The Governor & Legislative leaders (photo: Darren McGee/Governor's Office)

Eight of the top Democratic mayoral candidates appeared at a virtual forum on Monday to outline their legislative and budget priorities at the state level, and their strategies for achieving those goals. To varying degrees, they laid out tactics for partnering with, even opposing, Governor Andrew Cuomo and corralling the state Legislature to their side. But there were clear differences among the candidates, informed by their own background and experiences,

 l-r (top): Kathryn Garcia, Scott Stringer, Maya Wiley, Carlos Menchaca; bottom: Shaun Donovan, Dianne Morales, Loree Sutton, Eric Adams

Eight leading Democratic mayoral candidates appeared in two sessions at the "Albany Agenda" forum hosted by Empire State Indivisible and moderated by Gotham Gazette editor Ben Max. The candidates — Kathryn Garcia, Scott Stringer, Maya Wiley, Carlos Menchaca, Shaun Donovan, Eric Adams, Dianne Morales, and Loree Sutton — discussed their state policy agendas and how they would navigate the processes, politics, and

Mayor de Blasio & NYPD officials (photo: Ed Reed/Mayor's Office)

When Governor Andrew Cuomo signed an executive order in June mandating that localities set blueprints for broad police reform or risk losing state funding, he tasked mayors and other municipal leaders to engage the public and local legislatures in a collaborative reform process. Now, in response to delays and limited communication from Mayor Bill de Blasio’s administration, the New York City Council has signaled that it will move ahead with its own police reform agenda to meet

Gov. Cuomo (photo: Don Pollard/Office of Governor Andrew M. Cuomo)

When Governor Andrew Cuomo unveiled his executive budget on Tuesday, a $193-billion roadmap for the next fiscal year, beginning April 1, he presented a forked road towards the state's economic recovery with Washington lawmakers essentially behind the wheel.

Under the "worst-case scenario" outlined by the New York State Division of the Budget, the state would get just $6 billion to fill a $15 billion hole covering the rest of this fiscal year and next, out of a

The covid vaccine (photo: Ed Reed/Mayor's Office)

The first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic devastated Black, Latino, and immigrant communities across New York City at disproportionate levels last spring and since. Some lawmakers are now asking why the same populations were not included in vaccine priority plans crafted by the state and city.

At a January 12 City Council oversight hearing on the de Blasio administration's roll-out of the first batches of the covid vaccine, members of the Council’s committees on hospitals and health asked the city's top

Gov. Cuomo delivering his fourth 2021 State of the State (photo: Mike Groll/Governor's Office)

In his fourth and final 2021 State of the State speech, Governor Andrew Cuomo committed New York to an ambitious infrastructure program worth hundreds of billions of dollars that he said will create hundreds of thousands of jobs and put the state on the path to recovery from the coronavirus pandemic.

Announcing infrastructure projects spanning the state, Cuomo cited the New Deal under President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, which helped revive the nation’s

(photo: Mike Groll/Office of Governor Andrew M. Cuomo)

Governor Andrew Cuomo delivered his third of four planned State of the State speeches this week on Wednesday, detailing a strategy to fuel the state’s recovery from the coronavirus pandemic with a green energy infrastructure and jobs program.

The transition to a green economy is a part of Cuomo’s broader 2021 State of the State agenda that he unveiled on Monday and has elaborated on in subsequent speeches. On Tuesday, he outlined an economic recovery plan that includes a mass rapid testing program to help people

Gov. Cuomo during his second 2021 SOTS speech (photo: governor's office)

In his second of four planned State of the State speeches this week, Governor Andrew Cuomo on Tuesday outlined a plan to revive New York’s struggling economy, get New Yorkers back to work, and to prepare them for jobs that adapt to a post-covid future.

In his first speech on Monday, Cuomo presented a broad

Governor Cuomo delivers his annual State of the State speech (photo: Darren McGee/Office of Governor Andrew M. Cuomo)

Governor Andrew Cuomo spoke like an army general rallying his troops as he delivered his first in a series of 2021 State of the State speeches on Monday, from the War Room of the state Capitol building in a virtual address necessitated by the ongoing coronavirus pandemic. Befitting its setting, Cuomo’s speech was rife with metaphors of a state at war as he outlined a vision for a “post-covid reconstruction” of a “suffering” New

U.S. Senator Chuck Schumer (photo: governor's office)

With Democrats poised to win both seats in the Georgia United States Senate runoffs, Senator Chuck Schumer of New York is poised to be one of the most influential elected officials in the country, with enormous implications for his home state and city. After four years leading the minority conference, Schumer is on the verge of being able to set the agenda in the Senate under Democratic President-elect Joe Biden and in partnership with a Democrat-controlled House of Representatives under Speaker Nancy

Gov. Cuomo visits a prison, pre-pandemic (photo: Mike Groll/Governor's Office)

While New York continues to expand the circle of groups eligible to receive a COVID-19 vaccine, people living and working in correctional facilities are being left out of the equation, despite early commitments from the city's Health Department and the heightened risk of infection in those settings.

With a limited supply of the vaccine, public health officials at the state and city levels have been developing a plan to prioritize populations that are most exposed

Governors Andrew and Mario Cuomo (photo: governor's office)

Early in 1984 I visited Governor Mario Cuomo’s office in Albany at his invitation. He wanted to discuss a talk I’d given at the New School about his first year as governor. I found myself going on about the growing dominance of the governor in New York’s legislative process. Governor Cuomo loved to debate. I knew from earlier experience that trouble was ahead when he started a sentence by addressing me as “professor.”

“Don’t you realize, professor,” he said, “that when it comes to making law, they can act

Governor Cuomo at an MTA train depot (photo: governor's office)

New York’s Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) is facing the largest fiscal crisis in its history due to COVID-19. With more federal aid not forthcoming, the MTA has been buying time – quite literally, by borrowing up to $2.9 billion from the Federal Reserve – before the axe will need to fall on service and its workforce. The MTA’s Chief Financial Officer, Bob Foran, said that layoffs would need to start

Lincoln Hospital staff (photo: Michael Appleton/Mayoral Photography Office)

As public health officials eye a second major swell of COVID-19 infections and an increase in hospitalizations, New York's hospital systems have begun to brace for another flood of patients. The state has even opened a field hospital on Staten Island in response to rising numbers, a dismal reminder of the devastation of the spring.

In the months since the height of the pandemic in the spring, New York's health care institutions have been making preparations to try to avoid the same chaos and

Gov. Cuomo cleans the subway (photo: Kevin P. Coughlin/Governor's Office)

This story was published in partnership with New York Focus, an independent, investigative news publication covering New York state and city politics.
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Every night since May 6, a small army of sanitation workers has mopped floors, wiped poles and turnstiles, and wielded electrostatic sprayers and ultraviolet lamps to disinfect New York City’s subway system.

The Metropolitan

Gov. Cuomo with now-State Senator Andrew Gounardes in Oct. 2018 (photo: Cuomo/Flickr)

After flipping several State Senate seats in 2018 and taking control of the upper legislative chamber and therefore all of state government, Democrats sought to hold onto their wide majority this year even with a Republican president atop the ticket. They believed they might be able to win a supermajority in the chamber to match that of Democrats in the Assembly by picking up at least two additional Senate seats, if not more.

But as Senate

Brooklynites celebrate Biden's win, Trump's loss (photo: Ethan Geringer-Sameth/Gotham Gazette)

It was a great day for the Doppler effect Saturday in Brooklyn as a near constant stream of car horns trumpeted elation after it became clear Joe Biden had won Pennsylvania and clinched the 2020 presidential election. Throngs of New Yorkers took to the streets, plazas, and parks to breathe a collective, mostly masked, sigh of relief.

In New York, that sigh took the form of spontaneous dancing on sidewalks and in streets, clanging pots and pans, and uncorking

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez & NYWFP Director Sochie Nnaemeka (photo: @AOC)

Many of New York’s smaller political parties face an uncertain future after they appear to have failed to garner enough votes to keep an automatic ballot line over the next two years under new rules that went into effect in this election cycle. Only the Working Families Party and the Conservative Party seem to have emerged unscathed, rallying voters to meet new thresholds through votes for their presidential and vice presidential nominees. 

As part of the state budget, the Legislature and

Joe Biden, with Andrew Cuomo (photo: governor's office)

The country will be watching, and voting, with bated breath on Tuesday as the most consequential presidential election in decades nears conclusion. More than 84 million Americans have already cast their ballots in early voting and turnout is expected to break records despite the lingering coronavirus pandemic. 

There’s much at stake for New York City in this election and it’s an understatement

Mayor de Blasio after voting (photo: Michael Appleton/Mayoral Photography Office)

In April 2016, just after party primary elections featuring a major error by the New York City Board of Elections, Mayor Bill de Blasio announced that he would push for legislation in Albany to professionalize the day-to-day operations of the Board, among other bills that could improve the city's perennially bungled election administration and create more access to the ballot box for New Yorkers. Over four years and several poorly-run elections later, de Blasio made a similar announcement

Gov. Cuomo at the New York Stock Exchange (photo: Darren McGee/Governor's Office)

This story was published in partnership with New York Focus, an independent, investigative news publication covering New York state and city politics, as part of its launch.
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As the pandemic roiled markets in the spring, New York recorded surging revenue from an obscure

Mayor de Blasio gets tested (photo: Ed Reed/Mayoral Photography)

As New York City public health officials try to get a handle on a series of COVID-19 “hot spots,” they lack the tools to know exactly how the voluntary testing data they collect skews the true prevalence of the virus, both in communities of concern and city-wide. In the absence of randomized testing, public health officials rely on the results of voluntary testing, an especially challenging process given new evidence some New Yorkers are organizing to game the system against that weakness.

New York's

 NYC BOE Executive Director Michael Ryan (photo: John McCarten/City Council)

The New York City Board of Elections has not submitted a state-mandated report on its staffing needs for this fall, blowing past a September 20 deadline set by Governor Andrew Cuomo and raising concerns about the city's preparedness for the consequential general election. It is the only jurisdiction in the state to miss the deadline, according to officials at the State Board of Elections, to which the reports are due.

The mandate and deadline, set in a late-August executive

Part of the new absentee ballot envelope design

The New York State Board of Elections has approved a new design for absentee ballot envelopes to be used statewide in the upcoming general election. The new layout, mandated by Governor Andrew Cuomo in an executive order, is intended to make it more obvious where a voter needs to provide a signature in order to have the ballot accepted by elections administrators under state law and avoid mass disqualification of absentee ballots as New York saw during the June primaries.

The

State Senators & election officials (photo: Senator Gianaris' office)

After the June primaries, when tens of thousands of absentee ballots were rejected on technical grounds or never cast because they were mailed to voters late or not at all, state lawmakers passed a series of measures aimed at correcting some of those mishaps. But several other bills introduced by legislators and pushed by voting rights advocates that could prevent thousands of ballots from being thrown out are still on the table as the clock ticks toward the