[music]

Brian Lehrer: It's The Brian Lehrer Show on WNYC. Good morning again, everyone. It's our one-week-later post-election special for the whole show this morning. We spent the first hour on national results. Now, let's go local. It's a historic but complicated moment in New York State, where the voters elected the first woman governor, but the red wave came for the suburbs and a little bit of the city mostly because of crime.

We'll talk to a progressive state senator from Queens now about what, if anything, they'll need to do differently and new opportunities for change with Hochul elected and Democrats still, after all, in control of the legislature. I'm joined now by state Senator Jessica Ramos, a Democrat representing District 13. That's Corona, East Elmhurst, Elmhurst, Jackson Heights, and parts of Astoria and Woodside in Queens. She has a proposal that would raise the minimum wage in New York City and across the state. We'll talk about that as well as the election results. Senator Ramos, always good to have you. Welcome back to WNYC.

Jessica Ramos: Hey, good morning, Brian. Thanks so much for having me back. I'm excited.

Brian Lehrer: Let's get right into it. How do you assess what happened in New York State this election?

Jessica Ramos: Well, I'm very happy, of course, that we were able to elect Governor Hochul. I don't like how we got there. It was messy. It was haphazard. In the end, the labor movement and the Working Families Party had to save the Democratic Party to make sure that we were going to cross the finish line. I'm really in awe of our unions here in New York because they really did rally last minute in the last few weeks in ways that I had never really seen before.

We had Latino trade unionists out in Jackson Heights. CWA was out in Astoria. There was a bunch of purple shirts all over Queens. 32 BJ and 1199 did their thing and even the carpenters alone knocked more than 9,000 doors. Most of us didn't get a mailer from the Democrats. Only from a few congressional races. I just think, overall, voter engagement needed to be much more deliberate and much more responsive to the issues that are on voters' minds.

Brian Lehrer: Why do you say, for the sake of some listeners who might not understand the reasoning, that the Working Families Party, the progressive arm or adjunct to the Democratic Party, saved the Democrats, saved Hochul's election? Because a lot of people probably have the impression that the problem with the Democrats, the things that made that election so close and lost four House seats in addition to redistricting, was that the Democrats moved too far to the left, especially on crime, and many voters reacted against that.

Jessica Ramos: Well, I think that the Democratic Party here in New York for a while now has been losing ground with Latino and Asian voters specifically. I can attest to that myself, given the district that I represent, which is one of the most diverse in the entire country. I think that there is a lack of engagement of community and ethnic media that needs context so that when we're talking about public safety, we're doing so accurately so that those narratives don't succumb to the New York Post's lies, for example, especially around bail reform. Also, the Democratic Party has failed to invest in young people.

There is no year-round organizing program for college students, for younger voters when we know that they are very keen to activism around climate change and the like, wanting to save our planet and make sure that there's something still here for them once they come of age. This is why I signed onto that letter with so many other elected officials and party leaders to ask for new and fresh leadership at the Democratic Party. The executive board of the Democratic Party doesn't even include a Latinx person or an Asian person on its board. It's offensive. I really am hoping that the governor hears our call, heeds our call, and picks new leadership for our party.

Brian Lehrer: You joined 750 Democrats in signing onto a letter urging Governor Hochul to oust Jay Jacobs, the state party chair. That's going to be something for people who follow state politics, especially within the Democratic Party, to be aware of. On crime, let me ask you a question from one direction and a question from another direction. I was looking at a map, a kind of color intensity map of who voted for Zeldin or where people voted for Zeldin and where people voted for Hochul in our area.

Probably, it hasn't been reported enough that you can almost draw a straight line. Not quite, but you can almost draw a straight line on a graph that says the higher the crime rate in a neighborhood, the more likely they were to vote for Hochul. The further you get away from the high-crime neighborhoods in the Bronx and in Brooklyn and in other places, for example, the further you get away from those high-crime neighborhoods, the more people were likely to vote for the Republican who was running on crime. How do you explain that?

Jessica Ramos: Well, Brian, as a proud resident of Hochul country, I can tell you that we've been experiencing the economic downturn in a very focused way, right? You know that my district in particular was the epicenter of the epicenter of the pandemic. Of course, the economic consequences have also hit us pretty hard. I have many neighbors whose families are on the verge of eviction because we haven't been able to pass good cause eviction.

We have folks who are unable to find jobs where they're paying living wages, particularly if they're undocumented, of course. It's to the point where a lot of my street vendors have resorted to selling popcorn because that's all they're able to make in order to sustain themselves and their families. We understand this, I think, in our neighborhoods. It's why I'm fighting to raise the minimum wage, but it's also, I think, a call on us to take our mental health seriously. I want to see a real mental health plan.

I want to see real investments made in psychiatric beds. We shouldn't have to wait for people who are not feeling like themselves or who are going through a rough patch. They lost a loved one. They lost their job. They lost their home. They lost all three. We have a lot of New Yorkers going through this. Perhaps even those with diagnosed mental illnesses haven't been able to afford their medication. We shouldn't have to wait until they hurt themselves or hurt others in order to supposedly access these services once they get to Rikers Island.

A, because they're not. B, because we shouldn't have to wait until somebody gets hurt. We should be able to have places for these folks to go to voluntarily for them to be taken to if that's what the situation calls for. I just think that, overall, it's easy to fall for those knee-jerk reactions of, "Oh, let's just all throw them in jail." Maybe it's because I know what Rikers looks like. I know that Rikers is a modern-day dungeon. It really doesn't actually help us truly correct or rehabilitate people's behavior.

I think we would be wise to take this reckoning head-on. I'm hoping that this upcoming legislative session and the budget dance is reflective of those things. I'm hoping that Governor Hochul sees that her base is much broader now and includes neighborhoods like mine that perhaps she didn't think of as her base as before. I'm hoping that we'll see these investments that we're not hopefully going to see an austerity budget but an actual budget that invests in the people of New York at such a critical juncture.

Brian Lehrer: That's going to be such an important conversation for January when the legislature reconvenes. I agree with people saying in public opinion polls that the top ways to prevent crime are affordable housing and robust mental health programs in New York State. That's going to be so key to see how much more of such programs you can actually get through the legislature. I do want to ask you, maybe the central question from the other side as well. Harry Siegel wrote in his Daily News column at one point during the campaign.

He's not one of these right-wing New York Post try-to-scare-everybody kind of columnists. He wrote, "Democrats who seem concerned only with fairness are trying to balance on a one-legged stool. Elected officials committed to increased social investments to preclude tomorrow's crimes," the kind of thing you're talking about that he agrees with, "need to offer a credible plan to people fearful of becoming today's victims." How would you react to Harry Siegel's column?

Jessica Ramos: No, I don't know that I disagree with that assessment. I think that we have been lacking in a strong public safety narrative of our own. I think we've been so scared to punch at the Republicans or counter their narrative with facts because, of course, we know that this topic can be so personal, especially for those who are victims of crime. I don't know that vengeance should be the driving emotion here. I think that when we look at crime as the public safety issue, as a public health issue that it is, then we are able to use science, use data, and actually assess for the most effective methods to deal with this just like what we do with every data.

Brian Lehrer: Right, but I'm sure he would say locking people up is, in many cases, not about vengeance. It's about protecting the public safety in the short term when you look at some of the stories that have been out there about recidivists, people who've committed X number of crimes and keep getting cycled through the court, and then released and commit more crimes.

Jessica Ramos: Brian, I want to say two things. One is I think, at least for me, the debate is really about where it is that they're taken, right? At Rikers Island, there are people who are innocent but are too poor to post bail still even after bail reform that are left in these terrible conditions at Rikers Island. I've been there many times and you've reported on it many times, so I'm not going to get into that.

I do believe that there should be a space within our court system for, A, actual treatment. This is why I actually carry a bill called Treatment Not Jails that promotes diversion courts so that clinicians actually have an opinion earlier on in these cases. It's about where they're taken for me. We are not investing. In fact, we haven't even made an honest reversal of the disinvestment in psychiatric beds that Cuomo and Pataki made.

For those of us from Queens, we know Creedmoor in Eastern Queens and it's sitting there empty. To me, it's about where folks are taken. It's about making sure that we are making mental health a part of our court system. I also do wish that the Correction Officers' Benevolent Association did a better job of putting their energy and resources into fighting for things like speedier trials, right?

The best way to create safer working conditions for them is to make sure that the work environment is safe within and of itself. We need speedier trials. People's constitutional rights are being broken at Rikers Island. People are being fed very low-quality food. They're hungry. What happens when we're hungry? We get angry, right? If you couple that with mental illness, of course, there is unsafe working conditions for these folks.

There's a lot of, I think, confusing points here. It's a complex issue that can be very nuanced, of course, and this is why it's easy to fall for knee-jerk reactions that the New York Post can write about. Really, we have to think of this as the public health issue that it is. I'm really hoping that Democrats can rally together and go behind the governor's plan in order to take our mental health and our public safety seriously.

Brian Lehrer: It's our one-week-later post-election special here on The Brian Lehrer Show today. My current guest, New York State Senator Jessica Ramos, Democrat representing District 13. That's Corona, East Elmhurst, Elmhurst, Jackson Heights, and parts of Astoria and Woodside in Queens. As we talk about the local election results and opportunities for change from any political perspective, she's one of the most progressive members of the state senate. You see an opportunity now to do something with the minimum wage in the state legislature come January. Tell us about your proposal.

Jessica Ramos: Absolutely, Brian. The rent is too damn high, and so is the cost of food, and so is the cost of clothing, and just about everything else. Wages have stayed stagnant this entire time, right? We're reading in the news that we're seeing the highest inflation in 40 years, but we're also seeing the highest corporate profits in 70 years. This inflation that we're experiencing right now is not driven by high wages. Quite the opposite, right?

Corporations and billionaires continue to hoard money. We're living in a gilded age and $15 an hour is just not cutting it. I'm reintroducing legislation to raise the minimum wage and to peg it to inflation. We're trying to get to $21.25 by 2026. By then, Upstate would get to $20. At which point, we would peg the minimum wage to inflation. Guess what? Two million workers in New York State will get a $2,000 annual increase if we can get this done, right?

That's rent. That's real money. If we're talking about 70% of workers being Black, Latinx, or Asian, we're talking about a workforce that's more than half women and one in four are parents that are raising young children. This is, I think, one of the most effective ways to pump money back into our economy where it matters the most, where the backbone of our economy lives. That is in working-class communities, especially communities of color like mine across the state.

Brian Lehrer: There's two parts to this. One you're saying is to raise the minimum wage to a little over $21 an hour by the year 2026 for New York City and the surrounding suburbs. Upstate where it's lower, it would go to $20 an hour by 2026. Let me key on that other part because that, I think, is the really progressive part where the minimum wage for New York State would be pegged to inflation. This has been such an issue at the national level where, I think, the minimum wage is still 725. Is that right?

Jessica Ramos: Can you believe it?

Brian Lehrer: It isn't pegged to inflation. We just had that story about Social Security where a lot of people, who may not have realized that Social Security has this, has a cost-of-living adjustment every year. With inflation so high, around 8% a year in the country right now, Social Security benefits went up by about 8% a year. Are there other states that have their minimum wage pegged to the cost of living to inflation?

Jessica Ramos: Yes, Brian. Actually, this is where I want to point it out. It's actually perhaps not as progressive as it sounds. Here in New York, we've been behind Alaska, California, Colorado, Maine, even Washington, DC, and so many other places that have done this years ago. Historically, here in New York, it has taken us great debate a lot of time to actually get this done.

Today, we're relaunching this campaign on the anniversary of the launch of the Fight for $15 campaign, meaning that it started in 2012. I was working at 32BJ at the time in 2012 when this campaign was launched. The minimum wage wasn't raised until 2018. It took six years for us to convince former Governor Cuomo that it was worth doing. We just can't afford that time right now and we can't afford to have this debate every few years.

Even for small businesses, it can be punitive to have to deal with huge increases or huge jumps in the minimum wage. We believe that by indexing it, it actually allows for predictability. It allows for small businesses to be able to plan ahead, know that there will be moderate, incremental, gradual raises instead of those huge leaps so that they can retain workers and save money on any turnover.

Brian Lehrer: I know you got to go in 30 seconds. Have you had any early reactions from the business community? Because, certainly, most of our listeners will assume that they will oppose any legislative increase in the minimum wage.

Jessica Ramos: Actually, a lot of businesses are on board when common goods come to mind because their CEO wrote an op-ed in support of raising the minimum wage. Even in Jackson Heights, where we're known for our food industry, restaurants understand that, well, they need customers to have more disposable income. Right now, foot traffic is pretty slow in some restaurants. I want to take the opportunity to, of course, invite everybody to come eat in Jackson Heights.

Come eat in Corona. Come eat in Elmhurst and East Elmhurst because we need to support our small businesses. Of course, as we make this transition, we want to ensure that we are enacting a robust economic recovery. I think we're going to see businesses understand that this makes sense. It helps them in the long run with their planning. Most of all, it gives two million workers a significant raise and the opportunity to keep their roof over their heads.

Brian Lehrer: State Senator Jessica Ramos of Queens, always good to have you on. Thank you so much for joining us today.

Jessica Ramos: All right, talk to you next time.

Copyright © 2022 New York Public Radio. All rights reserved. Visit our website terms of use at www.wnyc.org for further information.

New York Public Radio transcripts are created on a rush deadline, often by contractors. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of New York Public Radio’s programming is the audio record.