McMahon Ryan’s Go Blue 4 Kids Breakfast

Earlier today, Governor Hochul delivered remarks at McMahon Ryan’s Go Blue 4 Kids Breakfast to highlight her commitment to preventing child abuse in New York State.

VIDEO: The event is available to stream on YouTube here and TV quality video is available here (h.264, mp4).

AUDIO: The Governor's remarks are available in audio form here.

PHOTOS: The Governor's Flickr page will post photos of the event here.

A rush transcript of the Governor's remarks is available below:

 Good morning. I'm going to tell my scheduler, make sure I never go after Elijah when he speaks. What an extraordinary voice. And I want to thank him for coming from Virginia. I have a lot of family down the Richmond area. I was just so struck I was listening to every word he said and the passion that he brought to it.I want to make sure that his voice is elevated, maybe to run for office someday. Not for Governor of New York State, but maybe Governor of Virginia or something someday.

But thank you Elijah, and thank you Aaron and everyone, and Joanie and everyone who's here this morning. You all look great in your blue. Most of you have blue on, I found all the blue I could find in my closet.

But I also want to say this – I'm in the middle of the budget negotiations, right? So what am I doing here in Syracuse this morning? I did a little escape away because I knew what you were gathering to talk about. And that is something that as New York's first mom governor in history that I know a little bit about – a lot about how precious our children are.

And I think about the fact that even tomorrow at the Governor's residence, I'm opening up the lawn and we're going to have an Easter egg roll for children to be carefree and just enjoy life. And I'm bringing in kids from the neighborhood and from a sheltered workshop who come by. And I just want everyone to just embrace that sense of childhood uninterrupted by violence or abuse. But not every child has that.

That is what saddens me tremendously and why I wanted to come here and thank you for the work that you’re doing. And I want you to know you also have partners in government like myself – and one of the reasons those who keep track, and most people do not, I guarantee it – but our budget is a little delayed right now because I'm fighting to make sure that when we have victims, and we have people who are accused, people need to go to jail – or be at least tried – that we don't have cases thrown out on technicalities. That is what our system has set up.

We had important reforms back in 2019. We needed to make a change because it was skewed way toward the prosecutor. It was unfair to our defendants that is not justice. But now it has gone in the other direction, 100 percent. And we had 94 percent of domestic violence cases thrown out on technicalities mostly. That is an injustice to the victims – whether they're children, whether they're teenagers, whether they're adult women, whether they're men. We cannot have a system that victimizes the victims all over again when someone finally has the courage to come forward and tell their story, whether it's a child or an adult, they tell their story.

It is hard. It is hard to reveal that something has happened to you. There's an amount of shame and you wonder, did I bring this on myself? There's a lot of emotions involved. My mother was very involved in social work and helping children and women who are victims of violence, and I know that sense is strong.

But when someone has the courage to finally step up and tell a police officer what happened, and then they have to explain it to the prosecutors and have to tell their own story and have to find evidence and everything else. When you finally get to that point and you go to a judge who says, “Oh, we missed this bit of information. It may not be relevant, but under the law I have to throw it out,” or was missed by a day – that is justice as denied in a way that is incomprehensible to me. We must change that.

So I'm on the verge – I will be finishing up a budget hopefully soon, but I said I'm not signing this budget until it includes common sense reforms to those laws. And my friends, I'm about to get that done, and we're going to do it together. And I care so deeply about the work that you do, and I have an extraordinary team.

I want to make sure you have a chance to get to know them. I have Bea Hanson here, who's the head of the Office of Victim Services. Bea, would you please stand up and raise your hand? Dr. Harris-Madden is here as well, the Commissioner of the Office of Children and Family Services. Thank you, Dr. Harris-Madden. These are my champions, just like all of you are.

These are the voice, the faces of our state government who are out there saying, “We are working on this shoulder to shoulder, so we come to a time in our lives where we can finally banish the fear that children have to let them know that they're allowed to live in peace and love and everything they've been promised.”

I think about the words of Kofi Annan: “There is no trust more sacred than the one the world holds with children. There is no duty more important than ensuring their rights are respected, that their welfare is protected, that their lives can be free from fear and want. And they can grow up in peace.” Every child deserves that. That's the whole purpose of this organization that's been doing this God's work on Earth for 25 years.

And I just want to tell you how grateful I am and we have great individuals who are championing you, including our own Onondaga District Attorney, and I want to thank Bill Fitzpatrick. Is he here? He's been working on these issues for such a long time and I'm so proud of him and the work that he is doing in helping us with some really complicated cases involving our prisons. So there's a lot of good people, a lot of good angels out there, a lot of people out there to protect others.

I look at this organization and all of you, and that's why I wanted to come here of all the places in the state, it's really nice to be out of Albany. And I want to present this proclamation to Erin and thank her for everyone at the McMahon Ryan Advocacy Center and know that the lives that you're touching are profoundly affected in a positive way people had given up hope.

And I agree with Elijah. No one's really broken – they just need little mending sometimes. And sometimes their hearts need to heal. Let them grow into fully enriched adults who are capable of giving love to others, even if they've been denied it in their own lives and that trust has been broken, that someday they would have children that can trust them. We must stop this generational abuse. Stop it now, and children in the future will know that they are safer today because of the work that you have been doing for 25 years. And I'm saying for the next 25, 100 years – I thank you so much for everything you're doing and let's acknowledge children's advocacy and ending domestic violence and domestic abuse of children in our lifetime. Can we do that together? Can we continue to fight for that? I believe we can as well.

You inspire me. Thank you very much everyone. And I've been in this business a long time – this is a really nice long proclamation. I believe in democracy. If there's anyone who wants me to read the whole thing, raise your hands. Seeing none, I will just say that we are supporting the child abuse prevention awareness, and supporting Child and Family Wellness Month on behalf of the Governor, signed here, presented to you. Congratulations.