Bullied Kat hints at holding up budget
ALBANY — Gov. Hochul effectively threatened Albany Democrats with a late state budget ahead of an expected rebuke of her proposals to overhaul cash-bail limits and expand charter schools in New York.
“I would like an on-time budget. I’m not planning on one that’s not,” she told reporters Monday.
“But I also know that I’m here to do the work of the people of New York state, and they expect me to not leave town until the job’s done.”
Hochul notably held up the budget for a week past the April 1 deadline in 2022 while pushing to roll back progressive limits on cash bail, originally approved by Democratic lawmakers in 2019, as she ran for a full term in office.
But this time around, the Senate and Assembly are expected to approve one-house budget resolutions this week opposing many of the key items in the $227 billion state budget she proposed Feb. 1.
Political experts say Democratic legislaters have little incentive to give in to her demands considering their supermajorities, which could overrule Hochul on budgetary matters, and the perceived weakness of the governor after the Senate rejected her centrist pick to lead New York’s highest court.
“This is about who’s the boss,” political consultant Hank Sheinkopf told The Post. “They’re not going to bend to her because they don’t have to.”
That suggests trouble for the governor as she continues pushing amid rising crime to eliminate a controversial state law for serious crimes requiring judges to offer criminal defendants the “least restrictive conditions” ahead of their trials even when they could otherwise be held on cash bail.
Both state Senate Majority Leader Andrea Stewart-Cousins (D-Yonkers) and Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie (D-Bronx) have previously questioned whether data shows a need to overhaul bail reform considering crime has risen nationwide.
Sen. Jeremy Cooney (D-Rochester) further highlighted a lack of legislative support for her bail plan last week after he flipflopped on the matter following lefty criticism just hours after expressing support at a Rochester press conference where she praised him as “courageous.”
Hochul also faces tough odds with efforts to eliminate a cap on the number of charter schools allowed in New York City while also allowing so-called zombie charters to be reissued for other schools that legislative opponents proclaimed “dead on arrival.”