Hochul's first vetoes of 2025 and the 72 bills on deck

And state Senate Democrats have chosen their new top budget staffer.

Good afternoon — It’s Friday and World Mental Health Day.

In today’s CapCon:

• Hochul has issued her first round of vetoes for the year — seven bills all sponsored by state Sen. James Skoufis, a Hochul critic.

• There are 72 more bills on Hochul’s desk, including gun legislation and algorithmic pricing. Here’s the full list.

• State Senate Democrats have selected their new top budget staffer right in time for a “quick start” on state spending talks.

• U.S. Rep. Elise Stefanik has more than twice as much campaign cash on hand than Lee Zeldin did at this point in his run for governor.

Names in today’s CapCon: Gov. Kathy Hochul, James Skoufis, Steven Raga, Amy Paulin, Ed Braunstein, Chris Eachus, Bill Mangarelli, John McDonald, Elise Stefanik, Lee Zeldin, Pat Fahy, Harry Bronson

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🔊 CapCon Pod: A new episode of the Capitol Confidential podcast dropped this week. We’re focused on New York’s farms this time around. Listen here, on the Times Union’s website or wherever you get podcasts.

Capitol Count features bills that move through the Legislature, including those introduced, passed and considered by the governor.

(New York Governor’s Office)

✒️ Hochul issues first 7 vetoes of 2025 — all from Skoufis

As you all know by now, New York Attorney General Letitia James was indicted Thursday by a grand jury in Virginia.

Instead of copying and pasting everyone’s statements, I can sum them all up in two sentences.

Democrats are outraged at President Donald J. Trump for pursuing an indictment of a top political nemesis and are defending James’ integrity as the case proceeds.

Republicans say the indictment is justice served after James publicly pursued a case against Trump that ironically involved the same kind of claims she made against him.

Let’s move on.

Gov. Kathy Hochul has issued her first seven vetoes of the year as she continues sorting through the long list of bills approved by lawmakers this session.

All seven of those bills were sponsored by state Sen. James Skoufis, a Democrat from Orange County who has butted heads with Hochul this year.

When state budget negotiations were stagnant after Hochul and lawmakers missed the April 1 deadline this year, Skoufis said on the state Senate floor that she “seems to think she is a monarch of sorts.”

Another 72 bills are in her office, starting the clock for her to make a decision on them. Those were sent to her last night, making her deadline Oct. 21. I’ll link to a list of those bills further down.

Let’s first look at the seven she vetoed Friday and late Thursday.

State Sen. James Skoufis (right) (New York State Senate)

1. FOIL deadlines: That included a bill that would have set new deadlines for government agencies to fulfill requests made under the state Freedom of Information Law. Hochul wrote in her veto memo that those deadlines would be too strict.

“It establishes arbitrary deadlines for state and local governmental entities to disclose records in response to FOIL requests, regardless of the complexity or length of any given request of the staff time needed to complete review,” Hochul wrote.

The veto was panned by the good government group Reinvent Albany, which said Friday that it showed “far more sympathy with recalcitrant bureaucrats than with the simple principle that government is the people’s business.”

It was sponsored in the Assembly by Steven Raga.

2. State health records: A second bill from Skoufis would have directed the state Department of Health to contract with an outside entity to digitize vital records, like birth and death certificates.