After the State Senate deals with an Assembly-passed $2.8 billion deficit-reduction bill in a special session starting around now, advocates are saying there’s a strong chance they’ll begin debate on the marriage-equality bill that has been waiting outside their chamber doors for months now. Last night, the State Assembly re-passed their version of the bill, which had been passed in a regular session earlier this year. By passing it in a so-called “extraordinary session,” they ensured that if the Senate passes it in their own extraordinary session today, there are no obstacles to sending it straight to the governor. (A bill can be halted if the versions passed by both bodies are even only slightly different from one another.) Gay-rights group the Empire State Pride Agenda hailed this move as a sign of “continued momentum.” Of course, nothing ever goes as planned in Albany, so that “momentum” could easily “continue” in a holding pattern for days, if not weeks.
