‘Fuck this, we’re getting better’: Liz Krueger is on the mend

State Sen. Liz Krueger has been a staple in Albany for a quarter century, helping guide her chamber through the state budget process for the last several years as chair of the Finance Committee. So her absence following a stroke in April was felt strongly by both her colleagues and other state capital politicos. Krueger’s recovery kept her away from Albany for the prolonged budget negotiations and the end of the legislative session in June, and she’s kept a light public schedule as well. 

But nearly four months after her health crisis, Krueger doesn’t seem to have missed a beat. On Thursday, she attended a press conference calling on the governor to sign her bill the SUNNY Act, which would permit small, plug-in solar panels that provide apartment-dwellers options to generate their own renewable energy. It was one of the first times she’s attended an event in person since her stroke. City & State caught up with Krueger before the event outside New York City Hall about her recovery and plans for the future. This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

How are you feeling?

I’m feeling great. I dodged a huge bullet when I had the stroke. It was real. It was scary, and all the bad things happened. Then, like on day five after the stroke – and I’m still in an intensive care unit – my body I think just said, “Fuck this, we’re getting better.” And everything came back. Doctors came flying into my room saying, “We heard you’re speaking and thinking.” They asked me a million questions, and I got them all right. And I was like, “Let me out of bed.” They’re like, “You don’t really come back that fast. We don’t think you could walk. We don’t want you to fall.” I was like, “Let’s try, shall we?” They didn’t want to let me. And I actually said, “I’m an anarchist. You can’t keep me here if I don’t want to be here.” And I got up and I went to the bathroom, which was so exciting. They said, “We’ve done every test in the book. Everything is checking out perfectly, you’re a mystery.” What apparently I’m abnormal at, according to the neurologists, is the ability and the time it took my brain to rewire and reboot itself. I’m 68. They’re like, “Yeah, you’re not supposed to be able to recover this fast.” I said, “I’ll take it.”

What was it like being forced to sit out of the lengthy budget process?

So frustrating. Although it’s always frustrating. So first I got permission to be able to vote absentee, which is very unusual. But they said I had to get letters from two doctors verifying that my cognitive abilities were not impaired, and I could make rational decisions, which is why I took those tests. So then I was actually voting online. I was watching the session. And when my bills would come up, I would get colleagues of mine to agree to debate them for me. If I thought my colleague might be having a little trouble answering the question, I would quickly text them. And a couple times, if you go and watch the tapes, it’ll be one of them going, “I think if Sen. Krueger was here, she might answer the following way.” When I would really get aggravated with some of the stuff they were doing, I would actually text the Republican going, “Are you kidding? I'm not letting you get away with that. You have to sit down, shut up and read a book.” So I did feel like I participated, but it was very different for me than the last 24 years. 

Are you excited to get back up to Albany? 

I am. I mean, it’s always frustrating. I know that that’s my job description. It’s funny, because I took my summer interns out for lunch yesterday. I have eight of them. And they were saying, “What is it that you like about your job?” And I said, “Well, the truth is, you lose five out of six battles. But when you have that one battle that you win, and you know you could impact 10 million people overnight, there's nothing sweeter.” I like the challenge. I like working as a team. Lots of people become legislators and realize they hate that because they don’t control anything. It’s all groupthink. I find it interesting. I find it challenging to fight things out with my colleagues behind closed doors and try to give them the best solutions. And I really do feel like – maybe I’m wrong, we’re all egotists in politics – I really do believe that I’m value added in a lot of ways. And I still feel that way, even though it’s all kids coming up, and I’m old enough to be their grandmothers.

After your stroke, people speculated whether you’d come back, whether you’d serve your next full term. Do you plan to?

Absolutely. I wouldn’t have run again if I wasn’t committed to it. When I had the stroke, upon the immediate information when they were telling me it can take people years to recover from strokes, I had very serious thoughts and conversations – even with my leader – about whether it was not the right thing for me to do to run for reelection. Because I didn’t want to not represent my district appropriately, and I didn’t (want to be unable) to deliver for my conference. I’m not irreplaceable, and I know that. I’m not even one of those seats where you go, “Oh my God, if they leave, a Republican could get it.” So yes, I thought about it hard, and I talked to my doctors, and they were like, “Well, frankly, at the rate you're recovering, we don't want you to go to Albany for at least three months. We want you to be near the hospital, and you’re going to get tired.” And that’s true. Fatigue is very real. I go to bed at 8:30 at night if I can. But they said, “We don’t have any reason to believe that you’re not going to continue on a positive trajectory, particularly if you exercise.” And I’ve become a gym rat, someone who hates exercise. I do four different activities a week now. I absolutely can, and I don’t believe any penalty will be paid by my constituents. So I decided, yes, I would run again. And I would only have done that if I knew that I believed, both from a health perspective and a personal commitment, that I would serve another two years after this session.

You missed quite an interesting budget process – it went the latest it has in a couple decades. What are your expectations for next year when you’re coming back? Do you think you could have prevented this?

No, I do not. I never have any illusions that I’m the person who’s going to magically come up with silver bullets. It’s an election year, so I think the governor may want to not play it the same way because it’s her election year. But I think she’s discovered this system really works for her. There’s no penalty for the governor to have a late budget, and the longer she drags it out, the more things she’s able to get out of the Legislature. Sort of a blackmail arrangement, right? You don't get paid, and I’m just going to make more demands on you. And also, it gives us much less time to work on our big legislation post-budget, and she loves that also. She doesn’t want us to pass legislation. When we pass good legislation, she decides to do (executive orders) and take credit for it anyway. So I think she –  structurally and by personality – sort of really likes this model, and could continue it even in an election year. You'll have to see whether the media and the public spin late budgets against her in a way that she thinks impacts her election. But otherwise, I think she likes this model just fine.

And since we’re going over to a SUNNY Act press conference, one of your big bills from the end of session, have you spoken with the governor or her office about it at all yet since you’ve been getting back?

We have not yet talked to the governor’s office about the bill. I have certainly talked to other people in her agencies. I would be shocked if she vetoes this bill. I can’t even come up with reasons she could or would, but you never know. We worked with utilities on the bill. Con Edison has been fine with this, and has been saying that. I don't know about every utility in the state. But this is catching on like wildfire in states around the country because it’s been so effective and successful, frankly, in other countries. I mean, Germany itself has 5 million of them already. And the rest of Western Europe is moving fast. There’s no downside to it.