Editorial endorsement: Kathy Hochul for New York governor

• Advance Media NY Editorial Board

The editorial board endorses Gov. Kathy Hochul, a Democrat from Western New York, for a full, four-year term in the job thrust upon her by the resignationof her predecessor. Hochul deserves a shot at putting her stamp on the office and achieving her goals of a more transparent, effective and ethical state government.

After months of tumult in Albany, Hochul stepped into the executive role in August 2021 with vigor, candor and calm. She is the first woman to be governor.

Hochul appointed new, respectedleadershipat the Department of Health, whose credibility had been damaged by the previous administration’s attempt to minimize the toll of Covid-19 in nursing homes. The new governorkept schools open when the omicron variant swept the state in winter; responded to the Buffalo mass shooting with compassion and legislative action on guns; countered Supreme Court rulings gutting abortion rights and the state’s concealed-carry law; andrevamped JCOPE, the toothless ethics watchdog.

Hochul’s biggest achievement for Central New York was landing theMicron Technology semiconductor factory with months ofpersonal lobbying and asuite of state incentives. That included a last-minute legislative push for aGreen CHIPS bill providing up to $10 billion in state aid to chipmakers. Hochul says every dollar of taxpayer money will have a return on investment of $20. “I’ll take that deal any day,” she told the editorial board, pointing to the benefits of providing good-paying job opportunities to the region’s young people, people of color and women.

Hochul’s opponent is Republican Congressman Lee Zeldin, of Long Island. Zeldin’s relentless — andoften fact-free— messaging on crime has drowned out his credible ideas about how to improve New York’s business climate, rein in spending and budget responsibly. Zeldin claims he can’t change abortion law, but promises to suspend criminal justice reforms enacted by the Legislature unilaterally, on Day One. It’s an empty promise. Such an order would be temporary; then he’d have to persuade Democrats who control the Legislature to rewrite the law they created.

More troubling is Zeldin’s unsubstantiated claims ofelection fraud that led him to vote against certifying the Electoral College vote on Jan. 6, 2021. It is disqualifying, in our view. Zeldin condemned the violence at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6 and says he never once called Joe Biden’s election illegitimate. Yet he still flogs claims of voting irregularities in Pennsylvania and Arizona that courts rejected.

Hochul finds herself playing defense on the crime issue despite alack of evidence that bail reforms and other changes to criminal justice procedures are directly responsible for a rise in crime. Criminal justice reforms passed in 2017 raised the age of criminal responsibility and changed bail laws to prevent defendants — predominantly people of color — from being held in jail on nonviolent offenses simply because they could not afford to post bail. The bail law was amended twice, the last time at Hochul’s instigation, to make more crimes eligible for bail and to give judges more discretion. Further fixes may be necessary.

Hochul says the problem is not bail reform; the entire criminal justice system isn’t working. Courts ground to a complete halt during the pandemic and still have not recovered from the backlog. She would appoint a new chief judge to get the courts moving, provide support for police and violence disrupters, and get more guns off the streets. Furthermore, Hochul says district attorneys need to charge crimes properly and judges have to use the discretion available to them.

Zeldin’s solution would be to turn back the clock to 2016, when the jails were full of poor, brown and young people awaiting trial on minor charges.

Hochul is no Andrew Cuomo, thankfully, but her ethics scoresheet has some blemishes. Her administration’s $637 million no-bid contract with a campaign donor for Covid-19 tests doesn’t pass the smell test, even as Hochul says she knew nothing about it. The state is providing $850 million toward a new stadium for the NFL Buffalo Bills, one of the biggest taxpayer stadium subsidies ever. Hochul’s husband works for the team’s concession vendor, Delaware North.

Hochul’s first state budget was the largest ever — over $220 billion — including record school aid and $1.6 billion in an unrestricted lump sum doled out at the governor’s discretion for the Bills stadium and other pet projects. Hochul should stop the practice of lump-sum appropriations in future budgets.

Hochul, a native of Buffalo, found herpolitical voice at Syracuse University in the late 1970s. She served in local government and in Congress. For five years, shecrisscrossed the state as Cuomo’s lieutenant governor, shaking hands, seeing problems and listening to the concerns of real people. Hochul is the first governor from Upstatein 100 years — and it’s about time.

We endorse Hochul for a full term to forge a new path as governor guided by facts, not fearmongering.

Why we endorse

The purpose of an editorial endorsement is to provide a thoughtful assessment of the choices voters face in an election. We offer editorial endorsements to stimulate the public conversation and promote civic engagement. Voting is a right and an obligation of citizenship. That part is up to you. Early voting begins Saturday, Oct. 29, and ends Sunday, Nov. 6. Election Day is Tuesday, Nov. 8.Read our Q&A about why we endorse.

About Syracuse.com editorials

Editorials represent the collective opinion of the Advance Media New York editorial board. Our opinions are independent of news coverage. Read ourmission statement. Members of the editorial board are Tim Kennedy, Trish LaMonte, Katrina Tulloch and Marie Morelli.

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