For the second year running, Assembly Member Latrice Walker (D-Brooklyn) is going on a hunger strike in a bid to stop Governor Kathy Hochul’s proposed changes to the state’s bail laws from getting into the state budget, she announced after visiting Rikers Island on Thursday.
The state spending plan is now nearly a week late, after Hochul and legislative leaders blew past its April 1 deadline due to ongoing disagreements on whether to further rollback 2019 reforms to the state’s cash bail system — according to the governor and leaders of both chambers. The 2019 laws eliminated cash bail for most misdemeanors and non-violent felonies.
