Senator Daphne Jordan's Statement on the State of the State

Please see my statement on Governor Hochul's State of the State Address:

“I listened with great interest to Governor Kathy Hochul’s 2022 State of the State Address today, the first-ever delivered by a female Governor of New York State, which was an important and noteworthy milestone.

It was nice to see – mentioned in her 2022 State of the State book released after today’s address – that Governor Hochul supported important policy priorities I’ve continually called for such as funding the Joseph P. Dwyer Peer-to-Peer Veterans Counseling Support Program and expanding this successful, lifesaving program statewide. The Dwyer Program MUST be part of the State Budget and not continually be relegated to a ‘legislative add’ forcing veterans and veterans’ advocates to annually fight for this critical funding. In addition, Governor Hochul’s call for accelerating $1.2 billion in middle-class tax cuts for six million New Yorkers directly mirrors my legislation, Senate Bill S.1808, which would accelerate the middle-class tax cut phase-in by one year. Also, during her Senate Floor remarks today, Senate Majority Leader Andrea Stewart-Cousins reportedly called for the enactment of a health care worker peer support program, an important proposal that I proudly sponsor in the form of Senate Bill S.2553. It was great seeing my good ideas being embraced!

Governor Hochul also took some policies straight from our Senate Republican playbook, namely delivering tax relief for small businesses, providing property tax rebates for homeowners, strengthening critical infrastructure, and enacting term limits. In addition, the Governor called for creating a new, independent state ethics commission to replace JCOPE, which has been an utter failure. These are all good ideas that deserve strong, bipartisan support.

It was disappointing that absent from Governor Hochul’s address today was any mention of the number one public safety challenge facing New Yorkers: the urgent need to repeal the Democrats’ disastrous and dangerous bail ‘reform’ law that’s allowed criminals to roam free and re-offend. The data clearly shows that bail ‘reform’ has been an unmitigated disaster and must be repealed to ensure the safety and security of New Yorkers.

Going forward, my focus now is looking toward the Governor’s upcoming 2022-23 Executive Budget proposal. I’m especially interested to see if the Governor’s budget proposal will incorporate my legislation, Senate Bill S.7558, establishing a Fire Station Construction Grant Program-Fire Station Construction Fund. This important, bipartisan public safety priority deserves inclusion in the State Budget as I requested in my 2021 correspondence to the Governor.”