New York’s political week delivered a cascade of consequential moves, and on this episode of From the Lobby, host Joanna Pasceri sits down with Jack O’Donnell, managing partner of O’Donnell & Associates, to unpack them. Governor Kathy Hochul sidestepped the Legislature’s one-year data center ban and issued her own executive order pausing new projects while the state writes fresh standards. Republican gubernatorial challenger Bruce Blakeman is facing a credibility test after reports suggested his campaign raised roughly $4 million, not the $11 million he claimed. State Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli warned that New York’s 2027 budget is on shaky ground. And in Albany, the search is on for a successor to retiring Assembly Majority Leader Crystal Peoples-Stokes, while in Washington, the sudden death of Senator Lindsey Graham reshuffles the Senate GOP. O’Donnell also weighs in on the World Cup’s impact and a potential joint New York bid for the Winter Olympics.
Joanna Pasceri
Jack, thanks so much for stopping by the lobby.
Jack O’Donnell
Joanna, great to be with you. And out of the smoke.
Joanna Pasceri
Yes. Let’s see if we can cut through some of the political haze today. Let’s start with one of the biggest decisions of the week. Governor Hochul not signing the legislature’s one year ban on data, instead issuing an executive order putting new projects on hold for a year while the state develops new standards. Why the executive order and did the governor make the right decision here?
Jack O’Donnell
Well, what a good question. I mean, look, I think the executive order is certainly an opportunity for the governor to seize control both of the narrative here and of the process. So by laying out a few criteria in the executive order, she in some ways went further or in different directions than the original legislation passed by the legislature, including things like asking the PSC to study a fund that would allow for monies to be spent on increasing generation, not just the other side of this. And it allows her agencies to have control over how long, how soon these things happen. And governors always like control. And so I think that makes sense.
And look, I think it clearly is right for the state to have a consistent policy for how they’re going to deal with data centers and data construction across the state. And we’ve sort of talked about it here before. I kind of hate the moratorium. It seems like, you know, it’s not like this issue hasn’t come up before. It’s not like it hasn’t been around. These are the kind of studies, the kind of looks, the deep dives that frankly a lot of us expect these agencies to be doing in real time. So it also seems a little unfair for the 46 or so data centers that are in the queue — for their investors, for the workers, often or almost exclusively union workers who are going to do that work, for the communities that have picked them and are counting on the tax revenue. So I don’t love moratoriums as sort of a way to govern, but that’s where we are. The governor will control the process going forward, and it’ll be interesting to see if those agencies are able to stay on track and really do this in a reasonable time so we can move forward as necessary.
Joanna Pasceri
Well, to the campaign trail now. Bruce Blakeman says he’s raised $11 million for his race for governor. He says that’s enough to take on Governor Hochul, who is sitting on more than 20 million in campaign cash. And now there are reports that Blakeman actually raised only about 4 million. So what’s going on here?
Jack O’Donnell
If he really only raised four and announced 11, I mean, that’s a real credibility gap and a real stumble for the campaign. Even at 11, it would have been respectable, but not impressive. So to be a challenger against a popular governor with a big war chest who frankly is doing things like this data center moratorium that put her on the front of the news and put her on the front page of the newspaper or at least in the front of people’s algorithms on their phones, he’s going to need more.
Now at the end of the day, if he’s going to present a credible challenge, it may come through independent expenditure committees where if the president decides this race is important and Blakeman can actually run a credible challenge, I expect that there are people close to the president or who want the president’s favor who will donate and make this race interesting. Four years ago, we saw a fairly credible challenge from Lee Zeldin, and a lot of that at the end, as it got closer, were independent expenditure funds that helped make that race real. So bad fundraising day reporting for Blakeman, but still a long way to go in this race.
Joanna Pasceri
Some alarming news in a report released this week by State Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli that the state’s fiscal budget for 2027 is unstable with incoming revenue unable to keep up with heavy state spending. What options do lawmakers have if this budget goes bust?
Jack O’Donnell
Well, we, you and I have been talking about that over the last few months. I remain very worried about next year’s budget and the kind of fights that will come out of that. We’re still only going to see some of the full impact of decisions in Washington in January. Now they’re starting to be felt across New York. So I am very worried about that. I mean, the state has just continued to commit enormous sums, both in health care and education, even as the number of people being covered, the number of people being educated has shrunk. And those are real challenges for New York and for our elected officials. They’re going to have to look for other ways to find revenue. And at the same time, when you’re slapping moratoriums on big building projects, making a lot of people think that New York is perhaps where they don’t want to invest on some of these things, even if there are legitimate concerns about those data centers and how they’re being built, I think this is gearing up for a really ugly march in April, in 2027.
Joanna Pasceri
Well, the conversation continues over who will replace Assembly Majority Leader Crystal Peoples-Stokes from Buffalo, who has retired. It’s one of the most influential leadership positions in Albany. Do you think the position remains upstate?
Jack O’Donnell
I’d like to think so. We’ve had upstate majority leaders since Shelly Silver and Mike Bragman came in together. Bragman from Syracuse was the Majority leader, him helping deliver some votes for Shelly Silver when he was first elected. But I think it’s important for upstate to have a seat at the table.
That said, at the end of the day, the job of the Majority Leader is really to be the Speaker’s right hand. We saw that with Crystal Peoples-Stokes. We saw that with then Joe Morelle. It’s got to be someone the speaker trusts completely, that the speaker is comfortable having in the room when he’s negotiating budgets with the governor, when he’s trying to get his comrades to make tough decisions. So at the end of the day, the most important thing is having the Speaker’s trust and being his lieutenant and able to deliver on that. So as much as I think it’s important that it’s upstate, I don’t know that that is the most important characteristic that the speaker will be looking for. I also don’t think we’ll hear much out of the speaker on this until certainly after Election Day in November, and maybe not until the assembly majority does their retreat in December, but at the end of the day, it’s going to be someone he trusts more than anything else.
Joanna Pasceri
Got it. Now to D.C., where the sudden death of longtime South Carolina Senator Lindsey Graham has left one of the Senate’s most prominent Republican seats in play, his sister serving out his term in the meantime. How significant is this politically?
Jack O’Donnell
I think it’s a big deal. I mean, Senator Graham was very close to President Trump, had his ear certainly on some foreign policy decisions, especially around Russia and the Ukraine. And it’s also important because the Republican majority in the Senate is not as big as it once was. All the more with, you know, you have Thom Tillis in North Carolina who’s not running again, Kennedy in Louisiana and Cornyn in Texas who both lost primaries after the president endorsed their opponents. So a lot of folks here who are less accountable to the majority leader and the president in a time when it’s already very hard to get things done in Washington. So I think it’s a big deal. We saw the senator’s sister appointed here, so not taking him for long. But it’s certainly those relationships and that experience will be missed.
Joanna Pasceri
Jack, before we let you go, the World Cup final in nearby New Jersey is Sunday. The economic impact has been mixed — hotels saw some gains, bars and restaurants did really well. Beyond the dollars and cents, though, what do you think hosting an event like this means for the country as a whole?
Jack O’Donnell
I think it’s great. I know that there are pieces of this that have been disappointing economically to folks, but having the world here is good for us. One of the things, and we’ve talked about this a lot in our Monday Morning Memo, but our friend Assembly Member Bobby Carroll has been pushing, we’ve seen Governor Hochul pick up this idea of New York State pitching the Winter Olympics in a couple years as a joint Lake Placid, New York City bid. I think the way New York City and the state in general handled that influx of tourists, handled the transportation challenges, a lot of those things I think went exceptionally well.
Joanna Pasceri
Great talk, Jack. Thanks for joining us once again. From the lobby, politics isn’t taking any time off. There’s always another decision, another campaign, another story waiting just around the corner. If you’d like to stay ahead of what’s happening in New York and Washington, sign up for Jack’s Monday Morning Memo delivered to your inbox every week. It brings together the week’s biggest political stories, explains what they mean and what to keep an eye on next. There’s no paywall and you can subscribe at odonnellsolutions.com. Thanks for listening, everyone. We’ll see you next time from the lobby with Jack O’Donnell.
