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      How to Watch the N.Y.C. Mayoral Debate

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      The first debate, featuring eight candidates, takes place Thursday night from 7 to 9 p.m. The first official debate between eight major Democratic candidates for mayor of New York City takes place Thursday night from 7 to 9 p.m. There are less than six weeks left until the June 22 primary election, and the race is arguably the most consequential New York City election in decades. The candidates — who will face off virtually in the first debate but are expected to be in person for later ones — are Eric Adams, Shaun Donovan, Kathryn Garcia, Raymond J. McGuire, Dianne Morales, Scott M. Stringer, Maya Wiley and Andrew Yang.Here are some of the ways you can watch and follow the debate:Reporters from The New York Times will provide commentary and analysis throughout the evening.The debate will be televised on Spectrum News NY1 and the Spanish-language channel Spectrum Noticias NY1. Those outlets will also livestream the debate on their websites and through their Facebook pages.The public radio station WNYC will stream the debate on 93.9 FM and AM 820. Listeners can also tune in on the station’s website.Other streams are expected to be available on YouTube. More

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      N.Y.C. Mayoral Candidates Prepare to Face Off in Debate

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      The two-hour debate is unfolding in a moment of economic uncertainty for New York City, and against a backdrop of a spike in gun violence.For many months, the most consequential New York City mayor’s race in a generation has been overshadowed by a pandemic, upheaval in Washington and political burnout in the aftermath of the presidential election.Now, the mayoral candidates are racing to take advantage of what they hope will be their turn in the spotlight.On Thursday, with less than six weeks before the June 22 Democratic primary that is likely to determine the next mayor, eight Democratic contenders will have their most significant opportunity yet to introduce themselves and to capture voter attention, as they convene by video for the first of three official primary debates.The two-hour debate, co-hosted at 7 p.m. by Spectrum News NY1, is unfolding at an inflection point for a city, a period marked by both economic uncertainty and the reopening of businesses, a spike in gun violence and a surge of hope around vaccinations. The election will play a crucial role in determining whether the city retains its standing as a cultural and financial capital of the world in the pandemic’s aftermath.In many ways, the race is unsettled. Left-wing activists and voters who have been decisive in other recent New York races are divided over how to wield their influence, after the city comptroller, Scott M. Stringer — a leading progressive candidate — was accused of sexual assault. He denied the allegation, but it sapped his momentum, and many high-profile endorsers have dropped their support for him.The city comptroller, Scott Stringer, is struggling to hold onto progressive support after a sexual-abuse allegation from 20 years ago hurt his campaign.Sarah Blesener for The New York TimesSparse public polling suggests that Andrew Yang, the former presidential candidate, and Eric Adams, the Brooklyn borough president, are the top-tier contenders, with other candidates strategizing around how to cut into their leads.For the rest of the field, time is running short to break out of the pack, and the debate represents the best chance yet to communicate with voters who are just beginning to tune in.“The debate is very important because it gives voters the opportunity to really compare and contrast, to get a sense of all of us next to each other,” said Kathryn Garcia, the former city sanitation commissioner who has been one of the lower-polling candidates, but has attracted fresh interest from some Democrats following an endorsement from The New York Times editorial board.The virtual format may limit opportunities for fireworks and breakout moments, but candidates have nevertheless been preparing for this moment for weeks, poring over policy briefings, huddling with advisers over video chats and in person and doing full-on mock debates.Mr. Yang, who is experienced on the presidential debate stage but new to the front-runner’s spotlight, has participated in mock debate sessions with several high-profile stand-ins, as his team braces for an onslaught of attacks.A former mayoral rival, Carlos Menchaca, a city councilman who has endorsed Mr. Yang, has played Dianne Morales, the left-wing former nonprofit executive; Representative Ritchie Torres, a New York Democrat, has played Mr. Adams; Assemblyman Daniel Rosenthal of Queens has been a stand-in for Mr. Stringer; and Sasha Ahuja, Mr. Yang’s co-campaign manager, has played Maya D. Wiley, according to someone familiar with Mr. Yang’s debate preparations.Mr. Yang will take the virtual stage as he deals with controversy tied to a statement he made this week of unqualified support for Israel, remarks he sought to modulate on Wednesday amid an outcry on the left and pushback from some of his own volunteers and staff.For Mr. Yang, who has generally led the available polls since he entered the race in January, the debate will test his ability to weather the kind of sustained scrutiny that he never faced onstage as a low-polling presidential candidate, and his opponents have already previewed attacks on his experience and his ties to the city’s civic fabric.Eric Adams, the Brooklyn borough president, is thought to be one of two front-runners in the New York City mayor’s race.Elizabeth D. Herman for The New York TimesMr. Adams has held mock debates, too, with advisers playing the role of his opponents and the moderator. As he has risen in some polls, a number of candidates have increasingly sought to draw overt contrasts with him, a dynamic that is likely to continue onstage, reflecting his standing in the race.Raymond J. McGuire, a former Citi executive, has practiced, with the help of a team of advisers, from his Upper West Side apartment. Ms. Garcia has been peppered with questions from staff members and consultants, “timing me and being like, ‘you’re over a minute, you’re under a minute,’” she said. Shaun Donovan, the former federal housing secretary, has sought to simulate as many of the debate conditions as possible, rehearsing over video in the evenings.“When the story of this campaign is written, this is going to be one of the first things regular voters ever heard about,” said Joshua Karp, a Donovan adviser who said he ran debate prep for Senator Jon Ossoff of Georgia and the Democratic National Committee chairman, Jaime Harrison, during Mr. Harrison’s South Carolina Senate bid.There is a debate planned for May 26 for the two Republican candidates, Curtis Sliwa, the founder of the Guardian Angels, and Fernando Mateo, a restaurant operator who has led or founded Hispanics Across America, the state Federation of Taxi Drivers and United Bodegas of America..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 debate among the eight Democratic candidates who met the threshold to participate will take place less than a week after a shooting in Times Square, and the contenders are almost certain to engage one another over matters of public safety and the power of the police.Mr. Adams, Mr. Yang and Mr. McGuire all rushed to Times Square in the aftermath of the shooting, speaking soberly about gun violence and crime, even as they have also stressed their support for reforming policing. Other more left-wing candidates have kept their focus more squarely on matters of police accountability. And on Tuesday, Ms. Garcia, Ms. Wiley and Mr. Donovan all held events discussing gun violence and policing.Mr. Adams, a former police officer who pushed to change Police Department policy from within the system, has made public safety a centerpiece of his campaign — the “prerequisite” to prosperity, he often says.In a sign of one possible line of interrogation to come, Mr. McGuire wrote on Twitter on Wednesday: “I guess my question for the cop-turned-career politicians is: in all that time, what have you done?”Then there is the contest for the left wing of the party.Mr. Stringer had appeared on the cusp of coalescing progressive organizations and leaders around his campaign until about two weeks ago, when Jean Kim, an unpaid worker on his 2001 public advocate race, came forward with allegations of unwanted sexual advances. Mr. Stringer has strongly denied the allegations, but the accusation threw Mr. Stringer’s campaign into turmoil. Many of his most high-profile left-wing endorsers, who had been a central part of Mr. Stringer’s pitch, abandoned him, despite seeing him as the most viable of the left-leaning contenders.The controversy surrounding Mr. Stringer has given room for other left-leaning candidates like Maya Wiley, center, and Dianne Morales.Sarah Blesener for The New York TimesThe Working Families Party, which had supported Mr. Stringer as its first choice, is now backing Ms. Morales and Ms. Wiley. Some on the left have also made joint endorsements, while others will be watching the debate closely to decide whether to do a joint endorsement, to elevate one contender over the other in a ranked-choice endorsement or to sit out the endorsement process entirely.“You have a splintering of support among the people who would otherwise maybe coalesce around a single candidate,” said Susan Kang, a steering committee member of the New York City chapter of the Democratic Socialists. “It seems, to me, very fractured.”Mr. Stringer, however, is a well-funded candidate and an experienced debater who is receiving both political backing and air cover from powerful teachers’ unions and may continue to hold onto his Upper West Side base despite losing prominent left-wing endorsers.“One of the things I think will be clear in this debate is, we cannot have a mayoralty on training wheels when we’re in our biggest challenge,” Mr. Stringer said on Wednesday.As for his debate preparations?“Top secret,” he said. 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      Elizabeth Warren Grapples With Presidential Loss in New Book

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      In “Persist,” the Massachusetts senator delves into gender issues and her own shortcomings after her failed bid for the Democratic nomination.The question came at a campaign cattle call in April 2019, just a few months after Elizabeth Warren announced her presidential bid: How would she address “the urge to flee to the safety of a white male candidate?”After a question-and-answer session spent presenting her plans to address maternal mortality, criminal justice, housing, redlining and tribal sovereignty, that remark came as “a big bucket of cold water,” Ms. Warren, the Massachusetts senator, writes in a new memoir about her failed campaign.“We all knew the fear she was talking about,” she writes. “Could we — should we — support a woman?”Her book, “Persist,” addresses Ms. Warren’s effort to grapple with that question. Obtained by The New York Times before its release next week, it offers a peek into Ms. Warren’s personal view of her loss — a defeat she largely blames on a failure to explain how she would pay for her health care plan, the established following of Senator Bernie Sanders, the name recognition of Joseph R. Biden Jr. — and her own shortcomings.“There’s always another possibility, a much more painful one,” she writes. “In this moment, against this president, in this field of candidates, maybe I just wasn’t good enough to reassure the voters, to bring along the doubters, to embolden the hopeful.”Ms. Warren is determined not to wallow in her defeat, focusing most of the book on her policy prescriptions, some of which have been adopted by the new Biden administration. She offers reflections on the racial justice protests that roiled the country after the primary, devoting a significant portion of a chapter on race to her decision to identify as Native American earlier in her career — a “bad mistake,” she says. And she writes a moving tribute to her oldest brother, Don Reed Herring, attributing his death from the coronavirus last year to a failure of government.“This book is not a campaign memoir,” she writes. “It is not a rehash of big public events. It’s a book about the fight that lies ahead.”Yet, frank discussion of her gender — and the obstacles it poses — runs throughout the 304-page book. Though she never attributes sexism directly for her loss, she provides plenty of evidence that it remained a serious factor in the race. Stories of discrimination against women run throughout her book, as she recounts the struggles of her own career trajectory and offers prescriptions for changes like paid leave and affordable child care.Again and again, Ms. Warren suggests that Democratic voters were wary of nominating a second woman, fearing another defeat to Donald J. Trump. She “had to run against the shadows of Martha and Hillary,” she writes, a reference to Martha Coakley, who lost two statewide campaigns in Massachusetts, and Hillary Clinton.While Ms. Warren expected to face some sexism, she details in the book, her plan was simply to outwork those expectations with a strong team, vibrant grass roots organizing and plenty of policy plans.“I would do more,” she says. “I would fill up every space with ideas and energy and optimism. I would hope that my being a woman wouldn’t matter so much.”That idea collided with the reality of the contest fairly quickly. When calling donors early in her campaign, Ms. Warren was taken aback by the number of times potential supporters mentioned Mrs. Clinton’s defeat.Publisher: Metropolitan Books“I wondered whether anyone said to Bernie Sanders when he asked for their support, ‘Gore lost, so how can you win?’ I wondered whether anyone said to Joe Biden, ‘Kerry lost, so clearly America just isn’t ready for a man to be president,’” she recounts thinking as she lay in bed after her first day spent raising money for her presidential bid. “I tried to laugh, but the joke didn’t seem very funny.”After being passed over as vice president and Treasury secretary, Ms. Warren has kept a lower-profile in recent months, preferring to exert her influence through private conversations with the White House. Her top aides have been tapped for powerful posts throughout the administration and Democratic National Committee.She offers praise for Mr. Biden — “a good leader and fundamentally decent man” — and most of her former rivals throughout the book. A dust-up with Mr. Sanders — “fearless and determined” — over whether he told her in a private 2018 meeting that a woman could not defeat Mr. Trump is largely ignored.But one former opponent gets far more withering treatment. Ms. Warren spends several pages detailing her determination to take down Michael R. Bloomberg, the former New York City mayor, in a February 2020 debate, saying she believed his decision to spend nearly a billion dollars of his personal fortune to skip the early primaries “undermined our democracy” by essentially handing the nomination to the richest man.Ms. Warren describes herself as “stunned” when Mr. Bloomberg ignored her early attacks: “Like so many women in so many settings, I found myself wondering if he had even heard me,” she writes.Her debate performance was largely credited with ending Mr. Bloomberg’s bid. But Ms. Warren can’t resist mentioning an “an unexpected kick” in response to her attacks — a comment that she was too “mean and angry.”“And there it was, the same damn remark made about every woman who ever stood up for herself and threw a punch,” she writes. “Repeat after me: fighting hard is ‘not a good look.’” More

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      Yang Lands Last Place on Ballot: 5 Takeaways From the Mayor’s Race

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      The ballot order for the June 22 New York mayoral primary was decided by lottery, not alphabetical order, but Andrew Yang will still appear last.Much of the focus in the New York City mayoral race has been given to the eight best-known Democratic candidates, who lead in fund-raising and in early polling. But on the June 22 primary ballot, none of the eight will appear at the top; that honor will go to a more obscure candidate.For Republican voters, the ballot will be far less involved: There will only be two candidates, after a third dropped out of the race last week.The contest, after months of being largely conducted virtually through online forums and fund-raisers, has shifted to a more normal pace, with candidates hitting the campaign trail in earnest last week. But they can’t put away their laptops just yet — they would risk missing the next big televised debate in May.Here’s what you need to know about the race:12 Democrats will appear on the ballot. Who is first?In a crowded field, being at the top of the ballot could arguably be an advantage, and with a dozen Democrats in the mayor’s race, it is almost certainly better to be first than last.That theory may be tested this year: Aaron Foldenauer, one of the least-known Democrats running for mayor, won top billing in the Board of Elections lottery last week.A lawyer who ran unsuccessfully for City Council in Lower Manhattan in 2017, Mr. Foldenauer celebrated the news, tweaking Andrew Yang, who got the last spot.“I’m first on the ballot for mayor, Andrew Yang, and I had to look quite far down the list to find your name!” he said on Twitter.Mr. Yang, considered the current front-runner in the race, responded to his bad fortune with a smiley face: “This feels like grade school where I was always last alphabetically.”Here is the full lineup for Democrats, from top to bottom: Mr. Foldenauer; Dianne Morales, a former nonprofit executive; Scott M. Stringer, the city comptroller; Raymond J. McGuire, a former Wall Street executive; Maya Wiley, the former counsel to Mayor Bill de Blasio; Paperboy Prince, a rapper; Art Chang, a former executive at JPMorgan Chase; Kathryn Garcia, the city’s former sanitation commissioner; Eric Adams, the Brooklyn borough president; Isaac Wright Jr., a lawyer who was wrongfully convicted on drug charges; Shaun Donovan, the former federal housing secretary; and Mr. Yang.On the Republican side, there are just two names: Curtis Sliwa, the founder of the Guardian Angels, who is listed first, and Fernando Mateo, a restaurant operator who has led or founded Hispanics Across America, the state Federation of Taxi Drivers and United Bodegas of America.The only female Republican candidate exits the race.Sara Tirschwell dropped out of the Republican mayoral race after failing to get a sufficient number of petition signatures.Kholood Eid for The New York TimesSara Tirschwell, a former Wall Street executive and the only female candidate in the Republican field, ended her campaign last week after failing to gather enough signatures to make the ballot.“The common wisdom is that the Democratic primary is the de facto election, and that is going to turn out to be true without me in the race,” she said in an interview. “I truly believe that I was the only chance the Republican Party had in the general election.”She said that Mr. Yang, Mr. Adams or Ms. Wiley would be likely to win the Democratic primary and become the next mayor. And she offered to put her “financial acumen” to use for any of them.“I would serve in anybody’s administration — Republican or Democrat — except for Fernando Mateo,” she said, blaming one of Mr. Mateo’s allies for challenging her petitions during a pandemic.Her biggest lesson from the campaign? New Yorkers, she said, want city government to “get back to the basics — picking up the trash and filling potholes.”Ms. Tirschwell said she planned to vote for Mr. Sliwa, who had defended her and had said Mr. Mateo “should call off his henchmen and stop intimidating” her.The first major debate will not be in person.Maya Wiley called for three debates to be held in person.Gabriela Bhaskar for The New York TimesAs the mayor’s race grows increasingly contentious, a number of the campaigns found agreement around one idea last week: A series of official debates should be held in person.“This election will decide what kind of city we want to be and doing the debates on just another Zoom is not going to cut it,” Ms. Wiley wrote on Twitter as she called for the three primary debates affiliated with the city’s Campaign Finance Board to be held in person. “When I am mayor, I won’t be in a box on a screen, I will be out with New Yorkers and our debates should be the same.”Nearly instantly, many of the leading candidates and campaigns agreed. Many hope to engage with each other directly — and in person — in the homestretch of the race and see the upcoming debates as one of the few opportunities for breakout moments in the contest.But as of now, the first debate, scheduled for next month, is not expected to be held in person, a spokesman for the Campaign Finance Board said.“With the first debate on May 13 less than a month away, and more than 2,000 Covid-19 cases reported daily in New York City, an in-person debate is not possible at this time,” said Matt Sollars, a spokesman for the board.He added: “The board and our co-sponsors share the view that the best debates are in-person debates” and left that possibility open for future debates.“We have a history of holding debates in front of large, live audiences,” he said. “We are confident that the 2021 mayoral debates will match or exceed the quality of those events and allow city voters to learn about and compare the candidates.”Will Stringer’s big endorsement translate into votes?The Working Families Party endorsed Scott Stringer as its first choice.Benjamin Norman for The New York TimesLeft-wing activists and leaders are growing increasingly worried as they contemplate the staying power of Mr. Yang, the former presidential candidate who embraces some progressive positions but is undoubtedly one of the more moderate contenders in the mayoral field.One major open question, though, is whether left-wing voters can coalesce around a candidate or slate of candidates to stop Mr. Yang’s momentum.The Working Families Party last week moved toward trying to facilitate a unified progressive front by issuing a ranked-choice endorsement: Mr. Stringer was endorsed as the party’s first choice, followed by Ms. Morales, the most left-wing candidate in the race, and Ms. Wiley.After months of struggling to break through the crowded mayoral field — and often being drowned out by Mr. Yang — Mr. Stringer received a dose of energy from the endorsement. But he already had the backing of many prominent progressives. His task is to turn those endorsements into enthusiasm on the ground.Some Democrats hope that if left-wing voters list the three Working Families-backed candidates first on their ballot, in any order, then one could come out on top under ranked-choice voting.That’s what Chas Stewart, a 30-year-old teacher, plans to do. He favors Ms. Morales first, then Mr. Stringer and Ms. Wiley.“It appears that her politics align most closely with mine,” he said of Ms. Morales, “especially regarding reining in the N.Y.P.D., and what else is the point of ranked-choice voting if I can’t rank that person No. 1?”Viral Yang video creates opening for opponentsMs. Wiley called Andrew Yang’s behavior “unacceptable.” Mr. Stringer released a statement from several women calling Mr. Yang’s behavior “disqualifying for someone who is seeking to be mayor of New York.”What led to their denunciations?In an encounter outside a comedy club captured on video and then broadcast on Twitter and TikTok, a comic, Lawrence Reese, asked Mr. Yang if a man could keep his Timberland boots on while having sex with women, using a coarse word for sex and a derogatory word for women.Mr. Yang patted Mr. Reese’s shoulder and suggested that “if your partner is cool with it,” that was fine. Then Mr. Reese asked if Mr. Yang choked women, again using the derogatory word for women. Mr. Yang laughed — too uproariously, his critics say — indicated that the conversation was over and walked away.Mr. Yang’s reaction — that laugh — created an immediate opening for his opponents, who have been eager to highlight his every gaffe as they look for ways to gain traction in the race.Ms. Wiley held a news conference condemning his behavior that featured the local president of the National Organization for Women, and Mr. Stringer’s allies tied Mr. Yang’s response to the allegations of “bro” culture that trailed his presidential campaign.Mr. Reese, who said he has no horse in this year’s mayoral race, suggested that Mr. Yang’s critics were just playing politics.“His opponents are going to go against him in any way they can,” he said.The 25-year-old comedian said he was merely performing one of his regular bits, where he asks people on the street random questions about their lives. In his own remarks, Mr. Yang suggested that his laugh expressed how shocked he was, and that he shut the discussion down as quickly as he could. He noted that his wife was the victim of sexual abuse.But that was not enough for some critics.Mr. Yang “should have been straight-faced and unequivocal in his reproach,” Charlotte Bennett, who has accused Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo of sexual harassment, wrote in an op-ed on Saturday. “Failing that, even a simple ‘That’s not funny’ would have sufficed.” More

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      Justin Fairfax Accuses Terry McAuliffe of Treating Him Like Emmett Till

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      At a debate for Virginia governor, Mr. Fairfax, the state’s lieutenant governor, denounced Mr. McAuliffe for urging him to resign after women accused Mr. Fairfax of sexual assault in 2019.Terry McAuliffe, the leading candidate in this year’s Democratic primary for Virginia governor, faced a flurry of attacks from his rivals at a debate on Tuesday night as they aimed to diminish his broad support from Black voters. In the most extraordinary broadside, the state’s Black lieutenant governor, Justin Fairfax, accused Mr. McAuliffe of treating him like George Floyd or Emmett Till after Mr. Fairfax was accused of sexual assault by two women in 2019.Mr. McAuliffe, a white former governor of the state who has the backing of many of the state’s top Black elected officials, issued a public call that year for Mr. Fairfax to resign.Mr. Fairfax’s remarks on Tuesday — in which he compared himself to two Black people killed in episodes of white violence — were the most pointed attempt by one of the three Black candidates in the race to draw a racial distinction between them and Mr. McAuliffe, who is aiming to reclaim the office he held from 2014 to 2018.The accusation came at the end of the debate, the first for the five Virginia Democrats running for governor. Responding to a question asking the candidates to envision the future of law enforcement in Virginia, Mr. Fairfax said theoretical descriptions were unnecessary because he was a living embodiment of the harm that false accusations and a rush to judgment can produce.“Everyone here on this stage called for my immediate resignation, including Terry McAuliffe three minutes after a press release came out,” Mr. Fairfax said. “He treated me like George Floyd, he treated me like Emmett Till, no due process, immediately assumed my guilt. I have a son and I have a daughter, and I don’t want my daughter to be assaulted, I don’t want my son to be falsely accused. And this is the real world that we live in. And so we need to speak truth to power and we need to be very clear about how that impacts people’s lives.”Mr. McAuliffe did not respond to Mr. Fairfax on the debate stage. His spokesman declined to address the remarks.In February 2019, amid a concurrent scandal involving a medical school yearbook photograph of Gov. Ralph Northam in blackface, two women accused Mr. Fairfax of sexually assaulting them in separate episodes — allegations that Mr. Fairfax has always denied. Mr. Fairfax faced a torrent of calls for his resignation. Weeks later, in a speech on the floor of the Virginia Senate, he compared himself to lynching victims.Mr. Fairfax was not the only candidate on Tuesday night to try to cleave Black voters from Mr. McAuliffe. The scant public polling of the race has found Mr. McAuliffe holding sizable leads over his four opponents, and no survey has shown him with less than a two-to-one advantage over his closest rival.Jennifer McClellan, a state senator who is running for governor, accused Mr. McAuliffe of underfunding the state’s parole system, cutting deals with the National Rifle Association during his term as governor and being a late advocate for racial justice.“Racial justice is about more than criminal justice reform,” said Ms. McClellan, who is Black. “It is embedded in every system we have in government, and I did not need George Floyd’s murder or the Unite the Right rally to teach me that.”Mr. McAuliffe, during his turns to speak, emphasized his relationships with Mr. Northam and President Biden, two Democrats who both owe their offices to strong relationships with and support from Black voters. He highlighted his move to restore the voting rights of 206,000 felons in the state and said every police officer in the state should wear a body camera “so we can see what’s going on.”“Thank goodness we had all those individuals there who had those cellphones when George Floyd was murdered,” he said.Mr. McAuliffe barely mentioned his rivals during the debate, except to remind the audience that Ms. McClellan was a frequent partner of his when he was governor. But Mr. Fairfax, by the debate’s end, sought to define himself as the chief rival to the loquacious former governor.“There appears to be two sets of rules up here, one where the governor can talk as long as he wants to and do whatever he wants, and one for everybody else,” Mr. Fairfax said. “I think that’s part of the issue, that we do have so many disparities in our society.” More

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      I’m Not Actually Interested in Mitch McConnell’s Hypocrisy

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      AdvertisementContinue reading the main storyOpinionSupported byContinue reading the main storyI’m Not Actually Interested in Mitch McConnell’s HypocrisyTo make his case for the filibuster, he has essentially rewritten the history of the Senate.Opinion ColumnistJan. 29, 2021Credit…Erin Schaff/The New York TimesOn Tuesday, Mitch McConnell, now the Senate minority leader, spoke in defense of the legislative filibuster.“When it comes to lawmaking, the framers’ vision and our history are clear. The Senate exists to require deliberation and cooperation,” McConnell declared. “James Madison said the Senate’s job was to provide a ‘complicated check’ against ‘improper acts of legislation.’ We ensure that laws earn enough buy-in to receive the lasting consent of the governed. We stop bad ideas, improve good ideas and keep laws from swinging wildly with every election.”He went on: “More than any other feature, it is the Senate’s 60-vote threshold to end debate on legislation that achieves this.”It’s hard to take any of this seriously. None of McConnell’s stated concern for the “lasting consent of the governed” was on display when Senate Republicans, under his leadership, tried to repeal the Affordable Care Act by majority vote. Nor was there any interest in “deliberation and cooperation” when Republicans wanted a new round of corporate and upper-income tax cuts.If anything, the filibuster stymies that deliberation and cooperation by destroying the will to legislate at all. It makes bipartisanship less likely by erasing any incentive to build novel coalitions for particular issues. If, under the filibuster, there’s no difference between 51 votes for immigration reform and 56 votes (or even 59), then what’s the point of even trying? Why reach out to the other side if there’s almost no way you’ll reach the threshold to take action? And on the other side, why tinker with legislation if you know it’s not going to pass? When there’s no reason to do otherwise, why not act as a rigid, unyielding partisan?It’s obvious that McConnell’s commitment to the filibuster is instrumental. The filibuster on executive branch nominations of appointees and federal judges was sacred — he condemned the Democrats’ use of the “nuclear option” to get rid of it in 2013 — until President Trump needed Neil Gorsuch on the Supreme Court and then it was bye-bye to the filibuster for Supreme Court nominees that McConnell’s predecessor as Senate majority leader, Harry Reid, had left intact. If the reconciliation process didn’t exist, and Republicans needed 60 votes for upper-income tax cuts, there’s almost no doubt McConnell would have killed the legislative filibuster in 2017, for the sake of his party’s signature priority.I’m not actually that interested in McConnell’s hypocrisy. I’m interested in his history. To make his case for the indispensable importance of the legislative filibuster, McConnell has essentially rewritten the history of the Senate. He has to create a new narrative to serve his current interests.The truth is that the filibuster was an accident; an extra-constitutional innovation that lay dormant for a generation after its unintentional creation during the Jefferson administration. For most of the Senate’s history after the Civil War, filibusters were rare, deployed as the Southern weapon of choice against civil rights legislation, and an occasional tool of partisan obstruction.Far from necessary, the filibuster is extraneous. Everything it is said to encourage — debate, deliberation, consensus building — is already accomplished by the structure of the chamber itself, insofar as it happens at all.In the form it takes today, the filibuster doesn’t make the Senate work the way the framers intended. Instead, it makes the Senate a nearly insurmountable obstacle to most legislative business. And that, in turn, has made Congress inert and dysfunctional to the point of disrupting the constitutional balance of power. Legislation that deserves a debate never reaches the floor; coalitions that could form never get off the ground.In quoting Madison, McConnell frames the filibuster as part of our constitutional inheritance. It is not. The filibuster isn’t in the Constitution. The Senate, like the House of Representatives, was meant to run on majority rule.Remember, the framers had direct experience with supermajority government. Under the Articles of Confederation, each state had equal representation and it took a two-thirds vote of the states for Congress to exercise its enumerated powers. Without the consent of nine states (out of 13), Congress could not enter treaties, appropriate funds or borrow money. And the bar to amendment, unanimity, was even higher. The articles were such a disaster that, rather than try to amend them, a group of influential elites decided to scrap them altogether.For a taste of this frustration, read Alexander Hamilton in Federalist no. 22, which contains a fierce condemnation of supermajority rule as it was under the articles:The necessity of unanimity in public bodies, or of something approaching toward it, has been founded upon a supposition that it would contribute to security. But its real operation is to embarrass the administration, to destroy the energy of the government, and to substitute the pleasure, caprice, or artifices of an insignificant, turbulent, or corrupt junto, to the regular deliberations and decisions of a respectable majority.Hamilton is especially angry with the effect of the supermajority requirement on governance.In those emergencies of a nation, in which the goodness or badness, the weakness or strength of its government, is of the greatest importance, there is commonly a necessity for action. The public business must, in some way or other, go forward. If a pertinacious minority can control the opinion of a majority, respecting the best mode of conducting it, the majority, in order that something may be done, must conform to the views of the minority; and thus the sense of the smaller number will overrule that of the greater, and give a tone to the national proceedings. Hence, tedious delays; continual negotiation and intrigue; contemptible compromises of the public good.Delegates to the constitutional convention considered and rejected supermajority requirements for navigation acts (concerning ships and shipping), regulation of interstate commerce and the raising of armies. Majorities would have the final say everywhere except for treaties, amendments and conviction in an impeachment trial.To make the Senate slow-moving and deliberative, the framers would not raise barriers to action so much as they would insulate the body from short-term democratic accountability. That meant indirect election by state legislatures, staggered terms of six years and a small membership of two senators per state. And at ratification, that is where the Senate stood: a self-consciously aristocratic body meant to check the House of Representatives and oversee the executive branch, confirming its appointments and ratifying its foreign agreements.The filibuster doesn’t enter the picture until years later, as an accident of parliamentary bookkeeping. In 1806, on the advice of Vice President Aaron Burr (who thought it redundant), the Senate dropped the “previous question” — a motion to end debate and bring an item up for immediate vote — from its rules. Without a motion to call the previous question, however, an individual senator could, in theory, hold the floor indefinitely.It took 31 years for someone to actually do it. The first known filibuster took place in 1837, when several Whig senators tried unsuccessfully to block a Democratic bill to reverse an 1834 censure of President Andrew Jackson and expunge it from the congressional record. Even then, the filibuster was not widely used until the second half of the 19th century, as the parties, and thus the Senate, grew more polarized along party lines.The filibuster as we understand it developed in the 20th century. In 1917, President Woodrow Wilson called on Senate Democrats to reform the filibuster as a war measure after Republicans successfully filibustered a bill to arm merchant ships. Democrats obliged and created a “cloture” rule to end debate with a two-thirds vote of the chamber. In 1975, the Senate reduced that threshold from two-thirds to three-fifths, or 60 votes in a 100-member body.Throughout this time, filibusters were uncommon. It was perfectly possible for the Senate to debate, deliberate and come to consensus without the supermajority requirement McConnell and the Republican caucus have imposed on virtually all legislation since 2009.The point of comparison for the Senate as McConnell has shaped it is the middle of the 20th century, when a conservative coalition of Republicans and Dixiecrats made the chamber a graveyard of liberal legislation and social reform. Consensus didn’t matter. Power did. And it wasn’t until liberals wrested power from this coalition — in the House as well as the Senate — that they could take the initiative and begin work on an otherwise popular agenda.There is no question the Senate is supposed to be slow, even sluggish. But it’s not supposed to be an endless bottleneck. The framers wanted stability in government, not stagnation. What we have now, with the filibuster intact, is a Senate that can barely move.This isn’t just a problem for President Biden and the Democratic Party; it’s a problem for the entire constitutional order. Our system is built around Congress; Congress makes laws, Congress holds the purse strings, Congress hands out mandates, Congress checks the president and makes sure the judiciary stays in its lane.When Congress doesn’t act, other actors take up the slack. The story of our democracy these last 10 years is, in part, the story of how a listless, sclerotic Senate broke Congress and pushed the other branches to govern in its stead, with the president and the courts making as much policy as they can without congressional input, with all the capriciousness, whiplash and uncertainty that can come from that.If you don’t like presidents governing through executive order, then you should want an active, energetic Congress that embraces its constitutional mandate to rule over the whole country and direct its government. If you want that, you should oppose the filibuster.The Times is committed to publishing a diversity of letters to the editor. We’d like to hear what you think about this or any of our articles. Here are some tips. And here’s our email: letters@nytimes.com.Follow The New York Times Opinion section on Facebook, Twitter (@NYTopinion) and Instagram.AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More

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      Does a Red Tie Immediately Scream ‘Donald Trump’ Now?

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      AdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyask vanessaDoes a Red Tie Immediately Scream ‘Donald Trump’ Now?Vanessa Friedman, fashion director of The New York Times, takes reader questions.Jan. 22, 2021, 5:00 p.m. ETWhen it’s time to head back to the office, and on the few days when I wear a suit and tie, I should retire my red ties, right, unless I want everyone to assume I am a Trump supporter? Is it possible for any man to wear a red tie now and not immediately call to mind the former president? — Ken, Newton, Mass.Though the death of the tie is declared regularly — especially given the pressures of both the long-term office-casual movement and our current working-from-home reality — Guy Trebay, our men’s wear critic, maintains that you should not count the accessory out quite yet. As he said, “even if we’re not wearing them much during lockdown, you don’t want to give up on an element of the wardrobe that’s been around for 400 years.”Ties can, after all, be used to signal “your club, your interests, whether you are a jokester, a brainiac or even a clown.” Not to mention, as you say, “political affiliation.”The question is whether the party dividing line between red and blue that has swept even the necktie into its maw will remain uppermost in everyone’s minds now that unity is the word of the moment (and purple the color). Given how central red ties were to President Trump’s uniform, it is natural to think that we may now have a Pavlovian response to the color. But the fact is, red ties were a wardrobe staple long before Mr. Trump got hold of them.Indeed, from the time presidential debates began being regularly televised in color in 1976 until 1988, both candidates wore red ties 14 out of 18 times; they were, essentially, considered less partisan than eye-catching and powerful. George W. Bush loved a red tie, but so, too, did Barack Obama. Though President Biden seems partial to blue, he wore red ties during the primary debates, and I am sure he will again. Unless, of course, he hews to the Mark Zuckerberg-Steve Jobs theory of dressing and settles on a specific uniform to wear every day.According to Richard Ford, a professor at Stanford Law School and the author of “Dress Codes: How the Laws of Fashion Made History” (out in February), the real signature of Mr. Trump’s ties is not the color, which is too generic for any single person to truly monopolize. “A red necktie paired with a white shirt and blue suit has always had an overly literal symbolism,” Mr. Ford said. “Red, white and blue, see? I’m patriotic!” Rather, the Trump ties are generally “tied to be way too long,” so they dangle a few inches below his belt.It’s the combination of shade and style that makes the statement of allegiance, not simply one or the other. That’s what you should keep in mind when getting dressed. Then go ahead: Tie one on.Your Style Questions, AnsweredEvery week on Open Thread, Vanessa will answer a reader’s fashion-related question, which you can send to her anytime via email or Twitter. Questions are edited and condensed.AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More

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      Myon Burrell Has Life Sentence Commuted by Minnesota

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