New York's governor vetoed a library ebook bill over preemption

The bill passed both chambers before Governor Hochul's veto cited the same federal copyright argument later used against Maryland.

Historical event

December 29, 2021

First source published

December 29, 2021

Site publication

September 18, 2026

The record

New York's Senate Bill S2890B, requiring publishers who license ebooks to consumers to also license them to public libraries on reasonable terms, passed the state Senate 62 to 1 and the Assembly, both on 10 June 2021, according to the bill's own legislative record. The bill reached Governor Kathy Hochul's desk on 17 December 2021. On 29 December 2021, she vetoed it, an action the Senate's record logs as vetoed memo.72. The Authors Guild's own account of the veto quotes the governor's stated reasoning directly: the provisions of this bill are preempted by federal copyright law.

What the documents show

The legislative record establishes the bare sequence, passage, delivery, veto, without publishing the veto memorandum's full text on the bill's own page. What the record does show is that two library-adjacent and author-adjacent organizations read the same veto differently. The American Library Association called the veto unfortunate and disappointing and, through its president, directly disputed the governor's preemption theory, stating that the governor's claim that federal law ties the hands of state lawmakers is incorrect. The Authors Guild, which opposed the bill on the merits, treated the same preemption language as the correct outcome, arguing copyright law rather than state licensing mandates should set ebook terms. Neither association's statement is itself a court ruling; the preemption theory the governor cited was tested and upheld in court only later, in Maryland's parallel case.

Why it stays interesting

The veto is a rare documented moment where a state's own executive anticipated a preemption argument before any court had ruled on it, only to have that same argument validated months later against a different state's version of the law. For a reader tracking library ebook policy, the useful lesson is how much a single, contested legal theory did to shape outcomes in two states without a single all-encompassing ruling ever addressing New York's bill directly. This is an editorial note: the ALA's rebuttal and the eventual Maryland ruling represent two different registers of argument, advocacy and adjudication, and the record does not show the ALA's specific objection being tested in New York's own courts.

What to read next

Maryland's library ebook law and its 2022 preemption ruling show the same legal argument reaching a federal court rather than a governor's desk. The Macmillan library ebook embargo of 2019 is useful background on the licensing terms that motivated legislatures in both states to act.

• Would the specific reasoning in Maryland's later ruling have applied cleanly to New York's bill, or do the two laws differ in ways that matter?
• What would the ALA's rebuttal need to show a court, rather than the public, to succeed on preemption grounds?
• Why might a governor cite a legal theory not yet tested by any court as grounds for a veto?

The bill's own record, the library association's public rebuttal, and the author organization's account together preserve three distinct readings of a single veto, none of which alone resolves whether some future version of the bill could survive a preemption challenge.

Sources & reading trail

The bill's legislative history: Senate and Assembly passage on 10 June 2021, delivery on 17 December 2021, and veto on 29 December 2021.

Source published: 29 December 2021 · Retrieved: 16 September 2026

ALA's own statement disputing the governor's federal preemption reasoning for the veto.

Source published: 1 January 2022 · Retrieved: 16 September 2026

Quotes the governor's veto memorandum language that the bill's provisions are preempted by federal copyright law.

Source published: 30 December 2021 · Retrieved: 16 September 2026

Reports, filings, records and studies establish the entry; the reading of why it stays interesting is Chapter Ledger editorial analysis. This retrospective draft does not imply the site published on the event date.

Continue reading

• Maryland's library ebook law fell to a federal preemption ruling
• A library ebook embargo lasted less than a year
• Browse the complete the ledger archive

Published September 18, 2026, not on the date of the event described.