Governor Kathy Hochul is illegally keeping information from the public. She will not release her full, unredacted official schedules as required by statutory appeal laws. News organization New York Focus is now taking her administration to court to force the release of the schedules.
The lawsuit, filed on Monday, July 6th in state Supreme Court, demands comprehensive access to the governor’s Microsoft Outlook calendar files. The complaint targets the administration’s persistent practice of keeping the public in the dark regarding who gets private access to top state leadership.
According to the complaint, these records serve as basic public information that should reveal who meets with Governor Hochul, when those meetings take place, and on whose behalf those conversations take place.
New York Focus has tried repeatedly to obtain the information through the state’s Freedom of Information Law (FOIL). Rather than providing complete Outlook files, the Hochul administration has consistently withheld the genuine calendars, instead offering heavily sanitized online schedules. These public versions frequently feature entries that are completely blacked out, raising questions about what her inner circle has been instructed to conceal.
Now she will drag it out past the election. What doesn’t she want us to see? She is hiding who she meets with, such as special interest groups, lobbyists, and political allies, who hold private sway over state policy.
Under explicit guidance issued by the state Committee on Open Government, New York’s FOIL framework rests on a clear statutory presumption that agency records belong to the public unless a precise exemption applies. When a state agency denies access, it must strictly adhere to statutory appeal rules. It’s a standard that now sits at the very heart of whether Governor Hochul can legally justify hiding her daily itinerary.
