Less than 12 hours after New York lawmakers approved a month-late state budget, Gov. Kathy Hochul was touting her biggest success on Wednesday: legislation toughening the state’s bail regulations.
She dominated the morning shows in New York City. She advocated for the policy with prosecutors and former cop Mayor Eric Adams. And she instantly tied the issue to 2024, launching a preemptive strike on the GOP.
“Individuals running for Congress next year on down can talk about how Democrats take public safety very seriously,” the Democratic governor said to reporters. “This isn’t a Republican issue.” It’s something we’re taking the lead on. We’re the ones tackling the problems, not just taking potshots from the sidelines.”
The move is an early attempt to retake the upper hand after Republicans used the state’s bail regulations as evidence that Democrats are weak on crime last year, triggering devastating losses for House Democrats in New York. The governor’s new plan could influence House contests next year, and possibly even control of Congress. However, it may prove difficult and complicated to sell to voters.
The new rule will offer judges more leeway in determining whether an individual can be kept on bond. To the chagrin of liberals, the changes mark the third set of rollbacks of progressive bail laws established by Democrats in 2019.
Hochul’s team realised too late in the election cycle that public safety and the economy, rather than abortion rights, were motivating New York voters. As a result, the governor’s race was the closest since 1994, and Democrats were swept out of all four Long Island House districts, as well as crucial races in the Hudson Valley.
The fault was fully placed on New York Democrats, particularly Hochul, for a messaging gaffe that even former Speaker Nancy Pelosi admitted state leaders should have recognised earlier.
Former Republican Rep. Lee Zeldin’s gubernatorial campaign centred on rising crime rates in major New York cities, and he repeatedly faulted bail procedures for allowing dangerous people to go free.
Democrats said that there is little evidence attributing crime rises to New York’s bail regulations, instead focusing on bigger, nationwide crime trends caused by the epidemic. However, Zeldin and Republican House candidates used the issue to gain gains in important New York City suburbs.
Hochul shut down the state budget for nine days last year in order to get a few bail adjustments. However, during the campaign, she did not properly advocate the stricter laws.
She is attempting to avoid making the same mistake twice.
So Hochul’s budget, the first of her first full term, was centred on addressing those criticisms; she delayed budget negotiations for weeks and gave up a deal on her other major initiatives, such as a broad housing plan she desired, in order to persuade reluctant Democrats to reopen bail talks. Adams stood by her side.
“I say over and over again that there are many rivers that feed the sea of violence, and we have to dam each river, and we damned one during this process,” Adams stated on WABC Radio on Wednesday.
Many people were nevertheless dissatisfied with the final agreement. It did not go as far as Republicans, several moderates, and even Adams would have liked. Hochul has refused to support a “dangerousness” criteria for increased court authority, as applied by other states that have effectively altered their bail regulations.
“The governor is going to claim a victory for public safety despite the fact that the law expressly prohibits judges from considering a defendant’s dangerousness during the pretrial process,” Albany-area Republican Sen. Jake Ashby said in a statement last week before budget debates. “If she tries to spin that as judicial discretion, she will be embracing a level of shamelessness previously reserved for only her predecessor.”
During his podcast on Thursday, former Gov. Andrew Cuomo dismissed the improvements as insignificant in the state’s fight against crime. Cuomo, a Democrat who served three terms before leaving in 2021 due to sexual harassment charges, said he would have preferred a larger criminal justice agreement.
“I don’t believe anyone came away with anything. “The governor is defeated,” Cuomo declared. “The answer was not bail reform.”
The changes, for example, did not include changes to discovery laws — measures passed in 2019 that outline how and when prosecutors hand over case material — despite pushes from progressive prosecutors who say those laws, too, need to be fixed to avoid cases being thrown out on technical grounds.
Republicans will not stop targeting Democrats on crime, according to state GOP head Ed Cox. Democrats “are not going to be able to hide on this issue” in 2024, when all 26 House seats would be up for grabs, he said.
“Kathy Hochul continues to have her head in the sand when it comes to crime,” he stated in a statement. “The budget changes she made were merely cosmetic.”
The modifications go too far for the Legislature’s leftist caucuses, who argue that such changes will result in more poor, primarily minority suspects being held on bail, which is why the laws were amended in the first place.
Hochul struggled to generate increasing enthusiasm for her candidature last year, and the new rules may make it more difficult for her to do so in the future.
“The governor’s effort to reduce bail was not motivated by facts.” Fear mongering, headlines, political opportunism, and a far-right campaign to weaponize racism drove it,” Assemblymember Latrice Walker (D-Brooklyn) remarked during the budget discussion.
They are also a policy risk. Hochul’s policies, according to researchers, are not the most effective strategy to address individual recidivism issues as well as the broader issue of public safety.
The Brennan Centre for Justice at NYU School of Law was “disappointed by the Legislature’s continued focus on revising bail reform to the exclusion of other policies that can make our communities safer,” according to senior counsel Ames Grawert.
In response, Hochul stated that the budget includes additional funding for gun violence prevention, mental health support, and pay raises for public defenders.
She’ll now have to convince sceptics of her idea.
Democrats will be able to “say they took significant steps towards improving New Yorkers’ safety while not backing down from necessary reforms,” Hochul told reporters.
“And we have to show that we struck the right balance.”
