[music]

Brian Lehrer: Brian Lehrer on WNYC and one result of the election that's only recently been settled, the New York State Senate will now have a supermajority. That means they could override any bill that Governor Cuomo, vetoes even with no Republican support. That could mean more progressive legislation that they couldn't get through before.

Maybe a millionaire's tax to help deal with the pandemic caused state fiscal crisis, rent and mortgage payment relief that's more cancellation for some people, not just the delay in paying background maybe sports gambling or legal recreational cannabis redistricting the state for the next decade now that the census has done, but as we know from national politics even a supermajority doesn't guarantee your party will agree on everything.

Let's talk to two members of this supermajority from the New York State Senate, Senator Jessica Ramos, a leader of the progressive wing from Queens. She comes from a progressive district that overlaps the congressional district of Alexandria, Ocasio, Cortez, and Andrew Gounardes, who just barely hung onto his seat in South Brooklyn in a more conservative district that overlaps the one that Congressman Max Rose lost to Republican Nicole Malliotakis so Senator Ramos, Senator Gounardes, thanks for coming on today and congratulations on the supermajority.

Senator Andrew Gounardes: Thank you.

Senator Jessica Ramos: Thank you. Good morning, Brian. Hey, Andrew?

Brian: Senator Gounardes want to talk first about your reelection? I guess the district lines made it a little easier for you than Max Rose because though you have some red areas of Brooklyn for sure you didn't have Staten Island.

Senator Gounardes: That that's right. It was a hard-fought election, but one that we nevertheless prevailed, I more than tripled my 2018 victory margin. I'm very, very happy of that effort. I represent the very swing district here in Southern Brooklyn. It's a little bit of red, a little bit of blue, and a lot of purple in between, but when everything is said and done we'll have won the election by just around 4,000 votes.

I believe the board of elections is certifying tomorrow. That's coming from a deficit of 5,200 votes on election day. Of course, as we all know nationwide the story of the absentee ballots, the mail-in ballot we invested a lot in making sure that people knew they could vote by mail instead of having to go in person and we capitalized on that advantage. I think that's what put us over the top.

Brian: Now the campaign against you was funded in part by money from conservative businessman, Ron Lauder and the ad campaign blamed Democrats for a rise in crime in the city after the bail reform passed last year in Albany and city policies that kept over overtime for the NYPD shifted school safety officers from the NYPD to the education department and canceled two police academy classes. How did you defend against that?

Senator Gounardes: I think it's certainly it was a lot of money was about $2 million spent against me in my race pedaling the worst lies, but I think once you're able to break through to people and have an honest conversation about what the laws are, what the actual cause of the crime that we're seeing happening across the city is and what strategies and policies and plans we have in place to address that people tune out a lot of the negative ads I found, especially in an area like mine, where there were there was the overlapping congressional rates where people were getting bombarded with ads from both sides, from both Max Rose and Nicole Malliotakis.

The ads against me, they may have heard something or seen something and it posed a question in their head, but it didn't connect enough to really drive the point home. That allowed me to then have a real in-depth conversation with voters about what the truth is and what the reality is. That's what I think ultimately helped us get through that wave.

Brian: For both of you on this issue before we go on to the list of potential progressive bills that I mentioned in the intro that you might be able to get through as a Democratic Senate supermajority now as a follow-up to the ad campaign, is there a Democratic party response to the almost doubling of the rate of shootings since the pandemic began in New York City or response to the rising dangers not only to the need for criminal justice reform, which also of course exists, Senator Ramos, will you take this?

Senator Ramos: As working families party Democrat I believe that public safety means providing healthcare, housing, education, and all of the essentials so that people are not succumbing to their worst possible decisions and act out of desperation. I also think a lot of mental illness is going unaddressed because we don't have a plan at the state level. The best thing I think we can do right now to keep crime at bay is really to pay people to stay home. We are unfortunately creating the conditions that are leading to a second wave by forcing people to leave their homes and open their businesses and this is what we should have done from the beginning.

Brian: Senator Gounardes same question to you.

Senator Gounardes: I agree with a lot of what Jessica said. I'm also a working families Democrat. I've been on the working families party line now for three elections and I think that's absolutely right. Part of this you have to really look at where crime is happening, why it's happening, and how it's being allowed to happen and one of the biggest drivers of gun violence in our city is the fact that we have this iron pipeline of easily trafficked guns from other states that we have not been able to clamp down on.

The Brooklyn district attorney just did a press on this a couple weeks ago. I did a press conference on this in September with the DA, with my local police precincts talking about this issue. I think nearly 70% or 75% of guns that are used in New York city crimes don't come from New York City or don't come from New York state [crosstalk]

Brian: That's always been the case and that's always been a problem. Something different happened locally this year to increase the rate of shootings by so much?

Senator Ramos: Oh, well, if I can speak for my district for a second, I'm seeing a lot of my neighbors look for money in places where they shouldn't have to. Many of my neighbors are undocumented or people who are not part of the formal economy work in the cash economy and they're ending up going to loan sharks and finding ways in order to put food on the table. I know that that has contributed to a lot of the gun violence that we've seen in my district.

We have some gang violence in my district and largely it's because people don't have a place to go or a means in order to get the money that they need in order to keep a roof over their heads. People are acting out of desperation. They're acting out of mental illness. Those are the two main drivers of crime that we need to address. They were drivers of crime before the pandemic, during the pandemic, and likely after unless we decide to actually generate revenue in this state, cover that deficit provide people with the things that they need once and for all so that we can focus on rebuilding our economy the right way.

Brian: Senator Gounardes, did you want to finish an answer to that question too?

Senator Gounardes: No, actually, I was going to say some version of what Senator Ramos just said in that this is a very challenging time for people and people are desperate and people are acting out of that desperation and there are consequences of that. I think we're seeing that play out right now. That doesn't answer every single crime or every single shooting or every single act of violence, but it certainly explains a great deal of it. That bears out with when you actually dig deep beyond the headlines that you find out what's happening on the ground in these communities.

Brian: As we talk about this supermajority and some of the changes that might mean for the state, listeners we can take a few phone calls for state Senator Andrew Gounardes from Brooklyn and state Senator Jessica Ramos from Queens. We'll talk as we go here over the next few minutes about rent and mortgage relief, millionaire's tax, legalizing sports betting, and recreational marijuana. Who knows what else will come up. If you have any questions for our two guests and one from a more progressive district if you will. One from a more conservative or mixed district if you will in Brooklyn. 646-435-7280, 646-435-7280.

I'll slip in the legal ID here. This is WNYC FM HD and AM New York, WNJT FM 88.1, Trenton, WNJP 88.5 Sussex, WNJ Y 89.3 Netcong, and WNJO 90.3 Toms River. We are in New York and New Jersey Public Radio. All right, let's tick down this list a little bit. Senator Ramos, rent and mortgage relief. What do you think might now be possible that wasn't before?

Senator Ramos: Right now we're worried because the moratorium that the governor had enacted is quickly coming to an end and it really wasn't a true moratorium. We have many people who are undergoing eviction proceedings most especially in my district in Corona Queens which was the epicenter of the epicenter during this pandemic and they've been the hardest hit and unfortunately, of course, because they haven't been able to remain employed, they are behind on their rent payments and are on the verge of being evicted. This is a very dangerous situation for working families across the city and across the state unless the governor takes action today.

You mentioned online sports betting and marijuana and these things that we can legalize in order to generate revenue, but really that's only going to be a drop in the bucket. We need to tax the rich, we need to tax billionaires. This is why I have a bill that would generate $23 billion from taxing billionaires unrealized capital gains. It would help us cover some basic expenses for excluded workers who didn't get unemployment, who didn't get a stimulus check, and others hopefully, including small businesses who haven't received any economic relief during this pandemic.

I mean, they barely received PPP funding. Now it turns out that that PPP funding is taxable and Cuomo took a lot of that funding away with all of the SLA attacks he had on restaurants. We're going to have to do a better job. I'm really hoping that we get called back in during the month of December to do the people's work. We really need to get serious about generating money. There's no reason why as one of the richest states in this country it should be so hard for the average New Yorker to put food on the table.

Brian: Senator Gounardes, would you support a cancelation of rant and maybe mortgage payments for 90 days worth of rent and not just the delay that is currently in the moratorium?

Senator Gounardes: I think the way we need to tackle this problem is to be able to provide support to people to pay their rent because we have to recognize that rent is just one piece of a larger housing ecosystem. One person's rent is another person's income is another person mortgage payment is another person's property tax payment to the city. Just by removing one element of that ecosystem without compensating for it we throw the entire ecosystem out of balance and I think we will end up creating a bigger problem than we're trying to solve. That's why one of the things we did earlier this year was we created a rental assistance voucher program.

We seeded it with 100 million dollars in Cares Act Funding that is nowhere near the need that we know exists here in the state. As we've seen in the last couple of weeks that program has not been administered as the way we intended it to be and less than half of that money has gotten out the door, which is very concerning and very alarming. I think the ultimate solution here is to be able to help people pay their rent this way the housing ecosystem stays afloat and we don't have to worry about rebuilding yet another sector of our economy. On top of all the other sectors that have been devastated by our current circumstances.

Brian: How about a millionaires tax? Senator Gounardes, I'll stay with you first on this one. You know the Governor Cuomo warns that raising taxes on the people for whom it is the easiest to leave the state at a time when a lot of people are leaving at least in New York City might be counterproductive.

Senator Gounardes: Sure. I disagree with the governor on this and I believe I'm a co-sponsor on most if not all of the proposals or almost all of the proposals that have been floated to raise revenue on higher earners here in the state. The reality is we are looking at a nearly $60 billion shortfall at the state level over the next four years. We are not going to be able to cut our way out of a hole that deep nor will we be able to just automatically raise our way out of a hole that deep right away, it's going to take time. It's going to take careful and thoughtful leadership.

We're going to have to increase investments in certain areas, take away funding from certain areas, find ways to raise revenue in certain areas. This is going to be a very complicated puzzle that those of us in government have to solve. It's going to take every tool in our toolkit. It's not as simple as tax everyone or cut everything. There's going to be an in-between there and that's where I think we need to be focusing on.

Brian: Senator Ramos, do you think you can an override of a Cuomo veto of such attacks and then anything else you want to say?

Senator Ramos: I wanted to add that, I agree with my colleague now is not the time to play austerity politics. Now is the time to invest in people. Who we cannot afford to lose is the working people who keep leaving New York because they can't keep up with the cost of living here. That's who I'm worried about leaving New York and we've lost hundreds and thousands. When it comes to overriding a veto, I sure hope I live to see it. Look, there's exactly 42 of us we're hoping John Mannion wins his seat as well, that'll give us another vote, but ultimately while we're all Democrats, there are folks who are progressive like me, there are folks who are a little more moderate like Andrew, there are folks out in long Island and upstate who differ with us on some issues.

It's going to be difficult to find consensus when we need it, but we're going to have to do the work. I have faith that our majority leader will be able to keep us united when it counts to the most. We're going to have to be ready to fight back when it's needed. I think right now we're living in a very, truly urgent moment and that's where we need to stay loudest. Actually, December starts tomorrow we're expecting Cuomo start rolling out his vetoes of the bills that we passed earlier this year including my SWEAT bill, which would help workers get some relief from wage theft. He vetoed it last year. Hopefully, this year we get it done. We need to get money in people's pockets and we need Cuomo to be helpful with that.

Brian: Here's Blake in White Plains for you Jessica Ramos, following up on something you said before about paying people to stay home during the pandemic. Blake, in White Plains, you're on WNYC with our two senators. Hello.

Blake: Hi, good morning. I'm just curious in regards to paying people stay home, how does that get paid for and also when people are staying called how to agencies like the MTA, the railroads and cover with no hope of people taking the services and paying all that money back and they're already suffering as well?

Brian: Senator Ramos.

Senator Ramos: Hey, Blake, thanks for the question. Look, this is why we're insisting on taxing the rich and yes, legalizing marijuana and online sports betting and we're asking for creativity even from the governor, if you don't agree with us, well, then propose an idea, and yet she's not. There is urgency for generating revenue and that's how we're able to help people to stay home with some peace of mind, but ultimately we need the federal government to act. It's true and that's what the governor has been waiting for for a long time.

The problem is that everybody has gone into crippling debt over these past few months. If we're going to wait for the Biden administration to send us some money, it's going to take awhile. It's likely not going to happen until spring. It's likely going to meet the hurdle of a GOP Senate unless Georgia comes through and it's likely not going to be enough money. I understand and I think it's very responsible to think about the MTA and how our other institutions are going to survive, but ideally, those are the things that are going to have to happen for us to hopefully responsibly be able to afford to let New Yorkers stay home until we get this virus under control and hopefully by then the maybe the timing coincides and we have vaccines out there too.

Brian: One more call Bobby and Sheep's Head Bay you're on WNYC. Hello.

Bobby: My name is Bobby Sackman. I'm calling about the New York health facts, which this pandemic has thrown a glaring light on our need for single-payer healthcare system which includes long-term care which would help people who need home care and nursing home care. Do you think the Senate will finally put that up for a vote?

Brian: That's New York state single-payer health insurance, basically abolishing all private insurance in the state. If I understand the New York Health Act as proposed. Senator Gounardes you for that?

Senator Gounardes: I'm a co-sponsor of the New York Health Act. I believe Jessica is as well. I think that there are some improvements that still need to be made to the bill. I have some concerns and questions about the payment structure that I've been working on with the Senate sponsor, Senator Rivera, but I think Bob you're absolutely right. This pandemic has highlighted the absolute urgency and the moral imperative to have a healthcare system that works and includes everybody because right now we don't have that.

Brian: I haven't seen that listed Senator Ramos, in the press articles about the progressive legislation that's now possible because of the supermajority. Is it a priority of yours to really go for single-payer?

Senator Ramos: It is an absolute priority. I'm the prime co-sponsor of the New York Health Act, largely because my job is to help Senator Gustavo Rivera figure out how we can get more of our unions on board with the idea and that's been one of the hurdles, I'm going to be very transparent, we want to get everybody on the same system. It's going to be costly at the beginning, but it's this right long-term investment to make. Ultimately, we have a lot of these bills are going to cost a lot of money. The New York Health Act is expensive, fully funding our public schools is $1.1 billion.

Making sure that the MTA is circumventing any shortfalls is going to be billions of dollars as well. You see where I'm going with this. If you create the list of all of the things that we need in order to make our lives better as New Yorkers, you're going to come up with a hefty bill with a big price tag. Unless we can count on federal dollars and Governor Cuomo gets start to doing the work of actually generating revenue and can stop twiddling his thumbs for the last nine months while he writes a book and goes on TV, then finally maybe we'll have a fighting chance against the calamity that our economy has become.

Brian: New York State Senator Jessica Ramos of Queens, New York State Senator Andrew Gounardes of Brooklyn. Now that the New York State Senate contains a supermajority of Democrats meaning enough to override a veto of something by Governor Cuomo, if they so choose. We've been talking about some of the initiatives that may now be possible in the new Democratic Senate. We'll see what happens in the new term of the legislature, which begins in January or possibly the special session.

If governor Cuomo exceeds to the plea that we heard from Senator Ramos in this conversation to call a special session for December to deal with rent relief and other pandemic related emergency issues. Senators congratulations again on the supermajority. Thank you so much for some time today.

Senator Gounardes: Thank you, Brian.

Senator Ramos: Thank you, Brian. Thanks for having us.

Copyright © 2020 New York Public Radio. All rights reserved. Visit our website terms of use at www.wnyc.org for further information.

New York Public Radio transcripts are created on a rush deadline, often by contractors. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of New York Public Radio’s programming is the audio record.