As state lawmakers head into the final days of budget negotiations, New York is facing crises on multiple fronts. The Trump administration is threatening to blow a massive hole in the state budget. The plan to keep the MTA in a state of good repair remains MIA. The state is still hemorrhaging people (and future congressional seats) and so far no serious plans to reverse the trend have been proposed.
But what's really important to Governor Kathy Hochul as we approach the April 1 budget deadline? A statewide mask ban.
Hochul, not content to have blown up the last two budget negotiations over last-minute changes to the state's criminal justice system, is now ready to ram through yet another strange policy goal, one that has catastrophic First Amendment implications at the exact moment the Trump administration is engaging in an unprecedented crackdown on free speech (not that Hochul is losing too much sleep over that anyway).
Since protests against the genocide in Gaza took over college campuses last spring, some legislators in Albany have been calling for a mask ban, claiming that protesters were hiding their identity while committing what those legislators saw as "antisemitic" acts. Their legislation has gone nowhere, but Hochul gave the efforts a huge boost this week when she decided to take up the mask ban cause.