What Was She Thinking? Kathy Hochul Rolls The Dice And Takes Huge L | Sam Mellins | TMR

Emma Vigeland is joined by Sam Mellins, senior reporter at New York Focus. to discuss New York Gov. Kathy Hochul’s top judicial nominee, Judge Hector LaSalle, being struck down by the State Senate in Albany. Sam Mellins then joins as he walks through Kathy Hochul’s failed nomination of Hector LaSalle to the Chief Judgeship of the NY Court of Appeals, why she embraced this loss so dearly, and where it leaves the future of this seat.

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CHECK OUT MORE from the MR crew:

Matt Binder DOOMED

Brandon Sutton DISCOURSE

Emma Vigeland ESVN

Matt Lech LEFT RECKONING

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Check out more from the MR crew:

Matt Binder DOOMED

Brandon Sutton THE DISCOURSE

Emma Vigeland ESVN

Matt Lech LEFT RECKONING

Image Credit, Marc A. Hermann

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Sam Mellon senior reporter and New York Focus. Sam thanks so much for coming on today. A pleasure to be here. Of course. So New York Governor Kathy Hochul we've been covering this Saga a little bit but for people that don't know it kind of came to a very embarrassing end for New York Governor Kathy Hochul last week. Her much-maligned judicial nominee Hector LaSalle was struck down by the state senate. and let's start from the beginning for people that might not have been following this how did this all begin? And who is this guy Hector LaSalle why was he so controversial? Yeah, so Hector LaSalle was Governor Hochul's nominee to be the chief judge of the Court of Appeals which is New York's equivalent of the Supreme Court. It's the final word on New York state law; it's seven members who serve for 14-year terms. The previous Chief Janet Defiore resigned last summer. And Governor Hokel picked LaSalle to replace him. and he generated a historic level of controversy and opposition. No Governor's nominee has ever been rejected by the state senate until now when last week they rejected him by a vote of 39 to 20 I think it was. And let's rewind to that resignation which I believe was also due to some controversy as well. That is that essentially that resignation meant that the next chief judge would be the person who breaks a conservative or liberal kind of Deadlock. It's there were seven people on the Court of Appeals in New York then because of this resignation, there were three on each side. So this was incredibly important. and in New York state there was a history of the former Governor the disgraced Andrew Cuomo putting conservative judges on the state supreme court to kind of hamstring the progressive wing of his party and also do some favors for people that he knew right? Yeah so certainly the first part I think six of these seven judges who were on the court before the chief resigned were Democrats. But some of them were really quite conservative Democrats. and so one thing we've reported on that New York focus is how especially in the last year before the former Chief resigned there was this conservative block of four judges on the court. Four judges seven out of seven that's a majority. And they really voted together in almost every case that they heard to push the law in a more conservative direction when it came to things like workers' rights or tenants' rights or the rights of criminal defendants. they were much more towards the sides of prosecutors and corporations and landlords and things of that nature. The former Chief Janet Defiore who resigned was part of that block so her resignation like you were saying really created this critical opening that could have a very big part in determining the political direction of the Court of Appeals going forward.