5 takeaways from Hochul’s State of the State address

In her third State of the State address, Gov. Kathy Hochul on Tuesday laid out her vision for the upcoming legislative session, describing goals that were often more reflective of her moderate roots than the state’s recent progressive streak.

She made crime a focal point while barely mentioning the migrant crisis that has overwhelmed New York City. Affordable housing, a key part of last year’s speech, was still a priority, but she acknowledged the need to overcome the widespread opposition that doomed her housing proposal last year.

There was also no mention of taxing the rich to offset the looming budget crisis.

Her speech to state lawmakers struck a pragmatic, if somewhat pessimistic, tone, assuring New Yorkers that she sees “light on the horizon” despite the state’s woes, including the rising cost of living, the climate crisis and an increase in the anti-Semitic and anti-Islamic hate crimes.

Here are some takeaways from her address:

Criminal law

Ms Hochul has formulated her approach to crime around prevention.

As an example, she cited the stabbing of two teenage tourists at Grand Central Terminal on Christmas Day by a man with a long history of criminal acts and mental illness.

“We can no longer wait for someone to lash out and hurt someone before we take action,” she said, “because by then it will be too late.”

The governor said she would build on the mental health services she introduced last year by increasing the number of available psychiatric beds to 200, creating additional mental health courts and providing housing for people with criminal histories and mental illnesses . Ms Hochul said she hoped these measures would help tackle untreated mental health issues before they affect public safety.

And while high-profile incidents like the Grand Central stabbing attract the most attention, Ms. Hochul said, most violent crime victims are harmed by people they know.

Noting that dismissal rates for domestic violence cases in New York are high, the governor said she would provide funding to local prosecutors across the state to identify and prosecute high-risk domestic violence cases while helping survivors to protect.

The governor also said that anti-Semitic hate crimes have increased by 95 percent since the war between Israel and Hamas began in October, and that Islamophobic hate crimes are also on the rise. In response, she proposed advancing legislation that would expand the list of acts that can be prosecuted as hate crimes.

healthcare

Ms. Hochul proposed several plans to expand access to health care in New York, including supporting substance abuse services and eliminating co-pays for insulin.

She tried to make expanded access to mental health care a key facet of her approach. In particular, she took a few minutes to discuss the mental health of children and young people, who are increasingly affected by ‘the scourge of social media’.

“When schools closed during the pandemic, children turned to social media to stay in touch with friends and family, but darkness lives on those platforms,” Ms Hochul said. “The algorithms that make social media so addictive push that darkness onto young users.”

Ms. Hochul’s plan to improve the overall mental health of young New Yorkers focuses on social media and technology companies. Social media platforms, the governor said, should be required to limit children’s access to some of their most addictive features and should be prohibited from collecting, using and sharing personal information of minors without certain forms of consent. Her proposed legislation includes fines of up to $5,000 for businesses that don’t comply.

In addition, Ms. Hochul highlighted a plan to establish and fund mental health clinics “at every school that wants one.”

climate

Ms Hochul referred to the damaging rains, intense heat and smoke from wildfires that hit New York last year as the “new normal”, with the state warming faster than the national average. The governor called for more help from the federal government while pledging to protect homes and infrastructure from flooding and other climate-related damage. She said the state would offer voluntary buyouts to homeowners to move from high-risk areas and develop a plan to adapt to extreme weather while strengthening disaster response systems.

She also pledged to lead New York toward a more sustainable future, including by creating a more efficient and cleaner energy grid and more affordable energy bills for residents, planting 25 million trees over the next decade and reducing greenhouse gas emissions through the transport sector.

Migrants

The migrant crisis, which has strained state and New York City resources since it began more than a year ago, received one brief mention in Ms. Hochul’s speech.

In the presence of Mayor Eric Adams, Ms. Hochul gave only a cursory acknowledgment of the issue that Mr. Adams and other city officials have struggled to resolve.

Mr. Adams said Tuesday that he met with the governor a few weeks ago about the migrant crisis and remained confident they were on the same page, but described the situation as a “real financial burden.” The mayor, who estimates that caring for the migrants will cost the city $12 billion over three years, said he planned to work with the governor to reach an agreement on the amount of migrant-related funding to be provided over the course of time would be allocated to the city. the state budget, which will be announced next week.

“I’m not disappointed. She acknowledged the fact that she is going to talk about the asylum issue in her budget,” Mr Adams said, later adding: “She has been open with her team to try to resolve this issue.”

Housing

Ms Hochul said housing, an issue often cited as one of the failures of the previous legislature, would again be a top priority in 2024. An affordability crisis caused by a severe shortage of all types of housing, she said, caused New Yorkers to flee the state in record numbers, subsequently limiting New York revenues and diminishing the state’s influence in Congress.

“The only thing that will solve this problem is building hundreds and hundreds of thousands of homes,” she said.

Last year, Ms. Hochul pledged to build more homes in the suburbs and update an expired tax credit program known as 421-a, which would make apartments more affordable to rent. But by the end of the legislative session, none of these goals had been achieved, and on Tuesday Ms. Hochul blamed the Legislature for failing to embrace her proposals.

In 2024, Ms. Hochul pledged to push for watered-down versions of her 2023 proposals and called for expanded tenant protections, the legalization of basement apartments and the lifting of what she said were “outdated” restrictions on residential density in New York City. .