Congressman Zeldin Statement on 1 Year Anniversary of Hochul Being Sworn Into Office

Releases List of 10 Top Ten Lowlights of Hochul’s Year as Governor

NEW YORK – Today, Congressman Lee Zeldin (R, NY-1), the Republican Party and Conservative Party nominee for Governor, issued the following statement on the top 10 lowlights of Hochul’s year in office. Today is the one-year anniversary of Governor Kathy Hochul being sworn into office:

“Kathy Hochul’s first year as Governor has been a disaster. We’ve witnessed how a year of failed leadership in Albany and one party rule can further decimate New Yorkers’ way of life – skyrocketing crime, punishing taxes, and rampant corruption. New York leads the entire nation in population loss and can’t live through four more years of Kathy Hochul. On November 8th, we must fire Hochul to Save Our State.” 

While the list could easily be much longer, here are the Top 10 Lowlights of Hochul’s year as Governor:

  • Selecting Brian Benjamin to be Lieutenant Governor, as her very first big decision as Governor. He was the poster child of the Defund the Police Movement. Benjamin was arrested for bribery and campaign finance fraud less than 7 months later. Just days before his arrest and resignation, Hochul tripled down and still was covering for his crimes.
  • Refusing to repeal cashless bail and give judges discretion to weigh dangerousness on far more crimes, despite the pleas of New York City Mayor Eric Adams and many more. Hochul still insists there is no data to support these calls for action.
  • Covering for rogue District Attorneys like Manhattan DA Alvin Bragg. Hochul has the constitutional authority to remove Bragg, but she instead insists that New Yorkers should just cut him some slack, and he just got there and is doing his job.
  • Secretly negotiating and agreeing to a $850 million taxpayer funded arrangement for a new Buffalo Bills Stadium that she sought to jam into the budget at the last possible moment and without transparency and vetting. Hochul’s husband is General Counsel for the company that has the vendor contract on the current Bills Stadium.
  • Every 30 days, Hochul unilaterally extends her self-claimed COVID emergency powers. Through this power, she went around the state’s competitive bidding laws to grant a no-bid contract worth hundreds of millions of dollars to a company run by a family that donated $300,000 to her campaign.
  • After the United States Supreme Court ruled that New York’s concealed carry law was unconstitutional, Hochul immediately convened a Special Session of the State Legislature to go even further than the prior law. The new law, which is clearly unconstitutional, tramples all over 1st Amendment rights to trample all over 2nd Amendment rights of law-abiding New Yorkers. When Hochul was asked what data she had to target concealed carry permit holders, Hochul said she didn’t need data.
  • When Hochul was asked to stick up for Jose Alba after Manhattan DA Alvin Bragg charged him with murder and sent him to Rikers Island, Hochul declined and said that she wasn’t going to get involved at all.
  • Calling on New Yorkers to be her “apostles” in deciding whether to get the COVID vaccine. She ordered all healthcare heroes to be fired if they didn’t get the COVID shot, regardless of natural immunity and other science and considerations.
  • After the HALT Act went into effect April 1, 2022, assaults on corrections officers, other prison staff, and inmates, all have skyrocketed, and yet Hochul has said and done absolutely nothing to address this serious issue.

Honorable mentions: Hochul signing the Less is More Act, abusing her access to state aircraft for her travels, giving donors special access with state liquor license requests, announcing that she supported term limits and then did absolutely nothing at all to actually advance the proposal through the legislature, refusing to approve new pipeline applications, making small businesses pay a new unemployment insurance surcharge after the state refused to pay off its federal loan like many other states did, mailing out property tax checks to New Yorkers days before the Democratic Party primary with a note that the money was courtesy of Hochul, awarding an exclusive multi-billion dollar contract to someone who hosted a fundraiser for Hochul’s campaign and met with her administration during the period that such meetings were prohibited under State Finance Law…

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About Lee Zeldin

Lee Zeldin was born and raised on Long Island. He grew up in Suffolk County and graduated from William Floyd High School in Mastic Beach, where his identical twin daughters attend school today. He earned his bachelor’s degree from the State University of New York at Albany and then his law degree from Albany Law School, becoming New York’s youngest attorney at the time at the age of 23.

Lee spent four years on Active Duty with the U.S. Army after completing ROTC and served in different capacities, including as a Military Intelligence Officer, Prosecutor, and Military Magistrate. In the summer of 2006, while assigned to the Army’s elite 82nd Airborne Division, Lee deployed to Iraq with an infantry battalion of fellow paratroopers in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom.

In 2007, Lee returned to Suffolk County with his family. It was at this time that Lee transitioned from Active Duty to the Army Reserve, where he currently serves with the rank of Lieutenant Colonel.

In 2008, Lee established a successful law practice in Smithtown, NY. Elected to the New York State Senate two years later, in 2010, Lee’s been working hard every day since to keep the promises he made to the hard-working families he represents.

In the State Senate, Lee:

  • Led the successful effort to repeal the MTA Payroll Tax for 80 percent of employers, a job killing tax that was hurting small businesses. 

  • Cosponsored the nation’s strongest property tax cap, which became law.

  • Reduced middle-income tax rates in New York to the lowest level in 60 years.

  • Secured the repeal of the Saltwater Fishing License Fee.

  • Created the PFC Joseph Dwyer Veteran Peer Support Program to help our returning veterans cope with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) and Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI). 

  • Authored the law to protect our fallen veterans and their families from protests at military burials. 

Lee was then elected to the United States Congress in 2014, representing New York’s First Congressional District, and has now won seven consecutive races since 2010 in purple NYC suburban districts, unseating two Democrat incumbents along the way. In Congress, Lee quickly became a leading voice in America on top local, domestic and foreign policy issues: 

  • Combating and defeating MS-13 on Long Island, leading the charge in New York and nationally against cashless bail, opposing all efforts to defund, dismantle or abolish police, and providing law enforcement the resources they need to fight gang violence and other crimes in our communities, including bulletproof vests.

  • Securing the repeal of many harmful, job killing regulations, with the Economic Growth, Regulatory Relief, and Consumer Protection Act, and many other initiatives, to improve our business climate and grow our economy. 

  • Leading the charge to end all COVID mandates. 

  • Saving Plum Island, by securing the repeal of a 2008 federal law requiring the island to be sold off to the highest bidder. 

  • Delivering a $1.5 billion boost in border security resources, helping to choke off the flow of illegal migration across our borders. 

  • Introducing and passing into law his Adult Day Health Care legislation for disabled veterans and opening a new health care clinic for East End veterans.

  • Delivering the Electron Ion Collider “discovery machine” to Brookhaven National Lab that will enable advancements in national security, medical and cancer research, astrophysics, and more and create an extensive number of jobs. 

  • Advancing his law enforcement bill of rights, which would help ensure that our great law enforcement officers and the people they serve are protected.

  • Championing the expansion of the Dwyer Program nationally, to help all of our nation’s veterans access the resources they need. 

  • Securing much needed support of treatment, enforcement, and prevention for those affected by the heroin and opioid abuse crisis.

  • Leading the effort against the fatally flawed Iran Nuclear Deal.

  • Co-authoring a bipartisan resolution (H.Res. 246) that passed the House opposing the anti-Israel and antisemitic Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions movement.

  • Working with the Army Corps of Engineers to protect our coastlines, advancing the ambitious Fire Island to Montauk Point project, in addition to several other vital projects on the north and south shores of Long Island.

  • Co-Chairing the Long Island Sound Caucus and advancing top priorities for the Long Island Sound Program, National Estuary Program and SeaGrant.

  • Co-chairing, as one of only two Jewish Republicans in Congress, the House Republican Israel Caucus, and serving on the House Foreign Affairs Committee and Financial Services Committee, as well as four House Subcommittees.

  • Successfully resolving over 17,000 constituent cases in favor of his constituents.

Lee and his wife, Diana, reside in Shirley with their twin fifteen-year old daughters, Mikayla and Arianna.