UPDATE: State Lawmakers Cut Hochul’s Car Insurance Scheme From Their Budget

ALBANY — The state Senate and Assembly have submitted their one-house budgets, and both omitted Gov. Hochul’s spiky car insurance proposal from their spending agenda.

The Uber-backed plan to lower car insurance rates has drawn criticism from legal professionals and crash victim advocates who say the legislative changes would strip crash victims of rights while misstating the drivers of high costs. (Streetsblog’s intense coverage probably helped frame the debate.)

Hochul and the car insurance industry have argued that fraud and “jackpot” payouts have increased costs for insurance companies so much that they can’t reduce premiums. Her proposed limits on who can collect damages following a crash are intended to rein in those costs, even as the connection appears dubious to some, including state lawmakers.

State Senate Majority Leader Andrea Stewart-Cousins explained why her caucus cut the proposal.

“The reason why we omitted [the insurance proposal from the budget] is because it is a broader conversation,” the Westchester Democrat told Streetsblog on Tuesday. “I will obviously say that we are not interested in fraud, and we are definitely interested in saving motorists money. So we absolutely agree on that.”

State Sen. Michael Gianaris was far more pointed.

“She’s come forward and said, ‘This is the answer to the affordability of insurance,’ but we have to analyze the data and see if that’s true,” the Queens Democrat said. “We have to see if her proposal needs to be tweaked, rejected, approved or present our own alternatives.”

And Assembly Member Michaelle Solages (D-Queens) reiterated that lawmakers want to “prioritize solutions that address rising premiums,” but questioned whether reducing compensation was the way to go about it.

Any proposal should prioritize “maintaining strong consumer protections for those who are injured in accidents,” she told Streetsblog. “Drivers deserve relief from high costs, and any reforms should strike a careful balance between affordability and protection.”

The one-house budgets serve as the state Legislature’s first opportunity to stake an official position on the governor’s executive budget proposal. The absence of language on car insurance in each chamber’s budget rebuttal could signal a lack of consensus among state lawmakers or between the governor and the state Legislature itself.

It can also set the stage for a protracted legislative debate over a complicated policy issue, similar to negotiations over discovery reform last year. 

Each house also left out approval for robotaxi pilots in upstate New York and Long Island, now that the governor has ditched it. The plan was reportedly a victim of political calculus as Hochul rallies union support for her insurance proposal. Organized labor balked at the prospect of taxi and rideshare drivers losing their jobs to robots.

The Stop Super Speeders Act, legislation that would put speed-limiting devices in the cars of reckless drivers via a New York City pilot, was included by the state Senate, where state Sen. Andrew Gounardes (D-Brooklyn) introduced legislation with a similar intent before it was watered down and eventually killed last session. 

Part of the holdup was in the Assembly, which has not included the bill in its one-house budget, and whose leader, Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie, has raised concerns about drivers’ rights to due process. 

This is a breaking story. Check back later.