The last few weeks before the final state budget vote are always intense in Albany— otherwise a sleepy state capital
The halls of power in New York’s state capitol were unusually bustling last Tuesday, even for a March afternoon weeks before the budget is due, as Agudath Israel led a group of activists to meet with lawmakers.
Boisterous chants, loud enough to drown out a banjo hoedown, rose periodically from the central concourse. Hundreds of anti-vaxxers packed a sidewalk outside the capitol building, holding signs denouncing the state’s strict vaccination requirements. A group of hijab-clad members of the Bangladeshi Tenants Union passed near the Million Dollar Staircase (a grand entryway that took 14 years to build in the late 19th century), loudly chanting slogans denouncing landlords. Their Hispanic co-protesters blocked access to an elevator on the Assembly floor.
“I’ve been here so many times, but I don’t remember ever seeing so many groups here,” said Yeruchim Silber, Agudah’s director of governmental affairs in New York, who arranged the mission.
We even had to wait about ten minutes as a human flood poured out of the Assembly chamber, with what appeared to be hundreds of people wearing stickers calling for a ban on vaping. An elderly gentleman was wearing a “Grandparents Against Vaping” T-shirt, with his toddler grandchild wearing a “Parents Against Vaping” top.
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