New York Governor Kathy Hochul took the oath of office for her first term on Sunday, pledging to reduce crime, improve affordability and stem population decline in the state.
Ho-chul’s inauguration caps a remarkable dominance in New York politics, making her the first woman to hold the state’s highest office in her own right after succeeding it in 2021 following the resignation of Andrew Cuomo.
In a two-hour ceremony in Albany that included references to historic New York, 64-year-old Horchul met with a diverse range of women, from suffrage campaigner Elizabeth Cady Stanton to former New York Senator Hillary Clinton. Inspired.
“You’ve heard of the man in the arena. Now there’s a woman in the arena,” she said, referring to another former New York Governor, Theodore Roosevelt’s famous speech. “I’m energized. No matter what happens, I’m excited to be in this arena.”
Ho-chol’s inauguration marked a moment of goodwill from the state’s Democratic-led majority and New York City Mayor Eric Adams. Different factions within their own parties must be coordinated to deal with local opposition to housing and uneven recovery from the pandemic.
Hochul outlined a rough agenda but gave few details, saying he would save them for the state’s speech on Jan. 10.
“But now there are some battles we have to take on,” she said. “First, we have to make your state safer. It means walking the streets, taking the subway, and kids going to school fear-free.”
She also said it would make New York a better place to live.
Ho-chul, the daughter and granddaughter of a Buffalo steel worker, said she was able to handle the brutality of New York politics because “I have steel in my veins.”
Despite a wave of nationwide Tea Parties, which began in the town council in Hamburg’s Buffalo suburb, with Republicans dominating the House, she was Erie Congressional Clerk before being elected to Congress in 2010, winning the Democratic seat. obtained.
When Cuomo nominated her for vice president, she lost her seat and stayed out of politics, working as a lobbyist for M&T Bank. Her nomination brought gender and geographic diversity to the ticket.
It was Ho-chul’s third inauguration after being sworn in as low-profile lieutenant governor in 2015 and 2019 alongside Cuomo. She became governor in 2021, after Cuomo — then in his third term — the third New York governor to be embroiled in a scandal.
Hochul defeated Long Island Republican Lee Zeldin in November in a race dominated by crime and affordability.
She begins her term with a Democratic majority in both the state Senate and Congress, putting Congress in a strong bargaining position and setting the possibility of rarely overriding her veto. Hochul issued her 185 disapprovals last year, including her 33 items in the budget bill.
