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Brian Lehrer: It's The Brian Lehrer Show on WNYC. Good morning, everyone. It's day four of in-person voting in the New York primary and we'll do two segments on the election later in today's show, one about key races in Queens, the other about developments in the mayoral race, including some important trends that came out in the new and most comprehensive poll that's been issued in the race so far.

It's the mayoral poll that's actually used to determine, at least in part, who qualifies for the final debate among the mayoral candidates, which will be tomorrow night on channel 4. They're very interesting results, how it breaks down along lines of age, also among Latino voters. We will talk to Juan Manuel Benítez from NY1 and NY1 Noticias later in the program, but we begin today with our monthly Call Your Senator segment with Senator Kirsten Gillibrand.

If you are a New York constituent, call your Senator. 646-435-7280. Anyone else may call as well, 646-435-7280. One newsworthy thing from the Senate in the last day, before we bring Senator Gillibrand on. Republican Leader Mitch McConnell probably stoke the passions of voters in both parties when he was asked if the Republicans win control of the Senate next year, would they confirm a Biden Supreme Court nominee during the presidential election year of 2024.

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Republican Leader Mitch McConnell: I think it's highly unlikely. In fact, no, I don't think either party, if it controlled, if it were different from the President, was confirmed as a Supreme Court nominee in the middle of an election.

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Brian Lehrer: McConnell on The Hugh Hewitt Radio Show. He didn't stop there when Hewitt asked, "What about a Biden Supreme Court nominee in 2023?"

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Republican Leader Mitch McConnell: We'd have to wait to see what happens.

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Brian Lehrer: Not even a commitment to bring to a confirmation vote someone nominated in 2023, the year before the next presidential election, if Republicans gain control of the Senate next year. That's one thing we'll talk about with Senator Gillibrand, but also her current fight within the Armed Services Committee, which she's a member of with her fellow Democrat, who leads that committee, Jack Reed.

Over Gillibrand's Military Justice Improvement Act, as well as what might happen now with president Biden's physical and human infrastructure bills, including the child and elder care portions of those two plans, as well as the voting rights bill is currently stuck in the Senate, but with some chance of enough bipartisanship to pass some of  

these various bills still as at least a glimmer. Senator, always good to have you. Welcome back to WNYC.

Senator Kirsten Gillibrand: Thank you, Brian. It's good to be on.

Brian Lehrer: You want to come in first on McConnell and Supreme Court nominees?

Senator Kirsten Gillibrand: Yes, I think his statement is outrageous, but it's not surprising given that he tells us what he's going to do. He very determinedly and specifically put radical right-wing justices on the Court. He refused to hold a hearing for Garland. He abolished the filibuster for Supreme Court nominees, and then he jammed through Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett in weeks right before the 2020 presidential election.

He has no intention of letting the Supreme Court process work its way out the way it's supposed to. He's going to use every tool he can to continue to put ultra-right-wing justices on the Court and deny nominees to President Biden.

Brian Lehrer: He said, "Neither party would confirm a nominee from the president of the other party in an election year anymore if that other party controls the Senate", that's what he said in that clip. Would you say that's true for you as a Democrat if you got a Republican president's nominee under those circumstances?

Senator Kirsten Gillibrand: I wouldn't have set up before, we always dealt with Supreme Court vacancies in a timely and efficient way. The first change to that was when McConnell was in charge and refuse to have a hearing on Merrick Garland. I don't know what Senator Schumer would do in the circumstances, but I think, unfortunately, McConnell has changed the rules of the game for the worse.

Brian Lehrer: Are you among those calling on Justice Breyer to retire this year, to make sure Biden gets to name his successor before 2023 when the Republicans might take control of the Senate again?

Senator Kirsten Gillibrand: No, I see a Supreme Court justice with great respect and they are appointed for life. I think Justice Breyer should decide when he wants to retire and that's his decision to make and not ours to make for him.

Brian Lehrer: All right. Tell us about the improving Military Justice Act and wire at odds now with your own party's committee, Chairman, Senator Jack Reed of Rhode Island on this issue.

Senator Kirsten Gillibrand: As you do know, Brian, I've been working on this for about eight years and we have a scourge of sexual assault in the military. The most recent estimate by the department of defense estimated there were 20,000 instances of sexual assault and rape. In the last few years, only about 200 actually ended in conviction. It's really not a likelihood that if you are assaulted in the military, that you will get justice.

We've been trying to reform how we address this, and our solution is one that's

supported by, I think, almost all veterans’ organizations, such as the Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans Association, the Vietnam Veterans Association, and the Veterans of Foreign Wars, pretty much all of them. It's supported by survivors themselves.

That's to let the decision of whether to prosecute these crimes be made by trained military prosecutors, not commanders because commanders have shown over the last 10 years, that they're unwilling to take these cases seriously, that they don't put enough cases forward, and the cases aren't ending in conviction.

If the decision-maker is not a commander, but somebody who's actually trained, a criminal justice lawyer, and somebody who has no bias, doesn't know the accused or the accuser, I think you will have more cases go forward that will end in conviction. Once you start convicting rapists, that sends a very clear message that it isn't tolerated.

This reform is common sense. It's widely bi-partisan. This year we have 66 Senate co-sponsors and we have a great deal of support in the House as well. I'm optimistic that if we ever do get a vote on this bill, that we will prevail. It's just a question of getting a vote on it.

Brian Lehrer: 66 co-sponsors in the Senate means you have a filibuster-proof majority. The issue was whether Chairman Reed believe in, let it go to a vote, let it get out of committee. Am I understanding that right?

Senator Kirsten Gillibrand: Correct. Senator Reed, who's the Chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee wants to retain soldier’s diction over this issue and unfortunately, if this bill is forced to go through his committee, even if I pass it in the Senate, and even if we pass it in the House, Armed Services Committee, if it goes to conference, I believe he will take it out because that's what he's done in the past, and that's what the DOD does successfully when they don't agree with something.

We have one example on this issue, we passed in 2019 some language that would make it safe to report sexual assault cases by being allowed to report one, but not necessarily being prosecuted for minor related offenses, like drinking or being outside your barracks at the wrong time. These minor related cases were often prosecuted against survivors, which made it less likely for them to come forward.

We pass that in the House. We pass it in the Senate, was in the final bill, and taken out in conference. I don't trust that it will survive even if we pass it. I've asked as a consequence to just have this won't be on the floor, an upper down Senate floor vote. The committees had 10 years to really debate and discuss my bill and this issue, and they fail to move on it. Why do they get the sole jurisdiction? I don't think they should.

Brian Lehrer: Let me ask if I understand what Senator Reed's issue is properly, or at least as you understand what Senator Reed's issue. From what I've read, I think it's accurate to say that he agrees with you about sexual assault accusations

themselves and that they're mostly male chain of command has been unable to see those charges clearly in many cases, or even sometimes have conflicts of interest that might even include abusive behavior by themselves.

He would take the sexual assault allegations out of the existing chain of command and give it to an independent body, but he doesn't want that to happen with other kinds of criminal allegations, for those all to be taken out of the chain of command for jurisdiction over the members of the armed forces. Is that the issue?

Senator Kirsten Gillibrand: Yes. He has been reticent to just for this change for a very long time. What he's doing along with other military leaders is trying to minimize the impact of the legislation by limiting to one crime. The reason why that is not the way we wrote our bill, and the reason why experts want a bright line at all serious crimes is-- there's three reasons. First, if you just privilege one crime, that means only one class of plaintiffs and defendants get a fair and just system, so you're creating two unequal systems of justice.

That result will be a marginalization and further undermining of survivors, which will mostly be women who come forward in these cases, even though men are sexually assaulted. A greater number, they don't come forward. It becomes a pink court, which will continue to undermine them and marginalize them.

Then the second reason is, the bright-line affords a change for the entire criminal justice system. It allows for both plaintiffs and defendants to get an unbiased system and a highly trained professionalized system. This is extremely important when it comes to other crimes. We know that there is racial bias in the military. We have studies done in 2017 that showed the service members who are Black or brown are up to two point five times more likely to be punished than white service members.

We know that in death penalty cases, that Black service members are disproportionately sentenced to the death penalty. In cases where the victim is a white service member, Black service members are punished at a higher rate. There's bias with regard to race. Now we have two points. We know there's bias with regard to women, particularly sexual assault cases, and we know there's bias with regard to race. Why not fix the system for everyone?

Then the third reason is, our allies have already done this, it is not such a scary reform that it can't be done. The UK, Israel, Netherlands, Germany, Australia, Canada, all have taken all serious crimes out of the chain of command, a bright-line change. Those countries have written us letters and given testimony that it didn't harm [unintelligible 00:12:10] discipline, or command control, which are two of the excuses that Senator Reed gives, along with other commanders who are against this reform.

If you don't do the bright-line, it really undermines the whole system and does not solve the problem for all service members. I think this bill should be a bright-line at all serious crimes, we carve out uniquely military crimes like going AWOL, where a commander might be uniquely positioned to understand them, and to make decisions on them.

The bright-line should be at all felonies because if your commander can put you away for more than a year of your life, and he believes you're guilty, well, that's not justice. You deserve to have basic civil rights and civil liberties, then a trial of fact that is unbiased. You want to be able to have a prosecutor make the ultimate decision about whether it's going forward before it goes to court-martial.

Brian Lehrer: Listeners in New York call your Senator, 646-435-7280. Anyone else may call as well to talk to Senator Kirsten Gillibrand today, 646-435-7280, with a comment on the things that we've been talking about so far or other issues pertaining to the Senate or other questions you may have. 646-435-7280 or tweet @BrianLehrer.

Anybody listening who's ever been involved with the military justice system, as a victim, as a member of the accused, as somebody who sits in judgment on the conversation we were just having, we'll go on to some other things as well. 646-435-7280 or tweet @BrianLehrer. Robinson in the Bronx, you're on w NYC. Hello, Robinson.

Robinson: Hi, Brian. Glad to be able to talk with you, and glad to be able to talk with you as well, Senator Gillibrand. Thank you for coming on. The question that I had wanted to address for coming on was on the issue of the Supreme Court. I know there's a push right now for Justice Breyer to retire so that President Biden can nominate his replacement during this Congress. I wanted to get some information on your views and regarding the expansion of the Court.

I feel like one of the main goals of the Democratic Party in the establishment, starting from this Congress, needs to be changing the messaging on the way that we present this issue, the fact that the Supreme Court hasn't been expanded since 1869 when states like Colorado weren't even a state and we had four more circuits created, or it might have been more, in that time, that I don't know why we're making it an issue, that we would expand the Court to match the number of circuits that we have in this country, it seems like-

Brian Lehrer: Whoops.

Robinson: - for the thing to happen.

Brian Lehrer: Sorry, Robinson, we accidentally lost you there for a second, and I'm going to get you an answer from the Senator, I think your question is very clear. Obviously, it's on the notion that people have been discussing Senator about expanding records beyond nine justices.

What he brings up is really interesting, because it's different than what we usually hear, we usually hear if McConnell is going to play these games, and basically steal Supreme Court seats, then expanding the number of justices, while Biden is president, would be fair for that reason, he says to match the number of circuit courts that have expanded above nine across the country now.

Senator Kirsten Gillibrand: It's interesting, Brian, I hadn't heard that argument

either, and we're quickly looking up how many circuits are there. Do you know? Is there 13 or 12?

Brian Lehrer: I don't know. I thought they were nine, but I'll look that up.

Senator Kirsten Gillibrand: I know, there's Tenth Circuit and I'm pretty sure there's the Eleventh Circuit so there's 12, I think. Anyway, it's an interesting idea. I will think about that idea. Thank you caller for being so smart. I am not against changing the number of justices, nor am I against term limits for justices. What I am waiting for is President Biden's Commission that's supposed to weigh all these issues for us, and maybe the circuit's arguments going to be in there, too.

I'd love to see what these well-established experts on the judiciary, and on history come up with for the President. I'm open to pretty much all the different solutions that I've heard, and would like to hear some of the historical basis for it. I appreciate the caller.

I do think what McConnell is doing is wrong, deeply wrong. He has politicized the Court to such an extreme that we do need to de-politicize it. That's why these solutions are hopeful and, and ones that I am very willing to look at because we don't want to politicize Supreme Court, that's aesthetical to the constitution and what it's supposed to be. Unfortunately, under McConnell, that's where we've gotten, so we do need to rebalance it in some meaningful way and I'm open to all the solutions.

Brian Lehrer: Professor Google tells me that there are 13 circuit courts in the United States.

Senator Kirsten Gillibrand: Thank you, expert, Brian.

[laughter]

Brian Lehrer: Ben in Greenwich Village, you're on WNYC. Hi, Ben, with Senator Gillibrand.

Ben: Hi, Brian. One question for you, Senator. Does your bill include restorative justice measures? I guess two questions, and if not, would you be open to the idea? Thank you.

Brian Lehrer: Did you get the question, Senator?

Senator Kirsten Gillibrand: My bill is pretty simple. It is a bright-line that felonies and taking the decision-making away from commanders who have shown they are unwilling to look at these cases carefully, and in a way that is unbiased. It creates some prevention measures and some training measures but that's about it. It's a very simple bill. I do support restorative justice issues, and I'm hopeful that the commission that President Biden asked to look at this, once they issued all of their opinions, only one section has done so far, that they have some restorative justice issues recommendations in there, but I have not looked at that. It's something I would certainly I'll consider in the committee. This one change, it took eight years to get 66 [inaudible 00:19:12] supported. Getting bipartisan support for restorative

justice. I will try to do it in the personnel subcommittee and try to get it in the base NTIA, especially if there's some recommendations in the commission's report.

Brian Lehrer: How would that work in the case of sexual assault? I think people who advocate restorative justice are usually thinking about people who come from maybe marginalized communities and wind up being incarcerated for things and having their lives destroyed by being incarcerated when maybe there's a better way through restorative justice toward their victims, and then they can move on with their lives if the victim see it as sufficient justice. But sexual assault, well, it's sexual assault, how would restorative justice work?

Senator Kirsten Gillibrand: Our job is to lock up rapists. That is what we're trying to do in our bill. In terms of restorative justice for sexual assault survivors, I don't know. Again, that's why I was asking if the commission has looked at this and had recommendations about it. You certainly want to make sure that survivors are able to stay in the military and get their careers back. Typically, what happens in these cases is a survivor is retaliated against for coming forward. We know that 60% of sexual assault survivors have been retaliated in the last few years, is what our data shows.

We have a long way to go to get those survivors to feel that they are whole because they're still being retaliated against for actually reporting. What it would look like for a service member is getting to continue to serve in the military and not being disproportionately harmed, or administratively or through career-wise being held back. We want those survivors to be able to continue to serve, to continue to serve successfully, and we want perpetrators to be incarcerated for the crimes they're committing.

Brian Lehrer: I see we have an ex-Navy officer calling in who wants to weigh in on this military justice question. Bob, in Riverside, Connecticut, we see you, and we'll take your call in just a minute as we continue with Senator Kirsten Gillibrand, right after this.

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Brian Lehrer: Brian Lehrer on WNYC with New York Senator Kirsten Gillibrand, and Bob in Riverside Connecticut, you're on WNYC with the Senator. Hello.

Bob: Good morning, Brian. Good morning, Kirsten, and good to be speaking to you again. 55 years ago, I was a junior naval officer out in Southeast Asia. The junior officers are particularly trained and work with [unintelligible 00:22:19], they're the division officers, they're first line, working with the troops where the problems of most officers often occur. We are not trained in the law, procedure area, whatever. Once the issue goes beyond getting out of line, coming back to the ship a little drunk or whatever, minor violations that go to a captain's mast, the cases require professional expertise.

I fully agree with your approach not only on the sexual charges, which are critically important but for general legal matters, that the interests of the sailors involved or

whatever branch service or any of the people involved and the services themselves are best served by professional legal talent being brought to bear. Especially case in situations where you've got two or more people on opposite sides of the issue in the same command. There's automatically going to be biased. The only way to clear that out is to have an independent investigatory and prosecution and defense group, whatever.

Brian Lehrer: Bob, thank you very much. You got a supporter in that Navy veteran, Senator.

Senator Kirsten Gillibrand: Well, thank you, sir, for your service. I really appreciate your personal assessment of this because we've worked with service veterans like yourself, who have given guidance on how to write this bill. One of our primary advisors was Colonel Christensen who was one of the most senior Air Force prosecutors and defense counsel who was in the military justices for 20 years. He lived this and knew full well the toll it takes on the command to have all these balls in the air. Our commanders are uniquely trained to train troops and win wars, and that's what they continue to do well at, and asking them to handle these complex cases it's inappropriate.

The other thing that's confusing about this issue that Jack Reed keeps getting wrong, he keeps suggesting that's going to cost a lot of money or it's a big radical change, or that it could take years and years to stand this up. It's a very small change, actually. After the military police complete their investigation, instead of putting the case file on the desk of commander's JAGs, they put it on the desk of the military prosecutor. The prosecutor makes a judgment up or down, is there enough evidence to go forward in an unbiased professional way, and when he's done, if there isn't evidence, then it goes back to the commander, and the commander can do non-judicial punishment.

He has the tools of special court marshals. He has the tools of related offenses that you can get non-judicial punishment charged for. That is what a commander is very comfortable doing. It's just one person's desk who gets the file first [chuckles], and that's really it. It's not new people. It's the same people who would have been involved anyway, it's not new process, it's just giving the prosecutor the first look, which the prosecutor hasn't had. As I've talked to Colonel Christensen about his own career, he said so many cases, the commander never even asked him whether the case should go forward. He was not part of the decision-making process. He was only handed cases once the commander made a decision.

Unfortunately, looking at the case records, they're not making the right decisions, because they don't have the training and neither does their JAGs. Their JAGs are generalists. They're not criminal justice lawyers.

Brian Lehrer: Jessica in Manhattan, you're on WNYC with Senator Gillibrand. Hi, Jessica. Jessica in Manhattan, do we have you?

Jessica: Hi, Brian. I didn't realize I was on the air. It's so wonderful to hear you and thank you for having me on. Thank you, Senator Gillibrand. I want to switch the topic  

of it and ask you about student loan relief. Our student loans have been on pause now and that's supposed to end at the end of September. Senator Schumer has been very vocal about canceling student loan debt. I wanted to ask you about that, but I also wanted to talk about something that doesn't seem to come up, at least I haven't heard, the interest rates on these loans.

For me, I went to law school, graduated in 2009. Some of my law school loans have an interest rate of 7.5%, maybe you don't cancel the debt but I really need help on the rate. The rates are ridiculous. They're luxurious and that is all I have to say, so please help. Thanks.

Brian Lehrer: Thank you. Senator?

Senator Kirsten Gillibrand: Thank you. It's a great question. I've supported a number of measures that I would love us to get a vote on that I think Senator Schumer is very supportive of. First, there's broad agreement that we should allow all federal student debt to be refinanced at the lowest rate, so the Fed window rate. The absolute lowest rate that any bank could get, we want students to get to. That's probably around 4%. The second thing I've been working on is debt relief and debt-free college, and advanced degrees for anyone committed to public service. There's a current law that's been in place for 10 years, but actually hasn't been working. We put it in place during the Obama administration.

It was supposed to vitiate your student loans after 10 years of public service. No one's been able to use it in 10 years [chuckles]. It's been very few who've gotten their loans forgiven. I've been working with Tim Kaine on fixing that program. Last is my vision for long-term debt-free college. I think anyone should be able to go to community college or state school for free if they commit to four years of public service.

That would change everything because we need the next generation of nurses, the next generation of teachers. We need the next generation of intelligence services, and law enforcement, and military, as well as we need people to take the Green New Deal jobs and actually work on green industries that are going to address global climate change. All those public service careers should be covered. It would allow people to do debt-free college, especially if they're willing to give back to their community and their country.

Brian Lehrer: Do you have the President on board on this? Because there were complaints about the Infrastructure and Relief Act that he's proposed this year that they just didn't go far on student debt relief?

Senator Kirsten Gillibrand: I don't know where the President is on this. I do know that it's an idea whose time has come and it's one that I'm going to keep lifting up because we want people to get their degrees and to get the training they need to do important jobs for this country. Whether you get that training at a community college, at skills building, program training that a lot of our building construction trades use for apprenticeship programs. We want technical colleges to be included, and one of the

things that we're trying to put in the Infrastructure bill is a bill called Build Back Better, and what the purpose of that is to provide skills training to people who want to rebuild our infrastructure, both our green infrastructure and traditional infrastructure, like fiber and roads and bridges and high-speed rail.

We would train the people in the communities where we are investing in infrastructure, and those communities need to include communities of color that have been disproportionately harmed by institutional racism in infrastructure. Just think of the Robert Moses era when highways were built, cutting off low-income neighborhoods from rivers and waterfront. Cutting through low-income neighborhoods and Black neighborhoods, cutting them off from downtown's and from the economy. We want to rebuild that infrastructure today and build it in a way that allows people to thrive and not have the environmental impacts and negative impacts that traditional infrastructure has had.

Brian Lehrer: Would you vote for a physical infrastructure-only bill? Because, as I understand, in very broad terms, what the republicans are objecting to, everybody talks about infrastructure as a bipartisan issue, but now you can't get to yes on these infrastructure bills. As I understand it, more or less, the republicans don't like the human infrastructure portions of these bills. The big childcare program, the big eldercare program that the President has in them, and they argue, "Come on, Senator Gillibrand and other Democrats, let's at least pass this stuff that we all think is important and that both parties agree on the traditional physical infrastructure pieces of it." Why wouldn't you do that, and then take up the other thing separately.

Senator Kirsten Gillibrand: I have very deep concerns about the approach of doing a small ball-hard infrastructure bill, and then leaving all the rest to reconciliation. The reason is, I don't know that we have the coalition to do a second reconciliation bill, and the information and the details and the investments that are in there are essential for the country's recovery and essential for New York's recovery.

If we don't invest in affordable daycare, universal pre-K, affordable elder care and national paid leave plan, we are missing the opportunity to rebuild the whole economy for all workers. If you only do traditional infrastructure, that's largely jobs that will be taken by men, first of all, and largely white men, and you're not actually addressing the need of jobs for the whole economy. I think it would be very ill-advised to trade the opportunity to fix everything for an opportunity to fix a very narrow piece of the economy. Unless we have firm commitment and have 50 votes for a second reconciliation package, I would not support it.

Brian Lehrer: Last thing, Senator, the voting rights bills that passed the House last year but are stuck in the Senate. I want to take a minute to explain that the difference between the two and why they may be politically different in the Senate to our listeners, and then you can correct anything I get wrong in this, but the so-called H.R. 1 For the People Act and the John Lewis Voting Rights Act are two different bills. The John Lewis Act doesn't go as far and some analysts say there's a chance of a coalition on that one. As CNN describes the difference between the two bills, "The John Lewis bill would give the federal government a powerful tool to stop states from implementing their own proposed discriminatory voting practices. Conversely,

the For the People Act would require states to adopt a long list of particular voting policies picked by the federal government".

For example, H.R. 1 would require states to provide same-day voter registration, appoint independent commissions to set district lines, allow people convicted of felonies to vote all across America once they are no longer incarcerated, and offer early voting for at least 10 hours a day for at least the last two weeks of the campaign. That description of the difference between the two from CNN, I'm guessing that you support both bills, but what do you say to critics who argue it's overreach to have the federal government tell states that many things they have to do with their voting laws, as opposed to simply provide Justice Department oversight, like in the John Lewis bill, for states that pass discriminatory voting laws, which many are trying to do right now?

Senator Kirsten Gillibrand: I think we need both. The reason is this. The John Lewis Voting Rights Act would restore the requirement that certain jurisdictions receive federal approval before making changes to voting laws. That is what the Supreme Court took away when it undermined the Voting Rights Act. It's restoring things that used to be part of the landscape. That is absolutely necessary because there's unfortunately legislatures and states across the country that are actively trying to make sure Black people can't vote. That is one problem.

The second problem is restoring the tools of democracy so that we actually can protect our elections. What the For the People Act has a lot of the work that I did with john lewis, specifically, I'm making it possible for more people to vote, which is guaranteeing early voting, guaranteeing same-day voter registration, guaranteeing being able to register online, getting rid of deceptive practices, that different legislators use to harm access to voting.

It also includes measures that would require states to overhaul their registration systems, limit states' abilities to remove people from the voting rolls, it increases funds for election security and reforms the redistricting process, all of those reforms are also needed. I think it is our job as Congress to provide basic outlines for how to protect our democracy and to see that there's legislatures around the country that are making it harder, not easier for people to vote, specifically for political reasons, is outrageous.

It's our job to protect that, people have a right to vote. It's the basis, it's the cornerstone of our democracy. It's part of what the constitution stands for. I think both are necessary and I hope that through advocacy, we can convince our colleagues and convince the country that they want this protection. That's what advocacy is all about

Brian Lehrer: Last thing in our last 30 seconds. I see that some elected officials from our area who had not endorsed previously in the mayoral primary, are now choosing up sides publicly. Are you endorsing?

Senator Kirsten Gillibrand: No, I am not endorsing, but I think we have some

fantastic candidates, and I'm looking forward to having the residents of New York City make that choice. I live in Albany so I will be endorsing Mayor Sheehan and I'm very excited about that.

[laughter]

Brian Lehrer: That's one way out of it. Senator Gillibrand, we always appreciate it. Thanks a lot.

Senator Kirsten Gillibrand: Thank you, God bless. Take care.

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