For Gov. Kathy Hochul, it’s still about affordability.
The Democrat is expected to put items designed to address the elevated cost of living at the center of her State of the State address Tuesday afternoon. She’s already announced plans to increase subsidized child care and add funding to a state heating assistance program.
“We have a lot of ideas,” Hochul said Friday on Long Island. “You can hear more on Tuesday … but this is really important to me, that we start driving down everywhere we can find to put more money back in people's pockets.”
This is Hochul’s fifth State of the State speech, but it comes as she seeks a second full term in office in November. The moderate governor is facing challengers attacking her from the left and right, and she must grapple with the progressive agenda laid out by New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani, a democratic socialist who took office this month.
Mamdani joined Hochul last week to announce an additional $1.7 billion for an existing child care voucher program and to start a “2-Care” program for roughly 2,000 2-year-olds in New York City.
Last year’s speech ran about an hour. Hochul and other governors have used their January addresses to outline grab bags of priorities, all of which must be approved by the state Legislature.
So far, Hochul and her aides say the speech will include a plan to create protest-free buffer zones around houses of worship and restrictions on minors using AI chatbots. The governor also wants to more than double the state’s nuclear energy generation, her aides told the Syracuse Post-Standard. She will also propose a law that would require utility companies to disclose their executive pay in comparison to average workers, the Buffalo News reported.
Ahead of the speech, Republicans said policies that create new big government programs don’t actually make the state more cost-competitive.
“You're going to hear about affordability so often that in some ways it will lose its meaning,” said state Senate Minority Leader Rob Ortt, a Republican from Niagara County.
Democrats who control the state Assembly and Senate said they would work with the governor on achieving her goals. They also expect her to set up a contrast with the federal government and President Donald Trump — both in terms of Republican-backed reductions to spending and policies on immigration.
“We do know how to take care of our families here in New York,” Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie, a Democrat from the Bronx, said last week. “We'll not stand silent, stay silent or stand by as those in Washington destroy all that we fought for.”
Hochul said she would announce a proposal to let people “get recourse” if they are injured or their property is destroyed during an encounter with federal immigration agents. She will also back legislation that limits civil immigration enforcement without a judicial warrant in “sensitive locations,” including schools, hospitals and houses of worship, a state official said.
Progressive lawmakers and activists said they will be watching to see just how far Hochul goes on immigration issues this year. The governor has stressed that the state cooperates with the federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency. She hasn’t taken a position on the New York For All Act, which would restrict local law enforcement agencies around the state from cooperating with ICE.
Lt. Gov. Antonio Delgado, who is now challenging Hochul in a Democratic primary, supports that legislation. He said her agenda just “tinkers around the edges” of problems — including immigration.
“I'm listening for what she doesn’t say,” Delgado said Monday.
