Title: End of Session in Albany

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Brian Lehrer: Brian Lehrer on WNYC. How would Governor Hochul respond if the kind of Trump mass deportation, workplace immigration raid took place in New York, and there were protests as a result? With the legislative session ending in Albany this week for the year, how is this session going to end, and around what kinds of issues? One bill that's getting a lot of attention right now is the Medical Aid in Dying Act. It's been passed by the Assembly and is supposed to get a vote in the Senate later today.

It's never gotten this far before, and the vote is expected to be close. We'll talk about that and more with WNYC Albany reporter Jon Campbell. We'll also touch on that surprise endorsement of Andrew Cuomo on Friday from a member of the state Senate, and that, of course, is Jessica Ramos, who had had the Working Families Party endorsement for ranking number five on your ranked-choice ballot, mayoral primary Democratic voters. There's lots of New York State news. Hi, Jon.

Jon: Hi, Brian.

Brian: Before we get to the legislation, I want to see if Governor Hochul, because I haven't seen it in my reading this morning, has reacted to the situation in Los Angeles, where the Trump administration sent in National Guard troops to quell protests without consulting the governor there. First time in 60 years that a president has sent in National Guard troops over the objection of a governor. Even just how Hochul might respond to the raid that started all of this, a workplace immigration raid, different than what we've seen in New York so far. Has she commented?

Jon: The answer is kind of. The only comment she's made to this point was she signed on to a joint statement with the Democratic Governors Association. It's got a couple dozen governors on there. It essentially says that President Trump's move is an "alarming abuse of power." It stands up for governors as commanders-in-chief of their own National Guard. It just decries the action outright. That is the extent of what she said so far, signing on to that statement with other governors like Laura Kelly and Josh Green and Maura Healey, and all the Democratic governors in the country.

Brian: They're all reacting to the deployment of the National Guard, but Trump basically has signaled that there are going to be more raids like this to come. It seems like they chose LA to make this stand, and according to some, provoke this confrontation. I wouldn't be surprised if New York is next, especially after the primary, maybe even before the primary. It depends where Trump wants to exert some control, because it could benefit some mayoral candidates over others. If he's doing this kind of workplace raid through, I guess people have said the Garment District in LA, maybe they're going to pick a district and do mass workplace raids in New York.

Jon: That would be a question for [chuckles] President Trump. That said, if you're looking to make a big splash, certainly LA and New York are the places that you would want to do it. Now, that said, Kathy Hochul has taken more of a, let's say, complimentary role to Donald Trump. Not complimentary in terms of complimenting him, but in terms of negotiating with him. She just cut a deal with the president where it allowed the Empire Wind project, this big, huge wind power project off the coast of Long Island, to move ahead after the president's administration had put that on hold.

She's been showing she's willing to negotiate with him in a way that perhaps Gavin Newsom has not in California. Another thing to mention, too, is New York's National Guard at this moment is pretty taxed. It is in the prison system right now. That's in the wake of the wildcat prison strike that really hamstrung the entire prison system. There's still a few thousand National Guard members in the prisons, in the subways as well.

Brian: That's a Hochul move, right? A Hochul move?

Jon: Yes, exactly. Both are Hochul moves. The National Guard is already deployed in New York.

Brian: If we can digress to this extent for a minute before we get into the Medical Aid in Dying bill and Jessica Ramos' story. How did Hochul win approval for the wind project? This may be the only climate-related victory since Trump took office anywhere in the country. I don't know.

Jon: What we know so far is that there were discussions, not just about that Empire Wind project, but also about two pipelines that were on hold in New York State that essentially one was put on hold during the Cuomo administration. It would go from the Pennsylvania line to the Albany area, a natural gas pipeline called the Constitution Pipeline. There's another one called the Northeast Supply Pipeline that would go from Jersey off the coast of New York. The governor has said she didn't trade approval of that for anything, but she has basically said she's willing to keep an open mind to that.

New York State has been the hurdle in the road that these pipelines have not been able to clear. Since then the company behind these pipelines, the Williams Companies, it's called, has said that they're going to restart that process, that they're going to bring that in. It's possible, it seems as if Kathy Hochul is willing to listen to arguments to approve those natural gas pipelines. That came all in these conversations that also restarted that Empire Wind project.

Brian: Jon Campbell is our guest, our Albany reporter. Let's turn to the legislation, Medical Aid in Dying. We've talked about this with you and other guests in past years, but it's never come this close to passing before. Again, listeners, the end of the legislative year in Albany is within a few days, and this is one of the big things right now. The Medical Aid in Dying bill may actually get through this year. Remind us of what's in that bill.

Jon: Absolutely. This is a bill that would allow terminally ill patients with a diagnosis of less than six months to live to request lethal drugs to end their life. Some people call it medically assisted suicide. The advocates call it medical aid in dying. This is a bill that people have been pushing for, for literally a decade. They are one of the most constant presences in the Capitol, these advocates in yellow shirts who say that this is a way to die with more dignity, to not let you be robbed of your facilities at end of life times.

If you have an incurable diagnosis, you would be able to request a lethal medication from your doctor and take it at your discretion. It is opposed strongly by the Catholic Church, the state Catholic Conference, which represents the bishops across New York State, the Roman Catholic bishops is vehemently opposed to this and is desperately trying to flip even a couple senators. They hope that that could even make the difference.

That being said, bills in the New York State legislature, when they come to a vote, they pass. It is extremely, extremely rare for a bill to fail in the legislature. It just doesn't happen. It's looking like that's going to pass. We don't know where the governor is on it, though, so we don't know if it will be signed into law. That's something you're-- Go ahead. I'm sorry.

Brian: No, I was just reacting. You mean if the legislature passes this bill, Hochul might veto it?

Jon: It's possible. She has that right. She has not signaled whatsoever where she is on this bill or on this issue.

Brian: Why not? Isn't that part of her job?

Jon: Yes, and that is a constant frustration with reporters. We constantly ask her about this bill, that bill, and she almost takes delight in saying we're going to review the legislation and not really taking a position. You're going to hear me, unfortunately, say that over and over and over during this conversation, that we don't know where the governor is on this issue or that issue. She prefers to negotiate with the legislature after the fact, really, and pass what's known as chapter amendments. She negotiates changes after the bill passes, and they pass little tweaks afterwards. That's what we're dealing with now.

Brian: The Catholic Church objects on theological grounds, only God should be able to take a life, but another objection is that it doesn't do enough to protect against people ending their lives, not because of medical issues, but because of social issues, lack of resources to keep going. Have those concerns been addressed? Has the bill been rewritten this year in any way to address those concerns?

Jon: It depends on who you talk to. The advocates say that there are strong safeguards in place. You have to have two separate doctors sign off on it. You have to have two witnesses who aren't part of your family and aren't in line to get an inheritance and don't work at, say, your nursing home. The advocates for this bill say that those are very strong safeguards meant to protect against exactly what you were saying there, abuses here. The Catholic Church and opponents, including some disability rights advocates, not all, but some, say that they don't go nearly far enough.

Now, when you talk to the representatives for the Catholic Church, they point out there are many problems with the various safeguards, but at the end of the day, they oppose it on moral grounds. They would oppose it, whether it had the most locked-down, safest safeguards on planet Earth. They oppose it on moral grounds, no matter what happens there. That's the debate. Are the safeguards strong enough? That's what senators are going to have to vote on later today.

Brian: Listeners, any calls about the Medical Aid in Dying Bill, which may pass the New York State Senate later today, or other issues for our Albany reporter, Jon Campbell? 212-433-WNYC, 212-433-9692. Here's a caller who wants to talk about Medical Aid in Dying. Bernard in Brooklyn, you're on WNYC. Hi, Bernard.

Bernard: Thanks so much. I live in the district of Senator Andrew Gounardes, and we've certainly been really imploring him to support Medical Aid in Dying. It's not just about what the advocates say about the safeguards. This has been something that came about in Oregon in the mid-1990s. Now, there's roughly a dozen other states that have granted end-of-life autonomy to mentally competent terminally ill individuals, including the sister of former Mayor Koch, who, last year, in New Jersey, had a cancer diagnosis and just wanted the option of hastening her death if her suffering became too great.

If her brother, Ed Koch, I don't know if he suffered when he died, I hope not, but being a New Yorker, he would not have had that end-of-life autonomy. Lastly, I'll say what's really been painful for me, as somebody who has Catholic roots, 16 years of Catholic school, is the misinformation that the Catholic Church has put out. One of the commandments, I think, is not bearing false witness. I'm looking at the Catholic Conference website right now, and just the way it talks about how this is about telling citizens that their lives are not worth living. That's really what's most painful to me is the misinformation.

Lastly, nobody is forced to do anything. If you're a devout Catholic and you don't want to avail yourself of medical aid in dying, you're not forced to. Guess what? Most New York State residents are not Catholic. [chuckles] It just really frustrates me, the misinformation, and I'm so hopeful that this is finally the year. Those of us that have seen loved ones suffer gruesome deaths, which involve needless suffering, are really just very much hoping that this is the year. Thank you for covering this.

Brian: You're obviously an advocate, Bernard. How would you address the criticism, the concern that I was citing before, that if you're poor, let's say you're a low income Black person immigrant, somebody who the system might not see as worthy of doing every last heroic life saving measure for there's going to be implicit or explicit pressure to pull the plug on yourself when other people wouldn't face it.

Bernard: I know you've had experts from Compassion & Choices. There's just no evidence, in 30 years of this being phased in in many other states. Let's do everything we can to support disadvantaged folks, whether they're terminally ill or not. This is just this whole idea of coercion. There's just no evidence of this.

Brian: Insurance companies who don't want to keep paying, that kind of thing, no?

Bernard: Again, there's no evidence that there's many safeguards. Again, you've had other experts on the show. We can always talk about slippery slopes. [chuckles] It's very hard to defeat slippery slope arguments because they're all just these hypotheticals, but there's no evidence that they point to it and says, "Oh, if we give women the right to vote 100 years ago, oh, they're going to abandon their families and this will be terrible for our society." That was the slippery slope argument there. These are very hard to counter.

Brian: Bernard, thank you very much. Here, I think, is a caller on the other side of this issue. Anthony in Brooklyn, you're on WNYC. Hi, Anthony.

Anthony: Hi, Brian. Thank you. I couldn't disagree more with Bernard, with all due respect. As someone whose father had a terminal illness and was in assisted living and my family was paying $10,000 a month, there would have been enormous pressure on family members to have my father take his own life to save that money. Governments will save countless dollars on this, and the poor will be the first to suffer.

Brian: In the case of your father, just to take that example, why wouldn't the place he was living have been only too happy to keep collecting that $10,000 a month as long as they could?

Anthony: Blessedly, it wasn't my family members, but I can imagine other family members saying, "Why keep dad alive when he's going to die anyway, and we could save this money?"

Brian: That assumes that it's up to the family members and that the sick person wouldn't have any say.

Anthony: What happens when the person has dementia? This is already happening in other parts of the world where people are going to be pressured before they get sick to think about passing on their inheritance to their children, or even if you want-- 1 in 20 deaths in Quebec now are a medical assisted aid in dying. I think this is a Pandora's box that's opening, and I think the Catholic Church is the lone voice, along with a few disabilities rights organizations. I think it's going to pass, and it's going to be a very sad day in New York.

Brian: Anthony, thank you very much. Jon, two very passionate callers on the opposite sides of this issue and this bill. To the last caller's concern, expressed near the end there, that family members might make a decision for a person who has a terminal illness and who has dementia. Is that addressed in the bill in any way?

Jon: Yes, in a couple different ways. One, the witnesses, you need to have two people bear witness to the fact that the patient is making the request of their own will. Those people can't be family members. They can't be in line for inheritance. They can't be staff members or owners of a nursing home or a similar facility where the person lives. That's one part of it. The other part is there is language in the bill if doctors have a concern that somebody is not of sound mind to make the decision.

In that case, they are required to bring in a mental health professional to do a mental health evaluation to determine whether the person is doing this of their own free will, whether they have the faculties to make that decision. One of the things the Catholic Church criticizes is that the mental health evaluation is not required in every instance, only when the doctors decide that there is some sort of question of whether they have the mental capacity to make the decision.

Brian: Jon, politically on this, I'm curious, given your knowledge of the inner workings of Albany, how is it possible that New York's next-door neighbor state, New Jersey, passed the bill? Is the Catholic Church less politically powerful in New Jersey than New York? How is it possible that Montana has had the law for years, but supposedly enlightened or left-leaning New York state has not been able to get it passed all this time?

Jon: It's been a difficult ride in New York in part because there is a racial divide here. When the bill passed the assembly, it passed with 81 votes, which is a pretty rare low margin in the state assembly, which has 150 people. You need 75 to vote for it. A lot of prominent Black Democrats voted against that bill, including Crystal Peoples-Stokes, she's the assembly majority leader, including Rodneyse Bichotte Hermelyn, who chairs the Brooklyn Democratic Party, is a very influential voice in that chamber.

Assemblymember Bichotte Hermelyn brought up the fact that she is concerned that this could be used to target vulnerable communities of color. That is one that you hear from some prominent Black lawmakers in the assembly, in particular, and I assume we will hear from some in the Senate today as well. That has been maybe the biggest hurdle for advocates to overcome to this point in New York, in particular.

Brian: We are New York and New Jersey Public Radio, and live streaming at wnyc.org. We were on the New Jersey side earlier with Nancy Solomon, with primary day tomorrow in that state. We're on the New York side now with Jon Campbell, our Albany reporter. With the end of the legislative session upon us and Medical Aid in Dying and a couple of other bills still hanging in the balance, we'll also touch on that prominent state senator who kind of blew people's minds on Friday, Jessica Ramos, with her very unexpected endorsement, at least unexpected by most people I know who follow politics, of Andrew Cuomo in the New York City Democratic primary for mayor.

Jon, let's touch on one or two other bills in Albany right now. There's a set of bills called the Robert Brooks Blueprint for Justice & Reform that's got the endorsement of the Black, Puerto Rican, Hispanic & Asian Legislative Caucus. Brooks died after being beaten by guards at an upstate prison, as some of our listeners know, and there was a wildcat strike by guards. Where does the prison reform legislation stand, and what would it change?

Jon: This is an interesting one that the Black, Puerto Rican, Hispanic & Asian Legislative Caucus got behind on Friday. There has been debate for months now about what the best way to reform the corrections system is in the wake of Robert Brooks's murder in a state prison near Utica and Messiah Nantwi's murder, the same idea right across the street in another state prison near Utica. The caucus is a politically powerful group in Albany. It includes the most prominent Black and Puerto Rican and Hispanic lawmakers in the state.

They threw their support behind a slate of 23 bills. Now, I was a little surprised by that because that's an unwieldy list. That is a very, very long list that they got behind in the final days of the legislative session. We've only got this week, and the Assembly's going to come back for a couple days next week. Where is that at? It seems as though something is going to happen. The Senate and the Assembly have been negotiating which of these bills they may be able to get behind.

To the best I can tell, Governor Hochul is not part of those conversations, which the governor has taken a pretty hands-off approach to the end of this legislative session. There's just a long list of things, including a bill that would establish more diversion programs for people with mental health or substance abuse issues. It would expand parole eligibility. It would give oversight groups more authority to investigate cases of alleged misconduct. That is what is happening right now. These negotiations are happening to determine which of these pieces can pass the legislature, and they'll be able to send on to Governor Hochul, who has not signaled again where she is on any of these bills.

Brian: I want to mention one that I guess is in the legislature, and we still don't know if it's going to pass, that's very important to journalists, but it's because journalists think it's very important to the public. That's a bill that would make the NYPD allow journalists to have access to their encrypted radio transmissions, like the NYPD radio. Their decision to encrypt what had been publicly available communications for decades and decades and decades, that flew under the radar a bit. A lot of our listeners don't know about that.

Journalists at the city desk of newsrooms and things like that, one of the things they used to do was listen to the police radios for tips on what's going on, and then, of course, once situations were in full bloom. Imagine if an LA-type situation was going on in New York right now, journalists would be able to hear some of what police were doing as a matter of transparency. Is that bill going to get through?

Jon: It did pass the Senate and the Assembly, and you described it well there. I'm just old enough to have worked what they called the night cop shift, where you'd work at night and you'd listen to that scanner, and as soon as you heard a fire in this neighborhood or that neighborhood or some sort of big police presence, you'd pop in your car and go out there and get the news and share it with your readership, would share it with the public. That is a bill that actually the Senate did pass it on Friday. The Assembly had already passed it, too. I hate to sound like a broken record here, but we do not know where the governor stands on that bill.

Brian: Wow.

Jon: Now it will head to the governor for her consideration. She'll consider it at some point between now and December 31st, and we have no idea at this moment in time which way she's going to go on that.

Brian: Is this unusual historically for a governor to not have declared their positions on so many high-profile bills? Could we have had the same discussion about Andrew Cuomo when he was governor or previous governors?

Jon: It has not been unusual under Kathy Hochul. That has been essentially her rule to this point. Why I find it a little unusual, having covered almost the entirety of the Cuomo administration, is Andrew Cuomo used to use this end-of-session time to his advantage. The governor has this powerful hammer, where they can veto a bill or sign it into law. Prior Governor Cuomo would use that to negotiate with the legislature at the end of session. They would usually tie this issue to that issue, to this bill, to that bill, and put it in a bill that we not so affectionately call a big, ugly, and pass it at the end of session.

That would be another avenue for the governor outside of the budget process to get something that they want. Now, if you talk to Kathy Hochul's people now, Governor Hochul's people, they will say, "She got everything she wanted in the budget." She wanted rebate checks for New Yorkers. She wanted changes to the discovery laws, changes to the involuntary commitment laws, and she got all of that in the budget. Just looking at it, it looks like a missed opportunity to wield your influence with the end of the legislative session.

Brian: All right. In our last few minutes, also Albany-related in its way, State Senator Jessica Ramos of Queens shocked a lot of people on Friday by endorsing Andrew Cuomo for mayor. Her campaign wasn't doing very well, but she had been running as a progressive, and she had one of the endorsements from the Working Families Party, which is making as its mission the defeat of Andrew Cuomo. She has had harsh things to say about the former governor. Here's part of what she said in her announcement on Friday.

Senator Jessica Ramos: Raising the minimum wage, building truly affordable housing, delivering for workers and immigrants, those still need a champion, and I know that with Andrew, we can deliver.

Brian: Very surprising to the Working Families Party, I'm sure, which had ranked Ramos fifth. They had her on their help defeat Cuomo list, and of course, very different from Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who represents in Congress in nearby district in Queens. Here she is yesterday at the Puerto Rican Day Parade with her endorsement of Zohran Mamdani.

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez: Zohran and I, our families come from very different places. We come from very different backgrounds, but I have so much faith in him as a leader for our city to move us forward because we share in the same values. We want a New York City for the working class, so I'm very proud to endorse Socrates number one.

Brian: I hope you can hear that, folks, AOC with a lot of parade noise in the background. Is there Albany buzz on Ramos, Jon?

Jon: There's certainly a lot of Albany buzz about the mayor's race, just because so many lawmakers are from New York City and so many of them are running for New York City mayor right now. There's three lawmakers right now that are in the race in Zohran Mamdani, Jessica Ramos and Zellnor Myrie, the state senator. It was very surprising to a lot of people up here, in part, because Jessica Ramos was elected in 2018 as a reformer. She was part of this new class of Democrats who were generally younger.

A lot of them were women who came into Albany and shook things up, really. Democrats retook control of the Senate at that point. Jessica Ramos was part of a group that took out members of what was known as the Independent Democratic Conference that had caucused with the GOP, and she clashed with Cuomo almost immediately. You can go back, there's a New York Times story from that time where a Cuomo spokesperson called her and two other freshmen lawmakers blanking idiots.

The blanking would get us fined if I were to say the word there, but this was very surprising. We don't know if she got anything in return. Frequently, in politics, presidential politics, especially, positions are traded or a promise of this or that in the future. We don't know if anything happened on that front. I would doubt that she or Andrew Cuomo would say in any way. It was a big surprise, and it caused some buzz up here for sure.

Brian: On one theory that I've heard floated, I wonder if you have anything on this, there are different factions of the Working Families Party, maybe more union-oriented faction that Ramos might be identified. I had heard that a lot of her support is union support and some of the unions who have supported her in the past are going with Cuomo compared to a more activist backed faction which is more in control of the Working Families Party now, but that isn't necessarily her base in exactly the same way. Is that putting too fine a point on progressive coalitions and factions, or have you heard anything like that?

Jon: Actually, there had been a split within the-- The Working Families Party started as a labor-backed party. Over time, there had been a split caused in part because of support for Andrew Cuomo and some factions in the party that wanted to support him and others that didn't, where it became more of an activist-led party. Jessica Ramos is the chair of the Senate Labor Committee. She has a long history of support from labor, and yes, you're right, most of the big labor unions are backing Andrew Cuomo. No, I don't think you're reading too much into that. That is something that's in the history of the Working Families Party as a progressive organization in New York State. I don't think that that's putting too fine of a point on it.

Brian: I wonder, just as a footnote, if AOC, who we played the clip of endorsing Mamdani, knew this was coming, because I don't believe that in her ranking, she had listed Ramos as opposed to some of the other progressives.

Jon: Yes, that happened, I believe, a day or two days before Jessica Ramos announced her decision to endorse Andrew Cuomo. That being said, Jessica Ramos has been critical of AOC in the past and critical of how much she is in the district or in the Queen's part of the district or not in the Queen's part of the district. I don't think that they were particularly close beforehand, so it wasn't surprising to me to see her left off of AOC's ballot. The Working Families Party now has taken Jessica Ramos off of their top five ranking, which is kind of problematic for them because they want people to fill out their entire ballot and not have Andrew Cuomo on that.

Brian: Did they replace her?

Jon: To this point, I don't believe that they have.

Brian: Our Albany reporter, Jon Campbell. We'll be watching today to see if that Medical Aid in Dying or any other last-minute bills get through. Jon, thanks so much.

Jon: Thank you, Brian.

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