State Sen. James Skoufis said Monday Gov. Kathy Hochul’s decision to veto seven of his bills is political retaliation as his investigation into changes her administration made to a $9 billion Medicaid home care program moves forward.
The governor vetoed seven bills sponsored by state Sen. James Skoufis last week — her first of 2025 — including measures that would speed up government responses to public records requests, electric vehicle training for first responders and increased transparency around mobile grocery delivery prices.
“I guess after all these years, she still doesn’t know who she’s dealing with,” said Skoufis, a Hudson Valley Democrat who has frequently criticized Hochul’s administration. “I’m unfazed with that kind of behavior.”
Skoufis said it’s no coincidence he sponsored all of the vetoed proposals as he leads a probe into a controversial transition her administration spearheaded to cut costs of the Consumer Directed Personal Assistance Program, or CDPAP. This summer, the senator shared evidence the Second Floor attempted to hand-pick the company that won the $9 billion contract.
Skoufis said that investigation is advancing, and he and Senate Health Committee chair Gustavo Rivera will make an important announcement about its next steps within the next two weeks. He declined to provide more details.
“There’s a follow-up on that CDPAP hearing coming very soon, and that’s got nothing to do with anything other than we are following the facts,” the senator said Monday. “We will publicly share our next move, I’m guessing, in the next week or so.
“Instead of being upset with me or Sen. Rivera who co-chaired this hearing, she should be upset with the facts. She should be upset with herself and her own administration who put forward those facts,” the senator added. “We just shared them, but that’s where this anger stems from. It’s CDPAP.”
Hochul’s office didn’t call the senator before issuing his vetoes. He said her decision to separate his bills from dozens of others currently on her desk seems like a move out of President Donald Trump’s playbook.
“Please, Kathy Hochul, continue doing things like this and I’m going to win by 60% next election cycle,” he said.
Earlier this year, the senator blasted Hochul’s late budget strategy on the Senate floor, comparing her to a monarch, which escalated their feud.
“Gov. Hochul evaluates all legislation based on the merits,” a governor’s spokesperson said in a statement. “This administration saved CDPAP from a fiscal crisis by removing hundreds of wasteful middlemen, including one who recently pled guilty to a $68 million fraud scheme. Anyone trying to undermine our much-needed reforms should just admit that they want to send New York back to a ‘wild west’ system that enabled waste, fraud and abuse of taxpayer funds and put CDPAP at risk for the people who rely on it.”
In her veto message, Hochul argued state and local agencies lack the staff, and money, to hasten requests made under the Freedom of Information Law.
“While I support the goal of enhancing public transparency, the bill as drafted is unworkable,” the governor wrote. “It establishes arbitrary deadlines for state and local governmental entities to disclose records in response to FOIL requests regardless of the complexity or length of any given request or the staff time needed to complete review. Additionally, the bill does not allocate additional resources to agencies to ensure they are able to comply.”
But the senator doubts the governor would have signed the legislation to improve transparency regardless of the sponsor.
Hochul promised to be the most transparent executive in decades, but has vetoed several bills since taking office that would strengthen government accountability.
“This is the most important, most significant bill we’ve seen across the governor’s desk in years,” said Rachael Fauss, senior policy advisor with Reinvent Albany. “It would finally make it so that agencies had to respond to a had a real timeline to follow.”
Fauss said the state’s FOIL process is plagued by endless delays, and agencies can take months, or years, to respond to public records requests. The number of requests have increased with the ability to digitally submit FOIL requests.
Skoufis said he plans to remain the bill sponsor and review potential amendments before reintroducing it next year.
“The state agencies, the governor could fund them better in her budget and give more resources to agencies at the state level,” Fauss said. “This is a known issue. And it’s something [where] she could fix this if she wanted to.”
The state Association of Counties did not take a formal position on the proposal to impose government agencies respond to public records under a quicker timeline, but would not rule out the governor’s argument that it would burden localities.
Association Executive Director Stephen Acquario said state law already mandates records requests be answered in a timely manner and he has not heard about inherent systemic issues with the process.
“Each request for information is unique and must be reviewed to protect otherwise personal or confidential information,” Acquario said. “Having the ability and time to perform this review is important… We look forward to working with the governor and state lawmakers to address any deficiencies in the law.”