NY Assembly proposes bail reform tweaks ahead of budget deadline: report
ALBANY – Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie (D-Bronx) has reportedly floated tweaks to bail reform despite publicly resisting them ahead of the April 1 state budget deadline.
Under the proposed changes, judges would no longer have to give criminal defendants the “least restrictive” conditions ahead of their trials – at least for some crimes – Politico New York revealed Wednesday.
“If true, it’s a very big deal: Heastie is telling the progressives to be quiet while he changes a law they fought for,” political consultant Hank Sheinkopf said.
The compromise was offered at a Tuesday night meeting between the Assembly, state Senate and Gov. Kathy Hochul, who has proposed to remove that legal standard for all bail-eligible offenses, according to the political magazine.
A source familiar with the matter confirmed to The Post following the bombshell Politico report that the Assembly had made an offer on bail without elaborating on the details.
But another source privy inside the Assembly said Heastie told his Democratic supermajority that any progress on bail could only be measured in “inches” days after City & State NY reported his reps walked out of a meeting with Hochul administration officials over bail last weekend.
“[It’s] highly unlikely that the Assembly will suddenly flip flop on decades of strongly held beliefs about criminal justice reform, which means it’s very likely that if the reports are true there is nuance in the Assembly’s position,” an Albany insider told The Post.
Assembly Democrats have defended bail reform in recent weeks while noting that while crime has risen in New York since progressive laws took effect in 2020, it has also increased in states with relatively lax limits on cash bail.
“We’re not staying silent anymore,” Assemblywoman Latrice Walker (D-Brooklyn), a leading proponent of bail reform, said at the Capitol last week while vowing to defend current laws, “The gloves are off.”
Walker claimed in a statement Wednesday that the Assembly was still holding the line on bail.
“I feel the need to clarify that the Assembly Majority opposes any changes to weaken or upend the bail laws and subject more New Yorkers to the dangers of pretrial jailing,” Walker said.
Hochul has hinted that she would hold up any final spending deal unless legislators agree to make changes to bail reform similar to how she delayed approval of the budget last year while pursuing tweaks that eventually got approved.
But discussions on bail reform this year are just one of several controversial issues that must be negotiated by Hochul, Heastie, and state Senate Majority Leader Andrea Stewart-Cousins (D-Yonkers) – the so-called “three people in a room” who call the shots in Albany.
In their most recent public remarks with Albany reporters, both legislative leaders have downplayed the possibility that they would agree to change bail reform considering tweaks were made in 2020 and 2022.
“As I’ve always said, you’re not going to incarcerate people into crime dropping,” Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie (D-Bronx) told reporters in March.
Any move by his chamber in favor of changing bail would increase pressure on state Senate Democrats to go along.
Reps for Heastie and Stewart-Cousins did not provide comment Wednesday while a Hochul spokeswoman signaled her side remains optimistic about scoring wins in a final spending plan.
“Gov. Hochul’s Executive Budget makes transformative investments to make New York more affordable, more livable and safer, and she continues to work with the legislature to deliver a final budget that meets the needs of all New Yorkers,” Hochul spokeswoman Hazel Crampton-Hays said Wednesday of the $227 billion proposed budget she unveiled Feb. 1.
Albany leaders traditionally negotiate the state budget behind closed doors with the exact details only becoming known once budget bills get printed and made publicly available.
And the give-and-take of fiscal sausage-making means any deal on bail could depend on how the three sides resolve other issues – and the extent to which Democratic legislators might want to hold the line on bail given Hochul’s perceived political weakness following the historic Senate rejection of her nominee to lead New York’s highest court.
The newly elected governor is also pushing controversial proposals to expand charter schools in New York City, require localities to increase housing production, and increase a payroll tax to fund the MTA – ideas the Democratic supermajorities in both houses have previously rejected.
“The question [is] what do the anti-cop pro bail reform progressives get in return and how much will it cost struggling and frightened New York?” Sheinkopf said.
