Earlier on Nov 25th, Governor Kathy Hochul signed legislation expanding protections in domestic violence cases in criminal and family court. This legislation recognizes that domestic violence does not just impact a person who is or was in an intimate relationship with an abuser –– it impacts their family and household members as well. Under this legislation, all family and household members will be afforded the same process in court, including the ability to obtain an order of protection. Previous laws only allowed unrelated children under the age of 18 to be included on the adult family member’s order of protection. Additionally, this legislation will allow these family and household members to file family offense petitions in Family Court. Nov 25th’s action, on International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women, expands on Governor Hochul and the Legislature’s commitments to keeping all New Yorkers safe and combating domestic violence.

VIDEO: The event is available to stream on YouTube here and TV quality video is available (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:

Thank you, Leah, for welcoming us here and for all the work you’re doing on behalf of people who sometimes see the darker side of life. Love and relationships are supposed to be uplifting and empowering and to guide us to better lives. And when they turn to a place of darkness, it’s so great to have places and professionals like yourselves and others who really are committed to helping others get out of the situations they're in. So, I want to — I’ll be speaking more about why this is a family journey for me, but I also am so grateful to all of the people who are here today.

We have a great team. We have individuals who are working so hard in Albany to make sure that we do what’s right for our citizens. And I want to give a special shoutout to Senator Michelle Hinchey, a great ally of ours. We’ve spent a lot of time here in her district. She’s a tremendous champion, I want to thank her. Brian Cunningham, our Assemblymember, who understood the need to get this law over the finish line through the Assembly. Thank you. Sue Serino, who’s our County Executive, but when she was a Senator, this was her initiative and I want to make sure we hear from her today and thank her for her work. And I want to thank Rob Rolison, our Senator, a local Senator, appreciate you joining us here today. Anil Beephan, thank you for joining and Jonathan Jacobson, Didi Barrett, friends of mine from a long time. Great to have such representation from the Hudson Valley. And always good to have our D.A. with us. We provide a lot of support services for our District Attorneys and making sure that people like the D.A. Parisi has the resources they need to fight battles like this.

Let me say this — we are here because of a family. A family’s story, which could have been any family in this whole state, and one never knows why anyone is singled out, what happens, but there is a family that was swept up with this vicious cycle of fear and intimidation and ultimately domestic violence.

We’re here on behalf of Melanie, a young woman, smart, smart woman who was educated in this community. She’s from here, she’s one of us, and her life was cut so tragically short. And if it wasn’t for the relentless advocacy of her mother, her story would have been buried a year-and-a-half ago when we lost her. But her mother, Cheryl, said, “No, my daughter deserved more. The system failed my little girl,” a little girl who would have been 32 years old yesterday — a birthday celebration that should have been joined by mom and grandma who’s here and her son Myles.

But instead, they just remember her in the past tense and think about what could have been, what should have been. It’s hard to fathom the trauma that Cheryl herself had to endure in an abusive relationship, but to have that manifest itself in losing her child, I can’t think of a greater pain.

As I told Cheryl, when something that horrific happens to individuals, the human instinct says you recoil, you pull back, you say, “I’ve suffered so much, I can't go on.” But sometimes, there’s special people like Cheryl, who go so deep within herself to find the strength to use her voice on behalf of her daughter to make sure that no other family has to endure what her family did because the system was failing them.

We know what happened. Cheryl filed the order of protection against an abusive boyfriend. That’s what you do. You go to the court, you go to the system to protect you and your family. One was granted for Cheryl, one was granted for Myles, her grandson, but under the law that stood at the time, she couldn’t protect her own daughter, Melanie. The courts were not equipped to protect her because the law did not allow it. So, when the abuser couldn’t get to her, he took it out on the most beloved person in her life — go after Melanie, and that's exactly what he did.

You know Melanie, you’ll tell us more about her, and I’m sorry you look sad, Mom. She was a health coach. She was passionate about life. She wanted to help younger moms. Younger moms go through a lot, and we’ll talk a lot about that, how we’re going to give relief to families, in our next State of the State. This is my focus, family centered.

And, Cheryl, turning your grief into activism, going on television, coming up to the State Capitol, telling your story to journalists and elected leaders — and every time you have to tell that story, I’m telling you right now, I know what it does, it rips a hole in your heart a little bit wider. But you don’t let that be a deterrent. You say, “I’m hurting, I’m in pain to tell this again, but I need others to know the story of my child.” You showed this strength, this toughness, which is so admirable, and all of us should draw inspiration from you and your story and how we are here today.

I know a little bit about this because my own mother channeled the pain of what she saw in her own family. And, back in the 1970s, no one talked about domestic violence. It was viewed as some weakness on the part of the woman if the relationship wasn't strong, and the woman got blamed. These were called “wife beaters.” They didn't even treat it in cleaned-up language, “domestic abusers” — they were “wife beaters,” but no one spoke about them.

My mother became a social worker and a champion for these individuals, and they hit all socioeconomic incomes, all levels. It wasn't just people in poverty and tough circumstances, these were the wives of prominent doctors and lawyers who lived in the silence and the shame of being abused in the sanctity of their own home, and my mother said “enough,” because her own family had been disrupted like that. She saw what her own mother had to endure before her father abandoned her at a young age.

So, through my mother's strengths that I see in you, Cheryl, I see the same strengths that what you endure personally, you say, “I cannot allow that to happen to other families,” and you don't. My mom went to Albany herself, got laws changed, insisted on assembly hearings in Buffalo, where they finally realized that when someone calls 911, and the police officer goes to the door, and the man answers and says, “Everything's fine here,” and they used to leave, that they could no longer leave.

The laws were changed to protect people in that circumstance, and my mom was the driving force behind that — and opening a home for victims of domestic violence, something my family did when my mom was 70 years old, because she wanted to help other families.

We all became part of this, so this is part of who I am as well — understanding pain into activism, into change, and now, we have Melanie's Law. I wish my mom could have met you, she would have found a lot in common, she really would have. She would have seen your strength in your eyes. I can feel it, Cheryl. And I'm going to continue being this fighter. Not just because of what I saw and the stories I had to hear, but for all those I feel responsible to protect, because my number one job as Governor of the State of New York is to protect our citizens. We do it in countless ways, but this one is so deeply personal when the sanctity of your own home and your personal lives are so disrupted.

So, what do we do at the state level with the support of our Legislature? $35 million we just announced, to go out to our District Attorneys. They are the ones on the front line to fight domestic violence. The largest investment of its kind in history, giving prosecutors what they need, providing more services and crafting programs that are tailored to address problems in specific communities. And, any way we can strengthen our laws, like red flag laws, to keep guns out of the hands of domestic abusers, we are saving lives.

I'll close with this. There’s nothing more powerful than a mother’s love. It is deep, it’s so intense and I know you can't bring your daughter back, but you’ve kept her alive. You’ve kept her alive. And the second I sign this and hand that pen to you, I want you to cherish that pen and know you made this happen so some other mother is not sitting here someday. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you for being such a great champion. Thank you.

It's hard, isn't it? It's hard. I told her it's going to be hard when you get up here, but just speak to a room full of friends — people who love you, people who admire you for what you've done.

So, we'll be hearing from Cheryl in a couple moments, but right now I want to bring up another great champion, someone who loves her district with every fiber of her being. I've seen her exude this passion — it's intense. This is what you want to see in an elected official. This is the kind of intensity you want, someone who is unrelenting, and I just honor her so much for what she has done for our state and people like Melanie and her family. Let me introduce our Senator, Michelle Hinchey.