Just when it looked like Albany had finally landed the plane on a state budget, Governor Kathy Hochul’s announcement of a $268 billion framework deal collided with a visibly angry Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie, who quickly insisted no agreement had been reached. On this episode of From the Lobby, host Joanna Pasceri sits down with Jack O’Donnell, managing partner of O’Donnell & Associates, to unpack the budget mess, the unresolved sticking points on Tier 6, the Climate Act, auto insurance, and a pied-à-terre tax, and what a fresh Siena poll showing Hochul’s approval slipping says about her political standing. Plus: why Hakeem Jeffries dispatched Congressman Joe Morelle to Albany as redistricting heats up, and Jack’s unforgettable moment singing ‘O Canada’ at the Buffalo Sabres playoff game.
Joanna Pasceri
After weeks of negotiations, budget extenders and growing tension in Albany, Governor Hochul declares a framework deal on a budget. But soon after, the Speaker of the Assembly says not so fast. What looked settled turned into another political firestorm. Hi, everyone, and welcome back to From the Lobby with Jack O’Donnell. So where do things actually stand? What’s holding things up? Joining us as always is Jack O’Donnell, managing partner of O’Donnell & Associates. He’s been tracking the negotiations, the pressure points and the power plays behind the scenes from the very beginning. Jack, good to have you back from the lobby.
Jack O’Donnell
Joanna, always fun in the lobby.
Joanna Pasceri
Well, I hope you can sort things out for us from Albany today. First the budget was here and then it wasn’t.
Jack O’Donnell
Here’s the best way to sort it out. It’s a mess. We had the governor announce what she said was a framework deal, an overall budget number of $268 billion, which is significantly higher than where she had started. I think she wanted to hit her talking points here and say that she’s standing up for affordability, standing up to Trump, and she did that. The problem is she seems to put the cart a little before the horse. We heard from a visibly angry Carl Heastie, the Speaker of the Assembly, not long after that, who said there was not a deal, that he had told her she could say we were close, but we’re not there yet. And boy, this is the blowup.
Joanna Pasceri
Did Speaker Heastie say what’s still to come, what they haven’t agreed on yet?
Jack O’Donnell
Well, he did not get into a lot of that today. Look, we think there’s basically an agreement on the secret changes the governor had proposed, basically an agreement on auto insurance that she gets a lot of what she wanted, but certainly not everything. We talked in our Monday Morning Memo about the compromise that had been reached on the Climate Act and pushing those things back and kind of meeting in the middle. And I think there’s an agreement to have a pied-à-terre tax in New York City, but there’s no details yet on what that looks like and no agreement on that. Really important health issues that there’s no agreement on. There’s no agreement yet on the changes to Tier 6, which are retirement and pension contributions for public employees. Even if there’s a general agreement that they’re going to do something, the details make it the difference between a billion dollar cost and $100 million cost. There are a lot of real nuances about support for where the talk is very in the weeds on pushing out some requirements on class size and other pieces like that that will affect the overall New York City budget. As they’re doing this for New York City, what are they doing for other municipalities? So a ways to go, and this is a great time to remind people that last year when the governor announced a framework agreement, we went another, I think, 10 days before they actually started voting on the budget. So, boy, a lot more to come here. The legislature passed an extender through Monday and then adjourned. The Assembly is still in conference. The Senate has headed home. But we also did hear from Senate Deputy Leader Mike Gianaris that there is no budget. So certainly an agreement among the houses on that, if not a three-way agreement.
Joanna Pasceri
Well, how damaging is this? You have the governor holding a news conference touting this budget that she says there’s agreement on, and then legislative leaders come out and say no.
Jack O’Donnell
We’ll have to see what the fallout on this is. It’s certainly embarrassing to be called out by the legislature immediately after that. The question is, are they close? If they really are close and we still have a deal early next week and there’s budgets moving, then I think this kind of gets laughed off and people will have a little fun with it. If we go through next week and don’t start voting on budget bills and the legislature is increasingly angry and the governor is hanging out there, this could get bad.
Joanna Pasceri
At the same time this whole budget ordeal is coming together, a new Siena University poll shows the governor’s approval ratings have slipped now to their lowest point since last summer. Do you think the drawn-out budget process hurt her politically?
Jack O’Donnell
No, I’m a little skeptical of it having hurt her much before now. I think, and we’ve talked about here, that going around the state talking about what she’s fighting for brings some attention. But there’s a point of diminishing returns on that, and I think we crossed that. I think the bigger thing is people are unhappy with the country and the direction of the country and the direction of the state. $5 gasoline doesn’t help anyone who’s in office, certainly when your party has supermajorities and you’ve been in power for a long time. So I think this is mostly discontent with the direction of the country and the world right now more than it is particularly directed at Hochul. But we’ve talked a few times about how she ebbs and flows the way other things go. And that poll also showed her increasing her margin in the head-to-head against the Republican candidate as well, which I think underlies my supposition here.
Joanna Pasceri
Well, even with the late budget and the limited time left in session, there’s a growing urgency now around redistricting in New York. House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries even sent Congressman Joe Morelle to Albany to help advance these discussions this week. What’s behind that?
Jack O’Donnell
Well, this is just the further escalation of the redistricting wars set off by the Supreme Court decision on the Voting Rights Act. We’re seeing Republican states jump into action. Florida moved. Tennessee approved a map today. Republican states are moving quickly. And so there is pressure on Democratic states to do the same thing. Look, I’ll be honest, I think this is the sort of thing that doesn’t help either party generally with the electorate. It helps them with the hyper-partisans on both sides. But I think independents or folks who are not hyper-partisan get frustrated with these things. But we wrote about it last week and it’s coming to fruition.
Joanna Pasceri
Well, before we let you go, Jack, you did mention in the memo last week that you were in the crowd during the Buffalo Sabres playoff series against the Boston Bruins when the microphone cut out during the Canadian anthem, and this story, you know, making national news, and the crowd had to finish the song themselves. So I have to ask you, did you jump in? Do you know the words?
Jack O’Donnell
It was such a great moment, Joanna. I don’t think anyone knew it was going to go as viral as it did. But I’m a huge Sabres fan, and grew up, you know, a lot of time in Canada and have just enormous respect for our neighbors to the north. So I did jump in. I do know all the words. It was interesting, the Sabres surge, this run has brought back a lot of old fans, many of whom in the arena, because the Canadian national anthem was kind of updated a couple years ago, and you can kind of tell who’s been going more regularly than who wasn’t by who’s saying, you know, the suns or all of us command. So it was really fun. I’ll just take this opportunity — maybe you can hear it in my voice — but I was also at the KeyBank Arena last night cheering on the Sabres. A little less love for Canada with a number of Canadiens fans in the house. The whole arena did sing along to both anthems as well. So let’s go Buffalo.
Joanna Pasceri
Pretty great moment there. I bet it ranked pretty high for you as a Buffalo sports fan.
Jack O’Donnell
Yeah, it was really fun.
Joanna Pasceri
Well, Jack, always great hearing your insight. Thanks for joining us from the lobby. When will a final budget come together? We’ll keep watching the negotiations, the sticking points, and what it all means moving forward. And stay in the loop with Jack’s Monday Morning Memo, a no-paywall in-depth newsletter that arrives in your inbox every week. You can sign up anytime at our website, odonnellsolutions.com. Thanks for listening, everyone. We’ll see you next time on From the Lobby with Jack O’Donnell.
