Kathy Hochul endangers budget negotiations with anti-mask push

New York state lawmakers returned to Albany on Monday as state budget negotiations continued, nearly a week after the deadline.

Gov. Kathy Hochul (D-NY) took a hard-line stance on including a provision to add a ban on face masks in public with the intent to harass, a notion that became entangled with concerns over the Trump administration’s immigration policies and its response to pro-Palestinian protests on college campuses.

“ In the context of the Trump administration, [concerns over] things like proposals to … put limits on people’s ability for masks in public definitely grow,” Democratic state Sen. Liz Krueger said. “I hear from a huge chunk of people in my district — they just want to wear masks for health and safety reasons, and they don’t understand

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