Hochul’s first full term comes with service, grit
Governor’s career a journey through male establishment
ALBANY — The 2011 election victory had echoes of one to come a decade later. Then-Erie County Clerk Kathy Hochul, who had also served nearly 14 years on Hamburg’s Town Board, was tapped to run for a vacant U.S. House seat after the incumbent congressman was snared in a public scandal involving inappropriate sexual conduct.
Hochul, affable and unassuming, was the Democratic party’s pick. When she won the 26th Congressional District seat, local media deemed it a stunning upset in an area known as a Republican stronghold.
No stranger to the sheer work of rebuilding trust among an electorate after her predecessors’ falls from grace, Hochul — better than anyone — likely appreciates a well-timed window of opportunity.
The 64-year-old Buffalo native has spent much of her political career threading her way through New York’s predominantly male establishment. When she is sworn in Sunday as the 57th governor of New York in a ceremony at the state Capitol, it will be celebrated by many as a victory in a year of landmark setbacks in the women’s rights movement.
She owes her meteoric rise — the first woman elected to one of the most powerful gubernatorial positions in the country — in part to due diligence. “I was phenomenally prepared,” Hochul said of her narrow November victory over Republican gubernatorial challenger U.S. Rep. Lee Zeldin of Long Island. The hard-fought win crowned her decades in public office.
But it will also mark the first time Hochul has earned the role based on her own merit, a “bond of freedom” between herself and millions of New Yorkers that she does not take lightly, she said. Hochul had initially been catapulted into the state’s highest office from the relatively inconspicuous position of lieutenant governor following the abrupt resignation of former Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo in August 2021.
“I don’t view it as an obstacle. I’ve used it as an opportunity to demonstrate that women have exactly what it takes to govern,” Hochul said. “And I know that there’s a lot riding on this. I have to be successful. I have to show women and others that there is nothing they can’t do, including (being) the governor of New York.”
Hochul, who joins a list of female governors spanning nearly a century across the U.S., spent a turbulent first year tackling a mountain of inherited challenges, not least of which she said was a toxic work environment in the executive chamber attributed to her predecessor. She immediately set out to carve a role entirely removed from Cuomo — who was accused
of sexual harassment by multiple women — allegations he denies — and resigned as he faced potential impeachment.
She brought in more women to fill key positions in her administration, also creating “a whole new infrastructure” to address workplace harassment internally, including enforcing required training and ensuring that workers have an external mechanism to file complaints.
“We’ve started from day one, changing the interior culture and we’ve had great success there,” Hochul said. “There’s always more to do.”
She acknowledged that the ensuing fallout from the previous administration contributed to a steep decline of public trust in state government, an aftereffect that she vowed to turn around a year ago as she entered her first full year as governor.
Other challenges have beset the state in the relatively short time she has been governor. Hochul pointed to the May mass shooting in Buffalo in which a gunman killed 10 people in a racially motivated attack. A month later, the U.S. Supreme Court overturned New York’s century-old concealed carry laws, ruling that the state’s heightened requirements for carrying concealed weapons in public were unconstitutional.
The governor and Democratic majorities in the Legislature responded by passing the Concealed Carry Improvement Act, which ramped up requirements for individuals to obtain and carry weapons, including limiting the places where they are allowed. The changes are the subject of pending federal court challenges.
But to some observers, Hochul’s performance in her first 16 months as governor was underwhelming, suggesting she may still be finding her footing and her leadership style.
“Hochul has yet to demonstrate that she knows how to use the power of the governor’s office,” said Melissa DeRosa, the former secretary to Cuomo who now works as a Democratic strategist.
DeRosa pointed to the recent state response to the recent deadly blizzard in Buffalo as lacking in foresight; the state’s first alerts to avoid travel and prepare for potentially deadly conditions were issued on Dec. 22, days later than necessary, DeRosa contends. Weather forecasts began warning of “high impacts” from the storm system three days earlier. In all, 39 people died in Erie County, according to officials’ latest fatality estimates.
In a statement, Hazel Crampton-Hays, a Hochul spokeswoman, lauded efforts of first responders “during a “once-in-a-generation blizzard.” Hochul had called it “the blizzard of a century” and noted its ferocity took many across the U.S. by surprise.
“We remain committed to doing everything in our power to support recovery efforts, including deploying all available state resources,” Crampton-Hays said.
DeRosa said Hochul, in positioning herself as the anti-Cuomo figure, has yet to prove she can match his results.
“If I was advising her, I would say, ‘We have to recalibrate, we have to grab hold of the bureaucracy,’” DeRosa said. “We’re going to have some unpleasant conversations with the Legislature. They’re not going to be happy all the time. But this is how it works.”
State Senate Majority Leader Andrea StewartCousins, who in 2019 became the first woman and first Black woman to lead a legislative house in New York, said Hochul’s election as the first female governor of the state is part of a monumental shift in leadership that has been unfolding for several years.
“New York, the birthplace of the suffrage movement, now has the first woman majority leader, the first woman attorney general and the first woman governor all serving at the same time,” StewartCousins said. “The governor knows that women’s representation is crucial and I know she will work with all us to inspire the next generation of female leaders.”
Hochul enters her first full term facing challenges with a state that has led the nation in population loss and is buffeted by the same economic headwinds that experts predict global markets will face in the near future. Federal pandemic relief funds that bolstered last year’s budget will be notably absent amid calls for more state aid to offset a growing affordability crisis, especially in the housing sector.
But with a grueling election behind her and all attention turned to the next four years, Hochul said she sees a chance to put together a plan that will confront both affordability and escalating population loss.
“Everything we do will be through the lens of keeping New Yorkers here that are thinking of leaving; letting those who stay know that this is a place they can afford,” Hochul said. “They can build a family here, get educated, have a good job, be safe and ultimately retire here. We want to build the kind of New York that people want to be in. And we have some work to do.”
Born to a family of steelworkers in Buffalo, Hochul emphasizes her own working-class roots and casts herself as a product of the American dream. She often invokes a time in her childhood of living in a mobile home in the western reaches of the state with her large “rough and tumble” Irish Catholic family. She has five siblings.
The living situation was transitional — Hochul’s
“
Everything we do will be through the lens of keeping New Yorkers here that are thinking of leaving; letting those who stay know that this is a place they can afford.
— Gov. Kathy Hochul
father ultimately opened and ran his own company and left a lasting influence on her politics and persona. Despite her diminutive stature, “I’m tough as hell,” Hochul told MSNBC during an October media blitz.
Hochul displayed an early interest in politics, interning with local campaigns alongside famed political commentator Tim Russert while in high school. She graduated in 1980 from Syracuse University, where she was involved in student activism, and later Catholic University of America Columbus School of Law.
Following a period of time at a Washington, D.C., law firm, Hochul worked as a congressional staffer, including for former U.S. Sen. Daniel Moynihan, and later in the Assembly before seeking elected office. She joined the Hamburg Town Board in 1994 and later was named the first woman to be Erie County clerk — after serving several years as deputy clerk — before deciding to run for an open 26th Congressional District seat. She spent just over a year in the seat before losing to a Republican in 2012.
Since ascending to the governor’s office Hochul has been viewed as an approachable counterpart to Cuomo’s domineering management style. She has signaled she is more open to negotiation with legislators and often gestures to a grueling schedule to display her work ethic.
She has promised a tireless effort to address intensifying fears around public safety, which emerged as a central issue in the gubernatorial campaign. But it’s an effort that began long before it became an “attack ad,” Hochul said, pointing to crackdowns on gun trafficking and illegal weapons possession she has tied to a drop in shootings. (Although data has painted a more complicated picture, the Times Union previously reported.) “There will never be a day when I say enough has been done on public safety,” she said. “This will not be a new venture for me ... I do want to make more changes related to violent felons, when it comes to the standards that judges use to decide (if ) accused violent felons should (be released) before trial. So I have more on my agenda.”
In New York City, where many public safety fears have been heightened, particularly by attacks in public transit, Hochul has also appeared to forge a close working relationship with Mayor Eric Adams. The geniality of that partnership is notable because of its departure from past precedent. Cuomo and former Mayor Bill de Blasio, for example, were frequently at odds politically.
“It makes sense for (Adams and I) to work together,” Hochul said. “We represent the same people and we have a common goal.”
As lieutenant governor, Hochul crisscrossed the state filling a role of representing Cuomo’s administration — often at local events he shrugged off on his second-in-command. But Hochul used those connections to her advantage, building a network of support at the local level, especially across upstate, where she is a familiar figure and bills herself as in touch with challenges facing individual communities.
“It’s just common sense. I knew what it was like when I was in local government and Albany wasn’t exactly a strong ally.” she said. “I’m changing that culture, that dynamic.”
The tendency to collaborate can be seen as a byproduct of more women entering a political sphere, said Shana Gadarian, political science professor at Syracuse University. Hochul’s win, coming as it did on the heels of a long line of aggressive male leaders, may signal a new era in the state, Gadarian said.
“What we know about women in politics, women in legislatures, is when there are enough of them, there is more cooperation,” Gadarian said.
As the state’s first truly upstate governor since Peekskill-raised former Gov. George E. Pataki (according to Hochul, upstate begins further north than Westchester County), she said constituents who have traditionally felt overlooked by previous governors should not fear the same from her.
“We have a lot of lost time to make up for, a lot of years of neglect,” Hochul said. “And I’ll never take my eye off the big challenges downstate. But I’m confident enough to be able to manage it all. There are 62 counties that need a lot of attention and they’re getting it from me.”