State lawmakers voted on bills Wednesday in empty chambers following airtight emergency COVID-19 protocols put in place after two lawmakers recently\u00a0 tested positive for the deadly virus.<\/p>\n
The state Senate and Assembly passed a bill that will expand paid sick leave to all public and private sector workers forced into precautionary or mandatory quarantine due to\u00a0 the corona virus.<\/p>\n
The legislation covers a 14 day period. Gov. Andrew Cuomo signed the bill into law which takes effect immediately shortly after.<\/p>\n
But politicians were given strict guidelines to reduce social interaction. The state Capitol is closed to the public and staff\u00a0 have been cleaning the building around the clock.<\/p>\n
Most of the 63 member state Senate voted from their offices, with the exception of leadership in both conferences.<\/p>\n
\u201cEvery aspect of our lives are changed, and changed probably for a very, very long time,\u201d Leader Andrea Stewart-Cousins said on the chamber floor before voting \u2018yes\u2019 on the measure, which passed 50 to 6.<\/p>\n
The 150-member state Assembly imposed a maximum of 30 individuals in the room at one time, so Democrats and Republicans were divided into voting groups.<\/p>\n
Those who wanted to debate the legislation were told to enter the chamber together.<\/p>\n
The measure passed 131 to 3. Legislative leaders and Gov. Cuomo have a\u00a0 state budget deadline of April 1 hanging over their heads, but it\u2019s unclear when politicians will return to Albany to vote.<\/p>\n
But aides have said agreements can be worked out over the phone.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
State lawmakers voted on bills Wednesday in empty chambers following airtight emergency COVID-19 protocols put in place after two lawmakers recently\u00a0 tested positive for the deadly virus. The state Senate and Assembly passed a bill that will expand paid sick leave to all public and private sector workers forced into precautionary or mandatory quarantine due […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":13658,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1469,31],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-13656","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-new-york","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vosa.tv\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13656","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vosa.tv\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vosa.tv\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vosa.tv\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vosa.tv\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13656"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.vosa.tv\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13656\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13659,"href":"https:\/\/www.vosa.tv\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13656\/revisions\/13659"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vosa.tv\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/13658"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vosa.tv\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13656"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vosa.tv\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13656"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vosa.tv\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13656"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}