‘Nothing’ settled on overhauling cash bail laws as Hochul budget standoff in Albany enters day 10
ALBANY – Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie (D-Bronx) said on Monday that “nothing” has been settled in state budget talks about overhauling controversial limits on cash bail as the ongoing standoff between Gov. Kathy Hochul and the state Legislature entered its tenth day.
Heastie was speaking to reporters at the Capitol about the new spending plan — which is expected to exceed $227 billion — and said the bail issue was holding up progress in Albany.
“Most of the oxygen is still on discussing bail,” Heastie said.
“Even besides bail, I still think there’s issues with housing that still have to be dealt with,” he added when asked how soon Albany Democrats might reach a budget deal.
Budget talks have ground to a standstill since the original April 1 deadline amid legislative resistance to Hochul’s bail proposal and a much-criticized housing plan suburbanites warn will unꦜdermine local zoning control.
A spending resolution approved Monday willꦿ give Hochul, Heastie, and state Senate Majority Leader Andrea Stewart-Cousins (D-Yonkers) another week to break the impasse over bail in pursuit of a final agreement.
That temporary measure ensured that state workers would continue to get paid and age💫ncies funded to avoid a government shutdown while the fiscal face-off continues between the Hochul and the Legislature.
The governor has proposed to make it easier for judges to jail criminal defendants who might endanger public safety or go on to commit crimes if released ahead of their trials by eliminating a requirement that judges impose the “least restrictive” conditions on suspects.
“I’m going to make sure that we have bail laws that give the judges the discretion that I believe they should have,” Hochul told reporters in Albany on Saturday.
But Heastie and Stewart-Cousins have resisted the proposal while downplaying links between rising crime, which they note is the case in sta✅tes with more judicial discretion, and criminal justice reforms approved in 2019.
Rank-and-file members have added to the pressure on them by saying Hochul’s proposal would effectively allow judicial discretion for using bail and remand for purposes other than ensuring someone returns to court despite a longstanding legal standard in New York.
“This is much farther than rolling back bail [reform],” Assemblywoman Latrice Walker (D-Brooklyn) said Monday. “This is taking New York State to a place that it has never been and it’s dangerous ground.”
But bail critics point to instan👍ces when changes to current laws would make it easier for judges to hold dangerous people and repeat 🔜offenders credited with fueling rising crime in the five boroughs.
Some of them called on Hochul last week to unleash “Dark Kathy” to break the logjam only to see the newly-elected governor keep playing nice over the weekend by agreeing to another week of talks without leveraging her ability to unil🌸aterally stick controversial proposals into the budget entender.
“I would not say I am surprised,” State Conservative Party Chair Gerard Kassar told The Post about the governor, who unveiled a liberal nominee to lead New York’s top court on Monday weeks after suffering a bruising political defeat when the state Senate reject♉ed a relatively centrist pick.
Reps for Hochul and Stewart-ꦕCousins di🐷d not provide comment Monday on where three-way talks stood on the budget.
“There’s been conversations going on for a couple of weeks now that I think they’re pretty close to resolving, so we’ll see where it lands,” state Senate Deputy Majority Leader Michael Gianaris (D-Queen) said at the Capitol.
H🌺ochul and the Democratic supermajorities in both chambers face a long list of controversial is🃏sues to negotiate beyond bail and housing.
The relatively centrist governor is pushing to expand charter schools in New York City, ban flavored tobacco, and make New York City pay $500 million more each year to support the MTA – ideas Democratic lawmakers rejected in budget resolutions passed weeks ago.
Both chambers have also backed increased income taxes on wealthy people alongside increased social spending, a broader social safety net for illegal immigrants as well as expanded tenant protections along the lines of a “Good Cause” eviction bill that would limit rent increases statewide.
Heastie on Monday reiterated his longstanding opposition to including non-fiscal policy items in budget negotiations while downplaying the possibility that the fate of Hochul’s bail proposal would hinge on horsetrading between the governor and legislative leaders.
“I’m not gonna say: ‘All right, I’ll concede locking more people up in jail If you stop people from getting evicted.’ That’s not how negotiations work,” he said.
“Budgets aren’t just documents that just do everything that the governor wants. The Legislature is an equal branch of government and budgets have to represent what members want as well,” he added.
Republican state Senate Minority Leader Robert Ortt (R-Lockport) claimed the time is coming for Albany Democrats to strike a deal on changing cash bail laws in order to free a new state budget held “hostage” by the stalemate between the “three people in a room” who ultimately call the shots in state government.
“The real problem is that both the Senate and Assembly cannot agree on how much they want to tax everyday New Yorkers. It’s evident their cashless bail has been a failure and has become a sticking point in which Democrats can’t come to an agreement on how to address,” Ortt said.
