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Facing Impeachment, Cuomo Announces Resignation in Wake of Sexual Harassment Report


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Governor Andrew Cuomo (Don Pollard/Governor's Office)


Governor Andrew Cuomo on Tuesday announced that he is resigning from office, just one week after a bombshell state attorney general report found that he had sexually harassed 11 women, nine of whom were current or former state employees.

Cuomo, in a live virtual address from his Manhattan office, said his resignation will take effect in 14 days, at which time Lieutenant Governor Kathy Hochul will take over, making her the first woman to become Governor of New York.

The governor continued to deny the substantiated allegations against him and claimed the report from Attorney General Letitia James’ office was “politically motivated,” “unfair,” and “untruthful.” But he nonetheless apologized to all 11 women, and he said he wanted to avoid “months of political and legal controversy” which would distract the state government as it deals with the lingering coronavirus pandemic. The governor was simultaneously facing an impeachment investigation by the State Assembly, which was looking into the sexual harassment complaints and several other issues. The impeachment could still proceed and if impeached, the governor faced the prospect of not being able to run for state office ever again.

“I think that given the circumstances, the best way I can help now is if I step aside and let government get back to governing,” Cuomo said, “and therefore that's what I'll do, because I work for you, and doing the right thing is doing the right thing for you.”

The governor, a Democrat now in his third term, went on to tout the many accomplishments of his tenure including the passage of marriage equality, gun control legislation including an assault weapons ban, a $15 minimum wage law, paid family leave requirements, free public college tuition for low-income New Yorkers, a broad infrastructure program, and eleven timely, balanced state budgets.

In a statement, Hochul said she agreed with the governor’s decision and was ready for the role. “It is the right thing to do and in the best interest of New Yorkers,” she said. “As someone who has served at all levels of government and is next in the line of succession, I am prepared to lead as New York State’s 57th Governor.”

Cuomo’s fall from grace was months in the making, as he and his administration were beset by several compounding scandals. The Governor was first accused of sexual harassment in December by Lindsey Boylan, a former economic development official, who later came forward with her full story in February. Another complaint from Charlotte Bennett, an executive assistant in his office, soon followed and kicked open the floodgates to several other complaints against the governor.

At the same time, the administration faced intense scrutiny over its mishandling of COVID-19 in nursing homes. The administration had, according to a report from the attorney general’s office, undercounted the number of deaths from COVID-19 in nursing homes, drawing criticism that the governor and his top staff attempted to cover up the true scope of fatalities.

In March, the State Assembly’s Judiciary committee launched an impeachment investigation to look into both the sexual harassment claims and nursing home deaths. The scope of its inquiry was broad and also included whether the governor had misused state resources to write and promote his pandemic memoir and whether the governor had improperly given priority Covid testing access to family members and close associates. The committee was also looking into whether his administration covered up potential flaws in the structure of the Gov. Mario M. Cuomo Bridge, a signature infrastructure project for the current governor.

The 165-page report released last week by Attorney General James – based on an investigation by independent attorneys Joon Kim and Anne Clarke – substantiated 11 complaints against the governor and also concluded that he and his top aides illegally retaliated against Boylan. The 11 complaints included Boylan’s and Bennett’s allegations but also previously unreported ones. One involved a state trooper on the governor’s protective detail, who said Cuomo ran his fingers along her stomach and back, and kissed her on the cheek. The most serious complaint, however, came was from an unnamed employee, simply termed “Executive Assistant #1,” who said Cuomo groped her at the executive mansion last Fall.

That accuser, Brittany Commisso, went public on Monday in an interview with CBS This Morning and the Times Union. Last week, she also filed a criminal complaint against Cuomo with the Albany Sheriff's Office.

The effects of the AG’s report were swift. It quickly led to a flurry of calls for Cuomo’s resignation from top Democrats, including President Joe Biden, U.S. Senators Chuck Schumer and Kirsten Gillibrand, and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, besides dozens of local and state Democratic elected officials.

On Sunday, Secretary to the governor Melissa DeRosa, the top unelected official in the state, resigned her position. According to the AG’s report, DeRosa led the effort to retaliate against Boylan and tried to discredit her account.

The Assembly’s impeachment inquiry was also given added urgency as the Judiciary committee was presented with the report. “Our goal is now to bring this matter to a conclusion with all due haste,” Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie said Monday in a news conference. Heastie had previously said he would await the attorney general's findings before taking a position on whether Cuomo should remain in office. That shoe dropped last week, along with calls to resign from Jay Jacobs, the chair of the state Democratic Party and one of Cuomo's staunchest allies.

Cuomo indicated Tuesday that he hoped to avoid a drawn out impeachment probe. “It will consume government. It will cost taxpayers millions of dollars. It will brutalize people,” he said.

“It is a matter of life and death, government operations, and wasting energy on distractions is the last thing that state government should be doing,” he added. “And I cannot be the cause of that.”

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by Samar Khurshid, senior reporter, Gotham Gazette
     

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Governor Cuomo Sexually Harassed Multiple Women, Investigation Finds


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Photo: Kevin Coughlin/Governor's Office


Governor Andrew Cuomo sexually harassed multiple current and former state employees, and his executive office retaliated against one woman who publicly accused him of harassment, according to the findings of an investigation released on Tuesday by New York State Attorney General Letitia James.

James released a lengthy report concluding a five-month investigation by independent attorneys Joon H. Kim and Anne Clarke, who were appointed by James' office to look into several allegations of sexual harassment against the governor. Kim is a former federal prosecutor and partner at Cleary Gottlieb Steen & Hamilton LLP, and Clark is a high-profile employment lawyer and partner at Vladeck, Raskin & Clark, P.C.

According to James, the report found that Cuomo harassed multiple women by “engaging in unwelcome and nonconsensual touching and making numerous offensive comments of a suggestive and sexual nature that created a hostile work environment for women.”

The investigators interviewed 179 witnesses and reviewed more than 74,000 pieces of evidence, including documents, emails, texts, audio files, and pictures, James said. “These interviews and pieces of evidence reveal a deeply disturbing yet clear picture,” she said, noting that the governor and the executive chamber violated both state and federal law as well as the executive chamber’s own written policies. The governor and senior aides also retaliated against one accuser, Lindsey Boylan, who made public allegations against the governor on Twitter in December last year and then came forward with her full story in February. The report noted that the governor's office leaked personnel records regarding Boylan and the circumstances of her departure from his administration in an effort to undercut her credibility. 

The scathing report concluded that Cuomo’s administration and senior staff created a “toxic workplace” that enabled the governor’s harassment and led to a “climate of fear” that discouraged staffers from reporting their complaints. “This investigation has revealed conduct that corrodes the very fabric and character of our state government and shines light on injustice that can be present at the highest levels of government,” James said. However, James later noted that the behavior laid out in the report constituted civil violations and the governor does not face criminal liability. An Assembly impeachment probe into these and other allegations is also ongoing and James' report led to renewed calls for Cuomo to resign from state lawmakers and other prominent elected officials Tuesday.

At the news conference, Kim said the governor’s actions and repeated sexualized comments towards state employees “were not isolated incidents” but rather “part of a pattern” that extended to workers outside of the executive chamber, including a state trooper on the governor’s protective detail. The trooper was one of 11 complainants in the report, and one of two whose complaints against the governor were previously unreported. “Some suffered through unwanted touching and grabbing of their most intimate body parts. Others suffered through repeated offensive, sexually suggestive or gender based comments,” Kim said. “A number of them endured both. None of them welcomed it. And all of them found it disturbing, humiliating, uncomfortable and inappropriate.”

“The governor's conduct detailed in the report clearly meets and far exceeds the standard” for gender-based harassment in the workplace, said Clark.

Among the complaints that were substantiated in the report were allegations made by Charlotte Bennett, who was previously an executive assistant in Cuomo’s administration. Bennett, who left the administration in November, came forward with her complaint just days after Boylan, saying the governor harassed her last spring by inquiring about her sex life and whether she had ever slept with older men. Bennett said she believed the governor was attempting to sleep with her. 

Cuomo responded to the report on Tuesday afternoon, denying the complaints in a livestream without taking questions from the press, though he did apologize for certain actions. “I never touched anyone inappropriately or made inappropriate sexual advances,” he said. “I am 63 years old. I have lived my entire adult life in public view. That is just not who I am and that's not who I have ever been.” He specifically addressed Bennett’s complaint and apologized to her, though he dismissed her complaint as a misunderstanding of his intentions.

The governor also attempted to explain away another complaint from a woman who said he held her face and gave her an unwanted kiss on the cheek at a wedding, of which there is corroborating photo evidence. As he has repeatedly done since the allegations were first levelled, he said he has a habit of hugging and kissing people, both men and women, as gestures to show appreciation and friendship. “I now understand that there are generational or cultural perspectives that, frankly, I hadn't fully appreciated and I have learned from this,” he said.

He dismissed the claims that his office fostered a toxic work environment while also insisting that complaints against his top staffers, including Secretary of State Melissa DeRosa, smacked of sexism. “I have always said my office is a demanding place to work and that it is not for everyone," he said.

The report quickly triggered a flurry of calls for the governor's resignation from both sides of the aisle, including from President Joe Biden and prominent Democrats such as U.S. Senators Chuck Schumer and Kirsten Gillibrand, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, U.S. Reps. Hakeem Jeffries, Thomas Suozzi, and Gregory Meeks, and State Senate Majority Leader Andrea Stewart-Cousins.

Biden had previously said in March that Cuomo should resign if the Attorney General's investigation confirmed complaints against him. "I stand by that statement," he said at a news conference on Tuesday.  

“No elected official is above the law,” said Schumer and Gillibrand in a joint statement. “The people of New York deserve better leadership in the governor’s office. We continue to believe that the Governor should resign.”

"Recognizing his love of New York and respect for the office he holds, I call upon the Governor to resign," Pelosi said in part in a statement.

“As I said, when these disturbing allegations first came to light, the governor must resign for the good of the state,” Stewart-Cousins said in a statement.

Notably, State Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie, also a Democrat, did not directly call on the governor to step down. In a statement, he said the findings of the report were “disturbing” and the victims’ accounts were “gut-wrenching.” “The conduct by the governor outlined in this report would indicate someone who is not fit for office,” he said, noting that the report had been sent to the Assembly judiciary committee, which is conducting the impeachment inquiry into the governor. Heastie said the Assembly would undertake an “in-depth examination” of the report. “We will have more to say in the very near future,” he added.

State Senate Republican Minority Leader Rob Ortt said in a statement, “In the wake of another devastating report, now more than ever Andrew Cuomo must resign. If he fails to do so, the legislature must immediately reconvene to take action to remove him.”

The sexual harassment investigation is just one of the many scandals that have plagued the governor for months. The Assembly’s impeachment investigation is looking into both the sexual harassment complaints and the Cuomo administration’s mishandling of Covid-19 in nursing homes, among other issues. The nursing home issue is also the subject of a federal inquiry. Separately, Attorney General James is also investigating whether the governor misused state resources when writing and publishing his book released during the pandemic. 

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by Samar Khurshid, senior reporter, Gotham Gazette
     

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CUNY Confronts Series of Challenges as University System Nears In-Person Reopening


CUNY Looks Ahead to Uncertain School Year

On campus at CUNY (photo: @cunyedu)


The City University of New York, CUNY, is facing budget constraints, student enrollment questions, union demands, covid vaccination pressure, and other challenges as its long-awaited in-person reopening approaches. COVID-19 and the Delta variant that has been spreading in the city has heightened concerns about those reopening plans, while university leadership, faculty, staff, and students continue to plot and implement ways to improve the academic, economic, and mental health of the student body that has endured significant hardship over the past year-and-a-half.

In an announcement to faculty and staff on July 26, CUNY said it will be delaying its return to in-person work, which was previously scheduled for August 2, by two weeks, citing the need for additional time to prepare campuses for reopening.

With the August 16 staff return drawing near, the Professional Staff Congress at CUNY (PSC-CUNY) — which represents some 30,000 faculty and staff — is raising concerns about the state of CUNY facilities and advocating for additional safety measures to prevent an outbreak of COVID-19 on campuses. And while a major influx of federal funds did come through, the city’s public university system is also dealing with concerns about city and state budget allocations amid a pandemic that devastated the entire city, its schools, economy, and more.

Each school’s reopening plan, made in accordance with university-wide policies and varying some among the campuses, must be approved by CUNY prior to the August 16 reopening date. Students are due back to campus in late August, and CUNY’s range of in-person, hybrid, and virtual classes officially begin on August 25.

All students attending fully in-person or hybrid in-person/online classes at any CUNY campus must submit proof of vaccination against COVID-19 by August 10, and unvaccinated students must opt for virtual courses only. Not all courses will be offered virtually, CUNY has said. CUNY Chancellor Félix V. Matos Rodríguez has urged faculty and staff to get vaccinated, but it is not required to return to the workplace.

“As I’m sure you are aware, Governor Cuomo announced this week that all CUNY and SUNY students will be required to be vaccinated to attend in-person classes in the fall,” Matos Rodríguez wrote in an update to faculty and staff in May. “That mandate does not include faculty and staff but getting vaccinated is the most important step that each of us can take to protect our collective safety moving forward.”

In an internal survey of nearly one-third of CUNY students, faculty, and staff, 59% of students, 87% of faculty, and 70% of staff report being fully or partially vaccinated as of early July. Sixteen percent of students, 3% of faculty, and 9% of staff indicated that they did not plan to get vaccinated, while another 8% of students, 7% of faculty, and 14% of staff said that they preferred not to answer if they were vaccinated.

“Put simply, getting the vaccine remains the single most important thing that we can do, individually and collectively, to advance and sustain our forward momentum,” Matos Rodríguez wrote in an update about the survey. “Everything about this pandemic remains situational and fluid, and all decision-making will continue to reflect the most up-to-date guidance from local, state and national public health authorities in the interest of safeguarding our community.”

Like many other colleges and universities across the country, CUNY has seen a recent decline in enrollment, especially troubling for a system that serves so many low-income New Yorkers and is a major engine for socio-economic mobility.

“There was a 5.1 percent enrollment dip in Fall 2020 compared to Fall 2019 reflecting nationwide impacts of COVID-19 on higher education,” a CUNY spokesperson wrote in an email to Gotham Gazette. “We don’t have Fall 2021 figures yet.”

On July 28, Governor Andrew Cuomo announced the CUNY Comeback Program, which plans to eliminate $125 million in unpaid debt for at least 50,000 CUNY students. The program will also be distributing another round of student emergency grants for those who experienced financial hardships during the pandemic but did not accrue debt. CUNY has already distributed many of those grants funded through federal aid packages, such as over $230 million in relief to students.

“This compassionate action will allow CUNY students and recent graduates to move ahead in pursuit of their educational and career objectives without the specter of unpaid tuition and fees,” Chancellor Matos Rodríguez said in an announcement with the governor. “This landmark measure will also enhance CUNY’s important contributions to New York’s economic recovery.”

At a New York City Council oversight hearing in June, Interim Vice Chancellor for Student Affairs and Enrollment management Denise Maybank reviewed CUNY’s various enrollment campaigns that target certain underrepresented demographics.

For example, in response to decreased enrollment of Black and Latino men, the university launched the CUNY Black Male Initiative to provide additional academic and social support to those traditionally underrepresented populations, according to Maybank.

Maybank also praised CUNY’s Accelerated Study in Associate Programs (ASAP), which aim to help students get their associate degrees as quickly as possible and graduate at least 50% of students within three years.

CUNY’s Tutor Corps launched its summer 2021 program — formed with support from the Center for Youth Employment, Department of Youth and Community Development, and the Mayor’s Fund to Advance New York City — in July of this year. In the program, high school and college students work as tutors and teaching assistants to middle schoolers in STEM classes across the city. More than 250 undergraduate students from CUNY’s 18 campuses are participating in the program this year, according to a University release.

“It’s a great thing for the seniors who graduated from the DOE,” Rodríguez said in a July 23 interview with Spectrum News on Friday. “It’s a way for our students to earn some money, have a sense of worth, and it gives the new students friends immediately in the new campus. So it’s a win-win for everybody”

During a July 6 CUNY Board of Trustees meeting, Rodríguez outlined CUNY’s budget for the 2022 fiscal year, which runs from June 30, 2021 to July 1, 2022. CUNY will have a total operating budget of $3.8 billion for its 25 different campuses and central offices. The budget is a $36.3 million, or about 1%, increase from the 2021 fiscal year. Most of CUNY’s revenue comes from tuition and state funding — some $753.8 million and $2.01 billion, respectively.

New York City also funds CUNY, largely the community colleges, though that fell some $67 million for the 2022 fiscal year. About 14% of CUNY’s budget consists of city funds, Matos Rodriguez said in the Board meeting. State support in the operating budget increased by 3%, or some $61.2 million, and CUNY’s federal aid totaled $691 million, an enormous pandemic-relief amount that has helped CUNY to aid students, pay faculty and staff, and prepare its campuses for a covid-era reopening.

Back to Campus
During the June 23 hearing held by the City Council’s Committee on Higher Education, the committee heard testimony from CUNY administrators, faculty, and students regarding CUNY’s return to in-person operation. The hearing largely centered on CUNY’s use of federal funds and Fall 2021 campus reopening plans.

“It is imperative that CUNY’s return to campus is not just about returning to business as usual,” said Brooklyn Council Member Inez Barron, who chairs the committee. “The university must be responsive to the heightened needs of its community as well as committed [to] closing the gaps exacerbated by the pandemic.”

As New York City emerged as a global epicenter of the COVID-19 pandemic in March 2020, some 270,000 students and 20,000 faculty members at the nation’s largest public university system began virtual and distance learning. The City Council hearing came just over a month before CUNY staff are expected to return to their workplaces for in-person operations.

“While the state has significantly relaxed COVID protocols…CUNY is committed to continue to increase in-person activities in a gradual and strategic manner that will ensure the continued health and safety of our community,” Hector Batista, CUNY’s executive vice chancellor and chief operating officer, said in his testimony.

In line with Governor Cuomo’s announcement that COVID-19 vaccines would be required for all students attending in-person classes, the CUNY Board of Trustees approved a COVID-19 vaccination mandate for all students registering for in-person classes for the upcoming Fall term. The mandate, which was approved in the July 6 Board meeting, requires that students get their final vaccination shot by August 10.

Daniel Lemons, interim executive vice chancellor and university provost, said in the June Council hearing that regardless of student vaccination requirements, there will still be mandatory weekly testing and masking requirements for all unvaccinated faculty and staff beginning in the fall.

“We’ll have a combination of testing and vaccines, but again the message is, and we’ve seen it with the rise of the variant, you know, please vaccinate, vaccinate, vaccinate,” Rodríguez said in the interview with Spectrum News on Friday.

CUNY has also launched a campaign to encourage members of the CUNY community to get vaccinated as soon as possible. The campaign, which is called #VaxUpCUNY, hopes to ease vaccine hesitancy and anxiety in communities of color particularly.

Students who are not vaccinated must show evidence of a negative COVID-19 test within seven days prior to visiting campus in order to access facilities and other services, according to CUNY’s vaccination policies.

“So we'll have this mixed population of vaccinated mostly and unvaccinated population on the campus,” said James Davis, PSC-CUNY president and an English professor at Brooklyn College, in an interview with Gotham Gazette. “And so in that circumstance we just want to really make sure that measures are being taken to prevent the introduction of the virus onto the campus and then the spread in case the virus does go on the campus.”

Another complication arises in the approval of different campuses’ reopening plans — though all reopening plans have been submitted to CUNY, not all of them have been approved, Davis said. Other campuses have been asked to revise and resubmit their reopening plans. The University has also agreed to allow labor unions to conduct walkthroughs of the facilities that their members will occupy.

“And the issue we're running into now is a kind of bottleneck between, on the one side, the approvals for the reopening plans are delayed longer than I think anyone wanted, and therefore our ability to accompany management on these pre-occupancy walkthroughs has also been delayed,” Davis said. “So we're just very concerned at this point about being able to conduct the walkthroughs with management, identify any potential issues or trouble spots and raise questions that we might have as a labor union, get timely responses and remediation, and have that all be done in time ...”

Ventilation standards, accommodations for remote work, and easily accessible reopening plans and inspection reports are among many of PSC-CUNY’s health and safety demands. At the City Council hearing, Diane Banks, chair of PSC’s health and safety committee and assistant professor of biological sciences at Bronx Community College, recommended funding to update and install HVAC systems in poorly-ventilated CUNY buildings, as well as a delay in the reopening of buildings that do not meet ASHRAE safety standards.

Jean Grassman, one of PSC’s lead coordinators for its Health and Safety Watchdogs committee and associate professor of Environmental, Occupational, and Geospatial Health Sciences at Brooklyn College, said in an interview with Gotham Gazette that the health and safety committee is concerned by CUNY’s campus entry policy.

“We would like to have CUNY require to show either vaccination status or indication of…a negative PCR test within the last seven days, or rapid tests within the last six hours,” Grassman said. “And they would like to do something more relaxed, which is the vaccination status, and then covid test within the last week, and that really worries us.”

Another concern, Grassman said, is the lack of a central mask requirement for all CUNY campuses in the fall. The idea that unvaccinated individuals will wear masks and adhere to an honor system is unworkable, she said, so PSC-CUNY is advocating for universal masking at all schools.

“Also, students will be on campus who aren't necessarily taking [in-person] classes,” Grassman said. “They come in to use the library, to, you know, do things with the bursar. Students may be taking remote courses, but they will extensively be coming onto campus, and if there is a relaxed system…they will be on campus and potentially infectious.”

Grassman said that PSC-CUNY’s list of demands are not excessive and necessary to ensure safety on campus. The union is not seeking a vaccine mandate for faculty and staff.

“We just don't want any rush into facilities that you know haven't really been cleared in terms of ventilation occupancy standards,” Davis said. “...There's going to be a lot of troubleshooting and we're just expecting it's going to be an iterative process and we'd like to see the University show some flexibility with their reopening targets.”

In the Friday interview with Spectrum News, Rodríguez emphasized that CUNY will be following the guidelines outlined by the Centers for Disease Control, the city, and the state as it resumes in-person work and learning.

“We’re always going to have to keep our ears close to the ground,” Rodríguez said. “I think we learned that in the last year. … Right now, the guidelines state that individuals who are vaccinated do not have to wear a mask. I mean that is their choice. But individuals who are not vaccinated do have to wear a mask. So far that’s the approach that we’re taking.”

“Treading Water”
In a June 15 op-ed in City & State, prior to the passage of New York City’s $98.7 billion “recovery budget,” as Mayor de Blasio called it, Chancellor Matos Rodríguez argued that rectifying demographic disparities in higher education and ensuring an equitable economic recovery from COVID-19 require investment in the city’s public education. Outlining CUNY’s important role in the city’s overall recovery, he urged the next mayor, which will likely be Democratic nominee Eric Adams, to restore any impending reductions to CUNY’s budget. Two weeks later, the City Council and de Blasio agreed to a budget for the next fiscal year that cut CUNY’s funding by $67 million.

CUNY, which has long been recognized as one of the most diverse university systems in the United States, has a student body that is 30% Hispanic, 25% Black, 23% White, and 21% Asian and Pacific Islander. According to the 2021 U.S. News & World Report rankings, CUNY campuses make up four of the top five most diverse regional universities in the country.

During the City Council hearing, Mojubaolu Olufunke Okome, a political science professor at Brooklyn College and University Faculty Senate representative, emphasized the importance of returning to campus with equity in mind. She suggested reforms ranging from job security for adjunct faculty and staff to increasing funding for ethnic studies programs.

“CUNY is involved in building human capital, and has been noted to be a powerful engine of socioeconomic mobility in our city, state, and country,” Okome said. “Now more than ever, it should be adequately funded, and it should be given the material conditions that it needs to succeed in its mission.”

Lemons said at the hearing that, in line with existing societal inequities exacerbated by the pandemic, many CUNY students who worked either full or part-time in the service industry were impacted by the wide-ranging layoffs at the onset of COVID-19.

“Such an immediate and unexpected loss of income was devastating for our students, many of whom are supporting a family while earning their degree,” Lemons said. “A survey revealed last year that over 40% had lost their jobs during the pandemic. In response, CUNY worked assiduously to secure and equitably distribute close to $118 million to 198,000 of our students through emergency relief funds through the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security package, CARES.”

The CARES funding was followed by a second round of relief payments in early May, where CUNY distributed another $118 million in federal pandemic emergency funding to 161,000 of its students, according to its website. The funding had been secured through the federal Coronavirus Response and Relief Supplemental Appropriations Act, and provided grants averaging $750 to aid student expenses. CUNY will also distribute additional federal funds to the majority of students during the upcoming fall term, Lemons said.

City Council Member Helen Rosenthal said during a period of questioning at the June hearing that the many messages she has received from CUNY students who cannot afford to return in the fall paint a different picture.

“What I’m hearing from students is the demand is overwhelming,” Rosenthal said. “And I’m not saying it’s easy and I’m not saying it’s a slam dunk, you know, y’all are doing God’s work, but this is part of the job. [It] is meeting all of these students' needs and meeting the moment.”

A third round of federal funding, secured through the American Rescue Plan Act, will provide CUNY with an additional $399 million in relief this year. Matos Rodríguez said in the July 6 Board meeting that they estimate about 10% of the funding was spent in the fiscal year that ended on June 30. The rest of CUNY’s federal relief funds — some $684 million over several packages — will be spent over the next two years.

In fiscal year 2022, according to the chancellor on July 6, CUNY plans to spend $136 million to cover projected revenue losses, $125 million on student support and retention, $20 million to ensure the safe reopening of campuses, $8 million for online program development, $5 million on mental health services, and $4 million on faculty professional development.

The $5 million for mental health services will be used to expand clinical staff at CUNY’s campus health and wellness centers and increase virtual counseling services, according to a University release.

Over the next two years, an additional $386 million of CUNY’s federal funding will be made available for CUNY colleges to create campus-specific proposals.

“We’re incredibly grateful and so fortunate that we’ve received these federal stimulus funds and we’ll have the use of them over the next two years,” Rodríguez said at the Board meeting. “But as I pointed out earlier, these are one-time funds and once we spend them, they’re gone. They’re not part of our baseline, ongoing budget.”

Rodríguez also said that in the 2021 third quarter financial report released in May, most of CUNY’s community colleges and several senior colleges showed structural deficits as a result of the pandemic.

CUNY Board member Henry Berger expressed frustration at the city and state funding for the upcoming fiscal year. The state funding is only enough to keep CUNY “treading water,” he said, and the city funding has also not done CUNY any favors.

“We got $67 million less from the city,” Berger said. “That comes out of our operating budget. We have to make that up. The only good news is that in the financial plan going forward, it’s proposed to be restored next year. This year, we’re still down $67 million. This means there’s pressure on all the campuses.”

The federal funds are great, Berger said, but they cannot be used for a lot of the things that CUNY’s operating budget requires. He suggested starting an organized campaign as soon as CUNY returns in the fall to make sure their voices are heard when state and city budgets are created in September and January, respectively. The state and city funding this year is very disappointing, Berger said, and CUNY has to work hard to make sure it doesn’t happen again.

“We have to get together,” Berger said. “It’s the Board, it’s the students, it’s the faculty, it’s the staff. If we don’t ask, we ain’t gonna get.”

Note- this article has been updated.

Max Politics Podcast: Governor Cuomo Faces Series of Scandals and Investigations


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Governor Andrew Cuomo (photo: Darren McGee/Governor's Office)


July 31, 2021 - Max Politics Podcast: Governor Cuomo Faces Series of Scandals and Investigations

Luis Ferré Sadurní, a reporter with the New York Times in the Metro section, and Marina Villeneuve, a reporter with the Associated Press, both of whom cover Governor Andrew Cuomo, joined the show to break down the numerous investigations and scandals the third-term Democrat is facing and what comes next, including the highly-anticipated report from New York State Attorney General Letitia James, the State Assembly impeachment inquiry, and more.

Listen to the conversation and let us know what you think, on Twitter @TweetBenMax. You can listen to the show through the embedded audio below or download the episode wherever you get your podcasts under "Max Politics."

Read more: Max Politics Podcast: Governor Cuomo Faces Series of Scandals and Investigations

State Senate Launches 2021 Election Oversight with Series of Voter-Centered Hearings, Board Reform on Menu


senator zell myrie budget hearing

State Senator Myrie (photo: NY Senate Media Services)


The New York State Senate election committee may be breaking the mold of cyclical and predictable debate about voting administration and its discontents with a series of public hearings meant to broadly chronicle the experiences and ideas of voters across the state.

The committee is holding four hearings "in every corner of the state" to give a platform to voters ahead of the traditional post-election oversight hearing where lawmakers interrogate election administrators and experts about how the process went. That hearing is scheduled for late September and will undoubtedly focus on election errors, particularly in New York City, and the rollout of the city's first major ranked-choice voting election in June. The hearings will be led by Senator Zellnor Myrie, a Brooklyn Democrat and the committee chair, who said he wants to use them to inform "the best solutions for reform and improvements."

"I wanted to hear directly from [voters] on what ideas they have for reform, how they felt the election went, and what they think we should be doing to improve the process," Myrie told Gotham Gazette in a phone interview. "Too often when we hold our hearings, most of the time is spent grilling the government institution of choice and then the public doesn't have that much time before the lawmakers."

While the public always has the opportunity to participate in post-election hearings, Myrie hopes holding multiple ones around the state geared specifically to everyday voters will yield a more detailed picture of election challenges and potential solutions. It could also provide a basis of public support for changes to the operations and structure of the State Board of Elections and local boards, now explicitly partisan and controlled in large part by party bosses, which experts say enables patronage, inefficiency, and incompetence.

"It's customary for us to hold town halls, we do a lot of community events. I sort of see it in that vein and in that spirit, where if you have an interest as a voter, you get put this on the record," Myrie said.

The first hearing is scheduled for Wednesday, July 28, at Medgar Evers College in Brooklyn. Members of the public can participate in person or submit written testimony remotely. Two more hearings are scheduled for next week: the first at SUNY College of Environmental Science and Forestry in Syracuse on August 4, and the next at the Monroe County Office Building in Rochester on August 5. A fourth hearing in Westchester County will be announced soon, according to Myrie's office.

The final oversight hearing, where the committee will solicit testimony from the New York City, state, and county boards of elections along with advocates and experts, is set for September 21. The timeline makes it very unlikely they will lead to any changes to state law ahead of the general election a few weeks later, and Myrie and others have made clear they are taking the long-view.

In a statement, Senate Majority Leader Andrea Stewart-Cousins, a Yonkers Democrat, said the body would be "taking what we learn from these hearings into the next legislative session."

Jarret Berg, an election lawyer and founder of the advocacy group VoteEarlyNY, called the hearing series "a fantastic thing." "I've never in my years doing this seen an aspiration to actually host a series of statewide hearings on this topic and hear from people in their own backyards," he said in a recent interview.

The hearings follow the latest in a line of high-profile administrative blunders that have disenfranchised voters and shaken public confidence in elections. The New York City Board of Elections provoked harsh criticism this summer for releasing an erroneous preliminarily vote count that contained 135,000 test ballots. Ahead of last year's general election, the board mailed up to 100,000 ballots to the wrong absentee voters, effectively voiding those ballots and necessitating a second mailing. In 2016, hundreds of thousands of Brooklyn voters were illegally purged from the rolls. The problems aren't confined to the city; last fall, election administrators in Oneida County failed to process 2,400 voter registration forms before the razor-thin race between Claudia Tenney and Anthony Brindisi for New York's 22nd Congressional District.

The State Senate hearings also come amidst major changes to voting laws in New York. On top of ranked choice voting in New York City, the state is in its third year of early voting, which was part of a series of reforms passed when Democrats took control of the State Senate in 2019 (joining with a Democratic majority in the Assembly and a Democratic governor). It is the second year of universal absentee voting in response to the pandemic, among other changes already being implemented based on new laws. Proposed constitutional amendments to make no-excuse absentee voting permanent and to allow for “same day” voter registration (where voters can register and vote on the same day) will go before voters this fall.

Reformers are now dusting off and honing their positions on the crown jewel of New York election reform: making boards of elections more professional and less partisan. Senate leaders have hinted that the body is open to exploring those changes.

"I think it is a worthy change to discuss," Myrie said of creating a non-partisan election system, which would require a constitutional amendment approved by the Legislature and voters, and fundamental changes to boards of elections. "The current structure was born out of a reform movement to eliminate the dominance of Tammany Hall at the time and I think perhaps that sort of structure has had its time."

"I would caution folks that that is a longer process -- a years-long process," he added. "I don't think voters want to wait for that before they get a product that they deserve. So I'm anxious for us to get to work and do things that might not require such an amendment."

One intermediary step is a bill sponsored by Senator Liz Krueger, a Manhattan Democrat, and Assemblymember Nily Rozic, a Queens Democrat, aimed at professionalizing the New York City Board of Elections. It would require commissioners to meet certain professional qualifications, and make changes to funding and procurement rules. The legislation would also create a bipartisan co-executive directorship requiring approval from the mayor and other elected officials. The bill has some support among good government groups but it doesn't impact jurisdictions outside the city and advocates say improvements to it can be made before potential passage.

"I think it is a good bill," Myrie said. "I don't want to presuppose any policy recommendation before we start hearing from voters and from other stakeholders. But I think the principle of the bill, speaking to professionalization, is certainly one that I think would find wide support publicly."

Making fundamental changes to the notoriously entrenched board of elections structure is a political unknown. It will require the buy-in of Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie, former chair of the Bronx Democratic Party with strong ongoing ties to the party apparatus in the borough and beyond. Myrie sees "stiff resistance" from party leaders.

"When you are considering instances where people have gained power from their ability to staff-up boards of elections, you're challenging that power if you say we have to do something differently," Myrie said. "Ultimately everyone is going to have to come to an agreement that we can't keep doing things the same way. If that ruffles a couple of feathers, if that makes certain folks uncomfortable then so be it. The voter is who we are supposed to be in service of."

Good government groups, like the League of Women Voters of New York State  and VoteEarlyNY, also want to see adjustments to the new voting systems. The Senate has passed legislation to allow counties to establish universal early voting sites and to require some college campuses to host polling locations -- neither of which has advanced in the Assembly. Legislation to require pre-paid postage on absentee ballots has sat in committee in both chambers. The New York State John R. Lewis Voting Rights Act, named for the late civil rights leader and congressman and sponsored by Myrie, is an omnibus bill with numerous technical changes to election law. It includes the creation of a central database of information on voter behavior and pre-clearance from the state Attorney General for certain election policies. 

The League of Women Voters and VoteEarlyNY are also among those pushing changes to a law, first introduced by Myrie and recently signed by Governor Andrew Cuomo, that restricts the deadline to apply for an absentee ballot. Lawmakers said the bill, which shortens the deadline by eight days, is intended to address U.S. Postal Service and BOE constraints. VoteEarlyNY has proposed a chapter amendment that would create a deadline of 11 days -- longer than the previous seven-day cut-off, but shorter than the current 15 days.

"It's a perfect example of how New York lawmakers continue to take two steps forward and one step back, watering down these reforms without a good basis for doing so," Berg wrote in an email.

"If it has an adverse effect, just as if any other bill had an adverse effect, we'd take a hard second look at how to change it," Myrie told Gotham Gazette.

"My feeling is we should be legislating during the legislative session," he added of the annual January through June window, and occasional special sessions. "I'm not a huge fan of trying to legislate after the fact."

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by Ethan Geringer-Sameth, reporter, Gotham Gazette
     

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Max Politics Podcast: New York's Covid Emergency Rental Assistance Program


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Major housing questions linger in New York (photo: Michael Appleton/Mayor's Office)


July 27, 2021 - Max Politics Podcast: New York's Covid Emergency Rental Assistance Program

Emma Whitford, a reporter for Law360 who covers real estate and more, joined the show to discuss New York's pandemic housing crisis, eviction moratorium, and state emergency rental assistance program, which has seen major initial problems in its rollout.

Listen to the conversation and let us know what you think, on Twitter @TweetBenMax. You can listen to the show through the embedded audio below and find Max Politics wherever you get your podcasts for this and many other episodes.

Read more: Max Politics Podcast: New York's Covid Emergency Rental Assistance Program

What's The [Data] Point? $150 Million, Alicia Glen on the Future of Governors Island


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What's The [Data] Point? $150 Million, Alicia Glen on the Future of Governors Island [You can download What's The [Data] Point? wherever you get your podcasts, including on iTunes]

Alicia Glen, former deputy mayor for housing and economic development and now chair of the Trust for Governors Island, joined the show to discuss the future of Governors Island and more.

Listen to the conversation and let us know what you think: on Twitter @TweetBenMax & @CBCNY. Listen below or download wherever you get your podcasts!

Read more: What's The [Data] Point? $150 Million, Alicia Glen on the Future of Governors Island

New York Redistricting Commission Kicks Off State's New Map-Drawing Process


Gotham Gazette:

NY State Senate Districts (image via Google Maps)


This year state officials will begin the once-a-decade process of redrawing congressional and state legislative district lines under a new system approved by voters back in 2014.

The lines will be drawn by a commission appointed by Democratic and Republican leaders in the state Legislature rather than by the Legislature itself. After a series of public hearings this summer and fall the commission will submit its proposed maps to the Legislature, which can either approve the lines or reject and ultimately redraw them. The latter possibility, which would take place if the Legislature rejects the commission's proposed maps twice, has increased concerns that the current Democratic supermajorities in the two houses may unilaterally draw district boundaries.

After delays in appointing members and allocating funding, the commission has a lofty task: carving out the proposed units of state and federal representation New Yorkers may know for the next decade.

The state and federal constitution and the Voting Rights Act prevent commissioners and lawmakers from drawing any lines they wish. Districts must be compact, contiguous, and have roughly the same number of residents "as practicable." They cannot be drawn to "discourage competition" or favor incumbents, among other limitations, according to the commission's website. The Voting Rights Act prohibits redistricting that limits the participation of racial groups and other protected classes.

The commission's task is complicated by a potential amendment to the state constitution that, if passed by voters in November, will change some of the redistricting rules and methodology.

The body is now at work, last week announcing eight of nine public hearings as part of an initial virtual "listening tour" to gather public testimony on the dynamics of communities across the state. The hearings are organized by region and commissioners are urging all residents to participate regardless of citizenship. The first hearing is Tuesday (July 20) for Nassau and Suffolk counties.

"Communities do not have to be geographic cities or towns. If your community centers around a local house of worship...that is worth telling the commission," said chair David Imamura, a Democratic district leader from the Village of Irvington, at a virtual press conference last week. "Anything that makes your community special or ties it together is information we want to know when we draw district lines."

New York has some notoriously gerrymandered state legislative districts like Senate District 22, which looks like a jigsaw puzzle piece spanning southern Brooklyn from east to west.

The commission, known officially as the New York Independent Redistricting Commission, has its work cut out for it. Born during the pandemic, it faced delays in confirming members and receiving state funding. A $1 million allocation in last year's state budget never materialized and commission staff worked on a voluntary basis for months, according to Imamura. State lawmakers allocated $4 million to redistricting in the current budget, passed in early April, and the body launched a website last week.

The commission's demographers must still rely on data from the U.S. Census Bureau, which has been postponed because of pandemic-related changes to enumeration deadlines in 2020 and other factors. Originally expected in March, commission staff will not receive block-level population data until August 16.

A month later, on September 15, the commission will publish a preliminary set of district maps and hold another round of public hearings to solicit feedback. Unlike the virtual hearings held this summer, the hearings after preliminary maps are released are statutorily required.

Final proposed maps will go to the Legislature for enactment by the January 1 start of the legislative session. But the Legislature still has the power to send the maps back if it doesn't approve them and after the second time can amend them as lawmakers please (within the statutory restrictions). The maps will ultimately go to the governor's desk, though the Democratic conferences in both the Senate and Assembly have enough members to override a veto.

Good government groups were divided on redistricting reform in 2014. For proponents, the commission was an added layer of insulation from the ruling parties in the Legislature and, with its public hearings, could help increase transparency and reduce gerrymandering.

But critics have said that layer is too porous. The commission has a distinctly bi-partisan character given eight of its ten members are appointed by legislative leaders, two from each majority and minority leader in both chambers, with the final two selected by the other commissioners. The state constitution also requires the commission’s co-executive directors be enrolled one each in the two major political parties.

And legislators still have their veto power and the ability to draw their own lines. (In the last redistricting, with parties splitting control of the two legislative chambers, Democrats kept a dominant hold on the Assembly and Republicans were able to craft Senate lines to help them keep a slim majority there, at least temporarily.)

"They're just appointed by the legislative leaders...and they talk about [their work] in terms of looking at it from the perspective of the appointing authority," said Blair Horner, executive director of the New York Public Interest Research Group (NYPIRG), in a recent interview. "A judge looked at this when it was on the ballot [in 2014] and said you can't use the word ‘independent’ because it's not."

Because Democrats hold majorities in both the Senate and Assembly, the state constitution requires district maps be approved with a two-thirds majority in both chambers. But given their supermajorities in both houses, Democratic legislators will still have ultimate say and could even potentially override a veto from Democratic Governor Andrew Cuomo (who has been known to favor a split Legislature in the past).

An amendment before voters this November could add more specificity to some of the criteria, as well as changing deadlines and voting requirements. It too has divided good government groups.

The amendment, first introduced in 2020, would permanently set the number of State Senators at 63 (there are 150 seats in the Assembly). It would explicitly require incarcerated people to be counted in the district they last resided in, not where they are incarcerated, and for residents to be counted regardless of immigration status.

The amendment also advances some of the deadlines for submitting and voting on maps and changes some of the voting thresholds required to pass the new boundaries. Among the changes are a requirement that maps may be passed with 60% of the vote in both legislative chambers and eliminates the requirement that the executive directors be registered party-members.

The League of Women Voters of New York State and Citizens Union, two good government groups that supported the 2014 referendum, oppose the new amendment, in part for lowering the vote threshold. "It disincentivizes the commissioners who have been nominated by the different parties to work together. Why am I going to work together if I know that my party people are not really going to have a say at the end of the day in this process," said Jennifer Wilson, the League’s deputy director, referring to the smaller legislative majority needed to approve maps and the diminished need for bipartisan support.

Other groups like NYPIRG and Common Cause New York, who opposed the 2014 amendment, view the new proposed change as an improvement on the system. "It clarifies and simplifies redistricting in New York and provides a uniform set of voting rules for the commission no matter who is in political power: an important objective for any government entity," said Susan Lerner, executive director of Common Cause in a statement last July.

Experts say the vote threshold change will not have a big impact on the current process, given Democrats' veto-proof majority in the Senate and Assembly, but may be consequential in subsequent decades.

***
by Ethan Geringer-Sameth, reporter, Gotham Gazette
     

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Post-Primary Win, Bragg Promotes Plans for Manhattan DA's Office


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Alvin Bragg at NAN (photo: @AlvinBraggNYC)


Alvin Bragg, the former Chief Deputy Attorney General for New York State, appears likely to become Manhattan’s next District Attorney. After winning the Democratic primary, in the general election Bragg will face Republican nominee Thomas Kenniff, who has a very steep uphill battle given the overwhelmingly Democratic make-up of Manhattan's electorate and other advantages Bragg comes into the race with, including institutional support. Bragg ran a progressive primary campaign, while still treading something of a political middle ground between the more conservative ‘law-and-order’ candidates who were less reform-minded and the far-left candidates whose platforms focused largely on declining to prosecute many crimes, decarceration, and shrinking the district attorney’s office.

A civil rights attorney turned federal prosecutor and a Harlem native, Bragg would be the first ever Black district attorney elected in Manhattan. He has promised to bring a personal approach to public safety, informed by his own experiences, oft-mentioning on the campaign trail that he has had a gun pointed at him six times before the age of twenty-one, including, he says, “three by NYPD officers during unconstitutional stops...and also three by people who were not police officers.”

Since his primary win, Bragg has doubled down in press and other public appearances on the primary messages of his campaign -- community-based public safety that draws on his own lived experience and proportional prosecution based on harm.

“I feel like the voters of Manhattan responded to the message of marrying fairness and safety,” Bragg told Gotham Gazette editor Ben Max on the Max Politics podcast, adding later, “the key language I really tried to drill down on during the campaign is how we respond to those public safety issues. I’ve seen the failures of this, you know, ‘law and order,’ ‘war on drugs’ approach, which locks up whole communities. That’s not true public safety. That’s just bad public policy."

Bragg’s platform involves eliminating prosecution for ‘lower harm’ offenses such as turnstile-jumping, trespassing, and resisting arrest for nonviolent infractions. “We need to focus on things that have public safety implications and impacts -- the kind of things that Manhattanites are sitting around their kitchen tables talking about -- gun trafficking, sexual assaults, things that involve real harm” Bragg explained in a post-election interview with PIX 11 that aired July 11. 

Many major U.S. cities, including New York,  have seen significant increases in gun violence since the pandemic, and former NYPD captain Eric Adams’ success in the Democracic mayoral primary has been attributed in part to his ‘tough on crime’ platform, though Adams has stressed taking a holistic approach to both prevent and intervene in violent crime. Adams, now the Brooklyn borough president and poised to become the city’s second Black mayor, has proposed the reinvention of a special plainclothes unit in the NYPD to break up gun-running, gangs, and other illegal activity related to shootings. Bragg said in an interview with NY1 that he does not agree with this approach. “I don’t think the efficacy is there and I know that the civil liberty infringements are,” Bragg said, in reference to the plainclothes “anti-crime” unit that had a troubled history and the NYPD disbanded last year amid calls for police reform and an end to police brutality.

Combating gun violence remains a priority for Bragg, he assures, adding in the interview, “I certainly have plans to lower the number of shootings -- at the Attorney General's office we looked at every gun found at a crime scene and traced it to its last lawful sale. It's a blueprint for gun interdiction so we’re gonna do that.”

When asked about similarities with Adams’ campaign and messaging, Bragg said during the Max Politics interview the day after primary day that he and Adams have some differences on matters of policy that he will look to explore if they are both fortunate enough to ascend to district attorney and mayor, respectively, but that he has tremendous respect for the way Adams has shared his personal story throughout the campaign and that there is crossover between them there. “We need to, those of us that are in the public square, we need to tell those stories that are in some way everyone’s stories,” Bragg said on Max Politics. Adams talked of being beaten by police as a teenager and later joining the NYPD to make reform from within.

Adams spoke of unity on Saturday at a National Action Network rally hosted by Rev. Al Sharpton where both he and Bragg took the stage. “Our new district attorney and his concepts of how he wants to use that office to deal with public safety, to deal with crime -- it is no different than mine,” Adams said in his speech, adding, “Alvin Bragg is going to redefine a prosecutor's office and how we are going to ensure that we don’t criminalize young people everyday in this city and it’s so important because those that would try to pull us apart they would try and create these tensions and fights -- well Eric said this and you said that -- shut up.” 

Adams went on to pledge that he would work everyday to make Bragg’s job boring -- fighting to protect those with learning disabilities and mental health challenges before they enter the criminal justice system and to intervene in situations involving domestic violence. “His prosecution rate is tied to my educational failure rates,” Adams asserted. 

Speaking after Adams, Bragg mostly stuck to praise of Adams’ personal story and connection to people’s lived experiences, recollecting a speech given by Adams the last time the two were together at a National Action Network event, calling it “the most profound way I've ever heard anyone tell their narrative,” and saying it brought him nearly to tears. Adams has spoken movingly not only about his relationship with policing but also about being on the verge of homelessness as a kid, and more about his personal story that has helped him connect with New Yorkers.

The remainder of Bragg’s speech was centered around the historic nature of both his and Adams’ wins as well as a series of thank yous to the National Action Network, including Sharpton and many others, and a request for further prayers and support. On policy, Bragg returned to a familiar campaign promise to limit incarceration to only those cases in which he believes it is absolutely necessary.

“The state has the power to take away someone’s liberty,” Bragg said. “We are going to use that power judiciously and wisely. We are going to use that for fairness and for safety. We are going to address racial disparities, we are going to have one system of justice for all and we are going to address these guns on our streets.”

Bragg’s comments on gun investigations and tracing are in line with other comments he’s made during the primary campaign and since about the importance of following the “contraband” and punishing those pedaling it rather than the smaller actors who fall victim. “If you follow the money and the contraband they invariably will take you to the most culpable people,” Bragg explained on the Max Politics podcast.

A follow-the-data and address-the-root-causes approach is also apparent in Bragg’s argument against prosecuting small sales of untaxed cigarettes, which he said has been prioritized by the NYPD — including in the deadly case of Eric Garner, whose family Bragg is currently representing in a suit against the city where it is seeking more information about internal decisions about the limited punishment for officers on the scene of Garner’s 2014 killing. It’s much better to trace back those shipments and hold UPS and FedEx accountable, he said on the podcast, advocating for more emphasis on finding the “funders of criminal activity.”

 

“We don’t compartmentalize justice,” Bragg said on Max Politics of the decision to run to be one of the most important prosecutors in the country while involved with the case, where he’s representing Garner’s mother, Gwen Carr. “We want justice and fairness across the board; they're inextricably linked,” he said.

Bragg has been criticized by his Republican general election opponent and conservative media outlets as being ‘pro-crime’ in part because of his stance that not every gun-related crime should be prosecuted. He has indicated that some possession cases should lead to alternative programs. "We need to recognize that not every person charged with possessing an illegal gun in New York City is a driver of violence…,” Bragg’s campaign website states. “Sending these individuals to jail or prison increases the likelihood of recidivism. In short, it does not make Manhattan safer. Fortunately, New York City has a robust array of programming for appropriate gun cases, including a number of programs already used for gun cases in other boroughs.”

“The notion that I don't care about this, or I'm not focused on this is really antithetical to reason,” Bragg said on WNYC’s The Brian Lehrer Show on July 8, in reference to his approach to gun violence and gun crimes. “I've got to walk these streets. My family and loved ones walk in the street. My response is yes, of course, I care. If you look at my body of work, you look at what I've done, I've worked on both public safety issues and fairness issues. I find that a lot of people pushing this narrative don't want to talk about the fairness part. They don't want to talk about the police accountability. They don't want to talk about the effects and the collateral consequences of these cases that have nothing to do with public safety.”

On specifics of the prosecuting policy he plans to bring to the DA’s office, Bragg oft-explains his stance by telling the story of his brother-in-law who served over a year in jail after being rounded up by police after a fist-fight in which five were arrested on gun charges but only one participant had a gun. “There are some gun cases that I think shouldn’t be brought,” he said on NY1. “We’re going to use that kind of life-based experience as a guide to what is really public safety.”

Pressed on the trespassing ‘leniency’ Bragg returned to his common refrain, arguing that “If there’s real harm we’ll charge the real crime.” Trespassing in particular, he says, is a charge that “has sometimes been abused” and used with “great racial disparity,” citing the history of the NYPD’s vertical building sweeps. 

On softening the charges for resisting arrest in some cases, Bragg says this too is about systemic reform. “I’ve based these policies on my life experience and my work experience,” he told NY1. “I have never once seen a good stand-alone resisting arrest charge.” Most of these charges, he explained, are retaliatory, used against someone who is ‘mouthing-off’” to the police. 

For Bragg, these are all components of a larger philosophy he hopes to bring to the position that would reduce incarceration by declining to over-punish for low-level infractions and creating instead a robust and community-centered public safety program. “I think we need to restructure the office,” Bragg explained to NY1, saying, “we need to shift the office’s focus from what I call churn cases, cases where people are going in and out of the system but we’re not addressing underlying issues to more significant issues.” 

Bragg characterized the relationship he plans to have with the NYPD as familial, in his interview with PIX 11, vowing to always tell members of the police department the truth, even when it’s hard, and to share a spirit of cooperation though it’s unlikely they’ll agree on everything. If he is the next DA, his relationship with the next NYPD commissioner, likely an Adams appointee, will be important. In the primary, Bragg spoke a lot about police accountability; police unions endorsed candidate Liz Crotty, who ran the most conservative, traditional campaign in the Democratic field.

“I think there’s a yearning in Manhattan to fundamentally reform our system,” Bragg said on Max Politics. “We have gone throughout the borough and heard, in all corners of the borough, not just up here in Harlem or on the Lower East side, deep concern about police accountability. Deep concern about the types of offenses that we arrest people for that have little to no public safety benefits.”

His focus will always be on public safety implications, he added on PIX 11, saying, “If we don’t have accountability we don’t have community trust and without community trust victims and witnesses don’t come forward and we don’t have public safety.” 

Like Adams and others, Bragg also speaks regularly about focusing on underlying causes without turning first to a law-enforcement solution. His father, whom he oft-referenced on the campaign trail as well, worked in homeless shelters, which he says gave him an up-close view on the way poverty has been criminalized.

“Whether it’s the homeless person that’s taking up two seats on the subway—a real case from this past summer that was prosecuted—or the homeless person who the DA’s office recommended a sentence of internment of five to ten years for, you know, buying food or toothpaste with a counterfeit bill,” Bragg said on Max Politics, “those are not criminal matters for me, and we need to use other tools in the government toolkit to address those and save our criminal, carceral resources for things that are really what New Yorkers are up thinking about, talking about. True public safety issues.”

Bragg also said in the July 8 interview on The Brian Lehrer Show that it’s all about thinking about how to deploy the power of government, not ignoring the problems but also not putting them all under criminal sanction. 

Bragg says he watched his father battle addiction as well and has let that inform his desire to lean into diversion programs for New Yorkers with substance use disorders and to capitalize on the city’s mental health resources to address that crisis. The importance, he says, lies in “matching the right response to the real need and not just reflexively responding with police.” 

Once in office, Bragg would also take control of the case recently brought against the Trump Organization, which involves a 15-count indictment and could expand between now and the end of DA Cyrus Vance’s term, which goes through December, and/or during the next DA’s tenure. While he was unable to comment on specifics, he did tell PIX that he has a history of prosecuting complex white collar cases and feels “very equipped” to handle the matter.

Max Politics Podcast: Senator Liz Krueger on Her Bill to Reform the Board of Elections


Seantor Liz Krueger, center (photo: New York State Senate)


June 30, 2021 - Max Politics Podcast: Senator Liz Krueger on Reforming the Board of Elections

State Senator Liz Krueger has a bill to professionalize the New York City Board of Elections and joined the show in the wake of another BOE debacle to discuss its provisions and its chances of passage.

Listen to the conversation and let us know what you think, on Twitter @TweetBenMax. You can listen to the show through the embedded audio below or download the episode wherever you get your podcasts, under "Max & Murphy," and listen to Max & Murphy live on Wednesdays at 5 p.m. on WBAI radio, 99.5FM or wbai.org.

Read more: Max Politics Podcast: Senator Liz Krueger on Her Bill to Reform the Board of Elections

What's The [Data] Point? $209 Billion, Examining The New York State Budget


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What's The [Data] Point? Episode 108 -- $209 Billion, Examining The New York State Budget [You can download What's The [Data] Point? wherever you get your podcasts, including on iTunes]

$209 billion is the total amount to be spent this state fiscal year according to New York State's Enacted Budget for Fiscal Year 2022. That massive budget, adopted in early April, was bolstered by immense federal aid and higher than expected tax revenues as New York comes out of the devastation of the covid pandemic. The state also raised taxes and made a host of other important decisions that continue to play out as the fiscal year and recovery unfold. Three expert guests joined the podcast to discuss what is happening and what it all means for the state's fiscal future: State Senator Liz Krueger; E.J. McMahon of the Empire Center and Manhattan Institute; and CBC's Director of State Studies Patrick Orecki.

Listen to the conversation and let us know what you think: @TweetBenMax (@TweetBenMax) & @CBCNY (@CBCNY). Listen below or download wherever you get your podcasts!

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by Ben Max, Gotham Gazette
     

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