Shampoo rules and concerns for immigrants: A look at some ‘draconian’ state laws, tax hikes that take effect in 2025
In the 1942 film “Holiday Inn,” legendary singer Bing Crosby describes the stroke of midnight on New Year’s Day as “one minute to say goodbye before we say hello.” In 2025, many new laws and changes in tax laws are being “welcomed” by Americans in several states across the country.
In West Virginia, for exampleresidents saw an automatic 2% reduction in income tax that takes effect on New Year’s Day.
“If someone says there is something [else] it could spur more growth in West Virginia than that, you’re out of your mind,” outgoing Republican Gov. and Sen.-elect Jim Justice joked about that particular policy change.
However, residents of other states may face more proverbially “draconian” policies and regulations. Here’s a look at some of them.
NEW YORK
“Congestion pricing”
The Empire State’s hotly debated congestion pricing law will go into effect on Sunday, January 5th.
While Gov. Kathy Hochul and MTA Chairman Janno Lieber supported the change, which charges the average driver crossing or entering Manhattan under Central Park a $9 toll, many New Yorkers remain outraged.
HOCHUL Spurs BI-PARTICAL OUTRAGE OVER CONGESTION COSTS
“Congestion pricing, the latest in a long line of tyrannical taxes, is being pushed through consistent opposition to the burden of New York families and workers,” several New York Republican federal lawmakers wrote in a December letter.
Meanwhile, Democrats like state Sen. Andrew Gounardes of Bay Ridge called for starting the congestion pricing plan “immediately, before [Donald] Trump can block it.”
Fill with foam
Visitors to one of the country’s most popular tourist states will no longer be greeted by travel-sized bottles of shampoo and lotion as they will be banned by the New Year.
The Empire State ban went into effect on January 1, Doc a similar ban in Illinois it enters into force on July 1 for larger hotels and on January 1, 2026 for smaller ones.
Although many hotels across the country have switched to attaching bulk shampoo dispensers to the shower walls, many tourists still prefer the tiny bottles.
CALIFORNIA
Tax increase
California’s SB-951 of 2022 stipulates that workers will be denied a little more money in their paychecks in 2025. The state’s disability insurance program rate will increase from 1.1% to 1.2%.
The average California worker will have $8 less in net monthly pay.
Gas prices
California Republicans said the new regulations, which take effect on New Year’s Day, will cause “a lot of sticker shock” for drivers in the Golden State.
“I’m concerned that Californians … will be unprepared for a gas spike in 2025, which could be an additional 90 cents per gallon,” said state Senate Minority Leader Brian Jones.
CA LAWMAKERS BREAK ENERGY ‘POLITBURE’ ‘IVORY TOWERS’ AS POST GAS PRICES APPROACH
Jones estimated that Californians will pay $900 more over the course of the year for gas.
Parental rights
AB-1955that is, the Law on Security, entered into force on January 1.
The law prohibits schools from adopting policies that require parents to be notified if their child changes their gender identity.
In remarks to FOX-11 in December, Rep. Chris Ward said “politically motivated attacks on the rights, safety and dignity of transgender, non-binary and other LGBTQ+ youth are on the rise across the country, including in California.”
Ward, D-San Diego, said school districts have wrongly adopted policies to “forcefully expel” students and that parents should love their children unconditionally in all cases.
COLORADO
Immigrant health insurance requirements
A 2022 law that would provide health insurance for Coloradans regardless of immigration status will go into effect next month, the Denver Post reports.
CALIFORNIA VOTERS REJECT $18 HOURLY MINIMUM WAGE
HB-1289 requires state provide “full health coverage for pregnant Colorado women who would be eligible for Medicaid and the Children’s Essential Health Plan (CHIP) but for their immigrant status and continue that coverage for 12 months after delivery at the CHIP federal rate,” according to the bill text.
DELAWARE
Abortion
Beginning in July 2025, Delaware colleges will have to provide access to emergency abortion and contraception or refer patients to an outside facility, according to Wilmington News-Journal.
Legislation is also poised to take effect in the First State mandating insurance coverage and eliminating deductibles for abortion procedures, according to multiple reports.
State Sen. Bryant Richardson, R-Blades, overturned the new law after it passed the Legislature earlier in 2024.
“This is the procedure you want my tax dollars to pay for. I’m sorry, I think this is evil,” he said.
DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA
Stop light
Washington, DC, will implement a right-turn-on-red ban within the county limits. The law is a rare regulation in a general context, and New York is one of the few large cities with a similar law.
Signs marking the otherwise tacit law are usually posted when entering New York from highways such as Major Deegan or one of the city’s many river crossings, but are often absent from the hundreds of small streets on the network that cross into Westchester or Nassau counties.
In the same spirit, The District of Columbia reportedly has no funds for signs on most streets entering the state capitol from Maryland or Virginia, which may or may not affect enforcement, according to reports.
$385,000 in county funds allocated to inform residents and drivers about the law was never identified, a DDOT official told WTTG.
Bird watch
DC’s Local Wildlife Migration Protection Act of 2023 imposes a new construction restriction starting January 1st.
Permit applications or glazing modifications will require bird-friendly materials on exterior walls and shafts within 100 feet of grade, according to WTTG.
The district is also one of a handful of places where the sales tax will increase. In the case of the capital, it will rise to 6.5 percent.
MINNESOTA
Firearm
Minnesota to Ban “Binary Triggers.” personally owned weaponsaccording to reports. That is, a function that allows the gun to fire multiple rounds with a single press of the trigger.
RHODE ISLAND
Ban on vaping
The Ocean State is set to enact a ban on the sale and possession of flavored vape products with intent to sell in 2025. The law is currently facing a legal challenge, but will be able to go into effect tentatively, according to the Providence Journal.
VERMONT
Global warming
Vermont’s Global Warming Solutions Actwhich introduces restrictions on greenhouse gas emissions, come into force from the New Year.
It calls for a 26% reduction in emissions reductions in 2025 from 2005 levels, according to Vermont Public.
The law, however, also opens the state to legal action by green groups and more if it fails to achieve the required level of reduction.
That aspect led Republicans to question the new law. Governor Phil Scott vetoed the bill in 2020, saying it does not propose or create a good framework for “long-term mitigation and adaptation solutions to address climate change.”
Meanwhile, Vermont Republican Party Chairman Paul Dame recently said it opens the state and taxpayer money to unnecessary risk of such lawsuits.
“Those goals were unachievable given the technology currently available, but now the state is going to court for completely avoidable reasons,” Dame told Fox News Digital.
OREGON
There’s no coal in your stocking
Oregon’s HB-4083 will set the state on a path toward divestment from coal companies and market instruments involving coal interests.
PENNSYLVANIA
Laws that are not
With many states, like those above, enacting tax increases, new regulations and the like, Republicans in divided-government states are expressing cautious optimism that their trend of opposing liberal legislative interests may continue.
While Vermont’s Scott has seen key vetoes like the Global Warming Solutions Act overturned by a Democratic-dominated Legislature, some states have the opposite dynamic where a Republican-majority house blocks Democrats’ goals.
With the state Senate in Republican hands, the state House one vote short of a 50-50 split and the governorship in Democratic hands, Republicans have expressed relief that legislation like the 100% carbon-neutral clean energy standard of 2050 has not reached the government. Josh Shapiro’s desk.
In the gun control realm, both the assault weapons ban and the proposed repeal of the state’s Stand Your Ground law by state Sen. Steve Santarsiero, D-Bristol, died in the Legislature.
“It’s time to take an evidence-based approach to our gun policy. ‘Stand Your Ground’ laws encourage gun violence. As such, it’s time to end ‘Stand Your Ground’ here in Pennsylvania,” Santarsiero said in letter.
Another bill enacting the “Red Flag Act” on firearms has languished through the legislative mandate.
A policy that would have funded free phone calls for state prisoners also failed, as did a bid for an “abortion protection package.”
AVERAGE: LAWMAKERS DRAFT BILL TO STOP ‘GHOST FLIGHTS’ OF ILLEGAL IMMIGRANTS TO WILMINGTON
Those and several other high-profile “draconian” bill failures are the product of GOP persistence, said state Sen. Doug Mastriano, R-Gettysburg.
“With a Democratic governor and a Democratic House, the state Senate is the last line of reason to prevent Pennsylvania from becoming like California,” the 2022 Republican gubernatorial candidate told Fox News Digital on Monday.
“Democrats have passed a series of extreme laws.”
As chairman of the Committee on Emergency Preparedness, Mastriano added that the “weirdest” pass ban in 2024 was a bill to address Pennsylvania’s effects of a biohazardous train derailment in East Palestine, Ohio.
Mastriano, along with state Sens. Elder Vogel Jr., R-Beaver, and Michele Brooks, R-Pymatuning, drafted legislation in July to exempt disaster relief payments from state taxes in one case.
That bill failed to pass the parliament.
Republicans in the state also lamented the failure of the latest attempts to withdraw Pennsylvania from the US national “RGGI” pact on greenhouse gases which included former governor Tom Wolf.
“Leaving our environmental and economic fate to the whims of RGGI’s New England states is just bad politics for Pennsylvania,” state Sen. Gene Yaw, R-Williamsport, said after the Senate approved the ultimately failed bill.
“It’s time to repeal this regulation and focus on putting forth a common-sense, environmentally responsible energy policy that recognizes and champions Pennsylvania as an energy producer.”
“Pennsylvania’s greatest asset is our ability to generate energy,” Senate Majority Leader Kim Ward, R-Latrobe, added in a statement.
CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD THE FOX NEWS APP
MINIMUM WAGE INCREASE
Minimum wage increases are also expected to take effect in several states.
Washington, Connecticut and California set minimum wages of $16 an hour or more for most workers. Rhode Island will rise to $15, Maine to $14.65, Illinois to $15, and Vermont to $14.
More than a dozen states, including Wyoming, Pennsylvania, Georgia, Utah, Tennessee and Mississippi, have retained federal minimum wage from $7.25.
