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Brian Lehrer: It's The Brian Lehrer Show on WNYC. Good morning, everyone. Well, Paul Krugman on today's show, The New York Times columnist and economics wonk that's going to relate mostly to this eye-popping, mind-numbing number that's been in the news the last couple of days since New Year's, the US total accumulated debt has hit $34 trillion, but that number is so big, it's meaningless to us.

What does $34 trillion of federal debt mean? Is it something to be worried about? Is it fine in the context of how big the overall economy is? Paul Krugman is going to come on with his take on the $34 trillion debt number that you've been hearing in the news. We also have the Mayor of Paterson, Andre Sayegh, coming on later in the show. Paterson, New Jersey, a lot going on there right now with climate change, with its Palestinian population, with the police takeover by the state of New Jersey, a lot news coming out of little Paterson.

150,000 people, about 15 miles west of the city, for those of you who measure things by distance from the George Washington Bridge, and that'll be interesting, I think, to talk to Mayor Sayegh later in the show. We'll close later on with a call in for people who have or have considered and rejected the idea of hyphenating your names when you get married.

All of that is coming up, but we start here. The new year means a new legislative session in Albany. Before your eyes start to roll to the back of your heads and you go, "Oh, state legislature, this is boring. I'm going to the other station," will this be the year they break through statewide nimbyism, not in my backyard, for desperately needed affordable housing construction?

Their attempt at this last year, and we talked about it so much, failed due to suburban resistance for the most part. Is this going to be the year that Governor Hochul and the legislature figure out how to get affordable housing done? If we were just to open the phones on any day and say, "Okay, what's the number one issue in New York or the greater New York area," a lot of you we know would call in and say, "Affordable housing, not enough affordable housing," but it turns out to be politically difficult even though almost everybody says it's needed.

We're going to see if they're going to find a new way from Albany this year, and what else will be the focus for the Senate in the Assembly and where will they find common ground with the governor, which despite Democratic control of both chambers plus the Governor's mansion, there are big differences in approach to work through including, and we'll talk about these some controversial vetoes, the governor slipped in under the news cycle radar just before New Year's.

You were getting to pour your champagne. She was vetoing bills that the legislature passed by wide margins during 2023. Let's kick off New York State politics 2024 for this show with Jon Campbell, Albany reporter for WNYC and Gothamist. Hello, Jon. Happy New Year.

Jon Campbell: Hi, Brian. Happy New Year.

Brian Lehrer: Let's dive right in with housing, which you wrote about for Gothamist and seems to be at the top of the list for everyone. The governor proposed a big plan last year that did fall apart in the face of suburban resistance to mandated higher housing density.

She's already said she won't be trying that approach again, but neither were any deals reached on extending the 421a tax cuts for developers the way they used to be that are supposed to incentivize new affordable housing or the progressive's idea for new limits on evictions, statewide rent stabilization. What might be different this year?

Jon Campbell: Well, the biggest difference here is the legislature seems to be putting together some sort of compromise measure here. That would include two of the three measures that you just mentioned right there. One would be, some extension, re-upping of this 421a tax credit, which is a tax incentive for builders of housing if they include a certain percentage of affordable units in New York City.

The other part of that would be the good cause eviction protections, which is essentially-- it would make it so you could challenge a rent increase if it's above a certain percentage every single year, and it would also give you a presumption of a lease renewal and would only allow landlords to evict you for "good cause" like if you trash the place or something like that. There is already [crosstalk]

Brian Lehrer: Or if you don't pay your rent. Whenever we talk about good cause eviction on the show, people I think who are reflexively opposed think, "Oh, well, gee, you're not going to pay your rent and then they're not going to be able to kick you out and that's not fair to the landlords," but non-payment of rent is included as a reason for eviction in that concept, right?

Jon Campbell: Yes, that would be good cause for eviction. There's already the bones in place for a compromise deal here. You saw both Speaker Carl Heastie, the assembly speaker, and Senate Majority Leader Andrea Stewart-Cousins. They both referenced something like that in their opening remarks yesterday, but so far, the governor has not been on board with that.

Something like that was coming together in the legislature in last June before they broke for the summer and the winter, but it never totally got over the finish line. They're starting from that point, but the governor to this point has been opposed to those good cause reforms, the real estate industry is very much opposed to those good cause reforms, and that leaves us in this stalemate right now, and we wait to see what the governor's new plan is in her state of the state next week.

Brian Lehrer: Let me play a Carl Heastie clip. You mentioned Heastie. For people who are new to New York state politics, he's the assembly speaker. He is the most powerful person in the New York State Assembly. He's an assemblyman from the Bronx. The most powerful member of the state senate is Andrea Stewart-Cousins, the majority leader. Her district is in Westchester.

What they used to call three men in a room, and it was always men, now it's three people in a room, Governor Hochul, Speaker Heastie, and Majority Leader Cousins, when the power brokers meet to figure out what to try to get their rank and file to vote on. Speaker Heastie came right out of the box talking about housing on January 3rd, yesterday.

Carl Heastie: All stakeholders must come to the table and have a serious discussion about how we can work together to solve New York's affordable housing crisis.

[applause]

We must build more affordable housing across the state, but at the same time, we must protect those in our existing housing stock.

Brian Lehrer: When he talks about protecting those in our existing housing stock, where does that enter the picture?

Jon Campbell: Well, that is what he's referring to with the good cause protections and tenant protections, meaning you would give tenants greater protections to stay in their housing and not get evicted so they can hike the rent for somebody else. He's laying out the framework of the deal that the Senate and the Assembly are laying the groundwork here for. That is exactly what he is referring to.

Andrea Stewart-Cousins said a very similar thing in the Senate, but like I said, we're still waiting to see where the governor lands here. We do know that she wants to see a dramatic increase in the number of units. The goal that she laid out with her plan last year was 800,000 new units across the state of New York over the next decade. That is a lot of units, and I think we can presume that she doesn't think that this legislative compromise that's coming together now would do the trick.

Brian Lehrer: Why would she have any more success forcing really communities around the state, especially in the New York City suburbs where this seems to be the hottest of a hot button, why would she have any more success this year? If the suburbs say, "No, we want our single-family home kind of density lifestyle." Maybe there's a race and class element too, and they don't want a lot of lower-income people who they may think are going to be Black and brown people from New York City who come with crime and all these stereotypes and fears that people have.

They don't want these apartment buildings going up even around train stations, which is the usual nature of the proposal. More apartment buildings around Long Island Railroad stations, Metro North Stations where people might like living there. Commute into the city by train. If they work in the city, come back.

Maybe not even have to own a car even though you live on Long Island, let's say, because you have a downtown that's a little downtown, a homey downtown, like a small town downtown on the outskirts of whatever train station, but the local polls resisted and basically, the local populations resisted. How could she break through that this year if she couldn't break through it last year?

Jon Campbell: You're totally right that those roadblocks still exist. The local populations resisted, so the local politicians resisted, so the state lawmakers from those areas resisted, and that same mechanism is in place now. That said, the governor says she's going to drop the mandate part of it.

She wanted basically every town, city, village in New York state to increase their housing stock from anywhere between 1% and 3%, depending on if you're upstate or downstate over the next three years. She says she's dropping that part.

Now, one of the things I'm going to be watching for is, does she go to a more incentive-based approach? Meaning, no, you're not mandated to increase your housing stock, but if you do, here's a little carrot on a stick for you. Here's some extra money for your village. Here's some infrastructure spending, something like that.

That is something that the legislature was more amenable to last year. Now, the governor last year said that wouldn't get the job done, but if that's her only option that she has, maybe that's one she takes. Again, that's something we're going to be looking for when she lays out state next week and then her budget address a week after that.

Brian Lehrer: Listeners, who wants to call in on how to get New York state to build more affordable housing or anything else, having to do with the New York State legislature, coming into session for 2024 now, 212-433-WNYC for Albany Maven, Jon Campbell, 212-433-9692. You can call or you can text.

I want to talk about these vetoes. I don't know if you'd call them stealth vetoes, they look like that to me because of the timing. The governor waited until the very end last day, or last days of the year to deal with something like 85 bills that had been passed by the legislature and needed her signature. She vetoed 115 bills altogether out of the 896 that got passed in all of last session.

A few of them that she waited till the very last minute while people were opening up their Christmas presents or [unintelligible 00:12:29] of presents or popping their champagne corks on New Year's eve, and definitely not paying attention to local news, waited until those days to veto them. What happened here?

Jon Campbell: You might call them stealth vetoes, I would call them an Albany holiday tradition, I think, because it happens every single year. That the governors whether they want to bury the veto, they will do it in the last days of the year when very few people are paying attention, or in a lot of cases, there have been negotiations going on with the state legislature and they're running out the clock.

The governor has until the end of the year to sign or veto those bills, and they're taking up as much time as they can to try to negotiate some sort of compromise that will allow the governor to sign the bill. Some of it is stealth veto and some of it is legitimate negotiations that the clock runs out.

There were a lot of bills that she vetoed here that really angered the legislature, quite frankly. She vetoed a non-compete agreement ban, which would've prohibited, essentially would've banned pretty much all non-compete agreements in employment contracts. If you go and start working at a company and they put a clause in your employment terms that say you can't work for one of our competitors for two years after you leave, that would've been illegal under this bill.

That was one of the ones where they did negotiate for quite a while and the governor was trying to get it to apply to only to jobs under, say, $250,000 a year, and that way, that would pacify some of the big business concerns and the Wall Street concerns that like, hey, we need these non-compete agreements for our top executives and things like that. That was one where they weren't able to strike a deal and she vetoed it. There's smaller bills too, she vetoed one that--

Brian Lehrer: Let's stay on that one. That's an interesting one. Who tends to get hit with these non-compete clause? I hear what you were just describing. Let's say you're a top executive at Goldman Sachs and you get a better offer from JPMorgan Chase and you know all these Goldman Sachs trade secrets, they may be according to this compromise you were just describing, they should be able to limit.

You can't go to work for a competing Wall Street firm if you're a top executive for another year. Sometimes it's got those calendar length of time limits on the non-compete clauses, that's I think a common thing, but who lowered down the pecking order gets hit with these that the legislators wanted to protect?

Jon Campbell: It's a big chunk of all workers, quite frankly, and sometimes it happens with lower wage workers too. It is something that the FTC on the federal level is looking at banning federally, but that would be something that would be years away. It is not just the big time executives, and that was where these negotiations broke down because the governor had made the point that she wants it to apply in exactly the situation that you just laid out, the Goldman Sachs executive who's leaving for JPMorgan, whatever, something like that. It has permeated, the FTC actually has a stat that, it's a big percentage, I think it's 20% of all workers have some non-compete agreement that's according to the FTCs estimate. That's one in five out there of people in the workforce, that's a lot of people.

Brian Lehrer: Another one, before we go to some phone calls that I've seen described as being nicks by the governor at the last minute was the bill to require LLCs, a kind of corporation, to disclose their ownership, something good government groups have long advocated so they know who's got their hooks into the politicians for what kinds of special interests. I think they've been talking about this since Mario Cuomo as governor, but have never been able to pass this. What's the story with LLCs and having to disclose their ownership's identities?

Jon Campbell: This gets into one of the oddities of Albany. This isn't one that the governor actually vetoed. She signed this bill, but she got the legislature to agree to what's called a chapter amendment. That is basically they agree to make changes to the bill when they come back into session. That really gutted a really key portion of that bill.

The LLC Transparency Act, it would've required LLCs, maybe your building that you live in is owned by an LLC where you can't find the name of the actual owner, you can only see 421 9th Street LLC or something. It would have made it so the beneficial owners of these LLCs would've had to report who they are to the state and then the state would've made a public database.

That's mirrored on a federal policy that's going into effect this year, although the federal policy does not have the public database. What Governor Hochul got the legislature to do was to agree to strip out the public database portion of that bill. The LLC owners will still have to report their beneficial owners to the state.

That information will be available to DAs and other law enforcement for investigatory purposes, so if there's some money laundering investigation with landlords in New York City, law enforcement wouldn't have access to that, but we, the public will not have access to that now because of this chapter amendment that the governor got the legislature to agree to.

Brian Lehrer: Let's take a phone call on an issue that we haven't touched on yet, but we have covered on the show in the past. I think New Jersey did something like this, and they're looking to New York to do a two for families in a certain circumstance. Thomas on Staten Island, you're on WNYC. Thank you for calling in. Happy New Year.

Thomas: Hi, can you hear me okay?

Brian Lehrer: I can hear just fine, Thomas. Hi.

Thomas: Yes, Medical Aid in Dying, which is sponsored by Assembly Member Paulin and Senator Hoylman-Sigal, I'm really hoping that this is the year where New York can finally join New Jersey, Vermont, several other states that allowed doctors and patients to work freely at end of life, if a patient's suffering becomes intolerable.

My understanding is that, over three quarters of New Yorkers support this, but the religious fundamentalists are blocking this, and the leader of the Assembly and the Senate are intimidated by that. Even Montana allows this and no disrespect to Montana, but one doesn't normally think of Montana as being more enlightened than forward-thinking than New York, but it's just a-- We talked a lot about reproductive rights, and we should, but end of life autonomy, really hoping this is the year that medical aid and dying can pass.

Brian Lehrer: Thomas, thank you for that. Yes, that's been in front of the legislature. Jon, have you covered that?

Jon Campbell: Yes, absolutely. The caller was absolutely right, it's sponsored by two lawmakers who have a history of getting bills passed, quite frankly. They get a lot of bills passed every single year. This is not one of them. This is one that has run into, yes, opposition from religious groups, but it is one that has, it makes a lot of people uneasy in the legislature.

There's this question every year of, is this the year that maybe the legislature takes that bill up? It would allow doctors to prescribe life-ending medication to people who have very serious terminal illnesses. That is something that you see in other countries and in some other states. I would say it's probably a long shot again in Albany. It hasn't picked up a ton of traction over the years.

Advocates are very active at the Capitol pushing for it. It has picked up traction in that sense, but it hasn't moved through the legislature, but it does have two powerhouse legislators behind it, who get a lot of bills passed. It's never-- I wouldn't say that the chances are 0%, but they're certainly far from 100% too.

Brian Lehrer: Is it basically the Catholic diocese in New York stopping it?

Jon Campbell: I don't know that it's fair to say that it's only the Catholic diocese stopping it. I think a lot of lawmakers have personal conflicts with the bill and it makes them uneasy. That is a tough vote to take. The Catholic Conference is very active on it, and they are still a power in Albany, and they make their voice known in Albany frequently.

This is one of those issues that they have made their voice known on, but I don't think it would be fair to say that they're the only roadblock in the way. I mean, I think there are a lot of lawmakers that have their own personal opinions on it.

Brian Lehrer: There are some equity advocates I know from having covered this issue that who think that poorer people, and that's often going to be people of color who are in terminal illness situations and don't have a lot of resources especially some who are in extreme situations and don't maybe have a lot of family around. They're going to be pressured into ending their lives "voluntarily" to help the hospitals or whoever's taking care of them on the state's dime save money. There's a power and equity issue that comes up on the anti-side of that debate.

Jon Campbell: That is one that you would see the groups that are in favor of Medical Aid in Dying legislation. There's a group called Compassion & Choices that is very active in Albany and other states. They would push back quite hard against that, but those equity arguments and arguments that something will affect a certain segment of the population or the lower income segment of the population, those are very effective in the state legislature, and the state assembly in particular. That is one that you see raised often.

Brian Lehrer: Interesting. I guess there are versions of it that are meant to offer protections in that respect, and so we'll see if that goes anywhere in Albany this year. Oh, here's somebody calling in on the non-compete clauses. Jimmy in Richmond, Virginia, you're on WNYC. Hi, Jimmy.

Jimmy: Hi, Brian. Can you hear me?

Brian Lehrer: I can hear you. Happy New Year.

Jimmy: Hey, happy New Year. Yes, I was just calling with the thing that Hochul vetoed about the non-compete clause. I used to work at a place in Greenpoint, New York called Monarch, which is the retouching house mostly for [unintelligible 00:24:12]. We got paid like $20 an hour without benefits, and we also had to sign a three year non-compete clause, [laughs] which said basically we couldn't do Photoshop for like anybody else. It also affects lower wage workers too.

Brian Lehrer: Thank you. Thank you for that example. Three years is a long time, Jon.

Jon Campbell: Yes, absolutely.

Brian Lehrer: You can't work in your field for three years, and I know it comes up if you leave voluntarily and then in some cases, even if you get laid off, the non-compete clauses would apply. You could see why somebody like Jimmy objects.

Jon Campbell: There are cases too where it would be in a certain region too. Maybe, sure, you can go work for a competitor if you leave New York City and the suburbs. Yes, it affects lower wage workers too, and the governor had proposed at one point to make it apply only to people below the median wage, then she went up to $250,000 and they weren't able to get a deal done.

Brian Lehrer: We'll continue in a minute with our Albany reporter, Jon Campbell. More of your calls on what's on tap for the New York State legislature and Governor Hochul this year now that the new legislative session has begun for 2024. Some more interesting issues to discuss. We'll play a clip of the governor defending those last-minute Christmas to New Year's week vetoes when nobody was paying attention. We'll take some more of your calls. January in Manhattan, we see you, how could we not take your call this month with that name and some others. Brian Lehrer on WNYC.

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Brian Lehrer on WNYC, as we talk about the end-of-year vetoes by Governor Hochul of bills passed by the legislature and things coming down the pike, lightly coming down. I guess so. We don't call it the pike in New York. Coming down the throwaway.

Jon Campbell: Yes, there you go.

Brian Lehrer: [laughs] Or the [unintelligible 00:26:15]. 212-433 WNYC, 212-433-9692 with our Albany reporter Jon Campbell. Call or text. Let me just touch one of these other vetoes, the Grieving Families Act. What was that?

Jon Campbell: That's a bill that has to do with wrongful death cases. Say, there's a car accident and somebody in your family dies and it was caused by somebody else's negligence. As it stands right now, and as it's been for the last century, you can only sue for economic damages.

Maybe there was lost wages that you were counting on from this person, or things that have to do with economics and that disadvantages people who are say maybe too young for work, very young kids, or too elderly. There's been a push for years to change that law to allow people to sue for damages for all sorts of different things including grief and anguish, things like that.

It would make it easier for family members to sue in wrongful death cases. The governor vetoed that bill last year, well, two years ago now and vetoed it again this past year after lawmakers had made some changes that were designed to pacify some of her concerns. She basically says that the unintended consequences here could be enormous, whether that's insurance costs going up, medical malpractice costs going up.

That is something that the hospitals pushed on big time and the insurance companies. On the other side, you had the trial lawyers who wanted this to come through. In the end, the governor vetoed it for the second year in a row.

Brian Lehrer: Those end-of-year photos set up all kinds of news stories by you and others who cover Albany about bad blood between the governor and the legislature. Here's 45 seconds of what the governor had to say yesterday about that take.

Governor Hochul: This is my third year doing this. There's always speculation, like, "Oh, my God. The relationship is not great." We're fine. I just had a great conversation with Speaker Heastie at his reception this morning and talked about what we're going to do. I'll be seeing Leader Stewart-Cousins at her reception shortly.

We stay in touch on the off season and we stay in touch throughout that time talking about issues. I think people like to-- the culture here thrives on controversy and getting along and working together isn't always going to make headlines. There's a basic foundation of respect for the three leaders to ourselves. We'll have differences of opinions, but it doesn't shape the fundamental level of respect we have for each other.

Brian Lehrer: Jon, is the level of disagreement between the governor and the legislative leaders overplayed to some degree? Maybe another way to ask the question is, aren't there also a lot of Democratic party priorities in the state where there's super majority of Democrats in the legislative houses and the governor's a Democrat, some democratic party priorities, a lot of things that are getting done?

Jon Campbell: Yes, I think what I would say is it's, the tension is kind of bubbling beneath the surface. It hasn't risen to the level of some big blowout thing where the trains aren't running on time anymore. That's not what this is, but there's definitely some signs of some tension between the legislature and the governor. We talked about it earlier with the housing crisis and their inability to reach consensus on that.

The legislature was peeved by some of these vetoes too. The Grieving Families Act was passed pretty overwhelmingly and some of these other bills were as well. The governor's communications director actually put out a statement basically defending the governor's vetoes and calling them extreme legislative proposals and things like that. That rubs some lawmakers the wrong way.

Really when we'll see if there is some tension that is quite frankly worth talking about is when the budget comes, the budget is due at the end of March, and that's when we're really going to see if this tension is real, and causing issues or if it's just normal separation of powers complications here.

Brian Lehrer: To put you on the spot a little bit, could you name off the top of your head what you would consider the number one accomplishment by the legislature plus Governor Hochul last year?

Jon Campbell: Oh, boy. Off the top of my head last year. They passed an MTA plan to keep the MTA finances in order. That is one thing that comes up off the top of my head.

Brian Lehrer: Is that congestion pricing or something else?

Jon Campbell: Well, congestion pricing predated Governor Hochul. That's been a multi-year process, but no, they passed a more comprehensive MTA plan last year that the legislature agreed to, in part by agreeing to make one bus route free in every borough. That's what's coming to the top of my mind put me on the spot deal right now. They passed a $220 billion-plus budget. That is something that needs some sort of consensus to happen and that did happen, albeit a month late.

Brian Lehrer: Abortion rights, welcoming people from other states, things like that?

Jon Campbell: Those are things where they conceptually agree on and have taken action.

Brian Lehrer: Jennifer in Port Washington wants to respond to our stretch of conversation before about how people in the suburbs are blocking the governor and the legislature's desires for a lot more affordable housing construction, especially around train stations in the suburban communities. Jennifer in Port Washington on the north shore of Long Island at the end of the Port Washington branch, for those of you who don't know the Long Island Railroad. Hi, Jennifer. You're on WNYC.

Jennifer: Hi. Thanks for taking my call. I actually wrote an editorial on this. I'm a conservation chair for my Audubon Chapter and the issue isn't more people, the issue is we live on top of a sole source aquifer. The USGS has not finished doing and the assessment of it but we already know that several coastal communities have saltwater intrusion, and every time you put up more housing, you eliminate more permeability and you lose recharge to that aquifer. We don't have an unlimited number of people that can live on Long Island because there just isn't enough water.

Brian Lehrer: Is that a Long Island-wide thing in your opinion or more of a Port Washington hyper-local thing?

Jennifer: No, it's Long Island-wide. We all live on a sole source aquifer. There are no reservoirs, there are no pipes coming from somewhere else.

Brian Lehrer: It's the groundwater under Long Island?

Jennifer: Yes.

Brian Lehrer: Interesting. Jennifer, thank you very much. Jon, have you heard that objection before to more density on Long Island?

Jon Campbell: Yes, that is one that comes up. The water issue, the sewage issue on Long Island, that is one that comes up although I would say that's more of an ancillary criticism opposition to the plan more than just straight density because you see the same density arguments in Westchester where they don't have those same water and sewage issues that they do on Long Island.

Brian Lehrer: For people who don't know how water gets distributed, in our area, at least on the New York State side, there are those big reservoirs Croton and Ashoka, and I think I'm naming them right from memory and maybe there are others huge water pipes. You should see pictures of these things. Google this, look at the huge water pipes coming from the reservoirs a little bit upstate down into New York City, and also serving Westchester. Long Island, because it depends on the groundwater under Nassau and Suffolk Counties really isn't a different situation than other New York suburbs, the northern suburbs, right?

Jon Campbell: Yes. The New York City water system is a feat of engineering. It's incredible. You'll drive through the Catskills and you'll see signs for New York City land up in the Catskills because that's where the the reservoirs are. It's a site to be seen, for sure.

Brian Lehrer: A few listeners texting versions of this question after we've been talking about the vetoes by the governor. I'll read one of the texts as a stand-in for some of the others. This says, when is the legislature going to use its supermajority to override this governor's vetoes?

Jon Campbell: It's something that pretty much never happens. Whether there's a super majority, a non-super majority, you need a two-thirds majority to override a veto in New York. Some of that is complicated by the fact that the veto has come so late in the year but they never do it anyway. The last veto came in 1996 when George Pataki, a Republican was governor. There was a Republican senate at that time. There was a Democratic assembly, and they overrode a veto on a bill that essentially would've made it easier for NYPD and FDNY folks to get pay raises.

That was the last veto almost 30 years ago. I'm sorry, the last veto override. That was nearly 30 years ago. It has not happened in Governor Hochul's term. It didn't happen during Andrew Cuomo's term. Carl Heastie spoke about that two days ago. He did an interview with Capitol Tonight, a TV show on Spectrum stations, and he basically said that's the nuclear option in his mind that it is the absolute last resort and he doesn't want to go to that option and he hasn't.

Brian Lehrer: The last political bodies in America actually trying collaborative approaches it sounds. One more non-compete clause story. David in Brooklyn, you're on WNYC. Hi, David.

David: Hello, Brian. Thank you for taking my call. I was recently let go from a fairly prominent advertising agency in the city. Contingent on getting my severance, I needed to sign a fairly lengthy severance agreement, which also included one of these non-competition clauses.

I spoke to a friend of mine who is an employee lawyer, and essentially, these corporations-- I'm small potatoes. I don't really make an exorbitant amount of money, but in order for me to receive my severance, I had to sign a waiver saying that I would not essentially try to solicit some of the clients of the company with it up to a year. Or even work for competing advertising agencies for up to two years who might or may or may not include their client roster or existing clients or future existing clients.

It's absolutely ridiculous rhetoric. I just don't understand how companies can get away with this and I look at it this way in terms of I need the money, I need the severance, but if I do find a higher salary in the future working with a competing agency, I'd rather just return the severance package and then take my salary. I'll leave you with that. I'm just curious to see if anyone else is in a similar situation.

Brian Lehrer: Thank you for that story, David. Listeners, if you are in a situation, you can still text us, we're coming to the end of the segment. One of the interesting issues pertaining to a last-minute very end of the year veto by Governor Hochul of a bill that was passed by the state legislature to ban a lot of non-compete clauses. I guess it's going to come back in one form or another in 2024.

Jon, there's so much more we could have talked about. This is an election year for the state legislature, not just president of the United States. That's going to affect the politics on a whole bunch of things. I have a feeling you're going to be on more than once in 2024, as our Albany reporter.

Governor's giving her state of the state next Tuesday, and then all these issues, housing and everything else. We're off to the races for the next six months while the legislature is in session. Jon, talk to you a lot and thank you very much for today.

Jon Campbell: My pleasure. Thanks, Brian.

Brian Lehrer: Our Albany reporter, Jon Campbell. Brian Lehrer, WNYC. Much more to come.

 

 

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