New York’s state budget is nearly a month late, and Albany’s Republicans have a rare chance to be relevant. Will they take it?

Gov. Hochul has been locked in budgetary combat with legislative Democrats.

Their main battle isn’t over spending, but rather policy changes without big fiscal impacts: Senate and Assembly Dems bristled at Hochul’s proposals to make it easier to lock up and treat people with severe mental illness, and harder for defense lawyers to have criminal cases tossed on technicalities.

Meanwhile Republicans, who hold just over a third of the seats in the Senate and just under a third in the Assembly, are nowhere to be seen.

The governor’s policy demands are sound, and it’s to her credit that she’s made them necessary for any budget deal.

But the resulting deadlock means there’s been virtually no debate about the quarter-trillion-dollar spending plan Hochul and lawmakers are about to adopt.

Hochul’s fiscal 2026 budget proposal

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