Edited by: Fern Sidman

As the New York State budget deadline has approached, it appears that the tense negotiations between New York Governor Kathy Hochul and the Democrats in the state legislature continues over a multitude of issues but in particular, the issue of overhauling bail laws and the rising crime in New York City and throughout the Empire State.

The New York Post reported that a deadlock exists over the issue but on Friday, Hochul suggested  that she is inching closer to her stated goal of clearing the way to jail people ahead of their trials despite resistance from the state Senate and Assembly.

“There have been very productive conversations in this room … Many meetings as recently as yesterday and regular conversations about how we meet our mutual objectives to protecting public safety,” Hochul said at the state Capitol as Democrats got ready to miss the April 1 deadline for a new state budget, the Post reported.

As the state legislature has a formidable presence of far-left officials who are fighting for the rights of criminal offenders, the governor has her work cut out. The Post reported that she is proposing changes that would effectively allow judges to jail people accused of bail-eligible crimes who they believe endanger public safety or get charged with other offenses.

For her part, Hochul has claimed that her proposal would assist judges who are grappling with ambiguity about how the criminal justice reforms which were passed in 2019 conflict with a requirement they that impose the “least restrictive” conditions for criminal defendants,  whether or not tweaks passed in 2020 and 2022 allowed for bail, as was reported by the Post.

She said, “There is an inconsistency in our law right now. That’s what I’m striving to fix with respect to the ‘least restrictive’ means in particular.”

Experts in the law have argued that Hochul’s plan could effectively curtail or even put to an end, New York’s longstanding law that limits judges to using bail as a way to ensure that criminal defendants appear in court, who are officially innocent until proven guilty, the Post reported.

As to New York residents who have weighed in on the hot button issue, the Post reported that 72% of them support giving judges more discretion to set bail while a staggering 92% believe crime in New York is a “very serious” or “somewhat serious” problem. And 60% of New Yorkers are concerned that they could become yet another crime statistic.

The Post also reported that the issue of bail reform along with her controversial housing plan, has held up budget talks on other issues, Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie (D-Bronx) and state Senate Majority Leader Andrea Stewart-Cousins (D-Yonkers) told reporters Thursday.

Stewart-Cousins said, “We know that bail has really been defined everywhere. I mean people should know when bail is appropriate and when it isn’t. And so, no, I’m not interested in redefining bail,” according to the report.

Both Stewart-Cousins and Heastie have been the forefront of opposing efforts to undo current bail laws despite mounting criticism. The Post reported that they have noted on repeated occasions that the crime rate has soared on a nationwide level including in such states that allow judges way more discretion to keep defendants in jail prior to their trials.

Heastie has  said that what has postponed discussion and resolution of other matters on the budget agenda has been bail reform and housing. Claiming that “  “there’s always room for compromise” , Heastie’s assembly chamber has floated a counter-proposal on tweaking bail laws, the Post reported.

On Thursday, Heastie said, “Nothing other than bail and the housing compact has gotten any real discussion.”

On Friday, Hochul downplayed the level of conflict with Stewart-Cousins and Heastie whom she called  “three people in a room.”

The Post reported that Hochul said, “There’s many levels of conversations around the budget when it’s the leaders and myself who’ve been very focused on making progress in these two areas.”

She added, “However, that does not mean that they’re not literally round-the-clock tables, as they call them, where the staff was getting together, talking about our climate initiatives, our education, health care, and certainly the finances are part of that.”

The New York Times recently reported that television ads promoting and endorsing Hochul’s plans for the budget are running on various telecasts. The NYT reported that the ads are reminiscent of a slick campaign-style promotion and that they inform New York voters that Hochul’s budget is in their interest and will benefit every New Yorker.

At the conclusion of the television ad a tiny message tells viewers that the ads were sponsored by a group called “American Opportunity.”  The NYT took great pains to research who precisely is bankrolling the multimillion dollar campaign to shape the state’s gargantuan budget . Behind the shell groups is none other than the former billionaire mayor of New York City and failed Democratic candidate for President, Michael R. Bloomberg, the report said.

Although Bloomberg is a significant donor to Democratic candidates across the country, until now, he had not been in the forefront of supporting Hochul and her agenda and he did not contribute to her 2022 gubernatorial campaign and he did not insinuate himself in policy disputes in the state, according to the NYT report.

Bloomberg has now dug deep into his pockets and has given $5 million towards this television commercial blitz publicizing Hochul’s budget and this amount is only considered seed money which portends that there may be more from where that came from. Moreover, the campaign goes beyond television ads and also is seen on social media influence campaigns and on rounds of mailers targeting individual lawmakers as they grapple with Hochul over the shape of the budget, according to two people briefed on his giving, the NYT reported.

However, Hochul faces a fight with progressives emboldened by the state Senate’s historic rejection of her nominee to lead New York’s highest court.

Hochul also has fewer moderate Democrats to lean on inside the Legislature following the 2022 election where Democrats suffered several big defeats in the New York City suburbs with Hochul at the top of the ticket in the closest gubernatorial election in a generation.

And if the Democratic supermajorities vote in lock-step, they could even overrule Hochul on a final spending plan.

State Senate Democrats have exactly the 42 members needed to override gubernatorial vetos in the 63-member chamber while the Assembly has a few extra Democratic votes to spare in such a situation.

But the governor has significant leverage in the budget process that includes the ability to keep state government running with temporary spending measures, which legislators cannot alter, while holding out on her fellow Democrats.

She has highlighted in recent weeks her 2022 success with securing changes to bail reform after holding up a final budget until 10 days past the April 1 deadline.

Public confidence in the criminal justice system is at stake, Hochul said Friday while pushing her plan to loosen restrictions on judges’ ability to lock up the people they deem dangerous.

“I’m looking forward to restoring people’s confidence in our system. Part of that has to do with fixing some of the bail laws that I believe don’t give judges the clarity that they need to have,” she said.

“There is an inconsistency in our law right now. That’s what I’m striving to fix with respect to the ‘least-restrictive means’ in particular.”

Republican leaders told reporters Friday the embattled governor has to hold her ground in budget talks against progressives or else Albany Democrats will never substantially change state bail laws in the remaining months of the legislative session that ends in June.

“Democrats in the state Senate and Assembly aren’t going to do this in a standalone bill,” Assembly Speaker William Barclay (R-Fulton) said at a press conference. “So I don’t make it a habit of complimenting the governor, but I hope she sticks to her guns. Hopefully, she does put this piece of public policy in the center.”