Hochul's troops-in-the-subway move is trash, and more Dems should be saying it

“Anyone looking to do harm or spread fear on our subways, you will be caught,” Hochul said. Has New York's governor been caught yet?

New York’s Democratic governor, Kathy Hochul, announced actions on Wednesday to put 750 members of New York’s National Guard at subway stations to carry out warrantless and suspicionless searches of would-be subway riders’ bags.

It is a trash move that more Democrats should be condemning for the trash move it is.

“Anyone looking to do harm or spread fear on our subways, you will be caught,” Hochul said, ignoring the fear that her actions would cause for New Yorkers — let alone tourists — who were all going to head down into busy stations that afternoon to find camouflaged members of the military with big guns awaiting them and ordering them to open their bags.

No, you don’t have to comply, Hochul explained: “They can refuse. We can refuse them. They can walk.” (Or, for those who can afford it, get a car.)

In short, for those New Yorkers who need to ride the subway to get to work or medical appointments or to take care of family members and don’t have other means to get there, it’s not really a voluntary program.

Because of that, among other implementation questions, it’s also likely that poorer New Yorkers are more likely to be negatively affected by this effort.

Hochul admitted in her news conference that she wasn’t going to do anything wild like back up the need for this with statistics or any numbers at all — beyond knowing, and repeating, the number of troops that she was sending into the city’s subway stations.

It’s not about crime numbers on the subway, as she knows and as HellGate explained. It is true that attacks on subway workers have been rightly causing concerns and should be addressed, but, as others have pointed out, the numbers even as to attacks on MTA staff are still very low and Hochul made no clear connection of this effort to staff safety.

It’s no answer that troops have been in the subway before — in the aftermath of 9/11 — or that the NYPD’s subway bag checks have been upheld as constitutional. When it comes to increasing the militarization of our daily lives or increasing criminalization, leaders — particularly Democratic leaders — should be seeking to avoid either step whenever possible.

Those instincts, however, are not Hochul’s instincts.

The troops aren’t the only effort Hochul announced. She also asked the legislature to pass a law making it easier to ban someone from the subway altogether “for at least three years” if they are convicted of assault for actions on the subway — another efforts that would likely cause disproportionate effects on those least able to afford being barred from the subway. Queens Daily Eagle reported on this proposal, the complications, and early opposition.

She also wants to create “a new early warning system” to flag “repeat offenders” to ensure charging and bail decisions will reflect that knowledge about, as she said, the people who “[w]e know who they are.” When that’s where you start from, it’s hard to imagine that new problems won’t be created in implementing such a plan.

Whether Hochul is doing this to appease wealthy donors, the subway workers’ union (which wants the troops to be permanent), or some other third thing, this is part of a disappointing pattern from her.

It is, bluntly, an instinct to do things that a Democratic governor should not be doing.

I should not look at New York’s leadership and be reminded of Republican Sen. Tom Cotton.

You have failed if that happens.