Reinvent Albany Transparency Ask: Publish Senate Confirmation Votes

February 4, 2026

Andrea Stewart-Cousins
Majority Leader
New York State Senate

VIA EMAIL

Re: Please tell the public the Senate’s plans for publishing confirmation votes in advance of Sunshine Week

Dear Majority Leader Stewart-Cousins,

We ask that you provide the public with a timeline for when the Senate will publish confirmation votes – both in committee and on the floor – on the Senate’s website, so that the public has an update about when you will be able to implement this important transparency measure.

We were encouraged that Senate spokesperson Mike Murphy stated in response to our December 2025 report, Transparency Gap: NY Senate Confirmation Votes Kept Behind Two Layers of Obstacles, that the Senate would identify ways to modernize and improve:

“We appreciate the attention this report brings to confirmation processes and  transparency practices. We will review its findings closely to identify additional opportunities this legislative session to further strengthen public trust in New York state government,” Murphy said. “Our commitment is simple: keep improving, keep modernizing, and keep building a government worthy of the people we serve.”

Reinvent Albany’s searchable database of Senate confirmation votes shows that publishing confirmation votes is possible, and provides a model for how the votes could be shown to the public. The code for our database is open source and available on Github. 

The Senate has made big strides for transparency through its website, including its Open Legislation platform with an application programming interface (API) for legislative data, and its open data for Senate spending and staffing. Publishing confirmation votes would add to the Senate’s important track record of increasing transparency of its operations. 

Transparency in government is more important than ever, particularly in a political climate where state and local governments are rolling back transparency laws. We believe the New York State Senate has an opportunity to be a shining example of transparency, and suggest that you announce your plans to publish votes in time for Sunshine Week.

Thank you for your consideration. We welcome the opportunity to meet with your team to discuss this further.

Sincerely,

John Kaehny
Executive Director

Rachael Fauss 
Senior Policy Advisor

Click here or below to view the letter as a PDF.