Gov. Cuomo’s resignation announcement paved the way for longtime public servant Lt. Gov. Kathy Hochul to become the Empire State’s first woman governor.
The 63-year-old — whose political career took her from an upstate town board to Congress and through two-terms as the next in line to the governor — took over for Cuomo when his resignation in the wake of sexual harassment allegations went into effect on Aug. 24.
“Kathy is absolutely ready,” Erie County Democratic Party Chairman Jeremy Zellner told The Post.
“There’s one word that describes our lieutenant governor: tenacious,” continued Zellner, pointing to Hochul’s ability to appeal to rural and urban Democrats alike. “She’s been a bulldog from day one. She knows what needs to get done for the people of New York.”
A Buffalo native and steelworker’s daughter, Hochul received her BA from Syracuse University, and a law degree from the Columbus School of Law at Washington, DC’s Catholic University.
By the early ’90s, she pivoted from law to become involved in politics, working as an aide in Washington to former US Rep. John LaFalce and later, Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan, both from New York.
She then held her first public office, on the town board in Hamburg, near Buffalo, from 1994 to 2007.
In 2003, Hochul was tapped by Erie County Clerk David Swarts as his deputy. When Swarts resigned in 2007, Hochul was elected to finish out his term, and clinched re-election in 2010.
When she served as Erie County Clerk, Hochul made headlines for her resistance to then-Gov. Eliot Spitzer’s plan to allow illegal immigrants to get driver’s licenses.
Before finishing her first full term, Hochul threw her hat in the ring during the 2011 special election to represent New York’s 26th Congressional District — spanning parts of Erie and Niagara counties — in Washington.
A self-described “independent Democrat,” Hochul scored an improbable upset over GOP nominee Jane Corwin to win the seat in a district that had been in Republican hands for decades.
But Hochul’s aisle-straddling positions and endorsements — including from the National Rifle Association — weren’t enough to put her over the top in 2012, when she narrowly lost re-election to Republican Chris Collins, who later resigned and pleaded guilty to insider trading.
When Robert Duffy, who served as lieutenant governor during Cuomo’s first term, announced he would not seek re-election in 2014, Cuomo gave the nod to Hochul, a married mother-of-two, whose husband Bill is a former federal prosecutor in Western New York.
The limelight rarely found Hochul during the race, drawing accusations that Cuomo had ordered her “kept under wraps” to hide her more moderate views.
As Cuomo sought re-election in 2018, concerns again swirled that her ideals could scare off progressive voters, but they proved unfounded as Hochul and Cuomo breezed to primary wins and re-election.
Still, Hochul moved further to the left in the role, backing the New York’s SAFE Act, one of the nation’s toughest gun control laws, as well as the Green Light Law, which let illegal immigrants get driver’s licenses.
“Pragmatic would be a good way to describe her,” said Jacob Neiheisel, an associate political science professor at the University at Buffalo. “Someone who is pretty good at reading the tea leaves and coming around to where her constituency is.”
Now in her second term, Hochul has remained relatively anonymous in the often thankless job, not even earning a mention in Cuomo’s memoir on the handling of the COVID-19 pandemic.
She stayed relatively quiet when Cuomo’s sexual harassment scandal erupted in late 2020. But she spoke out following the release of the state attorney general’s scathing report last week, slamming the “repulsive and unlawful behavior” described.
As governor, Hochul will have to get a grip on the ongoing coronavirus pandemic and the recovery involving billions of dollars in federal aid.
“She’s going to have to tackle big issues — we have COVID, public safety,” Zellner told the Post.
But, he added, the soon-to-be governor will be “someone who can get things done with the Legislature.”
“People have a lot of confidence right now she’s stepping into the office,” he said. “She’s a credible, ethical person.”
In the aftermath of Cuomo’s resignation Tuesday, Hochul received the public support of numerous elected officials, including Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie and Democratic nominee for New York mayor Eric Adams, who both said they look forward to working with her.
Hochul has not publicly expressed whether she would pursue a full term as governor in 2022.
During her frequent travels across the state, Hochul has also gotten to know party chairs and elected officials from both parties.
Should she choose to throw her hat in the ring, “She will have a tremendous army for the spring primary in 2022,” said former congressman LaFalce.
With Post wires