Kathy Hochul: Legislative Record
Kathy Hochul has held five different elected or appointed offices across more than three decades in New York public life. Her legislative record spans Hamburg Town Board service from 1994 to 2007, Erie County Clerk from 2007 to 2011, U.S. House from 2011 to 2013, Lieutenant Governor from 2015 to 2021, and Governor from 2021 to present. The record below walks through what she actually moved through each office, with citations to primary or strong secondary sources.
A note up front: legislative records at the state-executive level are different in kind from legislative ones. A governor's record is measured by what she signed, what she vetoed, what she included in budget agreements, and what executive actions she took, not by personal bill sponsorship. The framing below reflects that distinction.
Local government (1994 to 2011)
Hochul served on the Hamburg Town Board for 13 years from 1994 to 2007 [1]. She also served as Deputy Erie County Clerk from 2003 to 2007 [1]. In 2007, she was elected Clerk of Erie County, serving until 2011 [1].
As Erie County Clerk, she became publicly known for her opposition to a state plan to allow driver's licenses for undocumented immigrants, which then-Governor Eliot Spitzer proposed in 2007. Her opposition drew both praise and criticism at the time and was later cited as part of the "very conservative" profile she ran on in her 2011 House race [2].
U.S. House of Representatives (May 2011 to January 2013)
Hochul served one full term in the U.S. House, winning a May 24, 2011, special election to replace Republican Chris Lee, who had resigned over a personal scandal. She won with 47.34 percent in a four-way race against Republican Jane Corwin (42.38 percent) and Tea Party-backed independent Jack Davis (9.01 percent) [3].
Attendance
She missed only 2 of 1,225 roll-call votes (0.2 percent) during her tenure, far better than the 2.6 percent median for representatives serving in January 2013 [4]. This unusually disciplined attendance was a feature of her congressional record across the board.
Committees
She served on the House Armed Services Committee and the House Homeland Security Committee, traveling to Afghanistan during her tenure to confer with military leaders and meet with active-duty service members [5].
Notable votes
The Daily Beast and other retrospectives have characterized her congressional voting record as "very conservative" by 2025 standards, a characterization Hochul herself echoed during her 2012 re-election bid, telling voters she had "become very conservative in my voting record" [2]. Specific notable votes:
One of 17 House Democrats to vote with Republicans to hold Attorney General Eric Holder in contempt of Congress over the "Fast and Furious" investigation in June 2012 [2, 5].
The only New York Democrat to vote yes on the 2012 Republican-sponsored Balanced Budget Amendment [5].
Voted against full repeal of the Affordable Care Act in 2012, but voted to strip several specific provisions, including the medical device tax [6].
Voted yes on the Budget Control Act of 2011 [4].
Voted yes on the Leahy-Smith America Invents Act [4].
Endorsed by the NRA in 2012 and received an "A" rating, including for votes such as a bill to allow concealed-carry permits to apply across state lines [7].
Signed legislation
The Clothe a Homeless Hero Act, which Hochul introduced as primary sponsor on August 2, 2012, directed airports to deliver unclaimed clothing to homeless veterans. The bill passed by voice vote in the House, by unanimous consent in the Senate after the November 2012 elections, and was signed into law on January 14, 2013, two weeks before Hochul left office [5].
2012 defeat
Hochul lost her re-election bid in November 2012 to Republican Chris Collins, 50.8 percent to 49.2 percent [1]. Chris Collins was later convicted of insider trading and resigned from Congress in 2019.
Lieutenant Governor (2015 to 2021)
As Lieutenant Governor under Andrew Cuomo, Hochul did not have a direct legislative role but chaired the statewide Regional Economic Development Councils, co-chaired the state's Heroin and Opioid Task Force, the Women's Suffrage Commission, and the Child Care Availability Task Force [8]. She championed the "Enough is Enough" law to prevent sexual assault on college campuses and helped advocate for the state's Paid Family Leave program [8].
Governor (August 2021 to present)
As Governor, Hochul's legislative record is largely measured by what she signed and what she negotiated into state budgets. Major signed laws and executive actions include:
2022 budget (FY 2023)
The $220 billion FY 2023 budget included the $1 billion Buffalo Bills stadium deal (with $850 million in direct construction subsidies from the state and Erie County), a temporary suspension of part of the state gas tax during the 2022 inflation surge, an expansion of bail eligibility for certain gun crimes, and the first increase in the state's child care eligibility threshold in years [9].
2023 budget (FY 2024) and minimum wage indexing
The FY 2024 budget enacted the minimum wage increase tying future raises to the CPI-W for the Northeast Region, the Roadway Quality Assurance Act (S.4887/A.5608) extending prevailing wage to certain construction work, and a partial bail reform rollback eliminating the "least restrictive" standard [10, 11].
2024 budget (FY 2025)
The FY 2025 budget, passed on April 20, 2024, totaled $237 billion. It included $2.4 billion to address the migrant crisis, a housing plan that incentivized rather than mandated local construction, paired with the long-debated "good cause eviction" tenant protection, an $1.8 billion state and federal investment in the Child Care Assistance Program, and new enforcement powers against unlicensed cannabis retailers [12].
2025 budget (FY 2026)
The FY 2026 budget included the $3 billion first-ever Inflation Refund, the largest Empire State Child Credit expansion in program history, a middle-class tax cut across five brackets, and the $2.2 billion child care investment package [11, 13].
Gun control signings
Major gun-related laws Hochul signed include the 2022 ban on semiautomatic rifle sales to under-21s, the ghost-gun ban, the red flag law expansion, and S7365B (signed October 9, 2024), which expanded bail eligibility for gun crimes [14, 15]. The 2022 laws followed the May 14, 2022, Tops shooting in Buffalo that killed 10 people, an event that drew Hochul personally as a Western New Yorker.
Judicial appointments
In April 2023, Hochul appointed Rowan Wilson as Chief Judge of the New York Court of Appeals, after the state Senate rejected her first nominee, Hector LaSalle, who progressives had opposed. The LaSalle rejection was a notable early-tenure setback. Hochul also appointed Caitlin Halligan as an associate judge of the Court of Appeals [16].
On the legislative record overall
Hochul's record is most contested among progressives on bail reform and on housing policy, where her positions have drawn fire from the left flank of her party, and among Republicans and business groups on minimum-wage indexing and on her congestion pricing approach, which is treated separately in the controversies file. Whether her legislative record fits the more centrist 2012 profile or the more progressive 2025 one is, perhaps, the central question of her 2026 re-election bid.