More stories

  • in

    El Times respalda a Dan Goldman para el distrito congresional 10 de Nueva York

    En el saturado panorama de personas con éxitos consumados que compiten por representar al distrito congresional 10, recientemente trazado, destacan dos candidatos: Dan Goldman, quien fue el abogado principal de los demócratas en el primer juicio político contra Trump, y el congresista Mondaire Jones.Goldman, quien fue fiscal federal, ha vivido en el Bajo Manhattan durante 16 años. Su inusual experiencia —en especial su conocimiento sobre la supervisión del Congreso y la vigilancia del Estado de derecho— podría ser particularmente importante en el Congreso en los próximos años. “He estado en la primera línea liderando la lucha en el Congreso contra Donald Trump y su Partido Republicano, y tratando de proteger y defender nuestra democracia, nuestras instituciones y nuestro Estado de derecho”, dijo en una entrevista con el comité editorial. More

  • in

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

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

  • in

    The New York Times’s Interview With Suraj Patel

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

  • in

    The New York Times’s Interview With Dan Goldman

    Dan Goldman, a former assistant U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York, was the chief investigator in the first impeachment of President Donald Trump.This interview with Mr. Goldman was conducted by the editorial board of The New York Times on July 27.Read the board’s endorsement for the Democratic congressional primary for New York’s 10th District here.Kathleen Kingsbury: What would you be able to accomplish in a Republican-controlled Congress? If you could, be as specific as possible.Sure.Kathleen Kingsbury: But also, is there one big idea that you’d pursue with bipartisan support?Yeah. I think in the unlikely event that it will be a Republican Congress, I actually think that my skills and experience are going to be even more valuable to the caucus. Because we can fully expect a Biden impeachment. We can expect a select committee to investigate Hunter Biden.The Republicans are out for blood and out for revenge. And so my experience, having led the impeachment investigation and being right in the throes of that kind of complex and high-stakes investigation, will be even more valuable, I think, to the Democratic caucus than reasonably a first-year Congress person would be even in the majority without any seniority.As for what I think we can achieve in a bipartisan way, look, my approach to this is sort of twofold. I think on the one hand, we need to be really aggressive in attacking the Republicans and attacking our policy prerogatives. We need to defend our democracy, which is under attack. We need to defend and protect our fundamental rights.We are dealing with a very different Republican Party today than even 10 years ago. And so what we have to recognize is there are bad-faith actors, in my view, who are trying to sabotage anything the Democrats do in order to acquire power of their own. So the old traditional way of negotiating with them or going directly to them and begging them or having a meal with them or whatever, it’s not working. What we are going to have to do is convince them that it is in their self-interest to do something.And I think there are two ways of doing that. One is aggressively investigating, and using the investigative and oversight powers to change the hearts and minds of the public, as we’ve seen a little bit with the Jan. 6 committee, or to expose their special interests or their — the folks, the lobbyists or the other special interest group that control them. And the other way is to figure out a way of reframing an issue so that they can recognize that it is in their self-interest to do it.And I’ll give you an example of each real quick. Actually, it happened today. A few weeks ago I called for an investigation into gun manufacturers and gun dealers, so that we can know what they’re marketing and advertising, whether it is they knowingly were targeting young adults with radicalizing on social media and trying to sell a AR-15s. There’s, I think, a lot there not dissimilar to the tobacco companies or the opioid companies who knew what they were selling was addictive.There is a path there to expose the gun lobby and the gun manufacturers, which is really the only way to impact the Republicans. Because 70 percent, 80 percent of the country believes in much stricter gun legislation than we have. So that’s a way, I think, we can use investigations and oversight.[In a recent Gallup poll, 66 percent of people said gun-control laws “should be made more strict.”]On the other hand, I look at renewable energy as one thing that we might be able to figure out a creative compromise for — not dissimilar to mass incarceration, where Democrats pushed for it for a long time, Republicans resisted it because of their tough-on-crime stance. Ultimately, Republicans got onboard with decarceration because of the fiscal benefits. And so you first started seeing it in states, and then you saw it with the First Step Act.I think we can do something similar with renewable energy, which Democrats — we want for climate purposes, for job purposes. But we hear a lot from Republicans about energy independence now, with gas prices going up and with the issues in Russia and Ukraine in terms of oil and natural gas and our dependence on the Middle East. The best way to be energy independent is to invest in renewable energy that we create here. And so I think there’s an avenue that, in the minority even, I think we could pursue some sort of climate legislation that would be — we could agree on for very different reasons.Mara Gay: OK, thank you. What would you do in Congress to help build more new housing in New York so that New Yorkers can stay in the city that they love?I think we need to do two things in terms of housing. One is we need more money for NYCHA so that we can fix these dreadfully maintained buildings. I met with the tenants association at the Jacob Riis Houses a couple of weeks ago and it was really, really unacceptable conditions. So we have to figure out a way to repair that.I am open — I support the preservation trust. I am open to creative ways of providing some sort of funding streams so that we can fix NYCHA. But the bigger issue I think you’re hitting on is we need more and we need better housing. I would work very hard to increase the number of Section 8 vouchers, especially for the homeless, which are often — it’s often undesirable for some of the affordable housing or transitional housing places to take the homeless. But I think we need to be pushing for more Section 8 vouchers.I think we need to be funding nonprofits that focus on this, on homelessness and housing, much, much more. Because they’re really in the sort of nexus between some of the for-profit real estate developers and the city. And so what is starting to happen more, and I’m a big fan of, is that you have for-profit companies that are providing some capital for more housing. But they can’t really get that last 25 percent of the way.And then you have the nonprofits who are ready and expert at managing the housing and providing the services that in permanent sustained housing, that the residents and the tenants need. And then you have the city that’s often providing the land. But it’s often that last bit of money that is needed in order to push the project over the top.And so it’s not necessarily a lot of money, but it is something that the federal government can do to help provide that last bit of capital, help to provide grants to nonprofits. And, by the way, I think that providing grants to nonprofits is something I’m going to push across the board. Because what you see with nonprofits is they are expert in their area and they are closest to the community. They’re closest to the ground, and they know what the communities need.A couple of weeks ago, I went down to the Lower East Side and met with some of the settlement houses executives. And the programs they have are fantastic, but they just don’t have the scale that can serve enough people. And so, to my mind, that is an avenue that we need to fund more from Congress to provide the services that the community needs, and to provide them in a high-quality way.Mara Gay: Thank you.Jyoti Thottam: Just stepping back a minute — what do you think Democrats can do at this point to protect American democracy, which, as you sort of alluded to, is under threat from various places?Yeah. Well, this is a huge thrust of my campaign and my experience in leading the impeachment investigation and trying to protect and defend our democracy at that point, which seems somewhat quaint now, where we are now. But even before I left the House Intelligence Committee, I helped Adam Schiff draft the Protecting Our Democracy Act, which at the time, those provisions also seemed somewhat quaint, pre-Jan. 6.But I actually released a five-point plan to protect and defend democracy. Because I think it is, first of all, the No. 1 issue. We have so many policy objectives that we want to do, whether that’s protecting the right to choose, gun control legislation, as we’ve talked about, climate change, immigration, infrastructure, housing. All of these are incredibly important things that I would very much like to tackle.But our first priority has to be to protect and defend our democracy. Because Donald Trump still controls the Republican Party, he still is the front-runner to become the 2024 nominee. And he is still pushing the Big Lie, and he has his acolytes in the states around the country and some of the swing states — in Pennsylvania in particular, which is very scary — of trying to change the laws so that partisan elected officials can overturn the will of the people in a way that they failed in 2020.So this is the unprecedented existential threat that we are facing, and it frankly is why I’m running. Because I was on the front lines, I have dealt with Donald Trump before, and I am very, very concerned about our democracy. We need to do a couple of things I’ll just briefly summarize.We need to maintain free and fair elections, where not only do the voters decide but that everyone can vote and gets access to the ballot with Election Day as a holiday and other ways of making voting easier. Registration should be a lot easier. We need to make voting as easy as possible. It is the right in our Constitution from which all other rights flow.And so that is a significant thing. And there are lots of ways that we need to do that, whether it’s the John Lewis Voting Rights Act or banning gerrymandering or getting rid of the Electoral College altogether. There are a lot of ways, I think, that we can make voting free, fair and consistent with one person, one vote.The other thing that we need to do is combat disinformation. When I was on the House Intelligence Committee, that was the House committee that had the Russia investigation. And a lot of what we were focusing on — because Mueller had taken over a lot of the criminal investigation — we were focusing a lot on the disinformation. We got a tremendous amount of intelligence that was classified on this issue. And so I’m familiar with a lot of the foreign efforts to use disinformation and misinformation.But it happens here at home, too. And in fact, it affects not only our democracy and our elections. It affects climate denialism. It affected Covid. So one of the things that I have been pushing for is we need to regulate social media companies more, but we also need to expand the public broadcasting media arm to include independent online media platforms.Jyoti Thottam: OK. I’m just conscious of time. We have a lot of things to cover.I’m sorry. I go on too long.Jyoti Thottam: That’s all right. Patrick, are you going next?Patrick Healy: Yeah, thank you. Do you think Democratic elected officials are out of step with Democratic voters on immigration, on L.G.B.T.Q. rights, on any particular issue, just as you hear kind of the messaging and the Democratic Party priorities with where voters are at, as you talk to them?It’s a good question. I think the biggest disconnect is that there are a number of Democratic representatives who are very ideologically strident and uncompromising, if it gets down to it. And I think what Democratic voters — at least what I hear — what Democratic voters want more than ideological purity is results and solutions. And I think I, and others, were very frustrated in the fall that the $1.5 trillion or $1.75 trillion reconciliation package didn’t get through not because of the Republicans, but because the Democrats couldn’t come together and figure it out.[Last fall, divisions in the Democratic Party stalled the $3.5 trillion domestic agenda.]I blame Joe Manchin for a lot of it. But, at the end of the day, he did seem willing to agree to a significant package that would have provided universal child care, that would have provided climate change and renewable energy incentive legislation — many things that now, as we look back, we’re not going to get. And that’s a wasted opportunity. And I think part of it is because there were some folks in Congress who felt stuck to their sort of perfect view of what it should be and were uncompromising.[The Senate passed the climate, health and tax bill on Aug. 7 and the House on Aug. 12, both after this interview took place.]So I’m not sure, to answer your question directly, that it is that there’s a particular policy that is out of step. I think it is more what’s out of step is a little bit what the objective is. And, for me, I’m going down there to get results and to find solutions.Kathleen Kingsbury: Eleanor? We lost Eleanor.[Eleanor rejoined this interview via Google Meet after getting a stable internet connection.]Kathleen Kingsbury: OK. We have a series of questions that are yes or no questions. If you could stick to yes or no, we’d appreciate it. Do you support expanding the Supreme Court?No. It’s anti-democratic.Kathleen Kingsbury: Do you support ending the filibuster?Yes.Kathleen Kingsbury: Should there be a term limit for members of Congress?I would support a term for members of Congress. Yes.Kathleen Kingsbury: How about an age limit for members of Congress?I actually would support an age limit for every federal government employee.Kathleen Kingsbury: So that’s a yes, basically.Yes.Kathleen Kingsbury: Should Joe Biden run for a second term?Yes.Kathleen Kingsbury: Alex?Alex Kingsbury: I’d like to ask you about Ukraine. I know you support the war there. What I’d like to know is should there be an upper limit on the amount of U.S. taxpayer dollars that gets spent in that conflict? And how should we think about conditions that are attached to that money, if any?I would not put a limit on it because this, to me, is purely a fight between a democracy and an authoritarian regime. And we cannot give up on a Democratic nation that is a bulwark against an authoritarian regime. That has to be the central part of our foreign policy. It has been for a long time. And I think that in this particular case, where Ukraine became a democracy on its own, we need to support them.I think what we really need to do as well, which President Biden has done a really good job, is rally allies around the country to also pay into it, and to also help Ukraine so that the financial burden is not all on us.Nick Fox: What do you think are specific measures on climate change that Democrats should be prioritizing right now?Well, we talked about renewable energy. I strongly believe in incentives and subsidies to encourage private corporations to invest in renewable energy. I think our climate change issue is so significant that the government cannot solve it by itself. And so what the government should be doing is using its funding for incentivizing and subsidizing private corporations to also spend their own money. That’s one.Two is I think we need a lot more funding for electrification of mass transit. I support congestion pricing in New York City, and I would hope that the money that’s derived from that will go to electrifying buses and other transportation. And then, here in New York City, resiliency is a huge issue and making sure that we don’t suffer from another superstorm Sandy.Mara Gay: Yeah. I’m just going to shorten this question. Can you just name one further action that Congress can take to protect abortion rights?I have several. Now, other than repealing the Hyde Amendment and codifying Roe — which I of course support, but I think it’s not going to happen tomorrow — I’ll list them quickly for you since I know we’re trying to move. One is to pass a law preventing prosecution or other prohibition for anyone receiving medication abortion across state lines. Two is expanding funding to veterans hospitals and military bases to provide medical care, such as for miscarriages or ectopic pregnancies or even I.V.F., which some state doctors will be concerned about.And three is to lease federal lands to medical providers or others that can provide services to women in the states where abortion is banned.Mara Gay: Thank you.Kathleen Kingsbury: I’m curious, given your experience as prosecutor, what you think Congress should be doing to address the increasing threat of domestic terrorism.We need to make it very clear that domestic terrorism is terrorism. We need to redefine it as terrorism. And I know there are free speech issues on that, and I get and I understand both sides of it. But when the F.B.I. director says that domestic violent extremism is the No. 1 threat to our country, we have to take action.The other thing that I would do is — that I think in some ways is even more important — the most commonly charged international terrorism charge is material support of a terrorist organization. If we were able to declare the Oath Keepers or the Proud Boys or some of these domestic groups as domestic terrorist organizations and we prohibited material support to them, we’d avoid a lot of the free speech issues.Mara Gay: Thank you. Quick pop quiz for you — how does Plan B work?Plan B is a over-the-counter medication that you would take to sort of prevent —Kathleen Kingsbury: Do you know how it medically works? How does it work in your body, in one’s body?How does it work in one’s body? I don’t … I don’t know.Mara Gay: It prevents ovulation.OK.Mara Gay: Do you own a gun?No.Mara Gay: Have you ever fired a gun?I have — no, only at riflery at camp [chuckles].Mara Gay: OK. What is the average age of a member of Congress?Oh, man. Congress or Senate?Mara Gay: Congress.I would say the average age of a member of Congress is … 52!Mara Gay: Fifty-eight. What’s the average age of a senator?I would say that is 68.Mara Gay: Sixty-four. Please name a member of Congress, dead or alive, who you most admire and would emulate if elected to serve.Well, it’s got to be Adam Schiff, who I worked hand-in-hand with and admire tremendously.Mara Gay: Thank you. And finally, what is your favorite restaurant in the district?Well, my favorite restaurant has morphed into my kids’ favorite restaurant, which is Bubby’s in TriBeCa. Somehow the mac and cheese with extra crusty topping is the dish that they need frequently.Mara Gay: I like the biscuits.The biscuits are amazing, too.Kathleen Kingsbury: You’re a former prosecutor and have never held elected office. You live in Manhattan, but the majority of the voters in this district are in Brooklyn. Can you talk a little bit about why you think you’re the best person to represent the district, and what your path to victory is?Sure. I have lived in the district for 16 years. I’m raising my five children in the district, a couple of whom have or still do go to school both in Brooklyn Heights and others in TriBeCa. So I’m very familiar with the entire district. I also worked in the district as a prosecutor in the Southern District, protecting the communities, supporting victims’ rights, and protecting and trying to make the community safe.But ultimately, I’m running for Congress because I think I have a unique set of skills and experience that meet the moment that we’re in. And I think we’re in a really different moment than we’ve been in with these threats to democracy that, you know, even under the George W. Bush administration we would have never imagined. I long for the days when we get back to arguing about policy and we’re not actually arguing about what the facts are or whether we have a democracy.But because I have been on the front lines leading the fight in Congress against Donald Trump and his Republican Party and trying to protect and defend our democracy and our institutions and our rule of law, I think that is a set of skills and experience right now that is really needed. In addition, I think my experience as an investigator in Congress is more uncommon than some other people’s experiences. And I think that both the New York delegation — which has some wonderful firebrands that are pushing that Overton window on policy — I think we in the New York delegation, but also around the country, could use someone who’s very experienced in the investigations and oversight role. And part of it is because I think we’re going to have to be creative and use investigations and oversight in order to get results.Patrick Healy: I mean, building on that, given that background and that role, though, how would you approach the challenge that some voters may see you as kind of narrow, as essentially an investigator going after Trump yet again, or that you wouldn’t necessarily be seen as someone advocating for the policy needs or the community needs in the district? That you’d be kind of a committee person driving at another prosecution of Trump or dealing with the Biden issues?Yeah. No, I understand the question. And I think part of the reason why I was framing it a little bit more broadly than Trump is because it wasn’t by accident that we proved the case against Trump. And we used different strategies, rather than going directly at them, to get the whistle-blower complaint and to get the July 25 transcript. We went around and had applied indirect pressure through other people in the administration.And the reason I cite that is that those same kind of strategies apply to all of these policy prerogatives and priorities that we have. We need to use that same kind of creative strategy, not necessarily to go after Trump, but to get the Republicans to come to the table. And so it is an attribute that I can bring that I think will help move the conversation forward.Another quick example — I want to investigate voter fraud. It doesn’t exist. And the Republicans have claimed to investigate it, but I want to expose the fact that it doesn’t exist with hearings. Because all of these state laws are based on the fiction that voter fraud exists. So I think it’s not just that I have a narrow view of investigations as to Trump. I actually want to expand the purpose of investigations and oversight into policy areas that we want to push forward.And I will say I have been, I’ve been a public servant my whole life. I have been committed to social justice, to criminal justice reform. I worked with Michelle Alexander on her book “The New Jim Crow.” That long precedes my role as a prosecutor or my role in impeachment. These are issues that I feel very passionate about. And I am really eager to represent the district and to push them forward and get results.Nick Fox: You haven’t used your wealth to your advantage in your campaign yet. But you’ve used the wealth of other people, particularly from real estate executives, including Steve Ross, a major Trump donor. These are the type of donors who’ve had an outsized influence in New York politics, often to the detriment of New York tenants. Is there no problem with taking that much money from real estate interests?I think there would only be a problem if for some reason I catered to anyone’s special interests. I think that is anathema to me. I will not do that. And I have had conversations with real estate developers where I have told them that I support real estate development but I think that developers themselves need to give back a lot more to the community.I’ll give you an example — 5 World Trade Center. I have come out very strongly in favor of it being 100 percent affordable housing, and not because the city should pay $500 million or $900 million to subsidize it. But the real estate company should be paying their fair share for the affordable housing, that some of this money should come off of all of the profits that they made from the entire World Trade Center. We can’t just look at it as one building. It’s an entire development.And that is one of the ways that I want to increase affordable housing — provide encouragement and incentives for developers to make enough money, but also require them to give a lot back. So I can assure you — look, the campaign finance system needs dramatic overhaul. We need public financing. I fully support that.Even in this race, we’ve got someone coming from another district with a war chest running here. We’ve got someone in the City Council who’s taking money from lobbyists and special interests before the city. The whole thing needs to just be revamped, and we need public financing. But I can assure you that a $2,900 or a $5,800 donation from any one individual is not going to influence anything that I do.Eleanor Randolph: We are sort of up against our time limit. But you told a local news outlet that you would not object to a state law banning abortion after the point of fetal viability, and in cases where there was no threat to the life of the woman and the fetus is viable. You later said that you misspoke and that you do not support restrictions on abortion. Which is it? And could you clarify your personal views and how you feel you would vote on some of these issues if you were a member of Congress?Absolutely. Thank you for asking the question. I’d love to clarify. I was in an interview where I was getting a series of lengthy hypothetical questions. And, frankly, the lawyer in me felt like I was back in law school with the Socratic method, and I started focusing in my mind on the legal standard that was outlined in Roe and that has been adopted by New York State and their Reproductive Health Act, and is also the standard in the Women’s Health Protection Act in Congress.What I realized soon after I answered that question is, wait a minute, I don’t think that’s what he was actually asking me. I think he was asking a much more normative question on what my views are on abortion. And my views on choice and abortion is that it is unequivocally 100 percent a woman’s right to choose. And the decision should be made solely by a woman and her doctor, and the government should have no role in that medical room to make a determination.Before we were talking about some of the different ways that I will fight to expand access to abortion. I listed three that I don’t need to repeat again. But I have been thinking about this intensively since Dobbs, and it is not enough just to say we’ve got to codify Roe, we have to repeal the Hyde Amendment.That’s not going to happen until we elect a lot more Democrats to Congress. So that needs to be an objective. It is to try to figure out a strategy to get more Democrats elected and perhaps to use choice as a wedge in some of these races. But I’ve been thinking very seriously and aggressively about how the federal government can increase access to abortion. So not only will I fight for it, but I will be very thoughtful and creative about it as I already have been.Mara Gay: Thanks. Really quickly — did you spend more than a few weeks outside of the district during the height of Covid in 2020?Yeah.Mara Gay: And if so, where?I was in the Hamptons from — well, I got Covid on March 10, very early. We went to the Hamptons. And then we came back in August, and then we’re in the city the rest of the year.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

  • in

    The New York Times’s Interview With Mondaire Jones

    Mondaire Jones has represented Rockland County and parts of Westchester County in New York’s 17th Congressional District since 2021.This interview with Mr. Jones was conducted by the editorial board of The New York Times on July 25.Read the board’s endorsements for the Democratic congressional primary for New York’s 10th District here.Kathleen Kingsbury: We only have a short period of time, so I hope you don’t mind if I just jump in —I don’t mind at all.Kathleen Kingsbury: Most polls indicate that the Democrats are going to have a hard time holding on to Congress in the midterms. Can you talk a little bit about, if that scenario plays out, what you think could get done in a Republican-controlled Congress, but also maybe one idea that gets at the way you work in a bipartisan manner.So of course, I don’t buy the idea that we’re going to lose the House or the Senate.Kathleen Kingsbury: Of course.In fact I think polling shows we’ve got a really good chance of keeping the Senate. But I would start from the perspective that I already have, which is that of someone who has been a change agent in an already gridlocked Washington.Last fall, when few people thought we could get Build Back Better passed through the House, or the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act passed through the House and enacted into law, I brought progressives and our conservative Democratic colleagues and, yes, ultimately, a few Republicans — 13, to be precise — even voted for that Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act.Infrastructure is just one example of the kind of thing that we can do in a bipartisan way. And as someone who has been more focused than probably anyone else in Congress on democracy these days, I understand that we are in a very, very polarized environment. But there are other areas.I think you’ll see this week, for example, once the Senate hopefully passes the CHIPS bill, you’ll see bipartisan support in the House of Representatives. I will vote for that bill.[The Senate passed the CHIPS and Science Act on July 27, after this interview was done, and President Biden signed it into law on Aug. 9.]Kathleen Kingsbury: OK.Mara Gay: OK, great. Thanks. So inflation is hitting Americans hard, but especially in New York, where the cost of living, particularly housing, is soaring. What would you do to ease those concerns for voters in the district, particularly on housing, as a member of Congress?Absolutely. So starting with the cost of housing, I recognize that when health care is very expensive in America, that means that people are less able to afford housing, and the cost of groceries, and yes, paying for the cost of gas at the pump. And so I want to start by just framing it in those terms, because they’re all inextricably linked.Housing in particular — I support building as many more units as possible. Because when we expand our housing stock, the cost of housing will go down. And we’ve seen that happen sometimes. It’s sort of a first principle of economics, I guess.It is also the case that we need to pass Build Back Better. I mean, we are talking about tens of billions of dollars for NYCHA [New York City Housing Authority] in particular, and — you know, which is going to be felt in the district and places like Campos Plaza, where I visited, and Red Hook House — it’s the single, or the second largest, NYCHA housing development in all of New York City, and obviously the largest in the borough of Brooklyn.We also, through Build Back Better, are going to create 300,000 additional Section 8 housing vouchers. That’s deeply personal for me, as someone who grew up in Section 8 housing, and who’s housing insecure. I’m also proud to co-sponsor a bill called the Homes for All Act.It’s ambitious. It would create an additional $9.5 million in affordable housing units throughout the country. And I’m running to fight to bring as many of those units to Lower Manhattan and to Brooklyn.[The Homes for All Act would invest $800 billion to build 8.5 million new public housing units, and $200 billion for 3.5 million permanent affordable housing projects.]Jyoti Thottam: Thanks. So on democracy, which you mentioned, what do you think Democrats should be doing to protect democracy and secure voting rights?I think they should pass a bill that I co-authored. And we did pass it through the House, where we do the lion’s share of the people’s work in Congress. It’s a bill called the Freedom to Vote: John R. Lewis Act.I’ve authored key provisions of that legislation, from the Right to Vote Act, which would finally enshrine the right to vote under federal statutory law — right now, it’s just been interpreted narrowly by an increasingly right-wing Supreme Court. It also contains my bill called the Inclusive Elections Act, which responds to a Supreme Court decision issued in July of last year, called Brnovich v. D.N.C., which guts the clear intent of Congress, the original meaning of Section 2, which we amended to further clarify, even in the early 1980s.We also have to pick up, I would submit — and I think, as everyone understands — just two more Democratic senators. We came just two votes shy of strengthening our democracy through passing the Freedom to Vote: John R. Lewis Act. We couldn’t get those two to support an exception to the filibuster, simply to save American democracy.It’s an embarrassment. And if that were happening in any other country, we would look very unfavorably on that. That is what I think history will record, more than anything this year, how we responded to the threat of fascism, which is represented by the modern-day Republican Party.Can I also say something else on democracy? And I know that there are plenty of other questions. The Supreme Court has been an accomplice this entire time. The wave of racist voter suppression that we are currently experiencing has been unleashed in decision after decision, starting with Shelby v. Holder in 2013.That’s how you get state laws in places like Georgia and Arizona and Texas and Florida, long before it became popular. And certainly, my colleagues on the Democratic side scoffed at me. I introduced legislation to add four seats to the Supreme Court.The size of the court has changed seven times before in our nation’s history. More recently, I have led the effort to limit the jurisdiction of the court to review certain statutes, whether it’s with the Women’s Health Protection Act, which is intended to codify Roe v. Wade, or a bill that I just introduced with [Representative]Jerry Nadler, called the Respect for Marriage Act, which would codify the right to marry in this country, regardless of who you love.Patrick Healy: Just to step back a bit, do you think the Democratic elected officials are out of step at all with Democratic voters on any issues that are urgent now, like immigration, like L.G.B.T.Q. issues, or even some language, like fascism and the Republican Party, that some Democrats may not —I’ve got a long list. You’re talking to a guy who, as much as he does battle with Republicans and gets attacked on Tucker Carlson’s stupid show, I am engaged in argument after argument with my Democratic colleagues who, for the most part, do not fully appreciate the threats to our democracy in this moment, and who do not fully appreciate that we’ve got precious little time left before it is too late.It is unconscionable to me — and this is not the only solution, but it is one that I think is very important — that only one additional Democratic House member, Bill Pascrell, from the state of New Jersey, signed on to my bill called the Judiciary Act of 2001 to expand the Supreme Court of the United States. It is a real challenge within the House, as also evidenced by when we were trying to pass H.R. 1.[The Judiciary Act of 2021 has 59 Democratic co-sponsors in the House, including Representatives Pascrell, James McGovern and Madeleine Dean, all of whom have signed on since the Supreme Court repealed Roe v. Wade. Ms. Dean became a co-sponsor on Aug. 8, after this interview took place.]You had half of the Congressional Black Caucus saying they weren’t going to support it, because they didn’t agree with ending partisan gerrymandering of congressional districts. I whipped votes like mad. And I worked closely with Speaker [Nancy] Pelosi to make sure we passed H.R. 1. Eventually, it evolved into the Freedom to Vote: John R. Lewis Act.Patrick Healy: So you think in that sort of framework that the voters are more, in some ways, more progressive than where Democratic elected officials are now —I don’t think it’s a progressive position to say we have to reform the filibuster to save American democracy. On another issue — oh, sorry.Jyoti Thottam: Yeah, I think we’re going to — yeah, we have a lot of questions.Sorry.Jyoti Thottam: OK, Eleanor has some questions.Eleanor Randolph: So Congressman, these are yes-or-no questions, but I think you’ve already answered a couple of them. One, do you support expanding the Supreme Court? I think the answer to that is obviously yes.I do, yeah.Eleanor Randolph: Do you support ending the filibuster?I do.Eleanor Randolph: I thought so. Now, should there be term limits for members of Congress?Yes, there should be.Eleanor Randolph: How about an age limit?No.Eleanor Randolph: And should Joe Biden run for a second term?Joe Biden should do what he thinks he should do in the year 2024. And I very much look forward to seeing if anyone else is going to run. But I’ve got to tell you, I realize that a lot of folks, including myself, have a number, or a litany, of criticisms of the president, but he’s done some really good things, and I’m really proud that he’s my president, and that he’s our president.Eleanor Randolph: So is that a yes or a no?Should he run? I think — I think I can’t answer that question, because I don’t know what his situation is going to be in the year 2024. And I don’t know what the state of the world will be. And I certainly hope we still have a democracy in 2024. I’m fighting like hell to make sure that happens.Nick Fox: Do you want him to run right now?I’m very focused on what happens in 2022. And I think it has been to the detriment of the work that we still have to do in Congress this year that so much attention has been on the year 2024.Jyoti Thottam: OK. Alex?Alex Kingsbury: You’ve already noted some of the needs we have here at home for building various things, and I’m wondering if you think we should still continue to spend billions of dollars to support the war in Ukraine. If so, what should the upper limit of that spending be, and should we attach conditions to the taxpayers’ money that’s going in?Alex, it is in our strategic interest to continue to support the free people of Ukraine. I was the only House member to go on a congressional delegation with a bunch of senators a couple of months ago. And our allies, whether it is in Eastern Europe, in Western Europe, or in the Middle East, they want to see American leadership.As a baseline strategic matter, we want to make sure that China doesn’t see what’s happening and thinks that it, too, can do the same, like it, too, for example, could go into Taiwan and invade Taiwan. China is an even bigger threat — China is an even bigger threat to the United States than Russia. And it will be far more difficult to impose economic sanctions on China, because its economy is larger, and it is inextricably bound up with economies elsewhere in the world.So I think we have to send a message. I obviously do not support putting troops, American troops, on the ground in Ukraine. And we’ve not done that, and I’m proud that this president has not done that.I don’t want to arbitrarily impose some upper limit on the kind of financial support that we should be providing Ukraine or our allies who are helping us in this effort. And I think doing so would be irresponsible, frankly. I will say I think we’re doing a heck of a lot already, whether it’s providing military equipment or sharing intelligence or training — training other or training with other troops from other countries. I’ve been to those military facilities, and I’ve seen the important work that we are doing abroad.Jyoti Thottam: OK. Nick?Nick Fox: Yeah, I was wondering what you thought Democrats could do about climate change in the face of continued opposition from Republicans and intransigence from the Supreme Court.I am not giving up on passing some climate provisions in a scaled-down Build Back Better. Nick, you know that we had $555 billion in the version of Build Back Better that passed the House. I realize that Joe Manchin, on any given day, will say something negative about the prospects of passing climate action.[The Senate passed the climate, health and tax bill on Aug. 7 and the House on Aug. 12, both after this interview took place.]In the meantime, we should not be waiting on him. The president should be using his executive authority, including in the form of declaring a climate emergency, which would unlock federal resources. We also should not be granting additional oil and gas leases.We’ve got existing leases, properties associated with which are not even being drilled right now. And, of course, this is an opportunity, both from a national security standpoint and from an economic standpoint, to make sure that we are transitioning to clean, renewable sources of energy.Mara Gay: What further action can Congress take on guns?So much more. We have to pass, over in the Senate, a bill that we passed through the House Judiciary Committee and through the House of Representatives, called the Protecting Our Kids Act. Among other things, it would enact universal background checks. It would raise the age to purchase a semiautomatic rifle to 21 years old.It would ban ghost guns. It would ban high-capacity magazines. Of course, the Judiciary Committee, on which I serve, just passed the first assault weapons ban in 30 years last week. We need to pass that through the House, and we need to send it to the Senate.[On July 29, after this interview took place, the House passed an assault weapons ban.]I’m under no illusion that the Senate is going to pass an assault weapons ban this year, but we need to get those people on the record. And we need to message that in this election.Mara Gay: What about on abortion rights or L.G.B.T.Q. rights, both, if you don’t mind?Whether it is the Women’s Health Protection Act, which we passed for the second time this year, or the Respect for Marriage Act, my bill with Jerry Nadler that we just passed in the House, we have to be responding to the threats posed by the far-right majority on the Supreme Court to fundamental rights.And by the way, we need to go further. We need to pass a bill to codify the right to contraception — in fact, we did pass a bill to codify the right to contraception last week. Interracial marriage — I think we need to pass legislation to codify that, regardless of whether Justice [Clarence] Thomas gave us a heads-up on that particular case — Loving v. Virginia.We have to make sure that we are responding legislatively. And it’s not just codifying this into law. It is understanding that this Supreme Court has gutted a Voting Rights Act that Congress reauthorized nearly unanimously in 2006.And so it’s not enough to just pass laws. We have to restrain the power. We have to limit the power of the Supreme Court majority. It’s why my project has been not just court expansion, but to deprive the Supreme Court of jurisdiction to even review categories of cases.Most of the cases that the Supreme Court adjudicates are cases for which it has jurisdiction that Congress has explicitly legislated. The Constitution is relatively narrow in the kinds of cases that it gives the Supreme Court. And I’m also really proud on this subject to have done one of the first cases of jurisdiction channeling successfully in the House.In H.R. 1, I was able to get a provision that channeled all challenges to H.R. 1 to the district court in D.C., and then to the D.C. circuit, rather than allowing some judge in the Fifth Circuit to strike down H.R. 1. Obviously, we passed H.R. 1. in the House. We still need to do it in the Senate.Kathleen Kingsbury: What should Congress do to address the increasing threat of domestic extremism or terrorism?So in the House, we passed the Domestic Terrorism Prevention Act, which would provide additional resources to the F.B.I., D.H.S., and the Department of Justice. This is personal to me, as someone who is both Black and gay. I look at what happened in Buffalo, and it’s horrific.I have currently — I’m representing a community in Monsey, where we saw an anti-Semitic hate crime committed. And so we have to make sure that we are responding in terms of providing resources to law enforcement to address the uptick in white-supremacist domestic terrorism.I am acutely empathetic towards my A.A.P.I. brothers and sisters in Lower Manhattan and in Brooklyn who, as of late, had been bearing the brunt of white-supremacist domestic terrorism. And the same is true for our Jewish brothers and sisters, whether in Pittsburgh or elsewhere in this country, like in Texas.Jyoti Thottam: OK. We’re going to go to the lightning round, little quiz. Mara, would you please?Mara Gay: Yeah, thanks. How does Plan B work?[chuckles] Plan B is — it is a pill that you take following intercourse to prevent a pregnancy.Mara Gay: How does it work?It … it is an oral medication that prevents … I think, um [chuckles]. It is an oral — that destroys an embryo.Mara Gay: It prevents ovulation, or delays ovulation —Ovulation — got it, got it.Mara Gay: It’s OK. You’re in the hot seat. Do you own a gun?I do not.Mara Gay: Have you ever fired a gun?I have not.Mara Gay: What’s the average age of a member of Congress?The average age of a member of Congress — I should know this as one of the younger — youngest members of Congress. I believe it’s in the late 50s. [Long pause.]Um …[Everyone laughs.]Kathleen Kingsbury: Choose one number in that category.[Everyone laughs again.]59.Mara Gay: 58. Very close. What about among senators?Golly. Um … 68?Mara Gay: 64. Please name a member of Congress, dead or living, who you most admire and would emulate, if re-elected to serve.Jamie Raskin.Mara Gay: What is your favorite restaurant in the new district?So I’ve got a few because of their special meaning to me, but probably Yuca.Eleanor Randolph: Well, speaking about your new district, Congressman, you lived outside New York City until you decided to run for Congress in this district, instead of running against Congressman Maloney. Why are you the right person to represent this district?Voters in New York’s 10th Congressional District deserve a progressive champion with a track record of actually delivering results, and that’s what they want. I’m proud to be someone who was ranked the most legislatively active freshman member of Congress last year.And to have, just days after getting elected in November 2020, to have been voted unanimously by my colleagues as their freshman representative to House Democratic leadership — as I mentioned earlier, at a time when few people thought we could get either the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act or Build Back Better passed through the House, I was the person who bridged that divide. And we got that done.I’m also really proud to have already delivered billions of dollars for New York City — for schools, health care and housing through helping to pass the American Rescue Plan. And this is at a time, of course, when the New York City Council just voted to cut New York City’s public school budget by hundreds of millions of dollars.And by the way, as I fight now to represent this district, I’m also fighting to bring as many millions of those billions of dollars in infrastructure dollars to New York City to fund resiliency projects, like in Lower East Side along the East River Park, or to clean up the Gowanus Canal and to repair the B.Q.E., and of course, to make sure that environmental justice communities in Sunset Park and in Red Hook are climate-resilient. And we can do that while creating millions of good-paying jobs, including thousands right here in Lower Manhattan and in Brooklyn. When I say right here, I mean, obviously, in New York’s 10th Congressional District.I’m also really proud, from a legislative perspective, to be leading the charge to defend our democracy and to protect the right to vote. Because I understand that if we don’t have a true multiracial democracy in this country, if we don’t have true representative government, then the work that I am doing to make historic investments in housing, to allow Medicare to negotiate prescription drugs and to enact humane immigration policy — none of that stuff is possible.Kathleen Kingsbury: In 2020, you said you supported the movement to defund the police. I’m curious if you still hold that view. And if so, what do you say to voters who are concerned about rising crime right now?It’s a terrible slogan. But the premise of making sure that we have smart policing that keeps people safe, but that doesn’t brutalize Black and brown communities — that still holds today. That’s still something that I very much support.You know, my dad — he’s a tough guy. He grew up in the South Bronx. He lives in the Heights. I’ve never heard him talk about crime the way he talks about crime right now, and I realize that it’s not nearly as bad as you’ll hear on Tucker Carlson. It’s not anything like what we had in the early 1990s.But New Yorkers deserve to feel and to actually be safe. That means not being reactionary, but rather addressing the drivers of crime that we are seeing in this city. It means investing to make sure that we have high-quality schools for every public school student in this city, making sure that every kid has a roof over their head, rather than the fact that currently exists — 110,000 public school students homeless. It’s an abomination. It’s not a civilized society.[During the last school year more than 101,000 public school students lack permanent housing, according to 2021 city data.]Jyoti Thottam: So I know you’ve talked about your legislative record already, so — but can you just choose one — one bill or one thing that you think is your greatest accomplishment in Congress?Bringing billions of dollars to New York City under the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act. That took bringing progressives and our conservative Democratic colleagues together in a way that was not going to happen until I got involved with a couple of my other colleagues.Mara Gay: What is your pathway to victory in this very crowded race? Talk about the neighborhoods.I’m really proud to be running a truly grass-roots campaign. I mentioned that this is a district that wants and deserves a progressive champion. I’m proud to be knocking on doors. And my team and I, we’re knocking tens of thousands of doors in Lower Manhattan and in Brooklyn.We are reaching people on television and digitally. We are phone banking, and we are texting. We are having — and by “we,” I mean myself — dozens of meet-and-greets. I was just in Park Slope yesterday for yet another meet-and-greet.And folks are responding to the work that I’ve been doing in Congress. They’re not focused on how long I’ve lived in the district, versus how long other candidates have. They want to know what I’m delivering and what I’m fighting for, and whether I understand what is at stake in this election.And I’m really proud of that. And I realize that I don’t have as much money as one of my other opponents, who was up on broadcast with $1 million last week. But I’ve faced longer odds before.The last time I met with this editorial board, you took a chance on a guy who grew up poor, Black and closeted, and who never imagined that someone like him could run for Congress, let alone get elected. And I have hit the ground running.Patrick Healy: We’re almost out of time. Two questions — one, a quick follow-up on the Respect for Marriage vote recently. Was there a Republican whose mind you changed during the course of that, and who you spoke to — not for bragging rights, but just how you talk to your Republican colleagues.I like to think that a conversation that I had with a colleague from Long Island around the Equality Act helped get him a year later to a point where he was willing to support the Respect for Marriage Act. Now, I can’t tell you of a recent conversation that I had with a Republican to get them to support this legislation.Patrick Healy: And then, you’re a progressive, but the Working Families Party has endorsed a rival of yours, Assemblywoman [Yuh-Line] Niou. What should voters make of that?Voters should know that most people abstained or voted no endorsement in that vote, and that the abstentions didn’t count. And so as a result, you had less than a real majority voting. Voters should also know that I’ve been endorsed [in a previous election] by the Working Families Party, and that I’ve been a Working Families Party champion in Congress.Last August, when most of Congress went home on recess, I stayed behind, and I rallied alongside A.O.C. and Cori Bush, and we got the White House to reverse its position on the C.D.C.’s national eviction moratorium. And the president extended that eviction moratorium after he said he didn’t have the ability to do so.And I was wearing my Working Families Party shirt in a photo that went viral. And when I completed the questionnaire, I was answering questions about whether I would support legislation that I myself have introduced — whether it’s the Judiciary Act or something else.Kathleen Kingsbury: Why did you choose to move into District 10, as opposed to, you know, 12?Thank you for that. So we also had a Republican-acting Supreme Court judge adopt what is a Republican gerrymander in New York City. And that was intended to reduce the number of Democrats in New York’s delegation and, I believe, the number of Black progressives or progressives of color in New York’s congressional delegation.I had a choice. My residents have been drawn into a district where Jamaal Bowman announced his candidacy. My alternative was to run against a guy whose primary job responsibility is to help us keep our majority and defeat fascism in America.I didn’t want to run against a Black progressive who’s one of the few people who actually gets what’s at stake in this moment, or the guy whose job responsibility it is to help us defeat fascism. And so I ran to represent a district that means a lot to me, because when I was growing up closeted, it was the time I spent in the Village, seeing queer people, including queer people of color, live authentically, that helped me summon the courage to live my own authentic life and to make that history back in 2020 that people like to talk about.I’ve also worked in this district, and I have been a champion for the communities that comprise this district, whether it is getting billions of dollars for New York City infrastructure, or delivering billions for New York City schools, health care and housing, or leading the fight to end gun violence, to the point where Tucker Carlson has been attacking me on his show, and I’m getting death threats from all across the country.I am proud to also have been fighting in the form of getting Build Back Better passed through the House for tens of billions of dollars in investments in NYCHA, and, as I mentioned, I think, earlier, to create hundreds of thousands of additional Section 8 housing vouchers. I’ve been doing the work. And when I talk to people on the ground, they’re appreciative of that.The Times is committed to publishing a diversity of letters to the editor. We’d like to hear what you think about this or any of our articles. Here are some tips. And here’s our email: letters@nytimes.com.Follow The New York Times Opinion section on Facebook, Twitter (@NYTopinion) and Instagram. More

  • in

    The New York Times’s Interview With Carlina Rivera

    Carlina Rivera has served as a Manhattan councilwoman since 2018.This interview with Ms. Rivera was conducted by the editorial board of The New York Times on July 27.Read the board’s endorsement for the Democratic congressional primary for New York’s 10th District here.Kathleen Kingsbury: We’re just going to jump in. I hoped we could talk a little bit about — and I understand you have to reject the premise of this question — what you would be able to accomplish in a Republican-controlled Congress. And it’s good to be as specific as possible. But also, if there’s one big idea that you have that you’d pursue on a bipartisan basis.I would love to focus on what we would actually get done, absolutely. I think I’m the type of person that’s been very effective and very collaborative. I think you are going to have many of us who want to end the Jim Crow relic of the filibuster. Are we walking into a Congress that’s going to allow that? Maybe not.So, being rooted in realism, one of the things that I’m actually going to focus on: as tangible results as possible. So that will be serving on a great committee. I realize I’ll also be a junior congressperson, so I’ll have to serve sort of, you know, where they think my service would be best needed.But I also know that we are going to be losing leadership just in N.Y.12 alone. Our chairship will be lost. And I feel the delegation is at its strongest when we have leadership amongst many committees. So I would love to have my New York congressional delegation help advocate for me to get a good committee. I’d love something like transportation and infrastructure.We have the biggest subway system in the world that floods even with a little bit of rain. And we have a B.Q.E. that’s falling down. Again, energy and commerce would also be nice, because in there, there are discussions on climate and health care. And I do feel like, even though discussions over what we can do to address the effects of climate change haven’t been particularly successful, it’s going to be an important conversation going forward.I also think, going in, something that I could focus on are earmarks, $9 billion recently for earmarks, about approximately 4,900, 5,000 earmarks, having someone — there’s no pun intended — with their ear to the ground I think is something that I’m especially good at. I know this district very, very well. I know the issues facing every neighborhood, and that is something that I will go in and fight for, to bring those resources back to my district.And then the last thing I’ll say is, in terms of the infrastructure bill, I know that many people might say that money is already at the city and state level. My relationships and how I’ve come up through the community and through the ranks, they’re very strong. So working with people at every level of government to ensure that we know where those dollars and resources are going is something that I think I’ll be very effective at.Mara Gay: Councilwoman, inflation is hitting Americans hard. But as you know, in this district, the primary driving factor for cost of living is housing. What would you do as a member of Congress to address the cost of housing in New York?Well, housing is one of my signature issues. I am someone who I feel has maybe taken unpopular stances on housing, because I feel a few things are incredibly important. Stable housing is what has brought me right before you here today, growing up in Section 8 and having a roof over my head — again, something stable.I think there are good pieces of legislation to explore in Congress. The Home[s] Act, looking at linking federal dollars to maybe how we can change some zoning laws that have been quite restrictive. I took a local position on that that I thought was important. And trying to bring housing to a transit-rich area, which hadn’t really been done in rezonings before. But bringing those federal dollars in building housing — because right now, our supply does not meet our demand — to me is one of the most important things that we should be doing as representatives.And I’ll add to that something like the Green New Deal for public housing is something I’m also very passionate about, because just in the council, I represent the third highest concentration of public housing families. But there will also be even more developments and more families in N.Y.10 who will need representation — good, strong representation. And my story of my mom growing up in Farragut Houses and my dad growing up in Seward Park Extension, this is where I’ve spent the majority of my time. And this is certainly something that I’ll be looking to do.Mara Gay: And what tough vote that you took on housing — could you name one for us, since you said it was something that you could get tough votes on?Well, I’ll tell you, the SoHo, NoHo rezoning maybe didn’t make me the most popular, but I think it was the right thing to do. I’m glad that we saw it through. I’m someone that digs in deep, fights, negotiates and comes to a compromise. And I thought that ultimately, that was the right decision to make.Mara Gay: You voted for it?Absolutely.Mara Gay: For the record. Thanks.Jyoti Thottam: Hi, Councilwoman. So, just moving big picture for a minute to the threats to our democracy, what do you think Democrats in Congress could do, should be doing, to protect democracy and secure voting rights, et cetera?I think for many people — people are losing faith in their government. I think that that is maybe at an all-time high right now. I think how we restore people’s faith or trust in government is to deliver on the things that we’re fighting for.And so that is, again, those tangible things that you can see. I also think — well, we must try to expand voting rights in every which way possible, clearly making sure that, again, those people that have been historically disenfranchised, whether it’s same-day registration, automatic registration, being engaged, civically engaged, with people and starting that very, very young. Civics and education, I think, is also really important. So fighting for that, while also understanding that I think we should be looking to achieve progress wherever and however possible. And that’s something that I’m looking forward to doing and working with my colleagues.Patrick Healy: Councilwoman, do you think that Democratic elected officials are out of step at all with Democratic voters on immigration, on L.G.B.T.Q. rights, on any issue out there? As you talk to voters and hear the conversation, how does that compare with how elected officials talk about some of these things?I do feel there are almost two schools of Democrats. And there are very ideological representatives. And then there are sort of these individuals that are more kind of like old school, let’s not let the perfect be the enemy of the good.I would say that what I think would make me a successful congresswoman is that I feel like I have my foot in both. I’m going to go for the big fights, the Green New Deal and the Medicare for All. But I’m also going to do my best to deliver as much as I can. I don’t think “incremental” is a bad word, but however and wherever possible we can achieve progress. And I’m excited because I’ll be going into the delegation with relationships with some of the reps that will be there. And I’ll be working hard to deliver.Eleanor Randolph: So we have a couple of yes-or-no questions. And you’ve touched on one. But if you don’t mind, we’ll just go through them. One, would you favor expanding the Supreme Court?Yes, I can expand it —Mara Gay: One-word answers would be great.Yes!Eleanor Randolph: What about ending the filibuster?Yes.Eleanor Randolph: What about term limits for members of Congress?Yes. Oh, wait a minute. Hold on. You said term limits for members of Congress?Eleanor Randolph: Yes.No.Eleanor Randolph: No. OK, what about an age limit for members of Congress?No.Eleanor Randolph: And should President Biden run again?Yes.Eleanor Randolph: OK. Thank you.I was thinking about it. I just answer [inaudible].Alex Kingsbury: I’d like to ask you about Ukraine. I’m wondering if there should be an upper limit on the amount of taxpayer dollars that we spend on that conflict, and if we should attach any sort of conditions to the money that we’re sending to Ukraine.I have been unapologetic about my support for Ukraine. I represent Little Ukraine in the East Village. And that situation is felt abroad and here at home. I have tried in my capacity in the city to ensure that people understand that they have someone who knows this is a very comprehensive issue in terms of what people’s needs are and how we are open to accepting refugees and families that will be coming here because of that relationship between Ukrainians and New York City and in Ukraine. We are providing the appropriate amount of funding right now, and I do not see any conditions at the moment to attach to that.Nick Fox: What do you think are the specific climate policies and plans that the Democrats should prioritize now?[The Senate passed the climate, health and tax bill on Aug. 7 and the House on Aug. 12, both after this interview took place.]Specific climate policies and plans. Before I ever decided to run for public office, I was in New York City for Hurricane Sandy. That was eight feet of water on Avenue C, where I have spent my life. This is an issue not for tomorrow. It is for today.And I’m going to — hopefully, as the next congresswoman for New York 10 — represent low-lying communities that are the majority disproportionately Black, brown families that live in public housing. I feel we need a full-court press on climate. I realize that it is going to be incredibly difficult when environmental policies and protections are pulled from legislation, and there was an actual weakening of the E.P.A. I realize the challenges that are in front of us.I do feel that where we should focus our federal resources is on resilient infrastructure and the creation of very good green jobs. That is something I think can be a bipartisan effort and that I can be effective in advocating for, because of the nature of the district that I’ll be representing and because of my personal and professional experience in addressing this issue.Mara Gay: Thank you. What further action can Congress take on gun violence?Gun violence is clearly — I think it’s a public health crisis. What we have seen happen in my district and even in my own community where I grew up, even previous to the SCOTUS decision, some of the strongest gun control laws in the country in New York State, still these guns were reaching our communities, and people are dying.What I think we can do is a few things. One is try to move forward, even on some of what was just accomplished very, very recently by Congress. And utmost respect to how we were able to move that. But right now it is such an urgent crisis that I felt that it was overdue. But I’m glad that it happened.What I’m seeing in my own district and in my time in the city is being able to identify what is working. So we have to invest: mental health programs, housing, education, work force development, ensuring that young people know that we are supporting them. And we also should be investing in programs that I’ve seen as the chair of the Committee on Hospitals in my last term, in programs like Stand Up to Violence, at Jacobi and Lincoln Hospital, that are using credible messengers and people from the community to go meet gun violence victims where they’re at in the emergency rooms and have really tough conversations about what is transpiring locally.I think that is a successful program. It should be expanded, as well as comprehensive and complementary strategies to law enforcement, and trying to ensure that we are establishing what should be a mutually respectful relationship between community and police.Mara Gay: And could you just name one action that you would take as a member of Congress on abortion rights, to protect abortion rights?As a member of Congress to protect abortion rights. Well, we have to end the filibuster to codify Roe. I would say we should work to expand access to medication abortion. I’ve passed that bill. I think it could be an example, a model, for other places across the country, and we should be providing funding to provide those services.Especially, we’ve done that here in New York, establishing the nation’s first abortion access fund, which has become a model already for other cities. I think that that should continue in terms of funding to places, especially those states that are adjacent to and nearby the states with outright restrictions or bans.[Abortion activists believe that New York’s abortion access fund marked the first time cities directed money to abortions specifically.]Mara Gay: Thank you.Kathleen Kingsbury: What should Congress do to address the increasing threat of domestic terrorism?Well, I feel we have a very sort of unique opportunity right now to put members of Congress in who understand that domestic terrorism, white supremacy, are issues right now that are destroying our communities. And we have to have a very, very serious conversation at every level of government, explore legislation, and really try to address that there are many things that I think are fueling domestic terrorism and white supremacy, antisemitism, gun violence, hateful and bigoted rhetoric, and using our platforms to really also speak out against a lot of the things that are transpiring in our communities that are divisive and that are violent.Mara Gay: We have a lightning round, a little pop quiz for you.OK.Mara Gay: How does Plan B work?Plan B is, you could actually buy it over the counter when you walk into the CVS.Mara Gay: How does the medication work in the body?The Plan B?Mara Gay: Mm-hmm.Orally? It, it …Mara Gay: What does it do?It expends the pregnancy — I mean, I’m sorry. I’m thinking of medication abortion. Let me clear that. Plan B is a preventive medicine that you take within three to five days of having sex. You take it orally, and it prevents … it prevents the pregnancy.Mara Gay: It prevents ovulation.Yes.Mara Gay: Do you own a gun?No.Mara Gay: Have you ever shot a gun?No.Mara Gay: Please name the average member of Congress the best you can.Please name the what?Mara Gay: The average — I’m sorry. Excuse me. Sorry. What is the average age of a member of Congress?Ooh, that’s a great question. I think it’s fairly high, maybe in the 60s?Mara Gay: Fifty-eight. What about for senators?I was going to say 61. Say that again, sorry.Mara Gay: Sorry. For senators?For senators — 59?Mara Gay: Sixty-four. Sorry. Now back to what I was misreading. Please name a member of Congress, dead or living, whom you most admire and may emulate yourself after, if elected to serve.Dead or living? I’m very pleased to [inaudible] Nydia Velázquez. I also think [Pramila] Jayapal is someone I’m very much looking forward to working with.Mara Gay: Thank you. And what is your favorite restaurant in the district?My favorite restaurant in the district is El Castillo de Jagua, which is on Rivington Street.Mara Gay: Thank you.I have a lot of favorite restaurants. I hate this question. I grew up in New York City. Oh my gosh.It is just like the most outstanding, diverse buffet of cuisine and food. And the pizza alone, right? The pizza alone. Anyway, I really love going out to eat. But you’ve got to keep it healthy. I’m also a farmer’s market person, and I really believe in funding our local farmers and farmer’s market.And maybe we’re not going to get into regulating big agriculture and regenerative farming. But I just think we have such a great city. Going out to eat, arts and culture, nightlife. I want to be the candidate for the people that love New York City.Mara Gay: Your objection is noted.Kathleen Kingsbury: In the council, you’ve pushed hard for deep cuts to the N.Y.P.D. Do you support the defund movement? And what do you say to voters who are concerned about public safety right now?Public safety is actually a topic that does come up very, very frequently on the streets when I’m talking to voters. I believe that we need to have these sort of complementary strategies to law enforcement. And what I mean by that is I do believe that the safest communities are the ones that are invested in.And so I can tell you, as someone who is from New York — though I want to build a future for anyone coming to this city, a future that people can see themselves in — but being from New York, I can tell you that the East Village is very different from the West Village and that Park Slope is very different from Sunset Park.The resources there, the presence of police, and I feel that sort of relationship can sometimes fall a little different. And so for me, I believe that we need equitable funding to all of our agencies and that we really have to fund what I call the four basics, first and foremost, which are housing, education, health care and food. That is what I convey over and over again to people.And as an elected official, I do my very best to have good relationships with my local precincts and try to work as respectfully and as collaboratively as possible.Kathleen Kingsbury: Jyoti?Nick Fox: Yeah, you’ve spoken out —Jyoti Thottam: Nick, yeah, go ahead.Nick Fox: Spoken out extensively on the need to support public housing. The region doesn’t have enough housing supply in general. What can Congress do to help? And do you think, like others in this race, that the residential tower at 130 Liberty Street in Lower Manhattan should be 100 percent affordable?Some call that 5 World Trade Center. So, all right, so there’s two questions there. One is, what do we think Congress can do? Yes, I’ve spoken extensively on public housing, because I feel it is that important. Just in New York City, it is a $40 billion challenge that is not even looking at the rest of the public housing across the country. I’m speaking exclusively to New York City.I also know that, again, we do not have enough supply to meet the demand. And right now, when you need 5,000 there — the average median rent is $5,000 — you need a six-figure job to keep up with monthly expenses. That is becoming increasingly difficult for people to be able to see their future in New York City.What we can do, I mentioned a few pieces of legislation that I thought were important. I mentioned the Green New Deal for public housing. I mentioned the Home Act. There is also another piece of legislation called Yes in My Backyard.There are a few pieces there that I feel, in terms of linking — some things that we should explore — linking federal resources to perhaps looking at how we make zoning less restrictive. In the case of 5 World Trade or Liberty Street, what they’re describing right now is that everyone wants 100 percent affordable housing everywhere. I feel mixed-income housing — and again, affordable housing has different levels, and so we need low and moderate and middle.I think that is really, really important to have that integration, and it’s also had proven outcomes for people who live in these mixed communities. To put $500 million into one tower for 900 — for lottery units that we’re not even sure how deep the [area median income] will be, to me, could be a decision that is not reflective of being equitable at where we’re putting resources to build affordable housing.Mara Gay: Thank you. Let’s talk about your path to victory a little bit. It’s obviously an exceptionally crowded race. The two-part question was, what is your path to victory? And the second part of the question is, what will be the determining factor in who emerges victorious in this primary? Is it a union? Is it a ground game? Is it how much money you have in the bank? What is it?I think to win this race — and I feel like I am uniquely positioned to do it because of my roots, because of the relationships that I have, and that people know me in the community, and they know me in this district — to win, you certainly need to be funded, and you need a good ground game. So you need a combination.For me, having the validators that I do have is the coalition I’m building in terms of supporters, including an early endorsement from Nydia Velázquez, was really important. Over 45 percent of her old district is in the new N.Y.10. And people know her. She’s a fighter. And so having that was critical.Having good support, whether it’s council members, labor, I think just for me, I have community leaders, P.T.A. presidents, disability advocates, and NYCHA tenant association leaders, district leaders, state committee people. I think that group of people — who understand the issues, who know who I am, who know my drive — that is what’s going to get me to the finish line. Ultimately, I would say it is having a fully funded campaign and a good ground game. And I think I’m the only candidate that has both.Mara Gay: Thank you.Patrick Healy: You live in Manhattan, but the majority of voters in the district live in Brooklyn. Why are you the best person to represent this district?Well, I’ve had all my most, I would say, my most important memories and milestones in this district. So my mom grew up in Brooklyn. My dad grew up in the L.E.S. And I like to say I’m the best of both boroughs.And I grew up going to the matinee at Cobble Hill. It was $2 on Sunday. It was like the best memory with me, my mom and my sister. I grew up bowling at Melody Lanes in Sunset Park, and I am the kid that grew up swimming in Carmine Pool and Ham Fish and playing ball at the Cage.So, for me, this district was built for me. It was made for me. And I think the responses that I’m getting from the people that live there are a testament to that.Kathleen Kingsbury: Great. I think we’re all —Thank you so much.Jyoti Thottam: We have a couple of minutes.[Laughs.]Jyoti Thottam: I just have one question. You’ve mentioned a lot of legislation you’ve sponsored —Yeah.Jyoti Thottam: Or that you’ve supported. Can you just name one that’s actually been passed and implemented, that has helped people in this district? Just one.Just one?Jyoti Thottam: The one you’re most proud of.Can I name three? Please, I’ll be so fast.Kathleen Kingsbury: We have four minutes.OK, OK. OK, so, all right. So one of the first bills I passed was to regulate illegal hotels, which were taking on Airbnb when they were — it’s pretty much removing units from the affordable housing stock. That has actually been enforced, and the mayor just did a press conference just a couple of weeks ago on how the Office of Special Enforcement was actually putting it into action, and it was working. One other bill I’d like to mention is my first bill, which is actually to codify sexual harassment as a form of discrimination. That was incredibly important.And the last bill I’ll mention was the most recent, which was to make medication abortion available at city-run health clinics. And just one bonus is bicycle — to actually provide a detour when there is on-site street work or construction — to provide a detour for bicycle lanes. I feel like that was really important, because if we’re trying to promote greener infrastructure and prioritize pedestrians and cyclists, that and my bill to make Open Streets a permanent program, I thought, were significant.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

  • in

    The New York Times’s Interview With Jo Anne Simon

    Jo Anne Simon is a state assemblywoman representing parts of Western Brooklyn in New York’s 52nd District since 2015.This interview with Ms. Simon was conducted by the editorial board of The New York Times on July 27.Read the board’s endorsement for the Democratic congressional primary for New York’s 10th District here.Kathleen Kingsbury: I wanted to start — and I understand that by necessity you have to reject the premise of this question — but I hope we could talk a little bit about what you would be able to accomplish in a Republican-controlled Congress, and if you could be as specific as possible. But also, if there’s one big idea that you really want to pursue on a bipartisan basis.So, I do reject the premise of the question. So, No. 1, that’s true. I think that when you are changing opinions and changing hearts and minds, that you have to be clear about what you are about. You have to be fact-based, and you have to be able to engage with people.And a career of advocacy — very often where people are lacking in knowledge, for example, and have a lot of preconceived notions. And certainly my history as a disability civil rights lawyer at the dawn of the Americans With Disabilities Act, trying a seminal case in the area, I had to do a lot of educating of the court and of others.And the only way you do that is to be honest, to communicate and to engage people where they are. I certainly have done that in the State Legislature, although in my house we could pass a bill, obviously, if it’s our bill on the floor. When I passed the red flag law the first time — and I passed it a couple of times before — the Senate changed and we were able to get it as a law.Half of the Republican side voted in favor. Because they knew that this was about protecting people and about keeping guns out of the hands of people who shouldn’t have guns. And I was able to communicate that. And because I have, I think, the trust and respect of my colleagues on both sides of the aisle, they believed me.Where there had been an earlier version, I made a number of changes to it that really tightened it up. That allowed people from upstate who were [inaudible] Democrats to vote in favor of the bill as well. You have to understand where people’s concerns are and how you can address them in a positive, constructive way.So do I know exactly what that would be in a Republican-controlled House? For example, one issue I’ve been associated with for many years is dyslexia, and the issues of reading and learning. I know we share an interest in that. There is a Congressional Dyslexia Caucus, and it’s bipartisan. Because this affects everybody’s children. It affects people who didn’t know they had this disorder.And the fact is that teaching our kids to read, that’s the way we’re going to save our democracy. We can empty our prisons if we teach our kids to read. And right now we’re not doing a good job of that for most students. And certainly an even less constructive job when it comes to kids with reading disabilities.I mean, I can tell you the data, but I don’t know how much you want to get into it.Mara Gay: Thank you. So inflation is hitting all Americans hard, but in your district, as you well know, the cost of living is really driving concerns. What would you do as a member of Congress to build more housing and ease that burden for your constituents?First of all, we need more federal money into housing. The federal government has really abandoned housing for all intents and purposes for many decades. I think one of the things we need to be is intentional about who is doing that development and how it’s happening.And so one of the concerns — and of course, we’re not running the City of New York, right? We don’t run their land use policies. One of the concerns that is always present in my mind is, are we being told that something is affordable when it’s not really affordable? We have numerous examples of that, I’m happy to go into more detail.I think we need to be providing money for supported housing. We could — so many people who are currently homeless and need supported housing and could be independent with the supports they need. And the other thing is to free up access to capital for not-for-profit housing developers. They can build more units, more deeply affordable units, permanently, because they don’t have that profit margin to worry about.So right now we’re kind of ceding control to big corporate developers who, if you do 25 percent of affordable housing, A, it’s not generally affordable to the people who need it, but even if it is, you’re — 75 percent of the project is luxury. And in my district, that’s all there is now, right? There’s a big stratification of that.That leads to displacement. People grew up in my neighborhood, my district, can’t live there. Seniors can’t live there. Atlantic Yards, we ended up with 25 percent of the African Americans in Community Boards 2, 3, 6 and 8 have been permanently displaced. That promise of affordable housing hasn’t been affordable. And the few that were available at that band haven’t been built. And only a third of the houses have been built in the 18 years.Mara Gay: Do you support building more truly affordable housing in wealthy areas of New York City, especially in N.Y.10?Yes. I think that there is a missed focus in some respects. And that is not so much the wealthier areas don’t want affordable housing. I think that’s where the battle lines have been set. What they want is for it to really be affordable. So when we have advocated for more affordability, we’re always told they can’t do that. Right?The issue is not quite what it is often set out to be by those vested interests.Jyoti Thottam: Councilwoman, I just wanted to shift to a national issue. As you know, there are many threats to our democracy right now. If you’re elected to Congress, what do you think Democrats could do to protect democracy more broadly and specifically secure voting rights?Well, I do think we need to pass voting rights legislation. The John R. Lewis Voting Rights Act, I’m very proud that New York did that. I was very engaged in that process. We have a good example here in New York State. I think that the real challenge is going to be the Senate.I think the answer — and that would be before I would take office — is to flip a couple of seats in the Senate. There are flippable seats, and if we can neutralize Senator Manchin and Senator Sinema, we can actually get — I know it’s hard to do. But if you get two seats, you can make them less relevant. And you can do what you need to do to get rid of the filibuster, even if it’s only for certain types of legislation, and make some change.That’s a real challenge to us as a democracy. I am hopeful because I’m seeing the generic ballot is starting to tip towards the Democrats. But the reality is we have to speak out. We have to be — talk about democracy all the time and preserve democracy, and have that be part of our conversation. We have to look at new ways to make that argument. Because currently, the old ways haven’t been working.But if you are on the ground listening to people and working with the people from around this country who are incredibly diverse in their thinking, democracy is the one thing that we share. And we have an overwhelming effort on the part of the right to be Christian nationalists.So we have to look at racism in every way that we can. I think the big issues in our world are climate, race, gender and the displacement of people. All of those things hang together, and that’s very much what our democracy can protect.Jyoti Thottam: Thank you. I’m going to hand this over to Patrick. And apologies, I realize you’re an assemblywoman.It’s OK.Patrick Healy: Do you think that Democratic elected officials today are out of step with Democratic voters on any issues? On immigration, on L.G.B.T.Q. rights, on other issues, just where you see the conversation happening among officials and then what you hear from voters?Well, first of all, I confess that I live in something of a bubble, right? N.Y.10 is something of a liberal bubble. And so I think we have elected officials that, for the most part, are in step. I do think, however, that not everybody is listening to the people on the ground.And that is where, for example, I think that I excel. I came up from community, I’ve been a community leader trying to get the attention of officialdom on issues that were cutting edge, on issues that were before and ahead of their time, where we were laughed at. And now those —Patrick Healy: Any kind of a specific issue today where it feels like —Environmental justice. Sinking the Gowanus Expressway into a tunnel. We were talking about technology that hadn’t been used in the United States. We were definitely laughed at until we finally brought the guys from Germany in who said, no, this can happen. Then we pass the laugh test.And then it’s about funding, and it’s about the willingness of the state to actually build the project. And that did not go so well, although we have a plan that we can dust off and make happen. But we need to bring those federal dollars to that infrastructure money.And if you take down the Gowanus Expressway, you will open up the waterfront. You will do environmental justice. You can clean the air if you do a tunnel. So these are practical, responsible and environmentally just approaches that I’ve been at the head of and leading on for 25 years.Eleanor Randolph: So we have several yes-or-no questions, and we’d appreciate it if you’d limit your answers to yes or no. The first one is, do you favor expanding the Supreme Court?Can I say yes and?Eleanor Randolph: We’d appreciate it if you just said yes.Yes. I would add the term limits.Eleanor Randolph: OK. Now, expanding the Supreme Court?Kathleen Kingsbury: She’s saying yes, and —I said, yes, and —Kathleen Kingsbury: She’d also create term limits.And ethics.Eleanor Randolph: Would you end the filibuster?Yes.Eleanor Randolph: What about term limits for members of Congress?Term limits for members of Congress I’d have to look at more closely. I think the biggest challenge we face right now as a country is the Supreme Court having lifetime appointments.Eleanor Randolph: So is that yes or no?It’s a maybe. It depends on what it is that we’re talking about.Eleanor Randolph: What about an age limit for members of Congress?It’s certainly something I would consider.Eleanor Randolph: And should President Biden run again?I’m not sure.Eleanor Randolph: OK. Thank you very much.Alex Kingsbury: I’d like to ask about Ukraine. I’m wondering if you think there should be an upper limit on the amount of taxpayer money that should go to Ukraine, and if there should be any limits placed on that taxpayer spending.Well, I think one thing that we need to look at is really what those costs are in real time. I think setting a limit where you don’t know what it is you’re dealing with is a little difficult to do with any fidelity. So it’s something that I certainly would want to look into a little bit more. I can’t tell you that I know what the number is by any shades of the imagination. I’m not in that line of work. So I’m not good at estimating what that amount of money is.But I also think that this is a major democracy issue. This is a democracy in Europe that is a bulwark against the encroachment of authoritarianism. And I think that that is a terrible influence on the United States. And so the question is going to be what costs democracy. And I’m not sure what that amount of money is. But I do know it’s something we need to be very careful and intentional about.Nick Fox: What do you think Democrats could do about climate change in the face of Republican opposition and difficulties on the Supreme Court?[The Senate passed the climate, health and tax bill on Aug. 7 and the House on Aug. 12, both after this interview took place.]Well, I think, No. 1, if you’re just looking at the Supreme Court’s recent ruling in West Virginia, you need to codify some of the issues that they said were not — that Congress had not told the E.P.A. they could do. And they’re going to do that with other things as well. And so codifying actual — the regulations, in essence, is going to be more important as we go forward. This is something that the Supreme Court’s been leaning towards for quite some time.The other thing, of course, is to embed climate goals and climate justice and money to everything we do. And so, any bill that we pass, we need to have climate as part of our focus. It has to be part of the lens through which we see. So when we talk about jobs, those jobs need to be jobs of the future. They need to be jobs that are not going to further the fossil fuel pollution of our country.We are in the midst of a huge climate crisis right now, and our heat the last week or so is a clear indicator of that. We’re seeing that with record rainfalls, with flooding. So everything that we do needs to have a climate focus on it. That is, I think, the only way that we can make progress, and we need to encourage people to engage in that, right?So we will save our climate ourselves if we compost, if we take certain actions, if we change or put solar on our roofs. That sort of thing. So we need to incentivize that. But we also need to make sure that that is included and anticipated in every bill that we pass.Mara Gay: OK. What further action can Congress take on gun violence? Just one or two things.Well, universal background checks is critical. We need to ban assault weapons. When we banned assault weapons, we had fewer mass shootings, right? Once we start — and research. Once they stopped researching gun violence, that precipitated additional gun violence.I’m proud of having started the New York State gun violence research institute because — but we were forced to do that because the federal government hasn’t been doing it, and we have a lot of catch-up to do.Mara Gay: And what about on abortion? Anything else that Congress can do?Well, passing the Women’s Health Protection Act, for sure. But also making sure that what we do, when it comes to funding, when it comes to access, recognizing that just because you have a right to doesn’t mean you can exercise that right. You have to be intentional about the fact that X bill could be implemented in a problematic way so that people could in fact be denied access to that care.I was an abortion counselor for years in Washington, D.C. It is something that I feel in my bones. It is something that I will never walk [inaudible].Kathleen Kingsbury: Alex, did you want to follow up?Alex Kingsbury: Just really quick. We hear about assault weapons bans a lot. There are about 15 million of these weapons in circulation right now. Does a ban mean buying them back? Does it mean just banning the sale of new ones? What are we going to do about all these millions of weapons that are already out there and beyond our control?Well, I think buying them back is a great idea, if we can find a way to do that and fund that. I think the problem is once you have all these weapons out there, it’s very hard to get them back. One of the ways we might do that is this further passing of red flag laws in states and financing the implementation of that.I passed the strongest red flag law in the country. But New York State didn’t follow up with implementing it. It was very hard for me to get data about that. I’ve been talking about us needing a public campaign, public awareness campaign, because people don’t know that they have the ability to move forward.And we certainly saw that in Buffalo. We saw that — this was a young man who went out and bought a weapon in New York State, but he modified it with parts from Pennsylvania. So that issue about parts is important. That’s a federal issue, it’s interesting. We need to act on that as well. But I think it’s very hard to get weapons out of the hands of people who shouldn’t have them unless we actually exercise those rights under red flag laws. We can do that. It’s not criminal, it’s a civil approach. And we can do that.[The Times has not confirmed the state where the Buffalo gunman purchased the parts he used to the modify his weapon.]Now, when it comes to people who have assault weapons who are not a danger to themselves and others, I think that public pressure, peer pressure, can also make a big difference when people realize that there’s no reason for a civilian to have an assault weapon. There just is no reason for a civilian to have an assault weapon. It’s like smoking. When you make it unpopular, people will start changing.Mara Gay: Assemblywoman, we have a lightning round for you. First question is, how does Plan B work?Plan B?Mara Gay: Yes.Kathleen Kingsbury: The morning-after pill.Mara Gay: Yeah.How does it work?Mara Gay: Yes.It causes the — it stops the implantation. If you get it early enough, then you’re not going to actually implant.Mara Gay: It actually prevents or delays ovulation.It prevents ovulation? OK. I took the poll in The New York Times, and I scored 100 percent on it. So I —Kathleen Kingsbury: Thank you.[Laughter.]Mara Gay: It’s OK. I caught you nervous. Do you own a gun?No.Mara Gay: Have you ever fired a gun?No.Mara Gay: What is the average age of a member of Congress?I have no idea.Mara Gay: It’s 58.Fifty-eight? OK.Mara Gay: What about senators?Probably older, I would say. Think it’s much older. I’d say, I don’t know, 75.Mara Gay: Sixty-four.[Laughs.]Mara Gay: Please name a member of Congress, dead or alive, whom you most admire and may emulate yourself after if elected.Dead or alive, wow. Well, I’m a big fan of Maxine Waters. I have great admiration for the folks that were leaders on the A.D.A., such as Senator Tom Harkin, Tony Coelho. But I think that somebody who’s got the finger on the pulse is good.Mara Gay: What is your favorite restaurant in the district?Convivium Osteria.Mara Gay: Thank you.Kathleen Kingsbury: I wanted to ask you about your decision to run for Congress as well as for re-election for your current seat. Which of those jobs do you want? Which one are you the most excited about?Well, that’s a sneaky question. I’ll say, No. 1, first of all, I was running for re-election when this happened. So I was already on the ballot for November. As you know, in New York, you couldn’t get off the ballot now if you tried, for one.I love my job in the Assembly. I had no intention of running for Congress. But Congressman Nadler made a decision that set in motion all these changes. And when the final map came out, I looked at it and said, this has my name on it. Because it’s communities I have worked in as a community leader, on big issues that connected communities. Like those traffic and transportation and environmental and health and safety issues. Leading on safe streets and traffic calming.I’ve worked in every community in this district — in the Brooklyn side of the district — long before I was ever elected to office. So it’s an area that I’m very familiar with, and I really know the issues, and I know that I can deliver on, just as I have delivered on those issues for my constituents currently.Patrick Healy: You were elected to the State Assembly in 2014. What laws did you personally sponsor that have improved the lives of New Yorkers?I would say, No. 1, the red flag law that we passed. I closed the L.L.C. loophole. I have passed in both houses, finally, a bill that requires the community to be consulted and residents to be consulted and their needs addressed in the closing of assisted living facilities, which is happening more and more because of real estate deals. Really happened on Prospect Park West.I have a bill to do the same thing for the closing of hospitals. We just weren’t able to get it past the Senate this year, unfortunately. I also changed the language in all of our statutes when it comes to firefighters and police officers. Instead of firemen and policemen, it is now firefighters and police officers. And that really changes the game, particularly for the women of the F.D.N.Y., for example. A very, very low rate of women firefighters.I work very collaboratively with them, and they are working very closely with new recruits to make sure that the language is changed in all of the preparation of training materials, for example. And I think that that will have a long-term impact as well. And the other is my dyslexia bill, where we mandated that if someone has dyslexia, that schools actually have to call it that instead of making believe that they’re not allowed. Which is something they told the parents for 45 years.Mara Gay: Thank you. So can you please talk to us a little bit about your path to victory? Others in this race have more money, some have powerful endorsements, like the 1199 S.E.I.U., which went to Carlina Rivera. So just tell us what your pathway to victory is in this very crowded race.Well, my pathway to victory comes through community. I am deeply embedded in the issues in this district in a way that I think none of my opponents are. Much of labor is staying out of this race because they have so many friends in this race. So these are not groups that have been supportive of me in the past.I have endorsements from people who matter on the ground. My predecessor Joan Millman, Senator [Velmanette] Montgomery, Deborah Glick has endorsed my candidacy. Margarita López, a former councilwoman who reached out to me wanting to endorse. As you know, she represented the Lower East Side in the council for a number of years.Plus I have the most active Democratic clubs, both in Brooklyn and in Manhattan. Now, the Manhattan club that I went to, they didn’t know me. And based on the way I talked about those issues and my track record of delivering and being on the ground, representing people where they are and listening to community, they made the leap to cross the river to endorse in another borough, and they are the largest Democratic club in Manhattan.And these are the people who are most activated. They are the most active voters. My district is roughly 30 percent — if you look at double prime voters — 30 percent of the turnout. And everybody is nipping away, of course. That’s what politics is about. But the reality is I’m very strong in my base. I’m very strong in the 44th A.D. I did very well in Sunset Park in the borough president’s race, almost overtaking Mr. Reynoso.So people throughout Brooklyn — I have support from public housing in my district at Red Hook. So these are people who are activated voters, they know why they’re voting, they’re sophisticated voters, and they are going to be coming out for me.Mara Gay: Thank you.Jyoti Thottam: So, given your deep ties to this community, I’m sure you’ve heard from people, their concerns about what looks like rising crime in some of these neighborhoods, public safety. What do you say to those voters?Well, public safety is many things. And so obviously you have to listen to people, and you have to respond. So the issues about public safety are often very clouded in rhetoric, but people are feeling unsafe.And so one of the things I did at the state level was I passed a bill that would allow, for example, a judge who can, at any time, order a psych evaluation for someone with serious mental illness. And to be able to hold that person and send them to a place where they can get an evaluation right away. A competent place. There are many mobile units and others who can do that. Many of the Health & Hospitals, corporation hospitals, are very well equipped to do that.And then that becomes treatment. And the response to that and the assessment of that individual becomes part of the conditions for release. Because the problem is, right now, what they do is, if someone comes in and is clearly seriously mentally ill and just bopped an Asian grandma over the head — scaring her and the community — the court will say, here’s a voucher, call this number and set up an appointment.Well, that person is never going to set up that appointment. They’re just going to go out, bop somebody else over the head a couple of days later, making everybody feel less safe. So we have to deal with the real issue at hand, and that’s one of the real issues at hand. The other thing, of course, is to not give in to some of the rhetoric that is misstating what it is that the legislature did.Yesterday the speaker issued a statement because Mayor Adams said: I want to have a special session in the Legislature to address these issues. But each and every one of the issues he was talking about are already bailable. Bail reform has nothing to do with those. So we have to be forthright and honest with people and say: Look, this is about something else. It’s important. And you’re right, and you’re right to be concerned. But this is about something else. It’s not about going bail reform, for example.And then hate crimes. I have a bill — and, again, couldn’t get it past this Senate yet — that would change the burden of proof. So the big issue with prosecuting hate crimes is that prosecutors can’t make the case, because you have to prove intent. And how do you prove intent? You prove intent by somebody saying something despicable as they bop the Asian grandma over the head.What I have proposed is a rebuttable presumption. By certain actions in certain communities, certain parties to the incident, for example, the person who is the victim, we can infer that, in fact, that is a bias crime, and then there’s a rebuttable presumption. So the defendant has the opportunity to rebut that with evidence that, no, it was not. I was just, just whacked this person over the head, but it had nothing to do with the fact that they were Asian, right?So I think that’s important. I’ve heard some colleagues talking about raising the penalties. Well, you can raise the penalties, but if you can’t make the case, it doesn’t matter. Right? And this is about making the case and making people feel safe.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

  • in

    The New York Times’s Interview With Jerrold Nadler

    Jerrold Nadler is a congressman who has represented neighborhoods on Manhattan’s West Side and parts of Brooklyn in New York’s 10th District since 1992.This interview with Mr. Nadler was conducted by the editorial board of The New York Times on July 26.Read the board’s endorsement of Mr. Nadler for the Democratic congressional primary for New York’s 12th District here.Kathleen Kingsbury: Congressman, I understand that you have to reject the premise of this question. So please excuse me in advance. But I hope we could start by talking about what you think you’d be able to accomplish in a Republican-controlled Congress, and is there one big idea that you would pursue on a bipartisan basis?Well, yeah. Remember, I was ranking member of the Judiciary Committee before I was chairman, so we’ve gone through this. I think we could accomplish some antitrust stuff. [Inaudible] and I are working well on that. We discussed the tech antitrust deals that we reported out a few months ago, we got very — we got bipartisan support to it. That would be the most obvious thing.Mara Gay: So inflation is hitting very hard across the country, obviously. But especially in New York, where the cost of living is already very high, especially in housing. What would you do to ease that burden for your constituents?Well, first of all, inflation is not just a New York problem. It’s not just an American problem, it’s a worldwide problem. Probably caused to a large extent by the dislocations due to the pandemic and the resulting problems to supply chains and [inaudible].The best thing we can do on the national level is to sharply raise taxes. Raise taxes on very rich people, that would cool down the demand side, which would have an impact on inflation. In New York, obviously, the housing is a big crisis. We have to build more housing. There’s no question.Mara Gay: What can you do as a member of Congress to do that?Well, we have to fund it. Nydia Velázquez and I two years ago introduced the bill for — to increase funding for NYCHA by — well, not for NYCHA, for public housing. NYCHA is the majority of public housing in the country. So, in effect, for NYCHA, by $72 billion.[Representatives Velázquez and Nadler introduced a bill in 2019 seeking to allocate $70 billion for public housing capital repairs and upgrades and $32 billion for the New York City Housing Authority.]There’s additional money to the Build Back Better bill, which, unfortunately, we haven’t been able to pass. But we will be if a Democratic Senate — we’ll pass that.[The Senate passed the climate, health and tax bill on Aug. 7 and the House on Aug. 12, both after this interview took place.]And we just have to fund housing a lot more. And we have to allow the construction of housing by removing a lot of the restrictions on density housing. The Urban Renewal Corporation — it always changes names, the Urban Development Corporation — has that authority to remove local zoning. So use it for other purposes as you use it for this.Jyoti Thottam: What do you think the Democrats should do to secure voting rights and, more broadly, protect democracy?Well, as you know, I’ve been leading the fight on that. Voting rights is — the Voting Rights Advancement Act, which would restore — and in fact would restore Section 5 preclearance underneath the Voting Rights Act, and would undo a lot of what the Supreme Court has done in narrowing down Section 2. So we restore the Voting Rights Act through Section 2.Section 2 is of limited use because they play Whac-a-Mole. That’s a terrible bill. We’re suing the court. Takes three years to get rid of it and they do another one. That’s why Section 5 is so important for preclearance.And that’s why I applaud the passage of that bill placed in the Judiciary Committee. And on the floor, we passed in the House. We cannot pass it in the Senate. And, again, we need two more Democratic senators.Patrick Healy: Do you think —That’s the answer for a lot of things. We need two more Democratic senators.Patrick Healy: Do you think Democratic elected officials are out of step with voters on immigration, on L.G.B.T.Q. rights, on any important issue of the day?Well, we’re obviously out of step with half the voters, roughly. But I think those half of the voters — this country is a very polarized country. Almost half the voters — I hope they’re almost half and not half — are impervious. They live in a different world. They get all their information from Fox News and Newsmax.They think that the crime is terrible in these Democratic-led cities, where, in fact, it’s not higher than in rural areas. They think that Antifa burned up half our cities. They live in a different world.Patrick Healy: What about Democratic voters?Democratic voters do not live in that world. I think Democratic voters are ready for real change. And they’re showing people, I think, people have voted for systemic change. That’s why we’ve had — the Democratic Party is a broad coalition. If you were in Europe, it would be five political parties.But that’s truly the American political system generally. The Electoral College system forces everybody into two parties. And we need, frankly, a center-left party, the Democrats, a center-right party, the Republicans.Unfortunately, the Republicans are not a center-right party these days. They’re more like a cult group. But Democratic voters have supported very substantial steps. They’ve supported all our voting rights legislation. They supported our gay rights legislation, our L.G.B.T.Q. legislation. They supported our women’s legislation.So Democratic voters, with coaxing, we can bring them on what we need.Eleanor Randolph: Hi. So these are yes-or-no questions. And we’d appreciate it if you’d just limit the answer to either yes or no, which, I know it’s hard. Do you support expanding the Supreme Court?Yes, it’s my bill.Eleanor Randolph: Do you support ending the filibuster?Yes.Eleanor Randolph: Should there be a term limit for members of Congress?No.Eleanor Randolph: How about an age limit?No.Eleanor Randolph: And should President Biden run for a second term?That I can’t give a yes or no answer. I’ll simply say to that, I think the interests of the Democratic Party and the country are best served by waiting till after the midterms before we begin discussing that.Eleanor Randolph: OK.Alex Kingsbury: I’d like to ask about Ukraine. And I’m wondering if there should be an upper limit on the amount of tax dollars that we spend on the war in Ukraine. And how do you talk to your constituents about the fact that we’re spending billions of dollars on a war we’re not officially a party to, and that money isn’t going to, say, projects in your district?I don’t think there should be an upper limit. The Russians have broken the barrier, really, imposed by World War II. You just don’t invade another country for territorial acquisition. That’s the foundation of the world order.And if they can get away with that, you’ll have chaos and lots more wars. If this country were attacked, we would spend far, far more than we’re spending on Ukraine now. And we can afford to spend more on Ukraine. We have to spend whatever it takes because they’re fighting our battle for us.And the country can afford it. This country has — we can afford that. And we can afford much greater social services simply by increasing taxes on the rich, which would also help with inflation, as I said before.Nick Fox: Given the continued opposition to climate action by the Republican Party and the Supreme Court, what can Democrats do to move us forward on that?Well, the president’s taken a number of actions within his jurisdiction. That’s what he can do. And what Congress can do is we can check that — again, we need two more votes. But we can pass very strong legislation on gas emissions. We could mandate the very, very quick convergence to electric cars.We can mandate that there are no new coal-fired plants built. We could mandate the conversion of those coal-fired plants to green plants, rapidly. And in fact, it’s cheaper today to build and operate a renewable plant than it is a coal plant. We can do that if we have a few more votes.Mara Gay: What further action can Congress take on gun violence at this point? Let me guess. We need two more votes.Well, I led the passage in the Judiciary Committee and in the House of the Save Our Kids Act, which is an amalgamation of seven bills that — with the passage of — we’ve seen them pass the red flag law. We can pass those.[The Protecting Our Kids Act passed the House in June.]We are taking up an assault weapons ban, which is my bill. We passed that out of committee, we should be taking that up on the floor this week.Ditto for a bill to repeal the liability exemption for gun manufacturers. That was imposed by the Republicans back in 2005. We passed that out of committee. We should be taking that up on the floor this week.Now, most of those won’t go through Senate. Get us two more votes and they will. But I’ll say this. We did pass into law Senator Murphy’s bill. And I’ll use, just for the purposes of illustration — [inaudible] these figures. I’m just making them up. But if our bill could save 100,000 lives and the Murphy bill we passed could save 10,000 lives, I’ll take — I’ll take the 10,000 and I’ll continue to fight for the 100,000.Mara Gay: And what about on abortion rights? Anything more that can be done?Yeah. We can — there are a number of things that can be done. Again, we can pass and we should pass the bill to codify abortion rights. I introduced the original version of that, the Freedom of Choice Act, about 10 or 12 years ago, because they didn’t trust the Supreme Court for the future.[Mr. Nadler reintroduced the Freedom of Choice Act in 2006.]It’s now the Women’s Health Act. It’s sponsored by Judy Chu. We passed it in the House. And the Senate is the problem. We can make sure that the pill method — mifepristone, et cetera — is legal. We can mandate that.I think we could probably tell the post office not to adhere to any bans in delivery by … states. We’re passing a bill to guarantee the right of free passage from state to state. But, frankly, I think the Constitution mandates that anywhere [inaudible]. We’re passing a bill on that.And let me tell you my fear. My fear is far worse than this. If you look at the logic of the Supreme Court’s decision — and [Samuel] Alito said that, in differentiating himself from [Clarence] Thomas — Thomas was basically saying that the logic of substantive due process should endanger Obergefell and Lawrence — that is to say, gay marriage and, essentially, sodomy. And he didn’t say Loving, but … it could apply there, too.But even Roberts, his concurring opinion when he said, no, no, we don’t have to go that far, we’re just deciding abortion for now. He said that abortion was different because the fetus is a person.[In his majority opinion, Justice Alito argues that the constitutional rights recognized in Obergefell v. Hodges, Lawrence v. Texas and other cases aren’t threatened because they don’t involve destroying a fetus.]Follow that logic. If a fetus is a person, the 14th Amendment guarantees any person life, liberty or — says you can’t deprive any person of life, liberty or property without due process of law. My fear is that within the next — I don’t know how many years — but at some point in the next few years, the Supreme Court is going to decide just that. That a fetus is a person you can’t deprive of life, liberty or property without due process of law.And therefore abortion is unconstitutional without any exceptions as a matter of constitutional law. And Congress can’t do anything about that, which is one reason that Senator Markey and I and two other colleagues of mine in the House proposed to expand the Supreme Court about a year ago, because that is the only answer. We’ve got to get rid of the filibuster. We’ve got to expand the Supreme Court.Kathleen Kingsbury: What should Congress do to address the increasing threat of domestic terrorism? We’ve seen some horrific incidents over the past few months.We passed the — I held hearings — I directed hearings in the Judiciary Committee, I think it was last year, to expose the threat of domestic terrorism, to show that 95 percent of the domestic terrorism comes from right-wing, racist groups and not from Antifa or other such nonsense. We held those hearings. And we passed the domestic terrorism bill. Again, in the House.Mara Gay: OK. So we have a lightning round question for you.OK.Mara Gay: So the first question is, how does Plan B work?By Plan B, you mean the medical —Mara Gay: The morning-after pill.The morning-after pill. You take one pill. And I think a few days later, you take a second pill. [Inaudible.]Mara Gay: Not quite. But I’m just wondering if you could tell us, medically speaking, if you know how Plan B works. What you were talking about, I believe, is referring to medication abortion.I think it’s designed to prevent the implantation.Mara Gay: That’s close. It delays or prevents ovulation.OK.Mara Gay: Do you own a gun?No.Mara Gay: Have you ever fired a gun?Yes.Mara Gay: In what context?When I was a kid, we lived on a farm, chicken farm in Jersey. And my father had — I don’t remember if it was a shotgun or a gun or a rifle — which he used to shoot the fox that was preying on the chickens. And once or twice, he let me — with him standing there — fire the gun. I was maybe 8, 9 years old.[A phone rings.]Mara Gay: What is the —Sorry.Mara Gay: Oh, sure.Let me get that. Sorry.Mara Gay: What’s the average age —[The phone continues ringing.]Mara Gay: What’s the average age of a member of Congress?I don’t know.Mara Gay: Fifty-eight.OK.Mara Gay: What about the Senate?If congress is 58, the average age of the Senate is probably somewhat higher — 65.Mara Gay: Sixty-four. Close. Please name a member of Congress, dead or living, whom you most admire and would potentially emulate yourself after if re-elected.Jamie Raskin.Mara Gay: What is your favorite restaurant in your district?[The phone rings again.]My favorite restaurant is Cafe Arte.Mara Gay: Thank you.I’m not going to take the call. I’m just trying to —Mara Gay: If you hit the right side, yeah.Kathleen Kingsbury: Congressman, you were first elected to Congress 30 years ago. And you chair the Judiciary Committee. How would you use your seniority to help residents in your district going forward? In your next term.Well, I will use the seniority going forward exactly as you said. I would say that seniority gives you clout. And it has enabled me to bring a lot more transportation and other infrastructure projects to the district. I was the senior northeast representative on the T. & I., the Transportation Infrastructure Committee, for many years.And so I used the seniority to be able to get [inaudible] every five years — funding for the Second Avenue subway, funding for gateway, funding for the rail freight tunnel, which I’ve [inaudible] for many years. I’ve funded all kinds of transportation projects. And seniority helps. Helps me go to other committee chairs and get all kinds of other things.Jyoti Thottam: So, again, just in your role on the Judiciary Committee, I want to ask you about Justice Clarence Thomas’s wife, Ginni Thomas, who our paper has reported has urged lawmakers in Arizona to overturn the 2020 election results. She’s been widely criticized for her communication with the White House during that period.Yep.Jyoti Thottam: Why hasn’t the Judiciary Committee done more in its oversight role? Do you think there’s a conflict of interest there?I certainly think there’s a conflict of interest there. We have been asked by the speaker to defer all such things to the Jan. 6 commission until they finish.Jyoti Thottam: So you just — there’s nothing else that you can do.There’s nothing else we can do until the Jan. 6 committee is finished, which we anticipated will be in September and apparently will.Patrick Healy: How do you feel personally about the idea of impeachment for Justice Thomas?I think it’s probably a good idea. I can’t say that for certain until we know more about what Ginni Thomas’s role was. She has agreed to testify at the Jan. 6 committee. And I think a lot more information will come out of that.Patrick Healy: Could you tell us about an issue or position on which you’ve changed your mind?Sure. I voted to repeal Glass-Steagall back in 1998. I think that was a terrible mistake. And I regretted it for a long time.[Mr. Nadler voted in favor of the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act in 1999, which overturned much of the Glass-Steagall Act.]Mara Gay: Congressman, could you talk —I bought into the — excuse me.Mara Gay: Sorry.I bought into the deregulationary rhetoric of the Clinton administration. That was a mistake.Jyoti Thottam: So, then, just related to antitrust — so now we’re at this position where you’re trying to get antitrust bills through the committee. But it’s not clear if they will actually go through.Well, they’ve gone through the committee. They have considerable bipartisan support, surprisingly. And there’s considerable bipartisan support in the Senate. Senator Klobuchar is negotiating with Senator Grassley. They’ve gotten, I think, nine Republicans so far. If they get one more Republican, it will pass.Kathleen Kingsbury: I want to follow up on something from earlier. But I think this will be a relatively quick question. You mentioned earlier that right-wing media has perpetuated the perception of crime being up in blue cities, yet we all live in New York City. And I think that it’s safe to say right now there is a perception that crime is up and that the city is less safe than it was, particularly before the pandemic.No question.Kathleen Kingsbury: Can you talk a little bit about what you think the city should be doing more of, and maybe if there are national solutions there?Well, crime is up all over the country, in rural as well as city areas.Kathleen Kingsbury: Right, OK.And it’s no more uptick. It’s no more uptick. It’s not further up in —Kathleen Kingsbury: Got it.In city areas and rural areas. And that’s probably as a result of the pandemic, the social dislocations of the pandemic. And there’s not much we can do about the past. But I think there are a number of things we can do now.No. 1, in no particular order — No. 1, we got to get the guns off the streets. And as you know, I’ve been the leader, one of the leaders on the anti-gun legislation. We just passed — well, I mentioned some legislation we passed this week, how we’re going to do the anti-assault-weapons ban on the floor. And this week, we’re going to do the bill to revoke the companies’ liability protections.Secondly, in addition to guns, there is a whole social services — we’ve got to get more social services into cities, especially into areas of color, because that’s where a lot of the problem is. And those are some things you’ve got to do.Nick Fox: How do you get the guns off the street?Jyoti Thottam: Nick, Mara had a question she’s been waiting to ask.Mara Gay: Thanks. I just want to make sure we talk about this campaign, which is quite unusual. Could you talk to us about your path to victory? And not only is it an unusual race, but one of your opponents, Carolyn Maloney, I believe has — a bigger portion of her current constituents happen to live in this new district. So how do you overcome that?What has your campaign been like? How many doors are you knocking on? That kind of thing.Well, first of all, Carolyn is saying that the 60 percent of the district is her own district. I don’t know whether she means by the population or acreage. When you look at the number of registered Democrats, it’s about even.And when you look at the number of prime Democrats, which is to say people who voted in two of the last three primaries, it’s about 52 percent from the West Side. When you look at super primes, people who voted in three of the last three primaries, it’s about 53 percent or 54 percent from the West Side. And this primary being in the dog days of summer, the worst time you can hold a primary, it’s most likely to be the super primes who vote. So I think there’s an advantage there and a disadvantage.Secondly, we are executing a fine program. We’ve got hundreds of volunteers out making thousands of phone calls a week, identifying people. Have a direct mail program to get — not a direct mail program, a program to incentivize people who are not going to be in town to get these absentee ballots.We’ve gotten tremendous endorsements. I’ve got an endorsement from Senator Elizabeth Warren. I’ve got the endorsement of 1199 [S.E.I.U., a health care union], the Working Families Party, just about every elected official in my old district. So I think we’re in good shape.Mara Gay: Thank you.Nick Fox: I just wanted to follow up. When you said get the guns off the street, I was wondering how you’re going to do it.Well, I wish we could do what Australia did. But it’s not in the cards. We’re just never going to do that.Jyoti Thottam: You mean the buybacks?Under penalty of criminal law, they did that. You get the guns off the street by seeking to do a number of things. You ban ghost guns, which our legislation has done. You ban ammunition clips greater than 15, so you can’t convert a weapon into a semiautomatic weapon. You ban bump stocks for the same reason. And you enforce it nationwide. Those are some of the ways of getting guns off the street.Patrick Healy: Some New Yorkers may wonder what the biggest difference is between you and Congresswoman Maloney. Could you tell us from your point of view what you see is the biggest difference between the two of you?Yeah. Well, let me start by saying that Carolyn and I have worked together for a long time on many things. We worked together on the Zadroga Act. We work together on getting, funding a lot of infrastructure projects, including the Second Avenue subway and others. And we’ve worked together for a long time.Having said that, there are differences. There are some differences in our voting record. I’ll mention three. She voted for the war in Iraq. I voted against it.She voted for the Patriot Act. I voted against it, even though 9/11 was in my district. And she voted against the Iran deal. I voted for it.And I must say that voting for the Iran deal, I thought I was taking my political life in my hands because I watched as every single — remember, Netanyahu came and spoke against Iran. And I watched as every single Jewish organization in the country, one by one, excluding the most liberal, came out against it. And I watched as, one by one, every Jewish member of the tristate area came out against it.And I was standing there alone. And I really thought I was going to take my political life in my hands. I thought I had to do the right thing because when the real test comes like that, why are you there otherwise? And I knew I’d have a primary as a result of it. I did have a primary as a result of it.But I did what I thought I had to do. And I voted for it. And I published a 5,200-word essay, which really was the record of my thoughts. This argument [inaudible] by this argument. Because I was undecided initially.I went through a decision process. And I put it on paper. You can read it if you want. It’s online. I don’t know why you would want to read at this point. But it was an essay explaining in great detail. Now, I used the opportunity to get some guarantees from the president in terms of Israeli-American relationships. But I would have voted for it even if I hadn’t gotten that.I just used the opportunity. I would have voted for it in any event. I thought it was — ultimately, I had to do what you have to do.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