Direct action heats up New York’s budget season this year as we approach Hochul's bid for reelection. On Tuesday March 25, about 100 activists blockaded the State St entrance to the NYS Capital, demanding the passage of NY4All, a bill which would protect our immigrant neighbors. After blocking traffic on State St, activists and politicians took the party indoors and chanted, sang, and salsa’d in front of security and their turnstiles. “State Police were told not to arrest protesters that day, and the demonstrators left a few hours after the rally began.” (Told by who? Traditional knowledge suggests that the Governor’s office - even Hochul herself - has a hand in directing the behavior of State Troopers operating within the Capital Complex.)
The next day, March 26, more than 500 people swarmed the Capital to protect NYS’ landmark climate law and block Hochul’s dogged attempts to gut it, with 21 arrested and “charged with trespassing [a civil offense] after they blocked the way to Hochul’s office, [and…] three of them caught misdemeanor charges for resisting arrest.” These climate activists, particularly those faced with aggravated charges, were violently dragged, shoved, and otherwise abused by State Troopers. As one arrestee asked while led away by Troopers, “This is Governor Hochul’s response?”
It is important to note that those arrested hailed from the Capital District as well as New York City, though Staff Writer Timothy Fanning, of the Times Union, tried to spin they were all from New York City -- which is, in this writer’s opinion, a blatant repeat of the long-standing Republican conspiracy “that some protesters have been lured by left-wing groups from New York City to Albany for a free lunch, a T-shirt and a bus ride.” Please know, whenever a chartered bus from NYC arrives in Albany by lunch-time, attendees leave promptly at 7AM -- often earlier -- to spend a day sitting on a floor, with a cold sandwich in hand: not the glamorous trip NYS Senators imagine it to be. (Can you blame them for the misconception, though? We suppose when our Senators imagine a free lunch during a ‘lobby’ day, caviar comes to mind.)
Most recently, on Wednesday, April 1st, 15 were arrested again at the Capitol, this time while blocking 3rd floor entrances to the NYS Assembly and Senate and again demanding the passage of NY4All. They were charged with disorderly conduct -- a violation.
Speaking as people who were recently active in the Albany region for around five years, there are things known among protestors there. Largely that these Troopers, who work a specific beat to enforce the law at the Capital buildings, are typically instructed -- as they were on March 25th -- to not arrest protestors, and that there is a relationship between the temperament of Albany politicians and the likelihood your face will see some pavement. Therefore, despite what the Times Union claimed, that politicians were unmoved by these protests, we can infer there was some change in temperament between the 25th and 26th, which caused the Troopers to violate these protestors’ civil rights, and that someone, in a position of power, ordered these Troopers to commit such violent acts against these protestors and lose the traditionally impassive, composed face of the Capital.
Policy wonks publicly describe NYS budget negotiations as happening among only three people behind a closed door. Those three being “representatives of the governor, state Senate majority leader and the Assembly speaker.” We can suspect that the protests of working New Yorkers reached one of the triumvirate, and they responded with state violence.
Perhaps it was something in what these people were fighting for: our climate law violated by the state (and the governor), and which conflicted with Hochul’s pro-corporate and fossil fuel heavy campaign; perhaps the monied interests of the energy companies exploiting us got under someone’s skin; was worth ‘cracking-skulls,’ and terrorizing New Yorkers.
Or perhaps it was the location. Violent arrests didn’t happen when protestors blockaded any Capital building entrance, but when protestors blocked the NYS Assembly and Senate, Capitol police arrested protestors; when protestors sat outside Hochul’s office and targeted the governor, Capital police were especially violent. Specific action against the triumvirate directing budget negotiations created the largest backlash.
At the end of the day -- or the 2026 budget season, as it were -- police violence is personal, intimate, and intended to humiliate; that is how it is used, in aggregate, to subdue populations and why it is a crime against not just lots of individual persons, but humanity.
We feel the best way to honor our brave protestors and victims of police brutality is to highlight why they put their bodies on the line in direct, civil disobedience: to pass NY4All and to protect the 2019 Climate Law. We encourage our readers to follow and boost communications from the NY Immigration Coalition (NYIC - instagram), and People Over Profit (POP4Climate - instagram). As always, it is a good idea to contact your state level representatives, and Hochul’s office, in support of immigrant and climate protections; check out the links to do so below in the Ongoing Desktop Actions.
Of course, the Times Union writer Timothy Fanning would want you to downplay the efforts of our brave protestors: he boldly headlined his coverage “Arrests of Capitol protesters don’t sway policy”, and interviewed state legislators biased to agree exactly with that claim. He would issue a tepid correction, following his attempt to malign protestors based on their residence.
Who wants us to believe direct action doesn’t work? Who wants us to believe a lie, that the only New Yorkers who care about immigrant rights and climate change are from New York City? Why is it important that Times Union readers believe it? To us, this gives away the game: Capital politicians and their reporters reek of fright. And we’ll tell you, we know that the Governor and Capital police are spooked by unshakeable solidarity and back-to-back direct action. These actions continue the multi-movement coalition previously shown during the Defend NY March 10th action, in which around 8 Metro Justice members (and 25 Rochesterians) took part in an event totaling more than one thousand participants from every corner of the state.
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Turning attention back to Governor Hochul: her election is right around the corner and she’s been going across the state repeating talking points that we here at Metro Justice find both untrue and abhorrent. It’s no secret that fossil fuels are the source of our affordability crisis; consider the global rise in gas prices after the Trump Administration’s attacks in Iran, or more locally with RG&E’s proposed gas pipeline infrastructure coming at the expense of Rochester Metro rate-payers. With the volatility of gas prices in recent years, and the decline of the cost of renewables, nations and consumers are looking to renewable options, because they are cheaper, safer, and more reliable.
Yet, in addressing housing and utility bill affordability the other day here in Rochester, Hochul claimed close friendship with County Executive Adam Bello and Chamber of Commerce President Bob Duffy, blamed state-level environmental regulations for high gas prices, and argued that continued reliance on fossil fuels would relieve our affordability crisis… somehow. Sure, tariffs – and federal disinvestment from clean energy – drive up the cost of solar panels; but they have also driven up the cost of gas and oil. She mentions the impact of America’s attacks in Iran on our skyrocketing gas and oil prices; but at least wind and sun cannot be held hostage in the strait of Hormuz.
Ultimately, science is not on Hochul’s side: over 100 of the nation’s leading environmental scientists and policy experts issued an open letter with resounding proof that energy unaffordability comes from fossil fuels, which are destructive and unstable.
Hochul’s damaging priorities do not surprise New York's climate activists, who have witnessed Hochul's attacks against NYS’s environmental regulations left and right. And while Trump's tariffs are a good scapegoat for a lack of renewable development, she’s happy to have meetings with him, and approve the pipeline (NESE) he wanted through our state. While she postures defiance, she does exactly what the Trump administration asks: investing in Fossil Fuels, and gutting our protections from large corporations. It seems Hochul has a cultivated strategy of making the Trump administration a convenient fall guy, an excuse as to why she won't do anything her constituents voted for.
Despite what Hochul says, scaling back our goals for renewables is a horrific justification for the expansion of fossil-fuels and nuclear. That 32% rate-increase RG&E has demanded of NYS, the one being reviewed by the Public Service Commission (PSC) right now - that rate increase is meant to cover the expansion of RG&E’s natural gas pipelines, and Hochul's anti-planet/anti-people tirade. She advocates for “affordability”, but gives the game away to wealthy developers.
All the more reason to keep up the fight! If Capital police want to brutalize protectors of our communities, remove protestors demanding climate action, and silence people begging for affordability, all while Hochul betrays her constituents, then we must organize to protect ourselves from our own Governor.
Metro Justice has a number of campaigns we invite new and long-time members to join, such as the Elder Justice Committee, Campaign for New York Health, Rochester for Energy Democracy, and a budding Immigrant Rights Committee. Please visit our website, metrojustice.org, for more information and connect with us at [email protected].