During her discussion at the Aspen Institute Hurst Lecture Series, Governor Kathy Hochul emphasized the need for improved public safety and infrastructure, particularly in making the subway system safer. She highlighted the urgent requirement for more housing in New York, along with investments in education and workforce development to create opportunities for residents. Additionally, Hochul noted significant economic investments, such as Micron’s $100 billion commitment, and praised President Biden’s achievements in healthcare and infrastructure.
A rush transcript of the Governor’s remarks is available below:
Cristal Logan, Aspen Institute: Welcome to the Aspen Institute. I’m Cristal Logan, I’m a vice president here overseeing our community programs and engagement, and I welcome you to this evening’s Hurst Lecture Series program. First, I want to thank Bob and Soledad Hurst for sponsoring this series of events.
Thanks to our Society of Fellows members whose support also allows us to do events like this year-round. And thanks to all of you for attending this evening for this special event. We’re thrilled to have our president and CEO, Dan Porterfield, as our moderator this evening. In his six years leading this fine organization, he has made several really positive impacts on our important work. So, we’re delighted to have you here, Dan.
And now I’m honored to introduce our very special guest this evening: Kathy Hochul — the 57th governor of New York and the only woman to hold the office in history.
The first governor from upstate New York in more than 100 years, Governor Hochul’s tenure has been marked by her efforts to address the affordability crisis, implement comprehensive gun safety reforms and dramatically increased statewide housing supply. She has emerged as a national voice on abortion rights and mental health and has positioned New York as a global leader across future-facing industries like high-tech chip manufacturing and AI innovation. So, she’s a native of Buffalo. She’s dedicated her life to public service and to cheering for the Buffalo Bills. And now please join me in welcoming the Governor of New York, Kathy Hochul.
Dan Porterfield, Aspen Institute President and CEO: So, Governor Hochul, a couple of quick “thank yous”. To of course — the Hurst family again — to the Society of Fellows and the Aspen Community Programs teams led by Cristal. Also, to your team — which has done really great advanced work to make it possible for us to get you here — thanks to all of them.
We are webcasting this, so all over upstate New York, I’m positive people are watching right now, including my father-in-law — who is from Auburn, along with my mother-in-law — and so, he’s watching right now, and I know —
Governor Hochul: Go Auburn.
Dan Porterfield, Aspen Institute President and CEO: Go Auburn, exactly. Also, I want to just say a quick thanks especially to some family members who are here. So, your sister Sheila is here. Where is Sheila? Over there. Hey Sheila, thank you for coming. And then these two sister-like cousins of yours are here, aren’t they? Patricia and Sue. And Sue is actually — everybody here knows Sue. She’s like in the pantheon of Aspen Institute gods and goddesses. And she’s been such a supporter for so long. So, thank you for supporting Sue to support us.
Governor Hochul: She’s been asking me to come here for years, so I did it, Sue. Here I am.
Dan Porterfield, Aspen Institute President and CEO: Hopefully the first of many, because we have lots of other ways we could host you and hear about your life, your leadership, your work, the concerns of the country, of the State.
So, I’d like to maybe start by — well actually, let me ask this question. How many people here are New Yorkers by birth or by current zip code right now? Look at this. So, we’re —
Governor Hochul: How many children live there as well? That’ll be just about everybody. Okay. There you go. So, everybody wants to live in New York.
Dan Porterfield, Aspen Institute President and CEO: It’s not surprising. Exactly. So, let’s — I’d like to start by allowing this audience to learn a little bit about your background. And maybe — how is it that you, well, came into the world — your parents are great role models, I know. And how’d you grow up and how did that lead you into a life of service?
Governor Hochul: You know, Dan, first of all — thank you for having me here. I’m really excited. And to my staff, they’re incredible. It wasn’t a real heavy lift to get them to come here. But I’m happy you’re all here, I love you all. I am the first upstate governor in 100 years. I’m actually the first governor from Buffalo since Grover Cleveland in 1883.
So, it’s been a long drought, but nothing you ever expect growing up in Buffalo to happen to you. And it started earlier in Ireland where my grandparents, Jack and Mary, left great poverty, like many did. They had nothing, their families basically said, “As teenagers you have to go, because we can’t support you any longer.” Grandma and Grandpa — Grandpa started out as a migrant farm worker in the wheat fields of South Dakota. They got together in Chicago, were domestic servants, and they heard about this place called “The Promised Land”. Buffalo, New York. Why are you laughing? But there were steel jobs there — Bethlehem Steel was hiring people.
And when Grandpa moved there — they started their family. Eight kids. My dad was the eldest. My dad worked at the steel plant. Grandpa was there, my uncles were there. And once people like my parents and grandparents could get that union card, that was their ticket to the middle class. So, my dad was actually able to leave the steel plant once he got a college degree at a Jesuit school — Canisius College — by night and he worked by day. So, they struggled. My parents lived in a trailer park that is still there. I visited it last weekend just to remind me of where my family comes from. My brother lived in a little tiny trailer. I came along — we’re Irish Catholics, so about a year later — probably nine months later, but who’s counting?
Many more followed me, including my sister. But we start out humbly, but really steeped in my religious tradition, which was: do unto others as you would have them do unto you. The teachings of Christ were very important to my parents and grandparents. On the walls of my grandparent’s home — it was a tiny little house — and they had a picture of the Pope in one area, and they had a picture of Jesus Christ on the wall, and then they had a picture of John Kennedy.
So, I thought that, like, the Pope and Jesus and John Kennedy were all just about the same importance. So, I think that’s the intersection of religion and politics for me. Seriously, as a child, I mean, we were taught to help others. Even though in my family, we used to buy our clothes at the used clothing store. Right, Sheila?
We didn’t have a lot, but my parents were always bundling up what we had, and we were taking it into the City of Buffalo to help others. So it was that sense of obligation to others that propelled me just as a teenager to volunteer. I used to take an hour bus ride — I’m sorry, teachers, I skipped some classes, study hall and lunch and everything.
Anyway, I bundled them together and I was a volunteer for the Democratic Party as a 15-year-old or a 16-year-old. And my parents were not politically active, but they were the social justice Catholics who were marching against the Vietnam War. I had to wear a black armband to protest the war as a kid, and I had uncles who were serving the military.
So, we have enormous respect for men and women in the military, but understanding it was a war that none of us supported and focusing on civil rights in terms of —you know — marching for justice. And I remember when Dr. King was assassinated where — I remember this like it was yesterday. It was a long time ago, but that’s still in my mind, the ideas of social justice and how it can be implemented through policy.
And so, I worked with Tim Russert, anybody remember Tim Russert? He was older than I was, but not by a lot. But I was that high school intern — he was out of college, and we all were working on Moynihan’s race in 76. So, I was hooked on politics as a child. And I never ever, ever dreamed I’d ever run for office myself. So that all changed 30 years ago, and there’s another story behind why I ran, but I suspect you want to know about other issues as well.
But I’m blessed. You know, I never forget where I come from. I never forget that people are still living in the trailer park. That that’s still there. The diner that I go to in Lackawanna, New York. It keeps you grounded and you realize you’re not better than anybody else and we’re just fortunate that the door opens to opportunities to serve.
Dan Porterfield, Aspen Institute President and CEO: Beautiful. So, let’s skip all the way forward to like a month ago. I do want to go back to New York State, but let’s just get right to national politics because you’re such a force in that way. The landscape really changed when President Biden made his announcement in the service of our country. And then everything changed and there was all this movement quickly around what will happen next. So take us through as an audience, your read on what’s changed over the past 35 days or so. And what do you sort of predict comes out of this kind of a change in the landscape?
Governor Hochul: Well, what changed is we have a new candidate for President on the Democratic side. And listen, I want to talk about Joe Biden for one minute. What a transformative figure in history. He was only in three and a half years. Three and a half years to be able to do what some thought would be impossible with a Republican House of Representatives.
Now, when I served in Congress, I won in the most Republican district in the State of New York. I never should have been there. I served in the minority under John Boehner. I lost my seat in Congress because I refused to vote against the Affordable Care Act because people in my impoverished Republican district needed health care. So, I’ve lived there. What I want to make sure we never forget is what he did in a short time to make people’s lives better. The infrastructure bills. We have the largest infrastructure project in American history going on with the Gateway Tunnel because of Joe Biden. We have the largest private investment in Micron. We’ll talk about that, but $100 billion invested in upstate New York.
So, he was an incredible, incredible leader that created thousands of jobs, and I want to just give him credit right now. He deserves to have the credit for what he did.
Kamala Harris, I know a little bit about being number two. I was Lieutenant Governor, number two in New York for eight years. Don’t underestimate what her knowledge base, the depth of her experience, the relationship she’s built all over the country when no one’s watching and around the world. That is priceless for her to be able to be in the position now to be our candidate and our future president.
We are so fortunate, and we give credit to Joe Biden for seeing the talent in her that was there. She’s an exceptional individual and I feel that she’s been liberated now. You see this joy and excitement and energy that’s contagious. So, Democrats who were just kind of in this space before, like, okay, well, I need a little more excitement. Like, first of all, we shouldn’t have to be inspired to go vote. We should just vote, right? You shouldn’t have to have someone that gets you all excited to vote. Just vote for Democrats.
But she’s brought something to the party, which is so important, which is a passion and we’re excited to see who she’s going to select as Vice President – a little more drama. Excited drumroll. I have relationships with all the Democratic governors. They’re extraordinary and I’m so glad to see that people are seeing the depth of the bench.
We have men and women – I’m telling you for the next multiple elections, we are going to have the deepest bench, the most talented people because a governor – I can’t say I’m biased toward a governor or senator, I was in the Congress. I’m biased for that as well, but a governor has to govern.
I mean, you can’t just say, I’ll vote on that someday. You’re dealing with crises. Pulling up here today, I find out there’s two police officers shot in the City of New York. I have to respond. I was traveling the other day, I found out tornadoes touched down in Rome, Upstate New York, damage all over, I travel up there. I have to deal with all the crises, you know, everything that happens.
So, I know that governors can handle anything. So, we’ll see who she picks. It’s going to be exciting. But boy, what an energetic time in our nation’s history and I’m excited about it and the House. Let’s talk about the House.
Dan Porterfield, Aspen Institute President and CEO: Let’s get there. I want to make it remind the audience. We’re, of course, a nonpartisan organization as you know.
Governor Hochul: But I’m not.
Dan Porterfield, Aspen Institute President and CEO: Yeah, that’s right. So, you be yourself. We are going to host in two weeks some Republican governors.
Governor Hochul: Have a good time.
Dan Porterfield, Aspen Institute President and CEO: They’re here. Well, you’re welcome to come. I would love to be the one moderator.
Governor Hochul: I would enjoy that too much.
Dan Porterfield, Aspen Institute President and CEO: So, what do you think is going to play out over the next hundred days? I want to get back to New York State in a second, but before that, the national level, what do you think is going to happen? Is it going to be chaos and combat?
Governor Hochul: No. The election comes down to a contrast, an extraordinary contrast. I mean, I’ll put it in terms that some of you may appreciate, perhaps not all. We have a prosecutor against a convicted felon, for example. I mean, that’s an extreme contrast, right?
You have someone who has fought for women’s rights, fights for women and someone who abuses women, right? So, that’s quite a contrast. You have someone who has uphold the principles of democracy throughout her career against someone who has attacked democracy and inspired people to literally attack our nation’s capital.
So, let’s just talk about a couple of those. I mean, those are pretty compelling differences that’ll be talked about. It will be chaotic. It’ll be a little bit crazy. There’ll be a lot of ads. People say crazy things like, you know, every hour by Donald Trump. Am I allowed to say this stuff or am I going to get in trouble?
Dan Porterfield, Aspen Institute President and CEO: Well, you can say anything you want. I can’t say those things.
Governor Hochul: You don’t have to shake your head in agreement.
Dan Porterfield, Aspen Institute President and CEO: I’ll just sit like a statue. You go ahead.
Governor Hochul: You can wink once in a while. But the contrast is going to be developed. We know it because obviously, I’m a Democratic official. But the voters will see it as the TV ads play out. So, we haven’t even seen really the depth of all the – well, you’re going to be bombarded, especially in our battleground states, the ones that are up for grabs now. And I think that’s going to be extraordinary.
I do hope there’s a debate. I hope that Donald Trump agrees to debate because he’s a little waffling on that right now. But if it turns out that she’s given a two-hour opportunity to sit on a stage by herself and say whatever she wants. I suspect she’ll show up, right? That’s usually pretty motivating.
I love this and I’ve been doing this my entire life. It’s a fascinating process to elect our president, but I think there’s going to be more people interested, tuning in, engaging in the political process because we’ve had apathy in our country. Apathy is what gets you to where we are today and what we got in 2016. People need to start caring again about their country and its future, not just for themselves, but their kids and their kids. This is what’s on the line.
Dan Porterfield, Aspen Institute President and CEO: So, let’s talk about the House of Representatives. The congressional elections, where New York is a real battleground state. And I think the House is up for grabs, probably. And are you playing a role in that, and do you have any hopes for how the Democrats in New York State approach the election?
Governor Hochul: I’m playing an enormous role, and here’s why. The path for Hakeem Jeffries to become the next Speaker of the House of Representatives goes right through New York, Long Island, up the Hudson Valley, slide over to Syracuse. Those are our six seats where if we can win them, we can win the majority of them.
Anybody from California? All right, you’ve got some work to do too. We need to pick up a few more seats in California, but we have the path. The path is crystal clear. And what I’m so excited about is the energy that I’m seeing in New York State. Now, those of you who think that New York is a bright blue, forever blue state, I got a newsflash for you.
Okay? I have the most Republican district in the State of New York. Donald Trump won my district by about 20 points, and that’s a lot of Upstate. Look at Long Island. Long Island has changed dramatically. We have Republican county executives on Long Island. The Hudson Valley’s up for grabs. So, don’t take it for granted. It’s not all Manhattan and Brooklyn, I just want to be really clear.
And I know that Upstate area because that’s me. I know how to win in those areas. It’s about showing up at the diners and the farms and the VFW posts and talking about issues that affect seniors and families and just try to be moderate. And so, I’m raising money to the state party. I’ve opened 35 battleground offices. I’ve hired over a hundred people and I’m just getting started. So, I’m using the state party as the vehicle to make sure that we are victorious. This is a lot of effort on my part, governors don’t usually do this, they don’t usually pay attention unless they’re on the ballot, and I’m not on the ballot, but democracy’s on the ballot.
Dan Porterfield, Aspen Institute President and CEO: In some ways – I don’t want to call it attention – but it’s like there’s two parts of your brain, because you’re the Governor for everybody. And we’re in election season, so you’re a Democrat. And you said, be moderate in that last answer. And I think that’s so interesting, because within the Democratic Party, there’s not one perspective, there’s multiple. And do you have any thoughts about that, the sort of left oriented part of the party, the more centrist oriented part, and is it possible for those two parts to work together?
Governor Hochul: Yes, it is, and it must. And I also believe we’ll be pulling in independents, and I believe we’ll pull in a certain share of Republican women.
I mean, there used to be something called a Rockefeller Republican in the State of New York – governor for 16 years. How do you get elected as a governor in the State of New York for 16 years? Because you’re in the middle, you’re more moderate. He was very progressive on environmental issues, for example.
And so, there’s a path. I don’t write off anybody. I want to be clear about that. I represent every single person who proudly bears the name of a New Yorker. And again, I got elected by a majority of Republicans. I would never have made my way to Congress. I did that by talking about Medicare, Social Security, health care.
So there is a path to do it. I don’t want to ever separate anyone from this coalition that I believe is focused on the future that will end up voting a majority for our congressional races and for, clearly for President Harris, soon to be President Harris. So, but I am a moderate, and I also believe that the majority of New Yorkers are moderate.
Now what does that mean? I want safe streets, public safety is important – the subway has to be safe. We support creating jobs and infrastructure and in technology and workforce development programs and investing in education because we now have tuition assistance for part time students that opened up the door for thousands. These to me are just moderate American positions and they really can’t be labeled. But we’re not extreme. I’m not extreme. I believe that there’s ideas from the far left that I will entertain and process and listen to. But all I know is like I don’t want to drive businesses out of my state. I want to welcome them. I want people who are successful to feel welcome – this is their state and not drive people away because they think our policies are too far to the left.
Dan Porterfield, Aspen Institute President and CEO: Yeah, thank you. So let’s turn to the state a bit and cover a, you know, sweep of issues and the first one I would like to ask you about has to do with families. Your reputation, and your record has been to really be thinking about needs through the lens of the family. I think you gave us an insight into that with your opening answer. And is that right? And why should the emphasis, why is the emphasis on family important for public figures who are trying to pull people together around policies that will make a difference?
Governor Hochul: Because it transcends politics, number one. Regardless of your party, you came from a family, you may have a family, you may want a family someday. And what we can do to make New York a family friendly place – we’re taking on things that no other State has done.
I signed into law to ensure that we focus on giving time off for women to get prenatal treatment. Not just paid family leave, which we have very generous in the State, but think about infant and maternal mortality. The numbers are too high in the State of New York, especially in some of our boroughs in the city. So what do we do? A lot of these women are low wage earners. If they leave their job to go to that doctor appointment for the monthly testing, they’re not bringing home money for their other children. That’s a real person that affects families.
I said to every employer, you’re going to provide this so they have that help they need. Just two days ago, a couple days ago, we announced that every family of four earning $108,000 or less will not have to stress about the cost of child care like I did when I worked for Senator Moynihan and had to leave my job because I couldn’t find child care. I had to leave, there was no, nothing available to me. And also, right now it’s $350 for child care. A family of four, $108,000, it’s $15 a week. It’s all you’re going to pay is $15 a week. Moms can get back to work in the State of New York. So those are just two examples, about taking care of our kids.
And then I worry about the mental health of our kids. And that’s a whole nother topic of what I’ve seen happen to our young people and why we’re focusing on social media legislation.
Dan Porterfield, Aspen Institute President and CEO: I want to follow up on that. We were so fortunate to have the U.S. Surgeon General Vivek Murthy here during Ideas Festival. He came out with the idea that there should be a warning label on some social media products. I know you’ve been thinking about that a lot. And is there some way to put more power in the hands of parents and other caring adults to help steer their children through these difficult times? Say a little more about how you’ve been thinking about social media and the mental health crisis.
Governor Hochul: Well I’ve been doing more than thinking about it. We’ve got legislation passed that no other State has accomplished. So let me talk about that. When I first became Governor in the end of 2021, the pandemic was still, you know, it was still very much in existence in New York State. We had Omicron. We had a lot of people still isolated. We had young people working from home. I started doing a tour around the State to talk to young people about mental health. What were they feeling?
What was going on? My throat is a little sore here – might be the altitude. I’m not used to this.
I was doing roundtables with teenagers and saying, you know, we’re just coming through the pandemic, how are you feeling? Are you doing alright? And the answers I was getting were stunning to me. While adults had moved on from the pandemic – last year, this year, the year before. Young people have not. I mean, this was a significant percentage of their young lives, whether you were a 6th grader or a 12th grader. You lost all those connections to kids, students, teachers, your support system. And a lot of young people turned to social media, right? That was the substitute for human connection.
And what happened at the same time, social media companies figured out they could have addictive algorithm feeds bombarding your kids based on information they collected from them, and they sell this information by the way. They’re selling information about your children to other customers. So, we stopped that. I said, “I’ve heard enough from these young people. They just need our help.”
And I’ve also talked about banning cell phones from schools to make sure that we can say, you’re there to learn, not there to talk to friends all day, and actually stop looking down during lunch and classes and study hall and look in the eyes of someone else.
I want to have fully functioning adults emerge from education. So, the legislation I just signed into law says that companies are not allowed to bombard young people with these addictive algorithms. Parents can turn it off as well as see what their kids are doing. So, no one else has done that – obviously, we’re getting criticized by a lot of people. We’re a pro-tech state, but I also said I know that the CEOs of these companies will not let their kids do what’s happening to our kids right now. And let’s just admit that right now and solve this problem together.
Dan Porterfield, Aspen Institute President and CEO: One of your initiatives I was reading was the “Get offline, Get outside.” What’s that about?
Governor Hochul: Just again, it’s just getting parents to start thinking about their kids as kids again. I want to go back to that time and it sounds a little old-fashioned, but after school you played kickball, you played tag, you hung out with your friends. You weren’t going to your basement just doing this all day, staring at your phone. So, we just started this whole campaign and launched it at a swimming pool in Upper Manhattan a couple weeks ago. Get offline, get outside. Be kids again. Go outside and play. Walk in a park. Do something.
And parents, just focus on your kid’s mental health because you may not know this – no one wants anything bad to happen to their kids. I’m the first mom Governor of New York, and this is serious for me. But, they may not be aware of how negative this is, how detrimental this is to their mental health and their ability to merge into a fully functioning adult, but also, our job is not to raise kids. Our job is to raise adults. Let’s focus on that so our employers have people who can work in collaboration with others. They’re not isolated, that they are much better off than we’re seeing young people today. And I want to take that head on. I’m leaning hard on this and parents are so appreciative that someone is doing something to look out for their kids’ mental health.
Dan Porterfield, Aspen Institute President and CEO: You know one of the things we learned a little bit about— the Aspen Institute, we do a lot of work on non partisan problem solving and most of our operations in Washington D.C or around the country in community working on these issues – there’s a group that’s going to try to buy TikTok and turn it into a public good and completely remake the algorithm. They’re climbing uphill, of course, to be able to do that, but the idea to be to actually take over the company and make it so that the part that’s addictive and the algorithms that feed the worst instincts or the worst insecurities of us can be managed, possibly even by a citizen group, who would then be responsible for oversight of the content. And for also validating influencers.
Governor Hochul: Why doesn’t the Aspen Institute take it over?
Dan Porterfield, Aspen Institute President and CEO: Yeah. There you go.
Governor Hochul: Let’s have a collection right now and let’s –
I mean, this is, this is where kids are getting their information from. We’re also launching media literacy classes in New York because young people think that this is – even adults – they think that the feeds are coming to them that is the legitimate truth. That is the news.
The days of Walter Cronkite, and that’s, anybody remember that? You’re all too young, you’re all too young, I know you are. But, there was legitimacy, you believed it, you trusted. And we don’t have that now, everybody tunes into what, you know, something that reinforces their own values and their own beliefs. And we’re not getting honest discourse.
Young people are getting their news from TikTok and that’s the worst place to get it. The worst place.
Dan Porterfield, Aspen Institute President and CEO: So, if we can buy it, I’ll be back in touch.
Governor Hochul: All right. All right. Let’s do it. We’ll have the headquarters in Manhattan.
Dan Porterfield, Aspen Institute President and CEO: Yeah. Something that’s interesting too is that you also are not anti-AI or anti-tech. In fact, I think you see AI and Empire AI as part of the sort of future for the State. And how so? How are you thinking about that part of the tech?
Governor Hochul: They’re not exclusive, you know, New York State has become the number one tech job generator in the nation. Sorry, Silicon Valley, it’s not you anymore – it’s us. And so, people are flocking to New York City for tens of thousands of tech jobs. I embrace this. This is exciting to me.
But I said in my State of the State address just last January, “Whoever owns this chapter of artificial intelligence will hold the future in their hands.” And I said, “I want New York State to have that future.”
So, what I did in my Budget, I allocated $275 million working with a consortium of private sector companies and universities who all kicked in. We have $400 million and we are right now building the nation’s largest supercomputer dedicated to artificial intelligence, keeping it in responsible hands – the largest one outside of privately held companies.
So, our state universities, Cornell and NYU and a number of others, they are paying for the privilege of having access to this information that is going to help change society; solve society’s problems. Responsible AI is the way we need to go. It’ll create jobs, but also, I want problems solved.
And one of the ways I could solve this – there was a young woman of color working on her Ph.D., and she was using AI to solve some of society’s problems related to foster care. And she – when I introduced her to our State Legislature, because normally they’re saying, “Well, we don’t know if we want to do this,” she had them at “hello.”
I mean, she was showing what this can look like, what we can be doing with this power, and New York is the first – and a lot of other states are going to be second, third, and fourth, but we’re going to own this chapter.
It’s being built at the University at Buffalo. Why? Because we have the capacity there. Also, power is less expensive there, so that will be driving all this across the state of New York. So it’s a whole new era for us.
Dan Porterfield, Aspen Institute President and CEO: And I think some people don’t realize how powerful the higher-ed – the community college and four-year college state systems are in New York. It’s an enormous system as well as the city university system in New York City. There’s a lot of researchers, a lot of access to education.
You don’t see AI as putting people out of work? You see it is creating new jobs that people will then retrain themselves to hold?
Governor Hochul: We will find the path. I mean, think about all the emerging technologies throughout our history. You go back to the manufacturer of the buggy whip, we’ve had to make changes and we adapt.
And what you do now is you identify the, perhaps, at-risk industries and businesses and start seeing either how AI can support them or start transitioning. Like when Bethlehem Steel Plant closed down and we lost 20,000 jobs in Buffalo, went overseas, no one had anything at the time, but then you had to retrain the workers into other fields.
So, now we’re doing more advanced manufacturing in a place like Buffalo; a place like Syracuse, which again, had legacy industries. Had Carrier Corporation, air conditioning, GE – they’re all gone, or just a shadow of their former selves. That’s going to be the home of the largest manufacturer of semiconductors in our country. Micron is coming to Syracuse. There’s a whole story behind that.
Dan Porterfield, Aspen Institute President and CEO: Let’s get to that because you’re the one that needed to make the case for that investment to be made. And so who are you making the case to and what was your case?
Governor Hochul: Well, first of all, President Biden and Chuck Schumer, Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, worked on getting the legislation through for the CHIPS and Science Act. So, they had to create an incentive that companies would say, “It’s more worth my while, it’s more advantageous to either bring the businesses home from mostly South Asia or to expand here in the States.” So, that gave the United States an advantage, number one.
But what gives New York State an advantage? Because companies like Micron that were looking to expand, they could go anywhere. They were being heavily recruited by other states. So I had to go to my Legislature and say, “This is what’s on the line. I need $10 billion to have on the table, not just for one company, but available that we would pay out for every job that’s created, after jobs are created.”
So, you don’t give the money on the front end and hope it works out. You say, “After you’ve created the jobs, we’ll give you this tax incentive.” But it was more than just that. The CEO of Micron came to Syracuse, it was January, I was a brand new Governor. Snowstorm. My staff was trying to discourage me from getting on a tiny plane to fly there and meet him. I went anyhow because I’m used to snow, I can handle it.
And I was supposed to meet him for about 15 minutes, maybe half an hour, it ended up being a three hour dinner. And I was able to sell him on everything from the work ethic of New Yorkers, how there’s this legacy of people going to a business and staying there in their entire lives, like Upstate manufacturing. I also talked about how we have the most talented workforce because we have such higher education institutions. We had everything from Cornell and Syracuse University, University at Buffalo.
We had all of them available. They said we would need 9,000 engineers. I said, “Sure, no problem.” I need some more engineers. I need engineers. So, I promised that. But I also just talked about the quality of life in Upstate. I said it’s simple. I mean, if someone has a 20 minute commute, they won’t do it. I mean, we’re building houses. It’s simple. The attractions are gorgeous. We have the Adirondack Mountains. We have the Finger Lakes. We have all these amazing –
So, I just became the salesperson. I would not stop. And when it got complicated, like the cost was going to be higher here because we use unionized labor, I wanted to create union jobs, I asked the head of the labor union, I said, “Would you like to have your workers working for the next 20 years? It’s a 20-year project to build out these four fabs for manufacturing, or you want them to leave? You need to give a little bit. You need to compromise.” And they got the job done.
So, they’re constructing it right now. And one of the first things we talked about though is how they have to give back to the community. And this is what I’m doing as we create incentives for businesses. We need to have you find local workers there. They started recruiting people to work at Micron in the inner city, some of the underserved neighborhoods, the areas where kids have no role models of anybody working, maybe not even going to college. They started recruiting there. They’re already training them.
We changed the curriculum of the schools in the nine counties to focus on STEM earlier so the workforce in that area will have an advantage to get those jobs. I said, “You need to have child care. Can I go back to my – having to leave a job I loved because of no child care?” They’re right now building an on-site daycare center, child care center for their workers. Okay, this is what you do. And it’s all sustainable LED, it’s all focusing on sustainability and environmental protection as well.
So, you can get that from a company. And I’m getting 50,000 jobs in Upstate New York and $100 billion of investment. That’s a good win any day of the week.
Dan Porterfield, Aspen Institute President and CEO: So, I feel like this is like a deeply competitive moment when you did this and it took, obviously, a tremendous amount. Did you have any in-state issues to negotiate, and did you perceive yourself competing directly against another state?
Governor Hochul: Oh, yeah. I’m very competitive. Whether it’s football or businesses, no, I don’t lose.
Dan Porterfield, Aspen Institute President and CEO: In state, obviously nobody else got a $100 billion deal. And and of course jobs, but also national security. There’s so many things bound up in this. Did you have to talk people besides the unions into it in New York State or were people like, “No, go. Governor. Go.
Governor Hochul: No, they were saying they’re – if you come from Upstate New York like I do, you feel that you’ve been often neglected because the focus was on the epicenter of the state, which is New York City, right?
We love New York City. It’s the powerhouse. It’s an economic driver. But there’s a lot of places – I mean, half the population does not live in the New York City metropolitan area. And I knew that sense of disbelief because we’ve been promised before.
You know, things got bad in the 70s and 80s and 90s, and it never fully came back. So, I had – people just had to believe again. And the psychology of this community, Syracuse particularly, you go to Syracuse, people’s smiles – they have a little more of a lift in their step. They believe in themselves again because this huge company validated that they’re a place that matters. That’s why I get so excited about bringing businesses to the State of New York.
I can sell them. I can sell them on this. I’ll give them what they need. I’ll make it worth their while. But the communities are starting to say, “You know what? We are important.” 50,000 jobs, whether they’re tech jobs, whether they’re construction jobs, it’s a game changer. It is. And the supply chain opportunities: then I had to get on the phone and start calling companies around the world to recruit them to be in New York State to create the supply chain pipeline. And I did that as well. We had one company out of England, I remember calling them, they’ve invested $600 million in Batavia. Who knows where Batavia is? Thank you. It’s a little tiny community of 50,000 between Buffalo and Rochester. They’re now going to be home to this company.
So, that’s the potential. The only thing I have to do now? I have to build more housing. I have to get more housing, because people want to be there. And this is an area that I took on as Governor that people didn’t touch for 50 years because this is a contentious one. This is the third rail, telling communities they need to build more housing. But we will fall behind if we don’t build more housing, and I don’t mind leaning hard into that.
Dan Porterfield, Aspen Institute President and CEO: So, I want to ask you about sort of, in the spirit of ‘all politics is local,’ a couple of those harder issues. And I’ll just say them and you can address them any way you want.
One is housing, the second is public safety and the third is congestion pricing. I don’t know what order to address them in, but they’re all intense issues.
Governor Hochul: Yeah, no, they’re intense. They’re intense. I put out an ambitious housing plan two years ago, people weren’t ready for it, but I started the conversation. The New York Times even said that I’m the first Governor in 50 years to take on housing. But it’s contentious. People don’t want to build. There’s a strong sense of NIMBY – Like, you know, “Oh, that sounds good over there.”
People are terribly afraid of multifamily housing, “Oh my gosh. People might move into my community.” Yeah, that’s the whole idea. We want people to have a place. We want your kids to be able to have a home in the neighborhoods they grew up in. We want senior citizens to be able to have a place to downsize to. We want our police and firefighters and teachers to be able to afford to live in the communities where they work. And that’s not what’s been happening.
We didn’t have the ambition to be aggressive about building more housing. So, I introduced the topic, got a couple of wins but not where I want to go, And a lot of people said “Well, Hochul is done with that one.” Except I brought it back. And we won this time.
I mean this past session I structured the most complicated deals I’ve ever done. Crime was easy compared to this housing deal. But we had to focus on New York City, working with the Mayor to overcome the barriers — I mean, why is there such a problem even converting empty office space into housing?
I mean think about the potential in Midtown when buildings aren’t filled up again, because of people working remotely or partially working remotely. So we took it on, we won. It’s going to take a little while to see the results, but at least something happened. So that’s another one of those issues that people walk away from because they’re tough. But I somehow lean into them and we’re successful over time.
Dan Porterfield, Aspen Institute President and CEO: In this audience, there’s a huge concern about affordable housing here. And we’re going to learn from you, I hope — and learn from Denver and a few other places. But we actually have momentum here, too, to start to create new housing so that teachers and firefighters and non-profit people can afford to live here.
Governor Hochul: That’s right, that’s right. It can’t be an exclusive enclave because you want to have, I mean — I’m not referring here, I’m just talking about anywhere in the country — because you want that diversity. This is where your workers live, we have beautiful places for hospitality. I mean the Adirondacks are gorgeous, but no one can afford to live up there. Who’s going to work in the hotels in the restaurants? So, they’ve had to shut down some of them. That is sad. I have 460,000 open jobs in the state of New York. I just need more housing to catch up with that.
The second one was crime. Crime was going off the charts. I was watching the data when I became Governor — it was going way up. Way, way up. I can tell you this after working very intentionally with my team, the Mayor, the legislature — pushing people to do things that they did not want to do. I’ve had to hold up the budget of the state legislature two years in a row.
I held it up for a month because — that’s when I have the most leverage. And we got everybody to work together toward a plan to bring more crimes under the bail laws, give more penalties for crimes related to everything from carjackings — we gave more resources to police officers all over the state of New York.
And I’m really proud to say that, for example, the homicide rate is the lowest it’s been in 50 years in the State of New York. Lowest. We’re the lowest homicide rate of the largest states.
So, everybody thinks that, “Oh my gosh, you’re gonna get killed walking down the streets.” Even the subways. We’ve had some horrific crimes on the subways, but let me say this — we have 4 million people take the subway every single day. That’s 4 million. That’s the population of Los Angeles. We have 4 to 6, maybe 7 sometimes, incidences of crime on the subway. Now, if Los Angeles had 4 to 6 crimes a day — you’d think it was pretty safe, right?
I had my cops, camera, and care. I added more police. I supported paying the overtime for the NYPD to help more police there. I added the National Guard down there as a deterrent. I put care means to get support for the homeless who are there. Get them out, we have 500 who are long term homeless in the subway stations, now in supportive housing. And cameras on all the trains will be done by the end of this year. That’s how you start changing the psychology around crime.
Because the data’s there, but people don’t feel it yet. And until they do, we have not been successful.
Dan Porterfield, Aspen Institute President and CEO: We are seeing that trend in a number of places over the past couple years — as governors and mayors have really leaned in on this issue. You said that it was hard at first because there were some that weren’t sure they wanted to focus on this; and was it adding police or was it the cameras? What was it that was the resistance?
Governor Hochul: There’s been an evolution in attitudes, which is important. But, there was a time when saying that you support the police — remember the defund police movement? I don’t think anybody talks like that anymore.
I think they realize that we have to support law enforcement because they’re the foundation of our security. But that doesn’t mean that you have to tolerate police officers who go too far. We need criminal justice reforms too. So we’ve demonstrated in New York State, they’re not mutually exclusive. They’re not. And I want to make sure people understand that. And I want to make sure people feel safe. You have to feel safe; but also, we have to protect people as well.
Dan Porterfield, Aspen Institute President and CEO: What does it take to be a Governor and to work with the Mayor? In this case it’s the state of New York City. You’ve got the Mayor of New York City. That’s where a lot of the attention is on these issues — do you create a way of working together, is it task forces? Or is it like, you know, intensive moments together where you say we’ve got to team up here and do better?
Governor Hochul: This is unprecedented. Let me just say New Yorkers know the history of governors and mayors. It’s like this, right? I mean, we usually have tightened egos and everybody’s trying to fight for the press — or the mayor’s going to do a press conference at 10, you know, I’m going to do mine at 9:30.
It’s like, it’s always been about getting the credit. I represent New York City residents just like the Mayor does. I care about them the way the Mayor does. Right from the get go as I became governor, I said, “I’m going to govern differently. I’ll be successful. I’ll be even more successful.” But I don’t have to have hand to hand combat just to get me in the headlines that I’m at war with somebody. And so, I’ll pick my fights, I know how to win — but you don’t see a lot of that. I work with the legislature, we get things done, we don’t need to be at war.
But the Mayor is a unique individual. The mayor and I are philosophically aligned on many issues. Public safety, protecting ours — making sure our subways are safe. A lot of issues, like yesterday we did a press conference together. Shared the credit for the fact that there’s now 1,000 fewer illegal cannabis shops in the streets of New York because the Mayor and I worked together on this. We’re working on the migrant crisis together.
Look how much better New York City is when you have a Governor who gives the resources to support, stands next to you and gets it done. So I hope we have a new era of collaboration that wasn’t there before. It’s unusual, people are still wondering when the honeymoon’s gonna be over.
I’ll be married 40 years this summer. I like long honeymoons. So, this one’s gonna last. The mayor and I will keep working together.
Dan Porterfield, Aspen Institute President and CEO: And I think everybody who follows it knows that your respective predecessors did not seem to work that well together. And it’s quite a credit to both of you. What about the congestion pricing issue?
Governor Hochul: Here’s what happened. Congestion pricing had been written into law back in 2019. I want to point out a few things that have changed.
First of all, no one talked about the cost of living back then. Inflation was not a factor for families, it wasn’t. We have high inflation now.
People in the city of New York, many of them, are struggling. And the cost of $15 dollars starting right out of the block to be able to drive into the city, or come in from the suburbs of New York City — that’s almost $4,000 dollars a year if you work five days a week. So, our firefighters, our police officers, our teachers, our hospital workers — as the date got closer to implementing this June 30th, the anxiety level started getting higher.
I’m watching the debt, I’m seeing inflation still high. I’m looking at the fact that remote work was not even an option when it was first entertained. People now are, we’re trying to get them to come back to the city. They may just say, “You know what employer? Unless you’re gonna pay me four thousand dollars more a year — I’m not coming in.”
So, it was not the right price at the right time at this moment. I really believe that. But I didn’t end it, I paused it because I do believe in it. I want to focus on congestion in the city and we’ll get that done. I want to continue funding the MTA. And I’m the person who one year ago bailed out the MTA when it was going over the fiscal cliff. So you cannot question my commitment to the MTA today, but also in the future.
Major projects like the 2nd Avenue Subway, I just allocated $54 million dollars to keep that on track. I said, “Give us a little breathing room. Let New Yorkers and people coming into New York, especially from the suburbs, know that someone’s listening to them.” And that’s kind of rare these days. I took that on.
People are questioning it. I’m okay with that. I get questioned all the time. But I really believe to my core that $15 dollars right now is too much to start.
London, which everyone uses as their role model — started at 5 pounds and over many years worked up to 15 pounds. They excluded their theater district. I’ll tell you, Broadway, and Times Square and the businesses in the city are scared to death of this. That people will see this and say, “I’m not coming in. I’m going to spend my entertainment dollars.” I could not do anything that would hurt the recovery at this time and hurt working New Yorkers who are struggling anymore. And that’s why there’s a temporary pause.
Dan Porterfield, Aspen Institute President and CEO: This is what governors get elected to do: Make extremely difficult decisions and trade with the trade offs.
You use the word pause. Do you have a sense of when it might unpause? And I realize you aren’t going to make news in this interview, but people are probably wondering.
Governor Hochul: I needed to do something at that moment. I’m working with the MTA. And the other thing that the MTA is, they’re about to show me their next five year capital plan. People don’t think we’re investing in the MTA — we had a $55 billion dollar capital, $34 billion already spent.
This was to fund the rest of it. And now there’s another one which is going to be even higher that we’ll find the funding sources for. We will have to do this. It is the lifeline of New York City and the whole downstate area. It is essential to our existence to have a fully functioning Long Island Railroad, Metro North — and the subway as well as the buses.
I will continue to make that happen. So, pause is a pause until I say it’s not a pause. And we’re working on it. I’m working with a lot of people on that. I’m not being facetious. But we need some more time to structure. The legislature has to come back and find a solution.
And we’ve got to be able to get another source of funding for at least partially. So we’ve got to work all that out, but the legislature is an important partner. And I’ve been having a conversation with the leaders as well.
Dan Porterfield, Aspen Institute President and CEO: So, we’ve covered a lot of topics. Thank you for letting me have free rein here from housing to transportation, to national politics, to family — to your own story.
August 2 2024
Sources: Midtown Tribune news, NY.gov