A 6227: Removes citizenship as a qualification for holding public office in this state unless required by law.

  
  STATE OF NEW YORK ________________________________________________________________________ 6227 2025-2026 Regular Sessions  IN ASSEMBLY February 27, 2025 ___________ Introduced by M. of A. SIMONE, FORREST, GALLAGHER, GONZALEZ-ROJAS, MITAYNES -- read once and referred to the Committee on Governmental Operations AN ACT to amend the public officers law, in relation to deleting the citizenship requirement for holding civil office The People of the State of New York, represented in Senate and Assem- bly, do enact as follows: 1 Section 1. Subdivision 1 of section 3 of the public officers law, as 2 amended by chapter 251 of the laws of 2014, is amended to read as 3 follows: 4 1. No person shall be capable of holding a civil office who shall not, 5 at the time [he or she] they shall be chosen thereto, have attained the 6 age of eighteen years, except that in the case of youth boards, youth 7 commissions, recreation commissions, or community boards in the city of 8 New York only, members of such boards or commissions may be under the 9 age of eighteen years, but must have attained the age of sixteen years 10 on or before appointment to such youth board, youth commission, recre- 11 ation commission, or community board in the city of New York, be [a 12 citizen of the United States,] a resident of the state, and if it be a 13 local office, a resident of the political subdivision or municipal 14 corporation of the state for which [he or she] they shall be chosen, or 15 within which the electors electing [him or her] them reside, or within 16 which [his or her] their official functions are required to be exer- 17 cised, or who shall have been or shall be convicted of a violation of 18 the selective draft act of the United States, enacted May eighteenth, 19 nineteen hundred seventeen, or the acts amendatory or supplemental ther- 20 eto, or of the federal selective training and service act of nineteen 21 hundred forty or the acts amendatory thereof or supplemental thereto. 22 Where any other law imposes additional criteria for holding any civil 23 office, those criteria shall apply to that office in addition to the 24 requirements of this section. 25 § 2. This act shall take effect immediately. EXPLANATION--Matter in italics (underscored) is new; matter in brackets [ ] is old law to be omitted. LBD01412-01-5