New York Privacy Amendment / How it becomes law
Process
How a constitutional amendment becomes law in New York
Amending the New York Constitution takes three steps, two separately elected legislatures, and a statewide vote. The governor has no role at all. That is slower than passing a bill, and the slowness is the point.
Article XIX, section 1
The three steps
First passage
Both houses pass the amendment, and the Attorney General weighs in
An amendment is introduced as a concurrent resolution rather than a bill. It is referred to the Attorney General, who has twenty days to give a written opinion on how it would affect other constitutional provisions. That opinion is advisory. The Legislature may act with it or against it.
The resolution must then be approved by a majority of all members elected to the NY Assembly and the NY Senate.
Second passage
In a second consecutive session, the legislature must pass the bill again
Members of both the Assembly and the Senate serve 2-year terms. After one legislature passes the bill carrying the amendment, the next consecutive legislature must do so as well.
Ratification
The voters decide
After second passage the amendment goes to the voters at a time the Legislature sets, in practice the November general election. A simple majority of those voting on the question ratifies it. It takes effect the following January 1 unless the amendment says otherwise.
The governor never signs and cannot veto. The only people who can stop an amendment are legislators and voters.
Durability
Why this is harder to undo than a statute
A privacy statute and a privacy amendment can contain the same words and still offer very different protection, because what matters is how easily each one disappears.
- A statute can be repealed by one Legislature in one session. The same majority that passed it can take it back, in a budget bill, at three in the morning, in a single year.
- An amendment requires two legislatures and the voters. Undoing it means running the entire three-step process again, including an intervening election and a statewide vote. Nothing in Albany moves that quickly.
- A statute can be preempted. A constitutional provision sets the floor. A later statute that conflicts with the constitution is void, which means the amendment constrains future legislatures rather than merely instructing the current one.
- A statute binds agencies. A constitutional right binds the state itself, and gives courts an independent textual basis to decide cases without waiting for federal doctrine to permit it.
What happens to an implied right
Tennessee is the clearest illustration. In 2000 its supreme court found a right to privacy implied in the state constitution, broad enough to protect abortion. In 2014 voters adopted an amendment declaring that nothing in the constitution secures that right, and the implied protection was gone.
South Carolina shows the other failure mode. Its privacy language sits inside a search and seizure clause. In January 2023 the state supreme court read it to strike down a six-week abortion ban. Months later, after a change in the court's composition, the same clause upheld a nearly identical law.
An implied right lasts as long as the judges who found it. Text in the constitution outlasts them.
A right that can be repealed by the same majority that granted it is a policy. A right that takes two legislatures and the voters to remove is a constraint.
Comparison
New York and the federal process side by side
The federal process is deliberately close to impossible. Twenty-seven amendments have been ratified in more than two centuries, and ten of those came as a single package in 1791. New York's process is demanding but genuinely usable, which is why states have been the realistic place to add new rights for the last sixty years.
| Step | New York (Art. XIX) | United States (Art. V) |
|---|---|---|
| Who proposes | Either house, as a concurrent resolution. A constitutional convention is a separate route, put to voters every twenty years. | Congress, or a convention called by the legislatures of two thirds of the states. The convention route has never been used. |
| Threshold to propose | A majority of all members elected to each house. Not a supermajority. | Two thirds of both the House and the Senate. |
| How many times | Twice, by two separately elected Legislatures, with an Assembly election in between and identical text both times. | Once. |
| Who ratifies | The voters of New York, by simple majority at a general election. | Three quarters of the states, which is thirty-eight, acting through legislatures or conventions. |
| Executive role | None. The governor cannot sign or veto. | None. The president cannot sign or veto. |
| Realistic timeline | Roughly three to five years from introduction to the ballot. | Decades, and usually never. |
| Track record | Amended many times, including the Equal Rights Amendment ratified by voters in 2024. | Twenty-seven amendments since 1789. The most recent took 202 years to ratify. |
Where the privacy amendment stands
S8603 and A9377 were introduced in December 2025 and referred to the Judiciary Committees, where the Attorney General's opinion has been filed. They await first passage. Under the resolution's own terms, the sponsors are aiming to reach voters at the 2028 general election.