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Bill to Create Prosecutorial Misconduct Commission Awaits Cuomo Decision


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Gov. Cuomo (photo: Kevin P. Coughlin/Governor's Office)


Behind the veil of an unproductive state legislative session where, in its aftermath, the focus has been on what did not get done, one significant piece of legislation that made its way through both chambers and toward the governor’s desk is a bill to create a new, independent state commission tasked with investigating prosecutorial misconduct by district attorneys, including misconduct that could lead, and has led, to false convictions. If the controversial bill is signed into law by Governor Andrew Cuomo, a Democrat running for a third term this year, the commission would be the first of its kind in the nation.

The legislation passed the Republican-led state Senate 45 to 12 and the Democrat-dominated Assembly 98-46, with members of both parties on either side of the bill. The bill has been lauded by public defenders and criminal justice reform advocates, but has been excoriated by prosecutors, an association of which is calling it unconstitutional and threatening a lawsuit.

The commission would consist of three appointees from the state’s Chief Judge, currently Janet DiFiore, two by the Governor, two each by the Assembly Speaker, currently Carl Heastie, and the Senate Majority Leader, currently John Flanagan, and one each from the Assembly Minority Leader, currently Brian Kolb, and the Senate Minority Leader, currently Andrea Stewart-Cousins. According to the bill, the Governor’s appointees would have to consist of one public defender and one prosecutor, while the Chief Judge’s appointees must consist of one appellate judge and two judges from other jurisdictions. The rest of the appointees must be split evenly between prosecutors and defense attorneys.

The commission, which would oversee the state’s 62 district attorneys and their subordinates, would be given full subpoena power for prosecutors and witnesses, be able to request relevant documents, and would be able to conduct investigative hearings against prosecutors accused of misconduct. If wrongdoing is demonstrated, the commission can take several actions, such as a censure or even recommending that the prosecutor be removed from their post. The commission’s findings and recommendations would be compiled into an annual report to the Governor, Legislature, and Chief Judge.

False convictions, and subsequent exonerations, have become so commonplace in New York’s criminal justice system that some district attorney offices, such as that in Brooklyn, have set up whole units dedicated entirely to reviewing past convictions. As of December 2017, the Brooklyn DA’s Conviction Review Unit had requested exonerations for 24 wrongfully-convicted defendants.

“It’s a significant problem,” said Bill Gibney, director of the Legal Aid Society’s Criminal Practice Special Litigation Unit. “The last time I looked, I think New York State was up in the top tier of numbers of wrongful convictions that have occurred. And with some regularity, prosecutorial misconduct is in the mix.” It is impossible to fully account for all wrongful convictions. However, the University of Michigan’s National Registry of Exonerations placed New York at number four in the country for exonerations in 2017.

The Registry recorded 13 exonerations in New York in 2017, for offenses including fraud, weapons possession or sale, sexual assault, and murder or attempted murder. Eleven of the 13 recorded exonerations involved “official misconduct” by individuals in positions of authority such as police officers or prosecutors.

One of them, Johnny Hincapie, served for 26 years before being exonerated for a 1991 subway killing. Several key witnesses had not been asked to provide testimony in the original case; when allowed to testify in 2015, they stated that Hincapie was not involved. Hincapie further claimed that he was coerced into a confession by a physically abusive detective.

The Registry has, as of June, counted 12 exonerations in New York State in 2018.

A 1963 U.S. Supreme Court ruling, Brady v. Maryland, established that prosecutors must turn over all potentially exculpatory evidence to the defense. And last year, New York’s court system became the first in the country to require that prosecutors turn over all potentially exculpatory evidence to defendants, before trial. Nevertheless, New York’s discovery laws are poorly regarded by advocates and politicians alike; despite the precedents and rules, no timetables for turning over evidence or penalties for failing to do so exist. Discovery reform has repeatedly failed to advance in Albany despite widespread support.

“There have been so many major cases, murder cases, of people staying in jail for years and years and years, and with the availability of DNA evidence now, there’s been a lot of exonerations,” said Senator John DeFrancisco, a retiring Republican who was the bill’s primary sponsor in the Senate, in an interview on WQXR’s The Capitol Pressroom.

“And what happens is, people get exonerated, and in the course of that, when they show by DNA it’s not them, further investigation shows that evidence was withheld by prosecutors that should’ve been turned over by the law,” DeFrancisco told host Susan Arbetter. He noted that taxpayers end up on the hook for an unnecessary jail sentence and remuneration fees, while prosecutors get off scot-free.

“We’ve had the same thing for judges since the ‘70s,” he continued, referring to the state’s Commission on Judicial Conduct, established through two constitutional amendments in 1976 and 1978, which serves to investigate, reprimand, and/or discipline judges accused of misconduct. In an interview with Gotham Gazette, DeFrancisco noted that judges were “apoplectic” when the commission began, but it has been highly successful.

“After several years, after complaints were brought and it was shown how fair the commission was, right now it's second nature,” he said. “It’s changed the conduct of judges.”

Nevertheless, district attorneys are strongly against the proposed commission. “This legislation is a mistake and quite likely unconstitutional, and I urge the Governor to veto it,” Staten Island District Attorney Michael McMahon, a Democrat, told Gotham Gazette in an emailed statement. “As oversight already exists to address prosecutorial conduct, any attempt by the Legislature to impose additional measures will only tie the hands of prosecutors, and potentially threaten the safety of those we are sworn to protect.”

These existing oversight measures include “grievance committees,” subdivided by appellate division but sometimes with multiple committees per division. These committees investigate claims of misconduct by both prosecutors and defense attorneys, and can lead to censure or professional misconduct charges leveled against attorneys.

But the bill’s advocates say that the grievance committees are not enough. DeFrancisco and Legal Aid both told Gotham Gazette that the committees rarely, if ever, disciplined prosecutors. Legal Aid cited a study, from the Center for Prosecutor Integrity, a criminal justice reform think tank, which found that less than 2 percent of prosecutorial misconduct cases nationwide resulted in punishment. The same study noted 151 cases of misconduct in New York State, found by trial and appellate courts, with only 3 of those cases resulting in sanctions.

DeFrancisco, who has sponsored the bill for several sessions, said that he waited years for the state’s prosecutor association, District Attorneys Association of the State of New York, to provide him evidence of the grievance committees effectively policing prosecutors, but it failed to do so.

The Queens District Attorney’s office directed Gotham Gazette to a letter sent from DA Richard Brown to the New York Law Journal on June 22, in which he stated that both the New York State Commission on Statewide Attorney Discipline, chaired by former Chief Judge Jonathan Lippman, and the New York State Justice Task Force found that allegations of “rampant prosecutorial misconduct” were unfounded.

“Despite each of these findings, the legislature has elected to pass legislation that subjects prosecutors, alone among those who practice law, to a duplicative and intrusive process that is not only violative of the state constitution, but will surely cause delay to the progress of ongoing investigations and prosecutions, much to the detriment of all New Yorkers,” Brown wrote. He is also urging Cuomo, a former assistant district attorney in Manhattan and former attorney general, to veto the bill.

The district attorneys for the Bronx, Brooklyn, and Manhattan did not return requests for comment.

In a separate appearance on Capitol Pressroom, David Soares, the president-elect of the District Attorneys Association of the State of New York, raised both constitutional and content-based critiques of the legislation.

On constitutionality, the legislation allegedly circumvents a section of the state’s governing document allowing only the Governor, not the Legislature nor an independent commission, to remove district attorneys from office. He noted that the Commission on Judicial Conduct was established through constitutional amendments, not regular legislation -- such amendments must be passed by consecutive sessions of the Legislature, then the voters by popular referendum.

Soares also criticized the legislation as not requiring complainants to provide a sworn affidavit, “under the penalty of perjury,” and that most instances of “misconduct” were actually not intentional.

He added that if the legislation were to be signed by the governor, then DAASNY would sue the state to block its implementation. The governor’s office, in a statement to Gotham Gazette, did not address the potential lawsuit nor signal an intent to sign the bill or not.

“We believe there should be accountability for all officers of the court, and we will absolutely be reviewing this bill,” said Cuomo spokesperson Tyrone Stevens.

DeFrancisco told Gotham Gazette that he believes the governor will sign the bill. “I think he will sign it. The governor, I think, understands this history here.”

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by Ben Brachfeld, Gotham Gazette

Read more by this writer.

Democratic Candidates for Attorney General Plant Campaign Flags


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Tish James, Sean Patrick Maloney, Leecia Eve & Zephyr Teachout (l-r)


The race for attorney general has quickly become one of the most competitive and intriguing of the 2018 election cycle in New York. After Democrat Eric Schneiderman resigned in May following revelations that he had physically and emotionally abused intimate partners, the question immediately arose of who would replace him. With a regularly-scheduled election -- that Schneiderman was expected to win handily -- just months away, potential candidates had a short time to decide whether to run.

After some wrangling, four Democrats decided to throw their hats in the ring: Public Advocate Letitia James; U.S. Representative Sean Patrick Maloney; Verizon executive Leecia Eve; and Fordham law professor Zephyr Teachout. In the early legs of the campaign, each candidate has staked out a different profile and rationale for their run. By and large, they say they would continue much of the work started by Schneiderman and being continued by his replacement, Barbara Underwood, the former solicitor general who the state Legislature voted in as attorney general for the rest of the year and who declared she was not interested in running for election herself.

Schneiderman built a substantial national profile for himself, especially for a state official, through his lawsuits against the Trump administration on matters such as the Muslim travel ban, the rollback of net neutrality, and the rescission of EPA climate regulations. Fighting the federal government aside, much of the ongoing, essential work of the attorney general is in areas of consumer protection, tenant protection, anti-corruption, and prosecution of fraud. It also serves as the state’s chief legal officer in representing New York in legal matters when the state is sued.

Since the office was occupied by Eliot Spitzer, it has become a launching pad for gubernatorial hopefuls, like both Spitzer and Andrew Cuomo, and a space for publicity-minded prosecutors to combat Wall Street, using New York’s comparatively strong anti-fraud statutes such as the 1921 Martin Act. Spitzer, Cuomo, and Schneiderman all turned the office into one with a large political profile, weighing in on policy matters of all kinds. Schneiderman was largely seen as the frontrunner to win the next Democratic nomination for governor after Cuomo’s departure. His political career now appears over.

After public opinion coalesced behind Underwood as Schneiderman’s logical replacement for the rest of the term, roughly ten potential Democratic candidates with interest in the position had to decide whether to launch a campaign ahead of the September primary and November general elections.

James entered the race with clear frontrunner status, receiving endorsements from the State Democratic Party, Governor Andrew Cuomo, City Council Speaker Corey Johnson, and many other figures, advocacy organizations, and labor unions. But the field was not cleared for her.

James, reelected for a second and final term as public advocate -- the first woman of color to hold a citywide elected office -- in November of last year, is facing serious competition from Teachout, who has a lengthy legal resume and ran for governor in 2014 and Congress in 2016; Maloney, an attorney who worked in the Bill Clinton administration; and Eve, a former aide to Joe Biden and Hillary Clinton when each was a U.S. senator, and to Gov. Cuomo.

Each of the four candidates has sought to define themselves in the early going of the primary, while other general election candidates await to see who is victorious in what promises to be an interesting and hard fought campaign. While James appears to be the early favorite, the race is also wide open, with each candidate possessing certain strengths and constituencies, and a lot still left to play out. The only poll of the race thus far, from Siena College on June 13, showed James leading the pack with 28 percent, Teachout with 18 percent, and Eve with 4 percent; the poll was conducted before Maloney officially entered the race, and 47 percent of those surveyed were unsure.

On Wednesday, Teachout publicly challenged her primary competitors to a series of six broadcast (television and radio) debates around the state. Eve appeared to accept the invitation in a tweet, writing, in part, “I look forward to engaging with my fellow candidates in as many debates as possible, in every region of NYS.”

A campaign spokesperson for James, Delaney Kempner, said, "Tish is prepared to debate anybody and everybody, and she will do that as soon as the Board of Elections certifies candidates." James is the only candidate of the four guaranteed a ballot spot given the support she received at the state convention -- the others must collect petition signatures to qualify.

Asked about the debate challenge, a spokesperson for Maloney said, “The Congressman is focused on reuniting separated immigrant families and stopping the Trump plan to reverse Roe v. Wade by stacking the Supreme Court. It seems premature and presumptuous to be demanding something before you even earn a spot on the ballot. Of course, he’ll eagerly debate at the appropriate time.”

A closer look at how each candidate is framing their attorney general candidacies in the early going:

Tish James
Schneiderman’s resignation opened up James’ dream position. While the public advocate had been eyeing a 2021 run for New York City mayor, her legal background, including work under Attorney General Eliot Spitzer, laid the groundwork for the possibility of an attorney general run at some point. The opportunity came earlier than anyone expected. Upon the vacancy, James was in the running to win legislative appointment, but a variety of factors led to Underwood taking the helm of the office and James running in the primary.

James quickly became the Democratic establishment choice, aligning herself with Cuomo and initially spurning her longtime allies and the governor’s longtime foes in the Working Families Party. The WFP decided to announce its support for both James and Teachout, with the hopes that it will give its general election ballot line to one of the two if either is victorious in the Democratic contest -- and James has expressed love for the WFP and optimism that it will all work out.

She’s promising to be “the people’s lawyer” and to continue her career-long fight for social justice. Her early campaign has shown signs of stress, though, with regard to the close relationship with Cuomo, and calls for the next attorney general to be an independent voice from the governor, especially on matters of government ethics.

After law school, James started her career at the Legal Aid Society, where she worked as a public defender. She became an assistant attorney general under Spitzer, where she said she fought consumer fraud and predatory lending. She has also served as Assembly counsel. James was elected to the New York City Council in 2003, then as public advocate in 2013. She would be the first woman (along with her opponents Teachout and Eve) and woman of color (along with Eve) to be elected attorney general, and the first woman of color to hold statewide elected office in New York.

As public advocate, James has been notably more litigious and legislative than her three predecessors in the office that provides its occupant much latitude to define priorities. She has sued the city to, among other things, block charter school colocation and to get air conditioning on school buses for students with disabilities, and she sued the Staten Island District Attorney to obtain testimony to the grand jury that declined to indict Daniel Pantaleo, the officer whose chokehold killed Eric Garner.

However, all three of those lawsuits, like several others during her tenure, were tossed by the courts, ruling that she had no standing to sue. James’ school bus suit had been allowed to go forward by a Manhattan Supreme Court judge in 2016, and she then won a settlement later that year for her two co-plaintiffs, children with disabilities who did not have access to air conditioned buses. However, the lawsuit to be tossed in 2017 by Manhattan Appellate Court.

James has also had her share of victories as public advocate. Ten pieces of legislation for which she was the primary sponsor have passed through the City Council and been signed by the mayor. Most notably, she championed the cause of prohibiting employers from asking questions about salary history, a move aimed at gender pay equity, which became law in May of 2017. She was also the primary advocate in government for making public school lunches free for all students, which came to fruition last September. Her office publishes an annual list of the “100 worst landlords” in the city, a practice started by her predecessor, Bill de Blasio.

She has also had some successful lawsuits, such as her suit against the city’s finance department over allegedly wrongfully kicking seniors off the rent freeze rolls; the suit was settled for $130,000, covering legal fees and damages for ten plaintiffs.

James has pushed body cameras for police officers and gun control; and she has voiced support for legalizing recreational marijuana, breaking with de Blasio and Cuomo in the process, though Cuomo appears on the verge of a similar stance. She has strong ties to labor unions and to advocacy groups. Notably, some of the progressive Democratic clubs and activists that are set on defeating Cuomo in this year’s primary are supporting James, even as she has allied herself with the governor.

On her campaign website, James lists her top priorities for the attorney general position as “protect consumers from abuse,” “be a strong voice for our children,” “protect our environment for future generations,” “enforce equal pay for equal work,” “defend civil rights for all,” and “protect NYers from the Trump administration’s unlawful actions.”

In an appearance on WQXR’s Capitol Pressroom, James said that she would focus her tenure on issues like consumer fraud and housing discrimination.

James also took a decidedly softer stance on the Joint Committee on Public Ethics (JCOPE), a state-level oversight body, than Teachout. James she said that while the organization has issues, she didn’t think that its executive director should resign without an investigation, as Teachout has called for. In response to calls for a new Moreland Commission to Investigate Public Corruption, which are being made by Teachout, as well as Cuomo opponents in the gubernatorial race, James also indicated she doesn’t see it as a priority. She has broadly promised, however, to fight corruption in government if elected attorney general.

Zephyr Teachout
Teachout, who unsuccessfully challenged Cuomo in 2014, is staking her bid for attorney general on four planks: “fighting Trump, taking on Albany corruption, fighting corporate scams and corporate monopolies, and spearheading the moral argument against mass incarceration.” She had been serving as the treasurer for the Cynthia Nixon campaign before resigning gto run for attorney general.

Of all the candidates on the Democratic side, Teachout has been the most critical of Schneiderman’s tenure, saying that he failed to adequately pursue corruption by Trump in both his businesses and government; in state government; and in the real estate and financial sectors.

In her launch video, Teachout notes two instances where she contacted Schneiderman’s office but achieved no results. The first was in 2014, when she asked him to use “the full power of his office” to investigate Cuomo’s shutting down of the anti-corruption Moreland Commission. The second was when, soon after the 2016 election, Teachout asked Schneiderman to join a lawsuit in federal court against Trump regarding the emoluments clause to the U.S. Constitution. Schneiderman did not join the suit. Teachout says that she will join the suit if she wins.

In referring to Schneiderman’s apparent inaction on the Moreland Commission, Teachout said that the state needs an “independent” attorney general, possibly a dig at James, who was endorsed by Cuomo and the State Democratic Party. Teachout also referred to herself as an “outsider” from the notorious political culture in Albany. She has long-called for major changes to state government ethics and campaign finance laws, as well as voting and election laws.

Teachout claims that the Moreland Commission to investigate corruption in state government was never disbanded, though it was “shuttered” at the behest of Cuomo, when it was beginning to investigate donors close to the governor, according to reports. In a statement, Teachout said that she would restart the commission’s work as attorney general.

“The Executive Order 106 creating the Moreland Commission was never formally rescinded. That means that the Attorney General’s power and responsibility to investigate New York corruption persists.” She promised to “use those powers to take on corruption in NYS government.”

Teachout’s platform also includes a heavy emphasis on “trust-busting” and combating corporate mergers such as those of for-profit hospitals and others similar to the cable giant Spectrum. She further hopes to use the office to push criminal justice reforms such as eliminating cash bail and reform of New York’s discovery laws.

As the candidate seemingly furthest to the left, most critical of Cuomo, and least beholden to institutional forces, Teachout is attempting to ride a progressive wave that is fed up with the status quo. On Wednesday, Teachout highlighted that in May she had endorsed Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, the self-avowed democratic socialist who pulled off a shocking upset of Rep. Joe Crowley in Tuesday’s congressional primary. Teachout emailed her supporters celebrating the win and pumping up her own campaign. Of Ocasio-Cortez she wrote, “Her win is a testament to what’s possible when you run a bold, progressive campaign that speaks directly to voters.” She added: “What’s more exciting? We’re next.”

Like with the calls for the head of JCOPE to resign and the debate challenge, Teachout is running an aggressive campaign that often forces her opponents to respond to her.

“I am running to be the next Attorney General of New York. I accept no corporate PAC money, and no LLC money,” Teachout tweeted on Thursday. “This is not complicated: No Attorney General should take money from corporations she is charged with overseeing & investigating & whose lawbreaking she may prosecute.”

Leecia Eve
Eve, a former candidate for lieutenant governor, advisor to Hillary Clinton and Joe Biden, and Cuomo administration official; and now a lobbyist for Verizon, has so far run a subdued attorney general campaign, though she says that that will soon change.

Eve formerly served in the Cuomo administration as general counsel to Empire State Development, the state’s main economic development organization. She told Gotham Gazette that, despite repeated ethical concerns within the state’s larger economic development apparatus, she was never aware of any corruption within ESD. She currently serves on the board of the Port Authority in a volunteer capacity.

Asked on Capitol Pressroom whether having worked for the governor diminished her independence, Eve said that she was not the candidate endorsed by the governor or the state Democratic Party. “I have not spoken to the governor about my race,” she said.

She said she would fight endemic corruption in the state as attorney general, and that convening another Moreland Commission should be “under serious consideration.” However, she demurred on harsh criticism of JCOPE or its embattled chair, Seth Agata, whom she has worked with. “Certainly in all my dealings with him,” she said, referring to her time serving in the Cuomo administration, “he conducted himself with integrity and honor.” On “Capitol Pressroom,” she implied that Teachout was “grabbing headlines” by calling for Agata to resign and criticizing JCOPE.

Like James, she would be the first woman of color to serve in statewide elected office. Asked on Capitol Pressroom by host Susan Arbetter whether it was important for New York’s “top law enforcement official” to be a woman of color, as laid out by activist groups like Black Lives Matter, Eve agreed that it matters, but implied that experience should not be discounted. Eve claims that she is the most qualified candidate running for the post.

In Washington, she worked for the law firm Covington and Burling, followed by a stint at Biden’s senatorial office, where she worked on the Violence Against Women Act and the controversial 1996 immigration bill. Afterwards, she served as counsel to New York Senator Hillary Clinton. She ran for lieutenant governor in 2006 but was passed over for the ticket with Eliot Spitzer, then the attorney general; she wistfully notes that if she, rather than David Paterson, had been selected, she would have become the governor given Spitzer’s resignation in disgrace.

Eve has won the endorsement of the Erie County Democratic Party, the local party organization for her hometown of Buffalo (she now lives in Manhattan). She applied for the legislative appointment, but withdrew her name in favor of appointing Underwood. She claims that she has seen the inside of a courtroom more than any other candidate, part of why she says she is the most qualified to serve as attorney general.

Eve told Gotham Gazette she will soon be transitioning to full-time campaigning, and told Gotham Gazette that she would continue Schneiderman’s lawsuit against the federal government over the rollback of net neutrality, despite her employment by telecommunications giant Verizon. Eve claimed that Verizon supports net neutrality, though the company publicly supported the FCC’s rollback of net neutrality rules and lobbied states not to pass their own net neutrality provisions.

“I am unequivocally, 1000 percent in support of net neutrality,” she said, noting that Verizon takes the position that companies should not engage in “throttling, blocking, or engaged in paid prioritization.” She said she would support the continuation of the lawsuit, but would extricate herself from the actual lawsuit. “What is most appropriate for me is to recuse myself from that process, but I would expect extraordinary lawyer of the Office of Attorney General to continue that work.”

Sean Patrick Maloney
Rep. Maloney, of Putnam County is running for attorney general while also running for reelection to Congress. He was not challenged in the congressional primary on Tuesday, and has said if he wins the AG primary in September, he will then remove himself from the general election ballot for the House. It is a curious, controversial move that has his Republican congressional opponent calling foul and some Democrats scratching their heads. It also has his legal team and other lawyers preparing for a possibly challenge to his ballot status.

Maloney ran for AG in 2006, coming in a distant third place in the primary, in a race won by Andrew Cuomo. Before that run and his subsequent successful congressional campaign, he worked for multiple Manhattan law firms, as well as in Albany and Washington.

As a candidate, Maloney has placed significant focus on combating the Trump administration on issues such as LGBTQ rights. Maloney, who is gay, said the issue is “personal for me and my family.”

Maloney also stated on Twitter that he is in favor of net neutrality, saying that its repeal “will only hurt New York families.” Further, he endorsed the legalization of marijuana.

In contrast to the more liberal James and Teachout, Maloney is more of a centrist, perhaps a necessity to represent a congressional district won by Donald Trump. He is a member of the “New Democrat Coalition,” which describes itself as “a solutions oriented coalition seeking to bridge the gap between left and right by challenging outmoded partisan approaches to governing.”

In an appearance on the Capitol Pressroom soon after announcing his campaign, he said he would continue a lawsuit against Exxon filed by Schneiderman and Massachusetts Attorney General Maura Healey, and would also seek to hold pharmaceutical companies accountable for the spread of opioids. On ICE in courtrooms, his answer was evasive. Maloney also boasted of having passed “30 bipartisan bills” in his congressional tenure on behalf of veterans, farmers, and trains, and that he played a significant role in stopping “Trumpcare” in Congress.

If elected attorney general, Maloney’s adversarialism toward Wall Street may not be as strong as James’ or Teachout’s would be. According to Public Citizen, Maloney has accepted almost $500,000 in donations from the financial sector over the course of his career. In May, he voted for a bill in Congress that significantly diminished the post-recession regulations on the financial sector.

Like his opponents, Maloney is taking a hard line on Trump. On Capitol Pressroom he said he is “playing defense” in Congress, but that he wishes to “get on offense” against Trump as attorney general.

“Changes to the #SupremeCourt mean our democratic values are under attack by this president and his goons that think we should roll back rights on minorities, women, and #LGBTQ people,” Maloney tweeted on Thursday. “We can’t let it stand. Fight back with me,” he added, with a link to his campaign website.

Maloney’s campaign declined an interview request from Gotham Gazette, citing a busy schedule in Washington, D.C.

The winner of the Democratic primary for attorney general will face Republican nominee Keith Wofford and other smaller party candidates in the general election.

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by Ben Brachfeld, Gotham Gazette

Read more by this writer.

Ben Max contributed to this article.

‘It’s Really a Race’: Supreme Court Ruling Intensifies High-Stakes Battle for Public Workers


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Gov. Cuomo supports labor unions (photo via the Governor's office)


On a recent morning, Pam Stemberg tiptoed toward an open doorway. "My job is to stalk people," she said. 

That's not quite her job. An English professor at City College in Upper Manhattan, Stemberg chases down colleagues in her second role as a union organizer. But her union pitch hasn't emphasized pocketbook issues like wages or benefits; it’s been focused on the threat posed by a Supreme Court case called Janus v. AFSCME, which concerns whether millions of public sector workers nationwide can opt out of the fees imposed by the union that represents them.

On Wednesday, the high court handed down a landmark 5-4 ruling that labor advocates like Stemberg feared and conservative groups sought: public workers can now opt out of union fees and must affirmatively opt in. 

The ruling intensifies a high-stakes recruiting war as public sector unions try to keep workers paying fees, while conservative groups persuade them to opt out or not opt in at all. If a critical mass of workers chooses to stop paying, it could financially cripple public sector unions, hurt their ability to organize and negotiate, and diminish their political contributions, which largely support Democrats. The outcome of the recruiting battle will determine the power of organized labor in New York, the nation’s most unionized state, with ramifications for much of the policy that comes out of Albany and City Hall. 

"It's really a race," said Randi Weingarten, the president of the American Federation of Teachers, or AFT, a union that represents 1.6 million public employees nationwide and has affiliates with over 600,000 public workers and retirees in New York state, during an interview earlier this year. “This is an existential threat.”

At issue in the case were agency fees, payments assessed to workers whether or not they join the union at their job as full-fledged members. The lawyers for Illinois child support specialist Mark Janus argued that such fees violate workers’ free speech rights, since the payments go to support collective bargaining.

Because the salaries of public workers are borne by taxpayers, the bargaining services amount to coerced political speech, the lawyers argued. Unions said the fees are necessary because workers who decline to pay them become freeloaders, benefiting from union services without financially supporting them.

Ultimately, Janus prevailed. The high court’s five conservatives sided with Janus, while its four liberals dissented. Trump-appointee Neil Gorsuch, who cast apparently decisive votes on Tuesday in contentious cases concerning abortion and the Trump travel ban, again showed his impact on the court.

Overall union membership in the United States has plummeted for decades, reaching an all-time low of 10.7 percent in 2016, but public-sector union membership nationwide has held steady at a far higher rate of 34.4 percent. That rate is even greater in New York, where two out of every three of the state's 1.4 million public sector workers belong to a union, the highest such rate for any state in the country.

Now that public sector union fees are optional, some workers will likely rescind their payments, reducing union revenues. Consider Michigan, Wisconsin, and Indiana, where right-to-work laws passed in the last decade have contributed to an average 2.1 percentage point drop in union membership, according to the left-leaning Illinois Economic Policy Institute.

The decision in favor of Janus will result in the eventual loss of 726,000 public sector union members nationwide, a decline of 15.3% in the 22 states that, until now, have required workers to pay union fees, an Illinois Economic Policy Institute report said last month. The study predicts that 136,000 of those lost fee-payers will be in New York, a more than 10-percent drop in the state.

The unions have sought to minimize their potential post-Janus losses by converting fee-payers to full-fledged members, and so retaining their payments, said Shaun Richman, program director of the Harry Van Arsdale Jr. Center for Labor Studies at SUNY Empire State College and a former organizing director with the AFT.

“The public sector unions are making sure they ask every single represented worker to join,” he said.

The Professional Staff Congress, or PSC, a union that represents 30,000 faculty and staff in the public university system in New York City, added two full-time organizers to what was a staff of five, said vice president Mike Fabricant. Another 200 union members, including Stemberg, have been talking to coworkers one-on-one about the importance of supporting the union, Fabricant said.

“They’re the lifeblood,” he said. “When a faculty member or staff person makes that argument it has a different gravity than when a PSC organizer does.”  

A year ago, 86 percent of full-time professors represented by PSC were members; now 94 percent are, Fabricant said several weeks ago. The union has also seen an uptick in membership among adjunct professors: 54 percent a year ago has jumped to 62 percent, he added.

In April, Governor Andrew Cuomo signed a law that helps unions soften the blow of a decision in favor of Janus. The law requires public employers to inform unions of new hires and let them meet with the workers within 30 days; it also allows the unions to deny some services to workers who opt out of paying fees.

But the decision in favor of Janus will intensify right-wing outreach aiming to encourage public workers to opt out of union fees, said Dan DiSalvo, a senior fellow at the conservative Manhattan Institute and a professor of political science down the hall from Stemberg, at City College. In recent weeks, the conservative Freedom Foundation has sent mailings to workers on the West Coast about their now newfound opportunity to opt out. In the past, the Freedom Foundation has event sent organizers to knock on workers' doors.

“It’s a communications war,” DiSalvo said.

“The position of Janus is his First Amendment rights are being violated because he’s being forced as a condition of his job to pay into an organization with which he disagrees politically,” DiSalvo said. Conservative groups are “not trying to recruit anyone to become a conservative or anything like that, but to inform people of their rights.”

Richman says such recruitment will eventually reach populous blue states, the union strongholds.

“Nobody should be under any illusions that that’s not going to happen in Illinois, in California, in New York,” Richman said. “You might think they’re going to get punched in the face if they knock on the door to get people out of the union. They’re going to do it anyway.”

If public sector workers decline initial overtures from such groups, the workers can still withdraw from union fees down the road. “This is something that’s going to play out a bit longer than ‘oh, today there are unions; tomorrow there aren’t,’” said Richman.

The political implications could be significant, reducing the power not only of public sector unions but of the liberal politicians they support. “Perhaps there will be a rebalancing of the political playing field in states like California and New York,” said DiSalvo. “There might be a better policy mix.”

At the April signing of a bill to help unions in the event of a ruling in favor of Janus, Cuomo condemned the anticipated decision as an attack on workers.

"Too often, and at the hands of this federal administration, we are seeing the labor movement going backwards,” he said. “In New York it is a different story, and our efforts to protect working men and women are moving labor forward, making the workplace fairer and more just than ever before.

On this issue, Mayor Bill de Blasio appears to be in lockstep. "Organized labor brought us the middle class in this country," de Blasio reportedly said on Tuesday when asked about the then-impending Janus decision, adding that the anticipated outcome would be misguided and troublesome.

When the ruling came down on Wednesday, United Federation of Teachers (UFT) President Michael Mulgrew issued a statement, saying: “The Janus decision reflects years of scheming by forces desperate to destroy workers' rights and to undermine public education." He added that the teachers union "will remain strong, and we will not be silenced. Everything we have been able to accomplish for our members and our students has come from our ability to work together, and we will continue to fight for the rights of workers, their families and for public education.”

Stemberg said when she talks to coworkers, she focuses on building bonds, hoping that will minimizing any long-term losses. “You’re not only getting them to sign up but to value the union,” she said.

She said the organizing around a Janus decision has been bittersweet.

“I’m so grateful more people are paying attention,” she said. “Did I want it to be this way with Damocles’ sword hanging over our heads? Absolutely not—it’s scary.”

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by Max Zahn for Gotham Gazette
@GothamGazette @MaxZahn_

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.

ny14 primary 2018 electionnightdraft

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.”

ny11 primary 2018 electionnightdraft

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
      

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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

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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


grimm donovan ny1

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



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