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

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      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

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      in Elections

      The New York Times’s Interview With Mondaire Jones

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      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

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      in Elections

      The New York Times’s Interview With Carlina Rivera

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      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. 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      in Elections

      The New York Times’s Interview With Jo Anne Simon

      by

      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

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      The New York Times’s Interview With Jerrold Nadler

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      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

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      The New York Times’s Interview With Elizabeth Holtzman

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      Elizabeth Holtzman, a lawyer and former comptroller of New York City, served as a member of Congress from New York from 1973 to 1981.This interview with Ms. Holtzman was conducted by the editorial board of The New York Times on July 26.Read the board’s endorsement for the Democratic congressional primary for New York’s 10th District here.Kathleen Kingsbury: We have a lot of questions for you, and not very much time. I understand this is the first question, and you may need to reject the premise of it. But if polls are any indication, we could be headed toward a Republican-controlled Congress after the midterms. Could you talk a little bit about what you think you’ll be able to get accomplished in such an environment? Appreciate it if you could be specific, but also if there’s one big idea that you would pursue on a bipartisan basis.OK, first of all, I’d like to kind of step back for a second and just tell you why I’m running, if that’s all right. And I know you have a lot of questions. I’ll be very brief. I’m running because these are very dangerous times. Probably, if we weren’t at this moment, I wouldn’t be thinking about it. I’d be out kayaking somewhere.But the fact of the matter is that this is not a time for on-the-job training. This is a time to be able to take advantage and understand the levers of power because the democracy is being threatened, the economy is also in kind of a little bit of a shaky situation. I was on the House Budget Committee for five years. I learned a little bit about that.So I think that I have the unique background to deal with these problems. One, I’ve been there before, for eight years, and I have a great record of accomplishment. I was very privileged to be able to get a lot done. Two, I had the know-how to do it. Three, I had the guts to stand up, whether it’s to the dangerous right wing on the Supreme Court, whether it’s to the MAGA Republicans in the House or whether it’s to Trump, who wants to retake the presidency, in my opinion, by fraud or stealing it in some fashion.So that’s why I’m running now. I think I have the qualifications. I know I have the energy and the stamina. And this is a time that I think calls on my credentials.To respond to your question, yes, there are several ways of dealing with the problem you posed, which could be a serious one. I hope it’s a hypothetical one only. But let’s assume that it’s, in fact, true. First of all, there are ways of dealing with problems which elude the Congress and the congressional route. I know about that. And that’s a very important thing to think about, because even if the Ds retain control of Congress, we’ve been in kind of a gridlocked mode.So how can you go around it? One, you put pressure on the administration to do things, or No. 2, you go to the courts. I did that. I brought a lawsuit against the Cambodian bombing.And now one of you asked me for some ideas, but that’s not necessarily something that Republicans would ever agree with. But I think that, for example, states, localities and particularly the federal government can use their purchasing power with regard to munitions — they’re buying billions in weapons — to say to the gun manufacturers: OK, we’re buying all this stuff from you. What are you going to do for us?And pressure was put on a recent settlement in the Connecticut case. In the recent settlement, the company that was being sued agreed in the settlement to monitor its gun sales. You need a settlement. So that’s one area.Secondly, working with Republicans. I chaired the — and one of the things I did in Congress and one of the reasons I think I got a lot of stuff done was, one, I did the homework. An aide of mine once said, the first one with a piece of paper wins. So we used to have the first piece of paper. So if other people didn’t have to do the thinking and the homework, that helped.But also, if you were honest with people, you didn’t try to fool them politically and say, oh, you’ll get away with this in your district. Nobody will care. You hit the real problems in the bill. If you were straightforward with people, it brought you a lot of credibility.So when I was chair of the immigration subcommittee, sometimes I’d look around and there was a vote, and the Republicans would be gone because they didn’t want to vote against me. And I was able — probably the toughest bill I ever got Republican support for, and I got unanimous support in the subcommittee. And there were very conservative Republicans on the House Judiciary Committee, even then, very conservative.I had a bill — you probably don’t remember this, but there was something called the Smith Act that made it — it was really against communists, and it was a way of arresting and prosecuting them. And this was part of a revision. We were doing a revision of the criminal code. And I looked at the law, and I knew it was really unconstitutional.And I said to them on the subcommittee, what do you think about this? And I’m talking to real right-wingers. And I said, you know, we don’t really need it, because if they’re doing some violence, you can get them under other areas of the code, I think. And they said, you know, maybe you have a point. And they said, let’s ask the Justice Department.We asked the Justice Department. They said it was redundant. So I had a unanimous vote to eliminate the Smith Act from that proposed bill. The bill never saw the light of day because, ultimately, nobody wanted to pass a whole revised criminal code. It had too many other problems. But this, again, is a good example of getting Republican votes on very theoretically controversial issues.So I’ve been able to work with Republicans and win their support. I can’t say I have a silver bullet. And these Republicans are not the same as the ones I’ve worked with. I have no illusions about that. But at least I had some ways to start working.Mara Gay: Thank you. So there’s been a lot of discussion, understandably, about inflation, which is hitting all Americans hard, but I actually want to ask you about what you may do to ease the burden of housing costs, which is a far greater issue for the constituents that you would serve.Right. Well, housing is a really, really, really, really big problem. And one of the things I’ve been thinking about, because I have a little bit of experience in this. I wasn’t on a committee with housing. So, I mean, I can answer some constitutional questions with ease, but I’m not a housing expert. But I’ll tell you two things I did do, and they sort of suggest possibilities for the future.One is insurance companies were redlining areas in New York City when I was in Congress to prevent borrowing. That, in essence, freezed borrowing in areas of mostly minority residency. And you can’t easily beat the insurance companies, but we did. We were one step ahead of them.I had to organize a campaign around the country. And we got a bill, an amendment passed to some housing bill that was coming. It had housing in it. And we stopped the redlining.[The practice of redlining has been illegal since the 1970s, but its effects contribute to inequality today.]Now, as soon as Reagan got in, they undid it, and I wasn’t there anymore. But that’s one thing that we have to look at. The second thing is the kind of financing. When I was comptroller, we used the pension funds to build or rehabilitate — because that’s also very important in affordable housing. You have a declining base of affordable — of repair that’s being done on affordable housing.We financed tens of thousands of units of affordable housing because we were able to do it in — use the pension funds, take basically no risk. We never lost one penny. And we made money, whatever the market rate was that we were supposed to make. And we were able to build this housing. For various reasons that I don’t fully understand, this mechanism has not been fully utilized again by New York City. And it’s something that could be adopted around the country. Maybe there is a way of making it a national program.So I’ve just been in touch with some people who are in the not-for-profit realm in affordable housing to see whether there’s some way of expanding this program. I have some other friends who are — one used to be the assistant secretary of Housing and has built a lot of affordable housing around the country.So, yes, it’s something that constituents have raised with me, and it’s something that I had done, had some familiarity with. We did do this. And I’d like to see it replicated if that’s really an efficient way for the country, as well as in New York City, too.Jyoti Thottam: You mentioned already that it’s a dangerous time for democracy. What specifically do you think you could do in Congress to protect it?Well, two things. I mean, I’d like to do them right now if anyone would pay attention to me, but they’d probably pay more attention if I were in Congress. One is — I think there’s been too much delay in doing this — holding the former president accountable under the criminal law. And I think there needs to be more pressure on Merrick Garland to commence and indicate there is an investigation ongoing with respect to what happened and the former president’s involvement in that.I was just talking to somebody the other day. Sorry to be a little bit long on this. And we were talking about the difference between Nixon and Trump. And if you look at Nixon, some of the people would say, oh, well, he’s a different character, he understood he had to resign. He knew there was no other way out for him. He’d been held accountable. First of all, all of his top aides, every one of them, was under prosecution, had gone to jail or was going to jail.Every one of them — Haldeman, Ehrlichman, Colson, Mitchell. I’m sure I’m leaving 10 or 11 out, but they all went to jail. [Nixon] himself was named as an unindicted co-conspirator by the grand jury, which wanted to indict him. The Senate Watergate — I know the Congress did not respond today the way it did in the past, but you had a criminal justice system putting the period, exclamation point on the misdeeds of Nixon. He knew he couldn’t recover. He knew he had to resign. We have no such accountability now. What will this do to our country and our democracy?[Dozens of Nixon administration officials and campaign workers pleaded guilty or were found guilty of crimes related to the Watergate break-in or the subsequent cover-up. Nineteen were sentenced to prison, including some of Mr. Nixon’s aides.]By the way, if you look at the Constitution, the framers explicitly say that there’s no reason to not prosecute someone after they leave office. It’s right in there. They understood there’d be bad presidents. They didn’t know what their names were. They didn’t know it would be Nixon, they didn’t know whether it would be Trump, but they knew there’d be somebody like that. And they allowed for prosecution.What is the hesitation? This is not bad for the country. It was contemplated exactly in the Constitution, in my judgment.Patrick Healy: Congresswoman, do you think that the Democratic elected officials are out of step with Democratic voters on immigration, on L.G.B.T.Q. rights, on any issue right now, as you hear the conversation among elected officials and —Well, first of all —Patrick Healy: The voters?I’ve only been back in this maelstrom for a relatively short time. So I can’t tell you that I have the temperature personally, definitely not for the country, and even for my whole constituency. And I think, talking to the people in my district, it’s a very tolerant and very — I think, from what I’m getting — nonbigoted district. I’m not hearing any racism, anti —Patrick Healy: Is there any issue where the party feels out of step with —Any homophobia. Well, I’m getting some — yeah, generally, I mean, I’m getting a couple of attacks on the Democratic Party. We don’t have time, generally, to go into that in depth. I think it’s because maybe they think the Democratic Party is too left or too right. I’m getting it from both sides.I think that’s part of being in Congress, is to be a leader on some of these issues. On immigration, both my parents are immigrants. My mom’s family were refugees. I helped to write the refugee law with — I was the co-author of it with Senator Ted Kennedy. I’m very proud of that. I worked on bringing in the boat people from Vietnam. We accepted almost a million of them.[The Refugee Act of 1980 is credited for resettling more than 1.1 million people affected by the Vietnam War.]I’ve written articles about immigration and refugees. I’m very strongly in favor of it. I haven’t heard attacks on that issue from my constituents. That’s something I care a lot about and have always supported and continue to support. I was chair of the immigration subcommittee, so I remember racial profiling, ethnic profiling. We tried to put a stop to it when I was there. But I can’t speak for what’s going on now.Eleanor Randolph: So we have a series of yes-or-no questions. We’d appreciate it if you’d just limit your answer to one word, yes or no. First one, do you support expanding the Supreme Court?I’d have to say yes, but with a caveat.Eleanor Randolph: No [laughs]. No, we don’t allow that.Did I just say “caveat”? No, just joking. All right.Eleanor Randolph: Do you support ending the filibuster?Yes.Eleanor Randolph: Should there be term limits for members of Congress?Not sure. That’s two words.Eleanor Randolph: How about an age limit?[Softly] No.Eleanor Randolph: Was that no?Kathleen Kingsbury: She said no.Eleanor Randolph: All right. Should President Biden run for a second term?It’s up to him.Eleanor Randolph: OK.Alex Kingsbury: Hi. I’m wondering if we can speak about Ukraine for a little bit. I’m curious to know if you think there should be an upper limit on the amount of taxpayer dollars we should be spending on the war in Ukraine. And how do you explain to constituents why we’re spending all this money on a war we’re not officially a part of rather than spending money, say, on your district?Well, many years ago, I did pioneer something when I was on the Budget Committee called the Transfer Amendment, which did take monies in the budget from military spending to social programs. So I’m very much in favor of that and support of it. And certainly at that time, when we had so much money in the military budget that they couldn’t spend it. I mean, the pipeline of unspent monies was so huge that they’d come back and say, well, we can’t spend this. We were supposed to buy a whatever kind of tugboat, and that’s out of date, so we’ve got to buy something else. I mean, this is happening all the time. So we can’t have that kind of thing going on.But yes, I think there’s a serious question about the spending for the war, about how long it should go on or are alternatives to the war possible. I’m not somebody who, as a first resort, believes in warfare as a solution to problems, but I don’t know that there was much of a choice here. And I think it would be very dangerous for the rest of Europe, maybe even more significantly than that and a broader range than that, if Russia were able to take over Ukraine.I mean, I was in Ukraine several times. My mom’s family comes from Ukraine. I was there as a member of Congress. I was there representing clients. So I’m a little familiar with the country. But I think it would be too dangerous —Should Congress monitor? That’s a very important function that I found, when I was in Congress, was not hugely or sufficiently exercised, and that was oversight. They used to interpret that as meaning, don’t look. Oversight means you look over it and you see what people are doing. I think there needs to be a lot of scrutiny about this, and the spending, where it’s going, and are there alternatives that are available. How does the administration examine them and review them.Alex Kingsbury: I’m just wondering what alternatives those might be.Well, there are always — I mean, one alternative certainly is a theoretical one, but I don’t know how practical it is: Is there some way that you can have a cease-fire and an end to the war? I don’t have the answer to that.Listen, I was involved in negotiating with foreign governments. I did during the Vietnam boat people crisis. I negotiated with the government of Vietnam to have an orderly departure program, and with other governments. But I know how tricky it is and how little you know if you’re not involved in the process. I’m someone on the outside. I’d like to see a peaceful resolution to this problem. I don’t have enough information at this point to suggest what alternatives exist. But Congress should look at that and determine whether any exist. They may not. I’m not saying they do.Nick Fox: How can the United States meet its commitments on climate change?Well, I think it’s going to be very tough with the opposition from special interests, MAGA Republicans, and Joe Manchin and the like. I think we need many more Democrats in Congress, but Democrats who are in favor of dealing with climate problems.[The Senate passed the climate, health and tax bill on Aug. 7 and the House on Aug. 12, both after this interview took place.]I think states and localities can be pressed to do more. And Biden can act through regulatory measures. I don’t know how much legislation he will allow. And that’s one of the reasons I’m so concerned about the Supreme Court, because what the court did was to kind of set out a very, very dangerous framework. What the court said was that — having been in Congress, I know how dangerous it is — Congress, if there’s a crisis or serious problem, Congress has to spell out in detail what the agency has to do.So I mean, Congress can’t always think ahead two days, much less two months or two years. Congress can’t be expected to legislate on a dime. That’s why we have an administrative structure. That’s what happened during the New Deal, was to create an administrative structure where Congress created the broad outlines. They could always fine-tune it, as it does, to restrict what agencies can do here and there and whatever. It does that. But the broad outlines are there.And if you’re going to tell Congress that it’s got to legislate every time there’s a crisis, we’re not going to be able to deal with the crises that we have. And it’s not just in the area of climate, it’s going to be in all other areas. And so in my opinion, they’re on their way to dismantling the New Deal.Mara Gay: Thank you. Could you name one further action that Congress could take on gun violence and then on abortion rights?OK. On gun violence, as I mentioned, I think that the pressure that Congress can — I know Congress, Congress, of course, can pass all these bills. I’m just a little skeptical that it’s going to do that. Of course, I support that. I mean, I voted against gun violence. I voted against the N.R.A. I don’t even want to mention how many years ago.So I’m very, very much in favor of very, very strict regulation of all guns, handguns, assault weapons ban and all of that stuff. But I’m not sure that’s going to happen. So we have to work around it. If we can’t get the legislation — and I will fight for it and struggle very hard for it — but we have to find other ways, such as what I mentioned, using the leverage of the purchasing power of governments. But working with — and I have worked with the Brady organization and other organizations to try to develop some very innovative methods.I mean, California just enacted a very interesting bill. Not the vigilante bill, but they said, some gun companies are trying to do the right thing, monitor their gun sales, and we don’t want to put them at a disadvantage. So we’re going to just pass the bill. They passed a bill in California saying — I forget the name. It’s something like Fair Treatment of Gun Manufacturers or something like that, which is a code of conduct for gun manufacturers, requiring them to do the right thing, not penalizing those who try to do the right thing.So we may have to look at states and localities. And that’s where maybe some congresspeople can be effective, by raising the point and publicizing what’s happening elsewhere that seems to be making a difference, and not necessarily in Congress, because I’m worried that — and there was a question you posed at the outset. How are we going to get anything done if the Republicans don’t?Mara Gay: And just one thing on abortion, please. We’re just so short on time.One thing on abortion? Change the composition of this court.Mara Gay: Thank you.Kathleen Kingsbury: What should Congress —Which is why I propose having hearings right now. Congress shouldn’t take a recess. Have hearings right now, finish up the investigation that was never finished on Brett Kavanaugh, and investigate Clarence Thomas’s failure to recuse himself [inaudible] —Mara Gay: We have a few lightning round questions for you, just to quickly answer. How does Plan B work?What Plan B?Kathleen Kingsbury: The emergency contraceptive.What do you mean, how does it work?Mara Gay: How does it work as a medication?You know, I’m not sure how it works.Mara Gay: It works by preventing or delaying ovulation. 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 don’t know.Mara Gay: Fifty-eight. What about a senator?Maybe higher, but I don’t know.Mara Gay: Sixty-four. Please name a member of Congress, dead or living, whom you most admire and may emulate yourself after if elected to serve.There are lots of people who have qualities that I respect. I liked Al Gore very much when he was in the House. I respected Peter Rodino for his fairness and gravity in the impeachment hearings. I like Adam Schiff. He’s smart and thoughtful [inaudible]. And I also like Shirley Chisholm. She had a lot of guts.Mara Gay: Thank you. And what is your favorite restaurant in the district?Well … Rucola, let me just say that.Mara Gay: Yeah. And actually, I wanted to ask you as well: Did you leave the city for longer than a few weeks during the pandemic?Yes.Mara Gay: Where’d you go?I stayed with a friend for about three months.Nick Fox: On Election Day, you’ll be three years younger than Emanuel Celler was when you were the wunderkind who defeated him in the House. Your election was an inspiration to the younger generation back then. Now the kind of young leadership that you once represented is being held back by the Democratic Party gerontocracy. You’re obviously qualified and capable of running, but with a field of young candidates in the tent, why wouldn’t it be better for you to let one of them move forward?I’m going to let them?[Everyone laughs.]At least let the constituents to decide.Nick Fox: Well, yeah.Let me just say one other thing. It’s not just an issue of qualified. I don’t think this is a level playing field. I think I bring unique qualifications. Anyone can issue a press release. Probably most of the people on the panel, if you ask them at the right moment, would agree on — the panel of people running for Congress — would agree on the same points. But who’s going to get something done? That’s the issue. Who knows how to go and bring a lawsuit such as we did on the Cambodia bombing? Who knows how to organize the Congress and the grassroots as I did to get the E.R.A. extension against Phyllis Schlafly and the right wing?I’m not saying they’re not good people, but this is a time when we need somebody who has that expertise and the energy and the guts to do the right thing. I’ve got nothing to lose anymore.Mara Gay: Can you talk to us about your path to victory in this exceptionally crowded race? How many doors are you knocking on? Have you been out — tell us about it. How are you going to win this race?You know, what is it? Mad dogs and Englishmen go out in the noonday sun, but also this candidate for Congress. I’m out there on these blazing hot days, at farmer’s markets, on crowded streets, shaking hands, talking to people.And one of the things that I find that’s really energizing and exciting for me is, one, that there are a lot of people who remember me, and the enthusiasm. The real enthusiasm. And I don’t really recall that when I was campaigning. I’ve been in a few campaigns in my life. I don’t really recall that — maybe my memory is fading on that issue.But it’s exciting because I think what they see is what I — when I answered your question about why don’t I pull out of this race and leave it to some young people, they will have their time and their chance if they want it, but I think what they see is somebody who’s going to stand up for them and fight and get things done. That was my record when I was D.A.And you probably remember this, Mr. Staples. I was the only one in the country — I mean, it’s a sad commentary. I was the only D.A. in America who stood up and said, we can’t have peremptory challenges used to remove Blacks from the jury. Why wasn’t any other D.A. involved in that? Nobody.So, I mean, that’s what I bring to this. And that’s what the people in the district that I talk to remember. And that’s what they prize. That’s what they want to see. And I got results. Yes, I stood up against racial discrimination. It wasn’t a press release, it wasn’t a press conference. I litigated that up and down to the Supreme Court, and we got the court to change it — not to change, but to adopt the position we ran on.Kathleen Kingsbury: I wanted to actually ask you — and I know we’re just about out of time — but I actually wanted to ask you about your experience as D.A. We’re in a period right now, as the pandemic is waning, where there’s a very strong perception that the city is unsafe right now. I’m curious what advice you’d have for Mayor Adams or the current D.A.s in terms of what could be done to address that, and maybe if there’s things that Congress could do as well.Well, I think gun violence is clearly guns in the street, clearly part of the problem. And Congress’s failure to act on this for so long has really been — has really increased the danger and flow of guns into the country and into the city. That has to be stopped. It’s not going to be so easy. I suggested one method. Will it work? Who knows, but we can’t give up on that.So I just know that somebody is [inaudible], somebody without a gun, a coward, we put a gun into that person’s hands and they could be a mass murderer. So guns are a critical part of that. What more needs to be done in terms of policing, work with the federal authorities, agencies, federal prosecutors. I mean, I don’t know how much coordination is going on, but it could be better.I would say that that’s probably a major key. Other things — how do you stop crime? We don’t 100 percent know the answer to that. I think it’s a very complicated problem. Some of it has to do with economic conditions. A lot of it has to do with people who are just dangerous. What do you do about them? We still have a revolving door system in our criminal justice system. There’s something wrong about that.Why isn’t there some other kind of intervention? Someone gets arrested time after time after time. They maybe spend 15 days in prison, and then they’re out on the street again, and then they commit a similar crime. I’m not saying that jail is necessarily the right answer, but what are we doing to kind of correct these problems? I’m not going to give you the answer, because part of it has to do with improving the whole policing effort. And for me, I don’t think anybody’s looked at it from top to bottom. I mean, I’m the only one in this race, maybe one of the few in the country, that’s ever stood up publicly about police brutality, misuse of force.When I was D.A., we created a special unit in my office. And by the way, Zachary Carter, who was — I’m very proud that he came to work for me, he then became the first African American U.S. attorney in the City of New York — suggested to me, and we worked on this together, we created a special unit to deal with the misuse of force by police officers. And we did it not just because we wanted to quote-unquote “get” police officers. That wasn’t the objective. The objective was to be fair. In the D.A.’s office, A.D.A.s work with police to solve crimes. You can’t turn around, after you’ve been working with a police officer to solve a rape or a robbery, and then prosecute that police officer. Nobody will even think you’re doing a fair job. We didn’t want that.[Zachary Carter was the Eastern District’s first Black U.S. attorney.]So we created this special unit. I had 5,000 police officers picketing me. They had to leave. I was there. And that office stayed as long as I was D.A. And then it was dismantled by my successor, who promised the police that he would get rid of it.But that’s what I’m prepared to do. I think we need to professionalize, make sure that our police are professionalized, that we’re recruiting the best, and that we have proper training, we have proper supervision, proper discipline. Who’s looking at the whole picture of policing in New York City?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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      Liz Cheney embraces her role in the Jan. 6 inquiry in a closing campaign ad.

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      Representative Liz Cheney of Wyoming is highlighting her role as the top Republican on the Jan. 6 committee in a closing ad for her all but doomed re-election campaign, as polls show her badly trailing her Trump-backed opponent, Harriet Hageman, just five days before the primary.But the nearly two-and-a-half-minute ad released online Thursday appeared aimed as much at a national audience as at the Republican primary voters in Wyoming who will decide the fate of Ms. Cheney, the state’s lone member of the House.“The lie that the 2020 presidential election was stolen is insidious,” Ms. Cheney said as the ad opens. “It preys on those who love their country. It is a door Donald Trump opened to manipulate Americans to abandon their principles, to sacrifice their freedom, to justify violence, to ignore the rulings of our courts and the rule of law.”Ms. Cheney, who has been vilified by former President Donald J. Trump and many of his supporters, defended the work of the special House committee that is investigating the 2021 attack on the Capitol and efforts by Mr. Trump to overturn the 2020 election results.Ms. Cheney, the vice chairwoman of the Jan. 6 committee, has acknowledged her political peril. A poll released on Thursday by the University of Wyoming’s Wyoming Survey and Analysis Center showed Ms. Cheney trailing Ms. Hageman by nearly 30 points.More Coverage of the 2022 Midterm ElectionsAug. 9 Primaries: In Wisconsin and a handful of other states, Trump endorsements resonated. Here’s what else we learned and a rundown of some notable wins and losses.Arizona Governor’s Race: Like other hard-right candidates this year, Kari Lake won her G.O.P. primary by running on election lies. But her polished delivery, honed through decades as a TV news anchor, have landed her in a category all her own.Climate, Health and Tax Bill: The Senate’s passage of the legislation has Democrats sprinting to sell the package by November and experiencing a flicker of an unfamiliar feeling: hope.Disputed Maps: New congressional maps drawn by Republicans in Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana and Ohio were ruled illegal gerrymanders. They’re being used this fall anyway.She is the last of the 10 House Republicans who voted for Mr. Trump’s impeachment to stand before voters in a primary this year. Three have lost: Representatives Jaime Herrera Beutler of Washington, Tom Rice of South Carolina and Peter Meijer of Michigan. Two others survived their primaries, and four declined to seek another term.Titled “The Great Task,” the ad is being promoted on social media, but is not appearing on television, according to Jeremy Adler, a campaign spokesman for Ms. Cheney.In the ad, Ms. Cheney described Mr. Trump’s false claims of election fraud as his legacy and said that the nation has an obligation to hold those responsible for fomenting violence.“History has shown us over and over again how these types of poisonous lies destroy free nations,” Ms. Cheney said of those insisting that Mr. Trump won the election. “No one who understands our nation’s laws, no one with an honest, honorable, genuine commitment to our Constitution would say that. It is a cancer that threatens our great republic.”Ms. Cheney did not mention Ms. Hageman by name in her ad, but drew a comparison between her opponents in Wyoming and election-denying candidates across the nation. Last week, Ms. Hageman repeated Mr. Trump’s false claim that the election was rigged.Tim Murtaugh, an adviser for Ms. Hageman’s campaign, accused Ms. Cheney of abandoning Wyoming. “This video is basically an audition tape for CNN or MSNBC,” he said.Ms. Cheney’s renunciation of Mr. Trump — and her vote to impeach him last year — have already come at a political price. The Wyoming Republican Party censured her in February 2021, a month after Ms. Cheney’s impeachment vote. House Republicans later ousted Ms. Cheney as the party’s No. 3 leader in the chamber, replacing her with Representative Elise Stefanik, a Trump loyalist from New York.As the ad closed, Ms. Cheney said that she would always seek to preserve peaceful transitions of power, “not violent confrontations, intimidation, and thuggery,” and added, “where we are led by people who love this country more than themselves.” More

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      Could Carl Paladino and his ‘three-ring circus’ be headed for Congress?

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      OLEAN, N.Y. — During his decade-plus in New York politics, Carl Paladino has had no problem making headlines, usually for all the wrong reasons.There was the time he spoke highly of Hitler. Or the occasion when he made grossly racist remarks about Michelle Obama. Not to mention his suggestion that children have been brainwashed into accepting homosexuality.The ensuing criticism, however, has had little effect on Mr. Paladino, 75, a die-hard Republican and a Buffalo-area developer, or on his political aspirations: After a fleeting career as a member of the city’s school board — he was effectively deposed — he has now launched a campaign to be the next duly elected representative of the 23rd Congressional District in western New York.Mr. Paladino’s main claim to fame is a failed 2010 run for governor that was equal parts carnival ride and train wreck: He threatened a State Capitol reporter during the campaign and forwarded a series of pornographic emails.His latest attempt at a comeback involves an ugly primary battle that has caused a deep schism in his own party. His opponent is Nick Langworthy, the state Republican Party chairman.Mr. Langworthy, a onetime ally of Mr. Paladino, is trying to steer New York Republicans away from the crassest elements fueling former President Donald J. Trump’s MAGA following, saying that the party has “come too far” to be undone by Mr. Paladino’s antics.Crucially, he says, Mr. Paladino could damage the campaign for governor by Representative Lee M. Zeldin, the Long Island Republican who is considered by many to have the party’s best chance of winning the governor’s mansion in two decades.“Carl’s candidacy is a big reason why I decided to do this,” Mr. Langworthy said, calling Mr. Paladino “a huge detriment” to the Republican ticket in 2022. “We’ve got the best shot to win in 20 years, and the three-ring circus that he brings to the table, with the way that he handles things and himself, will basically be held against every candidate in the state.”Despite his general outspokenness, Mr. Paladino has waged a largely subdued campaign, preferring to attack Mr. Langworthy via news release and interviews on reliably Trumpian outlets like “War Room” with Steve Bannon, where he recently promised not only to impeach President Biden — “on Day 1” — but also to bring down the U.S. attorney general, Merrick Garland.One of his campaign talking points — “You know me” — seems keyed into maximizing his name recognition, which he says gives him an undeniable advantage as both a candidate and a potential congressman.More Coverage of the 2022 Midterm ElectionsAug. 9 Primaries: In Wisconsin and a handful of other states, Trump endorsements resonated. Here’s what else we learned and a rundown of some notable wins and losses.Arizona Governor’s Race: Like other hard-right candidates this year, Kari Lake won her G.O.P. primary by running on election lies. But her polished delivery, honed through decades as a TV news anchor, have landed her in a category all her own.Climate, Health and Tax Bill: The Senate’s passage of the legislation has Democrats sprinting to sell the package by November and experiencing a flicker of an unfamiliar feeling: hope.Disputed Maps: New congressional maps drawn by Republicans in Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana and Ohio were ruled illegal gerrymanders. They’re being used this fall anyway.“I have a proven track record as a conservative fighter, who will not back down,” Mr. Paladino said in a statement, adding that he was an early supporter of Mr. Trump. “People here know me and trust me.”Mr. Paladino also has a decided financial edge, having lent his campaign $1.5 million — nearly the entirety of his war chest, according to federal disclosure reports. Mr. Langworthy has spent little of the $307,000 raised in campaign donations, the bulk of it from individual contributions.Still, Mr. Langworthy is hoping that his rival’s history of transgressions will outweigh his money.“People know you,” Mr. Langworthy said. “It doesn’t mean that people like you.”Nick Langworthy, the state G.O.P. leader, said his goal was to prevent Mr. Paladino from becoming a “huge detriment” to the party’s ticket in November.Lauren Petracca for The New York TimesThe fame — or notoriety — of Mr. Paladino, and his capacity for campaign spending are not the only obstacles that Mr. Langworthy faces. Representative Elise Stefanik, the ardent upstate devotee of Mr. Trump who is the House of Representatives’ No. 3 Republican, has backed Mr. Paladino, as have other Trump-world notables like Representative Matt Gaetz of Florida, who has had his own share of controversy.Ms. Stefanik, in particular, has lobbed savage Trump-like bon mots back and forth with Mr. Langworthy and is expected to campaign for Mr. Paladino in the district ahead of the Aug. 23 primary.Considering Mr. Paladino’s record of racist and sexist remarks, Ms. Stefanik’s endorsement raised some eyebrows, though she cast it as testament to his career as a business leader. More