A bill that would end the religious exemption for vaccinations in New York has sufficient support in the state Senate, Majority Leader Andrea Stewart-Cousins on Thursday said.
But the bill’s future remains unclear in the Assembly.
“I believe we have the votes in our conference,” Stewart-Cousins said at a news conference. “We’re trying to work out to see what the Assembly will be doing.”
The bill was proposed amid a measles outbreak in Rockland County and Brooklyn, largely affected Orthodox Jewish communities.
Speaker Carl Heastie said the measure remains under debate among majority Democrats. Heastie indicated he wanted to secure a majority of the conference’s support to bring the bill to the floor.
“We’re still working on it,” he said. “We have to have a requisite number of votes. We are still working on that.”