Hector LaSalle gives testimony to the Senate Judiciary Committee on Jan. 18, 2023, in Albany.
Hans Pennink/AP Photo

LaSalle, 54, sought to address the framing of several cases that have emerged in the discourse.

One was related to a crisis pregnancy center that limited subpoena access to their promotional materials for an investigation by the state attorney general.

LaSalle said that his agreement with the decision was not an indication he personally defends crisis pregnancy centers. But he did agree with the boundaries set on what prosecutors could obtain amid the investigation.

Another involved Communications Workers of America and a company’s ability to sue a union official as an individual.

LaSalle said the decision he supported was not new — it was the application of a necessary precedent set out decades earlier. He also drew attention to his background as “a working class kid, from Brentwood, New York” and said labor got him to his position today.

“So when people say I’m anti labor because of the decision in Cablevision, I believe that’s simply a mischaracterization intended to derail my nomination, but it’s certainly not an adequate characterization of who I am,” he said.

But though LaSalle expressed the nuances of the legal choices he’s made, he also stated: “I stand by every decision I signed on to.”

The hearing was an odd twist on a nominee from a Democratic governor –most of the committee’s Democrats hammered him on political and ideological positions, casting doubt on his ability to lead New York’s massive court system and to head a bench responsible for countering conservative decisions coming down from the U.S. Supreme Court.

Republicans, however, were effusive with their praise for a record they say proved he’d approach the role with fairness. Some members of the GOP have expressed no small amount of glee at the messaging — some of it dividing their colleagues in the majority party.

“You know, reading your decisions, and especially in listening to your opening statement, I thought for a moment I was in the wrong room. You do not come across as a right wing conservative nut,” Staten Island Republican Andrew Lanza said.

Lanza said while he doesn’t agree with Hochul often, he “can’t imagine her finding a more qualified nominee.”

The intensity of the public discourse has amounted to “character assassination,” said Bronx Sen. Luis Sep?lveda, one of the two Democrats who approved the nomination.

But both lawmakers and LaSalle said that has not been representative of conversations they’ve had privately. In the end, the committee’s decision was only a nod to the important implications of the nomination, Queens Sen. John Liu said, and “none of this is personal.”

“Everyone has treated me with respect and dignity,” LaSalle said. “The private conversations that I have had have not mirrored the public statements that have been made.”