Committing adultery may no longer be a crime in New York State.
The legislature’s upper chamber voted Wednesday to remove it from the penal code, with 57 votes in favor. The four "no" votes were cast by Democratic State Senators Joe Addabbo and Monica Martinez, and Republicans Patrick Gallivan and James Tedisco.
Although the law is rarely enforced and most New Yorkers are unaware of it, the current statute says if two consenting adults engage in sexual behavior — and they aren’t married to each other — they could get slapped with a $500 fine or three months in jail.
“Adultery law was almost never used on the books. When it was used, not in anyone getting a criminal charge, women were being threatened by men that if they tried to divorce them, they would hit them up on adultery,” Democratic State Sen. Liz Krueger, one of the bill’s sponsor, said.
The legislature’s lower chamber passed the repeal weeks ago. Gov. Kathy Hochul’s office said she will review the legislation.
Bill sponsor Assemblyman Charles Lavine says the 1907 law was only applied just over a dozen times. From his records, the last time was in 2010.
“Over the course of the last 117 years, there have been only 13 instances where people have been arrested for adultery and only five [were] convicted,” Lavine, a Democrat, said.
“When you consider in that period of time there have been multiple millions of instances of adultery in the state of New York — it certainly doesn’t serve as much of a deterrent.”
But Republican lawmakers criticized Democrats for passing the measure, while failing to finalize a multi-billion dollar spending package.
“We should be making sure that the budget is in place and making sure that we can fund the things we need to fund in this state,” Republican Assemblyman Michael Reilly said.
Long Islander Michael Durso represents the district where slain NYPD officer Jonathan Diller’s family lives. He accused Democrats of wasting time on the adultery bill, arguing they should focus on public safety.
“There’s a woman at home who just buried her husband because he was murdered by a criminal. We have a list and a package of bills here that we could be voting on and it’s not coming to the floor, because the majority refuses to bring it to the floor. Instead of wasting our time and BS-ing around, we could actually be making change,” GOP Assemblyman Mike Durso said.
But supporters argued, the legislature can do both.
“We can walk and chew gum at the same time. We can be negotiating a budget, working on a budget, which is never done on the floor of the legislature and also debate bills at the same time,” Krueger said.
“The last extender went through Thursday, so I think the idea would be to push it another couple of days, but I think we are starting to make progress. Hopefully wrap it up in the next few days,” Deputy Senate Majority Leader Michael Gianaris said.
Lawmakers must pass a budget extender by April 4 so some state workers can get paid, according to the state Division of the Budget.
State Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli’s Office said another budget extender must be passed by April 8 to cover the bulk of state workers.