Hi, everyone, and happy New Year. Welcome back to another season of From the Lobby with Jack O’Donnell. Our podcast now entering its fourth year, giving you an inside look at politics and government from New York state to Washington, D.C. with Jack, managing partner at O’Donnell & Associates, a top New York lobbying firm.
We’re kicking off 2025 with another episode of our Monday Morning Minute, the podcast version of Monday Morning Memo, our popular weekly newsletter. It’s when we take a deep dive into the issues written about this week with Jack, author of our Monday Morning Memo.
This week, our memo features a comprehensive breakdown of the politics and policies in play this year from Albany to D.C. It’s also prominently featured on our website at O’DonnellSolutions.com. So check it out.
Summary of this Episode
Guests
- Jack O’Donnell: Managing Partner of O’Donnell and Associates
- Joanna Pasceri: Director of Communications at O’Donnell and Associates
Major Topics Covered
-
- Shift in Federal and State Dynamics: The alignment between Albany and Washington over the past four years, particularly on climate and COVID issues, is expected to end, with potential challenges in federal support for New York’s Medicaid funding and budget deficit management.
- Democratic Party Division: There’s internal conflict among New York Democrats, with factions debating whether to adopt a more progressive approach or focus on moderate, pocketbook issues like affordability and public safety.
- Contentious Budget Talks: Key budget disputes will center around immigration policies, public safety, and mental health initiatives, with Medicaid and education funding adding to the tension due to reduced federal resources.
- Governor Hochul’s Challenges: Facing lagging approval ratings, Governor Hochul’s initiatives on issues like involuntary confinement for the mentally ill may face legislative pushback, further complicating budget negotiations.
- 2026 Election Implications: The governor’s actions in 2025, including managing her relationship with the legislature and addressing critical policy issues, will play a pivotal role in shaping her re-election campaign.
Full Transcript of the Episode
Note: This is a generated transcript. Please excuse any typos.
Let’s bring in Jack now to talk more about the busy legislative season ahead.
Welcome, Jack.
Hi, Joanna. Happy New Year. Very excited to be talking about. Wow. Well, everything going on now in our legislative preview, you predict a tumultuous political year. So tell us what’s at stake in 2025 for New York and D.C.
Jack:
I think the biggest thing that that we’re thinking or or that’s governing our thinking as we head into this year is that for the past four years, Albany and Washington have been very much in sync, same climate goals and the same idea of, you know, reacting to COVID. All sort of have been aligned. And that’s made for some really smooth sailing in New York. Even last year, really difficult budget deficits were kind of dealt with by calling on Washington for help. I don’t think that helps going to be there anymore. And I don’t think things are going to be so simpatico. Love Donald Trump. Hate Donald Trump. I think one of the things that everyone can agree with is that he’s a disruptor. And there are a lot of folks who want that. And then there are a lot of folks who are really nervous about that. But I think there’s some consensus that things are going to change how they change, how New York reacts are really going to drive kind of what happens here.
Joanna:
Let me let me give you one brief example. The reaction in the Democratic Party to the Republican, not huge in terms of numbers, but huge in terms of winning the House, the Senate and the White House last November, is that you’ve got a large group of of New Yorkers, including several prominent members of the New York state legislature, who think Democrats lost because we didn’t go far enough. We weren’t bold enough. We didn’t promise and deliver enough change. And so there’s going to be a big, big faction in the legislature trying to move further to the left. There’s an equally large group of legislators and primarily our governor who think the Democrats lost because they went too far to the left and that it’s time to to be more moderate and really deliver on some pocketbook issues on affordability, on public safety. And so how New York reacts and how Washington looks at that, whether President Trump is how serious he is about punishing his political enemies and what that means for for New York. Man, there’s a lot to a lot to watch and a lot to see and a lot. We’re we’re going to be working on this year.
How do you think this will affect New York budget talks? How do you predict talks will go? What kind of relationship do you think the governor will have with the legislature this year?
Jack:
I think that a lot remains to be seen or, you know, again, there’s something called an MCO tax that the state last year put in place to get money from the federal government to help fund Medicaid. We’re in an early year of a Medicaid waiver from from the Center for Medicaid and Medicare in Washington. How the Trump administration proceeds with those determine how much money New York has. You know, we’re also back to that first question about left, right and center. We have a lot of legislators who are already pushing funding for lawyers and for defense for undocumented New Yorkers and facing a potential immigration sweep by the Trump administration. How much money goes towards those things? How much protection New York offers? How New York interacts with with ICE, with the immigration and customs enforcement? Wow. A lot of questions that we don’t have answers to.
And if you add into that the fact that the governor’s poll numbers aren’t at at the best and they’ve been and in fact have broadly slipped, although there was a bump up just at the end of of twenty twenty four. A lot of legislators are it’s going to be contentious.
Joanna:
Are there any particular issues that you feel will be the most contentious between the governor and the legislature?
Jack:
Well, certainly immigration that we’ve talked about. And this is sort of a broader public safety conversation. Public safety and what that means have been among the most contentious in in Governor Hochul’s four years in office. But she announced recently, although we don’t have any details, that she’s going to be focused on involuntary confinement of the mentally ill. We’ve seen a lot of crime, especially in New York City, but around the state and fairness around the country. And a lot of it stems from mental illness. But New York has been very liberal, I guess, in how we treat people with mental illness. And the governor has signaled that she’s going to make that an important conversation in the budget. She has got a lot to say. We’ve got a strong governor system here in New York in the budget process, but she pushed some of this a couple of years ago and didn’t get it very far. And there’s going to be a lot of pushback from the legislature. So I think that’ll be very contentious. There were some signals last year about what we’re going to do about school funding. Some of that’s still bubbling up, though it looks like the governor maybe has decided not to fight there as much. But it also comes back to this bigger issue. How much money do we have? Medicaid education funding continue to soar in New York. And the federal resources that have helped cover that are not going to be there going forward. So New York needs to either figure out how to how to find some more revenue, a.k.a. taxes, or how to how to stop spending so much, which, you know, anytime you’re talking about less money, whether that’s overall or for some specific policies, that gets very, very contentious.
Joanna:
The governor is facing some image issues lagging in her approval ratings across New York. What kind of impact do you think this will have this coming year with her reelection campaign a year off? We’re in that 2026 election cycle now.
Jack:
And so I think how that plays out will determine a lot about how successful the governor is. Now, look, Democrats overall did not fare very well across the country or even in New York, except where in New York on some targeted congressional races, Governor Hochul and the state party invested, they built an infrastructure and they won most of those races. So, you know, there’s there’s some political, at least, clues or footprints that will be helpful to Governor Hochul going in.
Joanna:
What’s also different is that, as I mentioned earlier, her poll
