interview with Capital Tonight this week<\/a>. He argued that the gubernatorial campaign should focus instead on issues under direct state control.<\/p>\n\u201cLet\u2019s talk about New York state issues \u2014 those are the things that a governor can materially change,\u201d Blakeman said.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou can talk about federal issues all you want, but I\u2019m running for governor,\u201d he added. \u201cWe\u2019re the most overtaxed state in the nation. Our electric bills are 70% higher than the national average.\u201d<\/p>\n
While Blakeman indicated that the tariffs are not an issue state officials can change, Democrats have tried to address their effects. State lawmakers included a fund in this year\u2019s budget to assist industries affected by the federal tariffs. Sen. Michelle Hinchey, a Saugerties Democrat, told Spectrum News 1 at the fair that the funding appears increasingly necessary.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe were hoping a few months ago, when some of these tariffs ended up being rolled back, that maybe those funds wouldn\u2019t be needed in the way they were at the beginning of the year, and here we are needing them more so,\u201d Hinchey said.<\/p>\n
The next question for lawmakers will be whether additional assistance is needed when they return to Albany in January to negotiate the next state budget.<\/p>\n
Blakeman hasn\u2019t shied away from focusing on federal issues altogether. He has worked to focus much of his campaign energy on immigration and public safety. This week, he sharply criticized a new state law requiring counties to terminate their formal cooperation agreements with ICE, insisting it will inhibit the apprehension of dangerous criminals and create complications by limiting how and where ICE can do so.<\/p>\n
Nassau was one of the counties with such an agreement, and Blakeman had teased legal action for months.<\/p>\n
Speaking to reporters at an event hosted by Broome County Republicans in the Southern Tier on Tuesday night, he said an announcement was impending Wednesday and suggested that joining the counties\u2019 lawsuit was among the possibilities.<\/p>\n
After a public announcement, Blakeman said in his interview with Capital Tonight\u00a0Wednesday that Nassau will join an existing lawsuit filed Tuesday by 15 other county sheriffs but will likely also pursue separate legal action.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe are joining the Rensselaer County lawsuit, but we\u2019re in a different situation than the other sheriffs,\u201d Blakeman said. \u201cMy sheriff is appointed, so we are joining them with a separate complaint.\u201d<\/p>\n
Hochul has continuously argued that the law simply bans formal agreements and does not stop coordination with ICE in prosecuting dangerous criminals. Come November, Hochul said she is not concerned that Republican messaging around the law will sway voters, pointing to work she says her administration has done to address crime since the issue played a key role in her closer than expected victory in 2022.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have made dramatic progress,\u201d she said. \u201cWe didn\u2019t need any 287(g) agreements, in fact I think they\u2019re in the way of making progress because I want local police using local taxpayer dollars to focus on catching local criminals. ICE has $85 billion. They have the resources to do what they want. \u201d<\/p>\n
While Hochul\u2019s campaign has worked to connect Blakeman to Trump, Blakeman has attempted to turn the strategy around by emphasizing Hochul\u2019s relationship with New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani. Hochul told Politico this week that she expects Mamdani will be a helpful presence in her campaign.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"With Labor Day fast approaching, New Yorkers\u2019 opportunity to tune out the race for governor \u2014 on lawn…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":995212,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[5122],"tags":[40737,5229,51754,405,403,17050,50,5226,5225,5228,17545,43431,5227,80,67,586,132,5230,68,2969,5284],"class_list":["post-1028591","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-york","tag-albany-capital-region","tag-america","tag-jack-arpey","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-new-york-state","tag-news","tag-newyork","tag-newyorkcity","tag-ny","tag-ny-state-of-politics","tag-ny-state-of-politics-blog","tag-nyc","tag-politics","tag-united-states","tag-united-states-of-america","tag-unitedstates","tag-unitedstatesofamerica","tag-us","tag-usa","tag-vod"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/117170653778966278","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1028591","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1028591"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1028591\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/995212"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1028591"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1028591"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1028591"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}