New York’s hard-left legislative caucus is not only dead wrong on the issues — it’s utterly disconnected from voters, even its own.
For proof, look no further than the latest statewide Siena College poll on Gov. Kathy Hochul’s proposal to allow judges more discretion on setting bail for dangerous crooks.
Seventy-two percent of New Yorkers statewide support the move.
And it’s 76% of Democrats, who clocked in higher than independents and even Republicans on backing the change.
Support is at least above 60% across every single demographic category: rich, poor, black, white, Hispanic, male, female.
No shock there.
The same poll shows that almost all New Yorkers, some 92%, consider crime a very or somewhat serious problem statewide.
And that’s one more drumbeat in a year-plus trend of voters topping 90% on the question.
The people have spoken: that much is clear.
Question is, are the left-wingers in Albany listening?
Absolutely not.
The Assembly and Senate one-house budget plans show them ready to go to the mattresses with the gov over the change.
The staff of Speaker Carl Heastie reportedly walked out of budget negotiations over the weekend because of Hochul’s insistence on including the proposal, even though (as The Post reports today) the voters in the Speaker’s own district support it by a very clear majority.
But that’s how progressives roll.
On crime, on schools (a January poll showed that 56% of New Yorkers want the cap on new charters lifted, a move the progs have stonewalled from the jump) and other quality of life issues that loom large for regular folks, unlike our legislators, with their $142,000-a-year part-time jobs.
Major kudos to the gov for sticking to her guns here.
The people of New York are with her on this, overwhelmingly — those pesky voters she and Heastie (and Senate capos Andrea Stewart-Cousins and Mike Gianaris and every other crime-loving elected) ultimately answer to.
If pushing the budget talks into overtime is the only way to win this fight, that’s just more reason to say: the later, the better.
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