ALBANY – Gov. Kathy Hochul’s “State of the State” agenda for 2026 will include new policies barring ICE at “sensitive locations,” allowing upstate cities to test autonomous vehicles, a new downstate semiconductor chip design center and another tuition freeze for CUNY and SUNY schools, The Post has learned.
In her fifth “State of the State” address Tuesday, the upstate Democrat will try to strike a delicate balance between supporting Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s Democratic socialist vision for New York City while not isolating moderate and independent voters she needs to secure reelection this November.
According to draft notes of Hochul’s presentation shared with The Post, she will also push a “Let Them Build” agenda to make “common sense reforms” to local development processes, implement 25-foot protest-free buffer zones around houses of worship and abortion clinics, expand child care for New York City 2-year-olds, crack down on bogus car insurance scams, pay to keep cops on overnight subway trains and set up four new quantum computing hubs across the state.
Top highlights of Hochul’s State of the State agenda include:
Immigration:
- Legislation going after “unchecked federal aggression,” allowing New Yorkers to sue ICE and other federal agents for violating their constitutional rights in state court
- Legislation to bar ICE raids at sensitive locations such as schools, houses of worship and hospitals without a judicial warrant
Affordability
- Provide state funds for the first two years of Mamdani’s initiative to bring “universal child care” to New York City. This includes expanding the city’s 3K program to 2-year-olds, with 2,000 spots opening later this year at the cost of $75 million
- Cracking down on insurance fraud, specifically schemes involving staged car accidents
- Calling for another freeze in tuition for SUNY and CUNY for the second year
- Expanding opportunities for free community college for students in high-demand professions
- Making “common sense reforms” to the state’s environmental review process for big development process “to speed up the delivery of housing and other critical infrastructure projects that New Yorkers need” including a two-year deadline on projects.
“She’s preaching to the choir. It’s a smart move politically,” one higher education source told The Post of the tuition freeze.
“The legislature is not going to approve a tuition increase in an election year,” the source added.
Online and Artificial Intelligence
- Proposing a series of measures restricting kids’ access to AI chatbots, limiting how strangers can reach out to kids through online platforms such as Roblox, and implementing parental controls over kids’ ability to send money online.
- Restricting the use of “deep fakes” of a candidate in political campaigns
- Creating a new “Office of Digital Innovation, Government, Integrity, and Trust” to be an “authoritative body” on technological governance
“Industries of the Future”
- Plans to build downstate semiconductor chip design center
- Developing up to four quantum computer hubs statewide
Public Safety
- Maintaining police presence on the subways overnight
- Increasing the presence of SCOUT (Subway Co-Response Outreach Teams) – pairing MTA police with mental health professionals – to address severe mental health crises and homelessness in the subway system
- Adding more safety barriers to subway platforms
- Implementing a 25-foot buffer zone prohibiting protests around houses of worship and abortion clinics to limit harassment
Transportation
- Allowing municipalities outside New York City to authorize temporary experiments for autonomous vehicles
- Giving New York City the ability to install “speed assistance technology” on vehicles of repeat “super speeders”
- Promoting the continuance of the 2nd Avenue subway expansion and Jamaica Station redevelopment
Hochul is set to deliver her speech Tuesday afternoon at 1 p.m. at the “Egg” performing arts center at the Empire State Plaza in Albany to a packed house of lawmakers and other political bigwigs.
The speech is traditionally scant on details, with the nitty-gritty to be laid out in the governor’s executive budget presentation later this month.
Hochul’s team didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.
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