Kathy Hochul, who is the first woman to serve as New York’s governor, has vowed to usher in a new era of civility and consensus in state government.
ALBANY, N.Y. — Kathleen C. Hochul became the first woman to ascend to New York’s highest office on Tuesday, vowing to usher in an era of civility and consensus in government, following the decade-long reign of her disgraced predecessor, Andrew M. Cuomo.
In her first address as the state’s 57th governor, Ms. Hochul spoke broadly of confronting New York’s most pressing needs. She portrayed herself as an executive leader who has been grounded by her upbringing in Buffalo, and influenced by her interactions with New Yorkers affected by a weakened economy, the opioid crisis and the coronavirus pandemic.
“I’ve been in the trenches with local health leaders and officials battling the pandemic day after day after day,” Ms. Hochul, a former congresswoman, said in an 11-minute speech. “Your priorities are my priorities, and right now, that means fighting the Delta variant.”
The new governor was sworn in at the State Capitol at 10 a.m., a ceremonial event that followed an official swearing-in at a private ceremony just after midnight. Her ascension capped a whirlwind chain of events that followed a series of sexual harassment allegations that culminated with Mr. Cuomo’s resignation.
Ms. Hochul said that her immediate goal was to ensure a safe transition back to school next month, and said she would direct the Health Department to create a statewide policy requiring “universal masking for anyone entering our schools.” She said that school workers should be required to get the vaccine or be subject to weekly testing, though she later conceded she did not have the executive power to mandate such a requirement.
Ms. Hochul, 62, also said that she expected to implement new statewide vaccine requirements, now that the Pfizer vaccine has full federal approval, and added that she was considering reopening mass vaccination sites to administer booster shots.
“I want people to believe in their government again,” Ms. Hochul, a Democrat, said during a brief news conference shortly after she was sworn in by the state’s chief judge, Janet DiFiore. Addressing the Democratic legislative leaders in attendance, the new governor declared she was intent on “changing the culture of Albany” and pursuing “a fresh collaborative approach.”
The ceremony, held in the ornate Red Room on the second floor of the Capitol, was dotted with subtle nods to the barrier-breaking nature of Ms. Hochul’s ascension.
In honor of the women’s suffrage movement, Ms. Hochul wore an all-white dress, as did her daughter, Katie, and her daughter-in-law. Judge DiFiore donned robes worn by the first woman to serve as a judge on the state Court of Appeals, Judith Kaye, Ms. Hochul noted. And the governor called on female reporters to ask the first three questions at the news conference.
Joined by members of her immediate family, including her husband and her son, Ms. Hochul described her ascension to the governorship as “an emotional moment for me,” and noted the absence of her late mother — a portrait of whom she has already placed on her new desk.
She pointed to a well-known speech by Theodore Roosevelt, who was governor at the turn of the 20th century, as one of her favorite inspirations; the speech mentions how “credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood.”
“Today, for the first time in New York history, a woman will enter that arena as governor,” Ms. Hochul said during her address, adding that she was “willing to be bloodied and marred in the pursuit of doing what’s right for the people of this great state.”
Ms. Hochul assumes office three weeks after a state attorney general investigation concluded that Mr. Cuomo sexually harassed multiple women, allegations he vehemently denied while casting the report as politically motivated. A week later, Mr. Cuomo announced his resignation, bringing his 10-year reign to an abrupt end after rising to national fame during the pandemic last year.
She pointedly did not mention Mr. Cuomo by name on Tuesday, but said she was directing “an overhaul” of state government policies on sexual harassment and ethics, “starting with requiring that all training be done live, instead of allowing people to click their way through a class.”
Even when mentioning the state motto, she avoided the Latin word, “excelsior,” which Mr. Cuomo was fond of repeating. She instead used the translation: ever upward, saying, “It’s who we are and where we’re going.”
Indeed, Mayor Bill de Blasio of New York City and many members of the State Legislature have welcomed Ms. Hochul’s rise with a sigh of relief after years of feuding with Mr. Cuomo, whose ruthless governing style and overbearing presence led many members of his party to work with him out of intimidation, rather than good will.
Ms. Hochul vowed to move with urgency on various pressing issues, from working with lawmakers to strengthen an eviction moratorium that expires later this month to deciding whom to retain from Mr. Cuomo’s cabinet. She is still recruiting her top staff — she announced her top aide and legal counsel on Monday — and will announce her selection for lieutenant governor later this week.
In an interview with The New York Times, Ms. Hochul said she has decided on a lieutenant governor, but would not reveal her choice yet. She has said her second-in-command will hail from New York City, and she was considering several elected officials of color.
Ms. Hochul, who said she had spoken with President Biden on Monday night, characterized herself as a Biden Democrat; indeed, like the president, she has largely been a centrist who has moved leftward with the party.
But how she defines herself in fulfilling the remainder of Mr. Cuomo’s term may rely more on her contrast to his leadership style. In acting decisively to curb the spread of the virus, she will have to determine how much to veer from Mr. Cuomo’s pandemic response, which local government leaders have often criticized for its lack of communication and coordination.
Ms. Hochul said in the interview that she wanted to empower local officials with clear guidance crafted by public health experts, adding that “if there’s any shortcomings, I’ll fill in with state resources.”
“But let them be liberated to do what they do best,” Ms. Hochul said. “That’s a shift in philosophy.”
Among other things, Ms. Hochul will have to restore trust among public health experts, especially at the state Health Department, where some senior executives felt betrayed by the Cuomo administration’s attempt to downplay the number of nursing home deaths during the pandemic.
Ms. Hochul unveiled other policy priorities she planned to address in her first days in office. That included streamlining stalled aid to struggling renters, as well as to undocumented immigrants who did not qualify for federal help. She said she would recruit more staff to process applications and identify barriers.
“I am not at all satisfied with the pace of this Covid relief getting out the door,” she said. “I want the money out now. I want it out, with no more excuses and delays.”
Ms. Hochul’s remarks were well received by the New York State United Teachers — a statewide teachers’ union that has expressed opposition to vaccine mandates on school employees — which said it agreed with Ms. Hochul’s universal mask mandate and support for a vaccine-or-test requirement in schools.
In her 14-year trajectory from county clerk to congresswoman to the upper echelons of state government, Ms. Hochul has stood out for her affable personality, deftness in retail politicking and demanding travel schedule: She has made a point of visiting each of New York’s 62 counties. Yet she is mostly an unknown quantity to most New Yorkers — a fact she acknowledged during her address — having worked under Mr. Cuomo’s shadow during her nearly seven years as lieutenant governor.
Ms. Hochul has already used her lack of a close relationship with Mr. Cuomo as a way to distance herself from the former governor and the overlapping scandals that engulfed his administration. As she introduces herself to most voters, she has sought to differentiate her leadership style, promising transparency, a more collaborative approach to governing, and a transformation of the governor’s workplace, which was described in the attorney general report as toxic and hostile.
On Tuesday morning, Ms. Hochul had her first meeting as governor with Andrea Stewart-Cousins, the majority leader in the State Senate, and Carl E. Heastie, the speaker of the State Assembly.
Ms. Hochul is the first woman to become governor of New York after nearly 250 years of male predecessors and the 10th governor to succeed from lieutenant governor. Ms. Hochul is also the first governor from outside New York City and its immediate suburbs since Franklin D. Roosevelt left office in 1932.
A graduate of Syracuse University and Catholic University, where she obtained her law degree, Ms. Hochul got her start in politics by working as a staffer on Capitol Hill and the State Assembly. She served 14 years on the Hamburg Town Board and, in 2007, was appointed Erie County clerk, where she made headlines for opposing Gov. Eliot Spitzer’s plan to issue driver’s licenses to undocumented immigrants.
In 2011, she was elected to Congress after winning a special election to replace Representative Christopher Lee, a Republican who represented one of the state’s most conservative districts and resigned after it emerged he had solicited a woman through Craigslist. The district became even more conservative after redistricting, and she lost her re-election bid the following year to Chris Collins, a Republican and early endorser of Donald J. Trump.
In 2014, Mr. Cuomo picked Ms. Hochul as his running mate as he sought to strengthen his ticket with a woman from outside New York City. She was re-elected to the post in 2018.
Ms. Hochul, who is married to Bill Hochul, a former top federal prosecutor and an executive at a hospitality and gambling company, will not immediately move into the Executive Mansion in Albany full time, but instead split her time between Buffalo and the capital.
And she has already made it clear that her future plans include an election campaign. Ms. Hochul has said that she will run for governor next year, betting that the advantage of incumbency and her work over the next few months will propel her in what is anticipated to be a competitive Democratic primary.
“It is our time to unleash the power of New York’s women,” Ms. Hochul declared on Tuesday. “And make sure that any barriers to success and opportunity are eradicated, once and for all.”
Katie Glueck contributed reporting.
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