property being vacated. As chairs of their respective houses' agriculture committees, bill sponsors Hinchey and Lupardo have successfully prevented the Shelter Animal Rescue Act, which would save thousands of lives a year, from becoming law — making it more likely that animals rescued from vacated homes would later be exterminated at a New York kill pound.
Current status: Passed Senate; failed in Assembly agriculture committee, chaired by Donna Lupardo
S.703 (Liz Krueger)/A.2019 (Rosenthal): Strengthens the aggravated animal cruelty statute by removing the word “serious” from “serious physical injury” in state code, which currently applies only in cases when a perpetrator causes permanent physical injury.
Current status: Passed Senate; failed in Assembly codes committee, chaired by Jeffrey Dinowitz (D-Bronx)
S.197 (Monica Martinez)/A.3050 (Jen Lunsford): “Tucker’s Law” increases the maximum penalty for aggravated cruelty to animals from two years to four years, as prescribed for other class E felonies. Class E is New York’s least severe felony category.
Current status: Passed Senate; failed in Assembly agriculture committee, chaired by Donna Lupardo
S.3158 (James Skoufis)/A.1816 (Rosenthal): Establishes animal fighting as a “designated criminal act” in state code, with more serious penalties for some related offenses. The Senate passed this bill in 2024, but it was killed in the Assembly codes committee, which is chaired by Bronx rep Jeffrey Dinowitz. This session, Dinowitz referred the bill to the rules committee, which killed it.
Current status: Passed Senate; failed in Assembly rules committee, chaired by Speaker Carl Heastie (D-Bronx)
S.3073 (Gianaris)/A.2555 (John McDonald): Establishes a civil, as opposed to criminal, process for law enforcement to initiate animal forfeiture, as in cases when mental or physical illness affects the ability to care for an animal. Though the bill is endorsed by law enforcement, it failed in both houses last year. The Senate passed it this session, but the Assembly did not.
Current status: Passed Senate; failed in Assembly
S.1664 (Peter Harckham)/A.1196 (Rosenthal): Gives SPCA cruelty investigators access to live scan fingerprinting tech, allowing them to make arrests independently of other law enforcement. State senators passed this bill in 2024 but it too died in Dinowitz’s Assembly codes committee, which is what happened this year as well.
Current status: Passed Senate; failed in Assembly codes committee, chaired by Jeffrey Dinowitz
S.2603 (Joseph Addabbo)/A.3297 (McDonald): Enhances penalties for harming companion animals with a deadly weapon or “dangerous instrument” with intent to cause serious physical injury. Lawmakers in both houses have failed to pass this bill two years running.
Current status: Failed in Senate and Assembly agriculture committees, chaired by Michelle Hinchey and Donna Lupardo, respectively
S.6380 (Jabari Brisport)/A.165 (Rosenthal): Enacts civil penalties for tethering dogs outside in inhumane conditions, including severe weather.
Current status: Failed in Senate and Assembly agriculture committees, chaired by Michelle Hinchey and Donna Lupardo, respectively
S.252 (Martinez)/A.1804 (Rosenthal): Expands the extant ban on the sale or possession of certain “wild animals” to include “marsupials, sloths, anteaters, hyenas, bearcats, and zebras, among others.”
Current status: Passed Senate; failed in Assembly environmental conservation committee, chaired by Deborah Glick (D-Manhattan)
A.791 (Manny De Los Santos)/No Senate number: Introduced by Democratic Assembly Member Manny De Los Santos of Upper Manhattan (a.k.a. the greatest place on Earth — Ed.), this bill would allow workers to receive paid sick leave for pet care. There was no action on the bill in the Assembly after January. The Senate did not introduce a twin bill.
Current status: Died in Assembly labor committee, chaired by Harry B. Bronson (D-Rochester); no Senate version introduced
S.9915 (Andrew Gounardes)/A.10660 (Tony Simone): Requires motorists to exercise what state law calls “due care” (which yours truly covered here for many years) to avoid colliding with any domestic or companion animal. The bill would increase fines and penalties for causing such injury and for leaving the scene of injury to certain animals without reporting.
Current status: Failed in Senate rules committee, chaired by Majority Leader Andrea Stewart-Cousins (D-Westchester); failed in Assembly transportation committee, chaired by William B. Magnarelli (D-Syracuse)
S.05514 (Hinchey)/A.6556 (Rosenthal): “Red flag” bill to allow evidence of recent acts of aggravated animal cruelty to be considered when determining grounds for a protection order.
Current status: Passed Senate and sent back to Assembly, where it died
S.7011 (Jessica Scarcella-Spanton)/A.7388 (Jake Blumencranz): “Peanut’s Law” would make it more difficult for state agencies to seize and immediately kill animals from animal sanctuaries.
Current status: Failed in Senate and Assembly environmental conservation committees, chaired by Peter Harckham and Deborah Glick, respectively
S.8228 (Martinez)/A.1609 (Lunsford): Designates animal shelters with SPCAs as “qualified agencies,” allowing access to centralized law enforcement data and making it easier to track people who commit acts of cruelty.
Current status: Failed in Senate and Assembly codes committees, chaired by Zellnor Myrie (D-Brooklyn) and Jeffrey Dinowitz, respectively
A.6602 (Lunsford)/No Senate number: Establishes the crime of endangering the welfare of a companion animal or farm [sic] animal, with charges up to and including a class E felony.
Current status: Failed in Assembly agriculture committee, chaired by Donna Lupardo; no Senate version introduced
S.6573 (Hinchey)/A.1698 (Weprin): Requires municipal employees to attempt to identify and notify the owners of a deceased dog or cat recovered on public roads.
Current status: Passed Senate; failed in Assembly
Barring an emergency called session, the New York State Legislature will next pick up in January.