Two-way deals at the state Capitol?

With help from Shawn Ness

The state Senate was poised to pass a package of health affordability bills late today that includes having the state enter into contracts with private manufacturers to produce generic drugs and one to let New Yorkers start importing medicine from Canada.

The package is part of Albany Democrats’ focus on “affordability” as a theme this election year when they will all be on the ballot.

“We are very clear that we are here to fight for working- and middle-class people,” Majority Leader Andrea Stewart-Cousins said at a news conference to announce the bills. “We’re here to serve the people, to address their needs, to prioritize issues that we know matter to most working families.”

Notably, most of these bills previously passed the Senate in 2023 yet stalled in the Assembly.

That’s become a bit of a theme early in the 2024 session.

The two houses have each passed a selection of bills that were approved by only their chamber last year, but stalled in the other — including a voting package passed by the Senate and a Port Authority reform bill in the Assembly.

But outside of chapter amendments making technical tweaks to bills that were approved in 2023, and a maternal health package approved last week, there have yet to be any major two-way agreements that have been common in some other Januarys since Democrats won the Senate in 2019.

And with January winding down, there’s not much time left for any of these legislative kumbayas before the budget due at the end of March subsumes everything else.

“We’re always in conversations with our colleagues in the Assembly,” Stewart-Cousins said. “At this point, we are pretty much ensconced in the budget conversations. I could just tell you to stay tuned, I’m not