ALBANY – Gov. Kathy Hochul defended blowing a state budget deadline Thursday, saying she’s not budging on her policy demands – as lawmakers hightailed it out of the capital for Passover break.
The state legislature passed another extension for current spending through Tuesday before skipping town nine days after the April 1 deadline that came and went with negotiations largely at a stalemate.
“I’m not going to compromise my principles over a date,” Hochul told reporters in her state Capitol office.
She tried to illustrate her point by mentioning policy items that passed in her previous budgets – all of which also passed past the deadline.
“I’m gonna bring more and more common sense to this place and that’s what you get when I do,” she added after pointing to a visual aid she had on standby emblazoned with the title “good things happen in April.”
Hochul pitched a $252 million budget proposal but she has been at odds with fellow Democrats in the legislature over her proposals to make changes to discovery laws, which set deadlines for evidence sharing in criminal cases. Critics have said current discovery laws mean cases get dismissed, setting criminals free on technicalities — and even liberal prosecutors have lined up behind changes.
Other sticking points in the budget negotiations include a bid to make it easier to force mentally ill people into psychiatric care.
Despite the recent extender, Hochul is cutting short lawmakers’ originally-scheduled two-week vacation that was supposed to begin next week. The governor controls how long each extender lasts, giving her leverage to force lawmakers to return to Albany to extend funding beyond Tuesday.
Tensions have been growing with Hochul and legislative lawmakers starting to take shots at each other throughout the week. Thursday was the first time Hochul, state Senate Majority Leader Andrea Stewart-Cousins (D-Westchester) and Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie (D-Bronx) met since last Saturday.
“We stand ready to get this done, we’re all anxious to get it done, and hopefully the fact that there’s the first leaders meeting in five days means that we’re getting somewhere,” state Sen. Michael Gianaris (D-Queens) told The Post.
Republicans took the opportunity to highlight Democrats’ dysfunction.
“We’ve had big issues in the past and have been able to get budgets done on time,” Assembly Minority Leader Will Barclay (R-Oswego) said Thursday.
“It’s time to get this done. They ought to come together. Three Dems in a room, they ought to be able to get agreement on this,” he added.
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