ALBANY – When she delivers her State of the State speech Wednesday, Gov. Kathy Hochul will continue a longstanding tradition of the state's chief executive, laying out a vision for a government that affects the lives of more than 19 million New Yorkers.
New York's rookie governor, after unexpectedly assuming Albany's top job last August, takes the state's biggest stage Wednesday with her first State of the State address.
But for Hochul, the speech represents something more: the beginning of the most consequential year of her political life.
Among the items on her 2022 to-do list: navigate the Covid-19 pandemic; propose her first state budget; run for a four-year term to try to become the first elected female governor of the state; and negotiate a deal that will bring a new football stadium to Western New York and keep the Buffalo Bills in their home for the foreseeable future.
The Covid-19-affected, scaled-down State of the State address in a sparsely attended Assembly chamber at the Capitol will touch on everything from public health needs, criminal justice, agriculture, overhaul of the state university system and ways in which Hochul wants to restore trust by the public grown weary of Albany’s scandals.
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If Hochul follows gubernatorial tradition, the speech will be akin to a prologue, with an emphasis on soaring rhetoric, political shout-outs to any number of special interests and causes and broad outlines of what she hopes to accomplish in the 2022 legislative session that formally begins on the same day at the Capitol.
The details will come in less than two weeks, when she presents lawmakers with her 2022 state budget proposal, a document spanning thousands of pages and with specific dollar amounts and specific bill language to implement the goals she will set on Wednesday.
The governor's office announced 21,027 people tested positive for Covid-19 on Thursday, a one-day record in New York State.
A speech among worsening pandemic
Hochul’s speech will be her first State of the State since assuming office in August following the resignation of Andrew M. Cuomo, who faced near-certain impeachment over allegations involving everything from sexual harassment of staffers to use of state resources for a book.
Hochul, a Buffalo Democrat, has something in common with a governor who served more than a century ago: overseeing a state response to a pandemic.
On Jan. 1, 1919, with the Spanish flu still raging, then-Gov. Alfred E. Smith presented his first “message to the Legislature,” as the annual presentations – once done exclusively via written instead of spoken means – are specifically called in the state constitution.
In that message, Smith focused heavily on soldiers returning from World War I, and touched on topics ranging from the “undeveloped” resources of hydropower and the high cost of milk to child labor law needs, widespread problems in the prison system and the need for a panel to set minimum wage rates.
Under her plan, statewide elected officials – governor, lieutenant governor, attorney general and comptroller – would be limited to two consecutive terms, or a total of eight years, in the job.
And while Smith proposed a bold health insurance program for workers who became ill and couldn’t do their jobs, he never once mentioned the Spanish flu, which had already killed thousands of New Yorkers, according to state archival records.
Hochul will not be able to take the Smith approach. She will have to address not only the current crisis, but her vision for rebuilding the economic effects of a pandemic that has killed nearly 62,000 New Yorkers.
Indeed, her plan to bring the State of the State address back to the Assembly chamber, which Cuomo since 2011 avoided as a signal-sending message to lawmakers, have been disrupted by the worsening Covid-19 surge. Attendance was being strictly limited for lawmakers and the usual guests, including lobbyists and big donors, as well as reporters.
Officials on Tuesday thought maybe a few dozen lawmakers, other state officials and Hochul family members will be permitted in the Assembly chamber, a fraction of what can fit into the room.
Unlike Cuomo, Hochul has not been engaged in a daily media rollout of her State of the State address; Cuomo would trickle out different plans on a daily basis for two weeks or more as a way to capture non-stop media attention.
Hochul has put out some ideas, such as a broad hint of a looming “overhaul” at the state university system, and a proposal to enact term limits for statewide officials. But, with Covid-19 hospitalization counts rising from 5,526 to 9,563 in just over a week, the Hochul administration has avoided that Cuomo public relations approach.
“This is a crisis. This is a health care crisis and people are going to die. If people had gotten vaccinated when we asked them to, and got the booster shots, I wouldn’t have had to put in place a mask mandate," Hochul said.
A key moment for Hochul
“I think it’s a very important moment in American politics," Assembly Majority Leader Crystal Peoples-Stokes, a Buffalo Democrat, said of the speech.
She said that it comes as people across the nation grow less confident about the ability of government to deliver important things for them.
“It’s also important for her to identify her own vision. As the first woman to be governor in New York State, this is a pivotal point to say, ‘I am different as governor because I’m a woman and I bring different values to the position,' " she added.
Republicans agree it is a key moment for Hochul, and they say problems got worse in the state when Democrats took control of the Senate, giving them both houses of the Legislature and all statewide offices.
“Everyday New Yorkers have fallen victim to their wrong-headed policies, which have caused a spike in violent crime, highest-in-the-nation taxes, sky-high cost-of-living and a lack of school choice for our children’s education. I urge Governor Hochul not to use her State of the State to tout more senseless policies that will only exacerbate our state’s downward trend. New Yorkers have had enough," said Senate Minority Leader Rob Ortt, a North Tonawanda Republican.
Even if the details of proposals are not often revealed, much is made of annual State of the State addresses by New York governors. The simple reason: It provides a roadmap for early winners, and losers, for the coming session.
In a state where the governor holds special powers over the Legislature when it comes to crafting a state budget – which will total more than $200 billion this year – the interest in a State of the State message by any assortment of groups is high. That is especially so with a speech by a governor in office just over four months and whose time has been consumed by Covid-19-related response efforts.
With the state flush with cash – thanks to federal bailout money and higher-than-expected tax receipts – schools will be anxious for any signals Hochul sends Wednesday about what they can expect in the way of state aid.
Hochul is expected to address the state’s economic development efforts, which cost billions in spending and borrowing each year, and how she will take a different approach than the Cuomo effort.
Lawmakers are anxious to hear Hochul’s plans that will shape the 2022 session set to end in early June.
“I look forward to hearing her address not only the current crisis before us, but the long-term, strategic vision for our state’s economic recovery and a sustainable path forward," said Sen. Tim Kennedy, a Buffalo Democrat.
Western New Yorkers will be paying close attention to the speech for any clues about the state of negotiations with the Bills and owners Kim and Terry Pegula. Peoples-Stokes said an announcement of any deal or framework is doubtful and that it would be more "appropriate" as part of the state budget plan that Hochul unveils in a couple weeks.
Groups representing housing, health care, small businesses, counties and mental health and addiction recovery programs – all of whom are seeking big state aid hikes to help with things like staff shortages in key public programs – also will be most keenly listening to Hochul.
So, too, with the state’s political establishment. Hochul gives her speech having recently witnessed Attorney General Letitia James – once seen as the strongest candidate to defeat Hochul – end her Democratic primary bid against the new governor. Still, Hochul still has a couple of Democratic challengers, though she is picking up campaign cash and endorsements every day, as she appears to be seeking to now broaden her appeal for a November general election against a to-be-determined GOP opponent.
How will she balance the politically moderate views she held for most of her political life with her more recent turns to the left? One test will be what she says, or doesn’t say, about criminal justice, especially whether to change a controversial law last year that ended bail for many criminal offenses. Will she use the speech to back some lawmakers seeking a permanent state fund to assist workers who don’t qualify for federal unemployment insurance, many of whom are immigrants living illegally in the United States?
But there are many meat-and-potato issues facing Hochul. How will she, for instance, address the needs of a burned-out public health system, which saw funding cuts during the decade of Cuomo?
Peoples-Stokes said such issues are important in Albany. But back home in her district, residents have other things on their minds.
“I think probably the most important thing is for her to focus on things important to people: a good quality of life, a good education system, and fair and equitable delivery of health care. If those things are included, then I think we are heading in the right direction," the majority leader said.
