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BUFFALO, NY (AP) – As Lieutenant Governor of New York City, Kathy Hochul spent years on the road as the friendly face of the administration, visiting remote cafes and factories in each of the 62 counties in the ‘State for countless ribbons. cup ceremonies and civic cheerleading events.
Now with Governor Andrew Cuomo facing possible impeachment following allegations of sexual harassment, his next stop could be the Albany State Capitol.
Hochul would become the state’s first female governor if Cuomo were removed from office.
A centrist Democrat from western New York, she worked under Cuomo’s shadow during his two terms, but this week joined the chorus of politicians denouncing the governor after an independent inquiry found he had sexually harassed 11 women. during his tenure.
“I believe these brave women,” Hochul wrote, calling Cuomo’s behavior “disgusting and illegal” in a statement Tuesday.
She also acknowledged what has been brewing for months: the possibility of her becoming governor.
“Because the lieutenant governors are next in the line of succession, it would not be appropriate to comment further on the process at this time,” she wrote.
For many New Yorkers, Hochul is an unknown quantity, since 2015 doing mostly ceremonial work. On a typical late July afternoon, she announced funding for vocational training in Utica, discussed manufacturing in Rome, and visited downtown Cazenovia with the small town mayor.
It has nothing to do with the attention-demanding appearances of the decidedly high-profile Cuomo, who does most of his business in Albany and New York and whose daily coronavirus briefings were national events at most. strong coronavirus.
Hochul was not part of Cuomo’s inner circle of helpers and allies. Her name was not mentioned in the investigative report, released by Attorney General Letitia James, which detailed not only the harassment allegations against Cuomo, but also the efforts of his staff to discredit some of his accusers.
But at 62, Hochul is a seasoned politician, a veteran of 11 campaigns that took her from city council to Congress, the latter representing a conservative district in western New York after a surprising 2011 victory in a special election to fill a vacant position in the United States. Housing.
“Pragmatic would be a good way to describe it,” said Jacob Neiheisel, associate professor of political science at the University of Buffalo. “Someone who can read tea leaves pretty well and get to where their constituency is. “
Hochul’s office declined a request for an interview.
The daughter of a steelworker, Hochul, a lawyer, worked in Washington as an assistant to former US Representative John LaFalce and later to Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan, both of New York, before taking up her first post public, to the Hamburg city council, near Buffalo.
From there, she became the Erie County Clerk, where she made news in 2007 for her resistance to a then government plan. Eliot Spitzer to allow unauthorized immigrants to obtain driver’s licenses. Hochul and another employee in western New York state explored a plan to have immigrants arrested by police who attempted to apply.
“It will be a deterrent, and that’s what I’m looking for,” Hochul told the Buffalo News. at the time.
She then moved to Congress, where in 2011 she won a surprising victory in a special election in a district that had been in Republicans’ hands for decades. She lost a re-election bid a year later to Republican Chris Collins, despite National Rifle Association approval. Collins then resigned from the United States House and pleaded guilty insider trading.
Hochul moved to the left, politically, when Cuomo chose her as running mate in 2014 after her first lieutenant governor, former Rochester mayor Robert Duffy, decided not to run for reelection.
She supported New York’s SAFE Act, one of the country’s toughest gun control laws, as well as the state’s Green Light Law, which allows unauthorized immigrants to obtain permits. To drive.
Hochul has not publicly expressed whether she will pursue a full term in 2022 if she accepts the role.
An upstate candidate running for any state office in New York faces a tall order, but even more so for the governor’s office, which has historically chosen New York City .
Neiheisel said given his track record, it’s hard to predict what a “distinctly Hochul agenda” might look like, especially in the face of the state’s response to the still-active pandemic and a recovery that will involve billions of people. federal aid dollars.
“Considering how little she’s been historically in the news cycle, I really don’t think she has the kind of name recognition you’d expect from someone who’s suddenly been pushed into maybe governor, ”said Neiheisel. “She’s going to have to do a lot of things, real quick, for there to be a serious conversation to keep this job.
At a press conference on Wednesday, New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio, who has a controversial relationship with Cuomo, said he has gotten to know Hochul over the past few years and “she seems like a person to me. very reasonable “.
“I think if Kathy Hochul becomes governor she will be an honest go-between,” he said. “We can work together.
In Buffalo, Erie County Director Mark Poloncarz worked alongside Hochul when he was County Comptroller and she was Erie County Clerk. He said he saw Hochul easily enter the governor’s office.
“I think it’s fair to say that if that happened we would definitely have a friend in Albany,” he said.
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