As Governor Kathy Hochul unveils her budget proposal for next year, people with disabilities are watching. New Yorkers are less than 10 months out from choosing their next governor — which makes everything the governor does, and the ways her opponents respond, all that more important.
This week on the Disabilities Beat, we look at how Hochul's State of the State address included disability, how her competitors in the race for governor responded, and what disabled people are listening for as each candidate ramps up their campaigns.
TRANSCRIPT
Emyle Watkins: Hi, I'm Emyle Watkins, and this is The Disabilities Beat.
Believe it or not, we are less than six months out from the primary and less than 10 months out from the general election for New York's next governor, which begs the question, are the candidates listening to the disability community at this point in the process?
Renee Christian: Unfortunately, the governor doesn't respond to our invitations for events. I wish she would give me a platform to speak with her and have a nice conversation.
Emyle Watkins: Renee Christian is an organizer with Caring Majority, an organization representing consumer and worker concerns with New York's home care system. Christian and other disability advocates have voiced feeling unheard by current Governor Kathy Hochul, who is running for reelection.
Renee Christian : ... I'm fighting for caring communities and that's what it's all about.
Antonio Delgado: Absolutely. Absolutely.
Emyle Watkins: And it's led some in the disability community to turn to her competitor in the Democratic primary in June, Antonio Delgado, who is also currently Hochul's lieutenant governor. A day after Hochul held her annual state of the state address, Delgado responded by hosting his own state of the people tour, which included stops in Buffalo.
Antonio Delgado: ...Which, like you said, puts today of folks who need care at risk.
Emyle Watkins: At a round table on Buffalo's East Side, Delgado listened to representatives from several community organizations, including Christian's. After the round table, Delgado expressed his discontent with the governor's State of the State to BTPM and PR.
Antonio Delgado: And how do you prove a situation if you don't know what the baseline actually is? Whether it's transportation, another issue, and certainly with the PPL debacle. These are all scenarios that I think, again, given the cuts to Medicaid and what we saw at the federal level require more and more attention. And the fact that we wouldn't be speaking to this explicitly in the State of the State, I think is a glaring oversight.
Emyle Watkins: The State of the State is important. It's usually when the governor lays out their achievements from the last year and previews their goals for the next year. Then, usually a week later, we see what objectives they want to spend money on when the governor releases a budget proposal to the state legislature. So when Hochul only mentioned people with disability once in terms of her goals...
Governor Kathy Hochul: ...strengthen rent relief for seniors and New Yorkers with disabilities.
Emyle Watkins: ...it didn't sit well with advocates, especially upstate.
Todd Vaarwerk: What stood out from the speech is she really only mentions people with disabilities once. She mentions it in the context of housing costs.
Emyle Watkins: Todd Vaarwerk is the chief policy officer for Western New York Independent Living. He also attended Delgado's round table.
Todd Vaarwerk: And when she talks about the solution to housing costs, she references a program that only exists in areas where there are rent control.
Emyle Watkins: The problem with that, as Vaarwerk explains, is these programs only exist in New York City and a few surrounding downstate counties. He says he finds it's surprising that a governor from Buffalo...
Todd Vaarwerk: ...would not think of the complete solution because we here in Western New York won't be affected at all.
Emyle Watkins: Right now, everything Hochul says and does matters to disabled voters since it's an election year.
Todd Vaarwerk: And how much of the wishlist in an election year can an elected official bring about? I hope that as many of these as I see in the briefing book get passed or we start to see movement on that stuff. I think these are all great ideas, but the devil's in the details.
Emyle Watkins: But also everything Delgado says in response matters. Everything Bruce Blakeman, who's running on the Republican ticket, says in response matters. Disabled voters are starting to watch now. Christian says she'd welcome the opportunity to sit down with Blakeman or any other candidates than join the race.
Renee Christian: I want to hear their thoughts on what they want to change, and if they support the things that I need.
Emyle Watkins: While Blakeman did not mention people with disabilities directly in his response to the State of the State, he did mention Medicaid costs, something that's been a hot topic for any candidate, especially after federal cuts and New York's changes to home care to reduce spending.
Todd Vaarwerk: You have to remember that there are people that are tied to those costs. So any candidate who mentions the cost but doesn't mention the people might be leaving something really important out of the equation.
Emyle Watkins: As disabled voters dive into Hochul's budget this week and Delgado and Blakeman continue to rev up their campaigns, the disability community will have their eyes on them.
Todd Vaarwerk: We're going to watch where the candidate's responses are in this budget. We already know where the governor lands.
Emyle Watkins: You can listen to the Disabilities Beat segment on demand, view a transcript, and plain language description for every episode on our website at btpm.org. I'm Emyle Watkins. Thanks for listening.
