The state of New York is set to get its first ever female governor after Andrew Cuomo resigned on Tuesday, giving way under the sheer weight of the many sexual misconduct claims against him. His resignation takes effect in 14 days.

New York Lieutenant-Governor Kathy Hochul (pronounced HOH-kuhl) will be sworn in and she will be the governor of the state for the remainder of Cuomo’s term. Shortly after he announced his resignation on Tuesday afternoon, Hochul took to Twitter to say that Cuomo did the right thing in resigning and that she was prepared/ready to be the 57th governor of New York state.

I agree with Governor Cuomo’s decision to step down. It is the right thing to do and in the best interest of New Yorkers.

As someone who has served at all levels of government and is next in the line of succession, I am prepared to lead as New York State’s 57th Governor.

— Kathy Hochul (@LtGovHochulNY) August 10, 2021

Cuomo made a short announcement to the media early on Tuesday, saying: “…given the circumstances, the best way I can help now is if I step aside and let government get back to government”. Cuomo had faced a barrage of allegations of sexual misconduct and harassment, but refused to resign for some five months. His resignation brings an end to his 10 years at the head of the New York state.

The 62-year-old Hochul has “largely toiled in obscurity since joining the governor’s team in 2014”, says The New York Times. Cuomo himself said she was “… smart and competent… she can come up to speed quickly”.

Hochul is in some ways the quintessential New Yorker – her father was an immigrant and a steelworker and she is one of six children from a working-class Irish-Catholic family in Buffalo, NY.  She is also a longtime activist, who while at Syracuse college led a boycott against the high prices of books at the college bookstore.

She went on to study for a law degree at the Catholic University of America in Washington, DC, and after graduating went on to work in the city, where she met and married her husband – also a lawyer – William J Hochul jr.

She is known as a hard-working politician who genuinely likes meeting people, visiting each of New York’s 60 counties annually. She helped her mother establish a home for victims of domestic abuse. She is named after her grandmother Kathleen, who was “a survivor of domestic violence”.

In 2020 Hochul was a recipient of the Harriet Tubman Freedom Award. She was the chair of the New York Women’s Suffrage Commission at the 100th anniversary of US women winning the right to vote and was asked to speak on women’s rights as part of a lecture series in July last year. 

She said this was an opportunity “to draw a connection between the early suffragette movement… because it’s the 100th anniversary of women securing the right to vote nationwide, and to talk about those challenges, the people, the barriers they had to overcome. And to bring that up to the present… the societal movements that are being undertaken and fought in real time.”

With the current running battles around legislation in various states making it harder for people to vote, Hochul may be just the kind of activist politician her country needs – someone who stands up for the rights of voters in general and women in particular. DM