Brian Lehrer: It's the Brian Lehrer Show on WNYC Good morning, everyone. We'll begin today with some excerpts from and your reactions to last night's debate on WCBS for the Democratic nomination for Governor of New York Between Kathy Hochul, New York City Public Advocate Jumaane Williams in Queens, and Nassau County Congressman Tom Suozzi who has a question or a reaction to anything from the debate to 12433 WNYC 212-433-9692 or tweet at Brian Lehrer.

Things they disagreed on included bail reform, congestion pricing to drive a car into the Manhattan Business District, Federal Medicaid funding for poor women to get abortions, and a moratorium on some forms of cryptocurrency mining to protect the climate. Now we'll deal with the climate aspects in the second half of this hour as our climate story of the week. Things they agreed on included that they all believe in ghosts. We'll save that for the end of this segment, Suozzi and Williams attacked Hochul a lot, they hardly attacked each other, despite having the sharpest disagreements on policy.

Hochul hardly attacked either of them at all. We'll explain why those strategies all the way around. We'll bring on two guests in a minute. First, here's some bytes from the exchange about bail reform, which also touches on gun control Suozzi speaks first criticizing Hochul.

Tom Suozzi: She talks about crime, but she didn't address the issue of bail reform. Even worse when the governor was a Member of Congress, she voted with, was endorsed by and took money from the NRA. Where's the principle in that? I'm a proven executive. I'm trained as a CPA and attorney, I was the mayor of my hometown, I was the county executive in Nassau County. I've been a Member of Congress for the past five and half years, where I have an F rating from the NRA and co-sponsor every piece of gun violence prevention legislation. I will fight crime is my number one priority, address the gun crisis we're facing here in New York State, I'll cut taxes.

Brian Lehrer: Hochul responds.

Kathy Hochul: No governor has done more in less time than I have to address gun violence and I'll address that NRA situation. That was a decade ago judging what I've done because a lot of people have evolved since I took that position. We need more people to evolve. We have to change the hearts and minds of people all over this country so we can finally have common sense legislation from Washington.

Brian Lehrer: Then Jumaane Williams said nothing that happened in the bill signing of 10 bills this week, will do much for gun violence in the city.

Jumaane Williams: 10 years ago, I wrote my first report on how to deal with gun violence, while the governor was touting her A rating for the NRA. I wish we had a support, so in between that decade of death, we might have gotten where we are today. We are 10 years behind because people in Congress were doing the bidding of the NRA. What happened yesterday will do nothing for the 25 people that died in Buffalo.

Brian Lehrer: Or violence in the city. He went on to say, focusing too much on mass shootings and not enough on day-to-day handgun violence. We'll keep going with this a little more from that opening section of the debate on gun violence and other kinds of crime. Hochul argued that she pulled back on bail reform did pull back on bail reform in a smarter way this year than Suozzi wants because she gave judges specific criteria for denying bail, not just a vague dangerousness standard. Listen.

Kathy Hochul: We came up with more standards and judges have ever had in the last few years since it was changed. They can now look at past history, the seriousness of the crime, whether or not there was an order of protection before, whether or not a gun was used. We gave the power for judges to analyze this and look at it differently than they had been before we made those changes.

Brian Lehrer: Suozzi's response was to support the simpler the less specific way.

Tom Suozzi: I 100% support giving judges the discretion to consider dangerousness of the defendants who come before them. As you mentioned, Marcia, the same as it is in 49 other states in the United States of America, the governor says she cares about crime, she wants to address crime, but she does nothing to fix bail reform.

Brian Lehrer: Jumaane Williams went another way with this question. He supports the bail reform law without a dangerousness standard, saying other cities with no such reform saw worse increases in violence during the pandemic. He didn't like the way the governor pulled back on it either this year and then he linked a billion-dollar bill on root causes that he wanted from Albany to a big sore point for Hochul, as you'll hear.

Jumaane Williams: Congress is where we needed these gun changes to be made.

Kathy Hochul: That has nothing to do with Buffalo Bills--

Jumaane Williams: No, it is. Because Buffalo Bills, we ask for a billion dollars to be put in what we-- for gun violence prevention. What we got was a billion dollars for building a stadium that hired her husband.

Brian Lehrer: The last thought in this set Hochul defends the taxpayer subsidy for the Buffalo Bills Football Stadium as necessary to keep them from moving to another state and vital to Buffalo's culture and economy, listen.

Kathy Hochul: I structured a deal that was the best we could do for the taxpayers of New York and here's what we accomplished. That stadium we more than paid for the tax revenues derived from the income as well as the economic benefit. We did a study in advance, it'll far exceed the investment state. We also create 100. I'm sorry, 10,000 new jobs critically important in an area like Western New York, but also I understand people fleshing this, I really do. I represent a very large, diverse state, every part of the state has regional priorities. The Buffalo Bills is to the identity of Western New York, the way Broadway is to New York City. It's part of who they are and I made sure that they're going to stay there for the next 30 years.

Brian Lehrer: We'll play more clips from last night's debate as we go but with that first set listeners, we repeat our invitation to you to react to any of that to 12433 WNYC, 212-433-9692, or tweet at Brian Lehrer as we bring into guest analysts Josefa Velásquez, State Capitol reporter for the nonprofit news organization, The City, and WNYC and Gothamist Albany reporter, Jon Campbell. Hi, Jon and Josefa. Thanks for joining us. Welcome back to WNYC.

Jon Campbell: Hey Brian.

Josefa Velásquez: Hey Brian thanks for having us.

Brian Lehrer: Let's go right to some specifics. Why did Hochul ever have an A rating from the NRA, Josefa, even 10 years ago, and have they graded her since she became governor?

Josefa Velásquez: As the governor mentioned like this was 10 years ago, she did represent Western New York where sentiments towards guns are much different than they are in New York City and downstate. Like she said, there have been-- her thoughts around this has evolved when she had run for lieutenant governor in 2014, I'm pretty sure the NRA gave her an F rating on that front and yes, I mean, this is something that has continued to plague her.

Brian Lehrer: Jon, anything to add to that?

Jon Campbell: Yes, well, the governor does have an F rating from the NRA now along with Jumaane Williams and Tom Suozzi all three of them F's across the board. On the Republican side, Lee Zeldin is the Republican Committee's designate, he has an A rating but yes, I mean, it's the most as it's drawn right now, the district that she represented, actually, she represented a different configuration of it. It's the most conservative district in the states and I mean, she wouldn't have been able to win or survive in that area without being in the NRA's good graces, quite frankly.

Brian Lehrer: Part of the Buffalo Area has the most conservative district in the state and urban area rather than some rural part of New York.

Jon Campbell: Well, it is more of a rural district. It is a district that stretches, it's mostly the area between Buffalo and Rochester, which is quite rural and that is as it configured now, that is the most conservative district in the state. I can't say absolutely certain. I can't be absolutely certain that it was when it was configured the way that Kathy Hochul was there but it was drawn to be conservative. She was running in that district. She ultimately lost in that district. Her explanation last night was I've evolved, I represented a conservative district. Now I represent a much broader constituency and I've evolved and more people should evolve.

Brian Lehrer: There was a parallel I think it's fair to say with Senator Kirsten Gillibrand, who when she represented a more conservative district, as a member of the House years ago, she had a more favorable rating from the NRA and when she became a statewide elected official, as Hochul now is representing the whole state, Gillibrand changed her position on guns to a more progressive one. All right, let's go on to bail reform. Josefa, how different are the specific criteria that Hochul got the legislature to pass to jail more people while they're awaiting trial, versus the more general dangerousness standard that Swasey wants judges to be able to use.

Josefa Velásquez: It's important to point out that New York got rid of these like dangerousness standards back in the seventies, so that hasn't been in play for quite some time. The bail laws have been reformed twice already since they were passed in 2019, and at this point when we hear bail reform, it's often referred to in shorthand for everything that's encompassing criminal justice reform. There has been a lot of misinformation out there about what is a bailable offense and what isn't and how judges are using this.

I think it's still sort of too early to tell whether or not the changes that were made in part of the state budget in April, actually have any meaningful changes to these laws. I think it's again, important to point out that when we look at the data about bail reform, all we have to look at is the numbers from 2020 and 2021. We're talking about in 2020 when we were in the peak of the pandemic, most people were home. When you look at violent crimes and you look at gun crimes, of course, they're going to be higher in 2021 than they were in 2020 when everyone was home.

I think at this point we are seeing a lot of the discussion about public safety and that should be given the atrocious acts that have been happening around the country here. We have to keep in mind that these laws need some time to play out. Right now what we're seeing is just a knee-jerk reaction to a news cycle that's been particularly horrific. The governor [unintelligible 00:11:38] and the state legislature have done things to remedy that, including increasing the age to buy an assault rifle from 18 to 21, but that's something that's probably going to be challenged in court. Other states have deemed that that is unconstitutional. I guess where it remains to be seen, whether that actually has any tangible changes or has any sort of impact here in New York.

Brian Lehrer: Jumaane Williams, Jon, who wants to keep the 2019 Bail Reform as it is talked a couple of times last night about a billion-dollar bill attacking the root causes of crime that he advocates that the legislature did not pass. Do you know what kind of package that was supposed to be?

Jon Campbell: There have been a number of different things that have been out there over the years and more recently, but in general, people on the left have been pushing for more community intervention, for more mental health. Jumaane Williams, what he was pushing for. There's been a number of different packages over the years and more recently to address the issue of street crime in various ways, addressing mental health, things like that.

The interesting thing about Jumaane Williams, what he did yesterday was he kept tying it back to the Buffalo Bills Stadium deal in which New York State is putting up $600 million up front Erie County, taxpayers are putting up another $250 million and then there's some annual payments for maintenance. That is he kept tying it back up at one point the moderators chided him and he said, "Sorry, not sorry," because he views those issues as connected that that's money that could have been put toward something else to try to prevent street crime, to try to reach out to people who are affected by it and embolden communities so they don't have to fall into a life of crime. He did over and over and over again, try to tie into that Buffalo Bills Stadium deal, which we know is deeply unpopular among New York City residents and the area as well.

Brian Lehrer: Gun reforms the legislature passed last week and the governor signed this week, all three candidates support those bills, but William said they won't do much to stop gun violence in the city, maybe only mass shootings a little bit. Why does he take that position?

Jon Campbell: Why did he take that position? Because the governor signed 10 bills on Monday, and they were all in some way inspired by, or at least spurred by the shootings in Buffalo in Texas. There was the bill to require a license for a semiautomatic rifle, which increases the minimum age to 21. There was a law restricting the purchase of body armor, unless you're say a police officer or in a similar profession. Those were in pretty direct response to the Buffalo and Texas shootings.

Jumaane Williams made the case that, you should be focusing more on street crime in the Bronx, in Harlem, in Brooklyn. That was his kind of line of attack there. It was right at the top of the debate. It was clearly something that he kept coming back to and something that he was trying to express the importance of and that is it got through, I think in the debate. The governor said, well, these things will help not only in a supermarket in Buffalo, but also in Brooklyn, in Harlem, in the Bronx and she made the case that these would be good for the entire state and both the issue of mass shootings and street crime.

Brian Lehrer: With Josefa Velásquez, Capitol correspondent for The City, and our Albany reporter, Jon Campbell. Josefa, Jumaane Williams length billion dollars he did not get for the programs he wanted that we talked a little bit about before the break from Albany to the almost billion in taxpayer funding for the Buffalo Bill Stadium. The bill owned by a billionaire, and you heard Hochul's response in the clip we played earlier about getting the best deal for the public that she could, and the bills really would probably have left town for some other city.

She has said that before, including on this show because some other city would give them more money and the bills are to Buffalo what Broadway is to New York City, which makes Buffalo sound like kind of a sad place if football is the heart of your city's cultural life. Can you tell how damaging or not this subsidy has been to her politically so far? It keeps coming up.

Josefa Velásquez: Listen, anyone who drives through Buffalo, anyone who's ever met anyone who is remotely living near Buffalo, the Buffalo Bills runs through their blood. It isn't understatement to say that the Buffalo Bills is to Buffalo, what Broadway is to us in New York City. I would say it's even more than that. It's sort of religious in that way, but right now it's been the main line of attack for, not just the Democratic opponents, but also on the Republican side of things against Hochul.

There's been a lot of chatter around how this subsidy works and her husband's involvement and whether or not his company would become a vendor in this new stadium. It's again like one of the very few things that she can be attacked on and has been attacked on. Yesterday I think she deflected the questions pretty well saying that it's up to the bills and the folks involved in that arrangement to decide who gets this contract and whether or not it does end up going to the same company that her husband works for.

She really did try to tell and assure voters that her husband was a US attorney under the Obama administration that his ethics are unimpeachable which I think I'm not sure how that plays with voters, but if this is the only thing that her opponents are attacking her for at least right now, then it seems pretty sparse.

Brian Lehrer: Yes. Speaking of Buffalo was the debate only broadcast on TV down here in the city on Channel Two, Josefa we looked at the listings for Buffalo CBS station, because we were thinking of bringing on a third reporter maybe from the Buffalo Area in this segment, but we didn't see it listed as being broadcast there, was this billed as some kind of downstate debate?

Josefa Velásquez: I'm not sure if it was billed as some kind of downstate debate. I do know that there were people upstate that were having difficulties watching it and so they have to stream it on the CBS 2 website, which again goes to the point that like, who are these debates for, and do voters actually care? What we've seen cyclically throughout the years is that, these are low turnout races. Whenever the president is not at the top of the ticket, very few people come out to vote in primary.

It's not even to mention the disaster that has been these primaries since we have two now occurring one in a couple of weeks from another one in August. It seems that based on the questions that the moderators were posing to the candidates, it was more New York City downstate focused. There's a lot of things that they didn't get to and hopefully, we get something in the next couple of weeks on affordability in New York what the cost of living is, and the rising rent childcare.

What's happening with infrastructure and transportation, which we touched a little bit on yesterday, but there's definitely more to be explored. Honestly trying to figure out what's going to get voters motivated to actually take time out of their day to cast their vote.

Brian Lehrer: Listeners we can take your phone calls and we're going to take some right now before we play a few more clips from last night's debate on the debate. If you watched, if you listened, it was on the radio too last night on WCBS, or if just are hearing clips this morning, and you want to react. Let's see, let's start, oh, and I'll give you the phone number again, 212433 WNYC as always. 2433-9692 or tweet @BrianLehrer or watch your Twitter go by, our Twitter go by as well. Let's take a call from Kate in Lower Manhattan. Kate, you're on WNYC. Hi there.

Kate: Oh, what a surprise? Hello. Can you hear me?

Brian Lehrer: Yes. Don't be surprised you called us.

Kate: To be picked up. I want to say how much I was impressed by Jumaane Williams compared to the other two. I think fundamentally all three agree that crime is bad, that gun violence is bad, that the schools need fixing, and so forth, but Hochul and Suozzi have a lot of good slogans that anybody can agree with, and Jumaane has the experience in the trenches. The problems of crime and gun violence and all this are symptoms of deeper issues, and Jamaane is the doctor who's working on the cure and building affordable housing leads to jobs, improving schools leads to jobs, controlling guns actually helps lead to jobs in many different ways. What's missing, and what I think he's working on is providing jobs, housing, better education, and hope.

Brian Lehrer: Kate, thank you very much. Let's go to Julie in Hastings. Julie, you're on WNYC. Hi there.

Julie: Oh, hi Brian. Thanks for taking my call. I was as you say, obviously, tragically the whole gun plague is a central issue. I just wondered if listeners knew that with regard to the bill that was passed in Albany recently, that in fact the New York State Catholic Bishops, the New York State Catholic Conference lobbied for the bill and applauded its passage, and then just parenthetically nationally, the US Conference of Catholic Bishops has been for gun control for a long time. I'm not saying that that means that the Catholic Republicans on the Supreme Court will rule that way at all, because they seem to listen to the Federalist Society mostly, but at any rate in New York State there's broad consensus.

Brian Lehrer: That's right. Well, yes, there's majority consensus certainly on a lot of kinds of gun control in New York State, but it will vary county by county, region by region. It's interesting about the Catholic conference in that respect and you're relating of it to the Supreme Court. We're going to do a Supreme Court segment later in the show with this decision expected any day now that could declare by the Supreme Court a constitutional right to carry guns in public in New York City, but considering that they may adhere some of those justices to Catholic dogma on some other things. What about this? We'll ask our Supreme Court guests later in the show.

Staying on the debate, let's go onto another issue from the debate that brought out something I did not know. This also relates in a way to what those justices Catholic and otherwise are deciding right now. That is issues pertaining to abortion. I did not know that Tom Suozzi, as a member of Congress, has voted to keep the Hyde Amendment, which prohibits federal Medicaid funding from being used to cover abortion services. In other words, poor women around the country who get health insurance for Medicaid, get it for most healthcare, but not that. Here's the exchange between Hochul and Suozzi on that.

Kathy Hochul: I don't think that the right to have an abortion should be reserved only for wealthy women. That is why I don't know how you think you can hide from your vote on the Hyde Amendment to support denying Medicaid services and funding for poor women.

Tom Suozzi: Let me just say very clearly I have 100% rating from planned parenthood. My votes are exactly the same in Congress as Nancy Pelosi and Rosa DeLauro, and I don't know what the governor's talking about.

Brian Lehrer: Josefa, let me stay with you on this. Can you explain all that Suozzi voted to keep the Hyde Amendment, but he still has a perfect rating from planned parenthood. What?

Josefa Velásquez: I'm not entirely sure whether or not what the governor is talking about. There's a lot of times where there are amendments and everything tucked into other bills and things of that nature. It does seem that the issue of abortion has become a litmus test, not just for Democrats, but across the spectrum for politicians. Right now you're having this discussion over whether or not Robby Wade's going to be completely gutted by the court and how New York can act. A few years ago you had New York update its abortion laws because it predated Roe verse Wade, and now they're coming up with different funding streams to make sure that in other states that abortion might be outlawed in, people can come here to New York to seek an abortion.

I think it's one of those issues that is incredibly polarizing for voters in general, but also something that brings people out to vote. You're talking about a generation of women who have had to keep fighting for these laws to stay in place, not just necessarily expanding them, but making sure that the bare minimum is available. It's not like Roe verse Wade made more abortions possible, it's just that women weren't dying from having an abortion.

Now you're talking of different ways Democrats are trying to differentiate themselves to get this base of voters who are electrified over this issue to come out to vote for them. I'm not surprised to see the attacks on that going back and forth, but again, it's like they're trying to differentiate themselves while it's pretty clear that both of them support women seeking abortions.

Brian Lehrer: John, do you have anything more to add on Suozzi's record? Also, he said, Nancy Pelosi also voted to keep the Hyde Amendment. He seemed to suggest that. Do you know if that's true?

Jon Campbell: I fell into a pretty an internet black hole on this last night trying to figure that out, because it did catch me by surprise just like it caught you by surprise for a couple of reasons. One, it was the only direct attack that Kathy Hochul leveled against either of her opponents [crosstalk]--

Brian Lehrer: You anticipated my next question, but go ahead.

Jon Campbell: She generally tried to stay above the prey, which is something that front runners do quite often and people who may be behind in the polls try to become more aggressive, go on the attack, and that is generally what we saw play out last night, except for this one area where she accused Tom Suozzi of voting for the Hyde Amendment. Now my understanding, the Hyde Amendment, it prevents federal funding to pay for abortion essentially.

That's been around in some form since the 1970s, it's attached to spending bills. It gets passed, it's this language that's tucked into these much broader spending bills that get passed all the time. Now when I asked the Hochul campaign exactly what Governor Hochul was referring to, they pointed me to this Vice article from 2019, it was Tom Suozzi was featured in it, and there was a link to a video in 2017 where he was confronted by planned parenthood supporters about the Hyde Amendment, and he was wishy-washy on it.

It's a video on YouTube. He said it was right when he was elected into Congress, and he was saying, "I don't know if I want to get rid of the Hyde Amendment, but I have to take more of a look at it." Since then, Tom Suozzi has sponsored a bill to repeal the Hyde Amendment. Since then he has come out against the Hyde Amendment, but there was a period of time early on in his congressional tenure where he was a little wishy-washy on it, and that seems to be what governor Hochul is seizing on.

Brian Lehrer: It's fair to put Hide Amendment on Suozzi like it's fair to put an NRA endorsement on Hochul.

Jon Campbell: No, that's never stopped politicians before.

Brian Lehrer: At this point in their careers. Before we get off abortion, and I ask you that larger strategy question about why did Hochul not really attack either of them when they were attacking her constantly. I want to play a Jumaane Williams clip on abortion, which mentions two bills that did not pass in Albany this year. Here he is on that.

Jumaane Williams: I am disappointed that there were two women in the legislature, women of more color, that had two bills that moved us further along reproductive justice. It was the equality amendment and it was a equity fund. Unfortunately, those two things weren't passed. Those were the best ways to protect Black and brown women and pregnant people. We couldn't get that across the finish line.

Brian Lehrer: Josefa, familiar with those two bills? I don't think they've gotten a lot of publicity.

Josefa Velásquez: If I'm correct in this, the equality amendment would change the state constitution to prohibit any sort of discrimination based on a person's race, ethnicity, sex, pregnancy, sexual orientation, gender expression, and doing something like that is a heavy haul. I mean, when anytime you're trying to amend the state constitution, you need two consecutive legislatures to pass a bill that then goes before voters.

It is a heavier lift to do and also, you have to think about the fact that towards the end of session which ended late last week, it was a sprint to the end. You have a primary that is just weeks away, a governor who has only been in office for nine months, and then you had these horrific tragic shootings happening. People were just, I think, racing to the finish line but with that being said, I don't necessarily think that we should count these out maybe next year.

It's always harder to pass legislation right before any sort of election. People are less willing to take sort of politically tenuous votes in the event that it comes back to bite them or that they get weaponized. Yes, I think when we're talking about bills and stuff, you have to understand that there's also hundreds of bills that get introduced into the legislature. Some of them are written in ways that are just complete nonsense and others have a lot of oomph behind them.

I think Jumaane raises a great point in saying that there's other stuff that could be done sure, but with the clock running out, there's only much that the legislature could do. That's not to say that it's impossible. The governor has mentioned that in response to the Supreme Court decision that's going to be coming down any day now on the gun issue that she could call an extraordinary session to call lawmakers back. When that happens, it's a free for all. You can start passing whatever bills you want.

Brian Lehrer: Jon, on that political strategy question from last night, Williams and Suozzi attack Hochul consistently and laid off each other despite those two having the biggest policy differences Suozzi to the right of Hochul, Jumaane to the left of her. Hochul barely attacked either of them at all. What's the gamesmanship there from all sides as you see it?

Jon Campbell: Gamesmanship is generally if you think you're the front runner, you try to look like you are above the fray. Right? You try to say, "I'm going to let my opponents they can go play in the mud down there. I'm going to look gubernatorial and I'm going to stay above the fray." There was that one exception where she did directly challenge Suozzi on abortion but other than that, that's what she tried to do.

She had some pre-planned answers for some of their attacks like the NRA thing, like the Buffalo Bill Stadium thing, the Lieutenant Governor Brian Benjamin mess. That was something else that she was attacked on, and she had a response ready to go. When you are a lesser-known candidate with less money in the bank, you have to try to land a knockout blow of some sort.

You have to be aggressive, you have to be ready to attack and criticize. That's what we saw play out last night. I don't know if it really has much of an impact because there weren't any super-viral moments or anything like that and who knows this isn't a presidential debate where there is wide wide viewership. This is a much smaller viewership and fewer people are going to vote in this primary as it is. Who knows how much of an impact it has, but that is the general strategy that we see play out in debates a lot and that's what happened here.

Brian Lehrer: Yes, people could have watched Billy Bush at the same time on another channel. I wonder which one got more ratings but Josefa I assume you agree. This is just sort of standard politics with Hochul having a pretty large lead in the polls that we've seen so far. This is what front runners do. They kind of play it safe, and people who are behind in order to try to drag down the poll numbers of the front runner or go more aggressively against them. Right?

Josefa Velásquez: Right and this is Kathy Hochul's race to lose at this point. It's not out of the ordinary to see her trying to stay above the mudslinging. I mean, she also has millions and millions of dollars in her campaign coffers. I think it's like somewhere north of $30,000,000. It makes sense that Jumaane Williams and Tom Suozzi are trying to land some sort of critical hit against her.

Right now, I think what you're going to be seeing is, Kathy Hochul, running as governor, and using the accomplishments that she's been able to secure over the last nine months to show that she deserves New Yorkers' votes to be elected to her first full term. I'm not surprised that Jumaane Williams and Tom Suozzi laid off of each other. I think they both sort of have very different constituencies and different people from the Democratic spectrum backing them, but the common enemy for both of them is tearing down Kathy Hochul.

I'm assuming that over the next couple of weeks, what we're going to be seeing is just more of Hochul being governor and not trying to get herself dirty with the throwing of Barb's and trying to give the people who are running against her any sort of airtime or platform.

Brian Lehrer: Let's take another call. Edd in Sparkhill in Rockland County wants to comment on the Buffalo Bills Stadium subsidy, right Edd, you're on WNYC.

Edd: Yes. Thanks, Brian. I just wanted to hopefully draw a little more attention to the fact that the Bill Stadium since 1970 and now including the new stadium is in Orchard Park, New York. It would--

Brian Lehrer: Which is just to say it's outside the city limits of Buffalo. Is that the point you're making?

Edd: Well, my point is it's way outside the city limits and if you look at the demographic it is very different than the City of Buffalo. It's a non-diverse, highly affluent enclave area. It's akin to being what you might call an exurb or suburban sprawl and the NAACP leader of Buffalo itself tried to speak about this in opposition to this funding deal. It bothers me every time I hear people talk about this importance of the bills to the City of Buffalo, I just wished a little more attention would be given to how different Orchard Park is and considerably far away it is. It's not even an adjacent suburb.

Brian Lehrer: I think there are two different things here. One is the immediate economic benefit of the businesses around the stadium, that sort of thing but I think the larger point that Hochul was making is that the bills are just important to Buffalo, to the whole Buffalo Area and she didn't want to lose them. Jon, I had made that clip before that maybe Buffalo is kind of sad place if their NFL team is really to Buffalo at Broadway is to New York City. If that's the heart of their cultural life.

A few people last me for that on Twitter in the last few minutes. One person wrote football is a performance conducted by highly trained experts in outfits. People create community by coming together and watching it. Beware the snobbery at calling Buffalo a sad place because of different kinds of fandom. Let me be clear, I'm a sports fan. We do sports segments on this show. I even have a Buffalo Bills t-shirt because when the Jets and the Giants are not in the playoffs, I root for the Buffalo Bills as New York's team but she made that statement, Jon that the Buffalo Bills are to Buffalo, what Broadway is to New York City.

Extrapolating just a little bit, what the whole sort of arts and entertainment scene is to New York City, the Buffalo Bills are the biggest thing along those lines in Buffalo. I think that's really what motivates her here. Yes?

Jon Campbell: Well, as somebody born and raised in the Buffalo Area, let me first stick up for buffaloes culture as somebody who really enjoys, say summer concert series out there and plays and everything else. Let me stick up for Buffalo's culture there for one. To the caller's point, yes, the stadium as it is now as it has been since the '70s is in the suburb of Orchard Park, south of the City of Buffalo.

There was some push to try to build this new stadium in the City of Buffalo but that didn't happen for a number of different reasons. It was never very seriously considered by the Pegula family which owns the Bills and in large part because it would cost a lot more money to do it. The infrastructure is already there in the suburb of Orchard Park. It's going to be a $1.3 billion stadium. It would have been closer to $2 billion if they had to do it in the City of Buffalo. They also would have probably had to see some houses which wouldn't have gone over well. Yes, there was a push to try to do it in the downtown area, but it never really picked up much steam with the team owners in particular. That's why--

Brian Lehrer: Her point which she made on this show and made news by saying it as specifically as she did when she was here a couple of months ago now, that there were other cities offering the Buffalo Bills fair tax subsidies to move. Tampa was one of them, she mentioned. I think the other one was Toronto maybe, but that's really what she's defending against it seems to me.

Jon Campbell: Yes, I think San Diego just wants [crosstalk]. It's always this implicit threat. That is, anytime there's stadium negotiations with these mega-rich NFL owners, it's always the implicit threat that if you don't pay for it, we'll take it somewhere else. I don't know if that actually ever would have played out. The team itself never publicly said anything like that, but it's implicit and that's what the governor has hung our hat on here.

Brian Lehrer: One other issue briefly, Josefa, before we wrap this up with a little fun that they had at the end of the debate, they were asked if they would ban pot smoking in public like alcohol consumption in public is banned. The current legalization law allows pot smoking where cigarette smoking is allowed, so cigarette is the comparison standard. They all express sympathy for people's desire not to be exposed to secondhand smoke or smells, but were they different in their positions?

Josefa Velásquez: Not necessarily. The question itself took me aback also because when you walk down the street and you just always are dealing with cigarette smoke is just part of life. I'm at this point old enough to remember that diners had smoker sections that you just had to live with. Right now, I think everyone's trying to figure out, "Well, what happens with marijuana secondhand smoke?"

Is it unpleasant for people who don't like it? Sure, but so is cigarette smoke, so is the sewage that's been collecting on the corner of your street that's festered, it doesn't smell great but that's just the fabric of the city. If we're going to legalize marijuana and destigmatize it, then this is just something that you have to live with, that this is just part of the culture and the fabric of our state.

When they all had made the comparison of well, it's the same as cigarette smoke or something similar, we just have to live with it. It seemed like a good response to me because at the end of the day, is one worse than the other? Who knows? I think it's just the fact that like the stigma of marijuana smoke is still lingering really large even in 2022.

Brian Lehrer: Finally, on the lighter side, they were asked their go-to songs on karaoke local shows, the Neil Diamond song which, I guess since we're talking about sports a little in the segment, it's known in the Bronx as the Boston Red Sox theme song, Sweet Caroline. Suozzi chose Beyond the Sea by Bobby Darren, but only Jumaane Williams had the courage to sing a few bars of his when the moderator asked them to do so. He sang a little of Pretty Wings by Maxwell, and I thought he was really good actually. Jon, as your article on Gothamist points out, they disagreed on many things but not on the existence of ghosts. What?

Jon Campbell: Yes. There was a lightning round at the end of this debate and that is something that is spurred a lot of conversation on Twitter because some people say it humanizes them, some people say it's a waste of time and we should be focusing on more serious issues. One of the questions that were asked, do you believe in ghosts? They all came down on yes.

Tom Suozzi said, "No, but I believe in spirits so I guess I do believe in ghosts." Then Jumaane Williams said he believes in the afterlife. Kathy Hochul said that she often speaks to her mother, who is no longer with us, and so they all came down on the side of pro-ghosts, I suppose.

Brian Lehrer: I often speak to my mother but she's alive. I often speak to Jon Campbell, WNYC and Gothamist Albany reporter, and Josefa Velásquez, who does a great job covering the Capitol and other things for the nonprofit news organization, The City. Thank you both for coming on with us on the debate.

Josefa Velásquez: Thanks, Brian.

Jon Campbell: Thanks, Brian.

 

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