New York State has been trying to ban weight discrimination since 2017. Nine years and five legislative sessions later, the bill is sitting in a committee again. This is not a story about opposition. It is a story about where a bill stops when nobody votes it down.
We keep a running tracker of weight discrimination laws because the gap between “a bill exists” and “a law protects you” is where most of this subject lives. New York is the clearest example of that gap we have found so far, and the record is public.
What actually happened
The current bill is S9803, introduced on 6 April 2026 by Senator Luis R. Sepúlveda, co-sponsored by Liz Krueger and Lea Webb. It was referred to the Senate Committee on Investigations and Government Operations that same day. As of 17 September 2026, the bill’s action record contains exactly one line: that referral. Nothing else has happened to it.
Its Assembly twin, A3193, sponsored by Assembly Member Rosenthal, is older. It was introduced on 23 January 2025 and referred to the Assembly Committee on Governmental Operations. On 7 January 2026 it was referred to the same committee again, which is what happens automatically when a session rolls over. Two entries in two years, both of them referrals.
So far this reads like a bill nobody wants. The previous session says otherwise.
The Senate voted yes. Twice.
The predecessor bill, S2440 of the 2023–2024 session, has a long action record, and it is worth reading in order.
It was referred to Investigations and Government Operations on 20 January 2023. On 3 June 2023 it was amended and recommitted. On 6 June 2023 the committee was discharged, the bill went to the Rules Committee, then to third reading, and the Senate passed it. The floor vote was 54 in favour, 8 against. It was delivered to the Assembly and referred to Governmental Operations.
It did not come out. On 3 January 2024 the record reads: returned to senate, died in assembly.
The Senate then did it again. In May 2024 the bill was reported out of committee twice, amended to version 2440-B, advanced to third reading, and on 30 May 2024 the Senate passed it a second time, 49 in favour, 8 against. It was delivered to the Assembly and referred to Governmental Operations. The session ended there.
Two Senate passages. Two large majorities. Both times the bill crossed to the Assembly, entered Governmental Operations, and was never voted on.
Why this matters for how the subject gets discussed
The usual account of weight discrimination legislation is that it fails because it is controversial. In New York, on the available record, it has never lost a floor vote in either chamber. It has never been voted down in committee either. It has simply not been voted on.
That distinction is not pedantic. A bill defeated on the floor produces a roll call: named legislators, recorded positions, something a voter can act on. A bill that expires in committee produces nothing. No name is attached to the outcome. We set out the rules for getting a bill out of committee earlier; New York is what those rules look like in practice, with dates.
The same pattern has now run five sessions deep. The Senate memo attached to S9803 lists the earlier versions: A8689 in 2017–2018, A735 in 2019–2020, S8153 and A1851 in 2021–2022, S2440 and A801 in 2023–2024. The memo also states that S8153-A of 2022 and S3841 of 2025 both died in Investigations and Government Operations, this time on the Senate side.
The bill is narrower than its own memo says
There is a second finding in these documents, and it is the kind of thing that only shows up if you read the bill text and the sponsor memo side by side. They do not describe the same bill.
The sponsor memo for S9803 describes ten sections amending Executive Law §296, §296-a and §296-c. In the memo, the bill covers employment, occupational training programmes, public accommodations, housing, educational institutions, boycotts, land and commercial space, credit, and interns. The memo says “height or weight” throughout, and it says the act takes effect on the 180th day after becoming law.
The bill text does none of that. It adds a single new section, §296-e, with five subsections. It covers employers and licensing agencies, employment agencies, labour organisations, job advertisements and inquiries, and places of public accommodation. It does not touch housing, credit, interns or education. It says “weight” and never “height”. And §2 of the text reads: this act shall take effect immediately.
The Assembly version A3193 carries the identical narrow text. The most plausible reading is that the memo was carried over from the earlier, broader §296-amending drafts while the operative text is the shorter §296-e version, but the legislature’s own summary line for both bills also says “weight” only. We are not asserting intent. We are recording that anyone relying on the memo to know what the bill would do would be wrong on housing, wrong on credit, wrong on height and wrong on the effective date.
One exception worth reading closely
The public accommodations subsection contains a carve-out. It is not an unlawful practice, the text says, to adhere to any weight restrictions “where any deviation may pose a threat to the individual, other patrons, or the general public.”
Compare that to New York City’s Human Rights Law, which since 2023 has barred height and weight discrimination with exceptions tied to job requirements and specific safety standards. The state text is broader and vaguer. “May pose a threat” is a low bar, “the general public” is an open category, and the clause does not require the restriction to be based on any established standard. Amusement park ride limits are the obvious intended case. Whether a restaurant, a gym or a clinic could reach for the same sentence is not settled by the text.
This is the recurring problem with weight protection built on threat language: the protection arrives attached to a judgement about the body it protects. It is also the point at which a written right and an enforceable one come apart, which is what we found when we looked at how weight discrimination cases actually end.
Where this leaves the tracker
New York remains what it was: no statewide weight discrimination protection, and protection in New York City only. Michigan is still the only state with a statewide ban, in force since 1976. The current New York bills are both alive in the 2025–2026 session and both in committee.
The thing to watch is not the Senate. The Senate’s position is on the record twice. The thing to watch is whether A3193 leaves Assembly Governmental Operations before this session ends. Nine years of record say the answer is usually no, and that the reason is never written down anywhere.
Read more on Fatosphere
- Weight discrimination laws, tracked
- How weight discrimination bills get discharged from committee
- Delaware HB 115: still pending
- Washington protects weight through a court, not a statute
- What happens when you sue over weight discrimination
- Weight discrimination and what you can do about it
Sources
All legislative records below were read in full at the New York State Legislature’s own bill pages on 17 September 2026.
- New York State Senate Bill S9803 (2025–2026 session), bill text, sponsor memo, status and action record: https://www.nysenate.gov/legislation/bills/2025/S9803
- New York State Assembly Bill A3193 (2025–2026 session), bill text, status and action record: https://www.nysenate.gov/legislation/bills/2025/A3193
- New York State Senate Bill S2440 (2023–2024 session), action record and floor votes of 6 June 2023 and 30 May 2024: https://www.nysenate.gov/legislation/bills/2023/S2440