ALBANY, N.Y. — Gov. Kathy Hochul of New York will unveil a broad policy agenda on Tuesday that is expected to focus largely on initiatives to fight crime and ease the state’s affordability crisis, issues that loomed large in her election last year.
The speech will be Ms. Hochul’s second State of the State since she unexpectedly took office after the resignation of Andrew M. Cuomo in 2021, but her first since winning a full term in November.
Indeed, the general election, which Ms. Hochul won by six percentage points, the closest New York governor’s race in decades, will cast a shadow over her agenda after Republicans made inroads by focusing on public safety and the state’s high costs of living, especially around housing.
Ms. Hochul, a Buffalo-area Democrat, has already indicated that both issues will be at the core of her address, which she will deliver in the State Capitol’s hulking Assembly chamber at 1 p.m.
Democrats and Republicans in the State Legislature have signaled that addressing public safety and affordability will likely dominate this year’s legislative session. But, this being Albany, fault lines are expected to emerge around the exact policies needed to reach those common objectives.
On crime, Republicans, who are mostly powerless as the minority party in the State Legislature, are expected to continue clamoring for the repeal of the divisive reforms Democrats enacted to the state’s bail laws in 2019. Lee Zeldin, the Republican candidate for governor last year, amplified the issue as he sought to blame Democrats for a spike in crime.
Ms. Hochul has said she is open to revising the bail laws, but it remains unclear if she will openly push for changes in her address, such as giving judges more discretion in setting bail, a move Mayor Eric Adams of New York City has vocally pushed for.
Any push to alter the bail laws, whether it happens publicly or behind closed doors, is highly likely to pit the governor and Mr. Adams, both moderate Democrats, against the more left-leaning factions of the State Legislature once again.
To address the state’s shortage of affordable housing, Ms. Hochul is expected to release a plan to construct 800,000 units of housing over the next decade. The governor has already said she is intent on removing the different barriers that have impeded housing construction and that she supports the conversion of office buildings in Manhattan into housing.
It remains to be seen if Ms. Hochul will revive her efforts to pass a modified version of a contentious tax break for real estate developers that had helped spur the construction of rental housing in New York City but expired last year amid disputes in Albany.
On Tuesday, The New York Times reported that Ms. Hochul would unveil an ambitious plan to reshape how the state addresses mental health, which has impacted homelessness, public safety and children’s school performance after the coronavirus pandemic. The governor’s plan, among other things, would compel state-licensed hospitals to reopen more than 800 inpatient psychiatric beds that disappeared during the pandemic.
In the coming weeks, Ms. Hochul will release her state budget proposal, which will outline how much the governor’s plans will cost and how she intends to pay for them. She will then have until April 1 to negotiate the state budget with Democratic lawmakers, a typically tense, back-room process of deal making where most of Albany’s policy battles are waged.
This year, the governor, who has pursued a more collaborative relationship with lawmakers than Mr. Cuomo, who was known for his win-at-all-costs approach to governing, will head into the negotiations at odds with Democrats in the State Senate. Democrats in the upper chamber have mounted a surprisingly forceful opposition to Ms. Hochul’s nominee for chief judge of the state’s highest court, raising the specter of a chaotic confirmation clash later this month.
Luis Ferré-Sadurní
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