Legislative session heading to quiet end

The 2017 state legislative session ground towards an end Tuesday with Gov. Andrew Cuomo out of sight, legislators voting on symbolic one-house bills, and protesters dressed as scifi characters from the streaming video series “The Handmaid’s Tale.”

“I think ‘Handmaid’s’ is a show that is really speaking to everyone saying that this could be our reality — that the way everything is going on even in Washington and in here it seems is just that women are breeders,” said Jasmine Shea, a Hudson Valley Community College student dressed as a show character in a red gown and white cap.

The Hulu sci-fi series posits a future where women are sexual slaves in a totalitarian society — the protesters said they were evoking the storyline to call for passing bills guaranteeing contraception coverage and decriminalizing abortion.

Shea said the protesters, who numbered about 20, appeared to mystify passersby. The show is getting a lot of hype, but it hasn’t been seen by a large audience since it is only on Hulu, a subscription video streaming service that is trying to compete with Netflix.

“People just kinda put their head down and go by and smirk,” she said, when asked to summarize the reaction she’s getting. “They either don’t know what this is or they’re a little freaked out.”

New York is one of the most liberal states in the U.S. and Cuomo has made abortion rights one of his signature issues, including wanting to decriminalize it in all instances and allow non-doctors to abort fetuses. But he did not stop by to visit the “Handmaid” protesters.

Instead, he summoned invited activists and legislators to a closed-door bill signing ceremony to raise the age from 14 to 18 for consent for marriage in New York, the so-called “child marriage law.” Reporters weren’t told of the event in advance, in keeping with Cuomo’s policy of sharply curtailing contact with the Capitol press corps.

“It was short,” Assembly member Patricia Fahy (DAlbany) said as she exited the meeting.

Assembly member Carrie Woerner (D-Round Lake), said she had a number of small bills in the mix and like all other legislators was unclear herself what would happen before the summer adjournment. She shrugged when asked about the impact of Cuomo’s decision to stay away from the Capitol since the budget passed.

“Every year I’ve been here they’ve told me, ‘you know it’s not usually like this,’ so I don’t really have a sense of what is normal,” she said.

“The governor did not establish any priorities that he wanted to be set for the end of the years, but we have our own priorities that we are working through,” she added.

Legislators expect to wrap up work and adjourn for the summer as early as Wednesday. Many also ex-

pect to be back in Albany before the end of the year to wrap up loose ends.

One item that fell off the

table Tuesday was the socalled Child Victims Act that would open up the statute of limitation for prosecutions and civil lawsuits in sexual abuse cases. The Senate GOP said it will not take up the bill before adjourning on Wednesday.

Cuomo met behind closed doors with leaders Tuesday. He also announced a huge new labor union contract with CSEA, without disclosing any details.

The governor has been under pressure in the final

weeks of the session because of a growing crisis in mass transit in New York. Tuesday, he proposed a change in the makeup of the MTA board he controls to give him more of a direct say in its decisions.

“The problem is not the

MTA Board structure,” the Riders Alliance said in statement issued after Cuomo’s announcement. “The problem is the absence of leadership and the lack of a credible plan from Gov. Cuomo for how he will fix the subway.

“Riders don’t have the luxury of quibbling over MTA board governance when we know it’s not the real issue. We need a plan from the governor and a reliable source of funding that can fix our disastrous commutes.”