ALBANY – Gov. Kathy Hochul’s “State of the State” agenda for 2026 will embrace new insurance policies barring ICE at “delicate areas,” permitting upstate cities to check autonomous autos, a brand new downstate semiconductor chip design heart and one other tuition freeze for CUNY and SUNY faculties, The Publish has discovered.
In her fifth “State of the State” handle Tuesday, the upstate Democrat will attempt to strike a fragile steadiness between supporting Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s Democratic socialist imaginative and prescient for New York Metropolis whereas not isolating average and unbiased voters she must safe reelection this November.
Based on draft notes of Hochul’s presentation shared with The Publish, she may also push a “Let Them Construct” agenda to make “widespread sense reforms” to native growth processes, implement 25-foot protest-free buffer zones round homes of worship and abortion clinics, increase little one take care of New York Metropolis 2-year-olds, crack down on bogus automotive insurance coverage scams, pay to maintain cops on in a single day subway trains and arrange 4 new quantum computing hubs throughout the state.
Prime highlights of Hochul’s State of the State agenda embrace:
Immigration:
- Laws going after “unchecked federal aggression,” permitting New Yorkers to sue ICE and different federal brokers for violating their constitutional rights in state courtroom
- Laws to bar ICE raids at delicate areas equivalent to faculties, homes of worship and hospitals with no judicial warrant
Affordability
- Present state funds for the primary two years of Mamdani’s initiative to deliver “common little one care” to New York Metropolis. This contains increasing town’s 3K program to 2-year-olds, with 2,000 spots opening later this 12 months at the price of $75 million
- Cracking down on insurance coverage fraud, particularly schemes involving staged automotive accidents
- Calling for an additional freeze in tuition for SUNY and CUNY for the second 12 months
- Increasing alternatives free of charge neighborhood school for college kids in high-demand professions
- Making “widespread sense reforms” to the state’s environmental evaluate course of for giant growth course of “to hurry up the supply of housing and different essential infrastructure tasks that New Yorkers want” together with a two-year deadline on tasks.
“She’s preaching to the choir. It’s a sensible transfer politically,” one greater training supply informed The Publish of the tutoring freeze.
“The legislature is just not going to approve a tuition improve in an election 12 months,” the supply added.
On-line and Synthetic Intelligence
- Proposing a collection of measures proscribing children’ entry to AI chatbots, limiting how strangers can attain out to children by way of on-line platforms equivalent to Roblox, and implementing parental controls over children’ capacity to ship cash on-line.
- Limiting using “deep fakes” of a candidate in political campaigns
- Creating a brand new “Workplace of Digital Innovation, Authorities, Integrity, and Belief” to be an “authoritative physique” on technological governance
“Industries of the Future”
- Plans to construct downstate semiconductor chip design heart
- Growing as much as 4 quantum pc hubs statewide
Public Security
- Sustaining police presence on the subways in a single day
- Growing the presence of SCOUT (Subway Co-Response Outreach Groups) – pairing MTA police with psychological well being professionals – to deal with extreme psychological well being crises and homelessness within the subway system
- Including extra security limitations to subway platforms
- Implementing a 25-foot buffer zone prohibiting protests round homes of worship and abortion clinics to restrict harassment
Transportation
- Permitting municipalities outdoors New York Metropolis to authorize momentary experiments for autonomous autos
- Giving New York Metropolis the flexibility to put in “pace help know-how” on autos of repeat “tremendous speeders”
- Selling the continuance of the 2nd Avenue subway growth and Jamaica Station redevelopment
Hochul is about to ship her speech Tuesday afternoon at 1 p.m. on the “Egg” performing arts heart on the Empire State Plaza in Albany to a packed home of lawmakers and different political bigwigs.
The speech is historically scant on particulars, with the nitty-gritty to be specified by the governor’s govt funds presentation later this month.
Hochul’s staff didn’t instantly reply to a request for remark.
