What Made Kathy Hochul Flip?

On June 5, Governor Kathy Hochul stunned New Yorkers by canceling (or placing on “indefinite pause”) the congestion-pricing fee for driving into lower Manhattan, blowing a $15 billion hole in the MTA’s budget. The state was set to start collecting tolls in less than four weeks, June 30. Hochul had long highlighted her willingness to see the program through even though it polls poorly, arguing that right decisions are not always popular ones. Few officials, even in her own office, were given a heads-up. Much of the city and state government was left asking, “What got into her head?”

“This came right from her brain,” one Albany veteran says. “When it’s this nonsensical, that’s the origin story.” And from another: “Irrespective of if you agree or disagree with congestion pricing, the handling of this was maladroit. There were more elegant ways of getting out of it than the way that she did.” The person adds, “The real question is, Where does it go from here? She doesn’t have a plan B, or a plan C, or a plan D.” A third, a Hochul insider, says, “It’s seismic in ways that we don’t even know yet.” Or as another Albany insider puts it decisively, “She traded the MTA for a House seat? Are you fucking crazy?!”

In politics circles, the reading of what happened goes like this: Hochul—edgy over Democratic weakness on Long Island—moved to kill the toll after a focus group found that congestion pricing could cost votes in competitive districts. A half-dozen downstate congressional seats are in play. Although reporting has suggested that Hakeem Jeffries, the Brooklyn representative who may soon be Speaker of the House, planted the idea, people close to both their offices say otherwise. Instead, says a person familiar with communication between the two, it was Hochul—not Jeffries—who “put it into the ether. She put this idea of a pause into the meeting.”

Leave a Comment