In Final Analysis, N.Y. Legislative Session Is Defined by Its Omissions

After a final all-night session, the New York State Legislature ended its yearly business on Saturday morning, capping a nearly six-month slog that, in the end, was defined by what failed to happen.

The chief culprit was Gov. Kathy Hochul’s last-minute decision to pull the plug on a congestion pricing program for Manhattan, a move that put the onus on state lawmakers to come up with some way to create a stable funding source to replace the $1 billion in toll revenue that would have gone to the Metropolitan Transportation Authority had the program proceeded as planned.

But the Legislature chose not to bail out the transportation agency — and, by extension, Ms. Hochul — refusing to approve proposals to increase the payroll mobility tax or to siphon money from the state’s general fund.

The fallout over congestion pricing became the elephant in the room that everyone talked about, leaving little oxygen for other weighty initiatives that awaited in the traditional 11th-hour rush to pass legislation before the end of session.

Two high-profile bills — one that would have ended subsidies for gas companies, and another that would have reduced the prevalence of plastic packaging — passed in the Senate but died in the Assembly.

On Friday, the Assembly speaker, Carl E. Heastie, acknowledged that congestion pricing had eaten up time that could have been spent on other priorities, saying: “It’s something big that they have to deal with at the end of session. But you know, we’re all mature, and things happen.”