#Gov. Kathy Hochul to give first State of State address

Gov. Kathy Hochul is slated to give her first State of the State address on Wednesday amid ongoing uncertainty as New York continues its slog through the coronavirus pandemic.

Hochul will lay out her top priorities heading at the start of an election year in a speech that will be given at 1 p.m. in the state Assembly Chambers with a limited capacity due to COVID-19.

All lawmakers, staff and reporters who will attend must test negative for the virus prior to entry. 

The governor has been tightlipped about what she has planned for the speech, although she said Monday she would present a proposal to set a two consecutive term limit for statewide elected officials – the governor, lieutenant governor, state attorney general and state comptroller.

She also wants enact a ban on outside income for those four statewide positions – amid ongoing controversy over former Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s $5.1 million payout for a book last year, “American Crisis,” a pandemic-era memoir.

It’s unclear whether Hochul will include tweaks to the Empire State’s controversial bail reform law first signed in 2019, which prevents judges from setting bail for most misdemeanors and non-violent felonies.

Hochul has said she would work with new New York City Mayor Eric Adams and the state Legislature to negotiate amendments to the existing law if needed. 

Bail was also a factor in the recent November elections, which toppled Democratic Nassau County Executive Laura Curran on Long Island as well as both Democratic district attorneys in Nassau and Suffolk in favor of GOP candidates. 

Additional coronavirus plans are anticipated to be announced, as cases continue to climb and hospitalizations grow – topping 10,000 admitted for the first time Tuesday since May 2020.

“There are only three issues in the state right now COVID, crime and economic recovery and if she fails in any of those areas she will fail in the fall,” Democratic political consultant Hank Sheinkopf said.

“She’s got to make people in New York City believe that they should turn out in the primary for her and becoming a reformer by calling for term limits for elected statewide officials is a step in the right direction.”

Peter Warren, of the conservative Empire Center for Public Policy, said Hochul needs to tackle the state’s shocking outmigration of more than 350,000 residents in a single year, from the middle of 2020 through 2021. 

“Those numbers should be a wake-up call to the state’s elected leaders, especially Goveror Hochul.,” he told The Post. “Unless she wants to fiddle while Rome burns, Hochul must address the outmigration issue in the state of the state; she needs to make the case for residents to stay and businesses to invest here.”

Other issues Hochul has hinted at supporting include:

• Universal mail-in voting option for every New Yorker

• Reforming the Joint Commission on Public Ethics, the state’s controversial ethics panel
• An “overhaul”  of the sprawling 64-campus state university system, a promise made following the resignation of outgoing SUNY Chancellor Jim Malatras – a Cuomo ally who stepped down for smearing one of the ex-governor’s sexual harassment accusers. 

• She won’t support new taxes on the wealthy because she’s “not interested in driving people out of this state,” she said during the swanky SOMOS retreat in Puerto Rico