April 28, 2025
Last week, Politico received a leaked document from the (federal) Office of Management and Budget (OMB) that outlines a very preliminary proposed SFY26 Executive budget proposal from the White House. The OMB document included many damaging proposals that (if enacted) include moving SAMHSA under a new federal super agency with a budget (for the super agency) of $20B, and it would eliminate the CCBHC-E grant program but it does not affect the CCBHC Medicaid demonstration as that is financed under a different authority. Having said this, the statute that authorizes the federal Demo is expiring on 9/30/2025 and the state must move swiftly to put the puzzle pieces together to ensure continuity of services in light of the coming expiration of the federal Program.
PLEASE REMEMBER: There is a long road before any proposed grant cuts could become law. The OMB memo is an indication of potential administration direction, but is not yet final – and even if it were to be finalized in the President’s FY26 budget request, those cuts would need congressional approval with a 60-vote majority in the Senate. There is a history of strong bipartisan support for these grants in Congress. Please don’t hesitate to let me know if you have questions about any of this.
Here’s more on the ongoing federal budget reconciliation process from a variety of sources including Jack O’Donnell, Politico and Roll Call):
Congress’ return today from its two-week recess means Speaker Mike Johnson now has exactly four weeks to get President Donald Trump’s one “big, beautiful” domestic policy bill passed, if he is to meet the initial Memorial Day deadline he set.
House committees will take their respective turns this week marking up portions of the reconciliation package, which will mean that legislative language with the aim of codifying GOP proposals will be finalized over the next few days. Specifically, lawmakers need to get down to brass tacks of reconciling the differences between the House and Senate’s respective budget blueprints. However, lawmakers in the lower chamber — including throughout the Republicans’ ranks — have expressed doubt that Johnson’s ambitious timeline is feasible.
The goalpost has already moved from getting the policy agenda enacted to passed through the House by Memorial Day, and even that revised estimate could be upended this week. That could depend on any or all of whether the Ways and Means Committee will need until June to draft the tax code components; whether the Senate intends on sticking to its own informal pre-July 4 timeframe for passing reconciliation text; and whether the debt ceiling will need to be raised sooner than expected.
In the meantime, the Senate plans to wait and see whether the House’s final version can obtain the necessary 51 votes in the upper chamber, but conversations have seen some coalescence during the recess period. Nevertheless, there’s always a chance that Trump will need to step in himself and try to win over any potential holdouts, but the necessity of such a maneuver probably won’t be clear until either chamber moves closer to passing its finalized reconciliation package.
Jeffries and Schumer plot their budget attacks
House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries got a head start on Democrats’ megabill opposition efforts Sunday when he led a 12-hour sit-in on the Capitol steps to protest Republicans’ potential cuts to Medicaid, SNAP and other safety-net programs. He was joined by Sen. Cory Booker, who emerged as a leader in the Trump resistance after staging a record-breaking 25-hour protest speech on the Senate floor earlier this month. A host of other House and Senate Democrats cycled in and out throughout the day.
Jeffries’ message: “This is a time to choose. And we are either going to choose the side of the American people, or we are going to choose this cruel budget that Republicans are trying to jam down the throats of the American people … all in service of a massive tax cut for their billionaire donors.”
Meanwhile, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer unveiled his caucus’ post-recess battle plan in a Dear Colleague letter Sunday. He described two early action items in the strategy built around hammering the new administration: On Tuesday, Senate Democrats will “take to the floor to speak late into the evening against Donald Trump’s disastrous 100 days.” On Wednesday, they will join “House colleagues to decry in one voice the many ways” Trump has “failed our country in his second term.”
But Schumer batted down talk, including from among his members, that Trump should be impeached (again). “It’s too far away to even judge,” he said on CNN.
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STATE BUDGET UPDATE
Last Thursday, before leaving town, lawmakers approved an eighth budget extender to run through tomorrow before spending most of Friday in virtual conferences.
Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie and Senate Majority Leader Andrea Stewart-Cousins both expressed optimism following a leadership meeting late last week and said they planned to use the weekend to brief their members and receive feedback. Stewart-Cousins offered last week, “I believe by the end of next week we will be passing bills,” while Heastie declared, “We’re getting closer.” There was an additional leaders meeting on Friday morning.
With discovery reform mostly (perhaps even entirely?) settled, negotiations continue on additional policy items—non-fiscal—that have been injected into discussions. At the top of that list is Governor Kathy Hochul’s proposal to create a crime of “masked harassment,” which the Legislature has poured cold water on. Attempts at a compromise that would have seen increased post-conviction penalties also seem to have fallen flat, with Hochul conceding, “We didn’t know whether this would be done in the budget or in session, which some are suggesting may be an option.” The idea of enhancing the penalties for committing a crime while masked has widespread support among New Yorkers, according to a recent Siena College poll. Still, Heastie indicated an agreement on this was not close: “That is probably the furthest thing from having any resolution. We’re trying to figure something out.”
A version of Hochul’s proposal to lower involuntary commitment standards for the mentally ill will be in the final budget, although many lawmakers are not convinced this will change anything. The measure, a reaction to a series of high-profile violent incidents in New York City last year, would allow an individual to be committed involuntarily to a hospital if a mental health professional found that they cannot meet their basic needs, including food, clothing, or shelter. The current standard only allows physicians to intervene if an individual poses an immediate risk to themselves or others. A spokesperson for Hochul said, “Governor Hochul isn’t going to sugarcoat the problem or minimize it: it’s undeniable that there are individuals struggling with mental illness who are living on the streets and subways. These are our neighbors who deserve compassionate care, not ideological posturing or sloganeerings.” Senator Gustavo Rivera, chair of the Senate Health Committee, sees things differently, declaring, “What the governor originally proposed, it doesn’t necessarily augment the ability of people to be removed from public locations. She claims that’s what it does, but that’s not what it does.”
Outside of those items, lawmakers are still debating an early release program for certain inmates in order to address chronic understaffing, an issue that was exposed and exacerbated during the 22-day prison guard strike earlier this year. Controversially, the proposal would apply to some violent offenders, although those with murder, rape, or other sex convictions would not be eligible. Hochul has also floated lowering the minimum age for corrections officers to 18 to help fill the estimated 4,000 openings across the state, offering, “We put guns in their hands in a foreign country and expect them to have the maturity of someone many years older. I certainly think we can put confidence with training and supervisory activity and bring them along at age 18.”
The Legislature has landed on a payroll mobility tax to help raise revenue for the Metropolitan Transportation Authority’s (MTA) 2025-2029 $68 billion Capital Plan. Speaking to reporters on Thursday, Heastie said, “About a month ago, we put a pin in it. I think we can wrap that up in 10 minutes.”
Other late-breaking issues being pushed by Hochul include wider responses to the Trump Administration, addressing various Executive Orders, expanding powers for New York’s Attorney General, and some broadened financial decision-making regarding cuts and rescissions as necessary in response to potential federal budget cuts.
Whenever the budget is eventually squared away, lawmakers will have an abbreviated window to pass standalone legislation before they gavel out for the year on June 12th. One proposal that reportedly has the votes to pass the Assembly (nearly a decade after first being proposed) is a bill to legalize medical aid in dying. The assisted suicide measure would permit a terminally ill, mentally competent adult with less than six months left to live to request a doctor’s help in ending their life. If Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie does bring the measure to the floor, it would be the first time it has reached either the Senate or Assembly for a full floor vote since being introduced in the 2015-2016 Legislative Session.
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Lawler booed at raucous Rockland County townhall
City & State, 4/28/35
Republican Rep. Mike Lawler faced a raucous and angry crowd at a Rockland County town hall on Sunday night, with members of the audience frequently heckling and interrupting the congressional representative as he tried to address concerns about potential federal budget cuts and the Trump administration’s actions. The hostility was a sharp departure from the relatively charmed life the two-term Congress member has lived since taking office in 2023. While this isn’t an issue unique to him, his constituents are looking at him to answer for every headline they see coming out of Washington, D.C. Lawler often has answers, but on Sunday, they didn’t appear good enough for the crowd.
An estimated 700 Rockland County residents packed into Clarkstown High School in West Nyack to see Lawler answer questions in person for the first time this year. The town hall was limited to Rockland County residents who needed to be able to provide identification or proof of residence. No bags or signs were allowed, nor were recordings or flash photography, aside from members of the press. Shouting, standing, yelling and screaming were not allowed, and questions were capped at 30 seconds in length; a sign stated that law enforcement had the right to remove those that didn’t comply with the rules.
Boos and jeers
During the town hall, Lawler was asked about potential federal budget cuts to services like Social Security and Medicaid. About $91 billion of the state budget is derived from federal funding, and state officials have said that significant cuts in federal funding would lead to a reduction in services. But Lawler maintained his stance that Democrats and the media have exaggerated the concerns around cuts to Social Security and Medicaid. He reminded constituents that there have not yet been any service cuts to respond to or deal with.
“When it comes to Social Security and Medicaid, there have been no cuts,” Lawler said. “Nobody has received less benefits. There’s not a single person in this room that is on Social Security or Medicare that can honestly stand here and say that they have received a cut.” The crowd jeered.
When asked at another point in the town hall how he would oppose the Trump White House and what that said about his self-styled image as a moderate, Lawler said that his “record speaks for itself.” The line drew laughter.
The town hall wasn’t all bad for Lawler, and the representative drew applause at times, like when he decried the Russian regime led by Vladimir Putin or called for ban on stock trading among members of Congress.
What drew the most vitriol from the crowd, aside from the federal budget, was Lawler bringing up former President Joe Biden and his administration. Both Rockland County and the 17th Congressional District as a whole went for President Donald Trump last year, but Democrats still hold a registration advantage.
Every mention of Biden or Democrats drew jeers – some coming from Republicans who disliked the former president but many more coming from Democrats frustrated that Lawler’s only apparent solution to their problems was to blame Biden. What Republicans like Lawler may be finding is that the strategy of blaming Democratic leadership or even Ivy League programming for issues ranging from antisemitism to the economy doesn’t land the same when they are the ones in power.
“Folks, if you want me to answer the questions, let the question be asked, and listen to the answer,” Lawler told the crowd at one point. He made it a couple lines laying the current state of the country’s economy at the feet of the prior administration before some had had enough. One man simply shouted “tariffs.” Eventually, law enforcement began to remove attendees who interrupted the town hall.
Lawler 2026
Lawler is not the only Republican member of Congress to run into issues during town halls. Many of his peers in the House have either found themselves in the odd position of having to explain the actions of their party leaders and colleagues or swimming against the tide as lawmakers crunch numbers. Some GOP politicians, including Lawler, have opted for telephone and virtual town halls instead of in-person ones. The Rockland event was the first in-person town hall that Lawler has held since Trump returned to the White House, and it saw about 100 protesters gather outside the high school beforehand in protest of Lawler and Trump.
Lawler, like his six peers in the state’s Republican delegation to Congress, is catching flak in the state over the fear caused by the proposed cuts. And it comes at a time when he is preparing for a reelection campaign and considering a run for governor in 2026 – though Nassau County Executive Bruce Blakeman and Rep. Elise Stefanik are also considering challenges to Gov. Kathy Hochul next year, which could complicate Lawler’s decision. As chairwoman of House Republican Leadership, Stefanik is one of the most prominent conservative voices in the country, and her entry into the race would make things much more difficult for Lawler.
Lawler has a reputation as a bipartisan lawmaker who puts his district first, though it’s taken a hit as he has supported Republicans’ planned budget cuts. He’s essentially fighting a war on two fronts, trying not to be too MAGA to alienate his swing district constituents or too moderate to upset Trump and the Republican leaders.
Neither of Lawler’s two potential gubernatorial primary opponents have to walk the same tightrope. Stefanik, owing to a mixture of geography and branding, doesn’t have to worry about scenes like Sunday night’s town hall. Blakeman might publicly hold more conservative views than Lawler, but he’s not part of the federal government, which means he doesn’t have to answer for what’s going on in Congress, or in federal courtrooms, or even in Elon Musk’s head.
The Rockland County town hall isn’t the most encouraging start for Lawler, who has three more town halls on the docket. He’ll be making stops in Westchester, Putnam and Dutchess Counties, and he can only hope those will go better. It’s one thing when his constituents don’t like his answers. It’s another when they don’t want to bother even hearing them.
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House GOP targets NY nonprofit over Know Your Rights training
Republicans in Congress are investigating the Chinese-American Planning Council for sponsoring a seminar to educate immigrants about their rights when dealing with ICE.
By REBECCA C. LEWIS
APRIL 24, 2025
The House Committee on Homeland Security last week launched a probe into the Chinese-American Planning Council, also known as CPC, over the social services nonprofit’s role in a March 8 Know Your Rights training in Manhattan’s Chinatown. Republican Rep. Mark Greene, the chair of the committee, sent a letter to CPC President and CEO Wayne Ho alerting him of the committee’s investigation into “the potential use of federal funds by non-government organizations (NGOs) to facilitate illegal immigration.”
Greene requested that Ho send a slew of documents to facilitate that investigation, including any materials used for the preparation of the March 8 training seminar or any other similar trainings since November of last year, copies of federal grant applications from 2021 on, and information on how CPC has spent federal funding. The letter offers an April 30 deadline to provide the requested documents.
According to the letter, the CPC has received more than $900,000 in funding from the federal government since 2022. The investigation into the nonprofit could put future funding and grant applications in jeopardy, depending on its outcome.
The CPC caught the attention of congressional Republicans thanks to an “undercover” video released by the Oversight Project, a right-wing government accountability group that is part of the Heritage Foundation. Citing footage taken by the rightwing news outfit Muckraker of the Know Your Rights training in March, the Oversight Project described the seminar as a “radical activist meeting” where “antideportation leftists coordinate efforts to stop ICE and law enforcement from enforcing the nation’s immigration laws” and called the CPC a “radical New York-based NGO” that “should have no place receiving taxpayer dollars as they engage in anti-law, pro-illegal immigration activism.”
Know Your Rights trainings have become increasingly common in New York and around the country since President Donald Trump’s election and his promise of mass deportations. Many Democratic lawmakers have hosted or sponsored such seminars, in which organizers teach immigrants about the legal rights they can exercise when interacting with immigration agents. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, in particular, has come under fire for hosting a training in which she advised immigrants that they don’t need to open their doors for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents – which is both true and legal if the agents don’t have a warrant signed by a judge. But conservatives have called for an investigation into the seminar and have accused Ocasio-Cortez of illegally aiding undocumented immigrants.
The news of the House committee’s letter to the CPC was first reported by the right-wing news website The Daily Caller, but the outlet did not indicate that it reached out to the nonprofit for comment.
In his first public comment since receiving the letter, Ho defended his organization and the training it sponsored. “Our trainings help community members better understand their rights on a range of services, including education, healthcare, employment, housing, immigration, and more,” Ho said in a statement to City & State. “CPC fully adheres to all laws. Our trainings do not direct anyone to do anything or to evade the law, but rather to inform participants of their constitutional rights which they may choose to exercise.” He added that the nonprofit remains “committed to transparency and constructive dialogue with decision makers.”
Assembly Member Grace Lee, who co-sponsored the March training and represents part of Chinatown, slammed the investigation into the CPC. “The Trump administration’s sham investigation into CPC is a fascist move to undermine an organization providing critical services to the Asian American community,” Lee told City & State. “The Trump administration continues to drive policies that dismantle support systems our communities rely on and make the Asian American community suffer.”
The video from the Oversight Project that prompted the congressional action also heavily featured Rep. Dan Goldman, who represents Lower Manhattan, was featured on promotional material for the training and has requested federal funding for the organization. A spokesperson for Goldman did not directly address the targeting of the CPC, but defended the type of training it participated in. “This Administration is sending undercover ICE officers wearing masks to arrest people, ‘mistakenly’ flying legal residents to super max prisons in foreign countries, and wrongly detaining American citizens,” Goldman spokesperson Madison Andrus said in a statement to City & State. “The Congressman would happily offer anyone in this Administration a similar tutorial on due process rights and the rule of law so that they can stop breaking the law and recklessly terrorizing legal residents in this country.”
A spokesperson for Gov. Kathy Hochul, whom the video also featured, similarly did not directly address the apparent targeting of a prominent nonprofit in New York over immigration rights. But the spokesperson, Avi Small, offered support for efforts to educate people on their rights. “Governor Hochul has repeatedly said New York can help federal immigration officials arrest violent criminals, but will never support policies that rip families apart or target innocent children,” Small said. “Due process is the foundation of the American legal system, and Governor Hochul believes every single person deserves to know the rights they are granted under the United States Constitution.”
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Eric Adams to prioritize supportive housing in upcoming NYC budget
The mayor will commit to building thousands of congregate units where tenants can access services including mental health care.
City & State, 4/28
New York City Mayor Eric Adams plans to revamp a major city initiative to create supportive housing for vulnerable New Yorkers by producing nearly 6,000 additional congregate apartments with on-site health and social services. This new commitment is aimed at reversing the city’s uneven progress on its goal to significantly grow its supportive housing supply by 2028.
The news, shared exclusively with City & State, will be announced on Monday as Adams unveils a handful of new housing-related investments included in his upcoming executive budget proposal for fiscal year 2026. The mayor typically releases his executive budget proposal in April, launching the final negotiation process with the City Council before the budget is due at the end of June.
The Adams administration plans to reconfigure an initiative known as the New York City 15/15 Supportive Housing Initiative by shifting its focus entirely to the congregate, single-site model going forward. Originally announced by former Mayor Bill de Blasio in 2015, the initiative set a goal for the city to create 15,000 units of supportive housing – low-cost apartments paired with health, substance use, mental health or social services – by the end of 2030. Adams later moved that timeline up to 2028. It was a big commitment, bringing with it the potential to significantly grow the city’s ranks of what was then about 32,000 supportive housing units.
But while the city is on track to exceed its target to produce 7,500 congregate units (housing where tenants living in one designated building receive on-site supportive services), little progress has been made on its other target to create 7,500 scattered site units. Though the latter is still a form of supportive housing, it differs from the congregate model in the sense that individual units are spread out in privately-owned apartment buildings across the city and tenants generally receive supportive services at a separate location. With only 1.4% of rental apartments in the city vacant as of the latest housing and vacancy survey, supportive housing providers have struggled to find private market units to rent.
A City Hall spokesperson said they were unable to provide the latest data on how many scattered site units the city has created to date, but Politico reported that a mere 1,092 units had been completed as of last spring. None of those had reportedly been completed under the Adams administration.
Doubling down on what has worked and hoping to push forward progress as the 2028 deadline looms, Adams plans to shift the 15/15 initiative’s focus to solely center on creating congregate units going forward. The city will spend an additional $46 million over the coming few fiscal years to finance 5,850 of these units – 4,550 of which will be newly created and 1,300 of which will be preserved, according to a spokesperson for the mayor.
Tackling homelessness and mental illness has emerged as a central issue in the New York City mayoral race as candidates have rolled out a number of plans to address the issue. Creating more housing and getting New Yorkers off the streets – including by expanding the state’s involuntary commitment laws for severely mentally ill people – have been big priorities for Adams over the last couple of years. Adams is now running for reelection as an independent, so voters won’t be deciding his fate until November, but this year’s budget negotiation process will be his last big opportunity to advance some of these goals through city budget investments ahead of the election. Other new housing investments slated to be announced Monday include an additional $350 million for programs to speed up repairs and renovations in New York City Housing Authority units and $7.6 million for a program to provide legal services to tenants experiencing landlord harassment.
“When we came into office, we said the days of letting people languish on our streets and on the subways were over. It was not safe, it was not humane, and it was not going to happen on our watch. That’s why we doubled the number of street outreach teams, pushed for new laws to get people the help they need, and began building thousands of new shelter beds that give people extra support,” Adams said in a statement. “With our administration’s upcoming budget, we are doubling down on these efforts – investing billions of dollars over the next 10 years in affordable housing and building thousands of new supportive housing units that will help get even more people off our subways and into stable homes.”