ALBANY, N.Y. — Kathy Hochul, a former congresswoman from Buffalo, became the 57th governor of New York early Tuesday, making history as the first woman to ascend to the state’s highest office.
She was sworn in shortly after 10 a.m. at the State Capitol by the state’s chief judge, Janet DiFiore, in a ceremonial event in the building’s ornate Red Room, hours after she was officially sworn in at a private ceremony just after midnight. Her ascension capped a whirlwind chain of events that followed a series of sexual harassment allegations made against the outgoing governor, Andrew Cuomo.
Hochul, 62, assumes office three weeks after a state attorney general investigation concluded that Cuomo sexually harassed multiple women. A week later, Cuomo announced his resignation, bringing his 10-year reign to an abrupt end after rising to national fame during the pandemic last year.
Hochul, a Democrat, has vowed to lead the state through a still surging pandemic and economic uncertainty, while ushering in a new era of civility and consensus in state government.
“I want people to believe in their government again,” Hochul said during a brief news conference shortly after she was sworn in. “Our strength comes from the faith and the confidence of the people who put us in these offices, and I take that very seriously.”
Hochul, addressing the Democratic legislative leaders in attendance, declared she was intent on “changing the culture of Albany” and pursuing “a fresh collaborative approach.”
Flanked by members of her immediate family, including her husband and her two children and their families, Ms. Hochul described her ascension to the governorship as “an emotional moment for me,” and noted the absence of her late mother.
She also referenced her mother shortly after her official swearing-in at 12:01 a.m. Tuesday, telling WGRZ-TV, a Buffalo-based news station, that she “thought about all the women that came before me, including my mother who was not there, but a lot of women through history, and I felt they passed the torch to me.”
Almost immediately, Hochul will have to juggle various pressing issues, from working with lawmakers to strengthen an eviction moratorium that expires later this month to deciding who to retain from Cuomo’s Cabinet. She is still recruiting her top staff — she announced her top aide and legal counsel Monday — and will announce her selection for lieutenant governor later this week.
Hochul will have to act decisively to curb the rapid spread of the coronavirus delta variant. In doing so, she will have to determine how much to veer from Cuomo’s pandemic response, which local government leaders have often criticized for its lack of communication and coordination.
Hochul will have to restore trust among public health experts, especially at the state Health Department, where some senior executives felt betrayed by the Cuomo administration’s attempt to downplay the number of nursing home deaths during the pandemic. And she will have to tackle divisive issues, such as the extent to which to mandate vaccines and masks in workplaces and schools.
Hochul is scheduled to meet on Tuesday morning with Andrea Stewart-Cousins, the majority leader in the State Senate, and Carl E. Heastie, the Speaker of the State Assembly. At 3 p.m., she will deliver her first address as governor, which will be streamed online.
Hochul, who said she had spoken with President Joe Biden on Monday night, said that she intended to use her afternoon address to outline her plan to fight the coronavirus, and streamline stalled aid to struggling renters, as well as undocumented immigrants who did not qualify for federal help.
In her 14-year trajectory from county clerk to congresswoman to the upper echelons of state government, Hochul has stood out for her affable personality, deftness in retail politicking and demanding travel schedule: She has made a point of visiting each of New York’s 62 counties. Yet she is mostly an unknown quantity to most New Yorkers, having worked in Cuomo’s shadow during her nearly seven years as lieutenant governor.
Hochul has already used her lack of a close relationship with Cuomo as a way to distance herself from the former governor and the overlapping scandals that engulfed his administration. As she introduces herself to most voters, she has sought to differentiate her leadership style, promising transparency, a more collaborative approach to governing, and a transformation of the governor’s workplace, which was described in the attorney general report as toxic and hostile.
Indeed, Mayor Bill de Blasio of New York City and many members of the state Legislature have welcomed Hochul’s rise with a sigh of relief after years of feuding with Cuomo, whose ruthless governing style and overbearing presence led many members of his party to work with him out of intimidation, rather than goodwill.
Hochul is the first woman to become governor of New York after nearly 250 years of male predecessors and the 10th governor to succeed from lieutenant governor. Hochul is also the first governor from outside New York City and its immediate suburbs since Franklin D. Roosevelt left office in 1932.
A graduate of Syracuse University and Catholic University, where she obtained her law degree, Hochul got her start in politics by working as a staffer on Capitol Hill and the state Assembly. She served 14 years on the Hamburg Town Board and, in 2007, was appointed Erie County clerk, where she made headlines for opposing Gov. Eliot Spitzer’s plan to issue driver’s licenses to unauthorized immigrants.
In 2011, she was elected to Congress after winning a special election to replace Rep. Christopher Lee, a Republican who represented one of the state’s most conservative districts and resigned after it emerged he had solicited a woman through Craigslist. The district became even more conservative after redistricting, and she lost her reelection bid the following year to Chris Collins, a Republican and early endorser of Donald Trump.
In 2014, Cuomo picked Hochul as his running mate as he sought to strengthen his ticket with a woman from outside New York City. She was reelected to the post in 2018.
Hochul, a mother of two who is married to Bill Hochul, a former top federal prosecutor and an executive at a hospitality and gambling company, will not immediately move into the Executive Mansion in Albany full time, but instead split her time between Buffalo and the capital.
She has already made it clear that her future plans include an election campaign. Hochul has said that she will run for governor next year, betting that the advantage of incumbency and her work over the next few months will propel her in what is anticipated to be a competitive Democratic primary.
This article originally appeared in The New York Times .