As the announcement of a deal to make changes to New York’s discovery laws pushed relentlessly by Gov. Kathy Hochul appeared imminent Wednesday, state Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie is getting a share of the credit for an unconventional maneuver.

Hochul, who has been adamant that she won’t sign a budget that doesn’t include a discovery solution that is up to her standards, acknowledged the assist Wednesday.

“I want to thank particularly Carl Heastie for working so hard day and night to get this across the finish line,” Hochul said as she spoke at an event to push discovery changes Wednesday.

Heastie told Spectrum News 1’s Kate Lisa around 7 p.m. Wednesday that a deal had been reached following a relatively brief meeting between legislative leaders and Hochul.

While Hochul and state Senate Majority Leader Andrea Stewart-Cousins were briefed on the conversations, it was Heastie who took the initiative over the weekend to negotiate directly with the five New York City district attorneys who had been inseparable from Hochul for weeks. He ultimately announced a "conceptual agreement" deemed palatable by both the state Senate and Assembly Tuesday afternoon.

The DAs have thanked Hochul throughout the process. Now they are thanking Heastie too.

“He’s really rolled up his sleeves trying to get us to this place,” said Brooklyn District Attorney Eric Gonzalez.

As the issue of policy in the budget and blown deadlines have blustered around Albany, memories have shifted to past administrations and past — and even later — budgets.

Former Gov. David Paterson is no stranger to a grueling budget process, and he backed Hochul on her push for discovery changes.

“I agree with her,” he said. “The information over the past four or five years bears out what the governor is trying to say, which is if you want a fair trial, you need a situation where both sides have to give.”

But as someone who also served in the state Senate from 1985 until he became lieutenant governor in 2007, Paterson said Heastie’s work on the issue was "outstanding."

“Whenever one of the leaders in the Legislature does something that’s that unique and that creative, I feel a little bit jealous,” he said.

Asked how he would feel toward Heastie if he was in Hochul’s shoes, he said he imagines it eased the pressure.

“He’s taking the time to take how he feels about this particular issue and weighing it against what the DAs are saying is actually going on in the courtroom,” he said. “The speaker took time out to actually listen to the side of the argument that she is representing, but she’s not the one in the court having these problems, the prosecutors are.”

Meanwhile, former Republican Gov. George Pataki praised Hochul from across the aisle to Spectrum News 1.

“I commend Gov. Hochul because she’s doing the right thing in standing up and making sure she gets the reform on the criminal justice piece, that’s the reform on the criminal justice piece that’s very important for New York City and the state,” he said. “When somebody does the right thing, if they’re a Republican or Democrat doesn’t matter, and she did the right thing.”

Pataki smiled and nodded when asked about the Court of Appeals ruling in Silver v. Pataki, which affirmed the governor’s supreme power over the budget process, and absolved Hochul of the criticism she has faced, and Paterson acknowledged facing after blowing past the budget deadline.

“It’s a question of getting a good budget as opposed to an on-time budget,” he said. “Politically, you get enormous grief but ultimately you have to do what’s right and I think in this case, fighting for the criminal justice reform is the right thing, and I remember telling Gov. Hochul that I had budget fights go into August and I’d have pickets and protests and ads taken out against me, but ultimately we kept the state headed in the right direction.”

With that power, NYPIRG’s Senior Policy Advisor Blair Horner explained that in the end, it’s Hochul who has to decide if she’s willing to officially rubber stamp what’s being put forward, even if Heastie made what he described as a "smart move."

“It doesn’t necessarily speed up the budget parade, but it definitely starts to knock down one of the major obstacles that the governor laid out,” he said.

A primary difference between Hochul and her predecessors is that Pataki and Paterson both had to work with leadership of the opposite party as they negotiated deals. Paterson said he’s a Democrat through and through, but there were aspects of negotiating across the aisle that he imagines are easier than the Democratic trifecta that Hochul faces.

“When I became governor, the majority leader at the time was the late Joe Bruno and he was great to negotiate with because he wanted things concluded as quickly as possible, he said when he was a teenager he used to sell ice and he had to sell it before it melted, that was exactly how he acted as a leader,” Paterson said. “I was able to take advantage of that because there were a lot of things I found I could give him that in return would speed up the budget process.”

Paterson said in some ways, negotiating within a cross section of the Democratic Party which spans from Long Island to the North Country could be more fraught and difficult than the give and take of a bipartisan negotiation.

“Sometimes when you’re going across party lines you can get a lot more done in a negotiation than when it’s a family,” he said. “Family feuds last longer and are more agonizing than fights with the other family.”