Kathy Hochul vows support for law enforcement despite ‘Defund Police’ ties

Gov. Kathy Hochul claimed Tuesday that she supports law enforcement ” 100%” — despite cozying up to vocal supporters of the “Defund the Police” movement as part of her election bid.

“The era of denigrating our police is over. We support you 100 percent,” Hochul said at the New York State Association of Chiefs of Police Annual Conference in upstate Glens Falls.

“No one will ever say the words ‘Defund The Police’ in my presence. That is not going to go anywhere. You’re not going to make friends with me if you say that,” added Hochul, who expressed support for increasing state spending on police moving forward.

Her comments appear at odds with her running on the Working Families Party ballot line, in addition to as a Democrat, this November. Working Families has backed the “Defund” movement in the past. Hochul is up against Republican gubernatorial nominee Rep. Lee Zeldin (R-Suffolk) in the Nov. 8 election.

The governor’s defund ties also include the appointment of Brian Benjamin as her lieutenant governor last year alongside Amit Bagga as deputy secretary for intergovernmental affairs.

Both Benjamin and Bagga vowed to support defund efforts while running for city offices in 2021.

“The 1st big decision as Governor that Working Families Party backed Kathy Hochul made was to pick a Lt Governor. She chose Brian Benjamin, the champion of the defund the police movement in the State Legislature,” Zeldin, who has been endorsed by The Post’s Editorial Board, tweeted Tuesday. “That was his claim to fame until his arrest & resignation.”

A spokeswoman for Hochul and spokesman for the Working Families Party, which backed Hochul after her landslide victory in the June 28 Democratic primary, declined to comment.

With the Democratic Party primary behind Hochul, political experts say a pivot toward the political middle ahead of the Nov. 8 election makes sense.

“This may tamp down some enthusiasm from progressives, but it helps her with conservative Dems and suburban voters by mitigating attacks from Zeldin that she and Democrats are soft on crime, overly concerned about bill reform and anti-police,” said Dr. Basil Smile, Jr., a political consultant and former executive director of the New York State Democratic Party, to The Post in a text.

Hochul’s ties to the controversial “Defund the Police” movement, which she has never publicly personally backed, have been a target of criticism alongside her positions on bail reform, which some police unions and law-enforcement officials have claimed undermine their ability to maintain public safety.

“Clearly, she knows she’s got a problem on the crime issue, and there’s no way she gets free of that in the next 105 days. Voters ain’t stupid,” said Republican political consultant Bill O’Reilly to the Post on Tuesday.

A total of 58% of New Yorkers believe bail reform has contributed to an ongoing increase in crime, while 38% believed changes championed by Hochul in the state budget would have “no effect” on the situation, according to an April Siena College poll.

Separate cases involving two accused meth smugglers and an Army vet who allegedly attacked Zeldin at a campaign event last week have fueled renewed calls to change state laws on confining people before their trials.

Hochul rejected a call Tuesday by New York City Mayor Eric Adams to convene state lawmakers for an extraordinary session of the legislature to address spiraling crime, hours after urging police chiefs to be patient with changes approved in the state budget that passed in April. The changes included making more crimes bail-eligible.

“Our budget just passed, and some of these laws just went into effect to give the law enforcement more opportunities to arrest repeat offenders,” Hochul told police chiefs Tuesday. “And property thefts and gun-violence cases and hate crimes – all of those are now covered back under the law. They had not been covered before. We also gave more authority for our judges.”

But she vowed to include law enforcement more in policy-making moving forward.

“I believe that there has been a shortcoming for years in terms of making sure that the voices of law enforcement are there when we’re talking about policies that affect what you do every day,” Hochul said.

Appointments of left-leaning pols such as Benjamin – who resigned months ago after his federal indictment tied to an alleged bribery scheme – and Hochul’s state support for some criminal-justice reforms helped her gain support from the political left when she replaced ex-Gov. Andrew Cuomo last August amid his sex-harassment scandal.

Some progressives are now chafing at Hochul’s ongoing efforts to woo support from law enforcement now that she has the Democratic nomination for governor locked up.

“The governor jumped into her position after 10 years of legislative and political violence of Cuomo, blunting her clear neoliberal perspective; of course, shortly after the beginning of her first budget and legislative session, she became a barrier to common-sense public policy because of tone-deaf fiscal conservatism and putting campaigning above policy,” said Jawanza James Williams, director of organizing at the advocacy group VOCAL-NY, to The Post on Tuesday.