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A Closer Look at Voter Turnout in 2018 New York Congressional Primaries


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Rep. Joe Crowley votes (photo: @JoeCrowleyNY)


Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s upset primary defeat of Representative Joe Crowley has sent shockwaves through both the New York and national political worlds.

The 28-year-old Latina democratic-socialist who has never held elected office and refused money from corporate PACs stood in stark contrast to Crowley, a 56-year-old, ten-term Congressional representative who was a prolific Democratic Party fundraiser, served as the chair of the Queens Democratic Party, and was seen by some as the next Democratic Speaker of the House.

Ocasio-Cortez’s win is being partly attributed to her campaign’s organizing, strong ground game, and significant social media presence, as well as its embrace of progressive policies such as ICE abolition and single-payer healthcare. She didn’t merely upset Crowley, she won handily, by a margin of 57.5 percent to 42.5 percent.

Maps compiled by the CUNY Center for Urban Research show that support in the election that has the country buzzing did not break down neatly on racial lines; in fact, Ocasio-Cortez maintained strong support throughout the district, across areas of various demographic makeups.

“This wasn’t a fluke,” said Steven Romalewski, of the Center for Urban Research. “She was able to get voters from almost every neighborhood to come out and support her.” Romalewski noted that, contrary to the conventional wisdom of voting on racial lines, the areas where Ocasio-Cortez’s showing was strongest were areas that weren’t predominantly Hispanic, signaling that her showing may not have been due to the district’s changing demographics (it has been steadily becoming less white for years), but due to desire for change from Crowley.

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Though Ocasio-Cortez whipped up energy among voters in the Queens and Bronx district, and there is little to compare voter turnout to because Crowley had not been challenged since 2004, the primary election was decided, like most elections in New York, by a relatively small number of people.

With 98 percent of precincts reporting as of Wednesday, the State Board of Elections shows 27,826 registered Democrats cast votes in Tuesday’s primary in New York’s 14th District. With 235,745 registered Democrats as of April, according to the BOE, this comes out to a turnout of around 11.8 percent.

This turnout is about the same as in Crowley’s last competitive primary, in 2004. According to the Federal Election Commission, 12.4 percent of Democrats in Crowley’s district voted that year, which was a presidential election year, unlike this year, and saw congressional and state-level primaries on the same September day. New York has since moved its congressional primaries to June.

For comparison, when Crowley was reelected to Congress two years ago, in 2016, he faced no primary opponent and nominal competition in the general election, but in the general he received 147,567 votes as many more voters turned out on Election Day than typically do for party primaries, even when they are competitive. Ocasio-Cortez will herself now face Republican Anthony Pappas and Conservative Elizabeth Perri in the general election, but is expected to win easily.

Regardless of the low primary turnout, Romalewski characterized Ocasio-Cortez’s win in the same way as most other observers: a massive upset.

“The challenger was able to do something with her supporters that the incumbent wasn’t,” Romalewski said. “And that’s surprising given that the incumbent has the power of incumbency, has the power of the party machine behind him, and has the power of endorsements, and long time political support in both counties, Queens and the Bronx, and that was not enough to hold off the challenger. So that’s a big upset.”

Turnout on Tuesday was similarly low in other closely-watched congressional primaries. In the 9th District, in Brooklyn, where Representative Yvette Clarke narrowly beat New York Times-endorsed Adem Bunkeddeko 52 to 48 percent, Democratic turnout is only at about 8.2 percent with 99 percent of precincts reporting, according to the BOE. 28,663 Democrats voted out of 347,466 total in the district.

In the 12th District, including parts of Manhattan and Brooklyn, where Representative Carolyn Maloney dispatched challenger Suraj Patel 58 to 41 percent, Democratic turnout stands at about 13.6 percent with 99 percent reporting. 41,460 Democrats voted out of 304,115 total in the district.

Turnout was slightly higher in the Republican primary in the 11th District, covering Staten Island and part of southern Brooklyn, where incumbent Representative Dan Donovan was seemingly running a tight race with his predecessor Michael Grimm, only for Donovan to handily beat Grimm, 63 to 36 percent. That primary, featuring a rare such primary battle of the two most recent officeholders and an apparently race-altering endorsement of Donovan by President Donald Trump, saw a turnout of 17 percent of registered Republicans -- 20,118 Republicans voted out of 117,983 registered in the district.

Romalewski said that the high profile nature of the race played a part in the higher turnout. “Not only was it a high profile race, but there was an incumbent and a former incumbent running for the primary vote,” he said. “So there was a lot of institutional support on both sides, and a lot of interest on both sides, and a lot of familiarity with the voters, so it’s not surprising that there was relatively robust turnout in District 11.”

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Similarly to Ocasio-Cortez’s convincing win District 14, Romalewski noted that Donovan’s strong support was widespread across the district rather than being concentrated in pockets. He won the overwhelming majority of election districts, and beat Grimm by significant margins in both the Staten Island and Brooklyn sections of the district.

In the crowded Democratic primary in District 11, Max Rose defeated five other Democratic hopefuls with 63 percent of the vote. That primary saw a turnout of 8.5 percent -- 17,098 Democrats voted out of 200,410 total registered in the district. The Donovan-Rose general election is expected to draw a lot of interest, and money, from around the state and country, as Democrats see it as a possible pick-up toward flipping the House.

In Maloney’s last noteworthy primary challenge, from Reshma Saujani in 2010, turnout stood at 16.4 percent. The last competitive primary in the district represented by Donovan was in 2010, when it was the 13th District and Grimm defeated Michael Allegretti in an election with 13.7 percent turnout. Both of these primaries occurred before a 2012 federal court decision that led New York to become the only state this year with separate federal and state primary days, wherein the state was forced to move its congressional primary earlier in the year and lawmakers declined to also move the state-level vote. The separate days can depress turnout, says Romalewski.

“In recent years, there’s been as many as four elections within a year, primaries and generals, that people have to turn out for,” he said. In 2016, New York voters turned out for presidential primaries in April, congressional primaries in June, state and local primaries in September, and finally the general election in November. “It definitely risks voter burnout, the opposite of turnout.”

Clarke’s last primary challenge, in 2012, saw a 6.2 percent turnout. Maloney faced a challenge in 2016 from attorney Peter Lindner, in a race that saw a 6.7 percent turnout.

Turnout was similarly low elsewhere in the city and state. In the 5th District, where Representative Gregory Meeks won 81 percent of the vote against two challengers, Mizan Choudhury and Carl Achille, saw a 3.8 percent turnout. In the 16th District, Eliot Engel dispatched three challengers -- Jonathan Lewis, Derickson Lawrence, and Joyce Briscoe -- with 74 percent of the vote in an election with 9.8 percent turnout.

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by Ben Brachfeld, Gotham Gazette

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New York General Election Congressional Matchups to Watch - End of June


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Dan Donovan (center) & Max Rose (photos via @dandonovan_ny & @MaxRose4NY)


The congressional primaries in New York on Tuesday saw a shocking defeat for a Democratic party giant in Queens while other Democratic incumbents in the city held on with close margins. And on Staten Island, a closely-watched Republican primary ended with a wider margin for the incumbent victor than expected.

[Read: Ocasio-Cortez Upsets Crowley, Donovan Defeats Grimm & Other 2018 New York Congressional Primary Results]

All eyes will now turn to the general election, with the full slate of candidates in focus. Nationally, Democrats are attempting to claw back a majority in the 435-seat House of Representatives by flipping key Republican seats -- they currently hold 193 seats and Republicans hold 235, and there are seven vacancies -- while Republicans are hoping to fend off a blue wave that has put them on the back foot in dozens of races across the country. New York races are expected to factor significantly into the House balance of power.

In New York, according to The Cook Political Report, there are five competitive congressional races, all held by Republicans, among the state’s 27 seats. Two are considered a toss-up -- the District 19 seat held by Rep. John Faso and the District 22 seat held by Rep. Claudia Tenney; the District 11 seat, where incumbent Rep. Dan Donovan prevailed in Tuesday’s primary, leans Republican; and District 1, held by Rep. Lee Zeldin, and District 24, held by Rep.  John Katko, per Cook’s predictions, are considered “likely Republican.”

The Donovan seat is the only congressional district held by Republicans in New York City.

The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee is more closely focused on Districts 11 and 22, under its organized ‘Red to Blue’ effort, backing army veteran Max Rose to challenge Donovan, and state Assembly member Anthony Brindisi against Tenney.

And there are still other races where candidates are seen as more long-shots to win, but given the surprise leveled Tuesday by Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez against Democratic Rep. Joe Crowley and the successes of Democrats, especially women, in other races in New York and elsewhere since Donald Trump’s election, some additional districts may be in play. For example, Liuba Grechen Shirley won her Democratic primary Tuesday and will now attempt to unseat incumbent Republican Rep. Peter King on Long Island.

Governor Andrew Cuomo, a two-term Democrat running for reelection himself, has also committed the state Democratic Party’s machinery to support Democratic congressional challengers. “Our focus now must turn to winning back the House of Representatives, and the road to accomplishing that runs right through New York State,” Cuomo said, in an email blast sent out by the state party on Wednesday morning. “The only way to stop Donald Trump and his hateful agenda over the next two years is to win back the House of Representatives,” he added, appealing for volunteers to join phone banking and canvassing efforts in the next few weeks.

As New York and the country move toward November’s Election Day, congressional races are now set, while state-level primaries will happen on September 13 for all 213 seats in the state Legislature and the state-wide posts of governor, lieutenant governor, comptroller, and attorney general. While those elections are being fought out, throughout the summer and into the fall, there will also be a good deal of attention of the state’s most contentious congressional races.

District 11
After a caustic primary battle, Rep. Dan Donovan, a former district attorney, emerged victorious over Michael Grimm, who held the seat before Donovan but resigned after pleading guilty on charges of tax fraud. Both candidates tried to ride the coattails of Republican President Donald Trump, tying their records to his own in a district that overwhelmingly voted for him in 2016 -- the district covers all of Staten Island and a small section of southern Brooklyn.

Grimm, despite his felony conviction, had a strong base of support on Staten Island but Trump endorsed Donovan a few weeks before the primary, pushing him far over the top in what became one of the most hard-fought primaries across the state. Donovan claimed victory with 63.9 percent of the vote to Grimm’s 36.1 percent.

On the Democrat side, decorated army veteran Max Rose emerged victorious with a similar vote share, pulling in 64.7 percent to beat five other Democrats for the nomination. Rose ran a well-funded campaign with support from the DCCC, raising a total of $1.6 million through June 6, according to Federal Election Commission filings.

Rose was formerly an executive at a nonprofit health care organization and worked as director of public engagement and special assistant under late Brooklyn District Attorney Ken Thompson. He has received endorsements from several local and state-level elected Democrats as well as prominent national Democrats -- including U.S. Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand of New York and Rep. Crowley. He was also backed by the local Brooklyn City Council Member, Justin Brannan. The Working Families Party and the Women’s Equality Party endorsed him, as did several unions and political action groups.   

In a brief phone interview Wednesday, Rose said he will stay the course on his approach to the campaign. “The strategy does not change,” he said of moving on to the general election. Rose said his opponent “will do and say anything” to get reelected, including attempting to rewrite his record as he moves closer to the president. “So we’re gonna win the old-fashioned way. We’re gonna take it day-by-day, door-by-door, and Dan Donovan doesn’t stand a chance,” he said.

Though the district is split between two boroughs, Rose said his pitch wouldn’t be determined by the community where he campaigns, but rather by the bread-and-butter issues that residents care about. “[W]hat matters is what is troubling voters each and every day,” he said, pointing to crumbling infrastructure, interminable commutes, an increasing cost-of-living and the hundreds of opioid overdoses in Staten Island.

“We have got to earn voters’ trust first and then convince them that it does not have to be this way under any circumstances,” he said.

“People are disgusted across the board,” he continued. “We don’t have a South Brooklyn strategy, a Tottenville strategy, a St. George Strategy. That’s what’s wrong with politics, is that politicians try to slice and dice the electorate. They use poll-testing and based off some high-level analytics they say one thing to the community here and…say something in another community.”

For his part, Donovan used part of his victory speech Tuesday night to stress the importance of holding onto the GOP’s lone New York City congressional seat, and he connected the race to the larger battle for the House, warning his supporters that Democrats want to impeach Trump if they win control of the chamber.

District 19
Republican John Faso currently holds the District 19 seat in the Hudson Valley and the Catskills but is widely seen as a vulnerable incumbent in a toss-up seat. A former state Assembly member, Faso won the seat in 2016 after the retirement of Republican Rep. Chris Gibson. Like Donovan, Faso voted against the recent tax cuts passed by Congress and signed by Trump, and has also criticized the president’s “zero tolerance” policy that separated thousands of  migrant children from their parents. He ran unopposed in the primary and FEC filings show he has about $1.1 million in his campaign coffers.

Faso’s Democratic opponent in the general is Harvard Law graduate and Rhodes scholar Antonio Delgado, who won in a crowded primary that saw millions in campaign money coming in for all the candidates. Delgado was endorsed by Citizen Action of New York, a progressive, left-leaning organization that is now one of the few groups at the core of the Working Families Party. Delgado secured about 22 percent of the vote, which was enough to place him first over six other Democrats. He outraised all his primary opponents and has about $759,000 left for the general election.  

District 1
Last night, Perry Gershon, a former businessman who’s framed his race as one against Trump, won the Democratic Party’s nomination to run in this eastern Long Island district. The Cook Political Report rates NY-01 as “Likely Republican,” and it went twice for Barack Obama before supporting Donald Trump in the 2016 election. Gershon will challenge two-term Republican incumbent Rep. Lee Zeldin, who won re-election in 2016 by 16 points over his Democratic opponent. As of June 6, Zeldin maintains over a 3-1 fundraising lead over Gershon.

District 2
First-time candidate Democrat Liuba Grechen Shirley will challenge incumbent Republican Rep. Peter King, who has been in office since 1992, in this Long Island district that also voted for Trump after supporting Obama twice. King won his most recent re-election with 62.5% of the vote, defeating Democrat DuWayne Gregory, who also lost to Grechen Shirley in Tuesday’s primary election. The day after her primary victory, Grechen Shirley challenged King, who recently said that town halls “diminish democracy,” to a series of five public debates. The incumbent, as of the beginning of the month, has over $3 million on hand, while Grechen Shirley has slightly less than $150,000 left over after her primary campaign.

District 3
Democrat Rep. Tom Suozzi won his seat in this district covering Long Island’s North Shore and part of Queens by a six-percent margin in 2016. NY-3 is narrowly Democratic, and it voted for Clinton in 2016 by the same margin as Suozzi. Republican challenger Dan DeBono ran unopposed in the Republican primary but, going into the general election, has less than one-tenth of the cash on hand as the incumbent.  

District 22
First-term Republican Rep. Claudia Tenney narrowly won this large, rural, and majority-white central New York district in 2016. Democratic State Assembly Member Anthony Brindisi, who faced no primary challenger, will challenge Tenney in the general election. Tenney is a hardline conservative endorsed by the Tea Party and the National Rifle Association, and the district went for Donald Trump by 16 percent in 2016.

Brindisi’s fundraising has, at times, outpaced Tenney’s, and, as of June 6, the challenger maintains a $400,000 cash lead over Tenney. An April poll conducted by the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee reported that 50% of voters in the district would favor Brindisi, who has been attempting to appeal to the district’s moderate Republicans, in the general election, compared to 44% supporting Tenney.

District 24
In this central New York district that voted for Trump once and Obama twice, Democratic law professor Dana Balter will face off against incumbent Republican Rep. John Katko. Katko styles himself a moderate Republican, claiming to have written in Nikki Haley’s name for president in 2016, though he has voted in line with the president approximately 90 percent of the time. Running for a third term in the House of Representatives, Katko won both his previous races by margins of about twenty percent. He maintains a 13-1 fundraising lead over Balter, who advocates for Medicare-for-All, a carbon tax, and elimination of cash bail.

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by Samar Khurshid and Daniel Yadin

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by Samar Khurshid, senior reporter, Gotham Gazette
     

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Molinaro Starts Campaign on Attack, Policy Plans to Come


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Marc Molinaro, left (photo via @marcmolinaro)


Nearly three months after launching his campaign for governor, presumptive Republican nominee Marc Molinaro has spent most of his time hammering incumbent Andrew Cuomo, a two-term Democrat, on ethics scandals, economic development spending, and other issues. But key questions remain about Molinaro’s own policy stances.

“I know that campaigns are marathons, not sprints,” he recently told Gotham Gazette, after participating in a rally in support of keeping the single-test admission system to New York City’s specialized high schools, when asked for more detail about his education platform.

Molinaro, the Dutchess County executive, talked broadly about investing in communities, empowering teachers, and focusing on early interventions, but said New Yorkers would have to wait for more specifics.

“I can” go into more detail, he said with a half-laugh, “but I won’t.”

That sums up the state of the Molinaro campaign. He has offered a handful of policy planks, mostly around government ethics, and promised “bold” plans that will challenge entrenched interests and help make New York more affordable for homeowners.

As July approaches, the candidate certainly has time to roll out his policy agenda, given he has no primary to worry about and needs to earn votes for November, when he will appear on the ballot on three party lines: Republican, Conservative, and Reform. But what policies will he run on? What does Molinaro need to do to rally the GOP base while also appealing to independents and moderate Democrats? And, how can he overcome the Democratic enrollment advantage in New York in an election that will be, in part, a referendum on President Donald Trump?

Fiscal conservative
Like any Republican candidate for statewide office, Molinaro faces major obstacles from the outset. There were more than twice as many Democrats as Republicans in New York as of April, with Democrats also outpacing Republicans in registering new voters. And Cuomo’s record, which includes some centrist and crossover legislative and budgetary achievements, makes it hard in some cases for any Republican to carve out turf that’s right of the two-term incumbent, but not so far to the right that he or she alienates too many New Yorkers.

Thus far in the race, Molinaro has focused on traditional Republican themes of cutting taxes and reducing government spending.

“If taxing and spending were the best way to lift families out of poverty, we’d have the best government in the country and I wouldn’t be running for governor,” he said in his May 23 Republican nomination acceptance speech. “Overtaxing and overspending -- it’s a dream-killer, a job-depriver. It robs working people from the ability to save.”

Molinaro has come out in favor of extending the state’s property tax cap, instituted under Cuomo, and recently called for the so-called “millionaires’ tax” to be phased out.

Since 2012, the governor and legislature have limited increases to property taxes levied by localities and school districts to 2 percent of the previous year’s rate or the rate of inflation, whichever is lower. Bigger hikes to bolster school districts can be made if 60 percent of voters in those districts approve of them; there’s also a provision for localities to make bigger hikes. New York City is exempt from the cap, something Republicans from the city and beyond have criticized.

As for the income tax rate for the top bracket -- 8.82 percent for individuals making $1 million or more and couples earning $2 million or more per year -- Molinaro wants “to have it expire over time.” The rate went up, from 6.85 percent, in 2009. Molinaro declined to state what rate he would seek for the state’s highest earners.

On sports betting, legislation to legalize that form of gambling has stalled in Albany as lawmakers debate fees. But Molinaro has called for an 8.5-percent tax on sports betting if it does become legal.

E.J. McMahon, research director of the Empire Center for Public Policy, pointed out questions Molinaro needs to address about his tax plan.

McMahon said making the property tax cap permanent could hinge on just how Molinaro would phase out the millionaires’ tax.

“You’ve gotta decide what you’re going to do with that before you decide anything else that has financial impact,” McMahon said.

There’s also the question of how much political capital Molinaro would invest in perpetuating the property tax cap. McMahon noted that Cuomo and Republicans who control the state Senate say they support the move, but have not yet made it a top priority. The cap is set to expire in the 2019-2020 fiscal year.

McMahon said Molinaro could signal his support for the property tax cap by making it his sine qua non for passing the state budget.

“Will he say…this is going to be a condition for a budget or any extension of rent regulation?” McMahon said, referring to a top priority for Democrats who control the Assembly by a wide margin dominated by New York City members. “The question is, what is going to be your priority, what are you going to do to make it happen?”

Trimming the fat
Along with criticizing state taxes in his Republican Party nomination acceptance speech, Molinaro promised a new approach to budgeting for government agencies. He said he would recruit “the best and brightest” from colleges and businesses to audit state government, and promised “zero-based budgeting” in which “no agency gets a dime until it can show we’re getting what we pay for.”

“What we have now is an outmoded, outdated, and antiquated 20th-century state government at its worst,” Molinaro exclaimed.

Erie County Republican Committee Chair Nick Langworthy, who has met with Molinaro to strategize on the election, suggested that cutting government spending could resonate with voters.

“He needs to address the out-of-control spending of the state and the out-of-control taxes. How does he make it better?” Langworthy said.

“I think he will have some bold proposals, from some of our private conversations, coming forward that probably will shake some of the vested interests to their core,” he added.

The devil is in the details, of course.

“He basically talked about waste and fraud,” McMahon said. “Until you know what he’s talking about, you don’t know whether there’s anything there or not.”

McMahon pointed to the state police barracks in New York City as an example of the kind of expenditure that Molinaro could target for cuts.

“There’s a few million bucks,” McMahon said. “A few million here, a few million there -- next thing you know, we’re talking real money.”

In a recent phone interview with Gotham Gazette, Molinaro shied away from specifying how he would trim the now-$168 billion state budget.

Political scientist Richard Flanagan said the candidate could make waves by completely scrapping state investment in economic development.

“He might say, ‘I’m a free market conservative and I can’t pick winners and losers. Markets pick winners and losers,’” said Flanagan, who chairs the College of Staten Island’s political science department. “That would be a bold break from the New York way. It might appeal to New Yorkers.

“It’s a different approach from what Cuomo’s been doing,” Flanagan said.

Indeed, Molinaro recently pledged that if he is elected governor, there will be no direct subsidies paid by government to private businesses, though he stopped short of saying he would end economic development programs. Those can include measures such as tax breaks, tax credits, space allocation, and public-private partnerships.

Action on ethics
Often in the same breath Molinaro has criticized state spending, he’s blasted Cuomo for alleged ethical improprieties, connecting the two through an alleged pay-to-play culture, where donors to the governor’s campaign are rewarded by government action. Both Molinaro and Democratic primary challenger Cynthia Nixon are trying to persuade voters that the corruption trials of members of Cuomo’s inner circle make the incumbent unfit for office. The governor’s former top aide, Joseph Percoco, was convicted of fraud and soliciting bribes in March; and Alain Kaloyeros, the mastermind behind many of Cuomo’s biggest development projects, is now on trial for corruption-related charges.

“What’s out? Cuomo’s multibillion-dollar pay-for-play giveaways -- gone, yesterday!” Molinaro said in his GOP nomination acceptance speech. “Corporate welfare -- gone, yesterday! We’re going to make New York attractive to all businesses.”

Molinaro, a former state Assemblymember, has proposed a two-term limit for governor, lieutenant governor, state attorney general and state comptroller -- a rebuke of Cuomo as the incumbent seeks a third term. Molinaro says term limits would mark “a long-overdue start to restore honesty and integrity to state government.” He has pledged to serve only two terms if elected, even without a law in place.

The Republican challenger has also called for a ban on campaign contributions from people and organizations with business before the state; and supports closing the so-called LLC loophole, which lets companies or individuals make virtually unlimited campaign contributions through limited liability corporations, but saying it must be done as part of comprehensive reform, indicating he favors limits on other entities like labor unions. Cuomo has voiced support for closing the loophole in the past -- notwithstanding the fact he is the state’s largest beneficiary of donations from LLCs. Cuomo has neither advanced the legislation nor voluntarily shut down his campaign’s access for LLCs, something Nixon has done.

Recently, Molinaro said the Joint Commission on Public Ethics had “no integrity” as it cleared former Cuomo administration official Sam Hoyt of sexual harassment and assault. Molinaro and others pointed to the fact that JCOPE’s executive director, Seth Agata, is the third consecutive person with close ties to Cuomo to head the commission.

Molinaro is making his case for reforms as 46 percent of voters statewide say corruption is a “very serious” problem, according to a February Quinnipiac University poll. But skepticism of reform proposals seems high; 62 percent of voters thought ethics laws included in the 2015 state budget would have no effect on reducing corruption.

“I don’t think he’s going to win the election on ethics reform,” Republican political consultant John William Schiffbauer said of Molinaro. “New York voters are so desensitized to the idea of political corruption, unfortunately, that it’s just not the single issue that I think it should be.”

Schiffbauer added that many upstate voters already view Cuomo as ethically compromised. He said Molinaro’s challenge will be persuading residents of New York City, Westchester County, and parts of Long Island.

“Those are always historically areas that have high numbers of registered Democrats, who generally just always vote Democrat,” Schiffbauer said. “That’s where he’s going to need to be selling that most. Or selling it like: Cuomo has dropped the ball, he’s let you down.”

People living with disabilities
Other than talking tough on budgeting and corruption, Molinaro regularly brings up his experience as the father of an autistic daughter on the campaign trail, a campaign he launched as county executive, and the notion that New York must become a more compassionate, inclusive place.

“We are going to reset New York’s priorities,” he said in his nomination acceptance speech. “Children and adults with disabilities, seniors without savings, classroom funding and special education, opioid addiction, safe drinking water, signal switches in subway tunnels -- those are the kinds of things that’ll move New York forward.”

He told Gotham Gazette he would push every executive agency to update its policies for people with intellectual and developmental disabilities, though he declined to provide details.

Molinaro pointed to a program he created in Dutchess County, called ThinkDIFFERENTLY, as an example of his approach.

The program, marked by a resolution of inclusive principles, has hosted free movie events and annual picnics where service providers can connect with people with disabilities. The county’s related “Think Ahead” program, a partnership with Dutchess Community College, has provided job preparation and life skills training for people with intellectual and developmental disabilities, according to the Molinaro campaign.

Schiffbauer noted the issue could help distinguish Molinaro from his rivals.

“It’s an issue that you really haven’t seen many people talk about in New York state and city,” he said, adding that the candidate’s experience as a father could make the issue come to life for voters. “He’s not bringing it up just to bring it up. He’s always talking about this issue.”

Fixing the MTA
In his interview with Gotham Gazette, Molinaro sought to stake a claim in the red-hot MTA debate by noting the authority’s service -- specifically, the Metro-North Hudson Line -- extends through his county, where he often says upstate and downstate meet.

He outlined changes he would make to the authority’s structure, calling for the board to get the power to fire its chair, a governor appointee.

While new MTA New York City Transit President Andy Byford has promised to make accessibility one of his main priorities, Molinaro also called for increased services for people with disabilities.

“I know it’s something that he’s going to take on,” said Langworthy. “He’s going to show that the money has been wasted. He’s going to have proposals to fix it.”

Molinaro promised as much in the interview, but asked whether he’d be willing to increase spending to help disabled people use the MTA, he demurred.

“My basic philosophy is make government as effective and efficient as possible,” he said. “I don’t subscribe to the [idea], ‘Well, we always have to spend more money to achieve something.’”

Molinaro also declined to comment on Byford’s multibillion-dollar plan to fix service, which has drawn support from Cuomo. Nixon released her own subway plan at the end of last month, which is supportive of the Byford plan, but includes several mechanisms to pay for it and long-term funding of the MTA, something Cuomo has not figured out yet, though he continues to promise to pursue congestion pricing next year after he was unable to push it through the Legislature in the recently-ended session.

Molinaro has not outlined his plans for funding the MTA’s long-term capital needs.

Jails and justice
The national debate on criminal justice reform has played out in the Democratic primary, with Nixon apparently pushing Cuomo left on legalizing marijuana. Before campaign season, Cuomo announced proposals including the elimination of cash bail, speeding up trials, and fixing or closing substandard jails, but he has not won passage of any of those measures.

Gerald Benjamin, a political scientist and director of the Benjamin Center at SUNY New Paltz, said Molinaro could play his criminal justice record in Westchester County to his advantage.

The Republican has spearheaded the creation of a jail to replace the overcrowded facility there. He launched the initiative before a state government report ranked the old jail as one of the worst in New York.

While the project does not necessarily symbolize legislative reform, it speaks to management and budget decisions, and Benjamin said Molinaro’s effort to tackle the issue could earn him points.

“He took that issue on, which previous county executives hadn’t done,” said Benjamin, who co-authored a 2011 policy paper on jails in the Hudson Valley. “It was a costly choice and he took it on in a just-right way from a public policy perspective.”

Molinaro has not made clear where he stands on issues reducing or eliminating the use of cash bail for most non-violent offenses, an issue that has some bipartisan support, and he has not indicated that criminal justice reform will be a focus of his campaign.

The Trump factor
As the general election approaches, the Democratic gubernatorial nominee, whether Cuomo or Nixon, is likely to tie Molinaro to President Donald Trump. Molinaro will also be asked to weigh in on Trump policies, statements, and controversies, though he is already loathe to do so, preferring, like some other Republican candidates around the country, to keep the focus on his race and platform.

Cuomo and his representatives have repeatedly labeled Molinaro as a “Trump mini-me” and a conservative opposed to LGBT and immigrant rights, as well as other progressive principles.

Molinaro says he did not vote for Donald Trump for president, claiming he instead wrote-in former upstate Republican Rep. Chris Gibson.

But Flanagan, of CUNY’s Staten Island college, said that stance might backfire.

Being ambivalent about Trump might alienate the president’s supporters while failing to win over any Democrats. Molinaro recently said he does not favor the Trump policy of separating immigrant families at the border, and has previously criticized the president’s “both sides” response to a white nationalist rally in Virginia and the Trump tax reform’s low threshold for state and local tax deductibility. On the latter point, however, he has also faulted Cuomo and Democrats for policies leading to New York’s high tax burden on income-earners and homeowners.

Flanagan said members of Trump’s base on Staten Island might think, “He didn’t like Trump? Forget him; I’ll vote for Cuomo.”

Conservatives interviewed for this article illustrated how tricky it will be for Molinaro to stake out his position in relation to the president.

Langworthy voiced disgust at the “mini-Trump” characterization.

“It is just infantile,” he said. “If that’s [Cuomo’s] message, he should be ashamed of himself.”

State Conservative Party Chair Mike Long, whose party has endorsed Molinaro, said the gubernatorial candidate should embrace Trump’s economic policies.

“You have to do something similar to what Donald Trump has done as president of the United States,” he said. “Look at the outcome with him - he’s already created tremendous growth in our nation...That’s what has to be done in the state of New York.”

Fighting a centrist
Flanagan pointed out several areas where it will be difficult for Molinaro to distinguish himself from Cuomo without going too far to the right.

Perhaps no issue is more challenging for a New York Republican trying to win statewide than gun control. Cuomo’s legislation to expand the state’s assault weapons ban, among other measures, is hugely popular in New York City, and gets a small plurality of supporters upstate. But there are parts of the state that are heavily Republican and ardently opposed to the Safe Act, again begging the question of how Molinaro locks up the base while appealing to suburban moderates.

Flanagan said Molinaro could chart a new course by “artfully” arguing for a system in which localities determine new gun regulations.

“I do have concerns with how aggressive this governor has been,” he previously told Gotham Gazette. “I think in some ways irresponsibly ignoring those that do support, as I do, the Second Amendment and forcing legislation without having the kind of local robust conversation necessary. I believe the constitution is as it’s written.”

On education, Flanagan said, Molinaro could argue for more charter schools, though it would be tough for him to distinguish himself from Cuomo, a strong supporter of charters who has secured a variety of legislative and budgetary victories for the growing sector. Flanagan also said Cuomo’s failure to deliver on promises of universal pre-K for the state could be open to criticism from the Republican candidate.

“Somehow this guy needs to get the independent voters,” Flanagan said of Molinaro. “[Universal pre-K] may be an issue where he could engage the independent voters without getting a lot of backlash from the Republican base.”

Conservatism and charisma
It is difficult to say what lessons previous Republican runs for governor might hold for Molinaro. In 2014, Cuomo handily defeated Rob Astorino, a county executive from just north of New York City who ran on a campaign opposing Cuomo’s gun-control measures and ban on hydraulic fracking. Astorino’s gun control pitch didn’t work, and fracking has largely fallen out of the headlines.

The last Republican to become governor, George Pataki, ran on promises of an across-the-board tax cut to unseat Cuomo’s father. But the campaign came during the nationwide “Republican Revolution” of 1994 -- a vastly different climate compared to Trump’s first term. Pataki did win three terms, though, and, when introducing Molinaro at the Republican state convention, said he sees parallels this year to his initial, surprise victory over an incumbent Cuomo.

Which issues beyond the initial list he has offered -- taxation, state spending, unfunded local mandates, cutting business regulations, government ethics and campaign finance reform, MTA management reform, and better accommodations for people with disabilities -- Molinaro will prioritize and put forth detailed policy plans for is to be seen. It is clear a main focus will be highlighting that he is not Governor Cuomo.

Molinaro’s campaign might come down to banking on incumbent fatigue, conservative nostrums, and personal charm -- the Republican candidate’s charisma helped him become mayor of Tivoli at age 19, and he has maintained a career in politics ever since.

“I just haven’t heard a bold new idea,” Flanagan said of Molinaro. “It’s not like he’s the Jack Kemp of New York who sort of personifies a new third wave for the Republican Party or anything.”

***
by Shant Shahrigianh, Gotham Gazette
      

Read more by this writer.

Ocasio-Cortez Upsets Crowley, Donovan Defeats Grimm & Other 2018 New York Congressional Primary Results


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Ocasio-Cortez campaign buttons (image via @Ocasio2018)


Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, a 28-year-old self-identified democratic socialist, unseated 10-term Congressional representative and Queens Democratic Party leader Joe Crowley in a dramatic upset quickly having ripple effects both locally and nationally. And she won handily, by about 4,000 votes and a 57.5 to 42.5 percent margin.

Crowley entered the House in 1999 and maintained a largely center-left voting record; he was seen as a strong contender to become the next Democratic Speaker of the House, after Nancy Pelosi. Crowley is also the chair of the Queens Democratic Party, making him one of the most powerful kingmakers in New York City politics. Ocasio-Cortez, a Latina from the Bronx, ran an aggressive, organized, energetic campaign to Crowley’s left, accusing the incumbent of acquiescing to real estate and financial interests rather than adequately representing constituents of the district. She has professed support for Medicare for All (which Crowley also supported during the campaign), a federal jobs guarantee, tuition-free public college, reinstating Glass-Steagall, and abolishing ICE.

She further distinguished herself from Crowley by refusing money from corporate PACs; Crowley, a prolific fundraiser for the party, has raised millions of dollars over the course of his career from corporations. Crowley significantly outraised and outspent Ocasio-Cortez, but she made up for it with a significant social media presence, strong ground game, and glowing profiles in national publications. Crowley raised more eyebrows when he failed to show up for a debate with Ocasio-Cortez, instead sending former City Council Member Annabel Palma in his place, which earned him a rebuke from The New York Times editorial board.

Ocasio-Cortez has said that her campaign is part of a movement, emblematic of a far-left wave that is seeking to take over the Democratic primary in the wake of the 2016 presidential election, and with a chance to flip the House at stake this fall. She is all but certain to win the general election, something Crowley noted in a gracious concession speech wherein he also said he’d be supporting Ocasio-Cortez moving forward.

The challenger’s win appeared to give a shot in the arm to other progressives hoping to unseat incumbent Democrats this year, namely gubernatorial candidate Cynthia Nixon, who is challenging Gov. Andrew Cuomo, had exchanged endorsements with Ocasio-Cortez on Monday and attended what became her victory party Tuesday night. Also apparently boosted by the result are the challengers to the former members of the Independent Democratic Conference of the State Senate. Those primaries will all be held September 13.

Crowley was among a handful of long-time Democratic incumbents facing spirited primary challenges on Tuesday. The others appeared to hang on, with Rep. Yvette Clarke of Brooklyn leading Adem Bunkedekko by a 1,000-vote margin with 99 percent of precincts reporting at about midnight. Bunkedekko had earned the endorsement of the Times editorial board in his insurgent campaign, but it did not appear to do quite enough to get him over the hump against Clarke.

Reps. Carolyn Maloney and Eliot Engel also fended off primary challengers, by wider margins.

Other than the Ocasio-Cortez victory, the other top storyline of the night was Rep. Dan Donovan fending off a primary challenge from his predecessor, Michael Grimm, that looked to be going Grimm's way before President Donald Trump endorsed Donovan. Donovan wound up winning by more than 20 percentage points, though.

On the Democratic side in New York’s 11th Congressional District, Max Rose won a crowded primary by a wide margin and will take on Donovan in the general election, attempting to swing the lone New York City House seat in GOP hands.

In other notable congressional primary results around the city and state (many incumbents were unchallenged in the primary, some faced only nominal competition):

Perry Gershon won the Democratic primary to earn the chance to face incumbent Republican Rep. Lee Zeldin in Congressional District 1.

Liuba Grechen Shirley won the Democratic primary to earn the chance to face incumbent Republican Rep. Peter King in Congressional District 2.

Antonio Delgado won a crowded Democratic primary to earn the chance to face incumbent Republican Rep. John Faso in Congressional District 19.

Tedra Cobb won a crowded Democratic primary to earn the chance to face incumbent Republican Rep. Elise Stefanik in Congressional District 21.

Dana Balter won the Democratic primary to earn the chance to face incumbent Republican Rep. John Katko in Congressional District 24.

Assemblymember Joseph Morelle won the Democratic primary to earn the chance to face incumbent Republican Jim Maxwell in Congressional District 25, a seat vacated when Rep. Louise Slaughter passed away earlier this year.

These results now largely set the stage for the general elections for Congress in New York, with all 27 House seas on the ballot and one U.S. Senate seat -- where Democratic Senator Kirsten Gillibrand is facing Republican challenger Chele Farley.

State-level primaries, including for all the seats in the state Legislature and the four state-wide positions of governor, lieutenant governor, comptroller, and attorney general will be September 13.

***
by Ben Max, Gotham Gazette
     

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Hochul: Divided Democratic Party Only Benefits Republicans


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Gov. Cuomo and Lt. Gov. Hochul (photo: Governor's Office)


With the September primaries for New York state elections fast approaching, Governor Andrew Cuomo and Lieutenant Governor Kathy Hochul, both Democratic incumbents, are being forced to defend their records in challenges from the left. While many other elected officials and labor unions are supporting the incumbents, a wide swath of activists that form part of the party’s base is supporting challengers to Cuomo, Hochul, and a group of state senators who, until recently, made up the rogue Democratic faction known as the Independent Democratic Conference, which aligned itself with Senate Republicans.

It is a contentious, and potentially damaging, split within the party that Cuomo, Hochul, and other incumbents are attempting to overcome, keeping them from focusing their full attention on unseating Republicans in the state Senate or House of Representatives, both of which could swing to Democratic control through the fall elections.

Actor and activist Cynthia Nixon, who is campaigning to become governor, and City Council Member Jumaane Williams, vying to become lieutenant governor, have both been endorsed by the liberal Working Families Party (WFP) and are currently petitioning the public for a place on the September Democratic primary ballot, claiming the party under Cuomo’s leadership has lost its way, falling into corruption and leaning too far across the aisle.

Hochul, a former member of Congress from western New York who was also Cuomo’s 2014 running mate, lamented the challenge, saying the “only beneficiaries” of a divided Democratic party are Republicans.

“I approach every challenge with the effort and an attempt to understand where people come from, so I am trying to put myself in their shoes, but I also understand history very well and I know what happens when Democrats attack each other and there’s polarization,” Hochul said on a recent episode of the Max & Murphy podcast from Gotham Gazette and City Limits, when asked about the Nixon and Williams campaigns.

“What I would love to do is harness all that energy and set it on fire against the Republicans because what I would be doing right now, if I didn’t have a challenge, is what I set out to do, which is to help elect Democrats to Congress,” said Hochul, who Williams has accused of being too moderate and not being an independent voice to check Cuomo.

Hochul’s sentiment is opposite to that of Nixon and Williams, who have made no mention of running together but who’ve appeared jointly on community calls run by the WFP (governor and lieutenant governor are voted on separately during party primaries but appear on the ballot as a ticket in the general).

Speaking on a May 24 call, Nixon said, “A Democratic primary is good for the party and good for the state.” Both candidates are critical of Cuomo’s lack of action, rhetoric to the contrary, in areas of criminal justice reform; protecting undocumented immigrants; rent regulations, and education funding fairness, among other issues.

A cornerstone of Williams’ campaign is his promise to redefine the role of lieutenant governor and act only for the benefit of New Yorkers, even if it means independently of the governor. “I will make certain that our governor and elected officials uphold their promises to you and will hold them accountable for the actions they take,” his website reads, a sentiment he echoed on an earlier WFP call to rally volunteers in early May.

Though he doesn’t mention Hochul by name, Williams has drawn a clear comparison to the incumbent, who herself acknowledges that she sees the job as to support the governor and be the “advocate in chief,” as she said on the podcast. Hochul travels the state promoting and explaining Cuomo administration initiatives, while at times also helping craft them. Economic development and women’s issues are key pieces of her portfolio. During the podcast discussion, Hochul applauded Cuomo for his efforts in reinventing the city of Buffalo with an injection of $1 billion, and saying he has done “an exceptional job” in fighting for working-class people across the state.

“A primary keeps you on the ropes; you have to focus on it, because I need to be there to finish the job with Governor Cuomo,” Hochul said. “It is what it is, but I wish people would understand this energy is better spent on the other party right now because of the threat of [Republican President] Donald Trump.”

“We can all be purists about everything when we have a Democrat in the White House, when we have the House and the Senate, and when we have New York State Legislature,” she continued. “Then we can fight each other on the nuances.”

On the Republican side of the aisle, there is no corresponding set of primaries -- the GOP is nominating Marc Molinaro for governor and Julie Killian for lieutenant governor. They now have months to join in the attacks on Cuomo and Hochul, raise money, and stake out their positions, while also watching Democrats in-fight.

While Nixon and Williams are calling upon a grassroots movement of volunteers and a network of liberal groups to expand their support base, Hochul and Cuomo are embracing the establishment while reminding voters of their work over the past four, or in Cuomo’s case, eight, years.

“You ask anybody on the streets of Buffalo, you go up there today and ask anyone if they can see and feel the difference and the answer will be ‘yes’,” Hochul told the podcast. “There is literally not just a physical change where you can see an area that was abandoned wasteland on our waterfront which is now a place where 2 million people go every summer for concerts…And the businesses that are coming, it’s one of the top destinations for millennials in the country. The success is seen in the jobs, the transformation of neighbourhoods, the physical change but also the psychological change. There’s a pride that never used to be there.”

The change can be replicated -- is being replicated, according to Hochul -- in other places in New York. She spoke of Syracuse (now the “international capital for drone technology”) and Rochester (“we’re now bringing technology jobs there”), saying the Buffalo example shows: “If we can bring back the hardest hit area of the state, we can bring back anything.”

Yet when pressed on the corruption attached to the “Buffalo Billion” and other Cuomo administration economic development programming, which has seen one completed and one ongoing federal trial this year, with charges against individuals including former top aides and major donors to Cuomo, Hochul downplayed its significance.

“There are trials on that right now and it was heartbreaking to see how people abused the trust that was placed in them. It really is,” she said, apparently referring to former Secretary to the Governor Joseph Percoco, who was convicted earlier this year, and former SUNY Polytechnic President Alain Kaloyeros, who is currently on trial. “We need accountability and we’re getting accountability. There was a separate entity that had been orchestrating much of the economic development that has changed.”

Now, Buffalo’s development projects are consolidated under Empire State Development with former Buffalo business leader Howard Zemsky at the helm (Zemsky also co-chaired the Western New York Regional Economic Development Council, part of the network of REDCs that Cuomo and Hochul oversee) and with a new entity, NY CREATES, about to launch under new leadership, while consolidating the assets of two scandal-plagued nonprofits.

Of Zemsky, Hochul said she “trusts him enormously” and that he has a “stellar reputation for integrity.”

On other touchpoints that appear pivotal in the Hochul-Williams Democratic primary, such as LGBTQ rights and support for immigrant communities, Hochul is adamant she’s been consistent in upholding true “democratic values,” though she did admit to some regrets from her time as Erie County Clerk. She’s been a stalwart supporter of marriage equality, which was legalized in New York under Cuomo in 2011, she said, while also taking an apparent shot at Williams, who has not always been vocally behind marriage rights for same-sex couples (or abortion rights for women).

On the other hand, on the podcast Hochul said she regrets the opposition she expressed in 2007 to providing driver’s licenses to undocumented New Yorkers. At the time, Hochul threatened to turn undocumented immigrants in to law enforcement if they sought licenses, which were a controversial topic at the time and are again a key issue this year.

“It was the time, and I said I would uphold the law. There were people who would break the law and I said ‘if this is what the state of New York decides to do, I will uphold that law.’ It became very contentious within our community,” Hochul said, noting work she did on Capitol Hill early in her career helping immigrants should speak to her “commitment” to the issue.

“I wish I had not gone that route [in 2007], I really do, because I realize it was hurtful to people and that was never my intent,” Hochul said. “I would never do anything to intentionally hurt anybody.”

[Listen to the full conversation: Max & Murphy Podcast: Lieutenant Governor Kathy Hochul]

***
by Caitlin Bishop, Gotham Gazette
@caitybishop  @GothamGazette

Read more by this writer.

Pointing to Deficiencies, Victims Call for Changes to State’s New Sexual Harassment Policies


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(photo via the Governor's Office)


The problem of sexual harassment in New York state politics is systemic and plaguing young women beginning their careers, according to a group fighting to change the culture and the laws around the issue. And, they argue that recently adopted state measures to fight the scourge are insufficient, despite being touted by Governor Andrew Cuomo as “the best in the nation.”

The seven women of The Sexual Harassment Working Group -- all of whom have been personally affected by sexual harassment while working for lawmakers in the New York State Legislature -- have consulted a handful of advocacy and legal groups, and called upon their own experiences and expertise, to put together a detailed report with recommendations for ways to better protect women working in government.

“We wonder why there aren’t women in higher office, we wonder why women are so underrepesented in our legislature and in all levels of our government. And this is a big part of why: It does not feel safe to work in government if you’re a woman,” co-author Eliyanna Kaiser, a one-time chief of staff to former Assemblymember Micah Kellner, said during an event in Manhattan on June 19. Kaiser was not herself directly a victim of sexual harassment, but instead reported to Bill Collins in the Assembly Counsel's office, under former Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver, that Kellner had been sending inappropriate messages to one of his staffers, which led to initial inaction, attacks against Kaiser, and, eventually, Kellner’s ouster from the state Legislature.

Also on the panel were working group members and co-authors Danielle Bennett, former administrative assistant to Kellner who reported his harassment to Kaiser; Leah Hebert, former chief of staff to the late, disgraced Assemblymember Vito Lopez; Tori Burhans Kelly, former legislative aide to Lopez; Rita Pasarell, former legislative counsel and deputy chief of staff to Lopez; Erica Vladimer, former education policy analyst and counsel for the Independent Democratic Conference (IDC); and Elizabeth Crothers, former legislative aide in the New York State Assembly who publicly accused Assembly lawyer Michael Boxley of rape in 2003, two years after the alleged incident and when another victim of Boxley’s came forward. The discussion was moderated by political consultant and columnist Alexis Grenell, who has helped bring to light victims’ experiences as well as the insufficient responses from government officials.

The stories of these women run together in a horror plot that involves countless obstacles to reporting, near-dismissal, and a reluctance to investigate from those in charge, as well as forcibly implemented nondisclosure agreements that hinder the complainant's chances of reemployment and their ability to warn others.

“I agreed not to file a civil suit in exchange for [him to get] a HIV test,” Crothers said, adding the “loss of anonymity” after going public “follows you.”

“I really didn’t think there was another way out aside from suicide,” said Hebert, who was one of the first women to complain about Lopez groping and harassing female staffers, of her experience.

“These things that are happening are not the product of an individual harasser, they’re not mistakes,” Pasarell, another complainant against Lopez, added. “It’s massive, it’s systemic, and whenever I hear a new person coming out I say, ‘hey remember us, remember this happened to us in 2012?’”

It’s a cycle that exploits women and protects men who behave abhorrently and, as Grenell pointed out, it’s a reality yet unchanged by Governor Andrew Cuomo’s claims that New York has the “strongest and most comprehensive anti-sexual harassment protections in the nation” following the recent budget, wherein the anti-harassment legislation was passed. Grenell compared the governor’s statement to the “mission accomplished sign” former President George W. Bush stood in front of during 2003 remarks about the war in Iraq, only two months after the U.S. first invaded.

The Working Group is calling for Cuomo to hold public hearings to listen to victims of sexual harassment -- as its members demanded before the policies were decided by all-male leadership with little apparent regard for the opinions of victims. The group’s Harassment-Free Albany website states: “New York State has not held a state hearing on sexual harassment since Governor Mario Cuomo [Andrew Cuomo’s father] created a Sexual Harassment Task Force in 1992.”

The reporting system has no transparency for complainants, limited uniformity, and an obvious lack of objectivity, the panel urges. For example, when Vladimer, who this January publicly accused now-Deputy Democratic Conference Leader Jeff Klein of kissing her forcibly and against her will outside a bar in 2015, was asked where her case is at now, she said she has no idea.

“Your guess is as good as mine,” Vladimer told event attendees on Tuesday. “[It’s with] the state’s Joint Commission on Public Ethics [JCOPE], which under some very vague executive law somehow has the authority to investigate sexual harassment claims. There are no experts on this commission and the commissioners who vote to decide whether or not there is wrongdoing are all appointed by elected officials.” They are also almost all men, with one woman in 14 commissioners.

“I don’t know where my investigation is and I think that’s one of the biggest things we’ve talked about is that there is no transparency and I know, and have been told, I don’t have a right to know where my investigation’s going,” Vladimer added.

When Vladimer went public, Klein immediately denied the allegations, and Senate Majority Leader John Flanagan said the Senate would not investigate given no formal complaint had been lodged with its internal staff. Klein himself asked JCOPE to investigate, but other than Klein indicating an investigation had commenced, there is little information to go by.

In the lead-up to the new state budget, Cuomo had called for sweeping anti-sexual harassment policies, including greater resources for and transparency in JCOPE investigations. While Cuomo pushed through some measures, those JCOPE recommendations were not among what was passed into law.

The same Klein accused of sexually harassing Vladimer was one of the three other elected men, and no elected women, who assisted Cuomo in deciding the sexual harassment legislation this March, ahead of the annual budget. According to the budget, there are five measures designed to address sexual harassment in state politics -- as the governor’s office puts it, to “further build upon his 2018 Women’s Agenda for New York.”

In a press release announcing highlights of the new budget in March, Cuomo said, "We put into place the strongest and most comprehensive anti-sexual harassment protections in the nation, ending once and for all the secrecy and coercive practices that have enabled this unacceptable behavior for far too long.”

Under the new legislation, all employers working with the state, including vendors and contractors, must implement a written policy addressing sexual harassment prevention and provide prevention training to all employees. This is an extension of a previously-existing law to include contracted workers, and means that employers may now be held liable for the sexual harassment of non-employees if the employer knew, or should have known, of the harassment and failed to take action. It does not, however, address the ambiguity around employees of elected officials.

The Sexual Harassment Working Group is recommending the definition of “employee” be changed to clearly include employees of elected and appointed officials, and that the New York State Human Rights Law should stipulate elected officials are also considered “employers.”

“Our recommendation is to specify employees as everybody -- essentially someone for hire -- this is how the labor law defines it and we just want every worker to have the same protection, including staff of elected officials,” Pasarell told Tuesday night’s event.

In the new legislation, New York employers are prohibited from requiring mandatory arbitration of claims of workplace sexual harassment, except where inconsistent with federal law, and this will come into effect in July.

Any officers and employees of the state or any public entity who is subject to a final judgement of personal liability in cases of sexual harassment will have to reimburse the state for the award given to the complainant, however the Sexual Harassment Working Group points out this is only applicable for cases determined by a judge, not necessarily to those settled out of court.

Cuomo’s legislation also states no employer has the authority to include or agree to include in any settlement a nondisclosure agreement, unless the condition of confidentiality is the complainant’s preference. And, notably, a model sexual harassment guidance document and a sexual harassment prevention policy is to be created with the Division of Human Right by October -- meaning a key portion of the new policy is not yet written.

“This year, Governor Cuomo signed the strongest anti-sexual harassment policy in the country,” Dani Lever, press secretary for Cuomo, told Gotham Gazette in a statement. “It closed gaping loopholes that entrapped women in toxic workplaces, extended protections to contracted workers, and strengthened rules that prevent companies from shirking their responsibility to root out bad actors—instead of sweeping problems under-the-rug.”

On the surface, all measures included in the enacted budget appear to go a long way towards exactly what the governor is promising but, according to the panel of women who’ve experienced sexual harassment in state politics first-hand, there are some areas of ambiguity that impede the path to reporting and justice for potential victims.

First, the budget hasn’t defined “sexual harassment” and the way the issue is currently treated under state law leaves much room for interpretation. The Sexual Harassment Working Group recommends adding “sex and gender” to the list of classes protected from discrimination in the New York State Constitution, to offer another level of protection for all New Yorkers, including victims. And the authors suggest the current standard for behavior to qualify as sexual harassment in state law -- that it must be “severe or pervasive” -- be changed to mirror the recent changes to New York City law, where the standard for discrimination and harassment reads simply that the person is treated “less well.”

“When you’re talking about standards in law, the ‘litigative itch,’ as they call it, is all in these terms,” Kaiser said. “People are always going to bicker about the actual event that happened. We’d prefer that bickering to be asking, ‘didn’t he treat her less well?’ Rather than, ‘was it severe and pervasive?’”

The working group is also calling for an independent body to oversee all discrimination harassment policy enforcement. At the moment, JCOPE members are appointed by state elected officials. Of the 14 members, three are appointed by the Temporary President of the Senate, three are appointed by the Speaker of the Assembly, one is appointed by the Minority Leader of the Senate, one is appointed by the Minority Leader of the Assembly, and six are appointed by the Governor and the Lieutenant Governor.

Many of the stories from the women in The Sexual Harassment Working Group involve some level of disbelief from those charged with investigating their reports of sexual harassment. In Crothers’ case, it wasn’t only disbelief, it was outright protection of her alleged attacker.

“Before it came out in the press and when I met with the speaker [Sheldon Silver], I didn’t feel he didn’t believe me, he just said ‘well I won’t let him go out to bars anymore and my first priority is protecting the institution,’” Crothers said at the panel event. Silver resigned as speaker in 2015 after being arrested on federal corruption charges, and long after being accused of facilitating former Assemblymember Lopez’s harassment of eight women who were on his staff. The panelists believe this culture of cover-up and protection will continue unless there is an independent body appointed to investigate, and determine, reports of sexual misconduct in Albany.

It’s the Lopez example that best shows the need for further restrictions around the use of nondisclosure agreements, beyond what is outlined in the new legislation. Two of the women in the working group, who were on the panel, ultimately signed nondisclosure agreements after accusing the former Assembly member of sexual harassment and groping. They said they didn’t want a nondisclosure agreement -- it wasn’t implemented to protect their privacy -- but it was offered to them as a ‘take it or leave it’ measure.

“We wanted an investigation, we asked multiple times for an investigation,” Hebert said. Hebert’s name went public, despite her having signed a nondisclosure agreement, when reports from other victims were published by the media ahead of Lopez’s resignation in 2013. Instead of an investigation, Hebert said she, along with Pasarell, were made to sign nondisclosure agreements and were told Lopez would go through sexual harassment prevention training.

“The NDA, it wasn’t just that...we couldn’t speak to anyone,” Hebert said. “It was, at first, $10,000 in liquidated damages if we broke it for every occurence, and it would happen with a mediator behind closed doors so no one would know they were enforcing the agreement. And it also contained a provision that we could never apply to the Assembly again.” This last measure effectively limiting their opportunities to work in state government, and the fine making it impossible for the complainants to explain their circumstances to future employers, file for unemployment benefits, or warn others or the Human Rights Division of Lopez’s behavior.  

They pushed back on their exclusion from the Assembly and the response was, “we could never apply to Lopez’s office again, which was fine, but they increased our liquidated damages cost to $20,000,” Hebert said.

Pasarell, another of Lopez’s victims, said the anti-sexual harassment legislation in the budget regarding nondisclosure agreements -- that they can only be used in cases where the complainant consents -- can too easily be twisted to benefit the harasser.

“The way they phrased the new law is for the complainant to have a nondisclosure agreement, it’s got to be the complainant’s preference. In our case we saw repeatedly how the Assembly portrayed it as if it was our preference when it absolutely was not,” she said. “The nondisclosure agreement came to us very late in the game and it was ‘take it or leave it.’”

Women reporting sexual harassment will be better assisted, The Sexual Harassment Working Group argues, if the Legislature provides greater protection against victim coercion into signing nondisclosure agreements. The group also recommends the law allow for individual liability, so harassers can be targeted without taking the Legislature or State to arbitration or court. And, in cases where complainants do want a nondisclosure agreement for confidentiality reasons, there should be a “Sunshine in Litigation” law to prevent serial harassers (who’ve offended at least once prior) from re-offending. “Limited information would be shared but a pattern of harassment would be outed,” Pasarell said.

The way to change the culture of sexual harassment and exploitation is through changing the law, The Sexual Harassment Working Group maintains, and the way to do that is through consulting with victims, advocacy groups, and others, including lawmakers -- a process much more extensive than how Cuomo and legislative leaders, all men, went about it.

In response to The Sexual Harassment Working Group’s report, Cuomo’s team said it will review the recommendations but gave no indication of whether or not they will consider holding or pushing for a public hearing on the issue.

“No woman should ever be violated, let alone in the workplace—period. And that’s why Governor Cuomo has championed measures that hold employers accountable for ensuring a hospitable workplace,” Lever, Cuomo’s press secretary, told Gotham Gazette. “The ‘Me Too’ movement has caused an awakening in our society, and while we’ve taken positive concrete steps in New York, we need to continue to see progress in our state and across the country. We look forward to reviewing these recommendations and continuing this important work.”

***
by Caitlin Bishop, Gotham Gazette
@caitybishop  @GothamGazette

Read more by this writer.

Note: this article has been corrected to reflect that Lopez allegedly harassed eight women on 33 counts, not 33 women; that two, not three, of the women mentioned signed NDAs; and that Kaiser reported Kellner's behavior to the Assembly counsel's office, not Speaker Silver directly.

Donovan, Grimm in Final Days of Contentious Congressional Primary


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Rep. Donovan, left, and former Rep. Grimm on NY1


Perhaps the most-watched congressional primary in New York ahead of Tuesday’s vote is the Republican contest centered on Staten Island, where former Congressional Representative Michael Grimm is attempting to unseat incumbent Representative Dan Donovan in what has been a nasty, hard-fought race with a heavy focus on President Donald Trump.

The district, which includes all of Staten Island and a sliver of southern Brooklyn, is home to many Trump supporters, especially in the Republican primary, and both candidates have been pledging allegiance to the commander in chief, despite each having a fairly moderate record. Trump recently endorsed Donovan, a fact that the incumbent -- who voted against Trump’s signature tax reform legislation -- has been touting as he attempts to stave off what appears to be a very serious threat to his reelection.

The winner of the Republican primary will face the victor on the Democratic side in what promises to be a spirited general election also centered around Trump and the first-term president’s policies. While the district almost exclusively elects Republicans to Congress, Democrats see an opportunity this year given heightened expectations about turnout in the first national elections since Trump shocked much of the world in 2016.

But first, the Grimm-Donovan contest has been full of energy, policy, and drama. While Donovan has virtually all of the institutional support, including from all of the Republican elected officials in the area, a long list of labor unions, and the two newspaper editorial boards that stand to matter to primary voters -- the Staten Island Advance and the New York Post -- Grimm still retains a strong following in the district and is putting his formidable campaign skills to work.

In endorsing Donovan in a move it acknowledged as exceptional given its reluctance to weigh in during party primaries, the Advance editorial board called it an "extraordinary race" indicative of "this era of out-of-the-ordinary phenomena on America's political landscape." "For us, there is no question: Dan Donovan deserves to be the Republican nominee," the board wrote. "He has served Staten Island with distinction and sensitivity, despite accusations to the contrary tossed about by Mr. Grimm."

The two candidates recently engaged in one radio and one television debate, where they lobbed personal and professional attacks against each other, attempted to prove who is the most supportive of the president, defended their policy records, and presented some sense of their vision for representing the district into the future if entrusted by voters to do so.

The debate on WABC radio, hosted by Rita Cosby, was full of argument and insults, emblematic of the overall race, which has been bitterly fought and has included a number of specific allegations of wrongdoing in each direction, not to mention discussion of Grimm’s time in prison after he pleaded guilty to federal tax evasion. It was that plea that led him to resign from Congress just after winning reelection in 2014, in what is the only Republican-held Congressional seat in New York City.

The debate on NY1 television, moderated by Errol Louis along with Courtney Gross and Anthony Pascale at the College of Staten Island, was a somewhat tamer affair than the radio debate, and included a bit more substance, though it did not lack for candidate attacks.

“My opponent’s whole campaign has been based on lies about my record and about his,” Donovan said near the start of the radio debate, responding to a question about whether his own campaign excessively used Grimm’s criminal record. “The people have to know what the truth is.”

“What I think it is,” Grimm responded, “is he’s trying to reflect onto me the fact that he’s been lying about his own record.”

During his opening statement of the TV debate, Grimm criticized Donovan’s decision to not rent a D.C. apartment but to instead sleep at his office while working in the capital, which the incumbent calls an efficiency measure.

“I’m running again because over the last three years, my opponent hasn’t just been sleeping in his office, he’s been sleeping on the job,” Grimm said. “And that’s why I’m asking for your vote.

In asking for votes, Grimm cannot bolster his pleas with the backing of the president, whom he has heaped praise on an attacked Donovan for not supporting enough.

The president backed Donovan’s candidacy in two tweets that lauded the incumbent for his stances on borders, crime, the military, and tax cuts. Donovan boasted of Trump’s support during the NY1 debate,  noting that not Trump not only supported his candidacy but denounced Grimm’s, making an apparent reference to Grimm’s record and the notion that Grimm would be a weaker general election candidate than Donovan. The president analogized Grimm’s candidacy to that of Roy Moore in the 2017 special Senate election in Alabama. Moore, the former chief justice of the Alabama Supreme Court, was the rare Republican to lose an Alabama Senate race to a Democrat, doing so amid allegations of sexual assault.

“I have a campaign going on now that you’re watching and witnessing that’s filled with lies and distortions, so much so that the president of the United States had to come in and set the record straight,” Donovan said. “He told the people of our community he wants me to be the candidate, he wants me back in Congress to help him make the America first agenda succeed and help make America great again.”

With each candidate’s allegiance to the president clear, they were asked if they would side with Trump even if it meant harming the district. Both said while they support the president’s national goals, the district will always come first. They each cited a time when they opposed the Republican Party while they were in Congress.

Grimm spoke about his flood insurance reform bill in 2014 — a measure put in place to repeal overwhelming increases in flood-insurance rates after Superstorm Sandy devastated New York — citing that he “risked my career” to get the bill passed despite harsh opposition from Republicans.

Donovan reminded viewers that he was one of only 12 House Republicans to vote against the GOP tax bill in December, citing that it harms high-tax states like New York.

“I voted with the president 90% of the time,” Donovan said during the NY1 debate. “I voted with the people I represent 100% of the time.”

Still, Grimm challenged Donovan’s allegiance to the president during the WABC debate, citing how the incumbent has voted against major legislation pushed by the Trump administration, such as the repeal of the Affordable Care Act, a ban of sanctuary cities, and the passage of the tax reform bill.

“Those are three signature issues that our president actually ran on,” Grimm said.

Though he doesn’t have Trump’s endorsement Grimm drew his own parallel with the president, saying that he was targeted by then-U.S. Attorney General Loretta Lynch just as Trump has been targeted by special counsel Robert Mueller in the federal investigation into possible Russian collusion and other matters during the presidential election.

“I think everyone knows that I had three delivery boys and a dishwasher off the books,” Grimm said during the radio debate, referring to his hiring of undocumented employees to work at his Manhattan-based health food restaurant, Healthalicious. “And I never hid from that. It was a civil offense that the Obama Justice Department, that is politically corrupt, used against me.”

In 2014, Grimm was indicted on 20 counts, including charges of mail fraud, wire fraud, and the preparation of false federal tax returns, although he only pleaded guilty to one charge of tax evasion. When asked during the radio debate if he would now release his tax returns, Grimm said he would not because he’s “not required to,” then said that Donovan pushing for the release of his tax returns was “a typical liberal line.”

On more substantive matters facing the country and the district, the race has had a lot of discussion of immigration, as well as storm recovery and resiliency, the opioid addiction crisis, and other matters.

Neither candidate’s website specifically addresses immigration policy, but Grimm’s prior employment of undocumented workers and Donovan’s vote against punishing sanctuary cities like New York — cities that limit their cooperation with the federal government over the enforcement of immigration law — has elicited strong criticism from one another and some discussion of policy proposals.

Grimm advocates for the implementation of a stronger guest worker program and e-verify, a system that allows employers to verify the eligibility of employees to work in the U.S. Donovan snapped backed during both debates that Grimm’s sudden support of e-verify is contradictory given his history of hiring of undocumented workers.

“The one thing he mentioned that’s pretty ironic, though, is e-verify,” Donovan said on NY1. “If we had e-verify when he owned his restaurant, he would have been caught a lot earlier because e-verify requires employers to check and verify the status of anybody that they hire.”

“Sanctuary city policy is a horrible, dangerous policy,” Grimm said during the WABC debate. “It came down to when you had an opportunity to send the message to Mayor de Blasio and ban sanctuary cities, the bottom line is he voted ‘no.’”

The former Richmond County district attorney defended his vote, stating on NY1 that he worked in law enforcement for 20 years.

“I believe that you have to enforce the laws and you can’t pick and choose which ones,” Donovan said. “Sanctuary cities choose which laws to enforce and they don’t enforce our federal immigration laws…if you’re not going to enforce the federal law, we’re not going to give you federal funds to do it.” He explained his vote, however, by saying he was worried about how Mayor Bill de Blasio, a liberal Democrat, would adjust policing in the city based on withholding of federal funds.

In regards to the opioid epidemic on Staten Island, a significant issue in the district discussed during both debates, the two again quarreled. Donovan said within his first few months of office, he helped incorporate New York into a national database that would allow the state’s pharmacists and physicians to see whether or not patients were going to bordering states to get their prescriptions filled.

Grimm, on the other hand, contends that New York already had such a program in place with the Internet System for Tracking Over-Prescribing Act, or I-STOP, and associates the rise of the opioid epidemic with Donovan’s 12-year tenure as Richmond County’s district attorney.

“If you really look at my opponent’s record as the district attorney, when he first came in…there was barely a problem,” Grimm said on WABC. “That problem grew into a crisis, that crisis became an epidemic on his watch. The reality is this epidemic was fostered under your watch.”

The allegation incensed Donovan, who argued that he was both tough and smart about the growing crisis while district attorney, and was not caught flat-footed by its growth, helping by both prosecuting dealing and pursuing preventative approaches for users.

Grimm also said that he attempted to make New York’s I-STOP program, which enables doctors and pharmacists to access data that could identify potential drug interactions or abuse between patients and other doctors, into a federal law, although it didn’t pass during his time in Congress.

On the issue of the Affordable Care Act, otherwise known as Obamacare, which was discussed during the NY1 debate, Grimm and Donovan agreed that parts of the program should remain, such as child eligibility for parental plans until the age of 26 and covering those with preexisting conditions.

Nevertheless, Grimm said the act should be torn apart and renewed from scratch, and he criticized Donovan for not voting for its repeal, though Donovan argued he didn’t vote to rescind the act only because there was not a suitable replacement plan.

“Government intervention into our healthcare system was probably the worst thing we could do,” Grimm said on Thursday. “The private sector does things more efficiently, more effectively, and we should keep the government as much as we can out of our health care.”

Donovan’s platform additionally pushes for creating new transportation projects to help those on Staten Island and in southern Brooklyn with long commutes, improving student aid for covering the costs of higher education, increasing healthcare competition while reducing premiums, supporting the Veterans Healthcare Choice Improvement Act, and fighting cuts to law enforcement resources, although these issues were barely — or not at all — brought up during either debate.

Grimm, whose campaign website does not have a page dedicated to issues, has announced his support of Trump’s Tax Cuts and Jobs Act and supports the termination of the Diversity Lottery program in various press releases posted onto his website.

The only public poll of the primary put Grimm ahead by 10 points over Donovan, as conducted by NY1 and Siena College, though potential voters were polled right around the time of the Trump endorsement, the effect of which was likely untapped. Donovan also has former Mayor (and now Trump lawyer) Rudy Giuliani and virtually the entire New York Republican establishment behind him, including Republican elected officials from Staten Island like conservative City Council Member Joe Borelli and moderate Borough President Jimmy Oddo.

It’s a fact not lost on Grimm, who is using it to portray himself as the candidate of the people, though it is indicative of the fact that he is seen as toxic by many due to his criminal record and behavior such as his threatening a NY1 reporter while he was still in Congress.

“Dan Donovan has the entire establishment behind him,” Grimm said, responding to a question about the poll. “He has the president behind him. He has all of these endorsements and I only have the people behind me. And I’m okay with that.”

A Donovan campaign spokesperson, on the other hand, dismissed the lone poll results. “Siena poll means nothing,” tweeted Jessica Proud. “In the field prior to Trump endorsement, our internals show us up. Weight of paid media on endorsement going to crush his false narrative. Talk to me in a few weeks.”

Voters will do that talking on Tuesday.

***
by Jordan Kimmel and Chelsey Sanchez

Democratic Campaign Chief: Even a ‘Blue Trickle’ Will Flip State Senate


gianaris via facebook

Senator Gianaris and colleagues (photo via Gianaris Facebook)


Predictions of a nationwide “blue wave” of anti-Trump sentiment resulting in major Democratic gains have been tempered as the president maintains strong support among Republicans and the economy, broadly speaking, is going strong.

But even if the blue wave ends up being more like a trickle, that would be good news to state Senator Michael Gianaris of Queens, who chairs the Democratic Senate Campaign Committee (DSCC) and needs to net just one seat this fall to take control of the chamber and thus the entire Legislature.

In an interview as the end of session and official start of campaign season approached, Gianaris said Republicans have been holding on to numerous seats by slim margins.

“By virtue of the gerrymandering that’s happened here in New York in the Senate, Republican districts are stretched so thin and their margins of victory are always so narrow that a trickle is enough for us to make a difference,” he told Gotham Gazette.

“It’s just a question of degrees. Any tip in our favor will lead to more seats in our hands, and we’re one seat shy. So, we’re very optimistic,” he said, echoing a sentiment shared by Senate Democratic Leader Andrea Stewart-Cousins, who could become the first woman and first woman of color to lead the Senate if the Democrats take control.

Gianaris said the DSCC won’t start investing in individual Democrats’ campaigns until late summer or early fall. He mentioned numerous seats the committee might target throughout the state, though it is yet to make a decision about Senator Simcha Felder and his Brooklyn district.

Republicans are blocking Democrats from controlling the chamber thanks to Felder, who is a registered Democrat and has repeatedly run on the Democratic line, but caucuses with Republicans. Felder ran unopposed in 2016 and appeared on both major party ballot lines.

At their state nominating convention last month, Democrats passed resolutions to kick Felder out of the party and support a challenger to him. He is still running as a Democrat, though.

While Gianaris called Felder’s seat “a hostile district” -- and he faces a Democratic primary challenger, Blake Morris -- Gianaris said the DSCC was still waiting to determine if it would get involved in the race.

“What we’re evaluating is, is beating Felder in a primary more or less likely than winning some of these general election contests?” Gianaris said. “We have a lot of opportunities on our plate.”

Most of those opportunities appear to be outside the five boroughs -- there are just three members of the Senate Republican conference that represent New York City districts -- Senators Felder, Marty Golden, and Andrew Lanza.

Gianaris also shied away from committing to either of the Democrats in the other potentially intriguing New York City general election Senate race, for Golden’s Brooklyn seat (Lanza, of Staten Island, is not seen as beatable). The incumbent has provoked a streak of damaging headlines -- ranging from alleged threats against a bicyclist to parachuting while receiving disability payments -- providing Democratic challengers Ross Barkan and Andrew Gounardes plenty of fodder for attacks.

“There’s one blunder after another that will make that race even more possible than usual,” said Gianaris.

But he added, “I try to look at it coldly. As long as I pick up the seats I need, which right now is one...I’m agnostic as to where it comes from.”

Golden ran unopposed in 2016. He won easily in 2014 and 2012, when he beat Gounardes by a decisive margin.

As this year’s legislative session ended, the Senate -- Republicans’ only stronghold at the state level given Democratic control of the Assembly and all four statewide positions -- was deadlocked 31-31 between Republicans and Democrats since the GOP’s 32nd senator, Tom Croci of Long Island, was called to active duty with the Navy last month. Through the fall elections, Democrats must net just one seat to take the majority in the chamber for the first time in nearly a decade. Depending on the results of the gubernatorial race -- no Republican has been governor since 2006 -- Democratic control of the upper chamber could pave the way for passage of a slew of the party’s priorities.

Gianaris indicated Democrats are likely to focus on two Long Island seats where the incumbent won by razor-thin margins two years ago: Republican Senator Carl Marcellino, who won parts of Nassau and Suffolk Counties by less than 1 percent of the vote; and Democrat Senator John Brooks, who won by an even smaller margin.

Gianaris also pointed to the high number of Republicans who have announced they aren’t seeking reelection. In addition to Croci, they include John Bonacic of the Hudson Valley, John DeFrancisco of Syracuse, William Larkin of Orange County, and Kathy Marchione of Saratoga. Not all of the seats are in play for Democrats, but some appear to be.

Gianaris is also eyeing Republican seats that Democrats have won in the past - the 46th district outside Albany, currently held by George Amedore; and the 41st district in the Hudson Valley, where Sue Serino is the incumbent.

“Before you know it, you’re looking at 10 to 12 pockets of opportunity on offense and, effectively, the only seat we have to defend is John Brooks,’” he said.

Senate Democrats have crowed over Republicans’ resignation announcements, saying they show the GOP knows it’s doomed this year. A Senate Republican spokesperson did not answer a request for comment for this article.

Senator John Flanagan, the Senate majority leader, has tried to sound a confident note amid the flurry of resignations.

"New Yorkers know that our Majority is the only thing standing in the way of the New York City politicians implementing an agenda that will hurt our economy and make life more difficult for hardworking middle-class taxpayers," he told the New York Daily News. "We will succeed in November and maintain our majority so the true priorities of New Yorkers continue to be put first."

Senate Democrats increased their ranks in April, when the group of eight renegades known as the Independent Democratic Conference (IDC) ended its coalition with Republicans and rejoined the mainstream Democratic fold, taking the conference from 23 to 31 members. The move came as nearly all of the IDC members faced primary challengers who decried them as “Trump Democrats” willing to empower Republicans in order to gain perks at the expense of progressive values.

Gianaris was one of the strongest critics of the IDC during its seven-year alliance with Republicans, and he was part of a long-term feud with Senator Jeff Klein, the leader of the IDC. But Gianaris said the DSCC has no intention of supporting challengers like Alessandra Biaggi, who is running against Klein, of the Bronx, as long as the ex-IDC members don’t break their promises.

Gianaris noted that Senator Stewart-Cousins, the Democratic leader, is supporting all members of her conference, including former IDC members, a point she recently stressed during a Gotham Gazette/City Limits podcast appearance.

“At this point, the former IDC members are members of our conference,” Gianaris said. “We’ve committed to not opposing them.”

Asked whether he would go so far as to discourage Democrats from challenging ex-IDC members, Gianaris declined to comment.

“Everyone seems to be on their best behavior on both sides and there seems to be genuine effort to work cooperatively and get to where we’re trying to go, so hopefully that continues,” he said of the Democratic conference since ex-IDC members rejoined it.

Asked whether he actually trusts the former IDC members -- who reneged on campaign promises to quit their alliance with Republicans in 2014 -- Gianaris said with a laugh, “I’ve come to trust very few people in politics.”

“But I can say…there’s been action behind the words. Hopefully that holds,” he added.

As in previous years’ elections, the Republican campaign committee has much more cash than the Democrats do -- $1,549,017.70 compared to $691,274.46, according to the latest disclosure reports.

However, Gianaris said trends are favoring Democrats this year.

“That gap is much smaller than it would normally be,” he said. “I think we’re about a half-million ahead of pace and they’re a million below pace, if you went back to 2016.”

Around this time in the 2016 election cycle, Republicans had more than $2 million and Democrats had a little over $225,000.

True to his role as Democratic cheerleader, Gianaris said he’s confident this year will bring a “blue wave” to the state.

“All around the country, Democrats are performing at a higher clip than would normally be expected,” he said. “I think it’s a legitimate wave.”

***
by Shant Shahrigianh, Gotham Gazette
      

Read more by this writer.

What Did and Did Not Move at End of State Legislative Session


Cuomo gun safety press conference

Gov. Cuomo holds a press conference (photo: Kevin P. Coughlin/Governor's Office)


A particularly dysfunctional, even for New York, state legislative session came to a halt on Wednesday with little movement on most of the major issues animating state government. The reunification of the Independent Democratic Conference and the mainline Senate Democrats led to business slowing to a drip in the Senate after the passage of the state budget; things became particularly impaired after one Republican senator, Tom Croci, was recalled to active military duty, leaving the chamber with no working majority and a paralysis of legislative business on anything controversial, and at times even on the mundane.

Even as the Democrat-dominated Assembly passed a wide variety of legislation, there appeared to be little appetite for the annual package of compromise legislation, in part, it seems, due to election year considerations. Every seat in both houses of the Legislature is on the ballot this fall, as well as the four statewide positions of governor, lieutenant governor, comptroller, and attorney general.

Perhaps the most significant item to break through the Albany morass was the approval of the Airtrain LaGuardia project, and the simultaneous approval of the use of eminent domain to build it. Otherwise, there was no movement on major issues such as ethics reform, criminal justice reform, teacher evaluations, and the renewal of speed cameras near New York City schools, among other more contentious issues where no agreements were reached among Assembly and Senate leaders and Governor Andrew Cuomo.

Even as lawmakers left Albany for the end of the scheduled session, presumably done with legislative business for the rest of the calendar year, there was some talk of a special session in the coming weeks or months in order to address a small number of issues, like the speed cameras.

But as of now, the session is over and there are no concrete plans for legislators to be called back to the Capitol. A look at some of the highlights of what did and (mostly) did not move as the legislative session ended.

What awaits the governor’s pen

Airtrain LaGuardia
The Assembly and Senate passed a bill that would authorize the Airtrain LaGuardia project to bring a rail link to LaGuardia Airport, and would also authorize the state to acquire property in Queens via eminent domain for use in that project. The bill further stated the expected route that the rail link would take. The bill passed the Assembly on Monday 134-1, with new Manhattan Assemblymember Harvey Epstein the sole dissenter; it passed the Senate 52-8 on Wednesday, with seven city Democrats and one upstate Republican, Joseph Robach, voting against.

Fixing up LaGuardia, the only major airport in the region without a direct rail link, has become something of a calling for Cuomo, a Queens native, throughout his tenure, so he is almost certain to sign the bill into law. Cuomo has championed the Airtrain LaGuardia project, saying that his program is “transforming LaGuardia into a world-class transportation gateway.” Cuomo has also helmed the construction of a new terminal at LaGuardia for Delta Airlines.

But community groups in the Queens neighborhoods surrounding the airport have been steadfast in their opposition to the project, which they believe will negatively impact their quality of life with little upside for community members. Transit advocates, meanwhile, contend that the funds used on the construction of the Airtrain can be put to better use. On Thursday, opponents protested the Airtrain’s approval at the governor’s office. Meanwhile, Queens civic organizations have floated a petition demanding an environmental impact statement for the project.

Prosecutorial Accountability Office
The Senate passed a bill last week to establish a “State Commission on Prosecutorial Conduct,” an eleven-member body consisting of appointees of the governor, Legislature, and chief judge. The commission would investigate prosecutorial misconduct and, if warranted, discipline prosecutors found guilty of wrongdoing. The Assembly passed the bill on Tuesday. It’s not immediately clear if Cuomo will sign it.

The Assembly noted that the past few years have seen several “high profile exonerations of people who were wrongfully convicted of serious crimes in New York State.” Such wrongful convictions are not always the result of an accident: prosecutors have been known to withhold or even tamper with evidence that could potentially exonerate a defendant. As such, district attorneys have historically opposed legislation forcing them to turn over all evidence in the discovery phase of the legal process.

Prosecutors have also come under suspicion in recent years due to their close working relations with police, and the potentially related and frequent lack of charges for officers accused of wrongdoing. In 2015, Governor Cuomo empowered the New York Attorney General to act as a special prosecutor in cases when officers are involved in the death of unarmed civilians.

The Assembly noted that the measure has been endorsed by Human Rights Watch. It was championed in the Senate by retiring Senator John DeFrancisco, a Syracuse-area Republican.

Feminine hygiene products for inmates
The Senate, on June 12, passed a bill to provide free menstrual products, such as tampons or pads, to inmates at state and local correctional facilities. The bill passed 59-2, with Republicans Pamela Helming and Robert Ortt dissenting. The bill passed the Assembly later that same day 142-1, with Republican Christopher Friend dissenting, and awaits the likely signature of the governor, who signaled his support in January. The Assembly had earlier passed the bill in June of last year and January of this year, but it failed in the Senate.

In 2016, New York City required that women be provided free menstrual products in all city correctional facilities, as well as schools and homeless shelters. The federal government did the same for its prisons last summer. But as of 2017, according to the Roosevelt Institute, women in New York State prisons were provided only 10 free pads per month, “which is far below the recommended amount of 20 per monthly cycle.”

Otherwise, inmates must purchase tampons or pads from the prison commissary; according to Senator Roxanne Persaud, at the Taconic State Correctional Facility, “one tampon costs 24 cents. The average female inmate makes approximately 17 cents per hour. Thus, female inmates must spend their week's earnings to purchase a 20-count box of tampons, which still may be insufficient for many women whose periods last up to seven days.”

There are also dozens of other, non-controversial bills that both houses passed that will head to Cuomo’s desk.

What failed to pass the Legislature (a partial list)

Speed cameras
The Legislature failed to renew and expand the city’s program to use speed cameras around schools, eliciting anger from Mayor Bill de Blasio and other local elected officials and advocates, as well as the governor. De Blasio, who said the inaction was a “massive failure of leadership” by Senate Republicans, called on the Legislature to return for a special session to renew the program.

“The State Assembly majority has shown the way with their expansion bill,” de Blasio said in a statement. “Senate Republicans haven't done their job until they pass the bill, which has majority support. Our families now need the Governor to do all he can to aid its passage and sign it into law. The Senate must return next week to keep our children safe.”

Governor Cuomo also criticized the Senate, saying on a press conference call Thursday that he “pushed the Legislature very hard” on the speed camera issue. Like the mayor, the governor said that the Legislature should convene a special session, before the beginning of the school year in September, to renew the camera program.

The renewal and expansion of the program, meant to increase road safety around schools and discourage reckless driving, was passed by the Assembly and had the support of a majority of senators, but was nevertheless held up by the Senate’s Republican leadership. Senator Simcha Felder, a Brooklyn Democrat who caucuses with the Republicans said he would agree to support the measure as long as it was tied to increasing the presence of police at all city schools; the Democrats were not in favor. A Senate GOP spokesperson said that Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie and Mayor de Blasio did little to come to a compromise on the speed camera issue.

A somewhat related bill proposed by Senator Marty Golden of Brooklyn, which would place new signage in school zones to prevent reckless driving but would not renew the camera program, resulted in a rare failed floor vote in the Senate. The measure lost 30-28 on party lines (a bill needs 32 votes to pass), with Republicans plus Felder voting in favor and Democrats voting against, signaling their refusal to settle for anything short of the cameras.

Education
Amid the hullabaloo over Mayor de Blasio’s new push to reform the specialized high school admission process, including controversially eliminating the entrance exam, the Assembly and Senate declared that a vote on abolishing the test would not take place this year. Governor Cuomo dismissed de Blasio’s proposal, and Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie said that he would not schedule a vote before engaging in discussions on the proposal with relevant parties.

Meanwhile, the Assembly in May passed a bill that would decouple student scores on state standardized tests with teacher evaluations, a controversial issue over the course of several years that appeared on its way to some finality. The Senate passed the measure as well, but tied it to an increase in the cap on charter schools, to 560 charters to be allowed in the state. Heastie referred to that aspect of the Senate bill as “cyanide” for the anti-charter Assembly Democrats, and the teacher evaluation reform did not move through Albany by the end of the session.

Child Victims Act
Once again, the Child Victims Act failed to pass through the Legislature before the end of the session. The legislation, which would extend the statute of limitations on child sexual abuse and create a “lookback window” of one year for victims of abuse to sue their abusers, has the support of Governor Cuomo and has repeatedly passed the Assembly, but has stalled in the Senate, where Republicans have again proposed their own version of a bill on the topic that Democrats call overly watered down.

Ethics reform and good government
Government ethics reform achieved no ground again in Albany this year. Governor Cuomo and the Assembly, during the budget process, proposed closing the LLC loophole in campaign finance and creating a statewide public campaign financing system similar to that of New York City; the Senate rejected these measures and they did not appear in the budget. As in previous years, the Assembly and governor did not prioritize the measures in post-budget legislative activity.

The Senate, in May, passed a good government reform package that, among other things, would create a searchable database of state economic development contracts, return certain procurement oversight powers to the state comptroller, and ban executive appointees from donating to the executive’s political campaigns. These measures, which were not supported by Cuomo, were not taken up by the Assembly, though the majority there has supported the “database of deals” and restoration of comptroller powers in the past.

Criminal justice reform
The Assembly passed several criminal justice reforms this session, including some that were in its budget proposal but failed to make it into the enacted legislation. Many had been supported by Governor Cuomo. These include an elimination of cash bail in most instances, and reform of the state’s poorly-regarded discovery laws. The Assembly also passed bills to seal low-level marijuana conviction records and to reduce the use of solitary confinement in state jails and prisons. None of these bills were passed by the Senate.

Healthcare
The Assembly passed the New York Health Act, which would establish a single-payer healthcare system in New York State. The Senate did not take up the bill, and the governor has been ambiguous on whether or not he supports it.

The Reproductive Health Act, which would codify the Roe v. Wade Supreme Court decision into New York state law, passed the Assembly in March but, once again, did not make it through the state Senate. The RHA was involved in last month’s chaos in the Senate: Democrats introduced the RHA and the Comprehensive Contraception Coverage Act, which would codify the requirement of insurance companies to provide free contraception as part of their plans, as amendments to an uncontroversial Republican bill regarding concussions.

When Lieutenant Governor Kathy Hochul intended to break a tie to pass the amendments, the Senate majority instead tabled all legislative matters that day.

Guns and school safety
In the wake of the massacre at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Florida, Governor Cuomo launched a renewed push for additional gun control. His marquee item, a “red flag” bill that would allow school staff to petition judges to remove guns from certain students’ homes, passed the assembly last week. The Senate, however, pushed Felder’s school safety measures that would place armed guards or police officers at every school in the state. The measures pushed by Assembly Democrats and Senate Republicans were both unpalatable to the other, leading to inaction on the gun control front.

Miscellaneous
There was no agreement on legalizing sports gambling in New York, a potential new practice and revenue source for the state after a recent Supreme Court ruling allowed states to adopt it. While the Senate appeared ready to make a deal, the Assembly balked.

The Senate on Wednesday voted to declare baseball as the official sport of New York State, and to rename the Mario M. Cuomo Bridge (formerly the Tappan Zee Bridge) as the Mario M. Cuomo Tappan Zee Bridge. Neither were taken up by the Assembly.

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by Ben Brachfeld, Gotham Gazette

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Max & Murphy Podcast: A New Era at the MTA?


mxm logo

Ben Max, left, of Gotham Gazette, and Jarrett Murphy, right, of City Limits


June 20, 2018 - Max & Murphy Podcast: A New Era at the MTA? with Nicole Gelinas, senior fellow at the Manhattan Instituteand and columnist at the New York Post.

Nicole Gelinas

Are we in a new era at the MTA? With Joe Lhota one year on the job as chair and a new transit chief, Andy Byford, in place and out with a plan to modernize the signals, where do things stand? Has the Subway Action Plan had any effect? What needs to be done to really improve the subways and buses, and get New York City moving again? Nicole Gelinas is an expert on the MTA and other transit and infrastructure matters, and she joined the podcast just after checking out the June MTA board meeting to answer these questions and others.

Listen to the full conversation and let us know what you think -- we're on Twitter @TweetBenMax, @JarrettMurphy, and @NicoleGelinas. You can listen to the episode through the embedded audio below or download the episode wherever you get your podcasts.

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by Ben Max, Gotham Gazette
     

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