By: Jared Evan
New York Governor Kathy Hochul is fighting hard to not become the first governor in New York history to have their choice for judge shot down because he is not radically left enough, in the highest court of the state in an exclusive report by the New York Post.
Hochul is campaigning for her choice of Judge Hector LaSalle to be approved, while the extremist, left wing branch of the Democrat party claims LaSalle is a fire breathing conservative.
Bernadette Hogan and Zach Williams of the New York Post write that, “the lobbied lawmakers include several Democratic members of the state Senate’s powerful Judiciary Committee – the panel charged with greenlighting or killing Hochul’s choice – who said on condition of anonymity that Hochul has either personally met with or called them over the past week and a half in an apparent desperate effort to sway them to her side.”
According to the New York Post, Another Democrat contacted by Hochul said she’s “been much more forceful, particularly to the upstate [senators], like, really putting the screws to them” to vote yes. “This is the kind of thing where if you vote no, we won’t have a relationship [with Hochul],” the lawmaker said.
“I will make sure – whatever means it takes — we’ll get this done,” Hochul told the New York Post LaSalle’s nomination, while accusing opposing Senate Democrats of “character assassination” for knocking the judge over a handful of cases he oversaw during his time on the state Supreme Court’s Appellate Division in Brooklyn.
Some lawmakers said the political standoff over LaSalle also has been filled with constant calls to pols from Hochul staffers, chief among them Chatodd Floyd, deputy secretary for Legislative Affairs and Policy.
But several observers pointed to noticeable silence from Hochul’s deputy secretary for intergovernmental affairs, Amit Bagga, a supporter of the “defund the police” movement, which would presumably be against LaSalle’s appointment reports the New York Post.
Sources told the New York Post the possibility of Hochul losing the LaSalle nomination is even more embarrassing now, since she already caved to leftist lawmakers by giving the legislature a salary hike without getting the bail reforms she sought in return.
On one side of the LaSalle debate are Hochul, moderate Dems and many Latino officials and fellow judges, as well as likely some GOPers. In the other camp are leftist legislators, organized labor and criminal-justice reformers.
“I do not see this ending in the way the governor wished it would,” Democratic state Senate leader Andrea Stewart-Cousins said to a Gothamist Gazette podcast interviewer.
Stewart-Cousins and other pols met personally with LaSalle last week, and more are scheduled to huddle with him this week.
LaSalle in any sane situation would be considered a liberal judge, but NYC politics has become so extremist, he has morphed into a “right winger”.
NY Post editorial board highlighted a few rulings which have freaked out extreme left-wing politicians:
LaSalle is accused of failing to “understand” an alleged “threat to women’s rights” because he joined a unanimous 2017 appellate court ruling limiting the scope of a state Attorney General subpoena aimed at an abortion-alternative non-profit. The subpoena would’ve required information (like the educational credentials of its entire staff) miles beyond the scope of any legitimate investigation, a demand clearly made from pure political animus as part of a fishing expedition by New York progs.
In other words, the extremist, radical, dangerous Left, wanted LaSalle to be an activist against abortion alternatives, using his power to bully and intimidate a pro-life non-profit.
