Is Hochul’s high court move a compromise — or a sellout?

Hmm: Gov. Kathy Hochul evidently hopes to sidestep the hard left’s drive to control New York’s top court with a compromise.

Or maybe it’s a sellout.

To recap: The state Senate’s lefty leadership orchestrated a humiliating rejection of her first nominee for state chief judge, Hector LaSalle — first stacking the Judiciary Committee with new progressive members in a bid to kill the nomination in committee, then (when finally forced into allowing a floor vote) intimidating even Democrats who’d normally have supported him into voting “no.”

Along the way, they came up with a new litmus test: No more Court of Appeals justices who’d previously been prosecutors, because that supposedly makes them biased against accused criminals.

In fact, the concern was simply that LaSalle — a perfectly liberal moderate Dem — wouldn’t side with the left when the law as written clearly says otherwise.

Hochul’s giving in at least partway with her new chief judge pick: solid lefty Justice Rowan Wilson, who’s most famous for siding with Happy the elephant’s “right” to sue for release from the Bronx Zoo.

(Of course, it was really self-appointed animal-rights extremists doing the suing.)

But elevating him to chief judge doesn’t change the balance on the high court, now 3-3 between libs and lefties: The deciding vote would then be with Wilson’s replacement as an associate justice.

For that slot, the gov offers Caitlin Halligan, a former state solicitor general widely seen as pretty-liberal-but-not-crazy-left — who’s also been tight with Hochul herself.

Which brings us to our “sellout” fear: This comes as Hochul has just filed a brief supporting the lawsuit to give the Dem-dominated Legislature another crack at gerrymandering New York’s House districts.

In the wake of the 2020 Census, Dems drew up (contrary to the state Constitution) a map to lock Republicans into just four of New York’s 26 house seats.

And Hochul embraced it, citing her party loyalty.

State courts rejected that power play and named a special master to draw up a fair, nonpartisan map (exactly as the voters intended when they amended New York’s Constitution).

The Court of Appeals affirmed that decision, and the GOP wound up gaining House seats last fall, for a total of 12.

The difference is why Rep. Hakeem Jeffries (D-B’klyn) is now the House minority leader, not the speaker.

And by all accounts Jeffries is demanding state lawmakers “fix” things.

Which leaves us worried that an unspoken part of Hochul’s high-court compromise is an expectation that, when the suit finally makes it to the Court of Appeals, Halligan will side with the Dems.

Then the Legislature will impose a less-blatant gerrymander to let the Dems recover “their” seats next year.

Every faction of the Democratic Party will be happy, and that’s all that counts in Albany these days.