“This is an asinine bill,” said Senator Michael N. Gianaris, a Queens Democrat. “We’re sitting here discussing what should be the official amphibian when two million people in New York City are not sure if they have a home.”
Senator John A. DeFrancisco, a Syracuse Republican who sponsored the bill, took umbrage at that line of criticism, saying that to compare the wood frog bill to rent legislation was “complete nonsense.”
As the debate raged, Senator Liz Krueger, a Manhattan Democrat, took to Twitter to continue her argument: “Though I honor the wood frog, millions of desperately worried people who risk losing their homes are wondering why we’re discussing it now.”
So it went in Albany, as the legislative session that everyone wants to end simply will not.
Although the session was scheduled to end on Wednesday, lawmakers were taking bets on how long it would be extended, and hedges were being made: Hotels were quickly being booked.
The leaders of the Assembly and the Senate met separately behind closed doors with Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo; they make up Albany’s so-called three men in a room. The two legislative leaders also met, behind closed doors, with the members of their respective conferences. One thing was consistent: The meetings ended with little to report.
Throughout the day, lawmakers spent hours passing bills and asking aloud when it would all end. By dusk, politicians here had still not resolved numerous matters affecting millions of New Yorkers, including tenants, schoolchildren and mass transit riders. (Fear not, wood frog fans — that bill passed.)
There is always a carnival aspect to the end of session, but this year was different. The longtime leaders of the Assembly and the Senate, Sheldon Silver, a Democrat, and Dean G. Skelos, a Republican, were arrested on federal corruption charges and stepped down from their leadership positions. Mr. Skelos’s putative successor, Senator Thomas W. Libous, could not move up: He is facing his own federal indictment and has cancer.
