Summary#
A-11733 would amend New York’s Legislative Law and Executive Law and repeal section 5-b of the Legislative Law. Its stated goal is to remove limits on outside earned income by state legislators. The bill is introduced and is not law; it says it would take effect immediately and be treated as in force from January 1, 2025.
- State legislators would no longer be subject to the limits in Legislative Law section 5-b.
- The bill removes references to section 5-b from rules on ethics opinions, civil penalties, and complaints handled by ethics bodies.
- Other ethics rules named in the bill—including provisions of the Public Officers Law on conflicts and financial disclosure—would remain in the law.
What it means for you#
- State legislators: If enacted, they would no longer face the restrictions in section 5-b on outside earned income. The bill does not change the other ethics rules it continues to name.
- Ethics bodies: The Legislative Ethics Commission and the Commission on Ethics and Lobbying in Government would no longer handle section 5-b matters through the specific opinion, penalty, and complaint provisions being amended.
- Public: The bill does not directly change taxes, public benefits, or services. It could change the rules governing legislators’ income outside their legislative work.
Money#
No publicly available information on the bill’s public cost.
- The bill does not state a spending amount, create a funding program, or set a fee or fine.
- It does not provide an estimate of any staffing or administrative cost changes.
What is unclear#
- The text of current section 5-b is not supplied, so the exact limits being removed—and how they work under current law—could not be verified.
- The bill does not explain how its January 1, 2025 retroactive date would apply to past conduct or any pending matter.
- It does not explain whether or how the removed restrictions overlap with other ethics rules that remain in place.
- The bill gives no details about any resulting changes to ethics bodies’ workload or costs.
Case for#
- The bill appears intended to let legislators earn income outside their public roles without the limits in section 5-b.
- A possible argument for the bill is that removing a separate income restriction may be reasonable if other ethics and financial-disclosure rules continue to apply.
- The bill preserves the ethics provisions it cites under the Public Officers Law, rather than repealing those provisions.
Case against#
- One concern is that repeal removes a specific limit on legislators’ outside earned income, but the supplied text does not show what the limit currently covers or why it was adopted.
- The bill also removes section 5-b from the listed ethics-opinion, penalty, and complaint provisions, reducing the specific enforcement references tied to that section.
- It is unclear how the retroactive date would affect past conduct or ongoing proceedings.