Under a new Democratic regime, legislators will reincarnate two vetoed bills, including a piece of controversial gun legislation, that were nixed under former County Executive Rob Astorino, a Republican.
The legislative agenda on Jan. 22 will feature the reintroduction of a bill to ban gun shows on county owned property that was vetoed by Astorino last year, after being passed by Democrats on the Board of Legislators.
Specifically, the bill seeks to eliminate the possibility of hosting gun shows at the Westchester County Center, which Democrats say promotes a toxic gun culture in the county.
While current County Executive George Latimer, a Democrat, has already signed an executive order banning the gun shows—a reinstatement of a previous ban that lapsed under Astorino—unlike the order, the passage of a more formal piece of legislation would permanently ban the shows in the future.
In tandem with a bill to ban gun shows, Democrats will also reintroduce a county immigration bill that would limit the amount of information that the county shares with the federal government.
This bill was also introduced and passed last year, but was eventually vetoed by Astorino who said it would hamper the efforts of county law enforcement.
Both bills are being revisited by a new Democratic majority with an extra advantage of three seats over last year’s Board of Legislators makeup. Currently, Democrats outnumber Republicans 12-5, giving them a supermajority, in addition to the support of Latimer, who unseated Astorino in November last year.
In addition to both bills, Democrats will also push two bills that expand paid sick leave countywide—companies with five or more employees would be required to provide at least 40 hours of paid sick leave—as well as a bill that would ban employers in the county from asking how much prospective employees made at a previous job.
These bills will mark the start of a reinvigorated progressive agenda from Latimer and the Board of Legislators, who recently elected a new majority leader, Ben Boykin, a White Plains Democrat, to replace the previous chair, Michael Kaplowitz, a Yorktown Democrat, in a divisive nomination process.
