Kathy Hochul

Directed State Police agreement with Cornell

New York State Police now handle every sexual offense complaint at Cornell University by default, under an agreement signed October 29, 2026. Survivors can still ask for campus police, Ithaca Police or the Tompkins County Sheriff to take the case instead.

Updated 1 hour ago

Joined the announcement with James

T-Mobile cut internet speeds for New Yorkers on its $15-a-month low-income plan by more than 97% once they used 50 gigabytes in a month. A typical user could hit that limit in about four days. On November 9, the state attorney general announced the company had agreed to stop.

Updated 2 days ago

Announced the $14 million funding package

New York State announced on October 30 that it will send $14 million to three Brooklyn cultural institutions: the Brooklyn Children's Museum, the Hispanic Information and Telecommunications Network (HITN) and the Brooklyn Academy of Music (BAM).

Updated 3 days ago

Supporting the upgrade

New York shut down its unemployment benefits system at 5 p.m. on Nov. 2 for a 9- to 12-day upgrade, leaving about 106,000 weekly claimants unable to file new claims, certify for benefits or check their accounts.

Updated 4 days ago

Re-elected; one-year moratorium on hyperscale data centers in effect

Voters decided at least 47 local data center measures across 13 states in 2026. In 46, the result went against the facilities, according to Ballotpedia. On Nov. 3, 40 of 41 measures favored limits; the exception was Harwood, North Dakota.

Updated 4 days ago

Signed the law in October 2025

RealPage asked a federal judge on October 28 to leave the injunction in place, and New York's attorney general replied on November 3, urging the court to reconsider. The request to revive the state's ban on algorithmic rent-setting is now fully briefed and waiting on Judge Valerie Caproni.

Updated 6 days ago

Campaigned with Mamdani in New York City on Oct. 23 and Oct. 25 ahead of the November election

Zohran Mamdani became New York City's first Muslim and South Asian mayor on January 1, 2026, at age 34. His early months brought a $1.7 billion child care partnership with Governor Kathy Hochul, a two-year rent freeze and a $28 billion housing plan. His plan to tax the wealthy stalled against Council Speaker Julie Menin and Hochul.

Updated 6 days ago

Backed the tax at the state level

A New York state appeals court ruled for the city in November, leaving the pied-à-terre tax rollout in place. The court had frozen a lower-court ruling that voided the rollout, and the city kept collecting while the appeal was pending.

Updated 6 days ago

Ordered emergency closure of live bird markets

In March 2024, H5N1 avian influenza appeared in U.S. dairy cattle for the first time. It has since infected 1,222 herds in 21 states and 71 people, and three of those people have died.

Updated Nov 3

In office

New York State has committed $10 million to the first phase of reopening Hangars 3 and 4 at Floyd Bennett Field, the city's first municipal airport, which have been closed to the public for nearly a century. Governor Kathy Hochul announced the grant on Nov. 3; the money goes to the Jamaica Bay-Rockaway Parks Conservancy.

Updated Nov 3

Provided $10 million in state funding through the Environmental Bond Act

Construction began October 26 on a $35.7 million system to recirculate water among the Pool, the Loch and the Harlem Meer. The three water bodies are currently topped off with city drinking water that drains into the combined sewer system.

Updated Oct 31

Proposed letting minimum wage increases resume March 1, 2027, if the Legislature approves

New York City's minimum wage stays at $17 an hour on Jan. 1, 2027. A 2023 state law trigger suspends the inflation raise because state employment fell in July. Prices in the New York area rose 4% over the past year, so the freeze cuts real pay for low-wage workers.

Updated Oct 29

Pushing for project completion by 2034

Gateway held a ceremonial launch Sept. 28, and the first of two tunnel boring machines has been chewing through the Palisades Cliffs since early October. It cuts about 30 feet a day on a 5,100-foot run from North Bergen to a shaft on the Weehawken-Hoboken line, where the pair is due about a year after launch.

Updated Oct 25

Part of four-state coalition challenging offshore wind pause

All five East Coast wind farms that Interior Secretary Doug Burgum froze in December 2025 were back at work by early February, after federal judges in three districts granted preliminary injunctions. The building has gone on since: Ørsted's Revolution Wind finished offshore construction and has sent power to the New England grid since March, and Dominion's Coastal Virginia project is more than 80 percent built and delivering electricity.

Updated Oct 23

As of October 2026: Championed congestion pricing; defending it against federal termination efforts

New York City's congestion pricing cut fine particle pollution inside the Manhattan toll zone by about 13% in its first year. A Columbia-led study published in Environmental Science & Technology Letters tracked air quality at 15 monitoring sites. The decline closely matched the roughly 11% drop in vehicles entering the zone.

Updated Oct 11

As of September 2026: Commended the NYC moratorium

New York City banned student-facing generative AI in public schools through eighth grade this fall, and Los Angeles blocked it on all district devices. The two largest U.S. districts have reversed the permissive embrace of ChatGPT they adopted in 2023.

Updated Sep 7

As of July 2026: State recovered frozen funds

The Department of Health and Human Services ended its six-month freeze on $10 billion in child care and family-aid money for five states on July 14. The funds, meant for low-income families in California, Colorado, Illinois, Minnesota, and New York, are flowing again.

Updated Jul 15

As of July 2026: Backed the state-level pieces of the housing push

New York City finished 38,682 apartments in 2025, the most in a single year since 1965, driven by the City of Yes zoning rewrite and the 485-x rental tax break. The record has since run into complications: permit approvals fell nearly 28 percent in 2025 as tariffs and 485-x's wage rules pushed up costs, and developers began filing permits for buildings of exactly 99 units to avoid the program's higher wage threshold.

Updated Jul 9

As of May 2026: Declared state of emergency for 22+ counties, activated National Guard; warned 'the worst is yet to come'

A nor'easter developed into a bomb cyclone on February 22-23, 2026, burying the Interstate 95 corridor from Philadelphia to Boston under 1 to 2 feet of heavy, wet snow. In parts of New Jersey, totals exceeded 2 feet; Lyndhurst received 30.7 inches while New York City got 19 inches on February 24.

Updated May 29

As of May 2026: Signed S1353 into law with amendments

For decades, abusers have weaponized debt against their victims—opening credit cards in partners' names, forcing them to sign loan documents under threat, running up charges they never agreed to. Even after escaping the relationship, survivors remained legally responsible for debts they never chose to incur. Starting February 16, 2026, New York joins seven other states in helping survivors escape: creditors can no longer collect debts incurred through fraud, duress, or coercion, and survivors can dispute these debts with legal protection.

Updated May 29

As of May 2026: Leading state oversight of JFK transformation

JFK's original terminals opened in the 1960s as architectural showpieces—each airline building its own statement. Sixty years later, most of that infrastructure has become obsolete. New York is now replacing it with two massive new terminals, redesigned roadways, and modernized transit connections in what has become the largest airport project in the United States.

Updated May 27

As of May 2026: Facing criticism from striking nurses for not intervening; has not visited picket lines

Nearly 15,000 nurses walked off the job at Mount Sinai, Montefiore, and NewYork-Presbyterian on January 12, 2026—the largest nurses' strike in New York City history. The walkout came three years after nurses at two of those same hospital systems won enforceable staffing ratios through a three-day strike. Now the hospitals want to roll those standards back, while also seeking to cut nurses' healthcare benefits.

Updated May 21

As of May 2026: Announced New York as largest state with bell-to-bell smartphone restrictions

January 2026 accelerated the school cellphone crackdown. New Jersey signed a statewide ban for 2026-27, Michigan passed legislation for fall 2026, and Kansas introduced bipartisan Senate Bill 302 backed by 30 senators. What began with France's 2018 experiment now spans 37 states plus D.C., up from 35+ just weeks earlier.

Updated May 19

As of May 2026: Pushed both sides to settle as commuter pressure mounted

At noon on Tuesday, electric trains began rolling out of Jamaica again. North America's busiest commuter railroad had been dark since Friday night, when contract talks between the Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) and the rail unions collapsed, leaving about 250,000 weekday riders without trains for three workdays.

Updated May 19

As of May 2026: Declared state of emergency for more than half of NY counties

Central Park got 4.3 inches of snow on December 27—the most since January 2022. But the chaos didn't end when the snow stopped: over 4,400 flights were canceled across the weekend, with JFK, Newark, and LaGuardia accounting for half. On Sunday alone, another 700 cancellations and 8,000 delays rippled through the system as airlines struggled to reposition aircraft and crews during one of the busiest travel weekends of the year.

Updated May 16

As of May 2026: Signed the RAISE Act; implementation now shifts to state agencies

New York just told the biggest AI labs: if something goes seriously wrong, you don't get to bury it. Under the RAISE Act, large "frontier AI" developers must publish a safety approach and report "critical harm" incidents to the state within 72 hours after determining one occurred. First violations carry civil penalties capped at $1M; later violations, $3M—far below the bill's June penalty structure.

Updated May 15