Elections

Tuesday: Gov. Gavin Newsom’s $267.8 billion budget proposal reflects the wish list of a state “just flush with cash.”Prekindergarten students at West Orange Elementary School in Orange, Calif., in March. Jae C. Hong/Associated PressGood morning.Six-hundred-dollar checks. Universal prekindergarten. Forgiveness for back rent, traffic tickets, utility bills. Big investments in the electrical grid, broadband, wildfire prevention, drought mitigation. Tax breaks for small business and Hollywood.Flush with a huge surplus and threatened by a campaign to recall him from office, Gov. Gavin Newsom last week proposed a state budget that was the government equivalent of that time everyone in the studio audience got a Pontiac on Oprah. This week, state legislators took up the $267.8 billion plan.With a mid-June budget deadline and Newsom’s fellow Democrats dominating the Legislature, the broad priorities are unlikely to change much. Still, like all those free cars, it’s a lot to process. Here are a few things to know:This budget is about both the recovery and the recall.Newsom has been in campaign mode for months, since it became clear that the Republican-led recall effort would most likely lead to a special election. Polls show that an increasing majority of voters disapprove of the recall. But he’s still in a vulnerable position with lawmakers and lobbyists.Last week’s budget rollout was a cavalcade of photo ops for big-ticket line items: Rebate checks of up to $1,100 on Monday for middle-income Californians; historic spending on homelessness on Tuesday; an expansion of preschool to all 4-year-olds on Wednesday; a major small-business grant program on Thursday.For the teachers’ unions that helped elect him, the governor proposed a record $14,000 in per-pupil school funding. For parents furious that more than half of the state’s public school students remain learning remotely, that funding was contingent on an in-person return to classrooms.Progressives who get out the vote for Democrats in California elections got repayment of billions of dollars in back rent and utility bills for low-income renters, funding for pilot universal-basic-income programs, and forgiveness of some $300 million worth of traffic tickets for low-income drivers. Newsom also proposed extending Medi-Cal to undocumented workers over 60 and significantly expanding housing for homeless Californians.Businesses have already received a $6.2 billion tax cut. But the governor also proposed hundreds of millions of dollars in incentives for companies to relocate to California, for tourism marketing and for tax credits to lure filming back from, he said, “places like Georgia whose values don’t always align with the production crews.”Bicyclists ride past a homeless encampment at the Venice Beach Boardwalk.Jessica Pons for The New York TimesIt is also about record revenue.State officials expected the virus to be devastating. But they overestimated the economic damage to skilled workers and underestimated the flood of money that would arise from the booming stock market. Now the state’s progressive tax system, which relies heavily on the well-off, has delivered about $100 billion more than had been projected. The Biden administration’s stimulus plan also channeled some $27 billion in federal aid to the state.All but about $38 billion of that revenue, by law, must go to public schools, various budget reserves and other obligations. Some, too, must be rebated to taxpayers by mid-2023. The governor’s proposal included some $11 billion to pay down the state’s long-term liability for public employee pensions. And he took some heat from an independent state analyst on Monday for holding onto about $8 billion he had pulled from cash reserves last year, instead of repaying it.Still, the situation is a far cry from 2003, when the dot-com bust and tight state budgets fueled the recall of Gov. Gray Davis, said Rob Stutzman, a Republican political consultant.“Politicians rarely lose when they’re handing out money,” Stutzman said. “And the state is just flush with cash.”It also may reflect a new resolve about government spending.Raphael Sonenshein, the executive director of the Pat Brown Institute for Public Affairs at California State University, Los Angeles, regards Newsom’s proposal as part of a new embrace of government largess in the Democratic Party. Gone, he said, is the split-the-difference frugality of, say, Gov. Jerry Brown.“Partly it’s the country coming out of the pandemic, and partly it’s what is coming out of Washington, D.C.,” he said. “But states — and not just California — are in a position not to just repair but to even reverse the decline in the social safety net. And that’s a big deal.”President Biden’s New Deal-inspired plans to help the nation recover from the pandemic have paved the way for sweeping state-level proposals such as Newsom’s, Sonenshein said. So has the sense among financial experts that government could and should have intervened more aggressively to head off the Great Recession in 2008.“I think the hold of austerity politics has been so strong for so long that people didn’t question a lot of the orthodoxy. But that has changed,” he said.Here’s what else to know todayPier 39 in San Francisco in March soon after the state reopened from a strict lockdown.Jim Wilson/The New York TimesCalifornia will wait until next month to adopt the new C.D.C. guidance that fully vaccinated people can drop their masks in most settings. State health officials said on Monday they wanted to give Californians more time to get vaccinated and prepare for the change, The Los Angeles Times reports.The Palisades fire in western Los Angeles was 23 percent contained on Monday. Experts called it a warning that California faces an unusually early fire season this summer as a severe drought takes hold.After an extraordinary 14-month hiatus caused by the pandemic, Robert Durst’s murder trial was set to resume this week in Los Angeles.Governor Newsom and his wife saw their income rise in 2019 during his first year in office. The couple made $1.7 million, much of it from Newsom’s winery and restaurant businesses that he put in a blind trust when he became governor, The Associated Press reports.Rob Bonta, California’s first Filipino-American attorney general, keeps a photo in his office of a sign hung in a Stockton hotel lobby in 1920: “Positively no Filipinos allowed.” In an interview with The Los Angeles Times, Bonta said he was called racist names as a child in the Sacramento area, and he described the recent anti-Asian attacks as a “full-on state emergency.”Relatives of George Floyd and their lawyer Ben Crump attended a rally at Pasadena City Hall on Monday, calling for the firing of the police officer who shot and killed Anthony McClain, a Black man whose death last year has angered Black Lives Matter activists. KTLA reports that more than 100 people rallied outside City Hall, and officials reacted by shutting the building and canceling a scheduled City Council meeting.The California lumber town of Weed was named for a 19th-century timber baron, Abner Weed. For years, Weed the town refused to embrace that other more famous weed. But no longer. The town had a change of heart, opened the door to the pot industry and now leverages the cosmic humor of its name.Relations have soured between John Cox, the Republican recall candidate, and conservative recall organizers. Cox pledged to make a $100,000 donation to the campaign to recall the governor, but has given only half of the money, The San Francisco Chronicle reports.The demand for Covid-19 vaccine shots for adults has declined in Ventura County, where officials announced that two of the county’s largest vaccination sites will cut back their hours and be open three days a week instead of six, The Ventura County Star reports.California Today goes live at 6:30 a.m. Pacific time weekdays. Tell us what you want to see: [email protected]. Were you forwarded this email? Sign up for California Today here and read every edition online here. More

Prosecutors investigating Rudolph W. Giuliani’s work in Ukraine have seized his electronic devices, a move his lawyers are now questioning.Rudolph W. Giuliani on Monday opened a broad attack on the searches that federal investigators conducted of his home, his office and his iCloud account, asking a judge to block any review of the seized records while his lawyers determine whether there was a legitimate basis for the warrants, according a court filing made public on Monday.Mr. Giuliani’s lawyers are seeking copies of the confidential government documents that detail the basis for the search warrants, a legal long shot that they hope could open the door for them to argue for the evidence to be suppressed. Typically, prosecutors only disclose such records after someone is indicted and before a trial, but Mr. Giuliani, who is under investigation for potential lobbying violations, has not been accused of wrongdoing.A spokesman for the U.S. attorney’s office declined to comment on Monday.In a 17-page letter to the judge who authorized the searches, Mr. Giuliani’s lawyers argued that it would have been more appropriate — and less invasive — for the U.S. attorney’s office in Manhattan to seek information through a subpoena, which, unlike a warrant, would have given him an opportunity to review the documents and respond.Justice Department policy recommends that prosecutors use subpoenas when seeking information from lawyers, unless there is a concern about destruction of evidence.The defense lawyers wrote that prosecutors “simply chose to treat a distinguished lawyer as if he was the head of a drug cartel or a terrorist, in order to create maximum prejudicial coverage of both Giuliani and his most well-known client — the former president of the United States.”The lawyers also disclosed that the government had claimed in a November 2019 search warrant for Mr. Giuliani’s iCloud account that the search needed to be a secret because of concerns he might destroy records or intimidate witnesses.Though the government routinely cites concern about potential destruction of records when seeking search warrants, Mr. Giuliani’s lawyers attacked the idea that their client, himself a former federal prosecutor and onetime personal lawyer to President Donald J. Trump, would ever destroy evidence.“Such an allegation, on its face, strains credulity,” the lawyers, including Robert J. Costello and Arthur Aidala, wrote. “It is not only false, but extremely damaging to Giuliani’s reputation. It is not supported by any credible facts and is contradicted by Giuliani’s efforts to provide information to the government.”The judge who approved the warrants, J. Paul Oetken of Federal District Court, will ultimately decide whether Mr. Giuliani will have access to the confidential government materials underlying them.Mr. Giuliani’s court filing came in response to the government’s request that Judge Oetken appoint a so-called special master to review cellphones and computers seized in the search of Mr. Giuliani’s home and office in Manhattan on April 28.The special master — usually a retired judge or magistrate — would determine whether the materials contained in the devices are covered by attorney-client privilege and as a result cannot be used as evidence in the case. He or she would filter out privileged communications not only between Mr. Giuliani and Mr. Trump, but also between Mr. Giuliani and his other clients.Mr. Giuliani’s lawyers called the appointment of a special master “premature,” because they are first seeking copies of the search warrant materials.The authorities want to examine the electronic devices for communications that might reveal whether Mr. Giuliani violated lobbying laws in his dealings in Ukraine, The New York Times has reported.While serving as Mr. Trump’s personal lawyer before the 2020 presidential election, Mr. Giuliani sought to uncover damaging information on President Biden, then a leading Democratic contender.At issue is whether Mr. Giuliani was at the same time lobbying the Trump administration on behalf of Ukrainian officials who were assisting him in the search.It is a violation of federal law to lobby the U.S. government on behalf of foreign officials without registering with the Justice Department. Mr. Giuliani never registered as a lobbyist for the Ukrainians. He has maintained that he was working only for Mr. Trump.One day after the search, the U.S. attorney’s office told Judge Oetken in a letter that the F.B.I. had begun to extract materials from the seized devices but had not yet begun reviewing them.In the letter, the prosecutors said the appointment of a special master might be appropriate because of “the unusually sensitive privilege issues” raised by the searches, citing, for example, Mr. Giuliani’s representation of Mr. Trump.Communications between lawyers and their clients are generally shielded from investigators in the United States, and communications between presidents and their aides enjoy a similar protection, known as executive privilege.“Any search may implicate not only the attorney-client privilege but the executive privilege,” the office of Audrey Strauss, the U.S. attorney in Manhattan, wrote.In seeking the appointment of a special master to review Mr. Giuliani’s materials, the prosecutors cited their office’s investigation of Michael D. Cohen, another of Mr. Trump’s former lawyers.In that case, federal agents seized documents and electronic devices in an April 2018 search of Mr. Cohen’s office, apartment and hotel room. A judge appointed Barbara S. Jones, a retired judge, to determine whether those materials were off-limits to investigators because of attorney-client privilege.Ms. Jones ultimately concluded that only a fraction of Mr. Cohen’s materials were privileged and that the rest could be provided to the government. That August, Mr. Cohen pleaded guilty to campaign finance violations and other crimes. More

Top local Republicans are hitting back at Donald J. Trump and fellow party members in the State Senate over a review of Arizona ballots.For weeks, election professionals and Democrats have consistently called the Republican-backed review of November voting results in Arizona a fatally flawed exercise, marred by its partisan cast of characters and sometimes bizarre methodology.Now, after a week in which leaders of the review suggested they had found evidence of illegal behavior, top Republicans in the state’s largest county have escalated their own attacks on the effort, with the county’s top election official calling former President Donald J. Trump “unhinged” for his online comments falsely accusing the county of deleting an elections database.“We can’t indulge these insane lies any longer,” the official, Stephen Richer, the Maricopa County recorder and a Republican, wrote on Twitter. “As a party. As a state. As a country. This is as readily falsifiable as 2+2=5.”Three times, the county has investigated and upheld the integrity of the November vote, which was supervised by Mr. Richer’s predecessor, a Democrat.It is not the first time Republicans in county government have been at odds with the Republicans in the Legislature over the review of the vote. But Mr. Richer is among various Republicans in Maricopa County sounding like they have run out of patience.The five elected supervisors, all but one of whom are Republicans, plan to meet on Monday afternoon to issue a broadside against what Republican sponsors in the State Senate have billed as an election audit, which targets the 2.1 million votes cast in November in metropolitan Phoenix and outlying areas. The planned meeting follows a weekend barrage of posts on Twitter, with the hashtag #RealAuditorsDont, in which the supervisors assailed the integrity of the review.Those posts followed a letter from the leader of the audit, State Senator Karen Fann, implying that the county had removed “the main database for all election-related data” from election equipment that had been subpoenaed for review. Mr. Trump later published the letter on his website, calling it “devastating” evidence of irregularities.The supervisors’ Twitter rebuke was scathing. Real auditors don’t “release false ‘conclusions’ without understanding what they are looking at,” one post said, ridiculing the allegation of a deleted database. Nor do real auditors “hire known conspiracy theorists,” a reference to the firm hired to manage the review, whose chief executive has promoted theories that rigged voting machines caused Mr. Trump’s loss in Arizona.The Arizona Senate president, Karen Fann, has defended the ballot review. Ross D. Franklin/Associated PressJack Sellers, the Republican chairman of the board of supervisors, issued a statement calling the suggestion that files were deleted “outrageous, completely baseless and beneath the dignity of the Arizona Senate,” which ordered the audit. In an interview, he said the meeting on Monday would refute claims in the letter from Ms. Fann, the Senate president.“Basically, every one of our five supervisors said, ‘Enough is enough,’” Mr. Sellers said in an interview on Sunday. “What they’re suggesting is not just criticism. They’re saying we broke the law. And we certainly did not.”The real target of the accusations, he said in the interview, “are the professionals who run the elections, people who followed the rules and who did an incredible job in the middle of a pandemic.“A lot of the questions being asked right now have been answered,” he said of those challenging the November results. “But the people asking them don’t like the answers, so they keep on asking.”At issue is the Maricopa County vote. But Ms. Fann’s letter raises the prospect that an exercise dismissed by serious observers as transparently partisan and flawed could become a potent weapon in the continuing effort by Mr. Trump and his followers to undermine the legitimacy of the vote in Arizona, and perhaps elsewhere.The review has no formal electoral authority and will not change the results of the election in Arizona, no matter what it finds.One poll by High Ground, a Phoenix firm well known for its political surveys, concluded this spring that 78 percent of Arizona Republicans believe Mr. Trump’s false claims that President Biden did not win the November election. A recent Monmouth University poll found that almost two-thirds of Republicans nationally believe that Mr. Biden did not legitimately win the 2020 election. More than six in 10 Americans overall believe that he did.Beyond the dispute over supposedly deleted files, Ms. Fann is also pressing the county and the manufacturer of its voting machines, Dominion Voting Systems, to release passwords for vote tabulating machines and county-operated internet routers.Dominion, which has been fighting a series of election-fraud conspiracy theories promoted by Trump supporters and pro-Trump news outlets, has said it will cooperate with federally certified election auditors. But it has spurned the firms hired to conduct the Arizona vote review, whose track record in election audits is scant at best.Maricopa County officials have refused to turn over router passwords, which the auditors say they need to determine whether voting machines were connected to the internet and subject to hacking. County officials say past audits have settled that question. The county sheriff, Paul Penzone, called the demand for passwords “mind-numbingly reckless,” saying it would compromise law enforcement operations unrelated to the election.The review has no formal electoral authority and will not change the results of the election in Arizona, no matter what it finds.Pool photo by Matt YorkThe election review was born in December as an effort by Republican senators to placate voters who had embraced Mr. Trump’s lie that Mr. Biden’s 10,457-vote victory in the state was a fraud. Maricopa County, where two-thirds of the state’s votes were cast, was chosen in part because Republicans refused to believe that Mr. Biden had scored a 45,000-vote victory in a county that once was solid G.O.P. territory.What once seemed an effort to mollify angry supporters of Mr. Trump, however, has become engulfed in acrimony as Ms. Fann and other senators have steered the review in a decidedly partisan direction, hiring as its manager a Florida company, Cyber Ninjas, whose chief executive had previously suggested that rigged voting machines caused Mr. Trump’s Arizona loss.An accounting of the review’s finances remains cloudy, but far-right supporters, including the ardently pro-Trump cable news outlet One America News, have raised funds on its behalf. Nonpartisan election experts and the Justice Department have cited troubling indicators that the review is open to manipulation and ignores the most basic security guidelines.Most Arizona Republican officials who have spoken publicly have doggedly supported the review. But State Senator Paul Boyer, a Republican from a suburban Phoenix district evenly split between Republicans and Democrats, made headlines last week after saying that the conduct of the review made him embarrassed to serve in the State Senate.Senator T.J. Shope, another Republican from a Phoenix swing district, has been more circumspect, saying he believed Mr. Biden’s election was legitimate but that he had been too busy to follow the controversy. But in a Twitter post on Saturday, he wrote that Mr. Trump was “peddling in fantasy” by suggesting that the county’s election records had been nefariously deleted.The Maricopa County vote review has been forced to suspend operations this week while the Phoenix work site, a suburban coliseum, is cleared out to host high school graduations. Mr. Sellers, the chairman of the board of supervisors, said he hoped the supervisors’ effort to refute the review’s claims on Monday would be the end of the affair.“It’s clearer by the day: The people hired by the Senate are in way over their heads,” his statement said. “This is not funny; it’s dangerous.” More

We asked the eight leading Democrats running for mayor of New York City about the pandemic, policing and where they like to go out to eat. Here’s an overview.We interviewed the leading Democratic candidates running for mayor about the most pressing concerns facing New York City as it recovers from the pandemic.We also asked them about their favorite restaurants and their sports allegiances.Voters are still getting to know the crowded field of candidates ahead of the June 22 primary. They come from unique backgrounds and have differing visions for the city on issues that include policing, transit, climate and education.Here’s a glimpse of what we learned (and you can view the full videos here):1. They are keenly focused on leading the city’s economic recovery.Tony Cenicola/The New York TimesAs the end of the pandemic comes into focus, many of the mayoral candidates are centering their pitch around the idea that they can lead New York into a period of greater equity and prosperity than the city experienced before the shutdown.For some of the candidates, that means a focus on small businesses and ensuring that the institutions that make New York so culturally vibrant — restaurants and Broadway, for example — have sufficient support to reopen.“The first thing I would do to help New York City recover from the pandemic is really make sure we are investing in our small businesses and that we are bringing back the things that differentiate us from the rest of the country,” said Kathryn Garcia, the former sanitation commissioner. “Art, culture, restaurants. When they’re strong, that means offices are strong and that means that tourism comes back.”That view was echoed by several of the contenders. Some also emphasized the importance of reopening the city quickly and safely.“We should get our artists, our musicians, our restaurants, filling our vacant storefronts, filling our public spaces,” said Shaun Donovan, the former federal housing secretary, “and make sure every New Yorker and the world knows that we’re alive and fun and the city to be in again.”Or as Andrew Yang, the former presidential candidate, put it: “The first thing we have to do to help New York City recover is let people know that New York City is open for business.”2. Surprise! No one named Bill de Blasio as the best mayor in their lifetime.Todd Heisler/The New York TimesMany New Yorkers will not miss Mayor Bill de Blasio when he leaves office early next year.None of the candidates named him as the best mayor in their lifetime. Instead, many pointed to Michael R. Bloomberg and David N. Dinkins.Ms. Garcia named Mr. Bloomberg, citing “his focus on the data.” Maya Wiley, a former civil rights lawyer, said Mr. Dinkins, who died last year, “was my hero” and cared about all New Yorkers.Raymond J. McGuire, a former Wall Street executive, named both: Mr. Dinkins for bringing the city together as a “gorgeous mosaic,” and Mr. Bloomberg who was “effective at leading and managing the city,” though Mr. McGuire criticized his focus on stop-and-frisk policing.Mr. Yang named Ed Koch, citing “his optimism and spirit,” while Scott M. Stringer, the city comptroller, cited both Mr. Koch and Mr. Dinkins.3. Only one candidate supports the slogan “defund the police.”Tony Cenicola/The New York TimesDianne Morales, a former nonprofit executive, is the only candidate who fully embraced the “defund the police” movement.Ms. Morales described how her children were pepper sprayed by the police at a protest at Barclays Center last summer and how her son was physically assaulted. She suggested that she supports an eventual goal of abolishing the police.“We know that policing does not equal public safety — that communities that are most heavily policed are in fact the most at risk and the most harmed,” she said.Eric Adams, the Brooklyn borough president, said the term defund was not helpful and could “stop the forward movement we’re looking for.”Mr. Yang said the slogan “unfortunately seems very absolutist,” but he does support channeling more resources to mental-health response teams.Other candidates called for cuts to the police budget and other reforms: Ms. Wiley said the police department should have fewer officers; Mr. Stringer said officers should not handle 911 calls for mental health emergencies.4. Left-wing vs. centrist, insider vs. outsiderTony Cenicola/The New York TimesOn any number of key matters, the candidates were in broad agreement: The city, in their view, does have an important role to play in confronting systemic racism; combating issues including traffic congestion and climate change should be top priorities for the next mayor; the city must reopen quickly and safely, and for some contenders, there are growing concerns around crime.But real differences were also evident, both in terms of management style and ideology. Ms. Morales emerged as the most left-wing candidate in the field, on issues including public safety and “austerity,” warning against it as she sketched out an expansive public infrastructure program. Mr. Stringer and Ms. Wiley often took positions that also aligned them further to the left of other candidates.Mr. Yang, Ms. Garcia, Mr. Adams and Mr. McGuire tended toward the more centrist side of the spectrum in discussing policing and economic development.But for many of the candidates, the sharpest contrasts had less to do with politics than with experience. Ms. Garcia, Mr. Donovan and Mr. Stringer in particular are running as résumé candidates, citing their deep experience in government — at the city level for Ms. Garcia and Mr. Stringer and at the federal level for Mr. Donovan.To varying degrees, Mr. Yang, Ms. Wiley, Mr. McGuire and Ms. Morales are seeking to run as less traditional candidates who emphasize their experiences outside of government, while Mr. Adams highlights both his experience in government and his work as a police officer..css-1xzcza9{list-style-type:disc;padding-inline-start:1em;}.css-3btd0c{font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-size:1rem;line-height:1.375rem;color:#333;margin-bottom:0.78125rem;}@media (min-width:740px){.css-3btd0c{font-size:1.0625rem;line-height:1.5rem;margin-bottom:0.9375rem;}}.css-3btd0c strong{font-weight:600;}.css-3btd0c em{font-style:italic;}.css-w739ur{margin:0 auto 5px;font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-weight:700;font-size:1.125rem;line-height:1.3125rem;color:#121212;}#NYT_BELOW_MAIN_CONTENT_REGION .css-w739ur{font-family:nyt-cheltenham,georgia,’times new roman’,times,serif;font-weight:700;font-size:1.375rem;line-height:1.625rem;}@media (min-width:740px){#NYT_BELOW_MAIN_CONTENT_REGION .css-w739ur{font-size:1.6875rem;line-height:1.875rem;}}@media (min-width:740px){.css-w739ur{font-size:1.25rem;line-height:1.4375rem;}}.css-1dg6kl4{margin-top:5px;margin-bottom:15px;}#masthead-bar-one{display:none;}#masthead-bar-one{display:none;}.css-12vbvwq{background-color:white;border:1px solid #e2e2e2;width:calc(100% – 40px);max-width:600px;margin:1.5rem auto 1.9rem;padding:15px;box-sizing:border-box;}@media (min-width:740px){.css-12vbvwq{padding:20px;width:100%;}}.css-12vbvwq:focus{outline:1px solid #e2e2e2;}#NYT_BELOW_MAIN_CONTENT_REGION .css-12vbvwq{border:none;padding:10px 0 0;border-top:2px solid #121212;}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-rdoyk0{-webkit-transform:rotate(0deg);-ms-transform:rotate(0deg);transform:rotate(0deg);}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-eb027h{max-height:300px;overflow:hidden;-webkit-transition:none;transition:none;}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-5gimkt:after{content:’See more’;}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-6mllg9{opacity:1;}.css-1rh1sk1{margin:0 auto;overflow:hidden;}.css-1rh1sk1 strong{font-weight:700;}.css-1rh1sk1 em{font-style:italic;}.css-1rh1sk1 a{color:#326891;-webkit-text-decoration:underline;text-decoration:underline;text-underline-offset:1px;-webkit-text-decoration-thickness:1px;text-decoration-thickness:1px;-webkit-text-decoration-color:#ccd9e3;text-decoration-color:#ccd9e3;}.css-1rh1sk1 a:visited{color:#333;-webkit-text-decoration-color:#ccc;text-decoration-color:#ccc;}.css-1rh1sk1 a:hover{-webkit-text-decoration:none;text-decoration:none;}The race will test both the city’s ideological mood, and whether voters want a seasoned government insider or someone promising to shake up the system as an outsider.5. Some avoided picking a second-choice candidate.Elizabeth D. Herman for The New York TimesNew Yorkers will use ranked-choice voting in the mayoral election for the first time this year, ranking up to five candidates in their order of preference.That could lead to alliances among the candidates, though some were not ready to reveal whom they might rank second.Ms. Wiley named Ms. Morales as her second choice, citing her “real lived experience” as a person of color in New York City.Mr. Yang named Ms. Garcia and described her as a “disciplined operator with great experience,” and said he would like to work with her in his administration — comments that he has made before and that have frustrated Ms. Garcia, who says she wants the top job.“Kathryn, if you’re watching this, Kathryn, let’s team up,” Mr. Yang said laughing.Mr. Adams said he liked several candidates and was talking to them about a pact to rank each other second.“That is a secret,” he said with a smile.6. Three candidates would accept Governor Cuomo’s endorsement.Sara Naomi Lewkowicz for The New York TimesGov. Andrew M. Cuomo has faced calls to resign over allegations of sexual harassment and his handling of nursing home deaths during the pandemic.Still, Mr. Adams, Mr. Yang and Mr. McGuire said they would accept his endorsement.“I believe strongly in the due process system,” Mr. Adams said, adding that if leaders sidestep that process then “we are on a slippery slope.”Mr. Yang said that the governor’s endorsement would be “positive for New York City” and “a clear signal that the city and state’s interests are aligned.”Ms. Wiley said she was not seeking the governor’s support.“I stand by my request that Governor Cuomo step down and resign because we can’t afford any of our people to doubt the integrity of our public servants,” she said.7. The candidates have bold policies. They also have some restaurant recommendations.Tony Cenicola/The New York TimesThe contenders sketched out extensive, sometimes sharply divergent, policy visions on issues including how to balance economic development with community concerns and the best ways to address educational losses from the pandemic.But they also showed how they would use the bully pulpit of the mayoralty to root for New York City culture, parks and nightlife, ticking through their favorite restaurants, Broadway shows, city green spaces (a Central Park-versus-Prospect Park battle line emerged) and sports teams.From sushi at Amber on the Upper West Side (Mr. Stringer’s favorite) to “a little hole in the wall in Fort Greene” called Dino (Ms. Morales’s choice); pizza at Corner Slice in Hell’s Kitchen for Mr. Yang or a meal at Red Rooster in Harlem for Mr. McGuire, they all appeared eager for a less wonky, but vitally important aspect of the job: cheerleading for the city. More

“How’s it going?”
“Thought we’d make an entrance.”
“Hello, everyone.”
“How you living?”
“OK, let’s go through this way.”
[music]
“Am I just going
to the chair?”
“There’s lot of cameras.”
“I could go into
the movie business
I feel pretty good.”
“I’ve never walked
out on an interview yet.”
“All right.
Tell me what you need.”
“So starting with pandemic.”
“What is the first
thing you would
do to help
New York City recover?”
“Systemic racism.”
“Educational losses.”
“Amazon headquarters.”
“A car-free Manhattan.”
“What is the key to improving
public transportation?”
“Police reform.”
“Traffic congestion.”
“Climate change, in general.”
“That’s an interesting way to ask it.”
“Do I get choices?
Do I get to choose
amongst my answers?”
“I don’t talk as much as
the other guys.”
“That is a secret.”
“I know, what does that say about me?”
“Do you want me to
expound on that?”
“No questions about my cats?” More

“New York City really needs
someone who has strong
leadership skills and
understands how to get
the job done.
We are facing overlapping
crises, a public health
crisis, an economic
crisis, a crisis
about our
socio-emotional health.
I get stuff done.
And I’m excited to roll up my
sleeves and do the hard work
to bring us back
strongly out of Covid.
I’m so happy
we’re not on Zoom.
You have no idea.
The first thing I would do
to help New York City recover
from the pandemic is really
make sure we are investing
in our small businesses and
that we are bringing back
the things that differentiate
us from the rest
of the country —
art, culture, restaurants.
When they’re strong, that
means offices are strong.
And that means that
tourism comes back.
That’s how we
come out of this.”
“There are proposals to
build a seawall to protect
New York City from a future
Hurricane Sandy amid rising
sea levels.
Do you think building a
seawall is a good idea?
And what is one additional
thing you would do to address
the effects of
climate change?”
“Climate change is here.
In eastern Queens,
so many trees
came down that they
lost power for a week
during a heat wave.
This is why I have
a robust climate
plan that looks at protecting
all 520 miles of coastline,
not only through building
hard infrastructure,
but also thinking about
soft infrastructure, things
that mitigate wave activity.
But we can’t only prepare
for the last emergency.
If Hurricane Sandy had been
on a slightly different tide
cycle, we’d be talking
about impacts in the Bronx
and in northern Queens.
In addition, it’s
not just storm surge.
It will be high heat.
It will be heavy rainfall.
We have to make
sure that we are
decarbonizing the economy.
We have to make sure
that we are turning food
into compost.
We have to make sure that we
are electrifying our
school buses.
That is how we get this done.
We have to have
everything on the table.”
“Would you accept an
endorsement from
Governor Cuomo?”
“No, I don’t think so.
Should the governor
weigh in on this race,
I do not anticipate
his endorsement
due to the fact that I have
called for him to step aside.
Systemic racism must be
combated by all institutions,
and that includes
city government.
Two of my priorities are
around education and housing.
In education, we
need to get rid
of screens for gifted and
talented four-year-olds.
Everyone is gifted and
talented when they’re four,
and precious.
We need to ensure
that we are working
with parents to eliminate
screens in middle school.
In housing, we
have not actually
instituted the
Fair Housing Act
in a way that is making it
so that, particularly when
we build new housing, that we
are opening it up to anyone
in the city of New York.
You know, I
actually have to say
that Mayor Bloomberg was
the best New York City mayor
in my lifetime.
And it is really because
I appreciated his focus
on the data.
His changes in public
health actually lengthened
our lifespans.
There were, of course,
some tragic decisions,
particularly around
stop-and-frisk.
But I believe that when you
look at how he approached it,
that it’s really important
in the city of New York.”
“If you were mayor in 2019,
would you have supported
the deal to build an Amazon
headquarters in Queens?”
“New York City has to be a
city that’s growing, that’s
open for business.
We need jobs in this city,
and we need good
jobs in this city.
If I had been mayor in 2019, I
would have supported the deal
with Amazon.
I would have brought the
community together with
Amazon, with the government,
so that collectively,
we could have come out
with the best option
for everyone.”
“What would you have said
to longtime residents who
opposed neighborhood rezonings
because they fear they’ll be
pushed out?”
“Rezonings allow us to house
more families in the city
of New York.
That means we work
with communities
to ensure that we are
not displacing residents.
That we are ensuring that
we are protecting them.
That we make sure that
we are providing them
with legal support
should their landlord
take aggressive action.
But I know that rezonings
mean homes for families.”
“What is the most important
police reform you would
pursue as mayor?”
“Trust is at the core
of public safety.
The most important
police reform
that I would
pursue as mayor is
to ensure that we have
very clear and transparent
discipline for our officers.
We also need to make
sure we are actually
achieving culture change.
And by that we have to
instill new training programs,
and make sure that we are
promoting those officers who
are rebuilding trust
with communities.
We need to make sure that
we’re embedding mental health
professionals with our
officers for any emotional
disturbance call.
They have to have all the
tools to make sure that
that ends safely.
During the 2020
presidential primary,
I supported Joe Biden.
And I supported him
because I really
believe in his policies.
And I also thought
he could win.
And literally, the most
important thing to me was
that we beat Trump.”
“What is the single most
important step the next mayor
can take to make up
for educational losses
as a result of the pandemic?”
“New York City students
have suffered through a year
of Zoom school or hybrid
learning or opening
and closings.
There are several things
we all know need to happen.
One is we are going to have to
look at each child to see how
we can design programs
to catch them up
for the learning
that they’ve lost.
But the second big
piece is we know
that they have suffered
trauma, that one in 1,000
has lost a parent or
guardian to Covid, that they
are going to have
socio-emotional needs.
And we need to be
able to support them.”
“What is your favorite
New York City restaurant?”
“My favorite New York City
restaurant is Outerspace
at 99 Scott, which you know,
is owned by my sister.”
“Favorite bagel order?”
“Everything bagel, open-faced,
cream cheese, lox, tomato,
onion and capers.”
“Favorite New York City park?”
“Prospect Park.”
“Favorite sports team?”
“New York Yankees.”
“Favorite Broadway show?”
“‘Les Mis.’”
“Thinking about improving
public transportation,
would you focus more on
modernizing the subway
or expanding bus-only lanes?”
“We need to invest in
fast-forward in
our subway system.
But we also need to
expand our bus
and our select bus service.
I love the
technology that turns
the light green for
a bus and allows
it to zip right through.
We’re gonna have to do both,
because we know that we can
expand buses much more quickly
than we could put together
a new subway line.”
“Mayor de Blasio has
been criticized for his
late-morning workouts
at the Park Slope Y.
What is your fitness routine?
And would that
change as mayor?”
“My fitness routine used to
be that I would go around 5:30
in the morning.
It’s not been as routine as
it should be since Covid.
But I’ve always
gotten up early
because I like to be at the
office — latest by 8.
You know, so when
I went to the gym,
I liked to use
free weights and I
liked to go on the elliptical.
Actually, I don’t like
to go on the elliptical.
But I know that I need
to go on the elliptical
for the aerobic piece.
But I don’t particularly
enjoy that.”
“Since voters can rank
up to five candidates
on their ballot, whom would
you pick as your
second choice?”
“I think I actually said some
place if I had a No. 2,
I would not be doing this.
But —
I get shit done.
“You should say that.
Can we say that on camera?”
“Are you allowed to say
that in your newspaper?
It’s a family paper.” More

“I have spent my entire career
serving New York City’s
most vulnerable,
marginalized communities,
and for too long,
we have continued
to fail to provide and
protect those communities.
We’ve seen throughout the
course of the pandemic that
so many members of
those communities
are, in fact, the ones that
have kept the city operating,
taking care of the rest of us.
It’s time for New York
to center, prioritize
and elevate their needs.
I can be loud if
you want me to.
I used to be a
classroom teacher.
I can be louder.
Oh, so cool.”
“What is the most
important police reform
you would pursue as mayor?”
“The protests last summer were
actually very personal for me.
At the very first protest
after George Floyd
was murdered,
I stood at the
Barclays Center
and watched as my children
were first pepper-sprayed,
and shortly
thereafter, I watched
as my son was
physically assaulted
by a police officer.
We know that policing does
not equal public safety,
that communities that
are most heavily policed
are, in fact, the most at
risk and the most harmed.
So I don’t believe that we can
reform the police department.
I think we need
to transform it.
And I think that
that means divesting
from the department
in the way that it is,
investing in the
services that we need
and then
fundamentally transforming
the way the department
operates in our communities.
So the first thing
I’ve called for
is the creation of a community
first responders department
because we know that
so many of the calls
that N.Y.P.D. responds to
are not crimes in
progress, they’re
social issues
related to housing,
related to mental health,
related to substance abuse.
A community first
responders department
would be staffed by people
who are trained and skilled
at intervention
and de-escalation,
and then would be
able to connect
these people to a larger
ecosystem of social services
and human services
so that we can break
the cycle of the conditions
that result in them being
in need in the first place.”
“Does that mean abolish?”
“I don’t think we can move
to abolishing right now.
I think that’s a
longer-term goal.
You know, I understand
that for many people
in our communities, policing
does equal public safety
or there is that
misunderstanding
about that despite the
reality and the statistics.
So I know that it’s going
to take time for people
to really move away
from the sort
of mental understanding
that in order to be safe,
we need to be policed.
But I think that as we
begin to provide folks
with the services and the
supports that they need,
it’ll become an easier
reality for us to accomplish.
So the first thing
I think that we
need to do in order to
help New York City recover
is to prioritize
saving people’s lives.
I think that means
that we still
need to make sure that we
are investing in security
so that those people
that are still at risk
can stay home safely.
Until we do that, we
can’t begin to recover.
The next thing I think
that we need to do
is to make sure
that those the rest of us
rely on to keep the
city operating have
the protections
that they need,
whether that be through P.P.E.
or access to the vaccine.
And then we can talk
about and move
towards economic recovery,
which I think really
needs to focus
on and prioritize
our local, small and
mid-sized businesses first.
This is an opportunity for us
to transform how we operate
and move away from
an overreliance
on large corporations that
come into our communities,
exploit our labor and
extract our wealth,
and rebuild by focusing on
those who own
businesses locally.”
“Would you accept
an endorsement
from Governor Cuomo?”
“No — do you want me
to expound on that?
No, I mean, I was the
first mayoral candidate
to call for his impeachment.
I think he has abused his
power for far too long.
And I think he’s
also not been, not
held the best interest of
New Yorkers as a priority.
I’m not interested
in being endorsed
by someone whose leadership
I do not respect and
whose leadership,
I believe, has lacked in
dignity and integrity.”
“What is the single,
most important step
the next mayor can
take to make up
for educational losses
during the pandemic?”
“This focus on educational
loss in our Black
and brown communities
is one that
continues to compound
the harm that’s
being done to our children.
Our schools are the
most segregated schools
in the country and the
most under-resourced.
We need to prioritize, first,
making sure our schools get
the funding that they need.
And then we need to make sure
that our children, that we’re
creating environments
in our schools
where our children
feel loved because you
can’t learn in a space
where you don’t feel loved.
That includes
things like ensuring
that we have a culturally
responsive curriculum.
It includes things
like ensuring
that our teachers are
reflective of the students
that they’re
intended to serve.
It also includes things
like removing barriers
to access, which for so long
have continued to perpetuate
inequities and disparities
in terms of the schools
that our children
have access to.”
“Do you support
year-round school?”
“I think that we need to
move away from the agrarian
calendar and adopt a
year-round calendar that
enables us to stagger our
students in the
school system.
This would address the
overcrowding issue.
It would address
the ability for us
to really have
smaller classrooms.”
“Whom did you support in the 2020
presidential primary and why?”
“I supported Elizabeth Warren
in the primary, both
because I was a supporter
of her ideas and her vision,
and because I was really
appreciative of the role
that she gave Black women
and Black women’s voices
in her campaign
and her candidacy.
And she was a woman.
And I think it’s time
for us to actually
have a different
kind of leadership,
not just at the local
level in New York City,
but at the federal
level as well.”
“What is your main
priority for the city when
it comes to climate change?”
“I think we need to adopt a
Green New Deal for
New York City, that
includes the creation
of a public infrastructure
program that would actually
employ tens of
thousands of New Yorkers
in doing the work
that we need to do.
So that we are actually ready
for the storms in the future.
So that we are a
green city, so that we
are reducing emissions
and actually moving
towards clean energy.
We need to invest
in the future,
and we need to do that now.
This is not a time for
us to cry austerity.
This is a time for us
to rebuild our economy
and get ready for the
future that is coming
no matter what.”
“What is the key to improving
public transportation?
Would you focus more on
modernizing the subway
or expanding bus-only lanes?”
“There’s a lot of
room for improvement
in our public transportation
system here in New York City.
I believe in the idea of
starting with the things
that we can control first.
And given that we have
more influence and impact
on the busways, I think that
that would be the right place
for us to start, while at the
same time taking on Albany so
that we can get the funding
that we need in order
to improve our subway system
and make the infrastructure
improvements that we
need for our system,
including the creation of a
public works infrastructure
program that would employ
New Yorkers in actually doing
that work for us.”
“What is your favorite
New York City restaurant?”
“My favorite
New York City restaurant
is a little hole in the wall
in Fort Greene called Dino’s.”
“Your favorite bagel order?”
“My favorite bagel order is an
everything bagel with
cream cheese
and lots of lox.”
“Favorite sports team?”
“Favorite sports team —
this gets
me all the time.
I always say the Knicks.
I’m supposed to say the Nets.
It’s the Knicks.”
“Your favorite
New York City park?”
“My favorite New York City
park is probably
Prospect Park.”
“And your favorite
Broadway show?”
“My favorite Broadway
show, ‘Hamilton.’”
“Mayor de Blasio
has been criticized
for his late-morning
workouts at the Park Slope Y.
What is your
fitness routine,
and would that change
at all as mayor?”
“Fitness routine.
What fitness routine?
I’m running for mayor.
Before the pandemic,
I have a sort of teacher.
Her name is Patricia Moreno.
She teaches a class
called ‘intenSati.’
She’s doing it on
Zoom these days,
but I just haven’t
been able to make it.
‘IntenSati’ is actually a
really cool combination
of sort of spiritual
affirmations, cardio,
kickboxing and yoga.
It absolutely
changed my life.
And both increased my
level of self-confidence
and also helped me get into
the best shape I’ve ever
been in my life, which
is not right now.”
“Since voters can
rank up to five
candidates on the ballot,
whom would you pick
as your second choice?”
“There’s a lot of
daylight between me
and the rest of
the candidates,
so it’s really
hard to identify
at this point in
time how I would
rank the rest of my ballot.
I’m looking forward
to seeing the impact
that my candidacy has on
other people’s messages.”
“Then no second choice today?”
“No second choice today.” More