The Hochul score card: Mixed results for the legislative session

ALBANY — It’s a mixed score card for Gov. Kathy Hochul as the curtain falls on her second legislative session since taking office.

Her key initiative — to boost housing stock — failed. Her original nominee to become chief judge was voted down. The budget was more than a month late. Critics said the administration’s ability to multitask on major issues was lacking.

But she won on some bread-and-butter issues, such as delivering a generous aid package to schools, largely eliminating any potential property-tax hikes. She got her way on holding the line on tax increases and raising the minimum wage. She compelled a resistant legislature to give judges more discretion over bail decisions.

The mixed results might count as a surprise, considering Hochul and her fellow Democrats control all the levers of power in Albany.

But another look suggests it’s more about how the power dynamic in Albany has shifted. Instead of the old Democrat-Republican, Assembly-Senate divides, it’s governor versus state legislature.

With a divided legislature, governors could act as triangulator, peacemaker or dictator. A united legislature — with a 2-1 Democratic supermajority, enough to override vetoes — changes the governor’s playmaker role, analysts said.

As it played out this year, Hochul on several occasions didn’t work to build up support with lawmakers on controversial initiatives and nominations before unveiling them, legislators and officials have said.

That was the case with the failed nomination of Hector LaSalle to be chief judge — he was deemed too conservative by the State Senate — and a housing plan that included state overrides of local zoning that were never going to fly in suburbia.

“It does strike me that Hochul banks on the merits of her position carrying the day rather than bargaining her way in light of what is politically feasible,” said Lisa Parshall, a political scientist at Daemen University in Buffalo.

Parshall said Hochul’s relationship with a more liberal legislature isn’t hostile, “but seems to be a bit out of step.” She said it’s contributed to “missed opportunities” and a sense the governor’s agenda at times “is just not jelling.”

Others said the complaints shouldn’t overshadow the governor’s victories.

“It’s pretty clear she didn’t want the outcomes she got and she’d probably handle them differently next time,” said Lawrence Levy, executive dean of suburban studies at Hofstra University, referring to the judgeship and housing.

“But when you add that up against the other stuff — she’s funding their schools, keeping their taxes down, fixing their roads, investing in their communities — I think she definitely comes out with a profit,” Levy said.

Hochul approved huge school-aid and infrastructure increases. She compelled the legislature to change the controversial bail law to eliminate a directive that judges use the “least restrictive” means for ensuring defendants return for court dates. In effect, this should give judges more discretion over bail decisions.

She knocked down legislators’ call for higher taxes on the wealthy. She got them to abandon their call for a huge raise in the minimum wage for a more modest increase in the hourly rate ($2; from $15 to $17). The wage also was indexed to inflation in the future.

Her biggest success from broad view, Levy said, was Hochul was “able to get some things done and stop many things from a progressive legislature with a supermajority.”

All of those dynamics played out in the struggle to spark affordable housing development. It’s an issue that Democrats broadly agree on but stumbled over the specifics.

Hochul wanted to boost housing stock by certain percentages over time and proposed a mechanism to override local zoning to reach those goals. The potential override doomed it in both houses — showing that the governor misread how fellow Democrats would react, lawmakers said.

Then, with two weeks to go in the session, it was legislators’ turn. Lawmakers created a “working group” of 20 members to come up with some consensus on housing legislation. With two days to go, they strung together a package that included tax incentives for developers, housing vouchers for the needy and elements of the “good cause eviction” bill, which would make it harder to oust tenants.

Sources said the eviction issue was a “poison pill” for the administration, which signaled it would veto the suggested bill. So house leaders stopped work on the issue for now and said it should be tackled in the future.

“They are basically saying that, even with super majorities, they can’t find the votes to override a feared veto and that her position appeals to enough members and voters,” Levy said.

Veteran Democratic strategist Hank Sheinkopf said that “on the hot-button issues of taxes and crime, it’s a 50-50 split” for the governor.

He said the bail change won’t stop criticism about the 2019 bail overhaul, which eliminated bail for most misdemeanors and nonviolent felonies.

He said Hochul will be in for more Republican attacks if she signs the “Clean Slate” bill — which provides for automatic sealing of criminal records if a person completes his/her sentence and stays out of trouble for a certain number of years.

Unlike her predecessors, Hochul is dealing with a united legislature that doesn’t need a governor as much, Sheinkopf said. As a result, they’ve “curtailed her powers.”

In contrast, Levy said Hochul, by occasionally battling progressive Democrats, is “positioning herself in a way to appeal to swing voters.”

“The views of her performance differ depending on where you stand on the ideological spectrum — even among Democrats,” Levy said. “Depending on who you talk to about Gov. Hochul, you get a very different view of her.”

By Yancey Roy

yancey.roy@newsday.com@yanceyroy