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New York Legislature Moves to Help Congress in Power Struggle With Trump

While congressional Democrats are taking their demand for President Trump's tax returns to federal court, intensifying the sprawling and historic balance-of-powers conflict between the White House and Capitol Hill, Democratic legislators in New York are engineering a work-around.

The state Senate passed legislation Wednesday afternoon that would give the congressional tax-wiring committees access to three forms of Trump's state tax returns (corporation, real estate transfer and personal income), which in theory will contain much of the same financial information as the forms he has filed with the IRS but refused to show anyone.


Because the president is a New Yorker, the state Legislature "has a special role and responsibility to assist Congress in fulfilling its oversight responsibilities," the measure's sponsor, Democrat Brad Holyman of Manhattan, told the Rochester Democrat and Chronicle.

All of Albany is under Democratic control, so passage by the state House along party lines looks likely. Gov. Andrew Cuomo has signaled he will sign the bill, so long as it applies not only to Trump but to any New Yorkers whose taxes fall in the sights of Congress.

A little-used law allows Congress to obtain any individual's federal returns, but this week the Treasury Department denied a request from the House Ways and Means Committee for six years of the president's filings, setting up a legal fight that could reach the Supreme Court. That would pose one of the defining tests of the congressional oversight powers Trump has challenged at every turn.

"Trump's White House has decided to wage war on the principles of transparency and oversight, arguing in a series of recent confrontations with the law enforcement community and Congress that the executive branch has the authority and independence to decide for itself whether it has to respond to – and even recognize – checks on its power," Timothy O'Brien, a Trump biographer and the executive editor of Bloomberg Opinion, wrote in a column Tuesday.

On Tuesday night a day after The New York Times reported on Trump's tax returns from 1985 through 1994, showing he lost more than $1 billion through his business dealings in that time. Trump's tweeted response Wednesday:

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The Roots of America’s Violence:
White Supremacy, Power, and the Struggle for Dignity
Ragiv:Charlie Kirk in Tampa July 2025 (cropped).jpg - Vükiped

The Roots of America’s Violence: White Supremacy, Power, and the Struggle for Dignity

In September 2025, activist Charlie Kirk was assassinated while speaking at a Utah campus event. His death was shocking — not only for its brutality, but because it showed that political violence is not just a relic of the past or a threat on the horizon. It is part of our national identity. Today’s surge in violence follows patterns we’ve seen before. Let’s take a look at that history.

When Pope Alexander VI issued the Doctrine of Discovery in 1493, he gave theological and legal cover for European conquest of lands already inhabited by indigenous people. These papal bulls declared non-Christian peoples “less than” and their lands open for seizure. This was more than a geopolitical maneuver — it embedded into the Western imagination a belief in the inherent supremacy of some over others.

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The Fulcrum strives to approach news stories with an open mind and skepticism, striving to present our readers with a broad spectrum of viewpoints through diligent research and critical thinking. As best we can, we remove personal bias from our reporting and seek a variety of perspectives in both our news gathering and selection of opinion pieces. However, before our readers can analyze varying viewpoints, they must have the facts.

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The assassinations of conservative leader Charlie Kirk and Democratic lawmakers in Minnesota have triggered endorsements of violence and even calls for literal war on both the far right and far left. Fortunately, an overwhelming majority of Americans reject political violence, but all of us are in a fight to keep our diverse and boisterous brand of democracy alive. Doing so requires a renewed commitment to pluralism and a clear-headed recognition of the limits of government, especially when proposals entail using the criminal justice system to punish speech.

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