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Bruce Blakeman joins Gov. Hochul in support for expanding NY rape law
By
Jon Campbell
Published Oct 14, 2026
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By
Jon Campbell
Published Oct 14, 2026
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Bruce Blakeman, the Republican candidate for New York state governor, is the latest official to call for closing the so-called “voluntary intoxication loophole” in order to make it easier for the state to prosecute rape cases where drugs and alcohol might have been involved.
Support for making the change has picked up steam in recent weeks, after a former Cornell University student filed a civil lawsuit alleging she was gang raped at a campus fraternity house. Gov. Kathy Hochul, a Democrat, has also said she hopes the state Legislature will approve it in its upcoming 2027 session.
“I absolutely do support that as a father, as a grandfather,” Blakeman, the Nassau County executive, said during his debate with Hochul on Tuesday. “First of all, if someone is intoxicated, maybe they're not unconscious, but if they're slurring their words and they're stumbling, you shouldn't engage in relations because I'm not sure that person has the capacity to consent. So I am for closing that loophole.”
New York is one of 19 states where sexual-assault laws consider a victim “mentally incapacitated” if they were drugged or drank alcohol without their consent.
The local district attorney who first investigated the case in 2024 pointed to the current law when explaining why he didn’t seek an indictment.
Advocates have long identified New York’s “voluntary intoxication loophole” as a barrier to justice for survivors of sexual assault. They want to expand the definition of mental incapacitation to explicitly include cases where a person willingly became intoxicated and was incapable of consenting to sex. But a bill to make the change has stalled in the state Assembly for years amid concerns from defense attorneys who say state law and court precedent already allows such cases.
Hochul first came out in favor of changing the law on Oct. 1, the day after she named state Attorney General Letitia James as special prosecutor in the Cornell case.
While Hochul and Blakeman agree on expanding the legal standard, Blakeman accused Hochul of having “pre-judged” the Cornell case. But he also questioned why Hochul — who, as governor, is a nonvoting member of Cornell's Board of Trustees — didn’t call for an independent investigation when the case first arose two years ago.
”As a trustee and as governor, you didn't call for an independent investigation when you found out that the district attorney was dropping the case,” Blakeman said during the debate, which was hosted by Spectrum News.
Hochul said Blakeman’s criticism was out of line.
“That’s pretty pathetic to blame me for what happened in a fraternity,” Hochul said. “My gosh.”
Tuesday’s debate came hours after Cornell President Michael Kotlikoff announced the university would ban social events at fraternities for the remainder of the academic year in response to the uproar over the alleged rape.
"It is clear that women on our campus continue to question whether they are safe,” Kotlikoff wrote in a letter Tuesday. “We must meet this moment by acknowledging where we have fallen short and taking meaningful action."
State lawmakers, meanwhile, are expected to consider whether to take up the voluntary intoxication bill when they’re next scheduled to return to the Capitol in January.
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Jon Campbell
Jon Campbell covers the New York State Capitol for WNYC and Gothamist. Prior to that, he covered the Capitol for more than a decade for the USA TODAY Network. He has twice earned the Walter T. Brown Memorial Award, an honor given annually by the Legislative Correspondents Association alumni for outstanding state government coverage. Jon grew up in the Buffalo area and graduated from the University at Albany. Got a tip? Email Jon at [email protected] or Signal at JonCampbellNY.90.
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