Kathy Hochul wants you to get off social media
And a hearing on psilocybin has been scheduled by state lawmakers for later this month.
Good afternoon — Guess who’s back. It’s Monday and Malnutrition Week.
In today’s CapCon:
Gov. Kathy Hochul convened a bipartisan group of elected officials at the Capitol Monday to call for a “reset” on political rhetoric.
Republicans knocked Hochul after she officially endorsed Mamdani for New York City mayor Sunday night.
The special election for an Assembly seat in the North Country has now been set.
Here’s what’s in the attorney general’s proposed rules to implement the SAFE For Kids Act, which restricts how children are served content on social media.
Psilocybin, a psychedelic, is the subject of a hearing that’s now been scheduled by the state Assembly.
This Week in New York History: The Great Fire of New York and the Great Hurricane of 1938.
Names in today’s CapCon: Hochul, Elise Stefanik, Zohran Mamdani, Mike Lawler, Billy Jones Letitia James, Donald J. Trump, Jen Metzger, Steve Neuhaus, Mark Poloncarz, PJ Wendler, Rob Ortt, Crystal Peoples-Stokes, Mary Beth Walsh, Michael Gianaris
🗣️ Hochul says social media has inflamed political violence, calls for ‘reset’
You rarely see elected officials from both major parties stand together at the state Capitol but that’s what happened Monday afternoon in Albany.
Gov. Kathy Hochul convened county executives and members of the Legislature in the Red Room for a discussion on political violence, the rhetoric that leads to it and what they can do to chart a better course for the future.
“We talked about the role that we play as leaders, you know our personal responsibility and our own social media posts, like if we should even be on social media,” Hochul said.
“Just the rise in hate speech and dehumanization that occurs when things are said that we discuss that you’d never say to someone in the workplace or your place of worship,” she added.
She was joined in person by Dutchess County Executive Jen Metzger and Erie County Executive Mark Poloncarz, both Democrats, and Orange County Executive Steve Neuhaus and Chautauqua County Executive Paul “PJ” Wendel, Jr., both Republicans.
Senate Minority Leader Rob Ortt, Senate Deputy Majority Leader Michael Gianaris, Assembly Majority Leader Crystal Peoples-Stokes and Assembly Minority Floor Leader Mary Beth Walsh joined in virtually.
It’s not an unfamiliar message to residents of New York, where political violence is rare but not unheard of. There was the attack of author Salman Rushdie at the Chautauqua Institution in 2022, just months after 10 people were shot dead by a racist in Buffalo.
Jackie Bray, commissioner of the state Department of Homeland Security and Emergency Services, showed a chart that showed a sharp rise in political violence over the last 10 years.
Hochul was later asked if she attributed that increase to the emergence in politics of President Donald J. Trump, who launched his first successful run for president in 2015. She decided to take some of her own advice.
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