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Will bail reform be addressed as the upcoming New York State budget takes shape? Speaking on 710 WOR’s Len Berman and Michael Riedel in the Morning program, Democratic strategist Melissa DeRosa says Governor Kathy Hochul can expect a lot of reluctance from the state legislature to fine-tune the legal strategy.
“I do think, at the end of the day, they will end up giving her something,“ DeRosa theorized with Berman and Riedel. “They will want to say they did something on bail, cause they’re gonna want to put the conversation behind them. The question is gonna be… what sort of crumbs do they throw her way.”
DeRosa, who served as Governor Andrew Cuomo’s secretary, also contrasted how how her former boss would’ve handled the issue as opposed to Hochul. “He was really skilled at sort of knowing where he was going to go, having the strategy to get there, and then backing into it, and sort of bringing the public along with him… but you have to know what your goal is, you have to know how to move the pieces on the board, and that’s an area that Kathy Hochul sort of lacks across the board.”
Former Mayor Mike Bloomberg has spent about $5 million on ads backing Hochul’s pledge to fix bail reform; DeRosa says that money “could be better spent burning it to keep warm. It’s a total waste and I don’t think it’s going to be impactful at all in terms of the legislature or galvanizing the public.”
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