Where Things Stand

If you’ve seen memes or social media posts like the one pictured here, you are getting misleading information at best. A9959A, the bill NYARC supports, is still active and, after work on the part of the bill’s primary sponsor and NYARC representatives, it is heading for consideration in the Health Committee, likely on Tuesday, June 5. After the Health Committee the bill moves to the Codes Committee. We have been working to persuade Assembly Member and Codes Chairman Joseph R. Lentol to consider the bill and move it out of his committee and to a floor vote. Passage in the Assembly will help ensure advancement through the Senate and ultimately delivery to Governor Andrew Cuomo for his approval and signature.

Adding redactions or other compromised measures to A9959A is not on the table. At all. Assemblyman David Weprin and his staff have never mentioned redactions, and we are in touch with his office on a daily basis. Technical amendments have been considered and these have caused some delay— but redactions or other compromised provisions are not being used to delay movement of the bill. The technical tweaks will assure that the bill covers all situations in getting an original birth certificate, whether you were born in upstate New York or in New York City, and whether it is an adoptee or an adoptee’s descendants who request the OBC. Expect an A9959B bill number soon. Update: the technical amendments have been approved and the bills have now been renumbered to A9959B/S7631B.

We continue to appeal to Governor Andrew Cuomo to support the bill and to push for its passage with legislative leadership. To that end, we have issued calls to to contact Governor Cuomo to request his  leadership on this issue, as in the following action alert:

Finally, the idea that the New York legislative session will end early—without consideration of an adoptee rights bill—is  speculative. Early adjournment is an idea being discussed by Senate Republicans and is not something that has been decided. In fact, it now appears unlikely that the session will end prior to its scheduled date of June 20.

If you continue to see posts on social media like those pictured above—and they make you scratch your head—contact us to get the real scoop. We are active on Facebook and on Twitter, or you can contact us by email directly at [email protected]. As always, we’ll give it to you straight, even if it is bad news. We promise.