Assembly Leads the Way on FOIL in 2025

June 17, 2025

Passes three out of four of our priority bills plus a solid bonus bill

Reinvent Albany thanks Speaker Carl Heastie and the New York State Assembly for passing the FOIL timing bill, S2520-B (Skoufis) / A3425-A (Raga), yesterday.

For Sunshine Week in March, transparency advocates rallied in Albany to promote four bills we hoped the Legislature would pass to address New York’s broken Freedom of Information Law. Of those, the Assembly passed three, while the Senate passed two.

The Assembly also joined the Senate in passing a fifth bill supported by Reinvent Albany, S67 (Skoufis) / A6613 (McDonald), which addresses recent court decisions that misinterpreted FOIL.

We greatly appreciate the Assembly’s work this session to strengthen FOIL. We urge you to keep up the good work in future sessions – FOIL needs help and we urge you to pass (or re-pass) three bills next session that have yet to pass both houses (see below).

FOIL bills supported by transparency advocates and Reinvent Albany:

S2520-B (Skoufis) / A3425-A (Raga) – Reduces time the public must wait to appeal FOIL delays and denials. Passed both houses.
S67 (Skoufis) / A6613 (McDonald) – Clarifies FOIL regarding redactions. Passed both houses.
S1418-A (Liu) / A950-A (Steck) – Strengthen FOIL Attorneys’ Fees. Passed the Senate, not the Assembly.
S5000 (Hoylman-Sigal) / A1410 (Rosenthal) – Limits commercial FOIL exemption. Passed the Assembly, not the Senate (despite passing Senate in previous sessions).
S452 (Hoylman-Sigal) / A2321 (McDonald) – Requires agencies to submit FOIL logs to the Committee on Open Government. Passed the Assembly, not the Senate.