Report: Transparency Gap: NY Senate Confirmation Votes Kept Behind Two Layers of Obstacles

December 18, 2025

Executive Summary

Under the New York Constitution, the State Senate plays a critical role safeguarding democratic norms and transparency by providing advice and consent on the Governor’s nominees for judgeships, agency leadership, and seats on boards and commissions.

Unfortunately, the public faces two major obstacles when trying to understand how their Senators vote on confirmations. First, although confirmation votes occur in public, and Senate Rules require the publication of members’ votes, the Senate does not publish votes on its website. This lack of transparency contrasts greatly with other legislative bodies like the U.S. Senate, the NYC Council, and state legislatures in California, Illinois, Pennsylvania, and Vermont which all publish their members’ confirmation votes online.

The second obstacle the public confronts is that the State Senate overuses slate voting – a practice not used by the NYC Council, or for important confirmations being considered by the U.S. Senate, like those going through the Judiciary Committee.

The lack of public accountability in New York is aggravated by a loophole in state lobbying laws that allows special interests to secretly spend great sums attempting to influence confirmations.

Reinvent Albany wanted to better understand if, and how often, special interests might be lobbying to influence Senate confirmation votes, so we submitted Freedom of Information Law (FOIL) requests for Senate voting records. We received only floor votes for 2024 and 2025 – not committee votes – and supplemented this with Legislative Retrieval System data to assess the volume of confirmations since 2019.

Below is a summary of our major findings.

Dozens of Confirmations Approved via Slate Each Year, Mostly in June

100% of the Governor’s appointments were confirmed in 2024 and 2025, nearly all through slate voting. Slate votes eliminate public accountability by obscuring Senators’ votes on individual – and potentially controversial – nominees from their constituents.
- 98% of nominees were voted on in slates with 2 or more appointees. Only 5 nominees were voted on individually out of a total of 319 in 2024 and 2025. The average number of nominees on a slate was 14; the largest slate included 63 nominees.
2025: 144 individuals were confirmed for 60 positions; 16 nominees (11%) were approved on the final day (June 12th), though 91 nominees (63%) were approved on June 10th across three large slates.
2024: 175 individuals were confirmed for 74 positions; 70 nominees (40%) were approved on the final day of session.
2019 – 2023: about 100 nominees were confirmed each year.

The “Ayes” and “Nays” of Confirmation Votes

Democrats largely vote yes on slates, and Republicans largely vote no, but there are exceptions.
- Most Republican “Ayes”: Senators Peter Oberacker and Rob Rolison supported 65% of slates.
- Most Republican “Nays”: Senator Alexis Weik opposed 70% of slates.
- Most Democratic “Nays”: Senator Monica Martinez opposed 13% of slates.

Voting Records Show Attendance Records

Roll call voting records show Senators that were “Absent” and “Excused”, in addition to “Aye” and “Nay” votes.
- 2025: Senator Zellnor Myrie was excused for 9 of 12 slates while running for NYC Mayor.
- 2024: Senator Mark Walczyk was excused for all 11 slates while deployed in Kuwait for the U.S. Army Reserve.

Contentious Votes Currently Not Published

2024: The most disputed votes involved transit authority boards, including the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, with 23 recorded “Nays.” Three Democrats – Senators Monica Martinez, Jessica Scarcella-Spanton, and James Skoufis – joined Republicans in opposition.
2025: The most contentious votes involved nominees for Commissioner of the Board of Parole and the Chair of the Cannabis Control Board, with one Democrat voting against each.

Recommendations

End slate voting, requiring Senators to vote on individual appointees, as is done by the NYC Council and for high-profile positions by the U.S. Senate.
The Senate should publish complete voting records on nominations on its website, including Senators’ floor and committee votes, as is done in the U.S. Senate, New York City Council, and the states of California, Pennsylvania, Vermont, North Carolina, and Illinois.
Require disclosure of lobbying on confirmations. The Legislature should pass and the Governor should sign S374 (Gianaris) /A7456 (McDonald) requiring disclosure of lobbying on Senate confirmations. An earlier version of this legislation was vetoed by Governor Hochul in 2023.
Provide adequate time for review. The Governor should provide the Senate with more time to consider nominations, not wait until the final weeks of session. Other states require appointees to be sent by certain deadlines, such as March 1st (Iowa) or May 1st (Connecticut).

Introduction

Under New York State’s Constitution, the State Senate is responsible for providing advice and consent for a number of positions appointed by the Governor:

Department heads, including agencies, boards and commissions (Article V, Section 4)
Chief Judge or Associate Judge of the Court of Appeals (Article VI, Section 2)
Judges on Court of Claims (Article VI, Section 9)
Vacancies other than by expired term for Justices of Supreme Court, Judge of County Court, Judge of Surrogate’s Court, or Judge of Family Court outside of New York City (Article VI, Section 21)

Unfortunately, while the role of confirming these important positions is constitutionally required, the Senate does not publish basic details of votes, including how individual members voted. This is the first major obstacle the public faces in trying to understand how their senators voted on confirmations. The second obstacle is the over-use of slate voting, which obscures members’ positions on individuals up for confirmation. Additionally, a loophole in lobbying rules allows special interests to spend unknown amounts lobbying Senators in an attempt to influence their vote.

Under Section 7 of Senate Rule VII (Standing Committees), nominations sent by the Governor are referred by the Temporary President to either the Finance Committee or the Judiciary Committee for consideration. In committee, Senators can request to speak on a nomination for no more than five minutes, with the Chair given sole discretion to approve or deny these requests. The names of those voting for or against the nomination in committee are only entered alphabetically in the Senate journal if any five Senators request it. A nomination can only go straight to the floor – bypassing the committee process – with unanimous consent. On the floor, speeches regarding nominations are limited to 15 minutes per conference, pursuant to Section 4 of Rule IX (Senators).

The Senate’s rules in some places speak generally regarding voting, and in others distinguish between voting on legislation versus “other matters.” For example, in Section 6 of Rule VII (Standing Committees), a member’s vote on “other matters” are entered by the member on a signed official voting sheet delivered to the Committee Chair. However, as noted previously, these committee votes are only recorded in the journal upon request of at least five members.

Rule VII (Freedom of Information), states plainly that the “Senate shall make available through a searchable and sortable database on the Senate website: records of

committees, agendas, votes, minutes, reports, attendance, fiscal notes, and records of the chamber including, active lists, votes, transcripts, calendars, the Senate payroll report and expenditure reports.” Despite this broad mandate, votes by members on nominations – either in committee or on the floor — are not currently posted on the Senate’s website.

Transparency Lacking for Confirmation Votes and Lobbying

The Senate’s votes on confirmations are not currently published on the Senate’s website, nor on the Legislative Retrieval Service (LRS) (the subscription service for tracking NYS bills and legislative committee activity) or its free version. The lack of transparency of confirmation votes is in stark contrast to the availability of votes on legislation and resolutions, which are readily available on the Senate website. For example, both LRS and Open Legislation, an Application Programming Interface (API), allow third parties to pull the data for their own apps and websites.

Poor Recordkeeping

In order to obtain the voting records for Senators on confirmations, Reinvent Albany filed a Freedom of Information Law (FOIL) request with the Senate in July 2024. We asked for votes on confirmations both in committee and on the floor for calendar years 2023 and 2024. Ultimately, we obtained only voting records for floor votes in 2024, with the Senate referring us to committee video footage for the “record” of votes in committee. We filed an updated FOIL request in July 2025 for floor votes, and received these records.

For 2023 floor votes, the Senate stated in an August 2024 response to our appeal that, “Upon information and belief, no such documents exist that are responsive to your request…The Senate is not required to prepare or compile a record that does not otherwise exist.” In other words, the Senate inexplicably claimed it does not have voting records for confirmations in calendar year 2023, despite its constitutional responsibility to provide advice and consent for certain appointments. (It should be noted that votes in 2023 and 2024 occurred in the same legislative term. Therefore, it appears that the Senate’s recordkeeping for confirmations changed in 2024 – perhaps in response to concerns about legal challenges to its rejection of Justice Hector LaSalle’s nomination in 2024.)

Slate Voting

According to the voting records obtained by Reinvent Albany, members of the Senate took roll call votes for candidates as slates; there were a total of 12 slates considered in 2025, and 11 in 2024.

All of the Governor’s appointments were confirmed each year, with the vast majority approved through slate voting. Slate votes eliminate public accountability by obscuring Senators’ votes on individual – potentially controversial – nominees from their constituents. Ninety-eight percent of nominees were voted on in slates with 2 or more appointees. Only 5 nominees were voted on individually out of a total of 319 in 2024 and 2025. The average number of nominees on a slate was 14; the largest slate included 63 nominees.

The largest slate in 2025 included a whopping 63 nominees. These large slates means that Senators either hold their nose and vote “aye”, or take the more adversarial step of voting “nay” because they oppose one or two candidates among these large slates.

Loopholes in Lobbying Reporting

Additionally, there is no public reporting of lobbying activity on confirmation votes before the Senate. New York’s lobbying law currently does not require public disclosure of efforts to influence the nomination or confirmation process for positions requiring Senate approval. This loophole allows lobbying to go unreported, and thus allows efforts to influence the appointment of important state positions to occur out of the public’s view. Bizarrely, attempts to influence joint resolutions to approve appointees to certain positions – such as the Board of Regents – are reportable as lobbying activity.

The lack of transparency around this type of lobbying was highlighted in 2023, when Governor Hochul nominated Hector LaSalle as Chief Justice of the NYS Court of Appeals. The Albany Times Union revealed that tens of thousands of dollars were spent to influence this appointment. However, due to the lack of disclosure of such lobbying, the public would have been completely unaware of this effort if not for Times Union’s reporting.

The possibility of lobbying to influence nominations for public offices does not apply solely to judicial positions. For example, the current loophole would hypothetically allow utilities companies to lobby for nominees to the Public Service Commission outside of public view.

Senate Confirmations by the Numbers

The Senate approved a total of 144 nominees for 60 different positions in 2025, and 175 nominees for 74 different positions in calendar year 2024 (in some cases, multiple appointees are considered together for boards or commissions).

The pace of nominations accelerated greatly toward the end of session, with the number of nominations increasing to 70 on the final day of session in two separate slates. June 10, 2025 (the third-to-last day of the session) was the busiest: 91 candidates were confirmed from three separate slates on this day. Below is a summary of the number of nominees confirmed at the end of session.

2025: 144 individuals were confirmed for 60 positions
- 16 nominees (11%) were approved on the final day of session (June 12th).
- 91 nominees (63%) were approved on June 10th across three large slates.
2024: 175 individuals were confirmed for 74 positions
- 70 nominees (40%) were approved on the final day of session.

Reinvent Albany obtained records of the number of nominations confirmed by the Senate from 2019-2023 from LRS. This data did not contain votes, only the names of individuals confirmed and the date of the confirmation. Records of votes by month for 2024 and 2025 were obtained via FOIL request. A summary of the dates of confirmations from 2019-2025 is below, by month. The vast majority of votes take place at the end of session in June. Note that no confirmations were recorded in 2020 due to disruptions from COVID-19.

The types of positions up for confirmation varied; there were 104 different positions voted on in 2024 and 2025 combined. Most appointees were judges; the Governor nominated 35 Court of Claims judges, 10 Interim Supreme Court Justices, two Interim Family Court judges, and two Interim Rockland County Court judges from 2024-2025, for a total of 49 judges.

Other high-profile positions up for confirmation in 2024-2025 included:

Secretary of State
Superintendent of the Division of State Police
Commissioner, Department of Corrections & Community Supervision
Commissioner, Office of Children & Family Services
Executive Director, Thruway Authority
Executive Director, Dormitory Authority of the State of New York
Chair, Cannabis Control Board
Member, Public Service Commission
Member, Metropolitan Transportation Authority

Positions with most “Nay” votes in 2024 – The slate of nominees with the most “nay” votes was the first confirmation vote of 2024, and included candidates for transit agencies statewide: the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, Niagara Frontier Transportation Authority, Rochester-Genesee Regional Transportation Authority, and Capital District Transportation Authority. Three Democrats joined Republicans in rejecting the nominees: Senators Monica Martinez, Jessica Scarcella-Spanton, and James Skoufis. These nominations were nonetheless confirmed with a comfortable majority: 39 ayes to 23 nays.

Positions with most “Nay” votes in 2025 – The most contention votes of 2025 were for Commissioner of the Board of Parole, and Chair of the Cannabis Control Board. Senator Monica Martinez (D) voted against the Cannabis Control Board Chair candidate, and Senator James Sander (D) voted against the Commissioner of Parole.

A full list of positions up for confirmation in 2024-25 and list of appointees is available on our website.

Voting by Individual Senators in 2024-2025

No candidates were rejected in 2024 or 2025 by the State Senate once they reached a floor vote by the Senate. For the most part, Senate confirmation votes were taken on a party-line basis:

Only eight nominees of 319 total (3%) received a unanimous vote in support; all of these nominees were among a maximum of two individuals on a slate.
- Notably, two of these individuals were former state legislators: Robert J. Rodriguez for Executive Director of the Dormitory of the State of New York, and Walter Mosley for Secretary of State.
Straight party-line votes occurred for 57 nominees (18%), with all Democrats in favor and all Republicans opposed.
Republicans were more likely to vote in favor of appointees than Democrats were to vote in opposition (note that the items below will not add up to 100%):
- 257 nominees were approved by all Democrats (81%)
- 60 nominees were opposed by all Republicans (19%)
- 259 nominees had partial bipartisan support (81%)
- 62 nominees had “nay” votes from members of both parties (19%)

Republicans with the most “Aye” votes: Senators Peter Oberacker (Otsego County) and Rob Rolison (Poughkeepsie) supported 65% of slates.

Republican with the most “Nay” votes: Senator Alexis Weik (Suffolk County) opposed 70% of slates.

Democrat with the most “Nay” votes: Senator Monica Martinez (Suffolk County) opposed 13% of slates.

Most Excused in 2024: Senator Mark Walczyk (North Country) – Senator Walczyk was deployed to Kuwait for nine months in 2024 as a member of the U.S. Army Reserve, covering the entirety of the 2024 legislative session. Therefore, he missed voting on all 11 slates in 2024. He returned in 2025, voting on every slate; he cast a “Nay” vote on 10 of 12 slates.

Most excused in 2025: Senator Zellnor Myrie (Brooklyn) missed voting on 9 out of 12 slates in 2025. These votes were missed in 2025 when he was running in the Democratic Primary for Mayor of New York City. The slates included 139 of the 144 nominees up for a vote in 2025.

Transparency of and Timelines for Confirmations in Other Jurisdictions

Reinvent Albany examined comparable states and jurisdictions to determine if confirmation votes by legislators in other legislative bodies are published online. A summary of our review of select states and jurisdictions is below.

U.S. Senate – Lists all nominees with roll call votes for key positions in an online search tool. Judiciary Committee and other high-profile nominees are approved individually via roll call votes (not as a slate) in which Senators’ votes can be accessed. However, lower-profile positions are approved through slates and “voice votes” where individual Senators’ votes are not available.
New York City Council – Lists all confirmation votes by legislator and nominee in bill search tool as resolutions. Nominees are considered individually, not through slates; roll call votes are available for all resolutions.
California – Lists all confirmation votes by legislator on slates as part of Senate Daily Journal. (See September 11, 2025 journal for example)
Illinois – Lists all confirmation votes by legislator and nominee via list of appointment messages in bill search tool. Additionally, the Executive Appointments Committee provides a list of all active appointments.
North Carolina – Lists all confirmation votes by legislator and nominee in roll call transcript.
Pennsylvania – Provides records of legislators’ votes on confirmations by slate (see November 18, 2025 vote for example).
Vermont – Lists all confirmation votes by legislator and nominee in roll call booklets and daily journals. In 2025, candidates were confirmed individually, not by slate.

In New York City, the Council’s process for confirming appointees of the Mayor is fully documented in its portal for legislation and the Council’s calendars, Legistar, where nominations confirmation by the Council are voted on as resolutions. Just recently, the City Council rejected the nomination of two individuals for the Board of Health. The letters sent by the Mayor regarding the nominees and their decision to not withdraw from consideration are published on the portal, as well as all votes. The Council considered both candidates separately, with a separate resolution for each nominee.

Timeline for Submission of Nominations by Governors

Most state laws regarding the timeline for consideration focus on the length of time for state legislatures (most often state senates) to act on appointments submitted by the governor, rather than proving time or date limits for the governor to send appointments. However, several states impose such limits:

In Iowa, the governor is required to submit certain appointments that are subject to senate confirmation by March 1st. Additionally, the governor is required to send the secretary of the Iowa State Senate a list of all the appointment positions requiring gubernatorial action by February 1st.
In Connecticut, most gubernatorial nominees must be sent to the legislature by May 1st.

Other state laws require nominations to be sent during the regular legislative session, rather than when the legislature is not in session. For example, in Arizona, if a vacancy occurs during the regular legislative session, the governor must send candidates to fill the position during the regular session, though there are provisions for appointees to serve on an interim basis.

Recommendations

In order to improve both the process of voting on confirmations and public transparency of confirmation votes and lobbying activity:

End slate voting, requiring Senators to vote on individual appointees, as is done by the NYC Council and for high-profile positions by the U.S. Senate.

The Senate should publish complete voting records on nominations on its website, including Senators’ floor and committee votes, as is done in the U.S. Senate, New York City Council, and the states of California, Pennsylvania, Vermont, North Carolina, and Illinois.

Require disclosure of lobbying on confirmations. The Legislature should pass and the Governor should sign S374 (Gianaris) /A7456 (McDonald) requiring disclosure of lobbying on Senate confirmations. An earlier version of this legislation was vetoed by Governor Hochul in 2023.

Provide adequate time for review. The Governor should provide the Senate with more time to consider nominations, not wait until the final weeks of session. Other states require appointees to be sent by certain deadlines, such as March 1st (Iowa) or May 1st (Connecticut).

Appendix A – Summary of Votes by Senator, 2024-2025

See more data and analysis on our Senate Confirmations page.

See below or click here to view the report as a PDF.