We sat down with Gov. Kathy Hochul. Here are 5 takeaways

And Bruce Blakeman makes his case to conservatives.

Good afternoon — It’s Monday and Groundhog Day.

In today’s CapCon:

• Gov. Kathy Hochul joined us for a sit-down interview at the Hearst Media Center Monday. Here are five takeaways.

• We asked Hochul about her future in politics, the urgency of immigrant protections, her choice for lieutenant governor and much more.

• Nassau County Executive Bruce Blakeman made his case to the state Conservative Party just a few miles away in Albany. Here’s what he said.

• Here’s what’s happening at the state Capitol tomorrow, Tuesday, Feb. 3.

• This Week in New York History: Olympics at Lake Placid and ‘New York, New York.’

Names in today’s CapCon: Kathy Hochul, Bruce Blakeman, Antonio Delgado, Janno Lieber, Marie Therese Dominguez, Mark Schroeder, Frank Hoare

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Hochul at the Hearst Media Center Monday (and me) (Will Waldron/Times Union)

🗣️ We sat down with Gov. Kathy Hochul. Here are 5 takeaways

We kicked off the week with a conversation with Gov. Kathy Hochul at the Hearst Media Center in Colonie Monday.

Thank you to everyone who made it out to the event. For those who didn’t, we’ll have our conversation with Hochul posted on our podcast feed Thursday morning. Subscribe to the Capitol Confidential podcast wherever you get podcasts.

Hochul joined us for a wide-ranging conversation on her future in politics, the state’s energy mandates, the state budget and immigration policy. Here are five takeaways from our conversation.

1️⃣ Hochul would support an immigrant protection omnibus bill outside the budget

There have been several proposals both from Hochul and the state Legislature to create new protections for immigrants targeted by federal officers in New York.

Hochul announced on Friday that she wants the state Legislature to approve a bill that would ban local law enforcement agencies from entering into agreements with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

Those agreements allow those agencies to essentially be deputized to perform certain immigration enforcement functions. That includes, at times, the arrest of immigrants by local officers and the use of local resources, including housing detained immigrants in local jails.

Hochul has also tucked a few proposals into her state budget to enact new immigration-related measures, including a ban on federal officers entering certain sensitive locations without a judicial warrant and the ability to sue those officers over constitutional violations.

“I think there’s a lot of interest in light of the incredible tensions that are just — it’s so traumatic for our country,” Hochul said.

But there are currently no plans for the state Legislature to approve new immigrant protections before the state budget is due at the end of March.

I asked Hochul if she would support rolling all of her proposals into a single omnibus bill to pass before then.