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    Eric Adams Is Using Endorsements to Influence Policy

    The mayor has chosen sides in at least 10 primaries this year, as he looks to enact criminal justice changes and defeat left-leaning candidates.Most big-city mayors, especially those in the relative infancy of their tenures, typically try to avoid wading into fractious party primaries, mindful that their goal is to build consensus.Mayor Eric Adams of New York City does not subscribe to that theory.Just seven months into his first term, Mr. Adams, a Democrat, has injected himself into his party’s divide, making endorsements in roughly a dozen state legislative primaries.Mr. Adams has endorsed incumbents, upstart challengers, and even a minister with a history of making antisemitic and homophobic statements.Behind all the endorsements lies a common theme: The mayor wants to push Albany and his party away from the left, toward the center.“I just want reasonable thinking lawmakers. I want people that are responding to the constituents,” Mr. Adams said Thursday. “The people of this city, they want to support police, they want safe streets, they want to make sure people who are part of the catch-release-repeat system don’t continue to hurt innocent New Yorkers.”In Tuesday’s State Senate primary, the mayor has endorsed three candidates facing rivals backed by the Democratic Socialists of America. The mayor said the endorsements are meant to help elect people willing to tighten the state’s bail law, a move that he believes is needed to address an uptick in serious crime.Mr. Adams’s most striking endorsement might be his decision to back the Rev. Conrad Tillard, who has disavowed his remarks about gay people and Jews, over incumbent Senator Jabari Brisport, a member of the Democratic Socialists.The mayor, who proudly hires people with troubled pasts, said Mr. Tillard is a changed man. During a recent interview on WABC radio, Mr. Tillard said that Mr. Adams was elected with a “mandate” to make New York City safer.“I want to join him in Albany, and I want to join other legislators who have common sense, who realize that without safe streets, safe communities, we cannot have a thriving city,” he said.The mayor has also held a fund-raiser for Miguelina Camilo, a lawyer running against Senator Gustavo Rivera in the Bronx. Mr. Rivera was endorsed by Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who has criticized Mr. Adams for some of his centrist views; Ms. Camilo is the candidate of the Bronx Democratic Party.In a newly created Senate district that covers parts of Queens, Brooklyn and Manhattan, the mayor has endorsed a moderate Democrat, Elizabeth Crowley, over Kristen Gonzalez, a tech worker who is supported by the Democratic Socialists and the Working Families Party. Mike Corbett, a former City Council staff member, is also running. The race has been flooded with outside money supporting Ms. Crowley.In Brooklyn, Mr. Adams endorsed incumbent Senator Kevin Parker, who is facing a challenge from Kaegan Mays-Williams, a former Manhattan assistant district attorney, and David Alexis, a former Lyft driver and co-founder of the Drivers Cooperative who also has support from the Democratic Socialists.Senator Kevin Parker, endorsed by the mayor, faces a Democratic Socialist opponent.Michael M. Santiago/Getty ImagesThree candidates — Mr. Brisport, Ms. Gonzalez and Mr. Alexis — whose rivals were supported by Mr. Adams said they are opposed to revising the bail law to keep more people in jail before their trials.“When it comes to an issue like bail reform, what we don’t want to have is a double standard where if you have enough money you can make bail and get out, but if you are poor or working class you don’t,” Ms. Gonzalez said.Mr. Brisport said that the mayor’s motive extends beyond bail and criminal justice issues.Mr. Adams, Mr. Brisport said, is “making a concerted effort to build a team that will do his bidding in Albany.”The mayor did not disagree.In his first dealings with Albany as a mayor, Mr. Adams fell short of accomplishing his legislative agenda. He had some victories, but was displeased with the Legislature’s refusal to accommodate his wishes on the bail law or to grant him long-term control of the schools, two issues central to his agenda.While crime overall remains comparatively low and homicides and shootings are down, other crimes such as robbery, assault and burglary have increased as much as 40 percent compared with this time last year. Without evidence, the mayor has blamed the bail reform law for letting repeat offenders out of jail.Under pressure from the governor, the Legislature in April made changes to the bail law, but the mayor has repeatedly criticized lawmakers for not going far enough.Mr. Adams has raised campaign money for Miguelina Camilo, center. Janice Chung for The New York Times“We passed a lot of laws for people who commit crimes, but I just want to see what are the list of laws we pass that deal with a New Yorker who was the victim of a crime,” Mr. Adams said. The mayor’s strategy is not entirely new. Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg sought influence by donating from his personal fortune to Republicans. Mayor Bill de Blasio embarked on a disastrous fund-raising plan to help Democrats take control of the Senate in 2014. But those mayors were interceding in general elections, not intraparty primaries.In the June Assembly primaries, Mr. Adams endorsed a handful of incumbents facing upstart challengers from the left. He backed Michael Benedetto, an incumbent from the Bronx who beat back a primary challenge from Jonathan Soto, who worked for, and was endorsed by, Ms. Ocasio-Cortez. Mr. Adams also endorsed Assemblywoman Inez E. Dickens in Central Harlem in her victorious campaign against another candidate backed by Ms. Ocasio-Cortez.“The jury is still out on how much endorsements matter, but they do matter for the person being endorsed,” said Olivia Lapeyrolerie, a Democratic political strategist and former aide to Mr. de Blasio. “It’s good to keep your friends close.”Mr. Adams’s influence is not restricted to his endorsements. Striving for a Better New York, a political action committee run by one of his associates, the Rev. Alfred L. Cockfield II, donated $7,500 to Mr. Tillard in May and more than $12,000 to Mr. Parker through August.The mayor’s efforts have come under attack. Michael Gianaris, the deputy majority leader in the Senate, said there is no need to create a new faction in the Senate that is reminiscent of the Independent Democratic Conference, a group of breakaway Democrats that allowed Senate Republicans to control the chamber until they were vanquished in 2018.“Eric Adams was never very good at Senate politics when he was in the Senate,” Mr. Gianaris said. “And apparently he hasn’t gotten much better at it.”It’s unclear how much influence Mr. Adams’s endorsements will have. Sumathy Kumar, co-chair of the New York City chapter of the Democratic Socialists of America, said that with the mayor’s lukewarm approval ratings, she’s betting that on-the-ground organizing will be the deciding factor in what is expected to be a low turnout primary.Mr. Parker said the mayor’s endorsement would be influential in his district and supported Mr. Adams’s push against the left wing of the party.“How many times do you have to be attacked by the D.S.A. before you realize you’re in a fight and decide to fight back?” Mr. Parker said.Emma G. Fitzsimmons contributed reporting. More

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    Where Are All the Manhattan Voters in August? Try the Hamptons.

    A late August congressional primary in New York has candidates scrambling to find far-flung voters who tend to summer in places like the Hamptons.AMAGANSETT, N.Y. — In the lush town green here one recent morning, waiting to get her nails done, sat just the kind of Manhattan Democrat whose coveted vote could tip the balance in Tuesday’s blockbuster primary involving two lions of Congress, Jerrold Nadler and Carolyn Maloney.Only the woman in question, Judith Segall, said she was in absolutely no rush to leave this exclusive bastion of sand dunes, $10 heirloom tomatoes and seasonal city transplants, and return to her Upper East Side home.“I’m not coming in to vote. That’s the problem: Nobody here is going to come in just to vote,” said Ms. Segall, a retired accountant with a city accent who spends her summers out here, and likes Mr. Nadler. “It’s insane. What’s this voting in August?”New York City may be a center of the political universe this summer, as Mr. Nadler and Ms. Maloney, two powerful longtime allies, face off in a newly reconfigured Manhattan district, and a dozen other Democrats scramble to claim a rare open seat connecting Lower Manhattan and Brownstone Brooklyn.But in a twist befitting two of the wealthiest districts in the United States, the races could well be won or lost miles outside the city, in places like the Hudson Valley, the Berkshires and, above all, the sandy coast of eastern Long Island, where otherwise reliable voters like Ms. Segall decamp in droves each August to spend the final weeks of summer in second homes and vacation rentals.That reality has prompted an unusual and expensive shadow campaign — complete with beach-themed mailers, sophisticated geolocation tracking for tailored ads targeting second homes and at least one Hamptons swing by Ms. Maloney — to see who can prod more of their would-be supporters off their beach chairs and back to the city, or at least the local post office.With low turnout predicted, political operatives say as few as a thousand lost votes could be the difference between a narrow victory and a loss.The exodus is most glaring in the 12th District, where Mr. Nadler and Ms. Maloney were drawn together after three decades serving side by side and are now fighting (alongside a third candidate, Suraj Patel) over uptown voters who like them both.Some 35,000 Democrats in the 12th District in Manhattan have received mail-in ballots for the primary contest pitting Representative Carolyn Maloney, above, center right, against Representative Jerrold Nadler, below.Desiree Rios/The New York TimesAnna Watts for The New York TimesSome 35,000 Democrats have received mail-in ballots there so far, according to the New York City Board of Elections, a large proportion of them people over 65, and many Upper East and West Siders who flee their apartments when the weather warms. By comparison, the board said that just 7,500 mail-in ballots were distributed for all of Manhattan during the 2018 midterm primaries, which were held in June.Another 21,000 Democrats have received absentee ballots for the primary in the neighboring 10th District, far more than any other district but the 12th. The 10th includes wealthy areas like Greenwich Village, Park Slope and Brooklyn Heights — as well as Orthodox Jewish communities in Borough Park — whose residents also tend to skip town.“The last two weeks of August, this is actually where many people are,” said Jon Reinish, a Democratic political strategist, who is among a torrent of temporary city transplants who have slipped away to the Hudson Valley town of Rhinebeck.He had a word of advice to Democratic vote hunters, particularly Ms. Maloney, whose East Side base even relocates some of its favorite restaurants out to Long Island for “the season.”“As opposed to pounding the pavement around the 86th Street and Lexington Avenue subway stop, Carolyn Maloney may be better served campaigning outside the entrance to Sagg Main Beach or along Jobs Lane in Southampton,” he said, only partially in jest.Hamptonites are already accustomed to national politicians descending each summer for ritzy fund-raisers and seafood raw bars: Vice President Kamala Harris; Beto O’Rourke, a Texas Democratic candidate for governor; and New York’s candidates for governor were all here recently. But given the timing of the Aug. 23 congressional primaries, they appear to be relishing their moment of heightened electoral influence.“If they are serious about wanting to be re-elected, they should be out here,” said Gordon Herr, the chairman of the Southampton Town Democratic Committee and a former city resident who moved out east full time 16 years ago. He said many city residents he’s spoken to “are very conflicted” over who to vote for and could use the extra nudge.The state’s court-ordered redistricting process led to two separate primary dates, including a rare late August primary for the House and State Senate.Karsten Moran for The New York TimesNew York almost never holds elections in August. But that changed this year after the state’s highest court tossed out newly drawn maps favoring Democrats as unconstitutional, and a rural judge decided to split that state’s primary calendar in two to allow time for a court-appointed expert to draw new, neutral lines.The result put Mr. Nadler and Ms. Maloney on a collision course and opened a fresh seat next door; it also means New Yorkers are being asked to go to the polls twice in two months.Voters who will be in the city on Election Day undoubtedly remain the majority, and the campaigns’ chief focus. But tracking those headed outside New York has been an uncommonly high priority, particularly for Mr. Nadler and Ms. Maloney. More

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    Outside Money Floods New York Congressional Races

    In a feverish House race across Manhattan, a dark-money super PAC has spent more than $200,000 reminding voters that an incumbent congresswoman, Carolyn Maloney, once indulged doubts about vaccines.Out east in Suffolk County, cryptocurrency interests have spent more than $1 million on ads disparaging a former Navy officer in a Republican primary for Congress and supporting his opponent, a cryptocurrency booster, according to AdImpact, an ad tracking firm.And in the city’s northern suburbs, a police union PAC has spent more than $200,000 on ads calling a Democratic candidate a “radical extremist” who “left her community crime-ridden.” Those grim warnings, delivered over a soundtrack of gunshots, breaking glass and crackling fire, target a state senator, Alessandra Biaggi, and benefit her opponent in the 17th Congressional District, Representative Sean Patrick Maloney, the chair of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee.A rising tide of lightly regulated outside money is pouring into New York State: As of Thursday, with the Aug. 23 primary date looming, outside entities have spent about $9 million in state congressional primaries, according to data maintained by Open Secrets, a government transparency group. In 2018, outside entities spent roughly $2.6 million.Some of the players are familiar, including real estate and police groups. Others, like the super PAC targeting Ms. Maloney in the 12th District, have yet to identify their donors. The treasurer for that PAC, Brandon Philipczyk, did not respond to requests for comment. Berlin Rosen, a New York consultancy, is also involved.The thrust of the ad campaign taking aim at Ms. Maloney mirrors the messaging that her chief primary opponent, Representative Jerrold Nadler, has put in his campaign website’s so-called red box. Campaigns use language hidden in such boxes on their websites to communicate indirectly with super PACs that might support them.A spokesman for the Nadler campaign declined to comment.“I am disappointed that my colleague and friend, Congressman Nadler, has resorted to using dark-money funded attack ads against me to mislead voters in a desperate attempt to win this election,” Ms. Maloney said in a statement that also apologized for her past remarks on vaccines. “Voters are used to seeing these kinds of dirty campaign tactics from Republicans, but I expected more of Congressman Nadler.”In New York City’s other marquee House primary contest, for the 10th Congressional District encompassing parts of Brooklyn and Lower Manhattan, money also looms as a factor, but much of it is coming directly from one of the leading candidates, Daniel Goldman.Mr. Goldman, the heir to the Levi Strauss fortune who prosecuted the first impeachment case against Donald J. Trump, has put at least $4 million of his own money into the race.Daniel Goldman has put at least $4 million of his own money into the race for Congress in the 10th District.Anna Moneymaker/The New York TimesBut super PAC money is also playing a role in the race. A new super PAC called New York Progressive, Inc. has begun distributing literature targeting Yuh-Line Niou, a left-leaning state assemblywoman, for opposing an affordable housing development for seniors — part of a $225,000 expenditure. The treasurer of the PAC, Jeffrey Leb, typically raises money for such efforts from real estate interests. He declined to comment.And on Thursday, a super PAC called Nuestro PAC announced it would spend half a million dollars on behalf of one of Ms. Niou’s rivals, Carlina Rivera.North of the city, Mr. Maloney is benefiting from expenditures by the Police Benevolent Association of the City of New York, which endorsed Mr. Trump’s re-election campaign. More

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    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

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

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

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

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

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    The New York Times’s Interview With Suraj Patel

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

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    The New York Times’s Interview With Yuh-Line Niou

    Yuh-Line Niou is a state assemblywoman in New York’s 65th District, representing parts of Lower Manhattan since 2017.This interview with Ms. Niou 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 10th District here.Kathleen Kingsbury: OK. Well, it’s very nice to meet you. I’m Katie Kingsbury. I’m the Opinion editor. Obviously, you have a range of our colleagues. We don’t have much time together, and we have a lot of questions. So we ask you to keep your answers relatively brief, if possible. And we’re going to dive in.I understand the premise of this question you may reject out of hand. But I hope we could start by talking a little bit about what you think you would be able to accomplish in a Republican-controlled Congress, if you could be as specific as possible. But also, is there one big idea that you would want to pursue on a bipartisan basis?I do reject that premise [laughs]. I don’t want us to lose, obviously. And I think that it’s really important for us to always come with preparation that there is going to be some kind of difficulty in negotiating things. As you know, I have represented part of this district for six years now. And when I first came in, I actually was elected the day that Trump got elected. I was also elected into a seat where it was Sheldon Silver’s seat.And then on top of that, we were still in a I.D.C.-controlled Senate situation where, obviously, there were Democrats who were elected as Democrats but voted with the Republicans, gave the power to the Republicans. And we were still able to get things moving. And I think that the reasons why we were still able to get certain things moving was because we had folks who were going to be moving on the ground, and we had outside influences, and we also had inside forces, like me, pushing for certain things.[The Independent Democratic Conference, or I.D.C., was a group of Democratic state senators who in 2011 broke with their caucus to work with the Senate’s Republican majority. It has been defunct since 2018.]I think that in the six years that I’ve been an elected official, I’ve definitely changed a number of ways that Albany moves and works. And I think that I would do the same here as well. And I think that it’s really about political courage. It’s about making sure that you’re standing up, giving transparency to how things are working, making sure that you have a communication with your constituents, fighting for the things that we care about.And obviously, I believe representation matters. And I believe that we have better government when more voices are involved. I think that — I represented a voice that I think was definitely not seen very often in Albany, if never. And I think that there were a lot of times when we needed to be the first and only, even though it was a difficult first and only.And I am not here to be an agent of the broken status quo. And I want to make government work. And I think that instead of being the status quo and just accepting that the I.D.C. was going to be the I.D.C., and that was going to be the Senate, I went out there. I supported candidates who were running against the I.D.C. I went out there myself to make sure that we were changing the Senate. And then I think that we’ve changed the way that Albany has worked forever.I will, I think, from my end, continue to fight for the things that I’ve always fought for. I’ve always been an anti-poverty advocate. I’ve always tried to make sure that we had a more fair and equitable government in all those things. I think that the way that I look at things is unique in the sense that I think I have lenses that I look through. I look at everything through an economic-justice lens, a racial and social justice lens, an environmental-justice lens and, of course, through a disability lens.[Ms. Niou has talked openly about being autistic.]And I think that it’s really important for us to make sure that every single bill that we do, every single policy that we enact, is seen through those lenses. And I think that’s where we have that change. And that makes that huge difference. So every single thing is interconnected in that way.And so when we’re talking about big legislation, one of the pieces that I’m really, really proud of that I think that I would continue to fight for on the federal level is to make sure that we have a prohibiting of unfair, deceptive, abusive and predatory practices.This was a state bill that I was working on because of the Dodd-Frank decision that people probably are very familiar with — the overturning of Dodd-Frank on the federal level that made it so that certain unfair practices and consumer protections were obviously lifted. So I think that it’s really important for us to continue to fight to make sure that we have an ability to be able to help those who need the most help.Mara Gay: Thank you. What would you do, as a member of Congress, to ease the burden on renters in New York City, in your district, and even on those who would like to own?So one of the biggest things, obviously, that people probably know me for is the fight that I’ve done for affordable housing and also for NYCHA. So folks probably also realize that one third of my assembly district is public housing. And public housing is the only true and deeply affordable housing that we have here in New York. And from my end, in Albany, I have been the leading voice fighting for the state government to actually put funding directly into our public housing’s capital budget.Folks probably know this, but time after time after time, every single year that I was telling them we need to make sure that we are funding our public housing, I was told, it’s a federal issue. It’s HUD. We can’t do this. And I was able to move our speaker, my very first term, to be able to get $250 million directly into public housing for capital dollars. Of course, Cuomo didn’t release it all. But we were able to get it.And in my sixth year now, we finally, in total, have now put over a billion dollars of state dollars into capital fixes for public housing. And obviously, for the federal level, I definitely want to continue to make sure that we are actually fully funding public housing.There are several bills right now that I obviously would support greatly. But Nydia Velázquez has her Public Housing Emergency Response Act, which would allocate $70 billion, I believe, to public-housing capital repairs, which would fully fund public housing, and a large portion would come to New York. A.O.C obviously has her Green New Deal package, which looks at public housing, making sure that there’s climate-change use savings from energy efficiency that would also fund more public-housing construction.And then also, one of the biggest things is — obviously the big piece is — we have to repeal the Faircloth Amendment, which makes it so that we cannot have more public housing. I think that we need more public housing and not less. And it’s really important to make sure to alleviate some of that housing burden. I believe that the Faircloth Amendment makes it so that the amount of public housing that we have to 1991 levels was the highest that we could ever have.Right now, there has been obviously a push on the Assembly side and the Senate side of the state government to make it so that there is a push towards privatization. And I’m very concerned about it. I think that the privatization of public housing is dangerous. But we have to make sure that we’re protecting Section 9.I will say that the plan that we ended up with was a lot better than the plan that I saw six years ago. And I think that our pushback was what made it so much better. I will say that I’m still concerned about some of the obvious election things that they have in there. They did not firm that up. But anyway, sorry. I get really wonky about these policy things.But I will say that if I had been in Congress this session, I would have been a vocal champion for the $350 billion in housing investments that Chairwoman Maxine Waters actually put together into the Build Back Better plan. I was really disappointed to see, of course, that those housing ideas actually seemed to vanish almost without anybody really fighting for it. But I will say that those housing ideas should probably be a stand-alone thing. It would be a really, really excellent thing to see.[The House version of Build Back Better passed last year includes a $166 billion investment in affordable housing.]We saw, yesterday, really exciting — well, I guess it’s still happening right now — but really excitingly, some of the climate stuff happening. So we’re in the midst of it. They’re doing these negotiations. I really hope that they also have a housing package that they can do like that.Mara Gay: Thank you.Jyoti Thottam: OK, great. Just going back for a bit, what do you think, in Congress, the Democrats can do to protect democracy and, particularly, secure voting rights?We’ve been going through it. And I think that one of the biggest things that I would say is really important is, obviously, the politicization of our courts has been really awful to see. It’s been really difficult for me to even stomach or swallow some of the things that are coming down the pike. I can only think of horrible things.But the politicization of our courts is a real issue. And I think that there are bills that will expand the [Supreme Court] or put in term limits for the court. I think that we have to really look at them and examine that. I think that right now, we have a couple of bills that are really great. One of them obviously is the John Lewis Voting Rights Act. And I think that we have to make that good trouble and protect our voters and protect our voting rights.And I will say that my mom, when she first came to campaign with me for the very first time — she told me something that remains in my heart every single time I take a vote, even. And it’s just that she said that she realized, with my campaign, that to cast a vote was to basically prove that you’re an American. Just, it’s the one act that makes you American.And for her, she never realized that until I was running. And then she saw how important it was to vote. And this is also why I have never missed a vote in Albany, never missed a committee vote or a floor vote. And I think that that’s why it’s so important for us to represent our people in that way.Patrick Healy: Do you think the Democratic elected officials are out of step with Democratic voters on immigration today, on L.G.B.T.Q. rights or on any other issue, as you talk to voters and listen to what party leaders and officials say?Maybe not in my district. In District 10, it’s going to be — it’s probably one of the more progressive districts in the state. So maybe that’s maybe not what I’m hearing as much in the district. I think a lot of people are definitely very much thinking the same when it comes to protecting our bodily autonomy, making sure to restrict — make sure that we have tighter gun laws, making sure that we have L.G.B.T.Q.I.A. protections, rights, making sure that we have a better answer to how we are looking at public safety.I think that my district cares the most about what The New York Times has to say. I think that it’s really about trying to make sure that we have a reason for also standing up for things that we do. And I think that that’s really what it is. I don’t think that Democrats are necessarily out of touch. But I think that what can be difficult for the rest of the state, maybe, and even the rest of America — I think that there are certain messaging pieces that are hitting home for my district, but maybe not necessarily for everyone else.Patrick Healy: Is there just, real quickly, an example of that?For example, I think that in my district, one of the things that we all care about is our bodily autonomy. I saw that almost all of my neighbors came out when Roe was overturned, right? We were all out there on the street. As I was walking through Washington Square Park, I kept on seeing neighbor after neighbor after neighbor. They’re like, ‘Hey, Line, what’s up? We knew you would be out here.’ It was like every single person that I knew was there.But it just seemed, I don’t know, just kind of shocking to me, in some aspects, because I live down here, that there were people who felt differently, obviously, elsewhere in America. And I also hear it sometimes in the very Christian Chinese community. I hear it sometimes in parts of the district.Like, we can talk to them, but it’s really about making sure that we actually answer people’s questions, give transparency and improve that messaging. But yeah, I think that’s one of the biggest things. I’m actually shocked when this has been law for so long.Eleanor Randolph: So we have some yes-or-no questions —OK.Eleanor Randolph: You mentioned —Is this the rapid-fire thing?Eleanor Randolph: No, Mara has that.Oh.[Laughter.]Eleanor Randolph: This is just yes or no. So you mentioned this, but do you favor expanding the Supreme Court?Yes.Eleanor Randolph: And what about ending the filibuster?Yes.Eleanor Randolph: And do you think there should be term limits for members of Congress?Yes.Eleanor Randolph: And what about an age limit?I don’t think that I would actually support ageism in any way, shape or form.Eleanor Randolph: So is that a no?No.Eleanor Randolph: A no. So should Biden run again?I think that it really depends on our party looking to see if there’s somebody who would make it so that we are represented by everyone. And that depends on a primary.Eleanor Randolph: OK, thanks.I obviously had supported the same person that you all supported, so —Alex Kingsbury: Can I ask you about Ukraine? I’m interested if —Sure.Alex Kingsbury: — you think there should be an upper limit on the amount of taxpayer dollars that go to that conflict and if we should ask for some more safeguards or conditions for the aid that we supply.I believe so. I think that — gosh. It’s a really big situation over there right now. And I think that we obviously do need to have transparency over all of the tax dollars that we spend on anything, I think. And so, for example, I would be supportive of the McCollum amendment. I think that there’s a couple of different things that would be good for us to do. And I think that it’s important for everybody to know where our tax dollars are going.We have to be extremely attentive to the possibilities of this conflict escalating and never forget that Russia is a nuclear-armed power. And I think that things have amped up recently, especially in the last couple days — I think this is, what, almost the anniversary of month five. Almost exact, right?I think that most wars ultimately don’t end with total victory and total defeat or anything like that, but with some kind of negotiation of peace. And I think that a real diplomatic solution to the conflict might not be possible at present, in what I’m seeing, anyway. And I don’t have all the information, obviously. I’m not sitting in the seat right now. But I would encourage, obviously, our government to prioritize peace and the preservation of Ukrainian sovereignty and hopefully not pursue certain dangerous aims.I think that there needs to be — yeah, there needs to be some point, I think, that we are making sure that national self-defense is appropriate, obviously, and that other things might not be as appropriate. So I will end it at that. It’s a very complex issue right now. I don’t have all of the information at hand. But from what I’m seeing, it’s very scary for us, actually.Alex Kingsbury: Great. Thanks.Jyoti Thottam: OK. So just moving to climate change, I know those congressional negotiations are still going on. But what else specifically do you think Congress could do, particularly given Republican opposition on so many issues, what could Congress do on climate change to meet America’s commitments there?[The Senate passed the climate, health and tax bill on Aug. 7 and the House on Aug. 12, both after this interview took place.]We’re in the middle of a negotiation right now, which is kind of exciting because we have a current plan that is — right now, we’re — yesterday night, I guess, at 6 p.m. or something. Was it 4 or 6? I don’t know. It was happening as we were talking. And so I was like, oh, no.But it was very, very exciting to actually see that we were actually putting together a plan, that there is something that’s going to be pushed forward for climate. And I think that right now, there is, I believe — I was reading about it and writing about it just a little bit earlier. But I think that it’s really great to see that there is going to be some help with making sure that there is some caps to some of the polluters.I think one of the things that I wanted to know — and I wrote this down for myself because it was so important. But obviously, if the legislation passes, it’s a huge victory. But I can’t remember what it was. But it was, I believe — the dollars that they were putting into making sure that there was going to be some money that would come back into $369 billion, I believe, for climate and energy, which is basically, I think, four times bigger than any kind of climate investment that we’ve ever made.I think that there was some kinds of need for — I don’t know. I didn’t like this part about the fossil-fuel subsidies and the new leases and the more pipelines that Manchin wanted, which I think is going to make us more dependent on fossil fuels. But I think that, overwhelmingly, this bill right now would help us to go towards our energy goals. And I think that it would be — experts are saying that it’s about 80 percent — would help us go towards 80 percent of our energy goals right now and climate goals right now.So I think that right now, I like the methane fee. And I think that I’m just hoping that Menendez or Suozzi don’t blow it up or obviously don’t not vote for it or something. So right now, it’s just something that we’re just seeing right now. So I’m trying to paraphrase it all. But I’m not very good at that. I like to dive deep.Kathleen Kingsbury: Mara, why don’t we go to the lightning round?Mara Gay: Great. OK. Here’s the lightning round for you. How does Plan B work?How does Plan B work?Mara Gay: Yes, in the body.It is a — yeah, so it basically helps you to get your period. So it basically forces you to your next period and is an infusion of hormones that will make it so that you are given your period or forced to shed.Mara Gay: It prevents ovulation.Yeah. Mhmm.Mara Gay: Do you own a gun?I do not.Mara Gay: Have you ever fired a gun?Yes.Mara Gay: Where?I was at a training where they — I was at R.A. training, where the police officers on campus took us to learn how to shoot a gun. It was strange.Mara Gay: This was —This was a college thing. I don’t know. It was very strange.Mara Gay: That will suffice. Thank you. What is the average age of a member of Congress?I actually don’t know that.Mara Gay: Take a guess. Any number.Sixty?Mara Gay: Fifty-eight. Pretty close. What about of a U.S. senator?I don’t know that, either. Probably around 70?Mara Gay: Sixty-four. And please name a member of Congress, either dead or living, who you most admire and would emulate if you are elected to serve.Elizabeth Warren, obviously. I think that she’s somebody that I greatly admire. I think that she and I are very alike in the way that we think about policy. I really like, obviously, a lot of her bills, when it comes to making sure that we are holding big corporations accountable, making sure that we are driving towards stopping cycles of debt, making sure that we have anti-poverty pieces into all of our legislation. And I really appreciate the way that she has a good lens on policy.Mara Gay: Thank you. What’s your favorite restaurant in the district?Oh, that’s hard. You know, I have so many lists. I would have to say probably — I’m going to be giving away my dumpling place — but Super Taste on Eldridge is the best dumpling place in all of New York.Mara Gay: Thank you. What is your pathway to victory in this exceptionally crowded race?I think I have a really great path to victory. My whole entire Assembly district is inside of this new New York 10. So I have a very large base. I think that it was really significant when the special master designated both Chinatowns to be inside of this New York 10 District for a reason. I think that I have the support of the Working Families Party. I’m endorsed by the Working Families Party. And a quarter of this district voted on the Working Families Party line in the 2020 election.I think that it’s really important to make sure that we have a lot of people turning out, even though I know this is a turnout election. I think that we excite people. We’ve helped people to come to the doors. And we have an incredible, incredible ground game. We have over 850 volunteers already. I think that it’s been really amazing to see how many doors have been knocked and how many people have been called.But I think that, yes, the turnout has been historically low. Because of the excitement that we generate, we will turn out what it takes to get our campaign the win. I think the other thing is that we have been endorsed by some folks who have already won this district before, multiple times, including Cynthia Nixon. We have an ability to be able to win this race, because —Eleanor Randolph: So can I ask you — you said that you support BDS, this movement to boycott Israel. You have a very large Jewish community in this district. How do you explain that to your Jewish voters?Well, I support the freedom of speech. I think that that’s really my point here, is that I think that people have the right to be able to exercise what we’ve always exercised in our American democracy, whether it’s the Great Boycott or the Montgomery bus boycotts or —I think that it’s really important to be able to exercise that freedom of speech. I think that it’s important to protect it. I think that it’s important to make sure that people have that. I think that the Jewish community is not a monolith, just like the A.A.P.I. community is not a monolith. And I think that there are a lot of people who also believe that Palestinian human rights are important in this moment and in all ways.I think that it’s really important that we are looking at protecting everyone. I think that it’s really about making sure that we have Israeli and Palestinian rights respected. It’s something that I strongly believe, because I think that no matter what I do, I look through a human-rights lens no matter what. That’s where we have to have that political courageous too.Eleanor Randolph: But does that mean you support boycott, divestment and sanctions against Israel?I think that it’s important for us to be able to honor the fact that there is a movement of doing that. I think that that part is important.Eleanor Randolph: So you don’t —Kathleen Kingsbury: I have a question —Eleanor Randolph: Do you support it? Sorry. Sorry, Katie —Kathleen Kingsbury: Go ahead, Eleanor.Eleanor Randolph: Well, so you —Kathleen Kingsbury: You support BDS, the —Eleanor Randolph: Yeah.Kathleen Kingsbury: — BDS movement, correct?I support its right to exist. There are currently people all over the country who have put out laws that would prohibit people from doing certain things that are just their First Amendment rights. And I think that that part is really important to make sure that we are not prohibiting people from doing things that are protected by our law, right?We are allowed to criticize our government. We’re allowed to criticize how our government interacts with other governments. And I think that that’s something that must be protected, just like freedom of the press. We should make sure to protect our freedom of the press. We should make sure to protect our freedom of speech.Kathleen Kingsbury: OK. In the past, you’ve supported the movement to defund the police. Do you still? And if so, could you talk a little bit about how you talk about public safety to members of your community who are concerned about it right now?Yeah, and I think that one of the things that we obviously have seen — and I actually really appreciated Mara’s editorial on this. I think that we have to really look at how we are looking at facts, right? Our communities have been overcriminalized and overpoliced because of an obsession with crime, and when we really should have been focused on safety and real community safety.It’s important that we are looking at this problem just like we’re solving all other big problems, right? And we should be looking at what created that inequity and what created that unsafety, such as job insecurity, food insecurity, making sure that people have access to health care, right? We need to make sure that we have more security for people and safety for people, on a broad level.And I tell people this all the time, especially in our community, where we’ve been experiencing so much anti-Asian hate. And the anti-Asian sentiment and the anti-Asian hate is not new. It’s not something that’s new, and it’s not something that can be fixed with a silver bullet or a magic wand or some kind of instant kind of thing.It’s state-sanctioned racism, right? It’s built into our country, from the Chinese Exclusion Act, Japanese internment, from the anti-miscegenation laws. It’s built in. We can’t just throw more money or police at the issue. But what we need to do is actually invest in our communities to make sure that we have the language access services that will help people to actually get the services that they need.We need social services. I brought in $30 million last year and this year to our Asian American community organizations. We had never had a line item for Asian American community organizations inside of our state budget ever. And I was the first to bring in some dollars.And it was — it’s embarrassing, really. It’s $300,000, really, actually, the first time that I brought in some dollars for our Asian American communities. Then last year, we were finally able to get $10 million. Then this year, we got another $20 million. But again, it’s not a celebration. It’s money that’s owed to our communities, because it’s money that we should have been getting all along in order to make sure that our community organizations can thrive and grow and be able to get the services that people need every single day —Patrick Healy: Excuse me.Mhmm?Patrick Healy: Oh, yeah. We’re sorry. We’re just almost out of time. We just —Oh, no. I’m sorry.Patrick Healy: You live in Manhattan while most of the district is in Brooklyn. Why are you the best person to represent this district?I think that it’s 40-60, so it’s really even. But I will say that I think that I have the most of the district, more than anyone else. And I’ve represented this district for six years now. I obviously know my policies, city level, state level, federal level.I think that it’s been a really important thing to see that we have political courage in this seat in Congress right now. We are in crisis. We just talked a lot about what’s going on with the courts, gun laws, abortion. We’ve talked a lot about some of the other issues that have been coming down the pike that are really scary.And we need to make sure that we have people who are willing to have the political courage to be able to stand up. I have always had the political courage to do the right thing. And I promised Eleanor when I was first running that I was not going to be furniture ever. And I haven’t been.I think I’ve changed the way that Albany is shaped. And I know that I can change the way that Congress looks and Congress is shaped, because we don’t need people that are going to go along to get along. We need people who are going to fight for the things that we deserve. And right now, this seat is one of the most progressive seats in the state. This is one that we desperately need to be a change-maker seat. We have the ability to be able to make that change now.I have always been the person who stood up against Cuomo. I stood up against my own leadership, even. When it came to the austerity budget, I stood up and was the first to call out any kind of corruption, vetting issues from our own governor. It didn’t matter what it was that my constituents needed from me. I always made sure to be transparent and always led with accessibility and transparency and the ability to make sure that my constituents were heard.It didn’t matter what it was that was going to come down the pike at me, because I will tell you, it’s been scary for me. But I will say that it’s always important for us to have that powerful leadership in order to make sure to have the best representation. I think that this is an opportunity for us to weigh in in a way that will make change in history.I will be the first Asian American to represent this district. And I think that that’s a really big deal. We will be doubling the amount of Asian American representation that we have in Congress from New York, because it’s the first time that our two Chinatowns will be able to vote together. We are the most underrepresented racial and ethnic group inside of Congress right now. And I think that it’s important for us to be able to have representation.[After this interview took place, Ms. Niou’s campaign clarified her comment that this will be the first time Manhattan’s Chinatown and Sunset Park’s Chinatown in Brooklyn will vote together in an open-seat election.]I think that I come with a different kind of lens that looks at disability issues in a real way. I will be the first openly autistic legislator in Congress. And I think that it’s important that we are constantly centering our disability communities as well, because it’s actually every issue. Every issue is a disability issue. And if you’re lucky enough to go into a ripe old age, you’ll also have to — if you’re able-bodied now, you’ll have to have help sometime.So I think that it’s really important that we are centering all of our communities in that way. And I think that we have the ability to win, and we have the ability to make sure that we make that change for everyone.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