Governor Hochul: Protect New Yorkers, call a special session

Elders & Allies to Free the People Roc, a racial justice group of volunteers and activists in Monroe County, believes that budget justice is racial justice.

New York is under attack from a federal administration bent on making us sicker, hungrier, less informed, less educated, and less safe, while making millionaires and billionaires even richer with more unfair tax breaks. MAGA’s “big UGLY bill” is clearly designed to increase wealth inequities and racial injustice, with disproportionate damage to Black and Brown people (including those who are Indigenous, asylum-seeking, U.S. visa holders, other foreign visitors, and even children born in this country, who have birthright citizenship).

For several years, Elders & Allies has partnered with other budget justice groups around the state seeking to correct our highly inequitable state tax system as part of the the Invest in Our New York (IONY) Coalition. This year the state legislature ignored our proposals in spite of all the warning signs of what would be coming for New York under Project 2025. Now that the hammer has dropped, IONY is calling on the Governor to bring the legislature back into a special session this fall to minimize the harm to our people.

As Mayor Evans noted in last month’s Families First rally, we are the city of Frederick Douglass and Susan B. Anthony, with a historic legacy of progressive action on human rights from abolition and women’s voting rights (and we would add, to our sanctuary city status). This is true even as we recognize how much our city is struggling due to current and historical white supremacy, borne out in policy and systems, and as evidenced by the rate of child poverty. And as Lt. Gov. Antonio Delgado wrote in a New York Times opinion piece the day before he spoke in Rochester July 30th, our Democratic representatives should be advocating IONY’s specific proposals to raise the funds that would offset the federal cuts.

Governor Hochul, resisting any tax increases on the wealthiest individuals and most profitable corporations as IONY has proposed, says “Elections have consequences.” Perhaps she believes that once people feel the pain, Democratic politicians can point to Republicans and get re-elected. We say, “We can’t wait any longer for lawmakers to fight back.” Elders & Allies joins IONY in urging our state leaders to convene a special session to accomplish two goals: 1) to ensure that the super-rich pay a fairer share of state taxes, so we can fund our healthcare system and ensure New York is affordable for everyone, and 2) to defend our immigrant and refugee neighbors by passing the New York For All Act and the Dignity Not Detention Act. We invite others to join us in contacting our legislators to hold this special session by October.

Liz Brown
Elders & Allies to Free the People – Rochester

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