NYS legislators set earlier 2020 adjournment to accommodate primaries

ALBANY — As expected, the 2020 session of the New York State Legislature will end earlier than usual, with adjournment slated for June 2, officials announced Monday.

Even so, the number of days New York’s 213 legislative members are in Albany won’t change much because they now will front-load their work calendar.

Historically, lawmakers have been in session in Albany from early January to mid-June. But they moved up the adjournment date to avoid running too close to next year’s congressional and legislative primaries, set for June 23.

New York formerly held political party primaries in September. Congressional primaries were moved up to June in 2018 because of a federal court decision, and lawmakers then combined the state and federal primaries beginning in 2020 to save money and voters’ time.

In changing the adjournment date, Senate Majority Leader Andrea Stewart-Cousins (D-Yonkers) and Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie (D-Bronx) added many more working days from January to March.

The result is the number of session days — almost comes out the same as this year, when there were 61. Since 2015, the number of scheduled session days has ranged from 57 to 61.

Moreover, the schedule is only a template, as legislative leaders can add or subtract days as they see fit.