Albany needs to work harder on state's problems

On Tuesday, Gov. Kathy Hochul will deliver her third State of the State address, the January ritual in which a chief executive describes New York’s current conditions and sets legislative and budgetary priorities. As always, the address will frame the outset of a new Albany session — this one in a highly charged election year.

Unsurprisingly, with the end of federal COVID-19 aid, the state faces a projected $4.3 billion shortfall in a budget now north of $229 billion. That will narrow Hochul's spending options, especially as the national influx of migrants and asylum-seekers continues to fuel an expensive crisis here.

Last year, in a controversial episode, Hochul unveiled an ambitious housing effort aimed at adding 800,000 new homes. The plan bombed amid political and grassroots objections from Long Island communities that saw it as mandating density and infringing on local zoning.

This time, Hochul is expected to promote housing construction by other means, with a far less sweeping and significant proposal that she hopes suburban lawmakers can support. 

Before anyone can comment, however, on the various fine points of spending, revenue and legislation, a fresh deliberative process needs to take place.

At the statehouse, the method by which agreements are reached and legislative sessions completed needs improvement.

Last month Hochul ended up issuing year-end vetoes of dozens of legislative bills approved by both Democrat-dominated houses. Queried by reporters this week, she said: “We can get to fewer vetoes, but let's have more common sense involved in the process of developing the legislation.”

Hochul and her staff can help that cause with better preparatory work and anticipation of just what the State Legislature will look to get done and allow her to accomplish. That takes detailed, multiway communication, and perhaps a longer session if need be.

On the legislative side, oversight of the institutions and programs that they fund seems to be a lost art across America. It would be great if New York could lead a revival on this front with more open hearings, deeper analysis of facts, and asking sharp, relevant questions at the right time.

If leaders in the State Senate and Assembly try harder to interact with the governor’s office in advance, perhaps Hochul can wean the executive chamber off the habit, which preceded her, of packing policy decisions into the budget, over which the governor has the legal upper hand.

Reacting to Hochul’s remarks, Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie noted pointedly that the policies she put in her budget last year hadn’t been vetted by hearings when proposed.

Especially in a period of one-party rule at the Capitol, the governor and legislature can do far more to achieve a smoother and more democratic way of doing business. A more thoughtful sense of common purpose could avoid extraneous spats, drafting fiascoes, and official actions that fall short of their desired purposes. Success is in the details.