ICYMI: Syracuse Post-Standard Editorial Board Endorses Governor Hochul
NEW YORK – The Syracuse Post-Standard editorial board today endorsed Governor Hochul for a full term. The editorial board praised Governor Hochul’s effective leadership in responding to crises including the Tops mass shooting and Supreme Court rulings on concealed carry and abortion. They also highlighted the governor’s success in bringing the Micron Technology semiconductor factory to Central New York and slammed Lee Zeldin for his “often fact-free” messaging and his “troubling… unsubstantiated claims of election fraud.”
The endorsement joins a number of other endorsements from editorial boards across the state, including Amsterdam News, Buffalo News, Newsday, the New York Times, and Times Union.
Highlights from the story below.
Syracuse.com: Editorial endorsement: Kathy Hochul for New York governor
By Advance Media NY Editorial Board, 11/1/22
The editorial board endorses Gov. Kathy Hochul, a Democrat from Western New York, for a full, four-year term in the job thrust upon her by the resignation of her predecessor. Hochul deserves a shot at putting her stamp on the office and achieving her goals of a more transparent, effective and ethical state government.
After months of tumult in Albany, Hochul stepped into the executive role in August 2021 with vigor, candor and calm. She is the first woman to be governor.
Hochul appointed new, respected leadership at the Department of Health, whose credibility had been damaged by the previous administration’s attempt to minimize the toll of Covid-19 in nursing homes. The new governor kept schools open when the omicron variant swept the state in winter; responded to the Buffalo mass shooting with compassion and legislative action on guns; countered Supreme Court rulings gutting abortion rights and the state’s concealed-carry law; and revamped JCOPE, the toothless ethics watchdog.
Hochul’s biggest achievement for Central New York was landing the Micron Technology semiconductor factory with months of personal lobbying and a suite of state incentives. That included a last-minute legislative push for a Green CHIPS bill providing up to $10 billion in state aid to chipmakers. Hochul says every dollar of taxpayer money will have a return on investment of $20. “I’ll take that deal any day,” she told the editorial board, pointing to the benefits of providing good-paying job opportunities to the region’s young people, people of color and women.
Hochul’s opponent is Republican Congressman Lee Zeldin, of Long Island. Zeldin’s relentless — and often fact-free — messaging on crime has drowned out his credible ideas about how to improve New York’s business climate, rein in spending and budget responsibly. Zeldin claims he can’t change abortion law, but promises to suspend criminal justice reforms enacted by the Legislature unilaterally, on Day One. It’s an empty promise. Such an order would be temporary; then he’d have to persuade Democrats who control the Legislature to rewrite the law they created.
More troubling is Zeldin’s unsubstantiated claims of election fraud that led him to vote against certifying the Electoral College vote on Jan. 6, 2021. It is disqualifying, in our view. Zeldin condemned the violence at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6 and says he never once called Joe Biden’s election illegitimate. Yet he still flogs claims of voting irregularities in Pennsylvania and Arizona that courts rejected. […]
Hochul says the problem is not bail reform; the entire criminal justice system isn’t working. Courts ground to a complete halt during the pandemic and still have not recovered from the backlog. She would appoint a new chief judge to get the courts moving, provide support for police and violence disrupters, and get more guns off the streets. […]
Zeldin’s solution would be to turn back the clock to 2016, when the jails were full of poor, brown and young people awaiting trial on minor charges. […]
Hochul’s first state budget was the largest ever — over $220 billion — including record school aid and $1.6 billion in an unrestricted lump sum doled out at the governor’s discretion for the Bills stadium and other pet projects. […]
Hochul, a native of Buffalo, found her political voice at Syracuse University in the late 1970s. She served in local government and in Congress. For five years, she crisscrossed the state as Cuomo’s lieutenant governor, shaking hands, seeing problems and listening to the concerns of real people. Hochul is the first governor from Upstate in 100 years — and it’s about time.
We endorse Hochul for a full term to forge a new path as governor guided by facts, not fearmongering.