Legislative Scrooge: Hochul doles out final vetoes, approvals for 2024 bills

Humbug!

New York Gov. Kathy Hochul is under fire for making scores of eyebrow-raising vetoes as 2024 ends – including giving a thumbs down to legislation that would ensure greater transparency to emergency government contracts.

Good government groups, some homeless shelter advocates and trial lawyers are amongst those hoping the Governor gets a fat lump of coal this year after she killed some of their bills in the waning weeks of 2024.

“Governor Hochul has vetoed legislation that brings greater transparency to contracts that spend your taxpayer dollars. Instead of fixing Albany’s broken system, she is protecting it. There is no reason to oppose transparency unless the Governor has something to hide and a broken system to protect,” Rep. Ritchie Torres (D-NY), posted to X following the veto.

The governor killed legislation that would require public posting of information about contracts the state enters during states of emergency.

The bill, written partially in response to dubious state contracts handed out during the COVID-19 emergency response, has only gained more relevance as Hochul’s administration comes under increased scrutiny for bypassing oversight measures to ram through lavish contracts.

The proposal, which is backed by state Comptroller Tom DiNapoli, was watered down from previous years.

“The Governor’s claim that the bill would result in the disclosure of ‘trade secrets’ is absurd,” the good government group Reinvent Albany wrote in a statement.

“The bill requires agencies to write a brief description of an emergency contract including the name of the vendor and what is being provided by the contract.”

The Governor’s critics were quick to point out her hypocrisy after she declared in a video address on her first day as governor that transparency would be “one of my hallmarks of my administration.”

The bill was passed unanimously in both houses of the legislature, though legislative leaders have shown little interest in standing up to the Governor and overriding her vetoes, even with having enough votes to do it without Republican support in recent years.

For the third year in a row, Hochul also vetoed legislation that would change the wrongful death statute in New York to expand the number of people eligible to make a claim, an initiative heavily pushed by the New York State Trial Lawyers Association.

“The Governor remained entrenched in the same positions she held on Day One, offering no flexibility or willingness to engage in meaningful compromise,” NYSTLA President Victoria Wickman wrote in a lengthy statement blasting Hochul.

The legislation is opposed by hospitals and tort reform groups who say the effort is really aimed at delivering a boon for lawsuit-hungry lawyers. Its proponents refer to the legislation the Grieving Families Act.

“The Governor stood firm, prioritizing the well-being of New York’s families,” Tom Stebbins, Executive Director of the Lawsuit Reform Alliance of New York, a tort reform group wrote.

Hochul wrote in her veto message that she believes signing the bill could lead to hiked up insurance premiums and put vulnerable hospitals at risk.

The governor is also taking flak from community organizations who were pushing legislation to tweak rules around how they reimburse homeless shelters. Under the current rules, shelters are reimbursed based on how many people are staying there.

Advocates, like those with community organizations Safe Horizon, Urban Resource Institute, and Volunteers of America-Greater New York say this is incentivizing shelters to turn away abuse victims without children because they take up rooms that could otherwise house multiple people.

“This veto will leave thousands of our most vulnerable New Yorkers—LGBTQ+ survivors, trafficking survivors, and older adults—with a much more difficult path to safety and healing in domestic violence shelters,” a spokesperson for Safe Horizon wrote.

Hochul said she vetoed the bill because she’s concerned it may lead shelters to taking in fewer people.

“This legislation does not maximize state resources and could inadvertently result in a decrease in services in many regions of the state. Therefore, I am constrained to veto this bill,” Hochul wrote in her veto message in part.

There were some winners whose initiatives survived Hochul’s holiday veto-fest.

Techies looking to reign in artificial intelligence came to an agreement with Hochul on a bill that looks to control how the state may use the rapidly expanding tech in automated decision making.

Public sector unions also heralded the bill, as fears grow about how the tech may automate existing workers out of their jobs.

“I am encouraged that this legislation will result in transparency on state agency AI use and commonsense protections for the state workforce,” AFL-CIO President Mario Cilento wrote in a statement.

There remains only two bills yet for the Governor to consider. The first would provide state aide to help schools fund late buses.

The latter is a marquee piece of legislation for environmental activists that would give the state the power to force certain companies it designates responsible for climate change to fork over $75 billion in order to fund climate initiatives.

The legislation, which is opposed by groups representing New York’s business community, would be a much needed win for the environmentalists.

Additional reporting by Aneeta Bhole.