Midterm Elections (2022)

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      The Three Blunders of Joe Biden

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      If the Democrats end up losing both the House and the Senate, an outcome that looks more likely than it did a month ago, there will be nothing particularly shocking about the result. The incumbent president’s party almost always suffers losses in the midterms, the Democrats entered 2022 with thin majorities and a not-that-favorable Senate map, and the Western world is dealing with a war-driven energy crunch that’s generally rough on incumbent parties, both liberal and conservative. (Just ask poor Liz Truss.)But as an exculpating narrative for the Biden administration, this goes only so far. Some races will inevitably be settled on the margins, control of the Senate may be as well, and on the margins there’s always something a president could have done differently to yield a better political result.President Biden’s case is no exception: The burdens of the midterms have been heavier for Democrats than they needed to be because of three notable failures, three specific courses that his White House set.The first fateful course began, as Matthew Continetti noted recently in The Washington Free Beacon, in the initial days of the administration, when Biden made critical decisions on energy and immigration that his party’s activists demanded: for environmentalists, a moratorium on new oil-and-gas leases on public lands and, for immigration advocates, a partial rollback of key Trump administration border policies.What followed, in both arenas, was a crisis: first a surge of migration to the southern border, then the surge in gas prices driven by Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine.There is endless debate about how much the initial Biden policy shifts contributed to the twin crises; a reasonable bet is that his immigration moves did help inspire the migration surge, while his oil-lease policy will affect the price of gas in 2024 but didn’t change much in the current crunch.But crucially, both policy shifts framed these crises, however unintentionally, as things the Biden administration sought — more illegal immigration and higher gas prices, just what liberals always want! And then instead of a dramatic attempt at reframing, prioritizing domestic energy and border enforcement, the Biden White House fiddled with optics and looked for temporary fixes: handing Kamala Harris the border portfolio, turning the dials on the strategic petroleum reserve and generally confirming the public’s existing bias that if you want a party to take immigration enforcement and oil production seriously, you should vote Republican.The second key failure also belongs to the administration’s early days. In February 2021, when congressional Democrats were preparing a $1.9 trillion stimulus, a group of Republican senators counteroffered with a roughly $600 billion proposal. Flush with overconfidence, the White House spurned the offer and pushed three times as much money into the economy on a party-line vote.What followed was what a few dissenting center-left economists, led by Larry Summers, had predicted: the worst acceleration of inflation in decades, almost certainly exacerbated by the sheer scale of the relief bill. Whereas had Biden taken the Republicans up on their proposal or even simply counteroffered and begun negotiations, he could have started his administration off on the bipartisan footing his campaign had promised while‌ hedging against the inflationary dangers that ultimately arrived.The third failure is likewise a failure to hedge and triangulate, but this time on culture rather than economic policy. Part of Biden’s appeal as a candidate was his longstanding record as a social moderate — an old-school, center-left Catholic rather than a zealous progressive.His presidency has offered multiple opportunities to actually inhabit the moderate persona. On transgender issues, for instance, the increasing qualms of European countries about puberty blockers offered potential cover for Biden to call for greater caution around the use of medical interventions for gender-dysphoric teenagers. Instead, his White House has chosen to effectively deny that any real debate exists, positioning the administration to the left of Sweden.Then there is the Dobbs decision, whose unpopularity turned abortion into a likely political winner for Democrats — provided, that is, that they could cast themselves as moderates and Republicans as zealots.Biden could have led that effort, presenting positions he himself held in the past — support for Roe v. Wade but also for late-term restrictions and the Hyde Amendment — as the natural national consensus, against the pro-life absolutism of first-trimester bans. Instead, he’s receded and left Democratic candidates carrying the activist line that absolutely no restrictions are permissible, an unpopular position perfectly designed to squander the party’s post-Roe advantage.The question in the last case, and to some extent with all these issues, is whether a more moderate or triangulating Biden could have held his coalition together.But this question too often becomes an excuse for taking polarization and 50-50 politics for granted. A strong president, by definition, should be able to pull his party toward the center when politics demands it. So if Biden feels he can’t do that, it suggests that he’s internalized his own weakness and accepted in advance what probably awaits the Democrats next month: defeat.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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      For New York Governor, The Times Endorses Kathy Hochul

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      The race for the governor of New York is unusually close this fall. That probably reflects the frustrations of many voters in the state: Like millions of other Americans, New Yorkers are living with sharply higher costs for housing, food and fuel; higher rates of crime; an unsteady economy; and schools where teachers and students are struggling to overcome two years of learning loss. A total of 71,623 people in New York have died of Covid as of Oct. 21, and the pandemic left many others ill, isolated or angry at the failures at all levels of government to protect them and get the state moving again. New York City’s transit system has not regained its ridership, office towers are not full, and the financial system has taken longer to recover than in many places in the United States.This is fertile ground for a candidate like Representative Lee Zeldin of Long Island, the Republican nominee for governor. He can easily be mistaken for the moderate that he likes to portray: just another average New Yorker worried about jobs and safety, family and gas prices. Someone who wants to shake up Albany and get things done.New York has a long, proud tradition of moderate, thoughtful Republicans, from George Pataki to Nelson Rockefeller. Mr. Zeldin is not part of this tradition.Over and over again, he has demonstrated a loyalty to Trumpism over his oath to defend American democracy and the Constitution. In his campaign for governor, he makes spurious arguments about crime, and his public safety plan appears to be little more than returning to the zero-tolerance policies that have no clear connection to improving safety. Ads from Mr. Zeldin’s campaign use threatening images of Black men to stoke panic, and one features a crime that took place in California. And the plans Mr. Zeldin has laid out during this campaign lack a serious interest in the work of governing, at a time when the state needs strong, energetic leadership.Compare that with the record of Kathy Hochul, who has used her first year in office as governor to show that she can get things done to improve the lives of New Yorkers. Ms. Hochul has set aside political drama to make progress on the things that matter most to New Yorkers — health, safety and access to good jobs and housing. For that work, she has our endorsement for a full term.Ms. Hochul, who took office after Gov. Andrew Cuomo resigned in August 2021, made some important changes right away. She appointed top-notch leadership, including Dr. Mary Bassett, the state’s health commissioner, and Janno Lieber, chair and chief executive of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, who have brought competence and zeal to two of the toughest jobs in America. Ms. Hochul has worked diligently with Mayor Eric Adams of New York on issues from transit to crime, and their respectful partnership is a refreshing change from the petty, ego-driven rivalry of Mr. Cuomo and former Mayor Bill de Blasio.Her determined, collaborative approach to governing dovetailed with important economic and policy advances — again, without the drama of the Cuomo years or the divisiveness that a Trump-supporting governor would bring. Her record includes an upstate hydropower, solar and wind initiative expected to create thousands of jobs, a proposal for a new rail line in New York City, tax cuts for middle-class families and small businesses, expanded child care subsidies for families of four earning up to $83,250, and $25 billion for affordable housing. Ms. Hochul has struck a deal to bring Micron Technology, a computer chip company, to upstate New York, a move that could add thousands of jobs in the state. Along with the State Legislature, she has strengthened laws that protect reproductive freedom and voting rights and ensure gun safety. Her approach to managing the nation’s largest transit system has been to hire the right people and then get out of the way and allow them to oversee long-overdue upgrades.In her actions, Ms. Hochul has demonstrated a steady, cooperative and focused hand in an uncertain era. That’s equal measures temperament and the urgency of circumstance. But it’s also the mark of a leader who is focused on finding solutions to the big problems — such as battling the economic headwinds hitting the state — rather than getting off track with partisan warfare.Mr. Zeldin speaks passionately about the fears that New Yorkers have about crime, but his ideas don’t stand up to scrutiny — they won’t improve safety and they amount to an undemocratic power play, such as his plan to declare an emergency for crime. He told the Times editorial board this week that he would remove from office the elected district attorney of Manhattan, Alvin Bragg, who has continued the work of criminal justice reform that the state and city have pursued in recent years. Earlier this year, Mr. Bragg revised some of his policies; Ms. Hochul was among those who urged him to do so. That kind of open dialogue makes for better policy. A governor who would consider removing an elected official over a policy disagreement is nullifying the will of the people of New York.Ms. Hochul has been a steadfast defender of strong gun laws. After the Supreme Court struck down the state’s law on concealed-carry restrictions, she quickly mobilized the Legislature to draft new legislation.None of this is to suggest that Ms. Hochul does not still have work to do as governor. Even with a Democratic majority in the State Legislature, change has been slow, and public safety, in particular, has risen to the top of many voters’ concerns. In New York City, crime overall is up about one-third so far this year from 2019 levels.Ms. Hochul has not articulated a plan sufficient to address the state’s housing crisis. We’d also like her to set a higher standard for ethics in Albany — her decision to accept campaign donations from individuals who sit on state boards and company executives who have business before the state has been particularly disappointing. So, too, is her lack of transparency around the state budget process. These practices are business as usual in Albany, but Ms. Hochul has a chance to raise the bar.Mr. Zeldin, on the other hand, has called the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade “a victory for life, for family, for the Constitution, and for federalism” — a position misaligned with a vast majority of New Yorkers. In Congress, he voted for legislation to ban abortions after 20 weeks with few exceptions.He has one of the worst environmental records of any member of Congress from New York, according to the League of Conservation Voters, and would reverse the state’s ban on fracking. As a state senator, he voted against the 2011 Marriage Equality Act, which legalized gay marriage.What’s worse, Mr. Zeldin has embraced the conspiracy theories and lies surrounding the 2020 presidential election. Dozens of court cases in several states have found that there was virtually no fraud in that election. When asked if he accepts those conclusions, Mr. Zeldin told this editorial board in an interview that “none of us at this table know” the extent of the fraud. But, in fact, we do.Mr. Zeldin played an active role in attempts by Donald Trump and his allies to undermine American democracy. According to evidence shared with the House select committee on the Jan. 6 attack, Mr. Zeldin sent text messages on the day before the election was called for Joe Biden to Mr. Trump’s chief of staff, suggesting “ideas” for how to use unsubstantiated allegations about voting irregularities. Hours after the Capitol riot on Jan. 6, Mr. Zeldin voted against certifying presidential election results in states that Mr. Trump lost, although he said to this board that he never claimed that President Biden’s victory was illegitimate.Not only his beliefs but also his actions in the wake of the 2020 election make Mr. Zeldin unfit for the office he is seeking. Across the nation, at the ballot box, Americans this fall are being asked questions about where they stand on truth, integrity, the rule of law and on democracy itself. New Yorkers are no exception. More

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      Interview: Lee Zeldin Talks to the New York Times Editorial Board

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      Lee Zeldin is a Republican congressman who has represented eastern Long Island since 2015.This interview with Mr. Zeldin was conducted by the editorial board of The New York Times on Oct. 19.Read the board’s endorsement for the governor’s race in New York here.Kathleen Kingsbury: So, as has been reported in our paper and others, the day before the 2020 election was called for Joe Biden, you texted Mark Meadows offering ways to promote allegations of voting irregularities as a fund-raising tool.Can you talk us through why you did that? Now there have been dozens of courts that have found that there was no actual basis in fact to those allegations. Do you accept that there was no widespread voter fraud?So, two parts to that.Kathleen Kingsbury: Yes.First, as you pointed out, it was the very beginning of November. And the reason why I sent that message was because I was seeing all of the allegations being thrown out as one. There was a vetted, confirmed concern mixed with an unvetted, unconfirmed concern or allegation.And it was undermining the ability for people to understand everything that was getting thrown at them. Every allegation of wrongdoing on social media was being slapped as absolutely true the moment it was being tweeted out. It’s true. There are some people who claim that, for the first time in the history of our country, we had the first perfect election.And I was coming out of an election where, even in the 1st Congressional District of New York, we had hundreds of ballots that were thrown out because of the Republican and Democrat election and commissioner agreed that the signatures didn’t match. There are people in our race in 2020 who were arrested for trying to get absentee ballots for dead relatives. There’s a lot of different things that happened just in my own congressional district on the east end of Long Island.[In 2020, New York State and county officials in Long Island found that there was virtually no evidence of election fraud.]I thought that it was very important to separate what was true and not true, or what was confirmed and not confirmed, vetted, unvetted. And everything was getting thrown together. And I would say, even still to this day, a lot just kind of got thrown together.[Dozens of courts across the country found that there was virtually no fraud in the 2020 election.]And I’m glad that, in your question, you pointed out that this was before the race was even confirmed. I don’t even — I would have to go back and look to see who was even ahead at that moment. I don’t remember. I would have to go back and check that out. With communications —Jyoti Thottam: But now that the courts have found that there was no basis in fact for any of those allegations?[In the days after the 2020 election, The New York Times spoke with election officials in every state, who said that no irregularities affected the results: “Top election officials across the country said in interviews and statements that the process had been a remarkable success despite record turnout and the complications of a dangerous pandemic.”]Well, I don’t think they — so I don’t think that the conclusion is that this was, in fact, the first perfect election in the history of the country. My concerns, what I have stated on the record, what I said on the floor of the House of Representatives —Jyoti Thottam: What do you believe now?Well, let me answer. What I stated then is what I still say today. My concern has been about a constitutional question. You have nonstate legislative actors who were, in the name of the pandemic, changing how an election is administered. You can’t do that under the United States Constitution. It’s a constitutional question.There will be more elections that will come up. There will be more natural disasters. There will be hurricanes. There might be a health emergency. The way the United States Constitution provides this is that the state legislature sets the election, the administration of elections. What you can’t do is, if you’re a governor, you’re a Secretary of State, you’re an elections commissioner, you’re someone else, say that in the name of that hurricane that just hit a week ago, this is how I am going to change the election on my own.Jyoti Thottam: OK. So you’re talking about the Covid rules for elections.The elections changes that were made in the name of Covid. That’s how it went.Patrick Healy: But in terms of the results, do you accept that there was no widespread voter fraud in the 2020 election?Jyoti Thottam: Now. Do you accept that now?Well, as I pointed out, in my own congressional district, there were all sorts of issues.Patrick Healy: The widespread, national —Well, you can multi —Patrick Healy: — voter fraud.See, you can multiply what happened in my district times whatever. I’m one of 435 congressional districts. If you’re asking me to quantify exactly how much of that happened across the country, none of us at this table know.Patrick Healy: But there have been repeated court cases that people have brought to bear making allegations of voter fraud, and courts have found no evidence of widespread voter fraud there across the board. So that’s what we’re trying to understand, is your view now in alignment with the courts.Listen, I really appreciate you asking, and I know that it’s important, and it’s important to all of you. I don’t know how to quantify nationwide what happened. All I know from the most personal of experiences was what we went through in the 1st Congressional District in New York. At no point have I ever called, have you ever heard the word come out of my mouth, have I ever said that the election of Joe Biden is illegitimate.There’s a reason why I don’t say that. I love our country. OK? I’m in my 20th year in the Army. I had Reserve duty this past Saturday. I was wearing that uniform, which is a lot better than wearing this uniform. What I saw in the Capitol that day, on Jan. 6, I was on the floor of the House of Representatives, the moment that I learned what happened, I instantly condemned it.I put out a statement. I wanted them out of the Capitol. We have a House of Representatives. You elect people to represent you. You have an objection that you want to have debated, you do that through your representatives. There’s no room for violence inside of that Capitol. Breaking windows, stealing things, absolutely none of it was welcome. I didn’t want to see it in the past. I don’t want to ever see it in a future for any purpose, red, blue, left, right, and whatever the year.Patrick Healy: But in terms of responsibility, that night, you — it’s been reported you made an equivocal statement saying, this isn’t just about President Trump. This is also about the left and about activists. Who do you see as to blame for that event?[On the night of the Capitol riot, Mr. Zeldin appeared on Fox News and suggested that Democrats and “rogue state actors” were to blame for undermining election integrity.]Well, you’re referring to a statement that I was making referring to what was being debated on the floor of the House of Representatives, which is different than asking me to comment on someone breaking into the Capitol, breaking things and stealing things. My comment as far as violence and breaking things and stealing things has — from the very first moment that I learned of it — has always been condemning that.Now, every single time a Republican has won the presidency for the last few decades, on Jan. 6, people have stated objections. And that’s part of the constitutional process. If it’s Jan. 6 of 2025 and — well, listen, I was on the floor of the House of Representatives Jan. 6 of 2017. And there were debates that were had.There were objections being filed claiming that Russia decided this election, that it was because of Russian influence that Trump won. That was an objection that was filed. If on Jan. 6 of 2025, regardless of whether a Republican wins or a Democrat wins, if any member of Congress wants to stand on the floor of the United States Congress and submit an objection that they believe that Martians decided the November 2024 election, you can do that. That’s fine. Whatever —Kathleen Kingsbury: If you lose this race, will you concede?If I lose?Kathleen Kingsbury: Yes.Of course.Alex Kingsbury: Have you watched any of the Jan. 6 commission hearings?Very little.Alex Kingsbury: Very little? Do you think, given all that we know now, that what happened on Jan. 6 meets the definition of an insurrection?Well, legally? Well, as an attorney, no. If you were to get — if you were to look at an individual case with facts that — maybe you know more than I do — and there was evidence to meet the elements, then I might give you a different answer.As far as the event goes, the use of the word insurrection has been an evolution of the legal term into one that’s been perceived to be an insurrection. But if you’re asking me if it meets the legal definition of what an insurrection is, there’s a reason why the D.O.J. has not charged it.Kathleen Kingsbury: I want to move on to your role as, potentially, as governor. You’ve said that, if elected, you would declare a state of emergency and refuse to enforce criminal justice laws passed by the Legislature. How do you justify refusing to enforce the laws of the state that you want to lead?A few things. One is I come from a legislature. My Plan A is I want to work with anyone of any party. Georgetown University and the Lugar Center ranked — they have an annual bipartisan index. The last year that they ranked, I was 19 out of 435. Year before that, I was 12. We can debate. We can disagree. You all have strong opinions. You’re The New York Times editorial board. At the end of the day, there’s a job to try to find common ground however possible to move a state forward, a city forward, a country forward.My Plan A is I would love to be able to sit down with the New York State Legislature to try to figure this out. And this is not a Republican versus Democrat issue. The mayor of the City of New York says that judges should have discretion to weigh dangerousness. He wants to amend, raise the age, and he’s right. As far as a state of emergency goes, this isn’t anything that’s unprecedented. Right now there’s a gun violence state of emergency in the State of New York. It was declared by Andrew Cuomo. It was continued by Kathy Hochul.[Mr. Zeldin’s proposals to declare a state of emergency over crime and remove D.A. Alvin Bragg would almost certainly be challenged in the courts.]Governor after governor after governor have submitted these or declared these emergencies. Kathy Hochul declared a Covid emergency and utilized that power to suspend New York’s competitive bidding laws. And that’s a whole other question and a whole other conversation of what she did with that. I do not have the power to repeal a law by myself. But the way the law works — this is something that is a product of a process in the past, has given the governor the ability to suspend a law for 30 days.I want to bring the State Legislature to the table. Plan A is that they come to the table. Plan B is that I bring them to the table. And I would also add, with a very high level of confidence, that if you all did your own single issue survey right now of New Yorkers and you ask them what they think of what I’m saying that we need to do, you will find that the will of the people is that they want this to happen. What they want is Plan A, and what I say they want is Plan B.Jyoti Thottam: OK. So again, to the will of the people, you said that if elected governor, you would fire the Manhattan D.A., Alvin Bragg. How do you justify removing a public servant who’s been elected by the people of New York?The New York State Constitution. The New York State Constitution, we know in New York, we don’t have recall elections. But when they crafted the New York State Constitution, they specifically gave the governor the authority to remove a district attorney who refuses to enforce the law.[The New York State constitution gives the governor authority to initiate proceedings to remove some officials, with due process.]Alvin Bragg has chosen, from Day 1 that he’s been in office, to refuse all sorts of laws across the board and all sorts of other laws he wants to treat as lesser included offenses. He’s not doing his job. Now, will of the people, what I would do is go to the people of Manhattan, the mayor of the City of New York, the borough president. I’m not trying to make some power move where you’re replacing Alvin Bragg with some Republican or some conservative. This is Manhattan Borough.Jyoti Thottam: Why not let the people of Manhattan —100 percent. Yes.Jyoti Thottam: — another D.A. wins.They should. That would be —Jyoti Thottam: So isn’t it anti-democratic to just replace —I have a job to keep the people in New York safe as the governor of the State of New York. I would say, it’s not just a constitutional authority. It’s a constitutional duty. And it’s the first action the first day that I’m in office that I would do, would be telling Alvin Bragg that he’s being removed. He is refusing to do his job.I get an experience as a member of Congress or as just, you could say some average or random New Yorker or maybe as a candidate for governor, I spend a lot of time with the people of this state. I spent a lot of time in blue counties and red counties, Republicans, Democrats and independents. And if this editorial board took a field trip with me — by the way, this is total man on the street, man, woman on the street. We’ll see how it goes.But if we were talking to people out on the street right now, what is their top issue? What is most important to you? What do you want to — why does this race matter? Why does this moment matter? What do you want to see have happen? You’ll find that the issues that I talk about, the positions that I have, are more in tune to what the New Yorkers on the street are asking for. And if our field trip never made it outside, if we only spoke to your security guards on the first floor here, I would imagine that they passionately, passionately agree with me on these topics. And that’s without even talking to them about the topics.Eleanor Randolph: So your first day in office, you’re going to get rid of Alvin Bragg. Who are you going to replace him with? Do you know?I would be asking — there’s only one thing that’s absolutely necessary about who he gets replaced with. The person needs to do the job. Now, what I would do is go to the mayor of the City of New York, and this would start after the election. I would go to the mayor. I’ll go to the borough president. I’ll go to the local elected officials and community leaders. Give me names. The only thing that I care about is that they will do the job.Kathleen Kingsbury: And doing the job is bringing the crime rate down?Doing the job is enforcing the law. Enforcing the law, you work as a prosecutor. There’s a role working with a judge. There’s a role in working with defense counsel. If there’s a law on the books that you don’t agree with, you advocate to change the law. So the problem with Alvin Bragg, for example, is right now, there’s a debate over, how do you help the M.T.A.’s finances?I would offer that, if the M.T.A. was enforcing fare jumping, that there would be hundreds of millions of dollars more that the M.T.A. would have than they have right now. Now, the district attorney comes in and says, you know what? On Day 1, I’m just not going to enforce that fare jumping. And there’s all sorts of other crimes, by the way. We’ve seen the videos where that 16-year-old who gets released on a violent robbery then is trying to jump a fare. The officer tries stopping, and there’s a sense of entitlement now. You can’t.By the way, the sense of entitlement led to the fact that, when he got into the fight with the officer and he went in front of the judge, he asked whether or not he could press charges against the officer. And then he gets instantly released. So there’s all sorts of laws like this, where I believe that the D.A. wants to change a law. You don’t just say, across the board, I’m not going enforce it.What you do is you make your case to whoever set the law. Maybe it’s the New York City Council. Maybe it’s at the State Legislature, depends on the law. And you maybe can bring a few friends, other D. A.s who are like minded and others, and you advocate for that change. But what Alvin Bragg does is he comes in on Day 1 and he says, all across the board with all these different offenses, I’m just not even going to charge them. You don’t have that power. You do not have the right to do that.Mara Gay: Congressman, you’ve said that you would suspend New York’s no cash bail laws —Yes.Mara Gay: — in response to concerns about crime. There is no established and clear connection between bail reform and crime. So why do you believe that this will improve public safety?So two weeks ago today, Keaira Hudson just outside of the Buffalo area was with her three kids, fearing for her life. The day before, she had told everybody who would listen, you cannot release my husband from custody, Adam Bennefield.He was charged with a slew of domestic violence offenses, and the judge ended up releasing Adam Bennefield. And what’s been said is that the judge did not have the ability to keep Adam detained. Wednesday, the next day, two weeks ago today, Keaira Hudson was murdered in front of her three kids, and she was wearing a bulletproof vest.Now, just before that, someone named Scott Saracina was rearrested for another rape. He had been released for a prior rape, served a long prison sentence. He was out on parole. He was arrested this past February, released, rearrested in March, released. He was out on the street, and in August, he allegedly raped someone else.Jyoti Thottam: Those are terrible crimes. I think we all agree, but what Mara is talking about is an established connection between the overall rate of crime and that particular bail reform law.Yeah. I just answered. That is answering the question. That’s direct causality. But anyway —Mara Gay: I’m sorry —Here’s the other —Mara Gay: I’m sorry —Here’s the —Mara Gay: I just —Here’s the issue too is the way they do the law, and one of the issues with the law that — so Eric Adams says we need to overhaul cashless bail and give judges discretion to weigh dangerousness. Even if it’s a bail-eligible offense, the judge has to — is required by the law to — establish the least restrictive means to get that person to return to court. So you can’t weigh dangerousness, even if it is a bail-eligible offense.So the problem is it’s not — there’s a very simple view of, is it bail-eligible or is it not bail- eligible? And if it is bail-eligible, what the governor says is that the judge doesn’t know the law, that the D.A. doesn’t know the law, that the judge isn’t doing their job and they need some remedial training. And the judges out there are being — they’re pretty offended by what the governor is saying. The D.A. is out there being — they’re offended by what the governor is saying, because there is a job to set bail in the least restrictive means to get them to return to court. You’re not allowed to weigh dangerousness. So that’s the overhaul that we’ve been advocating for.Now, one other thing I would say about cashless bail, the argument in favor of cashless bail, that you commit a low-level offense, you have a clean record, you’re not a flight risk, you’re not a danger. The only reason why you would stay behind bars is because you cannot afford $100. Fantastic argument. That is the best argument you can make in favor of it, and everybody agrees.But if you’re two Mexican cartel drug smugglers busted in Inwood with $1.2 million worth of crystal meth and you don’t have enough money for bail, you’re a bad drug dealer. You’re a bad criminal. You’re a bad businessman.So there’s a need to overhaul cashless bail for — I can give a very long list of where the decisions are made. I’m just giving you two recent examples. Actually, those were three recent examples — of where if the law was overhauled, judges have discretion to weigh dangerousness, that you would have a different reality on the ground as far as who is getting released, who is put back out, and who’s being detained.Eleanor Randolph: Congressman, we only have a few more minutes here, and we wanted to talk to you about Roe v. Wade. It appeared that you had cheered the overturning of Roe v. Wade, and you’ve said it would be a “great idea” to appoint an anti-abortion health commissioner.You’ve said recently that you would not change abortion laws, and I think a majority of people in the state would agree with that. There’s strong protections for abortion rights. Will you commit now to, if elected, to preserve the state’s really strong protections for abortion rights?Yes.Mara Gay: You focused a lot on inflation —And I have, by the way. That’s not a new position. That’s —Eleanor Randolph: OK. What about the health commissioner? Sorry.So the heart of my statements — it’s on video — was —Eleanor Randolph: This is NY1?Well, NY1 pulled part — I’m talking about the actual video that NY1 pulled from — is that I made a comment about how it’d be great to have a health commissioner in New York who respects life. And I was taking a shot at what’s also been part of this campaign and what’s been part of this conversation. It’s connected to what was a — I believe that the health commissioner did not handle the nursing home order and the subsequent investigation correctly.It was a shot that I took with a group saying that it would be great for New York to have a health commissioner who respects life. Now, I want the best qualified person to serve as the health commissioner and all state agencies. I want somebody who is experienced, who is a good leader, who has good work ethic. They’re not going to be picking political favorites and it’s all based on connections to —Eleanor Randolph: Well, do you want a health commissioner who is anti-abortion?It’s not a litmus test for me.Mara Gay: All right. You focused on inflation, Congressman, before. In New York, housing is actually one of the biggest drivers of cost of living increases for New Yorkers. I don’t see that you’ve offered any plan, a comprehensive plan, to deal with those costs. Do you have a plan? Can you tell us about that?And by the way, just so you understand my last statement, when I say it’s not a litmus test, it’s not a litmus test that they have to be — their position on it doesn’t just qualify them or disqualify them. You have a law in New York. And if they are exceptionally well qualified, that’s what I’m asking them about.Mara Gay: I’d like you to answer my question please. Do you mind? Do you want me to ask it again?Yeah, sorry. I was —Mara Gay: It’s OK.I got — what’s the very end?Mara Gay: Sure. Do you have a housing plan? Since that’s actually the biggest cost of how cost of living increases for New Yorkers or among the biggest costs?Yeah, we need to build more affordable housing in New York. We have people who have capital they want to spend on the projects, and they’re deciding to spend it in other states. It takes too long to be able to build these projects. The math isn’t working out for people who are investing in these projects, where they’re choosing to invest the dollars elsewhere with a bigger return.There’s a need for more affordable housing inside of the five boroughs. There’s a need for more affordable housing outside of the five boroughs. Some view success with regard to tackling homelessness that you simply put somebody in a shelter. For me, I believe that success is being able to get somebody out of a shelter, where they’re living independently.Mara Gay: Do you have a plan to address this?Yeah. You need to — we need to build more —Mara Gay: How do you plan to do that as governor?Well, you have people who want to put their private capital in, but the government is making it — the government has put in restrictions that it takes just too long to build.Mara Gay: What kind of restrictions would you remove?Well, I believe let’s just — I mean, I can think of many examples. So one would be you want to do a project. You bring in an Article 78, and you just keep on stalling out a project indefinitely. I believe that if you’re bringing an Article 78 proceeding, that you should be required to post bond. Just giving you an example.Mara Gay: Go on.If you want to do a project in a local area, you’re applying for a zoning change, and the local town is requiring you to spend $5 million on some unrelated project nowhere near it in order to get the approval, you just got extorted by the town board. I have a problem with that.I believe that there are economic challenges that people face with regard to first-time home buyers, young families who want to have their first kid or can either have in the basement of mom and dad’s house or they can go buy their own home in Cary, North Carolina. First-time home buyer tax credits and access is something that needs to be enhanced.Mara Gay: Thank you.Eleanor Randolph: So you said that you were going to allow fracking. Where would that be? Where would you allow fracking? And —The people who — go ahead.Eleanor Randolph: And aren’t you worried about pollution, water pollution, methane pollution, other problems with fracking?Everyone wants access to clean air and clean water, regardless of whether you’re Republican, Democrat, Independent. I represent a congressional district almost completely surrounded by water. I have a record —Eleanor Randolph: I understand.From the Long Island Sound, the Plum Island to National Estuary, and far more.Eleanor Randolph: But they’re not going to have fracking.The area that is begging for it is the Southern Tier of New York. And they want the state to reverse the ban on the safe extraction of natural gas. That is their ask. And they look across their border into Pennsylvania, and they see that those towns on the other side of the border have been able to tap into it. And this isn’t a Republican versus Democrat issue.This has resulted in economic development, jobs, increased revenue, lower energy costs. But yeah, no, Broome County, go visit Binghamton. Go through the Southern Tier. They’re desperate for it. And by the way, on the other side of the border, they’re tapping into the same resource of the same shales. And what was claimed up in Albany in order to get that ban put in place is not actually happening like they were claiming.No, it’s not that, on the other side of the border, everyone’s turning on their water faucets and just fires coming out. So now you have research, data, science, of all of these other states tapping into the same resource of the same shales. Now you’re better informed. I don’t believe that we should be the state that is not allowing us to tap into that at all. Now, by the way, the same person who would say, well, you might lean left ideologically, maybe a strong fan of, a passionate fan of President Biden. OK, so we cut off Russian oil imports. What’s the next move?Do we go to Iran and Venezuela and Saudi Arabia to ramp up their production? Because I guarantee you what we would be doing in the Southern Tier of New York is safer than what we are running off to to get them to rely on us. While we’re here today, we’re tapping, once again, into our oil reserves.So I understand the goal. We want to be leaders with climate change. We care about our environment. That’s something that is very important. I’m a member of the Bipartisan Climate Solutions Caucus. I am all for having a conversation with anyone. I’m an all-of-the-above energy guy. I’ve helped lead the fight to get ARPA-E funding for Brookhaven National Lab.If Anne’s Pancakes on the Southern Tier wants to have access to gas because, when their electric goes out, they’re still able to make their pancakes, I am all in favor of Anne’s Pancakes doing that. If someone else wants to put solar panels on their home, God bless them. If they have a farm and they want to put up a windmill, go for it. But the idea that people who favor wind and solar are saying that Anne’s Pancakes can’t hook up into gas, I have a problem.Alex Kingsbury: I’d like to ask you about guns. You said that you’re in favor of repealing the SAFE Act, you’re against red flag laws and for concealed carry. I want to know where you draw the line. Would you like to see open carry? Would you like to see the AR-15s in Times Square? Where — in a state that is very pro-gun control — where do you personally go?So for example, you said red flag laws. The person who shot up Tops supermarket in Buffalo should have not had access to any firearm. The red flag was clear as day. The person shouldn’t have access to any weapon at all. He threatened to shoot up a school. The system needs to work that whoever becomes aware of that input is part of the process of making sure that law enforcement at every level, federal, state, local, local school district if they’re the ones coming in contact with the threat.That person should have not had access to any weapon. Now, two changes that can also be made at the same time to make sure you’re implementing a red flag law correctly is that, if you want to try to remove somebody else’s firearm, I believe that they have a right to be represented and that hearing has a place. And that when the appeal is done, that the burden should be clear and convincing evidence, which is a very high legal bar to be met, in order to prove that you’re worthy of getting it back when you weren’t even represented in the original proceeding.Secondly, is if someone is making up a fictitious claim just to try to get back at somebody, there’s no consequences in New York, and there should be. So what I have stated as it relates to red flag laws has been consistent with everything that I just told you. Now, New York’s concealed carry law that was recently enacted is going to be overturned by the federal courts. It was — everyone woke up on a Friday morning. It was the week after the Bruen decision. There was no bill. By that afternoon, there was a bill signing.Now, people who are politicians here in New York City, they’re used to having 1,700 amazing parks all throughout the city. You have a small little park on your street corner. Well, there’s this place called the Adirondack, and it’s a whole bunch of different counties and different regions. Now, you all know this. But there are state legislators who wrote their bill and included that. Now, they said, well no, it doesn’t include that. Well, that’s the problem with rushing a bill.I happen to believe that the best way to do a bill is not just talking to the people who you’re relying on to get their vote but also talking to other people who you’ll never get their vote. Because if you ask them, why do you oppose a bill, they’ll give you a good reason. So with the SAFE Act, for example, if I wanted to, if I was a gun manufacturer, I can create a SAFE Act compliant rifle that includes a whole bunch of features where, under the SAFE act, if you have a single one of those features, it’s illegal. Because it makes it look scary.So you take a rifle, and you add a single feature to it, a pistol grip, a thumb grip, a flash suppressor, a muzzle compressor, a collapsible butt stock. You add a single feature, and you say, OK, now it’s an assault rifle. But there are other firearms that are more lethal, but they don’t look as scary. And I can manufacture for you a firearm that includes a whole bunch of the features I just told you, and it’s perfectly legal the way that they wrote it. And that’s not the only piece of this effect. There are other problems with it as well.The new concealed carry law tramples all over First Amendment rights to trample all over Second Amendment rights. It might actually end up getting overturned first on just having to provide your social media accounts to prove to the government your good moral character or whatever they very vaguely defined it. They didn’t even say what they meant. They wrote the law without even saying what you have to prove to the government. So what? One county to the next is who’s a good person and who’s a bad person?So there was a problem with how they drafted the new law. They went even further than the past law, and it’s going to get overturned by the courts. And can I — one other thing too is there’s two different things between the law-abiding gun owner who wants to safely and securely carry a firearm solely for self-defense. And there are people with illegal firearms committing crime after crime after crime, and the system still has them on the street. So when Governor Hochul, a few day — a few weeks ago, she put out her tweet. She says that she demands that American Express and Mastercard and Visa flag every attempted purchase as a suspicious purchase.[An approved state measure would standardize credit or debit card transactions for gun stores and help credit card companies to flag suspicious activity.]I just had — two Sundays ago, I had a gang-related drive by on my front yard with my two girls at home. And I don’t know who the shooters were. I don’t know what the firearm was that they used. I don’t know what their motive is, but I guarantee you that however that person or persons acquired that firearm, it did not start with a swipe of the American Express card. The way that we approach this entire conversation should be one not going after, because too often, we just end up drafting a policy that goes after the law-abiding gun owner. We should be drafting policies going after the criminal committing crime after crime after crime, and they’re still out on the street.Alex Kingsbury: But actually, the reason New York has such a low gun death rate is because it has strict gun laws compared to states that don’t, both suicides and homicides. Relax the gun laws, you get more gun deaths. Are you content with that?When was the last time that a concealed carry holder committed any one of the offenses in New York?Mara Gay: Donald Trump endorsed you. Talk to us about your path to victory in a state that he lost by over 20 percentage points.I’m here today out of respect to all of you. OK? Listen, the editorial —If I was doing this based off of maybe like the last time you guys issued an endorsement and I got my feelings hurt, I wouldn’t have walked in the front door. And it is out of respect to you, and you can ask whatever questions you want. I’m happy to answer them. But the reason why we’re going to win this race is because outside on the street, when you go take that field trip and you ask people, what is your top issue? What are your top issues? What are you looking for in the race?I’m sitting here talking about rising crime and rising costs, and Kathy Hochul is talking about Donald Trump. So that’s — as far as a path to the victory, we are right on the issues that New Yorkers are saying are most important to them. We started 18 months ago. In my first six months, I campaigned at least twice in every county in the entire state. And we just continued campaigning hard, all across the state, to meet as many people as we can.But the reason why we’re going to win the race is because the people who are actually on the street right now feel like we need to save the state, and they want to restore balance to Albany. And they also realize, with some of the policies that we’re discussing, that there’s going to be a balance of power up in Albany, that we’re not — this isn’t an election of whether or not we’re going to go from one-party Democrat rule to one-party Republican rule. It’s not on the table, and the average person knows that.Mara Gay: It’s long been the case, unfortunately, that Black communities disproportionately suffer from violent crime. Given that and given your campaign is so focused on it, how do you expect to do with Black voters?We introduced our pathways plan. Some of the topics we talked about here today have been part of our campaign throughout, whether it’s upward economic mobility. We haven’t even spoken about the quality of education in our schools. I support lifting the cap on charter schools. I support school choice. I believe that we have kids trapped in multigenerational poverty.We spend two and a half times as much on kids — on education per pupil than you see in places, not just Florida, Mississippi, these other places where the kids who are Black, Hispanic, low income are actually performing at a higher level on the same exact tests than our kids here, even though we spend two and a half times as much. I think education is very important to the Black community. I believe in upward economic mobility. We’re talking housing.Crime is part of it, and there’s more to that. So all of this is part of it, but it’s important to show up. So when I was elected to the Third Senate District in 2010, I had Brentwood, Central, Islip and North Bellport. People would tell me, don’t go to those areas. They’ll never vote for you. And they’re right, but I still went there anyway, because it’s my job. What I find in going to areas where the Black community is most densely populated is that they’re getting ignored by everybody.Mara Gay: Why do you think more of them aren’t supporting you since you’re so focused on crime? And that’s something that disproportionately affects them.I haven’t gotten to everybody.Mara Gay: You haven’t asked every Black voter?Oh, I mean, generally, I’m asking every voter in the State of New York of every walk of life and every single background. I’m asking everyone to be supportive of my candidacy, but I’m talking about one on one. That’s why I was there for Harlem Week. I’ll be there for the African American Day.I met with community leaders multiple times in different community restaurants. I’ve been there for press conferences, whether it’s targeting Jose Alba nearby at his bodega. I remember having one of the primary debates that had took place on Juneteenth, and they asked a question somewhat similar to your question. It was a little bit different. I said, actually, I just came here from lunch in Harlem.I might spend four years going into Harlem over and over and over and over again. And I might increase my vote share by almost nothing. And I’ll still be proud that I did that, because it’s my job. At the end of the day, people can vote for whoever the heck they want. My message is this, though, to everybody, including right, left, whatever your background is: Don’t let anybody take your vote for granted.Kathleen Kingsbury: I think we should end there.Eleanor Randolph: Wow.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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      in Elections

      Interview: Kathy Hochul Talks to the New York Times Editorial Board

      by

      Kathy Hochul is the governor of New York. She served as the state’s lieutenant governor.This interview with Ms. Hochul was conducted by the editorial board of The New York Times on Oct. 17.Read the board’s endorsement for the governor’s race in New York here.Brent Staples: Give us some insight into why this race is so close.Why it’s so close? Well, first of all, thanks for having me back again. There’s something going on nationally. If you track all the races, the Democratic races, the congressional races, the gubernatorial races, and we’re outperforming in a lot of those.But you’re basically — again, you’re referencing that on polls, and polls don’t make a difference to Election Day. And I will tell you, as someone who’s run in 14 elections, they go up and down like this, depending on all kinds of factors outside the control of the person running — the cost of gas and inflation rate. So I think that’s what’s happening.People are just looking at what’s happening all over the country, feeling some unease. And take a look at it, but all I need to do is get my message out, and to be able to point to the fact. And I think this is going to widen the race very substantially.Because of your excellent reporting, people will now find out that Lee Zeldin was not this innocent bystander that he’s trying to present himself as, but was actually giving direction to President Trump’s chief of staff on how to subvert the electoral process. And when that gets out there, that is a disqualifying fact that people will need to know about him.[In the days after the 2020 presidential election, Mr. Zeldin texted Mark Meadows “ideas” for how to use unsubstantiated allegations about voting irregularities.]So we just got to build our case, talk about what we’re going to do, but also expose Lee Zeldin for who he truly is. And he does not deserve to be the governor of New York.Kathleen Kingsbury: Obviously, crime is down from its historic highs, but it is still up about a third here in the city. Your opponent has made quite a big deal about the issue of public safety. How do you — how will you get voters to trust that you’re going to make the city safer?They know what I’m doing already. We have worked very hard to get guns off the streets, and I understand people know, from me, my words directly, that public safety is my top priority, always has been. And what we’ve done to focus on something — Lee Zeldin thinks that we need more guns on the streets, we need more guns in the subways.I was in a synagogue Saturday, and I was in churches on Sundays, and I’ll tell you, none of those individuals want to sit next to someone that might be carrying a weapon. And that is the Lee Zeldin world that he’s trying to present to us. So I’m focusing on guns.We had over 7,000 guns off the streets in the last year — actually, since January, when I convened a first-ever task force — nine states, plus N.Y.P.D. … and New York police are actually working together. Extraordinary. No one’s ever done that.I was called out by President Biden for doing that. He says no one’s ever done this. So we now have — we’re getting more guns off the streets. And the crime rate, overall, I dissect — I look at the numbers every day.Statewide, our shootings are down about 13 percent — statewide, about 12 percent; New York City, down 13 percent since I’ve been in office. Nationwide, it’s down 2 percent. And that’s all the states.So we’re making more progress on illegal guns, banning ghost guns, my assault weapon ban for teenagers — all the things we’ve had to do. And despite our best efforts — and since we last met, I had to deal with the Supreme Court that overturned the right of a governor to protect her citizens from people carrying guns anywhere they want. The concealed carry law worked for 108 years.And so I pulled back the Legislature, literally, by June 30, had a plan in place. I knew this was coming or could come. And we got them — this is how cooperation really leads to quick results.The Legislature was willing to come back, pass legislation, and we made those changes. And again, we’re in court — every time the governor does something on guns, there’s always litigation. We knew it. Bring it on.But I believe that we have a right to protect our citizens on the streets, get the guns off the streets. And that is my focus. With any crime plan that Lee Zeldin puts forward, that does not talk about guns, is a joke.Nick Fox: Do you think concerns about crime are real or exaggerated?They’re real, because people feel it. I understand the sense of insecurity that’s out there. I do spend a lot of time in the communities. I was at a diner yesterday. I talked to people just randomly, and people are concerned.Now, convincing people that this is still the safest big city in America, that our crime rates are down — our subways have had some recent problems, but we have more law enforcement down there, and putting cameras in the subways. We’re making progress, but it’s a difficult — that’s the challenge.I can talk about data all day long. But how people feel — and in this hyper-politicized environment, being told how they feel — it was fascinating to see a Bloomberg study that showed that incidences of crime over the last decade, and the news coverage of it — about parallel.They both go up absolutely across the nation. And since the pandemic, the media coverage of crimes is up four times in relation to the actual number of instances. And I’m not saying this paper — there’s another paper.So I just want to say that that feeds into people’s perceptions and anxieties, but I deal with people’s feelings. That’s what I have to deal with. I can’t just say the numbers are better. I need to let them know that I am focused on this 100 percent, because that is the reason that we’re being held back from our full recovery. And we have to overcome that.Eleanor Randolph: So Zeldin talks about — if he gets elected, he’s going to declare a state of emergency about crime. And he also says he’s going to — I don’t know — fail to enforce the bail law. What do you think about that? What do you think about whether he can actually do that?Right out of the Trump playbook. Sounds like a dictator to me. He’s going to just undermine laws and forget laws that were passed — duly passed by the Legislature? You can’t do that. You can’t do that.And it’s absurd to try to use that as a panacea to tell everybody, I’ll just magically wave a wand and ignore the will of the Legislature, which has a supermajority. You can’t do that. So he’s just feeding people a whole lot of lies, misperceptions, and trying to create this image of himself to be able to do more than I can on crime.I will put my record on fighting crime out there with anybody’s. We have made real progress. And we’ve made targeted changes to the bail laws. We spoke before at our previous meetings — the underlying premise behind them.We make some targeted changes to make sure that repeat offenders, cases where there’s guns involved, orders of protection and hate crimes are now covered. But we’re not turning our backs on criminal justice reform either. So we’ve found the right balance, but you know what’s not working? The system itself.I need all the components to work — starting with our backlog in the court system. This has been exposed as a real driver for two straight years — no jury trials. When I got elected, I said, “Why aren’t there jury trials?” Because the Office of Court Administration, court appeals judge, was firm that they not have jury trials, because people had to sit six feet apart.This is a time — kids are back in school. People are back at work. Closer than six feet, but the jury system, they said you couldn’t put anybody within six feet. So, you know the size of our courthouses. There’s not enough room.So we did not have the administration of justice for two years. People that had their day in court, who should have their day in court — either proven innocent, go back home, or you’re guilty of a crime — deal with the consequences. So that’s a problem. I’m working toward getting a new court appeals judge.My responsibility, after recommendations come, I’m going to be focused on someone where their No. 1 top assistant has the capacity to deal with what has become an administrative nightmare. We have to fix that.We also need the support for the policing. We also need to support the violence disrupter programs, which I’ve supported financially three times more than we have before, and also the district attorneys to properly charge and for judges to do the right thing. Then the system works. Because simply saying it’s bail when all across the country, our crime rate is lower — I mean, there’s just a disconnect between reality and the representation that he is making in his campaign. It’s absurd.Mara Gay: Governor, thank you. Inflation, and especially in New York, the cost of housing, is a serious constituent issue for many voters in the state. What specifically will you commit to doing about those issues, especially on housing?Thank you. I mean, I talked about what I’m leaning into. We spoke about how I’ve had to be a crisis manager since I took office — the shooting in Buffalo, Omicron, hurricanes, and even since we last met, the Supreme Court decisions, what I had to deal with on abortion and guns.But when I think about my vision for going forward, top priorities are creating a New York where people want to live and want to move here. And within that is how do we make it affordable so they can?No. 1 cost for a family or an individual is their housing. So we will not be able to be this place that meets all the needs of bringing people here if we don’t get more affordability. So I know that the governor sets the agenda. I’m fully aware of that. I plan on unleashing the power that I have, working together with the Legislature, advocacy groups, the industry, and pulling together a plan that’s going to be transformative.And I say that because, since the last day the Legislature left session, I directed my top-notch policy team to go out there and find the answers from other states, think tanks, convene meetings with industry. So my policy team has been working on ideas.Part of it’s going to have to be incentives for developers. Because as we saw, when you shut down 421a, permits dried up. I said this was going to happen. Now, I put together something that was better than 421a — 485w, which allowed for far more affordable housing in the context.And that was actually an agreement with the industry and labor to do that. The Legislature wasn’t supportive, and I had spent a lot of my political capital on public safety initiatives, where I said, “All right, we’ll visit again next year.” Then we’ll see the data, which shows, despite the fact that people said that so-called giveaways to billionaires, they’ll still build affordable housing because of the goodness of their heart. We know that didn’t work.And so now I have the data to show the stoppage of permits. So the crisis I have, the state has — over the next 10 years, we have to build over 500,000, possibly up to 1.2 million, new units.My plan last year was $25 billion toward affordable housing. It sounds like a big number, right? To do something? That gets me one-tenth of that goal. It’s 100,000 units. One hundred thousand units of affordable housing and supportive housing.So, it’s about looking at all the regulations. I said I want to see a list of every single city and state barrier to be able to have more density, grant-oriented development, and take another look at A.D.U.s [accessory dwelling units]. We talked — tried hotel conversions, but as it turned out, there wasn’t as much inventory as there had been when this was first proposed, so that wasn’t successful.So now we look at offices as well. Office conversions — classy office space — a lot of little buildings won’t lend themselves to it. But we have a plan to focus on that as well.So I will also look to other thought leaders to help me build the support behind this. Newspapers, like The New York Times — because you have that. But I need to change the mind-set of the elected officials, who have been — with one decision, be able to stop a project that could help literally hundreds of families in the Bronx, in Queens, elsewhere.These projects have to be unleashed with — we need market rate. We need affordable housing. We need supportive housing. This has been jammed up for too darn long. And I plan on unleashing this with an aggressive approach, because failure is not an option.That is the barrier we have to people being able to live here. Places on Long Island, where I was at the diner yesterday — families saying to me, “My kids can’t grow up in the same community they were raised in.” That’s a tragedy. That’s a tragedy. That’s nothing to do with them. It’s not education. Love the state. And if we drive them out because of affordability, then we fail.Same thing with the city — more young people want to come here than I’ve ever seen in my lifetime. And the energy behind the tech jobs — they’re just booming, especially on the West Side. It’s exciting. But if they can’t afford a house, an apartment, co-op, condo, it’s not going to work.So that is where I’m going to spend my political capital, because it fits into my larger framework. The vision of New York over the next five years is creating a place where people not just want to live but can live, and get a good job, and start a business if they want, and raise their families.When I focus on my policies — and I really do love policies, as much as I’ve had to deal with crises — I love getting my hands into policies and asking: Why? Why can’t we do it this way? Why can’t we do it this way?So I’ll be taking a very, very engaged approach. Already have been, and put forth our plan. So that’s — we have to have that.Alex Kingsbury: You answered Mara’s question on housing. I’m curious about inflation as the biggest political headwind the Democrats are facing nationwide, and probably here in New York. Your opponent’s running against it. Is there anything you can do?Well, we’ve focused on areas we can put more money back in the pockets of New Yorkers. Inflation’s about 8.2, 8.3 percent right now. It is this record high. I understand that. And this is one of those challenges that we have across this country, not just New York.But in our budget, we addressed the gas tax. We waited for the duration of the year. We want to take a look at that again. We got $2.1 billion in property tax rebates for people — middle-class tax cuts.The one area where we haven’t really spent as much time as I’d like is on the affordability of child care — one of the reasons so many moms are not back to work and couldn’t get back to work. So our plan was $7.7 billion. We’re starting to see the benefits now, as we’re able to tell New Yorkers that half of all children in the state of New York are eligible for subsidies, plus subsidies and increases for the workers.It’s important to organizations. You know, whether it’s in a church and it’s in a synagogue, or whether it’s the Y.W.C.A., all the places are getting more support from us than they ever have before. But I also tell you what — I’m using a different approach.When I talk to developers and people who want economic development support from the state of New York, I say bring it on. Come on, we’re all excited. Tell me about your child care plan. Tell me what you’re doing for your employees, whether it’s a consortium of other businesses in a small downtown, you’ve got to work together, whether it’s you’re rebuilding a new office — can you dedicate one floor to this?I said, “This will be the biggest driver for women to want to work at your facility.” They’ll get you at a competitive advantage. I’ve said this all over the state to tech companies as well. So I’m excited about blending the needs of families with our economic development dollars. And I think we’ll have a real key for success. We’re putting that in our next budget as well.Jyoti Thottam: So, Governor, just back to your power to set the agenda. As you know, the governor has more than $900 million in your budget that can be used without real oversight or transparency. You’ve accepted tens of millions of dollars in campaign funds from donors with business before the state.You’ve also decided that you’re accepting campaign donations from state board and commission appointees. I know they weren’t people that you originally appointed. But you’ve come under some criticism for that. What do you say about voters who are concerned about ethics and expecting you, again, to set the agenda on ethics?Brent Staples: I’ll piggyback on that question, too. I just want to emphasize, do you realize how bad the optics of that were, in accepting the contributions from the people on boards, from these people on the commission?We are very clear that we weren’t. I was not putting anyone on a board for making a contribution —Brent Staples: My question is, do you realize how bad the optics of that was? It looked really bad from there.Well, I appreciate the commentary on that, but here’s what I’m doing. I’m following all the rules, making sure that there is no connection between any contributions and any policies with state government. I’ve been in office for 30 years. I’m very careful about this — making sure that everyone around me follows the rules.But what you’re proposing, in a sense, is creating an environment where it’s very difficult for people who don’t have millions of their own dollars to run for office. I come out of public service. I follow the rules. Always have, always will. And raising money is part of being able to remain as governor when I took office a year ago.So what I don’t do is have billionaires, like Trump-supporting billionaires, like Ron Lauder, dumping nearly $10 million in dark money against me. That’s what someone in my position has to counter, you know? That’s the reality. No matter what I raise, and they’re still not done, more money can come in at the end and give them the firepower. That is the challenge we all face.I will support reforms. I helped write campaign finance reform when I was a young staffer for Senator Moynihan. I’ve worked on this my whole life. And I’ve stood up to the campaign finance office. I have 14 employees. I unlocked this. And it’s been talked about — these reforms. And those will come. That’s what we’re putting in motion now.But what I don’t do — and predecessors have done this — is, at a fund-raiser, where there’s people — all different individuals have interests, yes? I don’t bring government staff. It’s pretty shocking to realize that, before, you could go to a fund-raiser and talk to the chief of staff to the governor, the budget director, head of an agency. I said, “No, think about the perception of that, the access.”I only have a couple of young campaign staffers at events with me. We do it very differently. But I will always, because of the responsibility I have, to let people know that I’m going to make sure that we have the highest ethics.I changed JCOPE [the Joint Commission on Public Ethics] completely. I said I was going to blow it up because it wasn’t working. I don’t even know who my appointees are on that board. I said, “I want distance.” We had set up a system where independents — I have — law school professors, law school deans are the ones who are selecting who determines ethics investigations in our state. And I think that’s appropriate, instead of having my own appointees. You talked about the optics of appointees. How about appointing your former staffers and friends to the ethics board? So —Eleanor Randolph: Well, you changed a lot of things.I understand perception is important. But the reality is, we follow all the rules. Full disclosure. Everybody knows where our money comes from. And unlike the dark, sinister money that’s going to super PACs, there actually are limits.Eleanor Randolph: But to Jyoti’s point, the Citizens Budget Commission identified almost $1 billion that they called — that has been called a slush fund — and said there was very little transparency about where this money went and questions about whether it went to different areas for political purposes for this campaign. How can you promise that there’ll be more transparency upfront about this? And I know that slush fund has been there forever. It’s not new. But still, the transparency is the hard part, really.Right, and the transparency comes from — this has to be approved by the Legislature. I don’t just go find a billion dollars and put it in a fund. The Legislature is involved in this.Eleanor Randolph: Yes, but you and I know there are all these private meetings before you come up with a budget. And this particular fund is the one that Citizens Budget Commission is concerned about, because it’s just there like a slush fund that you can use to hand out to different areas.No, these all come through different agencies. If it’s economic development funds, it comes through our Regional Economic Development Councils. The decisions made, for example, for money dedicated for Long Island — I didn’t make the decisions that we do $10 million for Feinstein Institute. That went through a process.That went through a process where the Regional Economic Development Council makes recommendations. And they recommend it to us. And money that’s for any economic development project. There’s no situation where I sit there and say where it’s going to go. I take the recommendations of — these are fellow citizens. These are citizens and business people who make those determinations.So, I know there’s cynicism associated with all of this. I understand that. And my job is to restore equal space in government once again. And I’ll continue doing that every single day, following all the rules, making sure we have the highest ethics. And that’s what I committed to from the first day, when I knew I had to do a lot of cleanup and rehabilitation of the state’s reputation at the time. And I’m still committed to that.Nick Fox: You recently got a very good look at some of the worst of the M.T.A. and how East Side Access went billions of dollars over budget. Do you think enough has been done to change the way the M.T.A. operates? And given the decline of the revenue, how do you improve ridership, and how do you get the repairs that need to be done?Important question, something I deal with regularly. First of all, the history you talked about was long and sordid. And I’m glad that Janno Lieber, who I elevated, was part of the solution, not the problem. So we don’t have the same actors that were involved in what has happened in the past. So I’m looking forward. How do we continue to make these investments?First of all, operationally. I’ve already asked Janno for a report on internal savings that can be found that — we also know that increase in ridership — people have to feel secure, safe. And it’s interesting how it works. Look, the more riders there are, the safer the subway is. We’re still down about 61 to 63 percent of prepandemic ridership on weekdays, depending on which day. Seventy-three percent on weekends. But as long as there’s trains that are not full, then people don’t feel secure, and they’re not as secure.So driving more people back by giving them quality service, on-time trains — there’s no changing our trains, our system, our services. If we cut services, then people have a disincentive to come. So we have to maintain high-quality service, find areas we can cut, find new revenue sources. And I push them to find new revenue sources for us.Look, that’s on the operations side. On the capital side, we’re going to continue making the investments. And East Side Access will finish under my watch. When I first became governor — I still have regular meetings with the Port Authority, Rick Cotton, Janno Lieber, tell me all the products that are outstanding. What’s the timetable, and how can we shave off time? Shave off a year, six months, whatever you do, because now, rising cost inflation, time is money. I cannot afford another day.So I bring this sense of urgency of just getting the job done. Finished Long Island Rail Road Third Track. Critically important. Finishing East Side Access literally by the end of this year. We’re starting Penn Station before the costs get any higher, because I don’t want there to be any excuse why we can’t have a world-class, spectacular facility there. We’ve already made some progress in one of the terminals, or one of the wings there.So the operations side and capital side. Capital side is going to be assisted by congestion pricing. Right now we have the Traffic Mobility Review Board coming up with recommendations to give to the M.T.A. That process will probably go on for two more months. I think they’re doing all the public comments that came in. And a lot of issues arose. We’re listening to them. They’re listening to them. They’ll make recommendations.So that’s how we have the money dedicated for future capital investments to make up for years of neglect. And then we also have challenges on the operational side. Because of federal money, we’re good through 2024 with the budget. But I said, “Let’s start making the changes now.” I’m not waiting until then. Let’s start making the changes internally now so we don’t go off a cliff in 2024, 2025.Mara Gay: What’s the most significant change that you’ve made that you can point to with the M.T.A. versus the way former Governor Cuomo was involved?I’m letting them run it. I’m letting them run it because they are the transit experts, not us. My own agenda does not come into play when I have brilliant experts running the operations and have worked on finding public safety.We’ve put cameras in the trains now. That gives people a strong sense of security. We’ve been focusing on our M.T.A. transit police that watch the trains all along Metro-North. The City of New York is responsible for policing the subway itself. So I think it’s more of a collaborative approach — letting the experts drive the decisions as opposed to political interference.Jyoti Thottam: Congestion pricing, though — that’s a policy that transit experts really love. But how do you sell it to New Yorkers whose commutes will immediately get more expensive — the ones who are still driving — that this is good for you and good for the city?And this was a major change. What people will learn about me is, I’m not afraid of major challenges. Yes, the easier thing is to walk away and say, “Let someone else handle this a decade from now.” That’s not who I am. We need to get this done. And the operative word in congestion pricing is “congestion.” That’s why I had to walk here today, because there’s delivery trucks. Delivery trucks are jamming up 39th.Listen, all over, we’re becoming paralyzed. And there’s a huge economic cost to that. And it becomes a deterrent. Why would you even want to drive in the city? It’s like, they’re going to get stuck trying to find a parking lot. They’re not going to get within a block of where they want to go for 40 minutes.So then there’s the environment. We have only this time on Earth to make a huge difference and reverse what has happened to our planet under our watch. And I’m committed to this. And so the efforts to get more vehicles off the streets is going to have a better outcome with asthma rates.We’re transitioning to electric buses, electric public buses, but also vehicles, and also enhancing our public transit. We have — have you guys seen Long Island Rail Road? It is spectacular. If you’ve not been on it lately, you need to take a ride on this. The cars are clean. The stations are gorgeous. You can plug in and charge your phone.So what we’re offering people to help overcome the hesitation is more connectability, a better experience, more reliable, so we can encourage more people to take public transportation, which is the whole origin, the whole premise behind congestion pricing overall. We’re looking for the recommendations on communities that will be hit, industries that will be hit. So this is not set in stone yet. So obviously those conversations are still ongoing.Eleanor Randolph: You mentioned climate change and the environment. What do you think about fracking? I gather that Mr. Zeldin, Congressman Zeldin, is interested in opening that back up again. How do you feel about this?Donald Trump told him that’s what he should do. I’m sure that’s what he’s proposing. I don’t support that. No, we have a vision. And it has an executable plan behind it. It’s not just a pipe dream. We actually have a strategy on how to bring in more renewable power from Hydro-Québec coming down from Champlain Trail, bringing in more wind and solar from places like Sullivan County. I did this one year ago.And people suggested that one of these two energy sources — one might be better than the other. I said, “Do them both.” P.S.C. [the New York Public Service Commission] had to make a decision, but I recommended we do both. Then we can really, really stop our reliance on renewable — on fossil-fuel-generated power — and just start getting into this future and reducing the cost of electricity so no one thinks twice about their next vehicle being an electric vehicle, and as we electrify buildings.So if you don’t just take the leap and say, “Now is the time” — I’ve said this before, growing up in a very polluted community in Buffalo. I thought the skies were supposed to be orange, because that’s all I saw in Lackawanna with the steel plant, where my dad worked, grandpa worked. So I come out of [inaudible]. I am by nature an environmentalist, and know that we’ve lost too much time. So we are the —Eleanor Randolph: No fracking.Last generation that can really do anything about climate change. We’re the first to really feel the effects, the last [inaudible].Eleanor Randolph: No fracking.Kathleen Kingsbury: We only have a couple of minutes left, but I wanted to return to the M.T.A. for one second. One of the biggest drivers of the perception that taking the train is unsafe right now is the clear number of people with mental illness who are often on the trains now. Is there anything that you can do, as the governor, on that issue specifically, or any way that you can work with the mayor to improve that question?Working very close with the mayor on this. Our teams have been embedded since he was on the job two weeks. And we went down to the subway together and proposed a joining of his forces and state resources for people that are part of these S.O.S. teams, because just moving someone along is a guarantee they’re just going to be back the next day. Just dealing realities.Again, it ties into a question about this housing crisis. This is a driver because there’s not enough places to take people to give them a safe experience. But safety is important. And we worked on Kendra’s Law. We made some improvements to Kendra’s Law.And also, what I found is a lot of people really do need to be hospitalized for a time being to get on a path toward a real recovery program, as opposed to just cycling back into the community. And I said, “Why aren’t there more psychiatric beds out there?” And I was always pressing. I’m always asking questions. Why aren’t there more psychiatric beds?It turns out that there’s a differential in reimbursement for Medicaid for the hospitals and whether or not it’s a psychiatric bed, which is more costly than a nonpsychiatric bed. So there was a financial disincentive for hospitals to have psychiatric beds.So I said, “OK, compress that.” The state will pick up the cost of making it fairer for hospitals, because it’s a public-policy imperative that we have more places for them to get genuine treatment that’s going to help them get on a different path. And we’ll do that. Last I saw, there was another 1,000 beds that had come online as a result of just that decision.That’s how I operate. I see a problem. I know where I want to get. And I’ll press all the levers to make that happen. We did that with affordable housing. We’re going to do that with trying to help the cost-of-living challenges, because it’s energy costs as well. It’s almost $500, on average, for people’s monthly energy bill. These are real challenges.But dealing with the probably 700 to 1,000 people who have severe mental health problems that are either on the subways, in the subways, on the streets or in the stations is something that we’re focused on. More resources. I mean, a lot of people say we need more money. I put more money and I’ll continue to put more money to support the mayor’s efforts to deal with this crisis.Mara Gay: Governor, we have just two minutes more. Can we talk a little bit about your path to victory in this surprisingly competitive race?The more people know about Lee Zeldin and how extremely dangerous he is, and now his direct connection to the attempted overturn of our government and the democratic process, I think, is going to be jaw-droppingly shocking to people.Mara Gay: But who are your voters, and where are your voters? And how are you turning them out?We are. I was in the Bronx all day Saturday. People are excited. They’re excited. I think there’s an energy around the historic nature of the first woman elected. I’m proud of that. It’s not the reason I should be governor, but a lot of people are energized by that. Also, I’ve walked these streets. I’ve been in the communities, I spent last week in Brooklyn. That’s not my first time walking the streets of Brooklyn. It’s probably my 700th.And so the communities where I show up — the churches and the places of gathering in Black and brown communities — they have seen me before. Their leaders know me. Their elected officials know me. And they know that I have the heart and the passion to lead, and also the toughness. This is not a job for the faint of heart. And I’ve always believed, if it doesn’t kill you, it makes you stronger. There is no one stronger in the state of New York than I am. I am ready for this now.Eleanor Randolph: Do you think the women’s vote will be energized by abortion? Do you still see that? It seems to be fading in the polls.It’s still an issue. You only need to win by a small amount. You just have to win. You have to have the majority to win. So I do believe that there will be women in — suburban, Republican women. We’re seeing that there is more interest — independent women.Democratic women are with us. That’s great. And they’re excited about the historic nature, as well as knowing that they have someone who will protect abortion rights, as opposed to someone who actually literally cheered the overturning of Roe v. Wade, and now to try to back-walk this? That was just a couple months ago.Seriously, give the voters of New York a little more credit. They do not have amnesia. They’ve not forgotten your history in overturning the election and your resistance to any common sense gun —Brent Staples: Are you relying on ads for that? Are you relying on television ads for that? You keep saying about people learning how bad Lee Zeldin is. When are they going to learn that? How are they going to learn about it?We’ve been on the air since August on that message.Brent Staples: So you’ve — right now, you mean?Oh, yeah. We have been saying that to you. They’re all over the air. Our first one starts out with the insurrection, pictures of the overturning of the Capitol —Brent Staples: So you shot your shot on that already.Yeah, yeah.Brent Staples: So I’m asking what’s coming, because —Well, just stay tuned. I’m not going to tell you everything right now.Bent Staples: I will tell you, I think that the shot you shot is not working.Well —Brent Staples: Just a citizen’s observation.I’ll tell you another thing people don’t know is how aggressive I am on economic development. One thing that’s going to get people very energized … Micron. Micron — the rest of the nation, every governor wanted to attract Micron. They came to New York. We had a partnership with Chuck Schumer. We had to work at the federal level with President Biden.I got the deal done, overcoming a lot of hesitation. But because of relationships I have with the Legislature, they trusted me. I said, “If we can put together a green CHIPS bill, meaning there has to be intense sustainability standards in this, I can attract them.” And they were not coming here. In fact, after we won Micron, there was reporting in Texas, very disappointed community. They were sure they had landed it. So now what I had done is had a breakthrough. I could say that this is a state that welcomes business.And what that means, more importantly to me, is that 50,000 jobs, partially upstate. But [inaudible] walked in the Bronx. And he says, “Do you think we could use, possibly, the abandoned armory?” I’ve been sitting down with a lot of people saying, “What can we do with this armory?” It has to have new life. And it could be a work force training center. He says, “Can we think about getting semiconductor training, manufacturing,” which has now come to New York because I insisted that we have a policy —[A spokeswoman for Ms. Hochul told The Times that the governor has discussed with local officials the possibility of opening a work force training center in the Bronx for jobs expected to come to the state with Micron.]Brent Staples: It’s mainly robotic.Pardon me?Brent Staples: Semiconductor making is mainly robotic now.We need all kinds of skills. Fifty thousand jobs. And those aren’t the construction jobs. That’s not the construction. That’s 50,000 jobs for the supply chain, all the component parts. But he says, “Will we be teaching people in the Bronx about these jobs, getting that training done?”So that’s, to me, I see the connection of upstate and downstate. Continue creating jobs. And there’s a whole supply chain opportunity and training opportunity because we delivered — we promised we’d get people the jobs they needed. We came to New York. We will get you the people with the skills you need. This is a game changer. This is the most historic investment in our state’s history from the private sector. That happened because I wouldn’t let go of that deal.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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      Voters Stick to Pandemic-Era Habits, As Early Turnout Surges

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      More than 5.5 million people have cast ballots in person or by mail. Experts predict high turnout in the midterm elections.Days into early voting in the 2022 midterm elections, states across the country have seen a surge of voters casting ballots at in-person voting sites and by mail, the latest sign that the 2020 election ushered in a transformation in the way Americans vote.Through the first five days of early voting in Georgia, in-person turnout is up 70 percent compared with turnout in the 2018 midterm elections, according to the secretary of state’s office. In North Carolina, absentee ballot requests are up 114 percent compared with requests in 2018, according to the board of elections. And in Florida, the total early vote is up 50 percent compared with the early vote in 2018.Election experts say the signs suggest overall turnout will be strong. But they are quick to caution that it is still early in the voting calendar — many states are less than a week in and some have not started. With voters’ behaviors so clearly changed by pandemic-era rules, it is unclear whether this rush to vote will lead to record-breaking totals after Election Day on Nov. 8.Still, one significant shift in how American elections are conducted has become clear: Election Day has become, and will most likely always be, election month.“There has been a sea change of voter attitudes that has not abated,” said John Couvillon, a pollster who has worked with Republican candidates. “When you do a culture shift like that, you never go 100 percent back to the way things were for the simple reason that people, who out of habit may have been happy voting on Election Day, said, ‘Wait a minute, I can vote from the convenience of my kitchen table? This is so much simpler.’”States across the country have seen a surge in both early in-person voting and absentee voting this midterm election season.Hannah Beier, Maddie McGarvey for The New York TimesNationally, 5.5 million voters had cast ballots as of Thursday, according to Mr. Couvillon’s count. Democrats make up 51 percent of those voters and Republicans 30 percent. Mr. Couvillon and other analysts did not have data to compare those numbers to 2018. But he noted it was a slight dip from Democrats’ advantage at this point in 2020 — a presidential election year, which always draws a much higher turnout. Then, 17.3 million votes had been cast and the partisan split was 55 percent Democrat and 26 percent Republican. Some states, such as Arizona, were following a similar trend, he said.The State of the 2022 Midterm ElectionsBoth parties are making their final pitches ahead of the Nov. 8 election.Where the Election Stands: As Republicans appear to be gaining an edge with swing voters in the final weeks of the contest for control of Congress, here’s a look at the state of the races for the House and Senate.Biden’s Low Profile: President Biden’s decision not to attend big campaign rallies reflects a low approval rating that makes him unwelcome in some congressional districts and states.What Young Voters Think: Twelve Americans under 30, all living in swing states, told The Times about their political priorities, ranging from the highly personal to the universal.In Minnesota: The race for attorney general in the light-blue state offers a pure test of which issue is likely to be more politically decisive: abortion rights or crime.But the tailing off for Democrats is only marginal, and many election experts view the energy in both parties as another sign of a high-turnout election.“We’re seeing both sides being really energized this time around, which is pretty unique to a midterm cycle,” said Patrick Ruffini, a Republican pollster. “Normally, the out party is just far more energized and enthused about voting.” More

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      How Trump Could Resist the Jan. 6 Panel’s Subpoena

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      If the ex-president turns down the drama of testifying, his legal team could mount several constitutional and procedural arguments in court.WASHINGTON — If former President Donald J. Trump decides to fight the subpoena issued to him on Friday by the House committee investigating his attempts to overturn the 2020 election, his lawyers are likely to muster a battery of constitutional and procedural arguments for why a court should allow him not to testify.In the most basic sense, any legal arguments seeking to get Mr. Trump off the hook would merely need to be weighty enough to produce two and a half months of litigation. If Republicans pick up enough seats in the midterm elections to take over the House in January, as polls suggest is likely, they are virtually certain to shut down the Jan. 6 committee, a move that would invalidate the subpoena.The issues raised by the extraordinary subpoena, which the panel announced at a hearing last week, are too complex to be definitively resolved before a potential change of power in the House, said Mark J. Rozell, a George Mason University professor and author of “Executive Privilege: Presidential Power, Secrecy and Accountability.”“We are in a constitutional gray area here where there is no clear guidance as to exactly what should happen,” Mr. Rozell said. “That gives the former president some leeway to put forward various creative legal arguments and ultimately delay the process until it doesn’t matter anymore.”Several former presidents have voluntarily testified before Congress, including Theodore Roosevelt, William Howard Taft, Herbert Hoover, Harry S. Truman and Gerald Ford. But there is no Supreme Court precedent that says whether Congress has the power to compel former presidents to testify against their will about their actions in office.There are two historical precedents, but neither generated court rulings. In 1846, the House subpoenaed two former presidents, John Quincy Adams and John Tyler, for an investigation into allegations of misspending by a secretary of state. According to a Congressional Research Service report, Tyler testified and Adams submitted a deposition.A subpoena of testimony from Harry S. Truman was eventually dropped by the House after he refused to honor it.The New York TimesAnd in 1953, the House Committee on Un-American Activities subpoenaed Truman. But while he later voluntarily testified before Congress on other topics, Truman refused to honor the committee’s subpoena, claiming that as a former chief executive he was immune from compelled testimony by the legislative branch. The House let the matter drop.One open question, then, is whether Truman was right. Should Mr. Trump’s legal team choose to argue that he was, one Supreme Court precedent could prove relevant: In 1982, the court ruled that former presidents are immune from being sued for damages over official decisions they made while in office.In that case, Nixon v. Fitzgerald, the majority reasoned that presidents must be able to perform their constitutional duties without being inhibited by the fear that a decision could risk making them liable to pay civil damages after they leave office. The question in Mr. Trump’s case would be whether a president could be similarly hindered by a fear of being forced to testify in front of Congress.Mr. Trump’s legal team could also invoke executive privilege in an attempt to ward off the subpoena. In another case involving Richard Nixon, the Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit ruled in 1974 that a Senate committee investigating the Watergate scandal could not force Nixon, then the sitting president, to turn over tapes of his Oval Office conversations.The appeals court ruled that the Senate’s need for the tapes was not enough to overcome the presumption of confidentiality guarding the presidential decision-making process. That general confidentiality is important, courts decided, so that presidents can receive candid advice from their aides about how best to carry out their constitutional functions.(More famously, about three months later, the Supreme Court upheld a subpoena by the Watergate prosecutor for the tapes, citing the greater need for them in a criminal proceeding. Soon after, Nixon resigned to avoid being impeached.)Unlike Nixon in 1974, however, Mr. Trump is now a former — not a sitting — president, and his claims to executive privilege would be weaker. The current officeholder, President Biden, who has greater authority to invoke or withhold executive privilege, might not support him..css-1v2n82w{max-width:600px;width:calc(100% – 40px);margin-top:20px;margin-bottom:25px;height:auto;margin-left:auto;margin-right:auto;font-family:nyt-franklin;color:var(–color-content-secondary,#363636);}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-1v2n82w{margin-left:20px;margin-right:20px;}}@media only screen and (min-width:1024px){.css-1v2n82w{width:600px;}}.css-161d8zr{width:40px;margin-bottom:18px;text-align:left;margin-left:0;color:var(–color-content-primary,#121212);border:1px solid var(–color-content-primary,#121212);}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-161d8zr{width:30px;margin-bottom:15px;}}.css-tjtq43{line-height:25px;}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-tjtq43{line-height:24px;}}.css-x1k33h{font-family:nyt-cheltenham;font-size:19px;font-weight:700;line-height:25px;}.css-1hvpcve{font-size:17px;font-weight:300;line-height:25px;}.css-1hvpcve em{font-style:italic;}.css-1hvpcve strong{font-weight:bold;}.css-1hvpcve a{font-weight:500;color:var(–color-content-secondary,#363636);}.css-1c013uz{margin-top:18px;margin-bottom:22px;}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-1c013uz{font-size:14px;margin-top:15px;margin-bottom:20px;}}.css-1c013uz a{color:var(–color-signal-editorial,#326891);-webkit-text-decoration:underline;text-decoration:underline;font-weight:500;font-size:16px;}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-1c013uz a{font-size:13px;}}.css-1c013uz a:hover{-webkit-text-decoration:none;text-decoration:none;}How Times reporters cover politics. We rely on our journalists to be independent observers. So while Times staff members may vote, they are not allowed to endorse or campaign for candidates or political causes. This includes participating in marches or rallies in support of a movement or giving money to, or raising money for, any political candidate or election cause.Learn more about our process.Notably, Mr. Biden declined to support an earlier attempt by Mr. Trump to invoke executive privilege to keep the Jan. 6 committee from subpoenaing the National Archives for White House records. The Supreme Court, ruling against Mr. Trump, declined to block the subpoena, although it did so in a way that left unresolved the scope of an ex-president’s powers under executive privilege.Still, courts might view forcing a former president to show up at the Capitol and testify under oath differently than obtaining documents. Mr. Biden might also be more reluctant to establish a precedent that could help a Republican-controlled Congress subpoena him for testimony.Mr. Trump could also try to mount a procedural argument that the subpoena is invalid.That tactic has been used by nearly 30 people — among them, former aides to Mr. Trump — who have filed lawsuits seeking to quash subpoenas from the Jan. 6 committee. Many of these witnesses have argued the panel was improperly constituted and the subpoenas are insufficiently connected to writing laws.The first argument goes like this: The House resolution authorizing the committee envisioned that Speaker Nancy Pelosi would appoint 13 members, including five in consultation with Republican leadership. But the panel has only nine members, and neither of its two Republicans — Liz Cheney of Wyoming and Adam Kinzinger of Illinois — were endorsed by the minority leader, Representative Kevin McCarthy of California, who boycotted the process after Ms. Pelosi rejected several of his choices.As for the second, lawyers for the witnesses have argued that the subpoenas were not sent with the goal of assisting Congress in its role in drafting laws, but rather as a politically motivated fishing expedition for embarrassing information about Mr. Trump.In 1974, a Senate committee investigating the Watergate scandal could not force Richard Nixon, then the sitting president, to turn over tapes of his Oval Office conversations.Eddie Hausner/The New York TimesMost of the lawsuits challenging the subpoenas on these — and other — grounds are still working their way through the courts. But in May, a federal judge in Washington dismissed both of the arguments claiming the subpoenas were invalid in a case the Republican National Committee brought against the panel.That ruling, however, was vacated several months later by the Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit after the committee dropped its subpoena for the Republican National Committee.A Federal District Court judge also rejected claims that the committee’s subpoenas were invalid in the criminal prosecution of Stephen K. Bannon, a former adviser to Mr. Trump, who was sentenced to four months in prison on Friday for defying a subpoena from the House panel.In a ruling in the case, Judge Carl J. Nichols, a Trump appointee, noted that the full House had voted to hold Mr. Bannon and others who defied subpoenas in contempt, indicating that the body viewed the committee’s subpoena as valid. Judge Nichols said courts must defer to the House’s interpretation of its own rules, so he “cannot conclude as a matter of law that the committee was invalidly constituted.”Still, rulings by district court judges are not definitive precedents, leaving much to litigate.It also remains unclear which route to court a fight over the Trump subpoena could take. Mr. Trump might file his own suit asking a judge to quash it. Or he could wait for the House to try to enforce its subpoena.One way for that to happen would be for the full chamber to vote on whether to hold him in contempt and to refer the matter to the Justice Department for potential criminal prosecution, as it did for Mr. Bannon.It would then be up to Attorney General Merrick B. Garland to decide whether to bring a criminal charge. The Jan. 6 committee could also file its own lawsuit against Mr. Trump seeking a judicial order that he comply. In August 2019, for example, the House Judiciary Committee sued Mr. Trump’s former White House counsel, Donald F. McGahn II, who at Mr. Trump’s direction defied its subpoena seeking his testimony about Mr. Trump’s obstruction of the Russia investigation.The lawsuit set off a series of convoluted legal fights over constitutional issues and was still pending even when Mr. Biden became president in January 2021. That underscores the lack of time for extended litigation in Mr. Trump’s case.Aides to Mr. Trump have said that he has weighed whether to testify, but only under the condition that it be live and on television. That would deprive the committee of controlling what gets seen or from releasing only selected excerpts.Mr. Rozell said that was not surprising.“If Trump is going to go out there and make himself vulnerable, he’s going to do it in a public way,” he said. “It’s going to be a Trump show, and he’ll be playing to his own crowd. At that point, legal argument and nuances would be out the window.” More

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      Why a Question About Slavery Is Now on the Ballot in 5 States

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      The states are asking voters whether to amend constitutions that have exceptions to slavery bans. Some hope that the changes could allow prisoners to challenge the practice of being forced into labor for little or no pay.Voters in five U.S. states where slavery or involuntary servitude remains legal as a punishment for people who are convicted of crimes will vote next month on whether to ban the practices outright.If passed, the measures in Alabama, Louisiana, Oregon, Tennessee and Vermont could open a door for prisoners there to challenge forced prison labor, for which most are paid pennies per hour and in some cases not at all.Legal experts cautioned that the ballot measures would not likely have any immediate legal effects if they passed, but prisoners and their advocates say the measures would send an instant message that Americans’ freedom from slavery does not hinge on whether they have committed a crime.“Nothing in the Constitution is just symbolic,” said Curtis Ray Davis II, who said he earned 2 cents an hour picking cotton, okra, squash and other crops in Louisiana’s fields while imprisoned. “We do not need to enslave people in order to punish them.”The measures, which are on the Nov. 8 ballots, have drawn criticism from some lawmakers who say that the changes are unnecessary or confusing. In one state, a former sponsor said the proposal was so ambiguous that he has started urging people to vote against it.Here’s what to know about the proposed changes.What is prison labor used for?The American Civil Liberties Union estimated in a report this year that prisoners produced more than $2 billion in goods annually and provided more than $9 billion worth of services while being paid an average of 13 to 52 cents per hour.Their jobs vary widely, and include doing laundry, serving food in prisons, building furniture for colleges and schools, and manufacturing license plates. Several states — including Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Mississippi, South Carolina and Texas — pay prisoners nothing for most jobs, according to the A.C.L.U. The State of the 2022 Midterm ElectionsBoth parties are making their final pitches ahead of the Nov. 8 election.Where the Election Stands: As Republicans appear to be gaining an edge with swing voters in the final weeks of the contest for control of Congress, here’s a look at the state of the races for the House and Senate.Biden’s Low Profile: President Biden’s decision not to attend big campaign rallies reflects a low approval rating that makes him unwelcome in some congressional districts and states.What Young Voters Think: Twelve Americans under 30, all living in swing states, told The Times about their political priorities, ranging from the highly personal to the universal.In Minnesota: The race for attorney general in the light-blue state offers a pure test of which issue is likely to be more politically decisive: abortion rights or crime.Mr. Davis, who was imprisoned in Louisiana for more than 26 years, said that he and other prisoners spent long, hot days doing farm work, sometimes without enough access to water. He said he grew so frustrated with being forced to do the job for 2 cents an hour that he intentionally dropped a 25-pound dumbbell on his foot so that he would not have to work. Instead, he said, he was sent to solitary confinement as punishment.Claudia M. Flores, a law professor at Yale and an author of the A.C.L.U. report, said much of prisoners’ work went toward running the prison itself.“This is an entire industry of workers that are really maintaining part of our government, part of our state,” Ms. Flores said.She and other experts noted that many prisoners who worked jobs did not want to get rid of prison work because some had been able to learn skills, make some money and be productive with their time“Some people might choose to work and really choose to work, but they should be working with wages and safe conditions and proper training, and maybe even gaining skills for when they reintegrate into society,” Ms. Flores said. Any such proposal would likely come up against opposition from state governments that would be required to either get rid of their work programs or pay a lot more in wages.In California, a proposal to remove from the State Constitution an exception to its ban on indentured servitude was rejected by the State Senate after officials in the administration of Gov. Gavin Newsom, a Democrat, said it could require the state to pay prison workers the state’s minimum wage of $15 an hour.What could change in the five states that have ballot measures?Each of the five states has a constitution that bans slavery or involuntary servitude for everyone except those who have been convicted of a crime.The exact language differs state by state, but each amendment is focused on eliminating or altering that exception. In Alabama, for example, the State Constitution would be amended to remove an exception that allows involuntary servitude “for the punishment of crime.” In some other states, the changes are more complicated.In Louisiana, the proposal would remove an exception having to do with people convicted of a crime but would add a new clarifying sentence noting that the amendment “does not apply to the otherwise lawful administration of criminal justice.”The broadness of that phrasing led State Representative Edmond Jordan, who had initially sponsored the bill, to fear that it could actually create more exceptions to the protection from slavery. He told The Advocate that he was urging people to vote against it but hoped to put a clearer measure up for vote in the future.Legal experts said it was unclear whether the changes would have any effect on the legality of prison labor, though prisoners will probably argue that they are being illegally forced to perform slave labor or involuntary servitude.The proposed changes — and the lawsuits that would follow — could force courts “to engage a little more deeply with whether this type of labor is prohibited,” said Andrea Armstrong, a law professor at the Loyola University New Orleans College of Law who studies prisons and jails.Does the U.S. Constitution still allow slavery?The U.S. Constitution has a nearly identical “exceptions clause” that allows people who are convicted of crimes to be forced into involuntary servitude.The clause is found in the 13th Amendment, which was ratified in 1865: “Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.”Courts have at times referenced the amendment in denying prisoners the same rights as other workers, but they have more often relied on other laws and justifications to do so.A group of federal lawmakers has proposed a bill to remove the clause, but the lawmakers have not won enough support to pass it.Sharon Dolovich, a law professor at the University of California, Los Angeles, said that even if the 13th Amendment was not the primary justification for allowing mandatory prison labor, its existence in the Constitution most likely weighs on the mind of judges who evaluate prisoners’ claims.“The 13th Amendment, as it’s currently written — and the state’s analogues to the amendment — form a backdrop that infuses the legal regime governing incarcerated people,” said Ms. Dolovich, who leads the Prison Law and Policy Program at U.C.L.A. “It forms the moral atmosphere around which we treat incarcerated workers.”Other states have already removed exceptions to their slavery bans. What happened there?Many states’ constitutions do not mention slavery at all, relying on the protections — and exception — of the U.S. Constitution. But three states with constitutions that ban slavery have in recent years voted to remove the clause that created an exception for those convicted of crimes.Colorado did so in 2018, followed by Nebraska and Utah in 2020.After Colorado’s decision, a prisoner sued the state, claiming that it was violating its new, absolute ban on slavery and involuntary servitude, but a state appellate court ruled in August that voters had not meant to abolish prison labor. The judges also ruled that the prisoner’s complaint did not support a claim that the prison work program was involuntary servitude.But in Nebraska, the change has led at least one jail that had never paid its inmates for work to begin paying them $20 to $30 a week, The Lincoln Journal Star reported.More legal challenges are expected in those states, as well as any that pass similar measures next month. More

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      The Week in Political News

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      Gabriela Bhaskar for The New York TimesVoter turnout in Georgia is far outperforming that of previous midterm elections, rivaling presidential-year figures. On the first day of early voting, more than 130,000 people cast ballots — a more than 85 percent increase from the same day in 2018, according to the secretary of state’s office. More