Lawmakers are getting impatient with Gov. Kathy Hochul. 

“The later the budget is, the more the governor gets blamed," said Deputy Senate Majority Leader Mike Gianaris. "If she wants to go through that route that other governors have gone through, she can figure it out herself." 

As budget negotiations wear on, the governor has threatened to keep lawmakers in Albany to continue negotiating the state budget into an upcoming two-week break via a series of short-term budget extenders if no deal is reached this week, all while continuing to inject new policy items for them to consider in the meantime. 

Gianaris dismissed the idea that the governor’s attempt at leverage would hold any weight. 

“It never works,” he said. “Legislators do not make substantive decisions based on the desire to go home.” 

On Tuesday, Hochul told reporters “I’m not going anywhere; I don’t make vacations.” 

Senate Majority Leader Andrea Stewart-Cousins also stressed Tuesday that lawmakers would continue negotiating regardless of what the legislative calendar says. The legislature is scheduled to be out of Albany from April 10-27. 

“We understand our responsibility,” she said. “As long as the budget is still open, we will do our job and show up and make sure we keep the government running.” 

Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie said members will return whenever the next extender, which would have to be passed on Thursday, runs out. Lawmakers appear poised to return Tuesday after an abbreviated break for Passover.  

The stalemate is primarily over Hochul’s proposed changes to the state’s discovery laws, an impasse Senate Majority Leader Andrea Stewart-Cousins described as a “pause.” 

“I really wish I could say we are further along,” she said. “We are stuck about where we were last week.” 

Stewart-Cousins told reporters at a Tuesday morning news conference the stalemate has grown more frustrating as the governor slips in additional proposals to an already bloated conversation. 

“It seems every day we have new policies being brought up,” she said. “We’re trying to close down the budget and less policy would help,” she added. 

Lawmakers spent Tuesday digesting Hochul's decision to start the week by proposing that governors and lieutenant governors run together in the primary, rather than requiring the LG candidate to beat out other challengers before joining the general election ticket. 

Assemblyman Angelo Santabarbara of Rotterdam is currently pushing a bipartisan bill with state Sen. Joe Griffo which would do just that. 

“We want a partnership built on shared vision not just political convenience, and you can’t have situations where they’re just not seeing eye to eye,” he said. 

But even Santabarbara said the budget, which is now over a week late, is not the place for such a discussion. 

“The budget should be the budget, dollars and cents, funding that goes to our communities,” he said. 

Meanwhile, legislative leaders continue to face questions over their push for a budget even more expensive than Hochul’s proposal, while simultaneously warning New Yorkers of the impacts of ongoing and impending federal cuts. 

“We’re not having our head in the sand,” Stewart-Cousins said when asked about leaders continuing to pursue some of the flashier proposals. “We are dealing with the realities we have in front of us, and we are obviously prepared should we have to make changes. 

It comes as lawmakers grow frustrated that other policies, they feel could address federal cuts or benefit those bound to be impacted by them are taking a back seat to the back and forth. 

Queens Assemblymember Jessica Gonzalez-Rojas is pushing to prevent the theft of SNAP benefits through the introduction of more secure cards, while also finding ways to financially help families hit by potential federal SNAP cuts. 

“We’re fighting to ask for a fund to make sure we can reimburse families at the state level, we’re also looking to get to the root of the issue, which is the EBT card,” she said. 

Virtually no issues of spending have been discussed, including Hochul’s proposal for universal free school meals, which Gonzalez-Rojas was instrumental in pushing. 

Concerns over federal education funding have infiltrated discussions around that proposal, but Gonzalez-Rojas said she is not concerned that the pitch is in jeopardy. 

“We’re moving forward with the plan, if we need to backfill those funds there are a lot of revenue-generating policies,” she said of the progressive pitch to raise taxes on the state’s highest earners. “But as of now we’re continuing to move forward and advance and ensure that the funding she allocated, and the Assembly supports and the Senate supports for universal school meals is going to move forward.”