New York Governor Kathy Hochul promised to reduce crime, improve affordability and stem the state’s population loss as she took the oath of office for her first full term on Sunday.
Hochul’s inauguration capped a remarkable ascendancy in New York politics, becoming the first woman to take the state’s top office in her own right, after inheriting it in 2021 following Andrew Cuomo’s resignation.
In a two-hour Albany ceremony loaded with historical New York references, Hochul, 64, drew on inspiration from women ranging from suffragette Elizabeth Cady Stanton to former New York Senator Hillary Clinton.
“You’ve heard about the man in the arena. There’s now a woman in the arena,” she said, referring to a famous speech by another former New York governor, Theodore Roosevelt. “I’m energized. I’m enthusiastic to be in this arena, no matter what comes our way.”
Hochul’s inaugural ceremony marked a moment of goodwill from the Democratic-led majorities in the state legislature and New York City Mayor Eric Adams. Still, she’ll have to reconcile divergent factions in her own party to address possible changes to the state’s cashless bail laws, localized opposition to affordable housing and an uneven recovery from the pandemic.
Hochul outlined a broad agenda but gave few details, saying she will save those for her State of the State address on Jan. 10.
“But right now there’s some fights we just have to take on,” she said. “First, we must and will make your state safer. This means New Yorkers can walk our streets, ride our subways, our kids can go to school, free from fear.”
She also said she would make New York a more affordable place to live. “We must reverse the trend of people leaving our state in search of lower costs and opportunities elsewhere.”
As the daughter and granddaughter of Buffalo steelworkers, Hochul said she was able to handle the rough-and-tumble of New York politics because she’s “got steel running through my veins.”
Starting on the town council of the Buffalo suburb of Hamburg, she was Erie Council Clerk before her election to Congress in 2010, winning a seat for Democrats despite a national Tea Party wave that gave Republicans control of the House.
She lost that seat two years later and was out of politics — working as a lobbyist for M&T Bank — when Cuomo tapped her as his running mate. Her nomination gave the ticket gender and geographic diversity.
It was Hochul’s third inauguration, after being sworn in with Cuomo as a low-profile lieutenant governor in 2015 and 2019. She became governor in 2021 after Cuomo — then in his third term — became the third New York governor in a row to be embroiled by scandal.
Hochul defeated Long Island Republican Lee Zeldin in November in a race dominated by crime and affordability.
She begins the term with Democratic super-majorities in both the State Senate and the Assembly, putting the legislature in a strong bargaining position and setting up the potential for a rare override of her vetoes. Hochul issued 185 such disapprovals last year, including 33 separate line-items in the budget bill.
