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    Liz Cheney and Lisa Murkowski Face Their Voters

    When elected leaders put party before country, Americans are diminished as a society: We grow cynical, we believe less, we vote less. Every so often, however, we witness a leader who takes a principled stand, at odds with the party leaders or supporters (or both) and ultimately against his or her own self-interest. In our era of partisan warfare, these principled acts amount to political bravery, and they are essential to democracy — helping replenish our belief in leadership and, in some cases, our trust in the rule of law being followed.These acts of political bravery are also a powerful reminder that the structural flaws in our political system lessen the incentive to be brave. Leaders who follow their principles risk alienating donors, party bosses and voters who may scream betrayal rather than seek a measure of understanding. When Senator Mitt Romney cast the sole Republican vote to convict President Donald Trump for abuse of power in his first impeachment trial, Republicans nationally and in Utah criticized the senator; his own niece, Ronna McDaniel, the chairwoman of the Republican National Committee, defended Mr. Trump and chided “Mitt.” When Mayor Jacob Frey of Minneapolis refused to commit to defunding the police amid a crowd of protesters after the murder of George Floyd, he was booed away, leaving to jeers of “Shame! Shame!”These examples of leadership — whether you agree with those positions or not — are important moments in the political life of a country. It’s worth taking note of them, at a time when they are under particularly fierce attack. It’s also worth noting that the stakes of the current moment are only going to require more of such acts, particularly among Republicans.On Tuesday, two Republicans, Representative Liz Cheney of Wyoming and Senator Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, will face primary challenges as they each seek another term in Congress. They are both running against opponents backed by Mr. Trump; indeed, their political fates are in question solely because they stood up to Mr. Trump when it would have been much safer and politically expedient not to.They are not unlike those Republicans who faced primary challenges and, in some cases, defeat in 1974 after supporting articles of impeachment against President Richard M. Nixon. And while circumstances differ, they also call to mind those Democrats who voted for the Affordable Care Act in 2010 and lost re-election that fall, or Gov. Gretchen Whitmer of Michigan, whose efforts to fight the Covid-19 pandemic made her a divisive figure. She, too, did not take the safe and politically expedient course; she became the target of an alleged kidnapping plot in 2020 and is being challenged for re-election this fall by a Trump-backed Republican.Ms. Cheney and Ms. Murkowski are, in fact, offering two models of political bravery at a time when straight, down-the-line party support is more and more common.Ms. Cheney’s model is that of a consistent conservative who, on a critical issue that has become a litmus test in the party, took the right stance — calling out Mr. Trump’s election lies and attempting to hold him accountable for subverting American democracy and fomenting the Jan. 6 attack. First she lost her House leadership position; now, as one of only two House Republicans to serve on the Jan. 6 committee, she is likely to lose on Tuesday to a Wyoming Republican championed by Mr. Trump. The former president is deep in the revenge business these days; she has a different purpose.While Ms. Cheney voted in line with Mr. Trump nearly 93 percent of the time, her commitment is to the rule of law, and her resolve to put country above party is clearly more important to her than blind loyalty. Whatever happens on Tuesday, history will remember Ms. Cheney for her principles just as it will Mr. Trump for his lack of them.Ms. Murkowski’s model is that of a more moderate pragmatist with a history of crossing the aisle on some crucial legislation and votes, against the drift of many Alaska Republicans. Ms. Murkowski did not go along with the party’s attempts to undo the Affordable Care Act, and she opposed the confirmation of Justice Brett Kavanaugh and supported confirmation of Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson. She also helped broker the $1 trillion bipartisan infrastructure bill last year.But it was her vote to convict Mr. Trump in his second impeachment trial that now has him seeking political payback. She was one of seven G.O.P. senators to find Mr. Trump guilty then; she is the first to face re-election. Her prospects are better than Ms. Cheney’s: She will compete in an open primary on Tuesday, with the top four finishers moving on to a November election that will use a ranked-choice voting system. Ms. Murkowski is still one of the most vulnerable Senate Republicans in this year’s elections, but Alaska’s system gives her a chance to be judged by all the voters there, rather than registered Republicans alone.Both models of political bravery bring to mind another Republican, Senator John McCain, with his thumbs-down vote in 2017 that helped preserve the Affordable Care Act, and with his bipartisan efforts on some policy issues, like immigration reform. And on the surface, Ms. Murkowski’s affinity for bipartisan coalitions — which annoys some on the right — is shared by two Democratic senators, Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema, which annoys some on the left. The duo are better known for stonewalling Democratic legislation than crossing the aisle to get legislation passed, but plenty of moderate Democrats and independents see them as taking a stand in defense of consensus and compromise (neither of which is politically in vogue these days).The positions of Ms. Cheney and Ms. Murkowski stand in sharp relief to so many of this season’s Republican candidates, who are launching scorched-earth attacks on Democrats as “liars” even as they continue to promote Mr. Trump’s Big Lie.Some MAGA Republicans like to pretend that they’re brave with shows of chest-beating, name-calling and machismo, and complaints about being persecuted by social media and the news media. But so much of this is political theater aimed at whipping up the Trump base, and none of it requires moral courage.Violence, like the violence unleashed during the Jan. 6 attack, is an ever-present and growing response to political bravery in our democracy. It was there at the Capitol that day; it was there in the hate aimed at John Lewis and his fellow marchers in Selma; it was present in the alleged kidnapping plot aimed at Ms. Whitmer; and it is present in the stream of death threats endured by politicians in both parties whenever they cross a line.There are few incentives for politicians to exhibit bravery today. In a recent Times Opinion focus group exploring instances of courage and bravery in politics, six of the 10 participants — including four independents and one who leans Republican — said they thought President Biden’s decision to withdraw troops from Afghanistan was politically brave. “There are a few of us here who are old enough to remember the withdrawal of troops from Vietnam and the similar way that it played out in Afghanistan,” one of the independents said. “But it was something that needed to be done. It was not popular, but it was very courageous.”Yet the chaos and bloodshed of the withdrawal are the first things that many Americans recall about it; future generations may recall Mr. Biden’s decision to remain steadfast in his decision, but in the immediate aftermath of the withdrawal, he faced severe public criticism and a sharp drop in his popularity.Barbara Lee, the veteran Democratic congresswoman from California, is familiar with this lack of incentives. In the days after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, she emerged as the sole voice in Congress to oppose the authorization of military force sought by the Bush administration as a means of responding to the cataclysmic events of that month. Ms. Lee recalled recently that her Democratic colleagues warned her at the time that the party couldn’t make military force a partisan issue in a moment of crisis. “I said we can’t do this, it’s overly broad and setting the stage for ‘forever war.’” And after she cast her nay in what would be a 420-to-1 vote, Ms. Lee recalled that her friends in the House “thought I was making a mistake, saying, ‘You are doing all this good work on H.I.V. and AIDS and foreign affairs; we don’t want to lose you.’”Some colleagues feared for her safety, others for her re-election, she said. “I got death threats — people’s shotgun shots into my voice mail,” Ms. Lee said. “The threats lasted for a long time. They don’t come as often, but I still get threats today.”Ms. Lee faced a primary challenger the following year but was re-elected. She sees a parallel between her experience and Ms. Cheney’s. “In a strong democracy, there is the right to dissent,” Ms. Lee said. “She is dissenting as I chose to.”Bravery alone is not enough to heal the nation’s partisan divisions. Timothy Naftali, a historian of the Nixon era, said he fears that the country is far more divided now than it was then. “We did not form a consensus about Trump after Jan. 6 like many Americans did in the summer of 1974 regarding Nixon’s abuses of power,” he said.And even the most courageous, principled stand may not change the minds of die-hard partisans, Mr. Naftali noted. Even after the months of work by Ms. Cheney and so many others on the Jan. 6 committee, some recent polls show that it hasn’t really changed public opinion about the former president.While Ms. Cheney appears likely to lose her primary on Tuesday, she is not sounding any regrets. “If the cost of standing up for the Constitution is losing the House seat,” she recently told The Times, “then that’s a price I’m willing to pay.” Democracy needs more profiles in courage like that.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. More

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    Schumer Backs Nadler Over Maloney in N.Y. Democratic Primary

    Senator Chuck Schumer, New York’s most powerful Democrat in Washington, will throw his support behind Representative Jerrold Nadler on Monday in a bruising Manhattan primary contest against the congressman’s longtime ally, Representative Carolyn Maloney.Mr. Schumer becomes the first member of the state’s congressional delegation to take a side in the Aug. 23 race, which pits two House committee chairs with three decades’ service against one another.Given his stature — both as the Senate majority leader and as a power broker in his home state — and the relative lack of input from fellow political leaders, Mr. Schumer’s last-minute endorsement could prove decisive for voters torn between two popular incumbents and clear the way for other prominent Democrats to enter the tussle.“New York has a lot of outstanding leaders, but few of them lead with the courage, conviction and brilliant legislative effectiveness of my friend, Jerry Nadler,” the senator said in a statement shared with The New York Times. “I’ve watched as time after time, Jerry — a critical partner of mine in the House — was right on the issues years before so many others.”Mr. Nadler and Ms. Maloney ended up in the same district after a state court tasked with reviewing New York’s congressional map approved a redistricting plan that combined Manhattan’s East and West Sides above 14th Street into a single district for the first time since before World War II.More Coverage of the 2022 Midterm ElectionsAbortion Ads: Since Roe v. Wade was overturned, Democrats have spent nearly eight times as much on abortion-related ads as Republicans have, with Democratic strategists believing the issue has radically reshaped the 2022 landscape in their party’s favor.Liz Cheney: If the G.O.P. congresswoman loses her upcoming primary, as is widely expected, it will end the run of the Cheney dynasty in Wyoming. But she says her crusade to stop Donald J. Trump will continue.Arizona Governor’s Race: Like other hard-right candidates this year, Kari Lake won her G.O.P. primary by running on election lies. But her polished delivery, honed through decades as a TV news anchor, have landed her in a category all her own.Climate, Health and Tax Bill: The Senate’s passage of the legislation has Democrats sprinting to sell the package by November and experiencing a flicker of an unfamiliar feeling: hope.Mr. Schumer cited Mr. Nadler’s work as chairman of the House Judiciary Committee on impeachments of former President Donald J. Trump, as well as his legislative efforts to try to expand voting rights, protect abortion rights and tighten gun restrictions.A spokesman for Mr. Schumer, Angelo Roefaro, added that the senator had “deep respect for Carolyn Maloney’s significant accomplishments in Congress.” Mr. Roefaro said that the senator had spoken to Ms. Maloney, the House Oversight Committee chairwoman, about his decision.The senator, who was traveling upstate on Monday, could not immediately be reached for additional comment. Mr. Nadler welcomed the support in a statement on Monday as well, and planned to announce the endorsement later in the day.Bob Liff, a spokesman for Ms. Maloney, played down the impact of Mr. Schumer’s support.“At a time when women’s rights are on the chopping block, we need strong women like Carolyn Maloney to carry the fight to Republicans,” he said. “Besides, Senator Schumer votes in the 10th District, not the 12th.”Mr. Schumer and Mr. Nadler have a long history. They served together in the New York State Assembly as young men in their 20s, then represented New York City districts in the House together before Mr. Schumer, a Brooklynite, ran for Senate in 1998 — a crowded race in which he notably won Mr. Nadler’s support.But given Mr. Schumer’s party leadership role and the competing claims of Mr. Nadler and Ms. Maloney, many political operatives and politicians had expected him to sit out the primary.That has been the tack adopted by nearly every fellow New Yorker in the House, by House Democratic leadership and by Senator Kirsten Gillibrand, the state’s junior senator, despite Ms. Maloney’s having endorsed her unsuccessful campaign for president in 2020.Mr. Nadler and Ms. Maloney have largely similar voting records, but have taken somewhat different tacks in the race.Mr. Nadler has highlighted his work as Judiciary Committee chairman and argued that his progressive voting record is purer than Ms. Maloney’s. She has stressed her success in winning federal support for local priorities, like the Second Avenue Subway, and the importance of having a woman representing the district at a time when abortion rights are being rolled back across the nation.A third candidate, Suraj Patel, is challenging both incumbents, arguing that New York needs a new generation of leaders. Polls show the race remains tight. More

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    Liz Cheney’s Primary in Wyoming Is Likely to End a Dynasty and an Era

    CODY, Wyo. — At an event last month honoring the 14,000 Japanese Americans who were once held at the Heart Mountain internment camp near here, Representative Liz Cheney was overcome with emotions, and a prolonged standing ovation wasn’t the only reason.Her appearance — with her father, former Vice President Dick Cheney, as well as former Senator Alan Simpson and the children of Norman Mineta, a Democratic congressman turned transportation secretary who was sent to the camp when he was 10 — was part of a groundbreaking for the new Mineta-Simpson Institute. Ms. Cheney was moved, she said, by the presence of the survivors and by their enduring commitment to the country that imprisoned them during World War II.There was something else, though, that got to the congresswoman during the bipartisan ceremony with party elders she was raised to revere. “It was just a whole combination of emotion,” she recalled in a recent interview.As Ms. Cheney faces a near-certain defeat on Tuesday in her House primary, it is the likely end of the Cheneys’ two-generation dynasty as well as the passing of a less tribal and more clubby and substance-oriented brand of politics.“We were a very powerful delegation, and we worked with the other side, that was key, because you couldn’t function if you didn’t,” recalled Mr. Simpson, now 90, fresh off being awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom and as tart-tongued as ever about his ancestral party. “My dad was senator and a governor, and if I ran again today as a Republican I’d get my ass beat — it’s not about heritage.”He was elected to the Senate in 1978, the same year that Mr. Cheney won Wyoming’s at-large House seat, and they worked closely together, two Republicans battling on behalf of the country’s least populated state in an era when Democrats always controlled at least one chamber of Congress.It’s not mere clout, however, that traditional Wyoming Republicans are pining for as they consider their gilded past and ponder the state’s less certain political and economic future. Before Tuesday’s election, which is likely to propel Harriet Hageman, who is backed by former President Donald J. Trump, to the House, the nostalgia in the state is running deeper than the Buffalo Bill Reservoir.Mr. Cheney and Mr. Simpson were not only in the leadership of their respective chambers in the 1980s; they, along with Senator Malcolm Wallop, a Yale-educated cold warrior whose grandfather served in both the British House of Lords and the Wyoming Legislature, got along well and often appeared together as a delegation in a sort of road show across the sprawling state (“A small town with long streets,” as the Wyoming saying goes).From left, Senator Malcolm Wallop, Representative Dick Cheney and Senator Alan Simpson during Mr. Cheney’s nomination hearing for defense secretary in 1989.Ron Edmonds/AP PhotoEven headier was the administration of President George Bush. Mr. Cheney became defense secretary, and his wife, Lynne, served as chairwoman of the National Endowment for the Humanities, while Mr. Simpson was both the second-ranking Senate Republican and one of the president’s closest friends. On top of that, the secretary of state at the time, James A. Baker III, spent summers on his Wyoming ranch, meaning two of the country’s top national security officials could be found doing unofficial promotional work for the state’s tourism industry.“You’d have Army choppers snatching Cheney and Baker from fishing holes,” recalled Rob Wallace, who was Mr. Wallop’s chief of staff.As conservative as the state was on the national level — Lyndon B. Johnson is the only Democrat to carry Wyoming in the past 70 years — the Wyoming Republican delegation worked effectively with two well-regarded Democratic governors in that same period, Ed Herschler and Mike Sullivan.Now, Ms. Cheney hardly even speaks to the two other Wyomingites in Congress — Senators John Barrasso and Cynthia Lummis, both Republicans — and has little contact with Gov. Mark Gordon. Ms. Lummis has endorsed Ms. Hageman. But Mr. Barrasso and Mr. Gordon, who are mainline Republicans in the Cheney tradition, have sought to maintain neutrality in hopes of avoiding Mr. Trump’s wrath.More Coverage of the 2022 Midterm ElectionsAug. 9 Primaries: In Wisconsin and a handful of other states, Trump endorsements resonated. Here’s what else we learned and a rundown of some notable wins and losses.Arizona Governor’s Race: Like other hard-right candidates this year, Kari Lake won her G.O.P. primary by running on election lies. But her polished delivery, honed through decades as a TV news anchor, have landed her in a category all her own.Climate, Health and Tax Bill: The Senate’s passage of the legislation has Democrats sprinting to sell the package by November and experiencing a flicker of an unfamiliar feeling: hope.Disputed Maps: New congressional maps drawn by Republicans in Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana and Ohio were ruled illegal gerrymanders. They’re being used this fall anyway.“They’ve got to make their own choices and live with the choices that they make,” Ms. Cheney said about the two men, before adding: “There are too many people who think that somebody else will fix the problem, that we can stay on the sidelines and Trump will fade.” More

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    El Times respalda a Sean Maloney para el distrito congresional 17 de Nueva York

    Este agosto, los votantes de los suburbios del norte de la ciudad de Nueva York se enfrentan a una elección entre dos candidatos con visiones distintas del futuro del Partido Demócrata y con historias diferentes en el distrito.El representante Sean Patrick Maloney es residente desde hace mucho tiempo del distrito recién delimitado y conoce bien a sus electores. Sus posturas sobre los grandes temas —cambio climático, vivienda accesible, seguridad pública, derecho al aborto, derechos de la comunidad LGBTQ— son consistentes con lo que el distrito necesita, y tiene un historial de votar en apoyo a ellos en el Congreso. “Cuando representas a un distrito que votó a favor de Donald Trump, como es mi caso, te tomas en serio tratar de escuchar las prioridades de las personas. Y muchas de esas prioridades son bastante apartidistas” —como cuestiones de infraestructura, asuntos agrícolas, temas vinculados con los veteranos y el agua potable limpia—, dijo en una entrevista con el comité editorial. More

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    El Times respalda a Jerrold Nadler para el distrito congresional 12 de Nueva York

    El recientemente creado doceavo distrito congresional de Nueva York reúne en un solo distrito a los votantes del Lado Este y Oeste de Manhattan, lo que ha llevado a una contienda entre Carolyn Maloney y Jerrold Nadler, integrantes veteranos de la Cámara de Representantes que han representado a la localidad por décadas. Un tercer candidato, Suraj Patel, un organizador demócrata, también está avanzando en la contienda.Nadler ha sido parte del Congreso desde 1992 y su antigüedad ha probado ser un beneficio importante para los neoyorquinos. Es el presidente del poderoso Comité Judicial y ha utilizado su enorme influencia y experiencia para lograr avances en el urgente trabajo legislativo sobre la seguridad de las armas, el derecho al voto, los juicios políticos contra Trump y más. Tiene un profundo conocimiento de este distrito así como de los temas más relevantes para la vida diaria en la ciudad, en especial la vivienda, el transporte y la seguridad. More

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    The New York Times’s Interview With Suraj Patel

    Suraj Patel is an attorney and worked for the campaigns of President Barack Obama. His parents’ family business is involved in hotel management and development.This interview with Mr. Patel was conducted by the editorial board of The New York Times on July 28.Read the board’s endorsement for the Democratic congressional primary for New York’s 12th District here.Kathleen Kingsbury: My first question — I think I understand that you have to reject the premise of off the bat — but can you talk a little bit about what you see yourself being able to accomplish if there’s a Republican-controlled Congress? And be as specific as possible, but also is there a one big idea that you’d pursue on a bipartisan basis?Absolutely. Before I start, I do want to say something about how honored I am to be in this room with you guys for the first time. My family ran a bodega when I was 5 years old. We would wake up at 5 in the morning, and we would get The New York Times. Back then, in 1989, you could get it, if you ran a bodega, in separate sections for cheaper if you stacked it together yourself.And we slept on a one-bedroom apartment floor, so when someone woke up, everyone woke up. It was my grandparents, my parents, all of us in a line. And at 5 a.m., I remember stacking, collating this paper together to sell at our bodega for an extra dime. And so being in this room, in and of itself, is an incredible honor. To have this endorsement would be an incredible honor, for two or three generations of Patels who came from India, from farming sugar cane to being here. So thank you for having me.And I will take your question. One of the things that I have done in this campaign is produce an inordinate amount of policy. I am a person who takes up his pen. And one major chunk of that is obviously the abundant society, which is about economics; the dynamic society, which is about innovation; and government reform and democracy reform writ large. The last part is the one I want to take for your question because I studied at N.Y.U. Law School.And the person who developed the National Environmental Protection Act, NEPA, was Dick Stewart, and he was my professor. And he used to say, I birthed a great idea that’s become a demon, that NEPA, which does environmental reviews, is now used — it used to be that a 10-page impact assessment was produced after a few months. We’re looking at 2, 6, 8, 10 years for impact assessments that have stopped clean energy projects across this country, that have stopped things that will stop climate change.Now, as a builder myself, I know that delays in time raise risk of incompletion, which also that means raises risk of interest rate costs. When New York City built the Second Avenue subway line, it cost $1.6 billion a kilometer to build. That is 6 and half to 8 times what Paris just produced an automated state-of-the-art subway line through Paris just this year. And the reason is our costs are incredibly high because our delays are high. The country has become a vetocracy. The city itself has become a vetocracy. The results of that are, seeing $5,000 a month of average rent in New York, in Manhattan, or $4,000 a month the median rent.[The first phase of construction for the Second Avenue subway has an estimated cost of $1.7 billion per kilometer.]We have a livability crisis and a crisis of no. Now, I think you can find Republicans across this country who would agree with you that we need to reform some of these laws. And that isn’t to say that I’m trying to damage the environment, but there are substance-based laws and rules that you can change to — that Europe does, for example — that have actual, a shot clock on NEPA, 16 months, with an impact statement that isn’t something that can get taken over by special interests to kill projects that are necessary.Even in New York City, even in New York this cycle, in the last budget, the New England delegation was begging for a provision pill, a poison pill, that would kill offshore wind in the Northeast because it requires American mariners, American engineers and American ships to produce this offshore wind. Well, we don’t have the expertise for it right now.Jake Auchincloss and others — and others were begging for this to be removed. For some reason, I don’t know why, my opponents, both Carolyn Maloney and Jerry Nadler, were silent on that issue and it made it into the bill, making it harder to build offshore wind. The vetocracy problem is something that’s bipartisan. And it’s something that I would like to take on.Now, for the first time in 20 years, in two decades, Gallup reported this week that Americans trust Republicans on the economy more than they trust Democrats. And the reason that is, is because we have failed to address things like inflation when they came. And if we failed to address inflation — I’m the only Democrat in the entire country who has a comprehensive plan on inflation and acknowledged it months ago.[A Pew report published on July 13, about two weeks before this interview took place, concluded that “Americans express unfavorable views of both major parties.” Forty percent of Americans responded that they agreed with the Republican Party on economic policy.]I was the first Democrat in the country to acknowledge — because my sister-in-law, my toddler nephew is 14 months old now. He was 11 months old at the time. And I went with her to five grocery stores — we went to Gristedes, we went to Associated.We ended up going to that Costco past the Upper East Side in order to find baby formula, infant formula. And I did what I do best, which is to take up my pen. I wrote my way out. I watch a lot of Hamilton, by the way.And I was able to write an op-ed and call for the president to invoke the Defense Production Act to produce more baby formula in America before any Democrat or congressperson said anything about it. And that op-ed published in your very editorial page. And two days later, the president invoked the D.P.A.And a month later, we find that 40 percent more baby formula is being produced in the United States of America. Now, there are still more steps to be taken. For god knows what reason, we have a 20 percent tariff on baby formula. I can tell you one reason. Ninety-eight percent of it’s produced by three companies in the United States of America.[U.S. tariffs on infant formula are as high as 17.5 percent. In July, about 30 percent of baby formula supplies were out of stock. The shortage is ongoing.]It’s protectionism, writ large. Most of this baby formula would be coming from the Netherlands. What are we afraid of — tall, happy babies? The answer is that this is about crony capitalism in Washington — corporate PAC money and captured interests.So there are a number of things about reforming our government that I believe Republicans are correct on that we need to be a part of, that we need to be at the table for so that we can make sure the environment’s still protected while reforming the things that are making our infrastructure incredibly expensive.Mara Gay: I think actually you talked a little bit about housing. So we can move on.Kathleen Kingsbury: Yeah, Jyoti, maybe, do you want to —Jyoti Thottam: Yeah sorry I just — I just want to, Suraj, we’re just very conscious of time here. So Mara’s going to ask you the next question.Kathleen Kingsbury: No, no we just decided you’re going to ask the next question, Jyoti.Jyoti Thottam: OK, so on inflation —Kathleen Kingsbury: No, no, not inflation.Patrick Healy: Yeah we talked about it — voting.Jyoti Thottam: Oh, voting. OK. So can you do —I do want to talk about inflation, guys. Go ahead.Jyoti Thottam: That’s right. We heard about inflation. Can you talk a little bit about what specifically you think Democrats can do to protect democracy?Absolutely. Liberal democracy, it’s the core of my campaign. Liberal democracy as we know it is under attack from Ukraine to across the world. There is a lot of academic literature that tells you that when a new medium of communication comes about, it is easy for populist and authoritarians to take advantage. The radio corresponds to World War I, television corresponds to World War II.[It was not until the post-World War II era that televisions became common in American households.]And today we’re living in an era where one-half the population believes everything on social media, and one-half doesn’t — which means we need a group of people to ferry us to the other side in this very dangerous moment. And that means we need people who understand these mediums and how they work in order to regulate them, in order to fight for people.I will also say I’m the only candidate that’s affirmatively pro-democracy in this race. Because I — two years ago, when I lost to Carolyn Maloney by 2,700 votes, in a race in which 12,500 ballots were discarded, both of my opponents were silent. I took on what others said was a quixotic quest. I spent three months of my team poring through photocopy after photocopy of absentee ballot requests.We ended up going to court, successfully suing Andrew Cuomo, in an injunction that got 1,200 ballots counted. And not only that, but our moves, our waves nationally helped change the way ballots were counted and vote by mail for the November election and in New York. We took the absentee rejection rate in New York from 25 percent — which was 100 times higher than that of a Scott Walker Wisconsin State — down to 10 percent. We’re still not great here.[In 2020, reports found that over 20 percent of absentee ballots were invalidated in some parts of New York. The Times was not able to confirm how much Mr. Patel’s lawsuit lowered the rate of absentee ballot invalidation.]But we added a red line and a check mark and all of that. But across the country — I’m sure all of you in this room agree with me — we were watching with pins and needles, Pennsylvania and Georgia, the days after the election when ballots were coming in. Guess what, guys? Those ballots would not have been counted if state laws didn’t change after the fact that we made noise about this.And some of what I’m talking about in this race is about meeting the urgency of the moment to take on gerrymandering, to take on voter suppression. Look, why are we in this race in the first place? Because The New York Times reported in November that Congresswoman Maloney attempted to gerrymander young and Latino voters out of her own district in order to secure her re-election.And the person who gave her — gave her his constituents — was Jerry Nadler, and that snaking district that made national news, cost the Democrats structurally four or five seats for the next decade because they took that away. And it was an unconstitutional gerrymander in state after state. When given the referendum choice to outlaw gerrymandering, voters have chosen in Ohio, in red states and blue states, to outlaw gerrymandering.We should go with a referendum-based program across this country to give people the right to choose their own representatives, and not the other way around.Patrick Healy: You made some critiques of Democratic elected officials, like your two opponents. I’m wondering, do you see — do you think that Democratic elected officials are out of step with Democratic voters on immigration these days, on L.G.B.T.Q. rights, on any one issue —One hundred ten percent. I think the reason that we are in this race, and squarely in it — and our polling this morning shows that we are at a 25 to 31 to 31 race — is because people believe that our current elected leaders are out of step.Patrick Healy: On what issue? Can you give us an issue, or —On the issue of, for example, abortion rights — we had an eight-week period, a head start to figure out what to do. The response from the administration in Congress was so lackluster that it backfired on some of these folks who thought we could just use it to gin up donations and votes.So I wrote an op-ed a few weeks ago. You’re going to keep hearing that. Because I’m a very long writer, as you can see, about Medicaid and abortion. The F.D.A. in the United States of America has shown its failure time and again in the last few years, whether it’s on baby formula or its failure to inspect a Danish plant that has one million monkeypox vaccines that should be sent here. Or we just should just trust the European Union’s inspections regime because, frankly, it’s likely better than ours?But anyway, on monkeypox, we have a million monkeypox vaccines still waiting in warehouses. But back to this issue about where the abortion pill situation sits. The F.D.A. only allows RU486 or Medicated abortion, up to Week 10. The European Union allows it to Week 12.Almost every study shows that it’s equally effective up to Week 14. We should expand telemedicine abortion; we should make it clear that it is not illegal to serve abortion pills across state lines. And most importantly, we should ask that the F.D.A. — my opponents should have been writing letters to the F.D.A. urging them to increase the time period for medicated abortion.That’s an example of what proactive active urgent leadership looks like within our own city. Sorry, I can let you keep going.Kathleen Kingsbury: Eleanor, do you want to jump in, please? We’re already halfway through our time.My bad.Kathleen Kingsbury: We’re only on our third question.Eleanor Randolph: In this case, we only want yes or no —Kathleen Kingsbury: Just yes or no. Nothing more.Mara Gay: That’s it. I know it’s hard.Sorry. Sorry, sorry, sorry.Eleanor Randolph: All right. Do you want to expand the Supreme Court?Yes.Eleanor Randolph: Do you want to end the filibuster?Yes.Eleanor Randolph: Should there be term limits for members of Congress?Yes.Eleanor Randolph: What about age limits?No.Eleanor Randolph: And Should Biden run again?Yes.Eleanor Randolph: OK.Kathleen Kingsbury: Alex?I’d love to give you some explanation for those.Eleanor Randolph: No —Alex Kingsbury: Moving on. I’d like to ask about the war in Ukraine. I wonder if you think there should be an upper limit on the amount of taxpayer dollars going into that conflict, and if we should affix any conditions to the money that we’re spending there?Absolutely not. First off, the Ukrainian ally and the European Union is at the front lines of a lifelong — first inning of a battle against authoritarianism in this world. And we ought to prepare for that battle — first by arming our Ukrainian allies with defensive weapons to get Russia out of Ukraine.I would not accept a cease-fire that allows Ukraine and Russia to annex the amount of Donbas and eastern territory they already have. We’ve seen this move before. First it was Crimea. Then it was Donbas. We’ve seen this move before, in 1937. We know how this works.So not only do I think we should allow — we should continue providing military aid to Ukraine, but I actually think we need to do more. I urge Janet Yellen to use the Exchange Stabilization Fund to prop up commodity production in our allies and in our own country by providing price guarantees and price floors.You see, commodity production — and I’m not just talking about oil; we’re talking about wheat, barley, fertilizer, ammonia — commodity production is historically and notoriously a very boom and bust thing. And therefore, to get over the investment hurdle rate, you’re going to need price guarantees. You’re going to need purchase guarantees in order for someone to start up that production.We need to bring more of that production away from Russia and China, frankly, and toward North, South America and the rest. I also would urge the Biden administration to utilize its already existing powers under O.F.A.C.[O.F.A.C. is the Office of Foreign Assets Control, an office under the Department of Treasury that enforces trade sanctions.]See, currently O.F.A.C. can only do negative sanctions, which is to say it’s a punitive thing for sanctioning. However, there is nothing to stop O.F.A.C. from using constructive powers, which means supporting the burgeoning wheat export industry from India, supporting the burgeoning supply shipping industry in ally of Egypt.And the reason I say that is because while we slept for the last 15 years, China has done this in sub-Saharan Africa, in South America and across the world, and has used its economic might as a form of diplomacy.We have the tools and means to do it. But we have to take this seriously. This is the first innings of this battle for liberal democracy. I’m a firm liberal democrat who believes in individual rights. And I think that we don’t have enough people serious enough about this who can articulate this vision to help keep the American public engaged in this fight.Jyoti Thottam: You spoke quite extensively about NEPA as a bipartisan sort of fix to move forward on climate. Is there anything else, specifically, that you think the Democrats could do to move forward so that the U.S. can meet its commitments on climate change?[The Senate passed the climate, health and tax bill on Aug. 7 and the House on Aug. 12, both after this interview took place.]Absolutely. Two years ago, I wrote a project called “The Discovery Project,” which calls for a space race-scale innovation investment in America. At the height of the space race, we spent 2 percent of our budget — federal budget — on research and development. Basic research and development the private sector does not do because the profit horizon for that kind of investment is too far away.It’s called “The Discovery Project,” cleverly, because sometimes you have to do everything you can to spray and pray and find things that you don’t know about yet. That investment in the ‘60s and ‘70s led to things like the human genome, the internet, Velcro, Tang.[Tang, the American drink mix brand, was formulated in 1957 by the General Foods Corporation. It became popular after NASA astronauts consumed it in outer space.]But at the same time, here in biotechnology and genomics, we have an opportunity — and in climate science — we have an opportunity to do one thing and one thing that will finally settle this issue once and for all. A massive investment in innovation research and development to bring the kilowatt/hour cost of renewables below that of fossil fuels so that within 10 years, it is economically unviable to build fossil fuel plants or use them anymore.And the reason that’s important is very simple. India and China and sub-Saharan Africa — sorry.Jyoti Thottam: So I get why it’s important. But you’re suggesting basically a big federal investment with that as a goal.With the goal of bringing the cost of renewable energy down. So right now, we use a lot of subsidy — this last bill has a $7,500 subsidy, the Manchin bill yesterday — which I think is very good, by the way — has the $7,500 subsidy for E.V.s.But you could take that money, actually, honestly, and instead of that kind of giveaway, you know, embark on science. By the way, in this — there’s something specific to New York 12 about this. If any of you have ever lost a parent or a grandparent to dementia or Alzheimer’s, we have the ability in this country to map the brain much in the same way that we did the human genome.Medical researchers have been begging for more funds like Operation Warp Speed to finish this job five years faster. Langone, Presbyterian, Mount Sinai — dotting my district are exactly the leading-edge places that do this research. The $620 million allocated to it, if doubled, would make half the time for these kinds of things. It’s an incredibly cost-effective investment for a district that suffers from some of the highest levels of anxiety in the world.And I think we have to look at the future and talk about it.Kathleen Kingsbury: Mara, why don’t we do the lightning round?Mara Gay: Great. We have a little pop quiz for you.Oh boy.Mara Gay: Just do the best you can. The first question is, how does Plan B work?Plan B is a form of contraception that’s effective up to 72 hours. Its efficacy wanes over 72 hours, so should probably be called not the morning-after pill, but the night-of or right- after pill. It’s really just a concentrated dose of the same hormone that is in your daily birth control pill.It’s a synthetic form of progestin. What it does, is helps your uterine lining shed so that a zygote cannot implant. It is firmly not an abortion pill. That is something very important that Democrats and others seem to keep missing. Because RU486, or an abortion pill, medicated abortion, is significantly different.[Research suggests that Plan B does not prevent implantation.]Now, as a person who has a personal experience in this — and millions and thousands of women, hundreds of women I know, including my fiancée, who have had this experience — for no good reason is Plan B available behind the pharmacist counter in places where people may judge you. It has no reason to not be right next to condoms and other forms of contraception.Because that is exactly what it is. And if someone finds themselves in a bind — by the way, and it’s $50, $45, $50. It’s not actually very affordable as a daily basis for working families.Mara Gay: I’m going to cut you off. I’m sorry, this is my lightning round. And it’s lightning round, meaning quick. It prevents ovulation. So thank you. Do you own a gun?Nuh-uh.Mara Gay: No. Is that a no?Sorry, no.Mara Gay: Have you ever fired a gun?Yeah.Mara Gay: OK. When and where.At a clay shooting ranch thing at a law firm summer associate event. One time.Mara Gay: Wow. Thank you. What is the average age of a member of Congress?Oh. 62.Mara Gay: 58. What about the average age of a U.S. Senator?66.Mara Gay: 64. Please name a member of Congress — just one, dead or living — who you most admire and would emulate if elected to serve.Living, Lauren Underwood is a very good friend of mine and a person that — it’s a lightning round, so.Mara Gay: Thank you. What is your favorite restaurant in the district?GupShup, which is around 20th in Murray Hill. It’s a friend of mine’s Indian restaurant.[GupShup is in the Manhattan neighborhood of Gramercy, south of Murray Hill.]Mara Gay: Great. I’d like to ask — you accepted Andrew Yang’s endorsement. Yang left the Democratic Party after dropping out, well, after losing the mayoral race last year. If elected, would you support the ideas that he championed?No. I mean, look — one, Andrew Yang endorsed me. I didn’t endorse him.Mara Gay: You accepted the endorsement.I accepted the endorsement. First as an Asian American person, being the first South Asian person to be in office east of the Mississippi River, a specific type of representation’s missing anywhere in these states is important to me. And I think Andrew found that to be a compelling reason during this moment of violence against Asian Americans.[There is at least one other congressman of South Asian descent who represents a district east of the Mississippi River. Raja Krishnamoorthi, who represents Illinois’s Eighth Congressional District, is Indian American.]Secondly, I will say that when we won that 2008 election — and Barack Obama takes a lot of heat these days from people and Monday morning quarterbacks about not doing enough. But let’s remember, we had Democratic senators from Arkansas, Montana, Alaska, Ohio, Indiana.It was a time when we used persuasion and a big tent to win this country. And he should get credit for that if he’s going to get flak for not doing quote unquote, “enough,” which I think is absurd, given that he insured 30 million people forever. But anyway, with Andrew Yang, that’s part of my calculus here.We have to build a big tent. We can’t push away people simply because they’re upset at us. The whole way to win this country back is going to be by coming back with the politics of persuasion. Sixty-nine percent of Americans support Roe v. Wade, but 49 percent voted for Donald Trump. The fundamental question here is then: What are we going to do to win those people back?[A Gallup poll published in June found that 58 percent of Americans were opposed to overturning Roe v. Wade (a reasonable proxy for their support for the measure). In the 2020 presidential election, Donald Trump won about 47 percent of the vote; according to a Pew report, only 66 percent of Americans cast a ballot that year.]You have to build a big tent or else you can’t govern this country.Mara Gay: Thank you.Kathleen Kingsbury: Patrick, why don’t we go to go to your question.Patrick Healy: Sure. Why should voters elect you or Democrats like Jerry Nadler and Carolyn Maloney, who enjoy seniority and years of experience in office?Well I have some fundamental differences with both of them. And I believe that there’s issues of their record. For Carolyn Maloney, for example, someone who voted for the Iraq War, someone who voted for the ’94 crime bill, which created an incarceration problem in this country that Black and brown adults still deal with to this day, and cycles of poverty, someone who voted against the Iran Peace Deal that both Iraq — that both Israel and the United States supported at the time. And it was President Obama’s signature diplomacy move.And of course, she spent over almost two decades being the leading anti-vaxxer in Congress. And I don’t trust her judgment. Both take enough corporate PAC money to make someone blush. Michael Bennet, in a purple Senate seat, in a difficult election cycle, still doesn’t take corporate PAC money.Why in the two richest districts in America you would have to go to corporations to take your money, is well beyond me. Both engaged in a gerrymander. But I’m going to talk about the seniority piece to answer your question.[While Mr. Nadler’s and Ms. Maloney’s districts are not the richest in the country, the districts are among New York City’s wealthiest and most unequal districts.]You can look right across the river to see a congressperson who has significantly less tenure, significantly less seniority, but significantly more impact on the conversation and lifting the voices of working people, people of color in this country, and on the Democratic Party. And that is Hakeem Jeffries.He was elected when he was 43. I will be 39 at inauguration. There’s nothing to say that you need tenure to have impact. And I don’t think that every single person that is, you know, older needs to be kicked out of Congress. Look at John Lewis. He ran through the tape with cancer. But he still had a massive impact on the national conversation and was in touch with his district.[Hakeem Jeffries was 42 when he was elected to Congress in 2012.]I don’t think Carolyn Maloney and Jerry Nadler are in touch with this district. They don’t ride that Union Square subway every day like I do and see how crowded that platform is. They didn’t knock on 13,000 doors or talk to people. I walk eight miles a day — I could show you if I had my phone, but you guys didn’t allow me to bring it — to talk to voters in this district and learn from people that had $5,000 median rent.[Before entering the meeting room, Mr. Patel asked if he could bring his phone with him and was told he could. The median rent in Manhattan is about $4,000; the average rent roughly $5,000.]Actually today was a study published that said that the New York’s population — Manhattan’s population — declined by 6 percent after the pandemic. But the number of people under the age of 18 declined by 7 percent. Number of people under the age of five declined by 9.6 percent, which means we’ve got a lot of people in my own cohort and my own family, frankly, who have this very difficult decision of choosing between having a family in this city and living in the city that they love, or being able to afford it at all.[Economic Innovation Group published an analysis on July 27, a day before this interview was conducted, on families with children who left major cities during the first year of the pandemic. According to the analysis, the population of people under the age of 18 declined by 5.1 percent and the number of people under the age of five declined by 9.5 percent.]And the people in office — both Nadler and Maloney — have contributed to a culture of NIMBYism and “No” — opposing the SoHo rezoning that had an incredible amount of affordable housing. And by the way — wealthier parts of this district and city need to accept affordable housing. The reason is, because when market rate rents are higher, you need less of them to subsidize the amount of affordable housing.If you’re going to send all your affordable housing to the ends of our subway lines and to Black and brown communities to bear the brunt of gentrification, one, economically it makes less sense. And two, from a justice and equity perspective, it makes less sense.Both are major contributors to that. They both oppose the Blood Center. They both oppose this on the Upper East Side — what an appalling thing to do in the middle of a pandemic. For someone, frankly, with Maloney’s anti-vax, anti-science history, to go out and oppose a blood center shows you just how entitled some of these folks are to their district.[Since this interview took place, Representative Jerrold Nadler’s campaign confirmed that he did not make a public statement about the proposed upgrades to the New York Blood Center.]And in fact, yesterday — and this is an incredibly sad thing — a biker, a 29-year-old biker, was killed on 84th and Madison, just a few blocks away from Carolyn Maloney’s house. I just gave a statement on it because The Post reached out to me today and it is fresh in mind.[Carling Mott, 28, was biking on 85th Street between Park and Madison Avenues when she was fatally hit by a tractor-trailer.]But there are voice mails. Carolyn Maloney’s personally lobbied to have that bike lane not added within her own neighborhood. And a young woman has died. As a city biker myself, as a biker myself and my family and my staff, one, I think that’s appalling.But this idea that these federal congressional representatives do not treat these districts like fiefdoms, and that they do not have an impact on choices of housing or homeless shelters, or things like that, is actually inaccurate.Kathleen Kingsbury: We have time for one last question. The only area I think we didn’t cover is what do you think Congress needs to do more of in terms of trying to curb gun violence?Yeah. So, everything. When the ‘94 assault weapons ban passed — one of the things I would say is 1990s Democrats have no answers for today’s Republicans. And part of the reason is when the ‘94 gun bill passed, assault weapons ban passed, it passed with less than 60 votes, which means it wasn’t filibustered.It passed with Republican and Democratic support. And we’re living in a different era. Mitch McConnell’s thrown the chessboard across the room. And yet our Democrats are still up there with easels talking about maybe we’ll get there if we do these minute background checks thing.So I think that we have to tackle the gun problem by first off, being clever legally, here. After what the Supreme Court did, I think in a state like New York, you can expand the definition of sensitive places. Listen, I hate to say it this way, but the playbook that the Republicans showed us and used to chip away at the margins of Roe v. Wade is the exact playbook we’re going to have to use on guns in reverse — by chipping away, state by state, law by law, about what constitutes a sensitive place, what constitutes an assault weapon, what constitutes too much.And then we have to use the power of the purse and finance. BlackRock — the largest contributor in PAC money to both of my opponents — in the country is the largest single shareholder of the top four gun manufacturers in this country. So we have to go to the economics.[According to campaign finance data compiled by OpenSecrets, PACs affiliated with BlackRock have contributed no money to Jerrold Nadler in the 2022 cycle. PACs affiliated with BlackRock had given $2,500 to Carolyn Maloney, but they were far from the largest contributor in PAC money to her campaign.]Kathleen Kingsbury: OK.Mara Gay: Thank you so much.Kathleen Kingsbury: Thank you so much for your time.You guys, thank you so much. This was really enjoyable and went extremely fast.[The editorial board added one follow-up question for Mr. Patel.]Mara Gay: So can you just tell us what you consider your biggest accomplishment other than running for Congress at this point?Yes, I can. I’m incredibly proud of, you know, stepping up and helping and cofounding the Arena after the 2016 election. I think that we were able to engage about 4,000 people who have become Democratic stalwart working staffers for campaigns across the country and do it on our own volition.I woke up three days after the Hillary election that I was working at, at the Javits Center, and a bunch of us got together and said, “We need to get off the mat and do something about this.” We convened a summit seven — 35 days later in Nashville, where 700 people attended.I noticed something, Mara. I noticed that, you know, everyone was like, oh, look how many we had. I noticed as a person doing the intake that 40-plus percentage people had never done a single thing in politics before. And I realized we had this incredible generational change moment where people were awakened for the first time.So we continued to build Arena. To this day, that organization — which I left after I started running — has been instrumental in helping Democrats across the country win.And I mentioned you guys, Lauren Underwood, and I didn’t get to go into detail about that. Lauren is in our plus six district and outside of Illinois, Chicago-land, right? It was a six- person primary field, six white men and her. She couldn’t even get the Emily’s List endorsement for her primary. And I think we need to get past that kind of thinking.[Emily’s List endorsed Lauren Underwood on Jan. 28, 2018, ahead of the Democratic primary for District 14 in Illinois.]So I flew out there and I helped put together her campaign from day one and got her to $100,000 with Arena support and all of that. And she ended up winning. Not only did she end up winning, she became one of our best congresspeople, I think. And it proves the point that you don’t need to be a certain demographic or a certain age or anything to win office. So we were able to engage a whole new generation of leadership by building that organization, you know.[While Arena supported Lauren Underwood’s 2018 campaign, Mr. Patel’s campaign confirmed after this interview took place that Arena did not raise $100,000 in funding.]And then the other one, I will say, the second one, you know, I mentioned to you guys in the beginning, my family story. The reason that I ended up working for my family after law school is because we faced seven foreclosures at the same time. It’s why I forewent a job directly in the new administration after I worked in the campaign, because a lifetime of work that we put together from my grandparents and my parents, and then the financial crisis fell into, you know, after TARP passed.It didn’t support small businesses or local community banks. What it did do instead was enrich large banks and their balance sheets, but it never trickled down. So we faced a maturity of defaults for construction we just did.I worked that out for three years. We made sure every employee got paid in full, had health care, and came out the other side, including every contractor. I did that again this year for one other place during the Covid-induced pandemic.So, you know, it feels like sometimes that you need political accomplishment to be office. But I think some of these things in the more real world are much more relatable to people in this district who are facing the same questions, including foreclosures, that would help restaurants and hospitality folks here in New York City itself navigate that as well, with that experience. So I guess I would say those there are two: One’s political and one is significantly more personal and important, frankly. And that’s it.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. 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