New York State Democratic Governor Kathy Hochul has just suffered a historic setback. The Empire State Senate Judiciary Committee rejected, by 10 votes to 9, his choice to fill the position of president of the Supreme Court of the State. Never had a candidate for this position suffered such disavowal. The governor has not ruled out the possibility of taking legal action to force a vote by the entire Senate. But nothing says that she would not again be disavowed by the elected officials of her own party.
Rightly or wrongly, the choice of Governor, Hector LaSalle, is considered too moderate by progressive Democrats in New York. Of Puerto Rican descent, Justice LaSalle has been involved in past rulings that have been portrayed as anti-abortion and anti-union. The judge’s defenders believe that this is a faulty reading of decisions which dealt with pointed questions of the law.
Never mind: Kathy Hochul, who was elected by a narrow margin last November, has shown very bad political antennae in this file. And she did not help her cause on Sunday by giving a speech where she used in an opportunistic and inelegant way the words and the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr to defend LaSalle, who would have been (would be) the first Latino to serve as Chief Justice of New York:
Omg the transcript of @GovKathyHochul invoking MLK this weekend to curry favor for her conservative chief justice nom is here and it’s an Onion article, omg. #NoOnLaSalle https://t.co/6cTsU05ovr pic.twitter.com/3NWOxVnnnQ
— Kaeleigh (@kaefair) January 17, 2023
(Photo AP)
