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Brian Lehrer: It's The Brian Lehrer Show on WNYC. Good morning, everyone. If Democrats Lose the House, They May Have New York to Blame. That's the headline of a New York Times article by Nicholas Fandos who will join us in a minute. If Democrats Lose the House, They May Have New York to Blame. It's one of the more unusual and consequential things that happened this election day, the Democratic coalition basically held in congressional races across the country, despite inflation and Biden's unpopularity, and the usual changeover of power during the President's first midterm elections.

We don't know the final outcome yet, but if Republicans take the House majority, it will be from basically picking up the five seats they needed to flip it by a hair. Here's the kicker. They've already picked up four of those seats in New York, and we're not talking some deep Red rural areas, way upstate, the pickups were in districts in the Hudson Valley, on Long Island, and even in Queens.

Progressive Democrats are blaming one of their own, in part, Mayor Eric Adams for overplaying the extent of crime in New York City as the progressives see it, and for latching on to bail reform as a public safety threat, despite no data they say, to back that up. The results say the progressives, Adams gave the Republicans the false veneer of bipartisanship and the false veneer of credibility for their biggest campaign talking point. Now, for the Mayor's part, he says no way. He's just calling reality as he sees it.

Eric Adams: New York is more concerned about crime, and their mayor is responding to their concern. Who should be at fault? Those who ignored the concern.

Brian Lehrer: Mayor Adams yesterday. What happened in the Hudson Valley, on Long Island, and in Northeast queens? Why did the Republicans pick up four of the five seats they need to flip the House in the New York City area of all places? With us now Nicholas Fandos, New York Times Metro political reporter who is especially well placed for this because he previously covered Congress, and Larry Levy, executive dean for Suburban Studies at Hofstra University, right smack dab in the middle of Long Island in Hampstead. Larry also spent decades previously as a reporter for the Island's newspaper, Newsday. Nicholas and Larry, thanks for coming on. Welcome back both of you to WNYC.

Larry Levy: Thanks for having me.

Nicholas Fandos: Good morning, Brian.

Brian Lehrer: Let's just run down this list and name the names for our listeners who don't know specifically, even might not know specifically yet who your next member of Congress is. Congressional District 3rd in Northeast Queens and Long Island's North Shore, which has been represented by Democrat Tom Suozzi, will now be represented by Republican George Santos. District 4th in Nassau County, which is head Democrat Kathleen Rice, went to Republican Anthony D'Esposito.

North of the city, the district immediately north of the city in Westchester, stayed in Democratic hands with Congressman Jamaal Bowman reelected. Further north, things are more divided, Democrat Pat Ryan got reelected, but Democratic Congressman Sean Patrick Maloney, the leader of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, it was his job to lead holding the House for the whole party, he got defeated by Republican Mike Lawler and Republican Marc Molinaro won an open seat.

Now that Molinaro's seat is District 19, which is too far north to really be considered a new york city suburb, but congratulations Woodstock, you now have a Republican Congressman. The biggest story is that Long Island, which has had two Democratic members of Congress, now has none. Larry Levy at Hofstra, let's start with you. What really happened on Long Island in this election?

Larry Levy: Well, what happened couple days ago, really started a year ago, voters in Nassau County and to some extent, Suffolk County, were absolutely primed for the message that Republicans were very sharp in delivering. In the local race as you may remember, Republicans ran the table, they swept out a lot of Democrats, including some who came out immediately against so-called bail reform. The Republicans just wrote that message into the next year.

The only thing they substituted was inflation for taxes. Last year it was crime and taxes, taxes being an old standby Republican's suburban campaigns, and this year it was inflation. This was an electorate that already had bought into the messaging, and Republicans were able to continue the momentum and even generate more. That's one of the reasons, I think there's some other factors, but I'll stop there for a second.

Brian Lehrer: Let me stay with that. Yes, that's definitely a little relevant historical context. Recent history, last year, the Republicans did very well on the Island in the local elections. Yes, that carried over to Congress, but nationally, in the exit polls, Larry, inflation was the runaway top concern for Republican voters, abortion rights was the runaway top concern for Democratic voters, crime was only named as the top issue by around 15% in either party nationally, do you know if that was different on Long Island?

Larry Levy: I don't have precise numbers on that, but the people who live in Nassau County and again, to some extent, Suffolk, are immersed in the New York City media, were particularly on television, it's still the old line, "If it bleeds, it leads." Crime is always in front of them, and a lot of people commute to the city. The reality is that, whenever the statistics showed, there was a perception backed up by what people at least superficially saw, during the pandemic, that things were starting to get out of control.

Really, what it comes down to is, suburbanites in general, are very much attuned to questions of personal and financial security. You may say, well, so does everybody anywhere, but when you have most of your life savings in your home, where your neighborhood's at, what's going on around you, it becomes much more acute, especially when you moved out to the suburbs, for that sense of security.

In New York, again, it was the constant drumbeat that was beat into them about crime, and in taxes, and spending again, it's very acute. When you are over-invested, when you're paying really more than you can afford to live in a House in the suburbs, that's why taxes have always resonated, inflation just spins that up a little more. I think that New Yorkers, because of the high cost of living here more than in other places, Long Islanders, particularly with the highest property taxes on the planet, and a slight uptick in crime where they lived but a perception of a much bigger one in the city right next door, I think it was a toxic mix that was different than other parts of the country.

Brian Lehrer: Now, we're going to get to redistricting as a strange and skewing factor in all of this, but listeners, help us report the story of why the Republicans picked up four congressional seats in Greater New York, who's listening on Long Island or north of the city who voted Republican for Congress. If you voted for Democrats in the past, or in Northeast Queens were that part of the Suozzi district slip? Bayside, Douglaston, Little Neck, we see you. 212-433-WNYC, 212-433-9692.

Any swing voters like that, you are part of this story. Help everyone else understand what happened in your decision-making process if you voted Democrat for Congress in the past, but Republican this time, especially on Long Island. 212-433-9692. Or the other conversation that we can have, the additional conversation we can have, any Democrats on the progressive end of the party who just stayed home because you were uninspired by the lack of a bold vision.

Let's have it out, Democrats, for the sake of the future, did your party go too far left or too blandly centrist as some of the progressive leaders say, or maybe some combination of both in your view, who knows, or anything else you want to say or ask about the Red wave that failed to come in this election nationally, but did come for Congress in New York State. 212-433-WNYC, 212-433-9692, or tweet @BrianLehrer.

Nicholas Fandos, your Times article "Democratic strategist Howard Wolfson who says, it's infuriating that a night as good as it was for Democrats nationally is undone by arrogance and incompetence here." What kinds of arrogance and incompetence is he referring to?

Nicholas Fandos: I think he principally meant two things. One of them is what we've just been talking about in that crime and this particular issue of bail, which is a complicated picture actually but his point was there were warning signs in 2021 for Democrats, particularly on Long Island and in parts of upper Westchester and they ignored that. They didn't figure out how to neutralize it as a political issue, whether that was through legislative action or messaging.

The other piece was around the redistricting process here in New York, which I'm sure you remember well, but we should probably step back a few months and to the beginning of this year when Democrats who were in control of everything in Albany, thought they were going to be able to draw the lines themselves and put in place and actually pass the set of maps that really tilted the playing field towards their party.

If you remember, this was the map that gave us the Staten Island to Parks Slope District among others, which would've done a lot to, they thought potentially helped Democrats pick up seats in New York, which would've offset Republican gains elsewhere around the country. Of course, it was challenged in court, the state's highest court with many Democratic Cuomo appointees on it, struck the map down and had a special master draw replacement that draw a much more level playing field across the country. That set Democrats up to really be--

Brian Lehrer: Across the state.

Nicholas Fandos: Across the state, I'm sorry, which then helps lead to where we are now, but where Republicans not Democrats are picking up those seats, but the other thing that I think it's just worth saying is that that may have affected the numbers, one or two seats in either direction, but when Democrats are performing as badly as they did on Long Island, I'm not sure gerrymander really would've saved some of these seats. The New York four, the South Nassau seat, President Biden won that by 14 points two years ago and it looks like [unintelligible 00:12:03] is going to win it by four.

That's an 18 point swing that's not-- Gerrymanders are done to make a seat, plus 14 D, if you're not able to win there you have something of a bigger problem. I think these two factors, the redistricting and the underperformance, which we haven't talked about yet, but I think has something to do with the competitive governor's race here too really conspired against the Democrats

Brian Lehrer: Certainly, the Republican for Governor Lee Zeldin was running on almost a single issue, which was crime, and Nicholas, your article mentions that in some red states where there was also partisan redistricting by the legislature, but to favor Republicans, the courts there let those lines stand. How much is this a story of unilateral disarmament by the blue state of New York if the Republicans win Congress by a seat or two?

Nicholas Fandos: I think it's totally fair to conclude that and that's an important aspect here. It's one of those situations where truly the more you look at this, there is blame to go to basically everybody in the restricting process in New York, going back a decade to when the voters of New York adopted a constitutional amendment that many people thought was flawed from the start. It's a deal struck by Andrew Cuomo and the Senate Republicans and the Assembly at the time.

Up until this year when others would argue, the voters were clear, they made partisan gerrymandering unconstitutional and the legislators in Albany attempted to do something that sure as hell looked like partisan gerrymandering and so that was going to get knocked down, but as you say, in other states the courts allowed those to stand and the judges here did not. Here we are, I guess, you can blame the lawmakers, the judges, the former governor, the current governor, probably the National party. Everybody's got a slice of this.

Brian Lehrer: Before we take some phone calls and the lines are jammed on the various angles that we threw out there. Larry, you want to say something? Did you want to continue on that thought?

Larry Levy: I think that the lack and this was in Nick's article, but the lack of coattails by Governor Hochul was significant, at least in the closer races. There are a lot of Republicans who owe their jobs basically to Lee Zeldin's campaign. I think he squeezed about as much out of the sponge as he could have considering he was running against an upstate or which Republicans need to really run up the score and a Long Island where Democrats actually have an enrollment edge and he got winning by 15% or so is again, about as well as anybody could do, but it's possible that if Hochul ran five points better Laura Gillen would have had enough juice to hold the fourth district--

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Nicholas Fandos: Sean Patrick Maloney might have won as well.

Brian Lehrer: Interesting but it's all part of the same soup on those particular issues. One number I always look for after congressional elections that I haven't been able to find yet for this year and I wonder if either of you knows it is the total percentage of votes for each party nationally compared to the percentage of house seats won. In other words, let's say if a majority of Americans voted for Democrats, but Republicans wind up with a majority of seats, then gerrymandering, redistricting perverts democracy and that has happened in some election cycles. Do either of you know if that happened this year?

[crosstalk]

Larry Levy: Go ahead.

Brian Lehrer: Go ahead, [unintelligible 00:16:13].

Nicholas Fandos: I was going to say, I think that given the way that returns are counted more slowly on the West Coast, that number actually does right now still look like favor more in the Republican column, but that will probably even out over the next week or so as mail and ballots are counted slowly. I don't think we know exactly where it will stand, but there's no doubt that Republicans nationally entered this election with probably a three to five-seat advantage from gerrymandering and so Democrats would've had to outperform to win a majority outperform as compared to say a national popular vote.

Brian Lehrer: Larry, you wanted to add to that?

Larry Levy: Yes, historically, if I remember correctly and if the political science professor wants to call up and tell me I'm wrong, it's fine but historically, house seats Republican and Democrat vote when you add it all up, are pretty even because the number of competitive seats has been reduced down to 30 or 40, and the rest of them are pretty much split and so you get turnout heavy Democratic and blue districts, heavy Republican turnout in red it's in United States Senate seats where Democrats tend to have more aggregate votes than Republicans because of big states versus small states.

Brian Lehrer: Timothy, a taxi driver in the Bronx, you're on WNYC. Hi, Timothy, Thanks for calling in.

Timothy: Yes, good morning, Brian. I'm so happy to be speaking to you. You are one of the smartest interviewers in the work. God bless you. Continue to do your good job. I just said the problem is Mayor Adams, he let the Democrats lost the elections in New York City because of the illegal immigrants that he brought to the Randalls Island. He brought in a lot of them saying that he going to get money from the federal government and now he didn't get that money.

That is why people got mad because whenever you pick up a passenger and discussing elections with you, they say Mayor Adams is the problem. It is too much the illegal immigrants. That is why people got furious. They got mad with Mayor Adams and that is why they voted against Democrats, please.

Brian Lehrer: Interesting, but people would say or Adams would say, I didn't do that. The governor of Texas did that and the governor of Florida did that.

Timothy: You know that that mayor is so smart. He talk a lot. He's so smart.

Larry Levy: I say this very respectfully.

Timothy: He's so happy speaking to you.

Brian Lehrer: Timothy, thank you. Please call again.

Larry Levy: I say this very respectfully but that doesn't make entire sense because I'm not sure that the Democrats lost much, if anything, in New York City and it just doesn't add up. I don't know that anybody around the state was in the seats that were flipped took their lead from Mayor Adams, whether he is right or wrong.

Brian Lehrer: What the progressives are saying is that they did take their lead from Mayor Adams, but in a different way than Timothy was saying, Nicholas, things are running in two opposite directions at the same time within the Democratic party on this point, there's the thought by some, including the mayor, that the party was seen as too far to the left, especially on criminal justice but you also report that many progressives lamented that numerous Democrats had failed to stake out a Boulder agenda. Who's saying what on either side of the party?

Nicholas Fandos: I think that's right. Maybe we'll get some more clarity on who's right as we get a little further away from this election. I think Adams, the Long Islanders, a lot of more democratic establishment type strategists, and the people who run in campaigns, and run campaigns have a particular sensitivity to the suburbs, but also, to some neighborhoods in Brooklyn, and in Queens that move pretty hard to the right costing some assembly, and potentially, state Senate seats to the Democrats.

I think that whether it's fair, or not, Republicans have been able to really harness fears about crime, and focus blame on bail reform, in particular, which the statistics are pretty murky about the effect that bail reform has had on overall crime. Nonetheless, polls showed that, think a majority of voters now think that it is responsible, or primarily responsible for the crime situation in the city. They feel like until we address that, we're going to continue to lose voters in these areas that we would really like to keep them.

On the other hand, though, I think what progressives are saying is that they look at the map, and they look at the numbers, and say, "We have a huge democratic registration advantage in New York, twice as many Democrats as Republicans." We should not be losing elections, we shouldn't be running close to elections. One of the problems here was that we didn't turn out our voters, we didn't give them anything to vote for or much to vote for.

At the top of the ticket, the contest between Kathy Hochul, and Lee Zeldin, the Hochul campaign was most focused, I think, in its paid advertising for much of the race on why you shouldn't elect Lee Zeldin too extreme for New York was their argument. Hochul, at the very end, she started talking about crime or emphasizing it more anyway, but she didn't put forward a memorable promise.

Brian Lehrer: Not just crime, but she started only at the end to talk about her accomplishments. I mentioned on the show the other day that many Democrats have said to me, "Why isn't our party talking about the economy? We really like our policies on the economy, but we're running away from them as if we caused inflation, which we don't think we did," say these Democrats.

Nicholas Fandos: Right. I think their general point is try and ask an average voter, what are the two, or three things that Kathy Hochul stands for once to get done in the next four years that might motivate them to come out, and vote, and they would maybe struggle to tell you that. I think that their argument is we don't need to be fighting the Republicans on their own terms. We have our own vision for governing New York, and we think it's popular, so we should run aggressively on that.

At the same time, they have another seam of criticism, which has to do with how the Democratic Party works in New York and organizing, and things like that, which it does seem salient in this moment, where Hochul and the state party didn't seem to be running all that robust of a campaign on the ground particularly, in the city until late in the election when there was a general democratic freakout. We started seeing a little bit of canvas serves, and on the ground get out the vote effort, and there are progressives who feel like that was too little, too late, especially, in a place like Brooklyn, and a lot of votes were left on the table.

Brian Lehrer: With Nicholas Fandos, Metro Political reporter for The New York Times, and Larry Levy, Dean of Suburban Studies at Hofstra. Ronnie in Merrick, you're on WNYC. Hi, Ronnie. Thanks so much for calling in today.

Ronnie: Hi, thank you. I'm a Republican who never voted for Trump, and probably, never will, but I voted Republican down the line, because I take the Long Island Railroad, and when you [unintelligible 00:24:08], it's like Afghanistan over there. You don't feel safe. The reason I don't feel safe is because they could do anything they want to you, and there'll be no repercussions.

A lot of police officers in New York City do live in Long Island, and they tell me as soon as we put them in, they don't even want to do the paperwork, because they get out so quickly. It's just not safe. That's the only reason that I voted for every single Republican I could have.

Brian Lehrer: Ronnie, thank you very much. Please call us again. Larry, does he echo a lot of Republicans on Long Island?

Larry Levy: He echos not only a lot of Republicans, but the Republicans benefited from a huge independent vote and even some soft Democrats. It doesn't matter. I could probably come up with a counterargument with all kinds of statistics comparing it to last year, comparing it to 20 years ago. The perception was incredibly powerful. He mentioned stepping off the train at Penn Station. It wasn't just the crime, it was the construction with all these nooks, and crannies, and not sure where you're going to go that frightened people as well.

It's this sense of insecurity. I mentioned before, Suburbanites are very attuned to that. The look of the place, the feel of the place, the chatter, the headlines, all heightened the sense of insecurity, and they were looking for somebody to help. Republicans, as the caller said, were offering to do that. Whether they could do anything about it or would do anything about it, doesn't matter. It was perception.

Brian Lehrer: We're going to continue in a minute. We'll take more of your calls from around the area. David in Great Neck, we see you, Claire in Hartsdale, we see you. We'll continue on the island. We'll go to Westchester. We have callers from the city too, and with our guests, we'll ask what happens now on criminal justice, because I said in the intro to the segment, they're pulling now on Kathy Hochul, and the legislature from both directions to get more conservative, and also, to get more progressive on criminal justice. We'll go down some of those ways, and ask what happens now. Stay with us. Brian Lehrer on WNYC.

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Brian Lehrer, on WHYC, as we continue with Nicholas Fandos, Metro Politics reporter for The New York Times, and Larry Levy, Dean of Suburban Studies at Hofstra. The angle here is straight ahead the headline of Nicholas's article in The Times, if Democrats lose the House, they may have New York to blame. Claire in Hartsdale, you're on WNYC. Hi, Claire.

Claire: Hi. I just wanted to say that I think it's the Democratic messaging to counteract all the talk about crime. Why don't they say gun control is where it's at? Kathy Hochul wanted to reduce guns, and if she wanted background checks, she wanted all the good things that people want for gun control, that would've counteracted all their talk about crime, blaming them, blaming Democrats.

Brian Lehrer: Yes. She did do that, Nicholas, to a meaningful degree. She kept pointing out that Zeldin was against the various gun control measures that the state has that Democrats want for the city. Maybe they didn't make a big enough point of it, or maybe for a lot of people, that's just not the salient enough issue after, for example, what we just heard about people's experience at Penn Station.

Nicholas Fandos: Yes, I think that all those points that you made, Brian, could do right. I just add a couple of others. I think that the New York Post in the election in particular, that was very much behind Lee Zeldin in a very open, and persistent way, was driving the conversation exclusively around bail. That had an effect on all kinds of other media, and people's understanding. The other thing that we haven't talked about is there was a historic level of outside spending in this race. I think 20 million spent on Zeldin's behalf alone. Hochul, obviously, raised a lot of money, and put up her own TV ads, but--

Brian Lehrer: To be fair to the Republicans, the Democrats outspent them, or at least Hochule outspent, Zeldin, or am I wrong?

Nicholas Fandos: At the end of the day, we basically, got to parody, and actually the Republicans were spending more in the last two weeks on TV than the Democrats were. The point I was going to make is Hochul spent a lot of her money on ads about abortion, and about Trump, and all of the Zeldin spending pretty much-- There were some about corruption, there were some about taxes around Hochul, but most of it was attacking the governor around crime, and public safety.

There was just a disparity in terms of where the money messaging was between the two parties. Hochul was talking about gun control on the debate stage, and the last couple of weeks, she had ads that were talking about it too. If you look overall, one voice was speaking louder for longer, I think, on this issue than the other, and it got the better share or the bigger share of that conversation.

Brian Lehrer: Some pushback to some of the narrativesthat seem to prevail in this election. Coming in on Twitter, listener writes about Penn Station. How is it not safe? They just built a whole new station. They are bringing the train to Grand Central Station too meaning the Long Island Railroad. Someone else writes, I think many people are conflating homelessness with crime they are not the same. Someone else I live in Putnam County Upstate. Every time I saw a video on YouTube this month, I had to get through an ad saying Maloney was pro-crime and lots of f Biden. There's a little bit coming in on Twitter, David in Great Neck. You're on WNYC. Hi, David.

David: Good morning, Brian. I do want to mention you should look at Penn Station yourself. There are absolutely no seats anywhere there. Because I had to stand for half an hour last night as I did last week. They removed all the seats on purpose to get rid of the homeless. I live in the third CD, which is--

Brian Lehrer: Even before, because I've used Penn Station a million times in my life, even before they only had for the Long Island Railroad that one waiting area where--

David: Brian, that's been removed for construction.

Brian Lehrer: I know but there you were supposed to show your ticket or at least look like-

David: Correct but was--

Brian Lehrer: -you were somebody who was-- Go ahead.

David: Absolutely, Brian. The point is that with the construction there's nowhere to sit. The cops have raised podium in Moynihan Hall, but you have to stand there because I stood there last night. To get back to the election, I live at Suozzi's 3rd city, which got flipped to the Republican. I think that there are two main reasons. First, the Democratic candidate, Zimmerman, was the weakest possible candidate, he is old. I voted for him 40 years ago when I lived in Freeport and he ran against [unintelligible 00:32:02] and he ran a crummy campaign. He just absolutely-- There was no research about Santos who's under investigation by the FCC.

That finally ought to come out. The other thing is, and I think Larry Levy should see that the demographics in Nassau County have changed and the Democratic Party has lost the Orthodox Jews here in Great Neck and in the five towns, plus in Great Neck and a few other places, there's a massive influx and 95% of them vote Republicans. By the way--

Brian Lehrer: That's Iranian Jews largely, right?

David: Yes, they're all Jews. Unlike in Los Angeles where they're Muslims and Jews. Senator Anna Monahemi Kaplan was defeated for a third term and she was the only Iranian elected to Albany. She never had the support of the Iranians anyway because they all believed that God is Republican. It's a crummy campaign and a poor message and one more thing. Jay Jacobs, the Nassau County Democratic Chairman, he has to go because he's a complete disaster. I don't care if he's state chairman but he's a disaster and he has to go.

Brian Lehrer: David, thank you very much. He is also the New York State Democratic Party Chairman and he's coming under fire for having run a failed campaign according to some. Larry Levy, what do you say to any of David Point? Certainly, the demographics of Long Island are changing in various directions. Maybe what he says, but it's also more Black and Latino which would mean more Democratic on average than in the past.

Larry Levy: The third district is not heavily Black and Latino. He's right in pointing out not just Iranians but Asian American.

Brian Lehrer: That's the North Shore as well as that corner of north-northeast Queens.

Larry Levy: That's right. What I heard from a lot of Asian American activists was that the Republican Zeldin message was very appealing because they're terrified of Asian hate crimes and they're looking for answers. They have been voting democratic of late mostly and over the immigration issue, the Republican perception of the Republicans as anti-immigration but there was definitely leakage there. There's leakage among the Latinos. You add this up, you look at the Queen's portion of Suozzi's district and that was considered Zimmerman's firewall. Because the assumption was, it's New York City, he'll win two to one, three to one there.

I think he won by maybe a couple of points. I haven't seen the latest tallies. It's not my father's suburb anymore, that's for sure. A lot of the crime issue caught with all the newcomers who have been creating a purple or light blue environment in the county for almost a generation.

Brian Lehrer: I think some of the media haven't caught up with George Santos's win yet. I keep hearing in various media, Nicole Malliotakis from Staten Island and that corner of Brooklyn being referred to as New York City's only Republican member of Congress who got reelected. Well, hello, Northeast Queens you have a Republican member of Congress now too.

What happens now on criminal justice law? Based on reporting out today, it looks like things could actually go either more right or more left. Listeners, listen to these two contrasting stories and we'll get our guests takes. Politico New York reports, both Hochul and Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie on Thursday said they wanted to have conversations to make sure that New Yorkers feel protected within the state's criminal justice laws.

Though it said, neither laid out how but it makes it sound like we hear you, we're going to do something. The news organization, the city reports today that the pressure for action on criminal justice won't just come from the right. That article says, "With the threat of Lee Zeldin's campaign gone, criminal justice reformers are ready to push Hochul on elder parole. Her promise to overhaul the clemency process, enforcing a new ban on solitary confinement that's been routinely ignored, and more," so that's a quote from the news organization The City. Nicholas, do you see the more dominant political force now is from the right or the left on state criminal justice policy?

Nicholas Fandos: To be completely frank, I don't think we know at this point. I think when somebody like Hochul was winning by a narrow margin, each group can claim to have helped put you over the edge in a progressive did a lot, the Working Families Party to get out votes for her in New York City. Moderates like Adams also did a lot for her. They're all going to be trying to basically cash in their chits in the next couple of years.

I think that if you listen to what Hochul is saying and what she is not saying, I think there's an alternative world where she could come out of this election, look at all the things we've been talking about and say, I am absolutely going to start the year in Albany or forces to have a discussion about the bail law and some of these other changes that have been made in recent years.

I know the legislature is not interested in doing that but we're going to do it. She's not saying that and there is a strong vested interest, I think, on behalf of the legislative leaders, [unintelligible 00:37:37] and Andrea Stewart-Cousins to defend the laws that are on the books basically who they feel are being unfairly demagogue and on balance have made the criminal justice system fairer and not made crime much worse in New York.

Personally, I don't really expect a lot of movement one way or the other on this whether the governor decides that some of the other reforms in clemency in other areas that you're talking about would be appropriate and politically not so electric to pursue. That's another question and perhaps you'll do that but I think on bail I'm not expecting any great movement at least right out of the gate here.

Brian Lehrer: Larry, could there be--

Larry Levy: Brian, I have to jump in a second but just wanted to make one point.

Brian Lehrer: Sure go ahead, oh, you got to go right.

Larry Levy: Kathy Hochul will start the year as arguably one of the weaker governors because of the lack of coattails. There may be some resentment there may be a perception that she doesn't really represent the voters of the state in a way that others who won by larger margins in their own districts. By the same token, there are now as a result of the losses of the suburban moderates in the state Senate, I don't believe they have a super majority anymore.

That puts her in a position of strength and she has the old Pataki versus Silver budgetary powers which are nothing that any other governor in the country enjoys. It'll be really interesting to see how she plays whatever card she decides to play in terms of pushing the conversation or even the policies toward the moderate.

Brian Lehrer: Larry Levy, Executive Dean of Suburban Studies at Hofstra. Thank you so much for joining us today.

Larry Levy: Thank you. Great to be on with two people whose work I admire so much.

Brian Lehrer: Thank you. We're going to wrap this up with Nicholas with one additional question, actually two because Larry just put something else on the table, which may seem counterintuitive to a lot of listeners at first. A lot of our listeners know that the Democrats have had a super majority in the New York State legislature the last few years, meaning a veto proof majority. Larry just said the fact that they don't have that anymore, they have a majority but they don't have a veto proof majority might make Hochul more powerful rather than make the Democratic governor less powerful. Does that make sense to you?

Nicholas Fandos: Yes, that does make sense to me. All these decisions now are being made by the proverbial three men and now two of them women in the room. One of those people now lost a little bit of their leverage, which I think gives Hochul a little bit more. I think the other factor in the state senate that's interesting is that they will have lost some seats, not as many as they feared, but the votes that they lost were largely moderate members.

As a whole, the Democratic caucus in the Senate may at the same time become a little bit more progressive on balance, which I don't know if that increases their leverage, but it does potentially change their positioning a little bit. Even though we're coming back, they'll be coming back to Albany with trifecta Democratic control. I think the dynamic will be a little different. Remember, last year--

Brian Lehrer: A little less leverage from the left, presumably, is really what you're saying.

Nicholas Fandos: Yes. Sure. I hope so.

Brian Lehrer: Assuming that governor is a little bit less to the left than the legislature.

Nicholas Fandos: Correct. I think that's right. Just remember, last year was Hochul's first budget. She had not been in office even a year at that point, didn't expect to be in office. It was an election year. I think it's fair to assume that even though she didn't have long coattails and this was not all that convincing a victory, she's likely to come back to that process with some more experience, with a bit more confidence, a bit more certainty about her position. That's another factor that maybe is less political, but might come to bear.

Brian Lehrer: Last question on that point, could there be potentially some kind of grand bargain compromise on criminal justice, where all of those things mentioned in the city article, which probably don't affect street safety very much, parole of old people in prison, clemency issued by the governor in specific cases, and solitary confinement reform for people who are already behind bars, those things for the reformers in exchange for a lower bar for jailing people charged with new crimes?

Nicholas Fandos: It's a great question, Brian, and I'm not going to pretend to know the answer on it. I think it's possible. As I talk to the legislative leaders, who have been defending the bail on particular, I think they're pretty dug in and feel that the conversation has been so warped that they don't want to capitulate to it. They'll say, "We're happy to have conversations about it, but it's going to all be on these terms that were set the mayor of New York City and Republican candidates that we don't agree with, that's going to be a non-starter."

I'm not sure. I actually wonder if instead a lot of the early energy of this session and the budget is going to be about economic issues. The State is potentially headed towards a more uneven revenue picture after having record revenues, thanks to the federal government and the strong stock market.

Certainly, voters made clear, I think on the campaign trail as well, that the tax burden is really weighing on them as is inflation. Obviously, the affordability crisis here, particularly in New York City, but in the suburbs as well around housing, it's going to be a really hot issue that Albany was not able to address last year. Particularly, letting a subsidy program lapse that spurt a lot of development in the city. I think we should expect as much, if not more, debate about those issues right out of the gate as well.

Brian Lehrer: It's pretty ironic as we wrap this up. If you look at the political media around the country, the national media, the dominant story is Republicans say, "How did we mess up? Should we dump Trump, et cetera, et cetera? How did we not take a big majority in Congress Republican hand ringing?" In New York of all places, it's just the opposite. Nicholas Fandos has his finger on it as Metro political reporter for the New York Times. His apt headline, "If Democrats lose the House, they may have New York to blame." Nicholas, thanks so much.

Nicholas Fandos: Thanks, Brian. That's great.

 

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