This year’s national election cycle clearly influenced what Gov. Kathy Hochul chose to emphasize Tuesday in her latest State of the State message. As this blue state’s top Democrat, Hochul spoke to visceral concerns that downstate Republicans have used to make major inroads against her and her party at the polls for three years.
She strategically hit these politically moderate points at the top of her afternoon speech. One vivid example: Hochul said the trend of thieves brazenly grabbing items off store shelves signals a breakdown of social order. Suggested solutions include a state police “smash and grab unit,” penalties to protect store employees, and tax credits for business owners to help cover security costs.
Hochul vowed to fight the proliferation of illegal cannabis sales (at a moment when her administration struggles to get its system of legal sales underway). She touted the paramount importance of public safety, pushing to further expand support for mental-health assistance for those who need it. She alluded darkly to a Christmas Day stabbing at Grand Central Terminal of two teenage girls by a man who has been in and out of treatment and the penal system for years due to similar attacks.
Hochul played up affordability issues and touted past middle-class tax cuts. She briefly noted the migrant influx — but only as a fiscal issue to be addressed in her budget proposal.
For rhetorical tilt, Hochul seemed bent on rebuffing any GOP messaging that would suggest she and her party’s legislative majorities in Albany are ignoring these problems. This is not the year, if such a year exists, for her to tout divisive or risky ideas often proposed by her own party's left flank. Instead, for example, she took the widely-supported position of promoting phonics to teach reading in the schools.
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Just 14 months ago, Republicans recaptured a majority in the House in the midterm elections, helped by key victories in New York, including the capture of all four Long Island seats. The GOP scored debating points with attacks on state bail reform amid a crime spike. This was never a federal matter, but it did show how hot-button national and state issues can overlap in a tight, purple-district campaign.
In just over a month, voters in the Third Congressional District will choose between Republican Mazi Melesa Pilip and Democrat Tom Suozzi in a special election to succeed ex-Rep. George Santos.
Clearly neither Suozzi, who challenged Hochul as being too far left in the 2022 primary, nor House Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries of Brooklyn wants the distraction of a controversial Albany proposal like Hochul’s 2023 housing initiative as background noise during the short race that could cut into the House GOP majority.
Partisan tension has always been part of the process in Albany.
Franklin Delano Roosevelt was newly inaugurated as New York governor in 1929 when he exhorted lawmakers in his State of the State speech: “I come before the Legislature … to express the hope and belief that neither you nor I are entering upon our offices with partisan purpose.”
Appealing to service over party sounds inspiring — and might have been useful for a Democratic governor like FDR when facing a Republican-controlled legislature as he did. But Democrat Hochul's challenge in the here-and-now is different. She's trying to set a tone for her internally riven party in a way that wins upcoming elections. She may find it as tricky as passing bills and a budget.
Columnist Dan Janison's opinions are his own.
Dan Janison is a member of the Newsday editorial board.
Hochul attempts to blunt GOP attacks
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10.01.2024
This year’s national election cycle clearly influenced what Gov. Kathy Hochul chose to emphasize Tuesday in her latest State of the State message. As this blue state’s top Democrat, Hochul spoke to visceral concerns that downstate Republicans have used to make major inroads against her and her party at the polls for three years.
She strategically hit these politically moderate points at the top of her afternoon speech. One vivid example: Hochul said the trend of thieves brazenly grabbing items off store shelves signals a breakdown of social order. Suggested solutions include a state police “smash and grab unit,” penalties to protect store employees, and tax credits for business owners to help cover security costs.
Hochul vowed to fight the proliferation of illegal cannabis sales (at a moment when her administration struggles to get its system of legal sales underway). She touted the paramount importance of public safety,........
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