Only a day after Governor Kathy Hochul delivered her 2026 State of the State handle, the NAACP New York State Convention held its first legislative briefing of the yr on January 14. Held on-line, the civil rights group’s briefing featured NAACP leaders Chris Alexander and L. Pleasure Williams, who outlined the group’s legislative priorities and responded to the governor’s proposals.
In her State of the State, Gov. Hochul promised that her administration’s efforts this yr will shield New Yorkers from dangerous Trump administration insurance policies, enhance affordability, and assist New York’s economic system progress. “Statewide… we’re promising common pre-Okay for each single four-year-old by 2028,” Hochul mentioned. “And this yr, we’ll pilot community-wide childcare to offer year-round, full-day, reasonably priced look after newborns to three-year-olds. And we’ll construct on that confirmed success of our state childcare help program and our voucher program so tens of 1000’s extra households can entry high-quality look after not more than $15 every week.”
Hochul additionally mentioned her administration plans to scale back the prices of housing growth: “This yr, we’re going to speculate an extra $250 million into reasonably priced housing and $100 million to scale revolutionary manufactured housing that lowers prices and speeds building,” she mentioned. Hochul additionally spoke of efforts to broaden behavioral well being providers for veterans and folks with disabilities, shield youngsters from on-line predators, and regulate synthetic intelligence that targets youth.
Williams, the NAACP New York State Convention president, and Alexander, its government director, mentioned they attended Hochul’s speech in Albany so they might meet with elected officers and ensure their group’s legislative agenda was being represented.
Williams characterised Hochul’s speech as even-keeled sufficient to maintain the governor out of main political fights. “It undoubtedly was a spotlight reel of … the investments that have been made: ‘Crime is down, and, you realize, we’re investing in housing, schooling, our kids.’ Like, these are all of the issues that individuals have on the prime of their listing in an election yr,” Williams mentioned.
The NAACP New York State Convention says it strongly helps rising the state’s housing provide and desires to see it performed with out harming current communities. However Williams additionally pressured that the group needs to guarantee that state investments in reasonably priced housing and homeownership are equitable. “It’s about defining affordability, and from our perspective, we wish to be sure that we’re advocating on behalf of Black New Yorkers, notably Black New Yorkers who’ve been instructed for generations that the way in which to construct wealth on this nation is thru homeownership. You will have a swath of Black people who, you realize, did what America instructed us to do, proper? Make investments and save and construct wealth by having housing. And we’ve performed that. However now there are all of those adjustments which will occur which will impede upon folks’s American dream of homeownership.”
Hochul’s strongest place, based on Williams, was her sturdy stance towards the Trump administration’s insurance policies — particularly, what she described as illegal actions by ICE. Even that stance ought to, logically, get sturdy assist, Williams steered, following ICE’s killing of 37-year-old Renee Good and the protests which have subsequently erupted in Minneapolis. “I feel we’ve to be notably cautious when you may have a hostile federal authorities; we’d like state executives and native executives to exert their energy in defending the individuals who stay and work inside their state.”
New York State’s NAACP is working in coalition with advocacy organizations just like the New York Immigration Coalition (NYIC), Immigrant Protection Mission (IDP), Make the Highway New York, Brooklyn Defenders, Authorized Support Society, Immigrant Advocates Response Collaborative (I-ARC), and native chapters of the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) to talk out towards ICE raids. It’s a part of the civil rights teams’ technique to cease what they time period federal overreach.
“All of us have to face towards this,” Williams mentioned, calling on folks to talk out towards ICE due to the hazard we discover ourselves in. She mentioned ICE needs to be confronted by folks she calls occupants of the workplace of the citizen. “You will have the workplace of the president, the workplace of the mayor, you realize, all of these sorts of stuff. However the workplace of the citizen is crucial workplace on this nation. The Structure says so. And in case you are troubled by what is occurring in our streets and the way you might be being ruled, it’s our proper to face up and say we don’t want this; this isn’t how we wish the federal authorities to behave. This isn’t how we wish states to conform.”
Alexander mentioned the NAACP plans to carry extra briefings within the months forward and provides updates on legislative exercise, observe endorsed payments, and share suggestions from each lawmakers and group members. This, he mentioned, will give folks the chance to remain engaged with the legislative session because it unfolds.
