Brian Lehrer: Brian Lehrer on WNYC. Good morning again, everyone. Well, everybody's already talking about next year's presidential election, and that'll be part of the context when we have Cassidy Hutchinson on later in the show. This year's election is now underway. Yes, there is an election this year, and in our area, it matters a lot. The whole New York City Council is up for reelection. With all the issues going on in the city, and you know what they are, that matters a lot. The whole New York City Council is up for election, and the whole New Jersey legislature is up for election.

Now we're going to preview the election on the New York side. There are also a couple of ballot questions, which you will see. I was looking at my parents' absentee ballot over the weekend with them and their ballots and saw that there were these two ballot questions that I hadn't known about before. If I didn't know about them, you probably didn't know about them. We're going to explain the ballot questions and talk about the New York side of Election Day right now. Then in a few days, we'll do a New Jersey one, but with us right now is WNYC's senior political correspondent, none other than Brigid Bergin. Hi, Brigid.

Brigid Bergin: Good morning, Brian.

Brian Lehrer: Thanks for helping with the membership drive pitching yesterday now you got your journalist hat back on. Wait, City Council elections are happening again. Didn't we just elect them two years ago when we elected Mayor Adams?

Brigid Bergin: Exactly. I know. It's so confusing. It's off-cycle. That is because something that we've talked a lot about over the past year, and that is redistricting. All of the lines for these City Council districts had to be redrawn based on the latest census data and so that meant some of these districts shifted a little bit. It's very important before you go out to vote, you should make sure that you check and know who you're voting for because there is a chance that in some cases, that you may be in a different City Council district than you were in 2021.

What we have here, this is a very special off-cycle election. All of these City Council members who are elected in 2021 need to run for office again. That will be for the balance of that four-year term. Those folks who were elected in 2021 can run again in 2025 for another four-year term, but this fills out the first “term” but they do need to run for election this time. Every voter in all of New York City and every district will have a vote, even if your council member is running unopposed, which is the case in some of these elections. Some of the big races were in the primary. There are a handful of very interesting general election contests for City Council across the city.

Brian Lehrer: We'll get into a few of them in particular as we go, but also, a few of the DAs, and of course, DA is such a hot position these days. There's been so much either praise or criticism heaped on Alvin Bragg, the Manhattan District Attorney since he was elected two years ago but some of the borough DAs are up for reelection and some are not. Which ones and why does it check out like that?

Brigid Bergin: Well, the different boroughs are on different cycles. This cycle, we've got The Bronx, Queens, and Staten Island. The Brooklyn and Manhattan District attorneys are on a different cycle, but in those three boroughs, you will see district attorney races. Again, some of these candidates are running unopposed, but they still need to be elected in this general election.

Brian Lehrer: Are there progressive prosecutor issues in play here? When I was at my parents' in Queens, I noticed that their mailbox did include a Melinda Katz mailer, the Queens' DA so somebody's running.

Brigid Bergin: Sure. These races are getting less attention this cycle because they are less competitive than we have seen them in previous election cycles. Oftentimes when you see the issue of a progressive DA, that is generally something that we would see in a Democratic primary, where in a general election cycle, Queens is a predominantly blue district. Melinda Katz does have a challenger but this is not that kind of race where you're seeing some of the same debate that we saw play out, say, in 2021, certainly around the Manhattan District Attorney's race.

Brian Lehrer: If Alvin Bragg was up for reelection this year, we'd probably be hearing a lot more about the DA races. Pick a City Council race, pick a hot one, any one?

Brigid Bergin: Well, why don't I start with some of the races in Southern Brooklyn? There are a few races there that are really interesting. In one case, because of redistricting, we are actually seeing two incumbent City Council members running against each other. That is in District 47, which is the new District 47. That's where we're seeing Ari Kagan running against Justin Brannan.

Now, for some folks who maybe haven't been paying attention to City Council elections since 2021 and think, "Oh, I know Ari Kagan. Oh, I know Justin Brannan. Aren't they both Democrats?" Well, they were but Ari Kagan actually changed parties and he became a Republican. That is why we have this general election contest between Ari Kagan as the Republican and Justin Brannan as the Democrat.

Back in 2021 when Justin Brannan won his seat, which was then District 43, it was I think to some minds, a more competitive contest. There were a lot of issues related to criminal justice and public safety. We are seeing some of that rhetoric play out again. Some debates over funding for police. Ari Kagan, the Republican candidate, has the endorsements of all of the police unions. However, Justin Brannan will point to the fact that Ari Kagan actually was one of the only council members to vote against the city budget last year.

If you wanted to liberally apply the language, defunding the police, because when you vote against the budget, you're voting to defund everything theoretically. In a debate, just last night on Spectrum New York One Justin Brannan was accusing Kagan of defunding the police.

Brian Lehrer: Right, but Kagan was voting against the budget because it was too liberal. The progressives were voting against the budget because it was too conservative.

Brigid Bergin: Absolutely. That is one of the things that's where this language and that's actually some reporting that I did about Brannan's previous contest and his previous opponent where he was accused of defunding the police. Some of this language gets tossed around, and then when you get under the service of it and what it actually means, things get a little bit more complicated. Certainly, these are candidates that, they have different positions on issues.

Brannan is someone who is chair of the Finance Committee, definitely is very steeped in the process of the council will point to the fact that he is building seven new schools in his district. Kagan, on the other hand, is also someone who is close with a lot of community organizations, as I mentioned, has that support from law enforcement. There is a real active race on the ground in that district. People are going out, knocking on doors trying to get out the vote. Since this is an off-cycle election, so much of how this race ends up, is it's going to boil down to that, who can turn out voters?

Brian Lehrer: There's an interesting race in Eastern Queens featuring a very conservative Republican, Vickie Paladino against Tony Avella, who used to hold that seat before he went to the state Senate a few years ago. Vickie Paladino versus Tony Avella, this is the same part of Queens that George Santos represents in Congress currently. I saw one mailer from Avella in that race that had a big picture of George Santos' face next to a big picture of Vickie Paladino's face and said, "Two extremists, peas in a pod, Vickie Paladino and George Santos."

No matter what you think of Vickie Paladino's politics, I don't know if it's fair to associate her with what we usually think of with respect to George Santos, which is his massive lying spree. Nevertheless, that's part of how it's being run. Important race?

Brigid Bergin: It is an important race because Paladino has really adopted a pretty outspoken position within the council. She was very opposed to any vaccine mandates during the height of the pandemic. She's also very close to law enforcement. She has adopted more of a Trumpian style of Republican politics as close to people who have supported the former president, there was a supporter of Congressman Santos. I don't know to the extent that she will continue to be a supporter as his legal troubles continue, but she is not afraid of engaging in very, very spirited debates with her fellow council members, sometimes getting a bit personal and- -to her mind, I think she is trying to project someone who is representing these homeowners, people in parts of Queens who she would suggest are forgotten from some of the policy debates that happen at City Hall. She is definitely far more conservative, and as I said, is someone who is not just a Republican, but would be more on the Trump end of Republican politics.

Brian Lehrer: Now, does any of this matter, these few seats that we've talked about as examples and the relatively small handful of others that are in play in the general election? Because City Council, 51 seats is, what is it, 45 Democrats to six Republicans now, something like that? It's not going to be much different. There's still going to be a huge Democratic majority after Election Day next month. Is it going to matter? We see City Council generally to the left of Mayor Adams. They debate housing issues, they debate climate issues, that's happening right now, they debate migrant issues. Is it going to change?

Brigid Bergin: That's something that I think is important to watch because it has been shifting. These handful of Republicans also caucus with a small number of conservative Democrats. There is something called the Common Sense Caucus. My colleague, Julia Hayward, has been following that. It does serve to push back occasionally on some of the more extreme policy conversations within the council. It doesn't mean necessarily that things will be blocked, but it does serve as a voice in that body that some people view as potentially far to the left of certainly the mayor, but maybe some of the city's politics and gives voice to voters who want to feel represented.

I think that it is significant, and I think that there are some other seats to watch that there may be some potential for Republicans to pick up additional seats in this upcoming general election. I'll very quickly just mention, there is another district that we are keeping our eyes on, which is also in Brooklyn, and it is a district that because of redistricting, there is no incumbent. You have candidates who are running, trying to appeal to voters. There are three candidates on the ballot. Susan Zhuang, Ying Tan as the Republican, and Vito La Bella is the conservative.

This is a district that's picks up parts of Sunset Park, Bensonhurst and Gravesend, and it was a district that was drawn as what’s called an Asian opportunity district. What that means is based on the census numbers, it was determined that this population contained a significant number of Asian voters, and this is an opportunity for voters there to select a candidate of their choice. To be very clear, Asian voters, they're not a monolith in this particular case. The largest ethnic subgroup within that is Chinese-American voters. These are voters who had been split among four districts who have been now largely drawn into a new district.

There is a chance there. The Republican and Democratic candidates are both Chinese-American candidates. That will be interesting to see because what we have also seen in terms of trends in voting in our recent City Council-- excuse me, our recent gubernatorial race and the previous mayoral election, was that particularly among some Chinese-American voters, we saw a shift to the right. Lee Zeldin did very well among Chinese-American voters and some Asian voters.

While this is a contest among Democrats, Republicans, and this conservative candidate, it's in a strange year, and it'll be interesting to see what the party is able to do to turn out these voters. If we continue to see that shift, that means that Republicans could potentially pick up another seat.

Brian Lehrer: Right, and not just in City Council if loyalties start to shift in that part of Brooklyn. Let's finish up on the two ballot initiatives that people will see. They're both about debt. They both can sound pretty obscure if you read the ballot, one having to do with how small school districts borrow money, and the other having to do with debt limits for sewage projects. Can you explain them in brief?

Brigid Bergin: I can explain them in brief by advising our listeners to check out my colleague, John Campbell's very, very thorough explainer on Gothamist, and say that--

Brian Lehrer: It's John Campbell, our Albany correspondent, because these are statewide questions, right?

Brigid Bergin: That's right. These are statewide questions, and they're statewide questions that, in fact, don't really impact New York City. Even though we will undoubtedly have the largest number of voters turning out in this statewide election, but these are constitutional changes. As you mentioned, they have to do with debt limit, small city school districts, the ability to make repairs to your sewer system. They're important issues at this point, and in the reporting that John has done, there does not appear to be great opposition to either of these questions, but they need to go through this process because they are changes to the state constitution. That is why they're being voted on statewide.

It's important for voters to understand them. For voters here in New York City, it can feel a little bit more abstract because we're not necessarily talking about our city’s school districts or repairs to our sewage systems because we have different limits. John's got a great explainer. Definitely check it out on Gothamist, John Campbell, and know that these issues are important, but we're not seeing a ton of opposition to them for what that’s worth.

Brian Lehrer: Many people's favorite democracy wonk, our senior political correspondent, Brigid Bergen. Brigid, thanks a lot.

Brigid Bergin: Thank you, Brian.

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