Program transcript:

Grant Reeher: Welcome to the Campbell Conversations, I'm Grant Reeher. With our historic levels of political polarization and the hard political feelings that have been generated during the Trump era, each side tends to see the other in the worst possible and the most extreme light. My guest today has written a new book arguing that Democratic and media misperceptions of Republican voters have been especially pronounced. George Hawley is a professor of political science at the University of Alabama and the author of, “The Moderate Majority: Real GOP Voters and the Myth of Mass Republican Radicalization”. Professor Hawley, welcome to the program and congratulations on the new book.

George Hawley: Thanks for having me. I appreciate it.

GR: We appreciate you making the time. So let me just start with a real basic question, what prompted you to write this book?

GH: Well, a couple of things. One was just feeling like there was a, sort of an incongruence between how people were talking about the Republican Party, at least in terms of ordinary Republican voters as this increasingly radicalized element of society and my own experiences and actually interacting with them. So broadly speaking, that would be part of it. Another issue, not to put it on a more social science-y level, I think there's been a ton of really excellent research over the last ten years on what's going on inside the Republican electorate. But my frustration with so much of it was that it was, so much of it was reliant on single snapshots in time, what we would call cross-sectional studies. Either looking at just a single example of the American National Election Study or, you know, some really good and clever experimental studies done. But there wasn't that much just looking at, okay, well, what is going on with the Republican Party over time? And, you know, things that don't require a lot of methodological sophistication but looking at, you know, what are some survey questions that have been asked again and again over the last couple of decades, and can we see has there been this great sea change among Republican voters? And if so, where do we find them? And, you know, as I took a, you know, a deep dove into as many different types of questions and as many different types of surveys as I could find, that we're doing this kind of, you know, over time, taking the temperature over and over again, I was finding more often than not a greater amount of continuity rather than difference over time. I saw that this, you know, this is worth talking about and saying, look, to have a question about polarization and radicalization, but we should also note where we see less change and that's largely what I emphasize in this project.

GR: And you mentioned methods there as you were talking about surveys, talking about social science experiments, the methods that you used in this book, we don't need to go into terribly great detail about this, but you went beyond public opinion surveys. You, I think you did some interviewing and like you said before, you have your own observations. So what did you draw on in writing the book?

GH: Well, quantitatively, I relied predominantly on, you know, the standard big surveys, you know, the General Social Survey, American National Election Survey, Cooperative Election Study, Baylor Religion Study, those that have been done consistently over time that are publicly available so that anybody can check my work and see that it's solid. But I also think that survey data can sometimes be a little bit misleading or at least incomplete. So to supplement that, I also went out of my way to have as many interviews as I could with really just ordinary Republican voters. And I did a fair amount of traveling for this, so I go out and I have a, essentially a focus group in an evangelical church in the Midwest, or I travel up to Nashville to meet with people there. I mean, I did a fair amount of interviews here in Alabama just because it's where I am. But I also went out to the West Coast and elsewhere just to try and get at least some broader geographic representation. So this was, you know, and the people I interviewed, you know, they varied a lot in terms of their levels of political interest and activities. So some of it was people who really don't think about politics very much more than, you know, going out and voting every four years and people who are, you know, rather dedicated activists. I went out of my way to avoid, you know, professional conservatives, so to speak, that I've done, you know, or, and I wasn't going out of my way to try and find people who would have identified with the radical right, which I've done in previous research, looked into that element of society. But that wasn't my main focus here, though, if I did encounter somebody who had far right sentiments, I didn't disregard them either. So those were sort of a mixed methods of quantitative and qualitative. So the quantitative stuff, as I said, is not examples of, you know, tremendous methodological sophistication. There's not a ton of, you know, regression tables in this book.

GR: Right, right. And so briefly, what's the reality that you found among the Republicans that you spoke to and looking at, as you say, the continuity in the survey data? How is the actual typical Republican different from the current stereotype of the typical Republican?

GH: Well, one thing that is true when we talk about polarization is that there is a lot of anger in the Republican electorate. But it tends to be more ideological and partisan than, say, racist or anti-Semitic, which is where a lot of the other focus has been. That is, if we look at attitudes using things like, say, feeling thermometers or attitudes such as racial resentment, which is a term political scientists use a lot. I don't find much compelling evidence that Republicans have gotten say, more racist or more nativist. And the evidence of greater anti-Semitism is almost impossible to find in large data sets. But the degree to which the anger is there, what we've seen, especially since 2000, is this dramatic increase in really just kind of loathing for Democrats and for liberals, but not necessarily for racial or ethnic or sexual minorities, where in fact, over the last couple of decades, feelings have gotten somewhat warmer rather than cooler.

GR: And certainly that loathing goes both ways as far as my experience goes. You're listening to The Campbell Conversations on WRVO Public Media. I'm Grant Reeher and I'm speaking with George Hawley. He's a professor at the University of Alabama and the author of, “The Moderate Majority: Real GOP Voters and the Myth of Mass Republican Radicalization”. Okay, do you think there are certain, let's think about the misperceptions, do you think there are certain kinds of issues on which the misperceptions are most pronounced? You mentioned nativism, anti-Semitism, racism. Are there other things where the misperceptions are most pronounced, or is that where they are?

GH: I think that's where the biggest gap we find is. And I want to be very clear, I am not in any way downplaying the problems of racism, really aggressive nativism, or anti-Semitism. Those are real phenomenon. And if you spend all your time online, particularly on social media, you'll think that this is a widespread massive problem among your ordinary voters. But my takeaway lesson from this is that the type of people who are sitting on X, formally Twitter, all day posting really just nasty, racist, anti-Semitic or otherwise exclusionary stuff are not well representative of the Republican Party overall. And I think that that's an important thing to remember. And I think this is can be a problem in multiple senses because I think that the degree to which people have misperceptions of the Republican Party, it can also perhaps be something of a self-fulfilling prophecy, because my fear is that a lot of pro-Republican or, you know, conservative nonprofits and other groups, they are perhaps just as mistaken as others and think that, oh, well, where the party is going, where the voters are going is in this really far right direction and so in order to stay relevant, we have to keep up with that. We need to maintain at least as far right of a sentiment as the average person out there. And I'm here to say that I think that would probably be a mistake. I mean, both a moral mistake, but also perhaps a long term tactical or strategic mistake on the part of these parties and these elements of the right broadly conceived. And so I hope that reading this might cause some people to rethink a few things and perhaps, you know, dial back some of the extremism that we do see in other elements of the right.

GR: Yeah, that was I thought, in some ways ,that was the most intriguing part of your book. And you do have a lot of thought provoking arguments that that misperception that you're just talking about, it actually helps the minority on the far right. And you said, you know, you use the word self-fulfilling prophecy, but it actually strengthens their position because they appear to be more of the mainstream than perhaps they are.

GH: Yes, that's my position. And, you know, as I've been working through this project, you know, one thing that has been coming up to my mind is actually a comment that Peter Viereck made back in the 1950’s. He was a sort of moderate to conservative thinker at the time, and he was noting at the height of McCarthyism that a lot of people were making the mistake of thinking that all forms of prejudice and bigotry tend to move together. But he was saying in the context of McCarthyism that that was really not what was happening. Because what he found actually that was that sort of the McCarthy sentiments were strongest among those conservatives who tended to be most anti-segregation and similarly, the place where McCarthyism was weakest tended to be in the white supremacist south where people were actually coming out, including conservatives, pretty strongly against McCarthy was the argument he made. And he said, look, ideological polarization or ideological bigotry and hostility does not necessarily move in tandem with other types of hostility and bigotry. And so the fact that we see a lot of Republicans become intensely hostile towards Democrats and liberals and the left more broadly does not necessarily indicate that other types of hostility are also on the rise. So I think it's important that we be able to disaggregate different types of negative attitudes within different portions of the electorate rather than just assume that if we see one negative trend, that it means that other trends are going to be necessarily correlated with that.

GR: So what do you think is most responsible for the misperception and the stereotype?

GH: Well, I mean, to be honest, a lot of it is to be blamed on the Republican leadership. Look, the fact of the matter is, is that the, and particularly I think President Trump has certainly fed into this. Look, the reality is, is that Trump did run, especially in 2016 and then again in 2024, very aggressively nativist campaign. There are a lot of people, sort of, at least on the periphery of Trump world who say some, have a history of saying some really negative and hostile things. And the fact that Republican voters came out and enthusiastically supported him anyway, you know, on its face seems to provide evidence that at the very least they're not uncomfortable with that style of politics. But does that necessarily mean that they endorse it and want to see the party move in a far right direction? I'm not so sure that that's true. So I'm not making the case that, you know, the people who have these misperceptions, you know, don't have any good reason for developing them. But I think that it is worth following up and saying, hey, you know, what is the actual data? Show us. And that's what I tried to do here.

GR: I want to pursue that line of inquiry when we get back after the break. You're listening to The Campbell Conversations on WRVO Public Media. I'm Grant Reeher and I'm talking with George Hawley. The University of Alabama political science professor has recently written a book titled, “The Moderate Majority: Real GOP Voters and the Myth of Mass Republican Radicalization” and we've been discussing the issues that he raises in his book. Well, you were talking about some of the sources of the misperceptions and in particular, you were talking about Republican leadership, President Trump. I wanted to ask you flip that to the other side. Certainly, it would seem that the Democratic Party has decided that it tactically benefits from painting Republicans as an extreme way as possible. Do you have any thoughts about that?

GH: Well, sure. And you know, that's just the nature of partisan politics, right? You need to build up as much fear as possible to get your voters motivated. And so I'm actually not, you know, necessarily too critical of Democrats for doing this because Republicans do the same thing, right? This notion that Democrats are all a bunch of socialists who wish to, you know, destroy the West has been, you know, a common theme in conservative media and from Republican politicians, at least the more irresponsible ones for some time. So, yes, I think that just the nature of partisan politics does incentivize leaders to promote what I would consider to be misleading narratives about voters on both sides of things. And that's unfortunate. I wish it wasn't the case, but it's probably not going to go away. And again, this is not a problem that is localized on either one, more on one side than the other, in my view.

GR: Right. I wanted to also ask you about for lack of a better word, legacy media, mainstream media. It's my sense that they've bought into this a little bit, this sense of misperception particularly on the Republican side. Do you have the same sense?

GH: Yes. And I think part of that is just sort of the nature of what makes for an interesting story like the far right, the radical right is a, you know, makes for a compelling magazine article or newspaper piece or, you know, or makes for good television, you know, the people who are out in outlandish costumes and, you know, carrying swastikas and saying just the most awful things is, you know, is good media. You know, it's popular and it gets people interested much more so than, oh, here's what, you know, that an average guy who doesn't think about politics very much is really like. And, you know, luckily, you know, as an academic, I have a different set of incentives. You know, it's not that important that I sell a ton of books, even if my subject is less interesting to a lot of readers than the, say, the far right would be. And then the other issue of course is that the far right, you know, loves media attention as much as they say they dislike journalists, you know, they want to get that attention. And so it ends up being a system in which both sides, you know, in a way kind of benefits. And so I think this is a way in which the radical right can project power in a way that is outsized compared to their actual representation in the overall electorate.

GR: Yeah, that's a really good point. And then finally, on sort of who's to blame on this, I wonder about academia, too. And so you and I are teaching in completely different areas of the country. I can say that in my area, it's pretty obvious, you'd have to almost be blind and deaf not to think that that academia as a whole has bought into this view of the Republicans as a general stereotype. Do you have a different sense of academia in the South?

GH: No, I would say that we are, even down here in the Deep South academia, professors tend to live in something of a bit of a bubble. I would say that you know, the social worlds of academics, you know, it isn't necessarily going to overlap with, you know, your typical red state experience, even when you're living in a place like Alabama. So I do think that there is a sense in which a lot of academics, even those who study these things very carefully, are socially disconnected from the subjects that they're studying, which I think can create some problems of its own. You know, a lot of the qualitative work, even very good qualitative work that I see among academics who go out and try and study, you know, Republican parties, there's kind of almost like a Gorillas in the Mist style aspect to it. But look at these really strange, exotic people that I've managed to find and I’m studying. And so I think that can be a little bit off putting and can sometimes lead to misperceptions as well.

GR: Yeah, yeah, I'm going on safari in North Dakota or something like that. I understand that since the book's writing, you've begun to have some second thoughts about some of the arguments that are in the book more recently. Could you tell us a little bit about that?

GH: Sure. Well, just by the nature of academic publishing this project, the final draft was completed in 2023, so before the 2024 election it really begun in earnest. And at this point I'm just not sure if maybe we have finally reached an inflection point where perhaps the radical right, the views and preferences and talking points have started to permeate the broader population. I think that if that's the case, I think a probably an important moment was when Elon Musk took over Twitter and made it X and not only made it a place for basically untrammeled free speech, but also seems to be putting his thumb on the scale in favor of voices that I would consider to be fairly far right and radical. And I think it would be naive to say that that couldn't have any possible consequences. So I wouldn't be surprised if some of the things I've been hearing from some of the more irresponsible voices on the right start to become more pervasive. Another thing I noticed in the 2024 election that was quite striking in comparison to 2020 was how the Trump campaign dealt with the immigration question. Because what I found very fascinating about the 2020 election for all of the bad things that occurred there, particularly of course in the refusal to acknowledge Biden's win, but despite all that, what I found perhaps most interesting was the degree to which immigration was really just not an issue at all that year. And I was starting to draw the conclusion that, you know, to the degree to which everyone said that nativism was absolutely essential to the Make America Great Again movement to Trump, they'd be saying, hey, maybe a less aggressively nativist Trumpism could do just as well. Because after all, Trump's diehard supporters, they didn't stop supporting him because he stopped showing very much interest in immigration. So I thought that perhaps kind of the nativist element of Trumpism might start to be downplayed. But then, of course, this most recent election happens after the book is completed. And they very much went back to sort of the 2015-2016 talking points and perhaps even went farther with that when we saw the, you know, the rather ridiculous claims about, you know, Haitians eating pets and that sort of thing. And the degree to which that is becoming a sort of pervasive sentiment within conservative media and elsewhere, I wonder if we might be starting to see in the future a sharper turn to the right. So I can't, unfortunately at this point I'm still waiting for all the best data sets from the 2024 election to come out. So until they do, it's purely speculative on my part. I'm not able to say, one way or the other whether or not my intuitions and the things that I found writing this book still hold today.

GR: If you've just joined us, you're listening to the Campbell Conversations on WRVO Public Media. I'm Grant Reeher and my guest is University of Alabama Professor George Hawley. What are some the, you mentioned when we were talking off microphone about some of the issues, policy areas that are most important to understand some of the nuance, I think in the Republican position. Do you have a few things you want to add about that?

GH: Sure. One thing that people were talking about a lot, especially in 2015, 2016 and beyond, was that Trump isn't kind of represents a repudiation of Reaganism, right? And sort of the default Republican position that, you know, markets are good, trade is good we want a less regulated economy. And with the rise of this populist movement, perhaps those sentiments were going away. And what I did find was that sort of doctrinaire economic conservatism was not popular among Trump voters. However, if you look at similar questions asked again and again and again, the reality is, is that economic conservatism in particular has really never been that popular, at least even among Republican voters, like the notion that you should raise taxes on high earners. It actually, it polls pretty well among ordinary Republican voters, and it always has. So the degree to which the previous iterations of the Republican Party were sort of pro-free market, anti-regulation in favor of, you know, supply side tax cuts and that sort of thing, that was always at odds with what Republican voters said they wanted in polls. So the degree to which we see an economic populism becoming any type of force within the Republican Party, that is more the party actually being aligned with its own voters as opposed to, you know, representing some major sea change from the bottom up.

GR: And maybe even in an indirect way explains some of what was surprising at the time, anyway, Bernie Sanders popularity when he ran because it sort of speaks to those themes of taxing the rich and taking a little more skeptical view of some of the free market doctrines. I wanted to ask you a question about the effects of polarization. And this is more speculative probably for you, but the effects of polarization on what and how people think and how that might be driving part of the change that you might be perceiving since you've written the book. I mean, and maybe you got a sense of this in your in your focus groups, but let me just take like, you know, a more moderate Republican, for example. They know that other people view them as you know, populist, a particularly right wing Trump supporter. And so perhaps maybe they begin to take on some of those views almost out of a reaction or a frustration. I mean, maybe it's a little bit of, you know, like up yours kind of sentiment. You know, if you're going to paint me in a certain way, all right, I'll just go there. Do you think there's any kind of that dynamic driving the two sides?

GH: Yeah, that strikes me as plausible. I mean, people like to, partisanship has become an increasingly important part of people's social identity, even as you know, we don't necessarily see an uptick in interest in policy or ideology. People take their partisan identities, you know, I'm a Republican or I'm a Democrat, they take that very seriously. And people like to feel like they're team players. So the degree to which people you know, want to demonstrate, know the degree to which I'm on team Republican, I think probably could drive people to just kind of adopt the norms that they perceive within that party. I think that's entirely plausible.

GR: And we've got about a minute and a half left or so and I wanted to leave you some time to speculate on this or provide at least your sense from talking to folks what your experience tells you. But how (are) we ever going to climb out of this hole of mutual misperception and political hyperbole regarding the other side? Do you have any clues that you could impart to us for where the glimmers of light are here?

GH: Oh, that's very difficult. I don't think I even, you know, speculated one sentence about that in the book itself. But I do think that one of our problems is a high degree of, at least ideological and political homogeneity within our social networks. I think that there is too little dialog across the partisan divide. I think that the degree to which people would be willing to do that, I think would help to alleviate a lot of the misperceptions out there. And, you know, you can see small studies showing that this can, in fact, be effective. The real challenge is you know, how do you scale it up? How do you force or at least encourage greater amounts of bipartisan dialog? And to my knowledge, no one has yet, even people who are working very hard at this has yet to figure out how you can do this at scale in a way that would move the needle for society. I encourage more of that sort of work, but as of now, I have no panacea, unfortunately, to offer.

GR: Well, we'll have to end on that ambivalent note. That was George Hawley and again, his new book, and it's nuanced and it's well worth reading, especially if you are suspicious about the title is called, “The Moderate Majority: Real GOP Voters and the Myth of Mass Republican Radicalization”. George, thanks so much for taking the time to talk with me, I really learned a lot in this conversation and it was very interesting.

GH: Thank you so much for having me. I appreciate it.

GR: You've been listening to Campbell Conversations on WRVO Public Media, conversations and the public interest.

Program transcript:

Grant Reeher: Welcome to the Campbell Conversations, I'm Grant Reeher. My guest today is Steve Featherstone. He's been on the program a couple of times previously to discuss magazine articles that he's researched and written. But he's with me today because, since 2021, he's been the outdoors reporter for the Syracuse Post-Standard and syracuse.com. In that role he covers everything from hunting and fishing to hiking and ecology. Steve welcome back to the program, congratulations on this position.

Steve Featherstone: Yeah. Thank you. It's good to see you again.

GR: Good to see you. So let me just start by, you know, the job itself. I mean, it seems like for a lot of people it's got to be a dream job. You go out in the outdoors, you experience different fun things and then then you write about them. Is that the way you thought about it when you first approached it?

SF: 100%. As you know me from previous times on the program, I had 20 years as a freelance writer. And what was nice about that job, I got to pick and choose my stories. Bad thing about that job is that you've got to convince someone else that story's worth doing, right? Oftentimes the answer's no, even if I thought it was great. This job, because it’s a daily job and it's a newspaper, there's an endless hole for content, as we call it now, called content. And so I can just do virtually anything I want as long as it's related to upstate New York and recreation and it is really a dream job. In fact, I could not imagine having or taking another newspaper job if it wasn't the outdoors beat.

GR: Wow. Yeah, well, my understanding about you is that prior to taking this beat, you were someone who got out in the outdoors, you enjoyed them, but you weren't like a hardcore survivalist or outdoors person. You weren't someone who, you know, goes out and lives on only what they can forage or, you know, hikes and insane distance in a certain amount of time. I was just curious, first of all, if I'm right in that impression, but also, do you think that gives you a certain sort of everyman's or every person's experience? And so it gives you a particular view about what you're writing about that is kind of immediately connecting with the people that are going to read it?

SF: Yeah, you just totally nailed my personality in the way I (unintelligible) stories, 100%. I'm doing it right then, if that's what you're getting out of it.

GR: (laughter)

SF: Yeah. I'm not the guy who, okay, let's take a look at what the outdoors writer used to be. My relationship to outdoor writing. You’re right, in the past, for instance, I've gone to Chernobyl, as you know, right, or Fukushima, and I've written stories about the impacts of these disasters on the ecology of these regions. So, you know, it's in some ways it was outdoor writing it was writing about nature in this very sort of specific way. When I began my very first job out of, at the master's program at Syracuse, was out in the middle of Kansas working for Garmin International, the GPS manufacturer, which, they hired me with my master's degree and everything else, because I actually had some of a background in hunting and fishing. That's what they liked on my resume. Not that I, you know, had a master's degree, not that I had written, you know, this or that. It was because I had some hunting and fishing background. So they got me all the way from New York State to move out there because my job was to speak to outdoor writers. My job was to get outdoor writers to write about this new technology. So my interface with this industry that I am now part of was as on the other side, right? Back then, it was a very different job than what I think what it is now. Back then, it was just all guys and they were just old dudes. I was this young, you know, twentysomething kid out of college and I would walk into these rooms at these conferences and they would all be like these, to me they’re me now, I'm 57 years old, right, I’m old. I was looking at dudes that were like, looked like me, they had white hair, you know, they wearing flannel, and all they wanted to talk about was like rifle calibers and, you know, and deer and fishing. And I had some background in that, but nothing like they did. So I was, you know, like a little bit like a fish out of water. But, you know, that was a really great position to be in, especially being a young man, because in that environment, they wanted to kind of treat you like, almost like a son. Here, buddy, let me show you what this is about. And that, I think, has kind of been part of my approach to this industry, to this subject, to this topic, the outdoors all along as this sort of outsider, very enthusiastic, interested outsider who's willing to basically try anything as long as it's related, you know, to the outdoors, whether it's fishing, hunting, some kind of weird ice climbing. I did snowmobiling this past winter, which was, you know, hit or miss.

GR: Yeah. I'm going to ask you about that later. So let me ask you a different kind of question, a little bit more kind of higher altitude, what do you think is the most important aspect, your impressions anyway, were the most important aspect of the different kinds of outdoor activities or aspects about the outdoor environment here in Central New York, that we as Central New Yorkers have the least appreciation of? You know, the sort of the hidden thing perhaps that you've experienced. I don't know if there's something that comes to mind.

SF: Well, here's something that comes to mind. And it's immediate and it's related to a story I literally just published this morning, and that is trout fishing. Okay, so I'm going to ask you let me ask you, Grant, you think of trout fishing, what comes to mind?

GR: Well, I have done a fair amount of it, so… (laughter)

SF: So, oh gosh you’re not the guy to ask. (laughter)

GR: So what comes to mind? What comes to mind is the kind of almost the competition or the healthy way, a pleasant way, the mutual tension between the fly fishermen, the people who won't use bait, the people that go out there with a worm and a sinker. And what I have discovered is my son is now explicitly a fly fisherman. And what he has convinced me to do is, I won't use bait anymore. So like, if we go out there together, he's looking down on me because I've got a spinner and then, you know, we're both sort of looking funny at the person with the big worm hanging off their hook. (laughter)

SF: Well, the advantage to that, as you know, is that if you can fish, year-round for trout, as long as it's artificial, catch and release and the artificial lure, so, you know, you had an advantage if you're not fishing with that worm because you can do it year-round here. So one thing I think maybe a lot of folks don't appreciate, and if I were to answer that question, if you asked me what I'm not a huge trout fisherman, I've probably fly fished just a couple of times in my life. I'm thinking like A River Runs Through It, right? Brad Pitt, golden light, you know, you see the leader and you know, he's whipping that line back and forth and it lays on the water, right, we have that here in New York State, right? It's the, you know, Roscoe, New York is where in some ways it's the birthplace of fly fishing, as we imagine it that way, right? I think is maybe in the popular imagination is how it's understood. You have a much more, you know, specific appreciate appreciation for trout fishing, you know, you can do spinners, spin reels. Here in Onondaga County we have probably one of the best trout fisheries, not just in New York, but probably regionally. Now, let's go down the list, some four, we we've got Butternut Creek, we've got Limestone Creek, we've got Nine Mile, probably the big daddy, and then Skaneateles Creek. Four all within Onondaga County. And the great thing about it is we have a county run fish hatchery out in the Elbridge, Carpenter’s Brook Fish Hatchery, paid for by our county tax money, right? And they stock all these streams, you know, beginning now in mid and late March through May with 70,000 fish. 70,000 fish. Now if we just left that up to DEC, that's the State Department of Environmental Conservation which stocks around 2 million fish statewide every year, now, here we have our own little hatchery that does it just for us in Onondaga County. So if, even if you don't fish I would highly recommend you buy a cheap rod, get out there with your worm or salted minnow, right?

GR: (laughter)

SF: Head over to Nine Mile Creek on April 1st, buy your license of course, your fishing license, and just tour in the creek, see what everyone else is doing. Catch a stocked fish, okay? There's no shame in that. And you will be hooked.

GR: (laughter) Yeah. You didn't mention a couple of little gems that my son and I go to and I'm not going to say them on air (laughter).

SF: Oh, no. Of course, yes, a true fisherman.

GR: Yeah, that's right.

SF: We're going to squeeze it out of you, Grant and it's going right in the paper.

GR: You're listening to the Campbell Conversations on WRVO Public Media. I'm Grant Reeher, and I'm speaking with Steve Featherstone. He's the outdoors reporter with the Syracuse Post-Standard and syracuse.com. So, you already spoke to this, I think, just now, but I wanted to get your thoughts about how the outdoor opportunities, recreational opportunities in Central New York compare with other places and you know, there are a lot of, you just mentioned the incredible fishery that we have here. But I'm thinking like when I think about it, I think there are a lot of activities and a lot of opportunities, but in a lot of ways they're more subtle than what you might find in some other more dramatic areas. I mean, it's not like, you know, we're ocean fishing, you know, for tarpon or we're, you know, hiking on some glacier or something like that. I don't know if you had any reflections about that.

SF: Sure, I think about that all the time. So when I was freelancing, one of the great things about freelancing is it's great if you're raising children. My wife is the breadwinner, she allowed me to do everything when I was freelancing because I could pick and choose my assignments. But in between then I had three kids I had something to do with. So let me tell you, having three young kids in this area in Central New York, the opportunities to get them out and doing something outside are just endless. I was just up, was it at last at the end of February, fishing, steelhead fishing. I did a story about that up on the Salmon River. And I was still steelhead fishing with this guy who he's kind of a nut, great guy, knows the river well. He goes to Kansas every year because he likes to storm chase. And we got to talking about that and his experience of Kansas was exactly my experience of Kansas when I moved out there back in the early 90’s to do this job at Garmin, which I spoke about. His first impression was, what do these people do? There is no water here. And that was the first thing I thought, where do people fish? There's no, in the summer, there was one reservoir that everybody would drive their boat to. It would be like an hour into the water. I mean, just think about around here all the opportunities you have. You've got Oneida Lake, the largest freshwater lake within the bounds of the state borders. Just right her, actually Onondaga County borders it. But right here in Central New York, it's the biggest fishery in the state, right in our backyard. You've got, you know, you've got Skaneateles Lake, which is fantastic as you probably know, fantastic rainbow and lake trout fishing in addition to the usual stuff, you know, perch and bass and walleye, which gets a lot of people upset. And so these things, that's just fishing. If you wanted to talk about hiking, I live over here in Manlius. Within 10 minutes, I can be in a county forest, a state forest, another state park, or at Clark's reservation. I can be in two land trust properties, Three Falls Woods, which is literally I could probably walk there from here, right? Beautiful property, it's, you know, owned by the Central York Land Trust and you can go in there anytime you want. And then there's another one over not that much further away off of Woodchuck Hill Road. That's all within ten, you know, ten, 15 minutes. And I could take, great places to take the kids, which I did quite often. And if you just, I think probably in Central New York, if you just looked at a map, anybody, these opportunities are probably within five, ten minutes of every residence in Onondaga County, whether it's for hiking, fishing, kayaking. I mean, look at Syracuse, you've got this Onondaga Creek runs right through the middle of the city. The city of Syracuse itself has three trout brooks that run it in the city limits, it’s nuts.

GR: Yeah, no, you're right, that's a great point. You're listening to the Campbell Conversations on WRVO Public Media. I'm Grant Reeher and I'm talking with Steve Featherstone. He's the outdoors reporter for the Syracuse Post-Standard and syracuse.com. So you had quite an adventure with snowmobiling this winter, from what I read of your story. Tell us a little bit about that.

SF: Well, I really so you know, we live in Central New York. You can't be an outdoor writer and not write about snowmobiling. Part of the problem is that we've had some really bad winters lately for snowmobiling. If you look, just last year, not this year, last season there was almost no snow. Now Tug Hill always gets snow. Here in Onondaga County, I think for the first time in history, not a single trail opened. Imagine owning a sled and paying insurance on that and you can't even ride it on the local trails. So, you know, Tug Hill got a lot of business. So this year, lots of snow, great weather. And I thought, this is my year, I'm going up there, I'm going to do a snowmobiling story. So I got a friend to take me up there. He had, you know, this very powerful snowmobile and he also belongs to a club where we could, like, spend the night. It's like, oh, this is great. And it was a really awful weekend weather-wise. I mean, great for snowmobiling, there’s tons of snow there was lake effect happening. So we got up there and yeah, I got on a sled for the first time in 50 years and probably, I don't know, within a couple of hours, I had already, I hit a tree.

GR: (laughter)

SF: Yeah, yeah, not good, you know, $900 worth of damage to this guy’s sled, he was not happy. But here's the thing, it was super slow. I wasn't doing anything dangerous. I wear glasses. I don't know if you can see me, you can't see me on the radio, but if you're looking at the feed, yes, I wear glasses and they had fogged up and I was just lifting the visor up. And in that moment that I was lifting it up, I just, the snowmobile kind of jerked and went off the trail at like one mile per hour, climbed a snowbank and then just hit a tree and bent the bumper on the snowmobile. No one was hurt.

GR: But you almost went over the side of a cliff too as I understand.

SF: Why did you bring that up? I've gotten in trouble from my readers for this.

GR: I mean, as I recall, you were reassured, all right, my question is, were you reassured? Your guide, I think, or your buddy told you, yeah, you probably wouldn’t have survived.

SF: Well, this, okay, my buddy, this tells you about his attitude, the fact that he put me on a sled like this and literally just said, oh, okay. I told him, I said, Martin, I have not been on a sled and probably 50 years. Technology's changed quite a bit, these are very powerful machines. These aren't the machines that I drove when I was, you know, whatever, ten years old. So he literally he puts me on this machine and then just takes off and says, follow me. So I'm okay, I'm on this thing and I'm thinking, okay, he's going much faster, I'm not going to try to match his speed. He ended up going like 96 miles per hour at some point he told me, and he showed me on his console, how fast he was going. I got it up to about 74 before I thought I was going to lose control of the sled. Not in a bad way, I was like, this is, this feels too much like I’m hydroplaning so I'm going to slow it down. Well, that part where we were up in the, near that cliff in Whetstone Gulf, I couldn't see the cliff, it was just woods. And Martin, of course, knew what was there because he rides up there all the time. I wasn't going fast. It was a wooded trails, going very moderate speed. I was enjoying looking around and all of a sudden I see Martin leap off his sled because he's ahead of me on the trail and stand in front of my sled. And he puts his hand on my break and says, stop, stop, stop. And I'm like, what the heck is going on? And I was about three feet from a 200 foot drop off. I just didn't see it. (laughter)

GR: Well, maybe leave your ride there (laughter). So you mentioned the trout season starting up. We're talking just a couple of days before the official opening of it.

SF: Are you are you going out?

GR: Yeah, I think I am. But I just wanted to ask you, I assume you'll be out there because you've already talked about it.

SF: Oh sure, yeah, it's going to be cold. It's going to be like 39 degrees or something.

GR: Oh, dear, okay. Well, the thing I'll ask you, just a personal question and we'll do it real quick and move on to something more important. But the problem that I have with the trout season is that there's always this idea in the family that on the first day, we're going to keep them. Usually we're catch and release, but I have to clean them.

SF: (laughter)

GR: And so by the time I'm done doing that, it's like the last thing I want to do is sit there and eat that thing. (laughter) Will you guys be eating trout on Tuesday?

SF: I would love to. You know, the nice thing about being an outdoors writer is because I'm often covering these things, so I think people feel sorry for you. So you'll have a kind of like, I've had this happen so many times, especially like up at the Salmon River during the salmon run, right? It's like, oh yeah, you're not able to fish? Sorry buddy, here, take this fish and there's like giving me fish. I’m like, I would love to, but what am I going to do with this? I’ve got a job, I’ve got to walk around and take pictures, I’ve got to, you know, talk to people, I can't carry a fish with me. So will I be eating trout? I, you know, maybe you inspired me, maybe I will put a cooler in my car and I will accept trout that are given to me, and I'll run back to the car and throw them in there and eat them later.

GR: There you go. You don't need a cooler at 39 degrees. So of all the new activities that you have been exposed to that you hadn't done prior to taking this job, what's the one so far that you've most liked?

SF: Wow. Okay, so it's interesting that you ask that because I was talking with my editors and we're thinking about starting kind of a new, I don't know, a new thing and like a video intensive, right? Because this is where I think eyeballs as we call them, right? Eyeballs are going, you know, people aren't reading as much they like they like to see video. And, you know, my kids are a great example of this, right? They want to consume all their content in video. So, you know, we're thinking about that here at the paper and we’re starting a new series and then thinking about what kind of things can I do, you know, what kind of weird stuff can I do? One of them we were thinking about was like, you brought it up earlier, is bushcraft - like survivalist kind of stuff. I thought it would be really fun, well, I don't know if it's fun, it probably won't be fun, is to just to go out for a weekend with a survivalist with someone who knows bushcraft and just live in the woods for, you know, bringing nothing with you, nothing, Not a sleeping bag, not a tent, nothing, you know, not a cell phone, obviously. And just go out and see what it's like to have to make a fire, find stuff to eat and just videotape the whole thing and make a video and write a story about it. That would be fun.

GR: Well, don't invite me on that one.

SF: And you know it’s just going to rain too.

GR: Well, I am among other things, I am just done sleeping on the ground, that ship has sailed for me. (laughter) If you've just if you've just joined us, you're listening to the Campbell Conversations on WRVO Public Media. I'm Grant Reeher and my guest is syracuse.com outdoors reporter Steve Featherstone. So, of course not all activities are going to be everybody's cup of tea. I was curious, maybe the answer is snowmobiling, but what's the one activity that you've tried so far in this role, in this job that you know, you could have done without? You came home and said that I won't do that again on my own.

SF: I don't know. You know, I like everything, I really do. Let's bring it back to the steelhead story. The thing that attracted me to the steelhead story wasn't the fish so much. I mean, you know, fishing at some point is just fishing, you know? So the thing that attracted me to it was like, look what these steelhead fishermen are doing. The worst time of year you can imagine. It's January, it's 20 degrees out, it's probably snowing. If it's not snowing, maybe it's sleeting. You're out in your waders in a stream that's maybe 33 degrees and you're standing there in this awful weather casting over and over for a really hard to catch fish. That to me sounds awful. I don't want to do that personally, but I do want to talk to the person who does love that. So yeah, so personally, yeah, there's lots of stuff I wouldn't want to do that I don't personally care for. I mean walleye fishing, hugely popular here, not a big fan. I mean, it's okay, I love to eat walleye, but just sitting there and jigging over one spot and catching walleye, it's not my thing, you know, ice fishing, not my thing. But I love the fact that people here love these activities and I love talking to them about it. I love meeting them and listening to their passion for it. And people in this region are very passionate about these things.

GR: That's interesting. And you and I are on the same wavelength because ice fishing, the steelhead, the walleye trolling, those are not in my list of fishing types of fishing that I like.

SF: You're a trout snob, Grant.

GR: No, no, no actually, I'm a small mouth bass and northern pike snob. That's what I really am.

SF: Small mouth, they’re crazy, right? We've got one of the best small mouth fisheries in the United States right here in Central New York.

GR: And I've got some nice tiger huskies over on Otisco Lake.

SF: Oh, beautiful for that, wow.

GR: So I wanted to come back and ask you a question that you alluded to in an indirect way when you were talking about your experiences with your children. I know that, for example, in the realm of hunting, there's a real concern that the younger generation is not replacing these old guys in flannel shirts as you said before, in insufficient numbers to keep these pastimes going. And I just wondered, have you noticed any kind of concerns similar across the board based on your experiences? I mean, you know, we read all these things about kids are doing gaming all the time, they're on their phones, they're, you know, totally entrenched in social media. Do you think there's something we should be worried about?

SF: Oh sure, absolutely, yeah. And this has been a long going trend. I'm an example of the trend. My dad was a very active outdoorsman. He was a city cop in Syracuse for many, many years. But when he wasn't doing that, when I was very young, I mean, he would be gone for two weeks, you know, in Pennsylvania, hunting whitetail with his buddy at hunting camps, right? And he hunted all of his life. He fished all of his life. I would go, we would go up to the St. Lawrence River and fish for bass up there. So me though and my brother, my brother, you know, he hunts occasionally. We've got some properties, you know, south of town here where we hunt on. It makes it easy for us. I don't hunt. I have not hunted since I was 18, big game. But I love it. I just don't have the, I don't know, I just don't have the passion for it, I guess. Now, that is probably, I'm probably part of a trend I think that really is concerning for a lot of outdoorsmen now. If you go to these outdoors clubs, every town has one. There's one of Fabius, there’s one in Fayetteville, there's one in Camillus, they're all over the place, right? They're loaded with, you know, 60 plus old guys, right? There's not a lot of young blood in there. There's some. The fact that syracuse.com even has an outdoors writer is probably testament to the fact that there is a, maybe a larger concentration of people who hunt and fish here than there are elsewhere in the state. It's the reason why I have a job. But yeah, I mean, it is a concern, absolutely, and I'm probably an example of it.

GR: So we only got a couple of minutes left. I want to squeeze two quick questions in if I can. First of all, setting aside the limitations of this area, but if you want to include the area in your answer to this, it's fine. But thinking here and also thinking about anywhere in the world, what is the top on your bucket list of future outdoor activities?

SF: Wow. Okay, well, it meanders. It's such a smorgasbord. What one of the top thing be, you know what I want to do? This is weird. I want to carp fish.

GR: Oh, my goodness. Okay, so you are going to have to hook up with my son because. He is an accomplished carp fly fisher.

SF: Oh, carp fly fishing.

GR: We'll talk later. (laughter)

SF: Okay, so you might know this then, maybe your son certainly does. So the Syracuse area, Onondaga Lake and Seneca River is a world class wild carp fishery. And wild carp, carp fishing in general, worldwide, extremely popular. It's on TV. You know, it's a TV sport, right?

GR: Well, they fight like crazy, they just dive. Yeah, he's caught them everywhere.

SF: They’re big!

GR: Yeah, they're big, they get huge.

SF: And here in Syracuse, we've got this world class fishing. I want to fish for carp in the way that carp fishermen do here.

GR: All right, great, last question. I have to ask, it's kind of silly. Your name is like, perfect for this job. I mean, it's a really cool name anyway, but it's perfect, Featherstone. I mean, it's like if I was writing a novel and, you know, you were the outdoor writer, this is what it would be. Do you think you were, like, born for this?

SF: Well, my name could be. Well, you might remember the old days. There was a columnist in the Syracuse paper, I remember named Rod Hunter?

GR: Yeah.

SF: I think up I’m going to need a made up name like that, that would be even better.

GR: Well, I like Featherstone, so, okay, we'll have to leave it there. We could talk for hours, obviously. That was Steve Featherstone is from syracuse.com, he's the outdoors reporter. Steve, thanks so much for taking the time to talk with me. This has been an absolute delight.

SF: Thank you. Grant. Maybe I'll see you on Tuesday, opening day trout.

GR: All right, you've been listening to the Campbell Conversations on WRVO Public Media, conversations in the public interest.

Stephanie Miner served two terms as mayor of the City of Syracuse, from 2010-2018. Before that, she served on the Syracuse Common Council. Now, she teaches at Colgate University, and has written a political memoir titled "Madam Mayor: Love and Loss in an American City."

Program Transcript:

Grant Reeher: Welcome to the Campbell Conversations. I'm Grant Reeher. My guest today is Stephanie Miner. She served two terms as mayor of the city of Syracuse beginning in 2010, and prior to that, she was a Syracuse Common Councilor at large. She also ran for New York State Governor in 2018 on the Serve America Movement party line. And currently she teaches at Colgate University. She's with me today because she has published a new political memoir. It's titled “Madam Mayor: Love and Loss in an American City.” Former Mayor Miner, welcome back to the program, and congratulations on your book.

Stephanie Miner: Thank you. Grant. It's great to be back. I'm a little out of practice. I haven't done this in a while, so I remember the rules are try to not answer the question and be brief as a politician. So now that I'm an author, I will try to answer the questions, and be verbose.

GR: Limited, verbose. But I will just say, I remember when you were in office, I thought you answered the questions there, too. And in that vein, before we start this, I should note for our listeners for full disclosure that I've spoken to you in the past about writing this book, and I've read earlier versions of it and offered comments, so I should put that out there. But let me just in a way, kind of follow up on what I just said here for my first question. And note that because of what I teach and what I write about, I've read a fair number of these kinds of books that deal with state and local level politics. And I think one of the ways that yours is different and notable is that there in the book, there's a lot of substantial treatments of things like city finance, the different policy challenges that cities face, both they have faced currently facing will face, as well as the more political and personal stories that, you know, people would expect. And something like this. And I wanted to know whether that substantial, content emphasis reflected something important about you as a politician. Were you do you think you were a little bit different kind of politician that way?

SM: I do think so. And I, you know, I think that about me, but I had many people tell me that throughout my political career that I was on the wonky side, you know, and some would say, derisively, by the way, you're too smart to be in politics, too dumb to be an academic. I, I think you know what this book really is in the best sense of, writing in books is it's it's my voice. And my voice is to, you know, both be substantive. But it's also my experience. And I was aiming to have my experience as mayor, you know, make, make the, policy part of it interesting and applicable to people. So they would understand, because fundamentally, I wrote this book trying to answer the question, why is change so difficult?

You know, there's a saying like, you can't fight City Hall, and yet it often feels like City Hall can't do anything. At least when I was the occupant of City Hall, I frequently felt that way. And this book is an attempt to explain, you know, why federalism matters when you're a mayor? Why the, the division of power between the federal government, state government, and local governments, matter and how it impacts policy and why money matters and why the the lack of a sustained urban policy since really, Ronald Reagan, the impacts that it's had on infrastructure, education, financing, all these things that you can imagine. And again, I was using my experience to, you know, put some meat on the bones.

GR: Do you think that what you just said is the most important thing about cities and local governments that citizens least understand or appreciate that, you know, cities occupy a particular place, but there are all these other forces acting upon them. Is that I mean, what if I asked you just straight up what is the thing that most citizens least understand about cities? What would you say?

SM: I would say that it is that there is this sense that mayors and cities have a great deal of power. But in a federalist system, like we currently have, the power is diffuse and having power, but not having money, or having power that is significantly, impacted by what the state says you can and can't do, you know, has an ability to, or will, limit the policy choices that you can make.

But on the, you know, on the flip side of that, that's the sort of negative case, the positive case about local politics, particularly with a city like Syracuse, and its size is you do have the power to implement change quickly, measure that change and fix what doesn't work, or attempt to fix what does, what doesn't work. And, you know, so you can be very facile, as a mayor in a city the size of Syracuse and, and implement policies, which was one of the one of the things I most enjoyed about being mayor and most enjoyed about local politics, that the the issues that we were trying to impact and fix were the issues that impacted people in their everyday lives.

GR: So you've got a lot of stories and the book that, are moments where particularly early on where where you kind of have a almost like an epiphany or I might say a holy crap moment where it's like, where where it's like, oh, I, I am, I do have this power, you know, people are looking to me to do acts or see me as a leader. On why is there a particular story that you could relate quickly that you think kind of illustrates that? Because I found those very interesting.

SM: I think, look, all of the stories and there were different moments throughout my eight years as mayor where I had that feeling in different times. But for me, I think the most profound was that my first name, Stephanie, disappeared. And for eight years, people either called me mayor or they called me boss. Some of the some of the people that worked for me would call me boss.

And so, I, you know, after I left the mayor's office, I wouldn't answer if people said Stephanie. I mean, that's like a profound change. And now, you know, I've gone back to my first name. I will run into people and they'll say, mayor, mayor. And I like I, you know, and they almost have to yell it for me to pay attention to it. So it was the sense of for eight years I lost, you know, I lost or my identity was subsumed into my title. And then you have to go back to having your identity, you know, become, you know, preeminent in your first name and who you are. It's not related to your job.

GR: You're listening to the Campbell Conversations on WRVO Public Media. I'm Grant Reeher, and I'm speaking with Stephanie Miner. The former Syracuse mayor has written a book titled “Madam Mayor: Love and Loss in an American City.” Well, this is, in this similar vein, but more, more profound and more personal. I wanted to pursue the book's title a little, which is “Love and Loss in an American City.” And one aspect of that, of course, is very personal for you. You know, your late husband, Jack Mannion, to talk about in the book, but it obviously I think that title refers to other things as well. And, I think there are more political as well as personal. I was just wondering if you could unpack that a little bit as far as what that meaning is in the book.

SM: Sure. And by the way, this is probably the 35th idea of a title that I had. And it took me a while to land on it. But, you know, the, the, “Love and Loss in an American City.” It's a story about how I loved politics and loved government and how I have frequent losses in it, but still loved it.

So that sense of that you can love somebody, love something, and really work hard at it and still lose one of the titles that I had in my mind for both the chapter and the title for the book is wrestling with an octopus, because there are many days where I felt like, okay, I've, I've got this problem. I figured it out and I've, you know, I've pinned it. And then another tentacle comes up and slaps across the face. And just like that's what being mayor is like, you're just constantly wrestling. And when you think you pinned it, something else comes up. But later on, when I was, writing the book, I was thinking about, processing my grief over the loss of my husband, who was a, you know, a partner par excellence in, my political career and the sense of community and how, you know, loss is an inevitable part of life losses, an inevitable part of politics.

And a good friend of mine who said to me, you know, the seeds of every defeat are planted in a victory. And the second part of the title in an American city really is this idea that Syracuse is very emblematic of a, of an experience that cities across the United States have gone through and are going through once a very, very prosperous city, one of the, you know, most prosperous cities, top 30 in the United States. And then now our indices are, you know, indices of desperation, of poverty, job loss, unemployment, economic recession. And so using this idea of, you know, love and loss and an American experience, and trying to use the particular of my experience as mayor in Syracuse to illustrate, illustrate the general of what it's like to govern in the United States, you know, in a, in a city.

GR: Yeah. I think it's a great title. And I, I do remember some of the earlier ones, and I think you, I think you landed on the right one on, iteration 35. So that's good.

SM: At least it could have been 350. You know, you just kind of keep going through it.

GR: Well, obviously, I think a lot of the, media and public attention that this book is going to attract will be concerned with your retelling of your experiences with then-Governor Andrew Cuomo. He's now running for mayor of New York City. And you were experiencing his political bullying. I will just call it that. Before it became more widely known and exposed, although I think it was something of an open secret in Albany for a long time. Is there one story that you think best exemplifies that aspect of his political style?

SM: Well, I think that's the story. When they came out with what they said was a policy that was going to reform the pension issues. And I was quoted as saying, well, I have questions about it. And then he sent the lieutenant governor into Syracuse to go meet with the editorial board to threaten to have the state take over the city of Syracuse.

I think that, you know, when a mayor of the fifth largest city asks and says that she has substantive questions about a policy, and he responds by saying, well, you know, you should ask for a financial control board in other words, you know, we're going to take over governance of your city. That to me, was, you know, one illustration. But as you know, because you've read the book, there are many, you know, Andrew Cuomo and I, it's almost Shakespearean. I mean, I think this book was destined to come out in March because of my publisher and timelines. I mean, I had no idea that Andrew Cuomo was going to, you know, run for mayor, much less announce in the same month that my book was coming out. It's just it's, you know, just the universe, I suppose. But we have very different ways that we look at leadership and think about it. My issues with Andrew Cuomo were substantive and policy-based. And he responded, in tactics that were bullying, and, you know, in ways that were political and personal and the I think the perversity of it is that it, it, you know, made me larger in the public, mind, you know, you have a very powerful, tall male governor, punching down on a short at the time, young looking, female mayor and people expect their mayors to fight for their constituents.

I mean, that's what people want mayors to do. So there's also a sense, well, she's just doing her job. And you know, and very it was very clear, that he was, going to take out his frustrations or his disagreements with me, on the people of the city of Syracuse, based on my policy, you know, my disagreements with him on policy. And that was a difficult thing for me to navigate because it's not fair. It's not right. But there's also, you know, I can't change who I am. And ultimately, I had to kind of come to peace with this idea. Well, the people the city of Syracuse elected me four times, and they knew, you know, that I was a fighter and that that's what I did.

But being, you know, lots of sleepless nights about, geez, you know, is it right for me to disagree with him? If you know, when he's threatening funding on a housing project or the school district? Those are hard decisions to make. His view of leadership is, you know, when the media cycle say the best words. And if you win, you know, you get, to the victor goes the spoils. And if you lose, you get nothing.

GR: All of this. Well, all of this is sounding very familiar. More recently, as well. You're listening to the Campbell Conversations on WRVO Public Media. I'm Grant Reeher, and I'm talking with former City of Syracuse Mayor Stephanie Miner. She's published a new political memoir. It's titled “Madam Mayor: Love and Loss in an American City.” And we've been discussing her book.

I want to continue on what we were talking about before the break, about your experiences with Andrew Cuomo. And again, because he's running for mayor, get some further thoughts about that first, kind of a more general question that's related to this. I've heard you on many occasions speak of a certain kind of political corruption. Not money in a drawer or money in someone's freezer, but of putting position over purpose. And, do you think that that's a good description of a political failing that he suffered from, Andrew Cuomo?

SM: I don't know. I think that our system has these our system has now incentivized people where ambition is more important than solving problems. And, you know, ambition always used to be part of the political, your political analysis. But there was also a big part of it, which was, well, I've got to have a track record to run on, and I've got to be able to say to people I've done X, Y, Z, or I'm going to do X, Y, Z.

And now with just all the money flowing through the system, it's almost like you can create your own reality. And so, you know, with Andrew Cuomo, what I, I think the way he left the gubernatorial office is sort of, emblematic or illustrative of this, illustrative of this, this what is happening. He left, because of, you know, sexual harassment, workplace scandals. But prior to him leaving, he was reelected when there was a huge scandal with the Buffalo Billion. Right. A, you know, allegations of bribery judges in the Southern District saying this is the worst form of government and the worst form that we've seen of pay to play. And on top of it being, you know, just filled with corruption, it was a substantive failure, too.

And across the Thruway, we in upstate saw all of his policies were substantive failures. But Albany in the policymakers in Albany weren't really interested in that. And yet, sexual harassment. And clearly, I'm, you know, I, I don't want to say that that is less than but Andrew, the way Andrew Cuomo governed and his failures, I think were political and they needed to be addressed through a political process. And they were, you know, and so now we have this where he's coming back and he just he's using the money. A lot of it is taxpayer dollars to just have this bullhorn, which says, I didn't do anything wrong. I didn't do anything wrong. I didn't do anything wrong. I didn't do anything wrong. And look at all the great things I did.

And there's for a whole host of reasons. There is nobody really on the other side saying, oh, wait a second, you know, did you really? More people left New York. We lost congressional seats. Your prime economic development policies, remember start up New York, Buffalo, billion casinos, all of that were just complete, subsidy failures and ethical failures and legal, legally corrupt as well.

GR: Yeah. Those are important points. Very personal question here. You answer it very quickly, I'm sure. But, when all this stuff hit and we learned more about all these things regarding his administration, I'll throw in a couple others, nursing homes and the number regarding Covid deaths, how all that was handled, his own, his own personal book deal and having staff work on that. He made millions of dollars from that. Did you have a moment of schadenfreude or at least sort of. Gee, I you know, this is what I was saying, people and, you know, did you have that sense of vindication at all?

SM: You know, not really, because as I said, I had started sort of this processing of my relationship with Andrew Cuomo back when I was in the midst of my struggles with him and realizing that the only way that I could govern and the only way I could live with myself is to say, you know, this is the this is the way I think is right. And this is the way I think it should be done. And so by the time all of those things happened, you know, power corrupts, absolute power corrupts absolutely. Lord Acton says he had absolute power, and he had never shown himself to be very interested in policy. And, you know, when you have a public health crisis, you need policy experts to guide you through it.

So there was, for me, there was a sense of I'm not surprised, but I'm saddened by it because I'm saddened by a political system that allows that to happen. And, you know, and allows real suffering to almost go on rectified or unwitnessed because of the, short attention spans. And, you know, again, money can buy big bullhorns and you can just scream into it or pay people to scream into it toxic things on Twitter or X and, you know, and it just takes people's attention away.

GR: If you're just joining us, you're listening to the Campbell Conversations on WRVO Public Media. I'm Grant Reeher, and my guest is former Syracuse Mayor Stephanie Miner. One last question on Cuomo. I'll move on to other things. What do you make of his new run for city mayor? Are you surprised?

SM: No, I, I'm not I'm kind of surprised that he is, a frontrunner, but he has a lot of money. He's a very skilled political operative. And, you know, our country is in a place where, you know, loud voices are winning right now. So, you know, he is somebody who has spent his entire life running for office.

And then to get kicked out of it that way. I didn't think that, you know, I thought he would always try again. You know, he's already been through several iterations. There was there already Cuomo 2.0 when he ran for attorney general. So now this is Cuomo 3.0 or 4.0.

GR: Interesting. Yeah. There is a there is a history of this. So, let's talk about, your political career going back to being on the city council and then as mayor, you were, in many respects, I think, something of a, like a skeptical soothsayer, you know, you warned us about. And you really took a lot of flak regarding the Destiny mall project on all the tax breaks. You were almost at one point on standing alone on that, and then again, you know, you were talking about how the governor was treating upstate cities and those policy issues. I wanted to get your take, given that history on micron, because that's something that has kind of happened after you've left office. That one, to me, seems like a better bet than the Buffalo billions. And, you know, the, Film Hub and all these other things, and certainly a better bet. And Destiny Mall. I wonder how you're viewing. Well.

SM: I think substantively, when you look at the federal government's investment and the international need for chips and to secure ourselves from Chinese influence in Taiwan, that all of those partners, it makes, it makes intellectual sense. My skepticism, though, and this is, you know, I'm a product of my experience is is things that the government gets into for economic development, where they're the primary mover, never materialized the way they say it's going to materialize.

And, you know, we have a free market system. Government should do the things that government is good at roads, bridges, picking up trash, water, educating children, those kind of things. I think when you make the government, the government a partner in a free market economy, it's very, very dangerous. Because what happens is I think the, the nature of doing things for profit, they're all sudden start looking at the, at the government as, instead of shareholders or customers. And so, again, I'm a product of my experience, you know, Empire Zone's destiny, start up New York film hubs, Buffalo billion, all of these things that government, Democrats and Republicans have said is going to, you know, turn up ups, turn around upstate New York's economy haven't worked, but did work, you know, building infrastructure systems that people, smart people, business people and others could take their skills and figure out how to use to make a profit.

GR: Well, I wonder now what goes what's on my mind is the President Trump certainly said a lot of people's hair on fire here in the Syracuse area when he, you know, said repeatedly that the Chips act was a terrible thing. You know, we ought to look into, seeing if we can reverse it. Would you go that far or do you. I know you're not a fan of President Trump. You've made that very clear when you were mayor. But, anyway.

SM: You know, no, I wouldn't, but as, you know, as a citizen of Syracuse and Central New York, it's troubling because there's been investments made, commitments made. And, President Trump and his administration have shown themselves to, you know, not work under traditional political rules. And the traditional political rules would be like, well, that act passed. It's done. You know, let it move its course. So, I think we're I think it's very dangerous, in terms of what Trump is doing. But I also think I, I'm troubled by whether or not the Chips Act is going to move forward. And there's the funding, but there's also the part of when you have the federal government and the state government as partners, when you have this change of leadership.

And now all of a sudden, you know, it's the cult of personality, well, then what happens? Because you have to have you know, look, the same is true for 81. You have to have some sort of consistency in order to make these changes. And these long-term policies move forward. And the kind of tumult that we're seeing in Washington that's going to flow down to, Albany in terms of money and policies, is going to impact micron 81 schools, Medicaid, Medicare, I mean, across the board, Social Security.

GR: That may be even another reason to have the kind of suspicions you have is it's unpredictable, depending on who's who's in there. And in doing it. We've only got about a minute left. I wanted to ask you this last question. And we'll see where it goes. If you answer it in a sentence. But, I was wondering about your future. Obviously, politically would be my main interest, but otherwise too. Can you imagine a scenario in which you might pursue elected office again? You've still got lots of time.

SM: Yeah. I can't, I will tell you, I loved it, and I enjoyed it, and feel profoundly grateful that I had the opportunity to do it. I didn't think about it at the time as a sacrifice, but having been out of office, I look at things and I realize I did. I sacrificed time with my family, time with my friends.

And, you know, somebody pointed out to me, I may be the one politician who, you know, when I say I want to spend more time with my family, I actually means it. But, you know, for close to 20 years, I was a slave to other people's demands on my time. And so being able to make my own calendar, being able to do the kind of things that I want, and I am, you know, I really am enjoying Colgate. It's just a it's a perfect place for me. And it gives me enough to talk about the substance of politics, and also sort of fill this niche of somebody who's run for office to talk about war stories as well. So I enjoyed, not actually writing, but I enjoyed after writing, reading, the book. I'm enjoying teaching and I'm doing some consulting for Bloomberg Philanthropies as well.

So being able to fill my time with the kind of things I want, but, still being able to say, no, you know, I'm going to take a long weekend, or. No, I, you know, I want to read this book this weekend. It's, I feel very, very lucky that I'm in a position where I can do that.

GR: Well, I'm glad you also found the time to write this book. That was Stephanie Miner. And again, her new book is titled “Madam Mayor: Love and Loss in an American City.” And if you want to learn more about Syracuse politics and policies as well as just the general culture here in this area, this is, this is your book. So, Mayor Miner, thanks so much for taking the time to talk. I really appreciate it.

SM: Thank you for having me. Grant, I appreciate it.

GR: You've been listening to the Campbell Conversations on WRVO Public Media's conversations in the public interest.

On this week's episode of the Campbell Conversations, Grant Reeher speaks with Aaron Kupchik, a Professor of Sociology and Criminal Justice at the University of Delaware. He discusses his new book, "Suspended Education: School Punishment and the Legacy of Racial Injustice."

Program Transcript:

Grant Reeher: Welcome to the Campbell Conversations. I'm Grant Reeher. My guest today is Aaron Kupchik. He's a professor of sociology and criminal justice at the University of Delaware. And he's here with me today because he has a new book out titled “Suspended Education: School Punishment and the Legacy of Racial Injustice.” Among his other books is “Judging Juveniles: Prosecuting Adolescents in Adults and Juvenile Courts.”

Professor Kupchik, welcome to the program.

Aaron Kupchik: Thank you very much. Happy to be here.

GR: Well it's great. It's great that you made the time. We appreciate it. So let me just say, first of all, I know this is a serious book on a serious issue and we will treat it seriously. But I thought your title was very, very clever. Well done on that. I got a grin when I read that because of the different ways that that means, but for the opening question, I just want to set some basic understandings for our listeners.

Your book is based on the assertion that school suspensions are an instance of racial discrimination and racism, as I understand it. And I just want to say, you should know that in recent years there have been, similar claims and news reporting about this in the Syracuse City school system, and our listeners will probably remember some of that.

But let me ask you this, in terms of your book, on what basis do you make the claim that school suspensions are, an instance of racial discrimination?

AK: Well, if we look at almost any study, conducted over the last 20 years, when scholars have started thinking a lot more about how we punish school, punish in schools, we see that, youth of color are really much more likely to be suspended out of school than white youth, even for the same behaviors. So it's not the case.

I wouldn't argue that it's always intended poorly. You know, there I tend to trust teachers and educators generally as really well-intended people who are doing a very difficult job with insufficient support and pay, and often hostility directed at them. And so it's not the case that every use of suspension is racially motivated. Far from it. But there's a historical piece to this in a contemporary piece to this.

And the contemporary piece is imbalance or disparity. And it's clear it is exceptionally clear. There's also a historical piece to this, and that's what I'm really trying to, I guess that's what my book does, is fill in that piece right? Because nobody had looked at it in detail before. And what I found was that we only started using suspensions as a way to remove unwanted students.

And those were Black students who were admitted into formerly segregated white schools. So that's its origin story. Is in racial exclusion. And when we follow that through to today, we see that patterns are still playing out.

GR: You know, I want to get into some of that, historical part of your of your argument a little bit later. Let me just stick with some current-day things and then we'll get into that. But and you just mentioned this, but you also you note that suspensions as a disciplinary method have become more common in recent years.

So they've really ticked up just generally in addition to the imbalance that you, cite. Can you give us an idea of the magnitude of that change in recent years? And, you know, whether it's followed some sort of particular trajectory?

AK: Absolutely. What we see is that, you know, in the 90s, the two pretty the late 90s, early 2000s, the rate of suspensions just skyrocketed, more than doubling nationwide. And, you know, this follows all sorts of punishments, right? This is the same time where we saw mass incarceration take off. And when we started investing much more in policing and punishment in society.

And so in the mid to late 90s through the early 2000, we saw suspension rates really took off, particularly for Black students. So their rates of suspension really grew by quite a bit. We have seen, for the past ten or so years, suspension rates start to decline, which is notable that the rate of decline is nowhere near the rate of increase we saw a generation ago.

But we have seen some progress in terms of reducing suspension rates.

GR: And I'm going to get into now some of the things you anticipated when you were, mentioning how difficult the job the teachers have, is and, and one of the things that I have heard from teachers and administrators when this issue of suspensions has come up is that, first of all, they're just reacting to the behavior in their classrooms, so they're not reacting to race.

And you already, I think, sort of acknowledge that that that can be the case. But the way they see this is they have a duty to the students, the parents and the community to deliver education to the entire class. So they see these suspensions as unfortunate, but necessary for them to, in a sense, make the trade off between being inclusive but also delivering what they're supposed to be delivering to the to the entire school.

How what's your reaction to that? And how do you see that is sort of being sorted out?

AK: Up until the very last portion of your statement, I completely agree. So absolutely, they have, you know, again, I believe most teachers are very well-intended and, you know, and doing a hard job, and they do have an obligation to teach to the entire class. And sometimes one or maybe two students are making that difficult or even impossible. And that is an extremely difficult position for anyone to be in, particularly a teacher who's got so much other stress on them.

What I don't agree with is that that necessarily lead has to lead to suspension. There are so many other potential things we could do. It's not a suspension or nothing problem. And yet suspension or nothing is how many schools? Not most, but many schools treat it. And that's not the individual teacher's fault. Again, I want to try to remove I'm not trying to blame individual teachers here.

They are the products of the systems in which they work. Right. And it's administrators and systems. And through a historical legacy, are the ones who are creating the options that they have. In other words, I think I can say that more clearly. Right? What I'm saying is that the system in which these teachers are, are doing their best to take care of children and to teach them the system is flawed.

And it's not those teachers fault. It's often not the principals fault. It's that over time we've created a very narrow set of options and a set of assumptions and norms that this is just what you do and this is the only option. And that's the real problem.

GR: You're listening to the Campbell Conversations on WRVO Public Media. I'm Grant Reeher and I'm speaking with Aaron Kupchik. University of Delaware professor has a new book out. It's titled “Suspended Education: School Punishment and the Legacy of Racial Injustice.” So on that point, I'm wondering and I'm just and this is just in my head right now, whether maybe what's going on with some of these administrators in terms of using suspensions so readily is that it's just the easy thing to do.

You know, it's like, okay, I have a problem. Let me deal with it. Let's just take the kid out of the class. Versus thinking about this in a deeper way. They've got other things that are pressing on them that they've got to get done. I don't know if you had a sense in your research that that might have been part of the dynamic.

AK: Oh, absolutely. There's no doubt. You know, administrators are under pressure too. You know, the irony is that it is short-term, easier, long-term, more difficult, and more costly to do what we do.

GR: Hmm.

AK: So it's true removing the student who's being a problem who's causing disruption. You know is a short-term fix for the teacher, for the principal. But that student comes back and that student comes back worse off. Having, you know, having missed days of lessons, having missed the supervision, having, you know, now, maybe they're embarrassed or they're seen differently.

What we see is that suspending kids out of school tends to make those individual students behaviors worse, not better. It also has a chilling effect on other things. So research prior research has shown that when you look at when you compare high suspension schools to low suspension schools, but that are similar on other factors, you know, including, poverty levels, race ethnicity, type of location, funding levels and so on.

The high suspension schools tend to have worse average test scores among low-income among non-suspended students. So suspensions aren't helping the other kids learn. They might be a temporary reprieve for the teacher. But they're in long term, they're not helping the academic mission. They're not helping improve behaviors. So yeah short-term understandable. But we need to find better long-term solutions.

And there are long-term solutions that are that are better and that are out there. We just don't use them as much or as well.

GR: Oh, I want to find out what some of those are. It's a very interesting statistic. And also the way you describe that it's impossible not to hear the parallels with some of the criticisms of the criminal justice system and how that how that operates as well. Let me let me throw out one more thing, though, about, that that I've heard teachers say, and that is that they feel like many days they're primarily engaged in crowd control more than education.

And, and they're very frustrated in that way. And they say, well, you know, school children are just not as able to focus as they used to be when I first started teaching. They're not as well-behaved, etc. Maybe it's impossible to know that there's there any truth to that. Do you know of whether kids have just become more harder to handle?

AK: I'm sure you love this answer, but yes and no. Okay. And so. I think those are two separate things. I think attention spans are different than behaviors. So there are certainly far more children with, attention. Issues and limitations. There are many more children who are diagnosed with ADHD than there used to be. And I can tell you from teaching in college, you know, the pandemic has really hurt, you know, generationally, student engagement.

You know, so I think that there, you know, the challenge of keeping students engaged and present, you know, physically and mentally. Yeah, it has got to be more difficult. But in terms of behavior, you know, the, you know, there's a, an annual report that, the National Center for Education Statistics, part of the federal Department of Education, the U.S. Department of Education publishes called Indicators of School Crime and Safety.

And they've been tracking, school crime and student misbehavior for, you know, for since the early 1990s. And one of the what I think is the best measures, in there, it looks at students age 12 to 18 across the country and their reported victimization rates, which can include having something stolen out of your locker to being assaulted.

And what we see is that victimization rates in recent years are a fraction. I mean, I'm talking about 20% what they were in the early 90s. Students today are much safer in schools, meaning that student misbehavior and crime is much less today than it was going back to early 90s. We saw an enormous decline throughout the late 90s and 2000.

GR: That's fascinating. You know, and I have to say it sort of fits my own experiences where I can remember when I was in high school, which was before the 90s, by the way. But, that fights were tolerated to some degree. And when my son went to high school, there just weren't. And so that I could I can see that difference.

You're listening to the Campbell Conversations on WRVO Public Media. I'm Grant Reeher and I'm talking with Aaron Kupchik. He's a professor of sociology and criminal justice at the University of Delaware, and he's the author of a new book titled “Suspended Education: School Punishment and the Legacy of Racial Injustice.” And we've been discussing his book and the issues that it raises.

You know, Aaron, one thing you mentioned right before the break was how criminal behavior had declined. And one of the things that pops up in people's heads, of course, when they hear that as well, that's maybe because we started suspending or punishing more, you know, and so is that is that the reason why that happened or something else?

AK: You know, the data show that that's not the reason why that happened. And in fact, criminal behavior and misbehavior in schools directly tracks reductions in youth behaviors and communities. Right. So crime rates of youth in communities have fallen at exactly the same rate over exactly the same periods of time. So it's it's something generational. It's something about youth today, suspending kids out of school makes their individual behaviors worse, not better.

GR: Yeah. And that's that's a that's a very powerful statistic, I think. So let me ask you one specific question about, your study. And then we'll get into the history that you mentioned and also what the better alternatives would be. You take in your book two deep looks, in addition to looking at more general data, two deep looks into two school systems, one in Newcastle, Delaware, and the other one in Boston, Massachusetts.

I'm going to guess that the Delaware choice was because you were there. You could you had access, Why Boston?

AK: Well, Boston, I think works for a few reasons. You know, when this issue was first noticed, going back to the 70s, the issue of suspensions as a consequence of desegregation, and it got some attention down in the South. And a number of people back in the 70s looked at how as soon as school districts were desegregating, they started kicking kids out through out-of-school suspension, particularly Black students.

And so it was something that we knew happened initially down in the South, and I wanted to see whether it happened in other places, too. So, yes, you're right. Delaware was convenient because it was its home. But it was also an excellent case study because, I mean, the University of Delaware is right on the Mason-Dixon line.

If it were drawn straight rather than going around the state, you know, it's right in the middle of the country. It's neither North or South. And yes, I describe in the book, it's just got a fascinating, disturbing, fascinating history. Racial exclusion, you know, with some characteristics of being a northern state and some of southern, too. Boston is, you know, this northern liberal, all, you know, city with all of these, you know, academic institutions.

And so I wanted to, to look at, two other sites again, that weren't south. And I kind of crept upward, but a Mid-Atlantic and a northern side.

GR: Well, the reason why I did Boston kind of caught my eye was that it has, I think, a notorious racial history when it comes to education and, I mean, I can attest to some personal experience to the kids from Boston that I met when I went to college. And I was like, wow, that's not what I expected to hear from someone from Massachusetts.

So do you account for that, that Boston might be kind of a, you know, an extreme case? I mean, I know there's a I know there's a tradition in social science of deliberately picking things like that. But, you know, I, I don't want to get too deep in the weeds here, but just that that struck me.

AK: I don't know, the busses and extreme case, I mean, I think if you look at any city, you'll, you'll find that racism, you know, racial hostility throughout the 20th century was was everywhere. I mean, I believe that, you know, when Dr. Martin Luther King Jr lived in Chicago, he described racism there. That was above and beyond what he had seen in the South.

Right. You know, and not typical in Chicago, we could look at, you know, I think almost any northern city and come away with a similar conclusion, that this is, you know, maybe think this is might be an outlier. Which means they're not outliers.

GR: One of the things I wondered, and I was curious to see if you had any, thoughts about this as is there any evidence that these suspension decisions are, formulated differently when the teachers and the administrators are not white, when they're African-American or or or brown, as opposed to if they're white?

AK: Yes. There is some research. Not a lot, but there are a number of studies that do look at punishment rates when you have teachers and it's administrators who, who are, who are Black, or African-American. And what it finds is that the punishment rates are lower than with white teachers and administrators, but they're still not equal to those that white students receive. So the problem is reduced, but not eliminated.

GR: If you're just joining us, you're listening to the Campbell Conversations on WRVO Public Media. I'm Grant Reeher, and my guest is University of Delaware professor Aaron Kupchik. Okay. So let's get into some of the historical aspects of your study and then what the better alternatives would be. So as we've already talked about a lot of your book concerns tracking this history of discrimination, drawing a line between, forced desegregation of school systems that were segregated and then suspensions as kind of a response to that. Just just track, track that out, track that connection out a little bit for us.

AK: Sure. What we see is that suspension or suspending children out of schools followed these mandatory desegregation. So what I found was that jurisdictions where they, were forced to be segregated. And I looked very carefully and in-depth at Newcastle County, Delaware's history and Boston's history of desegregation. Each of them had a desegregation effort that was the result of a lawsuit, and before the desegregation suspensions were very uncommon. They were used occasionally, but very uncommon in Boston, for example, a few years before, desegregation. Any suspension had to be approved by administrators at the district level according to their code of conduct. Right. So it was rare enough that that had that, you disagreed, estimate suspensions weren't, something that school districts reported in their data.

It wasn't something that the state Department of Education was reporting in either state. It just wasn't a focus. And when they did talk about student misbehavior and discipline, they didn't talk about suspension as a solution to that. Immediately after these schools desegregate ended and Black students entered formally, all-white schools suspensions became issue number one. Topic number one.

I spoke, for example, to two people were there on the ground at the time in each of these places. One of them, for example, J Street, who's, you know, still a Wilmington City Council member and here in Delaware told me that suspensions were unheard of in in schools before desegregation. But it was an issue the first day that students were literally getting off, the Black students were getting off the busses on day one of school to their formerly all-white school, and they were being suspended.

GR: Well, so I know that you had said earlier that when we were talking about this in the current day that, you know, teachers have a hard job. It's not like they're sitting there thinking, I'm going to suspend this Black student because they're Black. You know, it's not that. But it does sound like at the beginning there was that kind of conscious, coordinated effort.

Is that fair to say?

AK: Well, I think it's partially true, but I don't know if it's fair to say, because I wouldn't want to lump all teachers into that. There were a lot of teachers who really meant to do well, even then, back in the 70s, and they were just, you know, one, one phrase that came up from many of the people I spoke to was how unprepared the schools were.

And there was a lot going on, and there was a lot of chaos. And so certainly many teachers that were explicitly racist and did not want those Black students in their school. Others were scared. You know, which has a racial component, right? But they weren't ill-intent. Others were very well-intended. Actively wanted to do well, but just didn't have the tools or preparation.

They had pressure put on them by others. So, I wouldn't lump all teachers in on saying that. That there was intentional hostility.

GR: That's a good point. So. So let's get to the $64,000 question. Spend a lot of time on us. So. So okay. This is what we shouldn't do. What should we do? What? You know, if we want to have education happening in the classrooms, we want to be fair. We want to have the right outcomes. How should we be thinking about this differently?

AK: I think schools need to mirror functional families better. If you think about how parents good parents discipline children because that's part of parenting, they you don't kick your kid out of the family for 3 to 5 days when they do something wrong. Right. We don't suspend them out of the family. Instead, there are consequences. There's accountability. Maybe lose some privileges.

But there's there's teaching about behavior and learning, and there's acceptance that you can come back in still a full fledged family member, right? Without a label put on you that you're a troublemaker. You know, without being left behind in some way. And, and so I think we need to model that obviously schools are very different than families, and have different pressures.

And I'm not saying that every teacher needs to be the parent of each kid there. But modeling some of those efforts of how do we hold students accountable, but in ways that don't scar them, in ways that don't keep them back, right, that help them learn and move forward? You know, there are a lot of teachers out there who are amazing at doing this.

I mean, I speak to educators all the time who say they you're in they often work in areas where there are high crime rates. So we know that students are coming with with issues. Right? And they tell me, look, I build a rapport with my students and I talk to them and they trust me. And so they don't want to upset me.

And when something does come up, we talk about it and we I help them solve the problem as best I can. That's what we need to do more of now. That takes resources and time. Right. And and teachers need help doing this. It would be unfair to suggest any teacher who has a class of 40. Anytime a student is disruptive, can take ten minutes and work with that kid.

That. That's not realistic. They need help doing this. And there are programs out there. Restorative practices has grown. It is in schools. Where we try to mediate conflict. We sit down with students who do things wrong. With the people that they might have hurt or offended. They learn about why it was wrong and what they can do better.

Positive behavioral interventions and supports is another type of program that schools often do. But what I found in and across studies that I've done is that often these kinds of strategies aren't always they're not always well done. They're they're sort of add-ons, but without full investment. Right. And as long as those things exist alongside more punitive discipline, they're not going to be fully successful.

One other point I have to mention, one of the most surprising things I found in my historical research on this topic was that these strategies and these understandings, these are these are things that are typically thought of as new and progressive. They were in place before we started suspending kids. And when desegregation first happened and people noticed the rise of suspension.

This was their concern. And they said, no, you know, there are student advocates in the 70s saying, no, no, no. What we need to do is invest in schools so that they can actually mentor and counsel children. You know, we don't want to kick them out. And that will lead to these problems. So I guess what's new was old or maybe is that.

GR: Well, we've got about oh, less than a minute. And I wanted to squeeze one last question. And so I apologize. It's going to be kind of a lightning round. But you've obviously spent a lot of time talking to a lot of different people and watching things. Leave us with something that you saw that really inspired you that was positive. Give us a positive note to go out on.

AK: We have seen progress over the last ten years. More and more schools are embracing, as I said, restorative practices as positive behavioral intervention supports and other strategies. Suspension rates have gone down. I believe that, you know, most educators I speak to get it. They understand that school suspension should be a last resort. It's just how we use it and the extent to which we can build up better alternatives is the issue.

GR: Well, we'll have to leave it there. That was Aaron Kupchik. And again, his new book is titled “Suspended Education: School Punishment and the Legacy of Racial Injustice.” It's a provocative and informative book on obviously a very, very difficult topic. Professor Kupchik, thanks so much for taking the time to talk with me. I really appreciate it and I learned a lot.

AK: Thank you very much. It was a pleasure to be here.

On this week's episode of the Campbell Conversations, Grant Reeher speaks with author and historian Russell Shorto, director of the New Amsterdam Project at the New York Historical Society. Shorto discusses his new book, "Taking Manhattan: The Extraordinary Events That Created New York and Shaped America."

Program Transcript:

Grant Reeher: Welcome to the Campbell Conversations. I'm Grant Reeher. My guest today is Russell Shorto. He's the director of the New Amsterdam Project at the New York Historical Society, and the author of a number of popular books, including “The Island at the Center of the World.” He's with me today to discuss his new book. It's titled “Taking Manhattan: The Extraordinary Events That Created New York and Shaped America.”

Mr. Shorto, welcome to the program.

Russell Shorto: Thank you very much, Grant. Thanks for having me.

GR: Well, we appreciate you making the time. It's a very interesting book. And let me just start with sort of a basic build-up question, and we'll get into some of the other things after that. So you're telling the story of the 1664 English takeover of Manhattan from the Dutch in that, as my understand, it resulted in the name New York. And then you're talking about the importance of that and the importance of the city, sort of over time and, and through American culture. And so I would want you in politics as well. And I, I would like you to set the stage for us. I mean, what was going on at that time with the Dutch and the English and how did Manhattan and what would become New York fit into that context for them?

RS: Okay. We're talking about the 1600s here. So I think most Americans think of colonial history as the 1700s. But there was a whole century before, when the English established, the Puritan colonies and the pilgrim colony in New England, and they established some settlements also in Virginia and Maryland. But in between that whole section of the eastern seaboard, the Dutch planted the colony of New Netherland, which encompassed all or part of New York, New Jersey, Delaware, Connecticut, part of Pennsylvania. And its capital was New Amsterdam, at the tip of Manhattan Island. The two sides, the English and the Dutch, were bitter rivals in the 1600s. And the English were particularly bitter because the Dutch were, like ahead of them at everything. The Dutch built up this trading empire that, you know, they were the envy of Europe. So, that's kind of the backdrop.

And the Dutch colony lasted 40 years. And it really, in particular the city of New Amsterdam and Manhattan, they built this, this, center of capitalism, what we would call capitalism. The word didn't exist then. And, and, it was pluralistic. There were at least 18 languages spoken. And this became part of the envy, part of what the English envied.

GR: Interesting. And so you've got also when this conflict or this rivalry really comes to a head in and the control of Manhattan, you've got basically two commanders in the field, essentially, staring each other down. And what's interesting in the story is they kind of go off script, right? I mean, they, they take matters into their own hands. Tell us about that.

RS: Yeah, exactly. I, you know, I write narrative history. So I, I think of myself more as a storyteller than a historian. I always, you know, it's a strange thing, but people, when they're trying to compliment me and they say, “Oh, I read your book. I learned so much.” It sort of annoys me. I would rather that I would rather they said, “Oh, I just started reading it. I couldn't stop, you know, I it's the story that interest me.” So I look for conflict. I look for two individuals in conflict. And here you have a situation and this is the late summer of 1664. You have these English warships in the harbor in what became New York Harbor, pointing their cannons at this fort at the tip of Manhattan.

And in the fort they have their cannons pointed at these ships. So you can't get more conflict than that, but that they're ready to go at it. But as you say, they go off script and that is that's really the story that I tell in the book.

GR: Well, tell us a little bit more about what they do. Tell us what? Give us that story.

RS: So that, Richard Nichols was the commander for the British. He was sent on this mission to take this piece of the this desired piece of the eastern seaboard of North America from the Dutch. And he was the ships were filled to the brim with, you know, gunpowder and everything they needed. So he was ready to blast away.

Nichols had done his homework in London, and as I said, the Dutch were the envy of Europeans. And people had gotten to know that New Amsterdam this, you know, in the middle of nowhere. Was this intriguing place where they were doing business, this little, you know, kind of Wild West, or you might say Wild East Town was doing business with the Caribbean, West Africa, Europe.

So he was intrigued and he wanted to he didn't want just the real estate. He wanted the the secret sauce. And the secret sauce was in the people, the this mixed community of 18, 20 languages. So he wanted somehow to get it in such a way that they would come with it. Now, on the other side, Peter Stuyvesant was this very savvy leader of the Dutch colony.

And he his situation was he had been trying for years to get the Dutch government to give more support to this colony. He'd been saying, look, we're right beside this continent of North America. We can we can exploit it. But you have to send more people. You have to send soldiers. And they just ignored him. So he was at his wit's end.

So what happened was these two guys started to talk. They started to send messengers on rowboats back and forth.

GR: Interesting. And so so what is the ultimate outcome, then, of those of those negotiations?

RS: I should add that, on the English side, England in the 17th century was this will sound familiar, a deeply polarized society. You had the Puritans who essentially were religious extremists who wanted, a religious take over the government. They wanted a theocratic rule. They wanted to, you know, outlaw dancing and card playing and all kinds of things.

So you had them and then you had basically everybody else, and they everybody else was grouped under the monarchy. So they were the royalists, whether or not they particularly cared about the monarchy, they fought this bitter civil war. The king was beheaded. The his sons, the princes went into exile. Then eventually they come back and, they now are in charge again.

So they're looking at North America, and they see these Puritan colonies in New England that have been there for decades. So they're the enemies basically still, and they see the Dutch in this real estate that they want. So they send Nichols in this, this flotilla, to do two things to, to take this Dutch colony and then to make the Puritans fall into line.

And Nichols succeeds in the first. But in the second, he fails utterly because the Puritans based in Boston were very strong. They could, you know, they had an ocean protecting them from England. They could care less. They were minting their own coins and, you know, and they had this very, rigorous and violent, government that persecuted anybody who wasn't of their sect and so on.

So that was the that's what, the dynamics got set up here.

GR: You're listening to the Campbell Conversations on WRVO Public Media. I'm Grant Reeher, and I'm speaking with Russell Shorto, who has a new book out titled “Taking Manhattan: The Extraordinary Events That Created New York and Shaped America.” Well, so what you were saying there at the end is really what I wanted to ask you a couple deeper questions about.

And just to go to the title of your book, it's, it's that last phrase “and Shaped America” that I really want to focus in on. And I think you're getting into it now, when you talk about that split between the Puritans and the non-Puritans and England, and then how the non-Puritans, in a way, was, were reflected in some of the aspects of that culture that the Dutch had established already there in what would become Manhattan in New York City.

So so I wanted to hear more about that, because you were one of your arguments in the book, is that this moment was, as you already talked about. It's part of a much larger split in England and the colonies, but that it that it's reverberated through time, that that we can track a lot of things back to this.

So say a little bit more about that. I'd like to hear about that.

RS: So the deal that, the Dutch and English, leaders who are about to go to war with each other instead they, they, they, hash out this deal and the deal is basically Nichols, the Englishman doesn't really understand what the Dutch have. You know, nobody has heard of capitalism and the way that works. And, and, and in Europe, a tolerant society that allows for many different religions and languages was unheard of almost.

So he doesn't get it, but he knows that it works. So he wants to keep that. So the deal is the Dutch will keep their features of of a tolerant society. They will. So the agreement they sign, it says everyone who's here, whatever your your background, your language, you can you'll keep your house, you'll keep your business.

By all means, keep your trade networks in Europe and everywhere, because we want you to stay. We want you to, and but the one caveat is going to be it's now going to be an English town. And we're going to call it New York after the Duke of York, the brother of the King. So that was what they did.

And they and the reason they were able to do this was because these English and the Dutch had a lot in common. They were pragmatic, they were relatively tolerant. And tolerance, you have to say relative. Obviously, you know, there's slavery here. Tolerance did not apply to Africans. It didn't apply to native people. But relatively tolerant. They believed in global trade and business.

Whereas the Puritans based in Boston were a very different, came from a very different, cut. They were, you know, these religious, intolerant, their way or the highway kind of thing. So that then that's established as New York. Okay, there's New York and here's Boston, and the Puritans don't go anywhere. And what I'm what I sketch out then at the end of the book is that dynamic is going to slowly reverberate through American history, because we've got two centers of ideology.

One is outward looking, pragmatic, the other is more inward-looking, more, it becomes sort of America first, you know, that becomes, you know, the Puritans saw America as the promised land. And in the 19th century, that becomes manifest destiny. We have a God-given right to take over the continent. So you see that those two, ways of thinking throughout American history, I mean, obviously Boston, you don't think of today as like a Puritan stronghold, but, so the geography changes.

But in the lead up to the Civil War, you've got, you know, what they're arguing about, is slavery, the, the morality of slavery and whether it should extend as the country moves westward. Then that breaks out into the Civil War, then reconstruction, which is basically fails because they fail to resolve these differences.

And then that moves straight into the 20th century. You in the civil rights movement, all the protests around that, and then even into our time, gay rights and all the, you know, controversy over, trans rights and pronouns. And, I mean, all of this is from one side, it's the, the continuing unfolding of freedom that came with the American Revolution.

But from the other side, it's this is, you know, sort of violation against our moral code. And, you know, ideas are hard to track. It's like trying to track, you know, atoms or something. But I still think it's worthwhile because you try to figure out who we are and where we came from. And that's what I think is an interesting trail.

GR: Well, and so I'm glad you brought that up, because that was exactly the thing that I was having the toughest time wrapping my head around. And so I, I, I'll wait to put sort of my $64,000 question to you until I ask this other one, because you talked about, the Civil War and I one of the things I thought about was you characterized New York as sort of keeping its pragmatic Dutch, you know, diverse, multicultural aspect, more tolerant.

And then Boston being more purely Puritan, more strident and reformist. I wonder if that has something to do with the fact that during the Civil War, it was New York City that, saw a lot of support for trying to preserve the peace, preserve the union in any cost and New York was where you had these big draft riots and resistance to the Civil War, whereas New England and I'm thinking of like the burned over district, up here in upstate where you had, you know, stridently abolitionists, which I think were associated with this Puritan tradition.

And so in that sense, it's the it's it's a would that be fair to say that it's that it's that sort of different way of thinking in New York that led them to be less enthusiastic about the idea of, of, of, you know, sending hundreds of thousands of people to die for this cause?

RS: I think, you know what I, what I, suggested a minute ago, the geography really changes. And New York, New York City in the Civil War becomes its own thing, which is a really strange thing. It, you know, the, Fernando Wood was the mayor at the time, I think, and he put forth this idea that New York City should stay out of the war altogether, secede, and become its own republic, called Tri-Insula. The three islands, Long Island, Manhattan, and Staten Island.

Because New York, he thought, you know, I mean, New York, was all about trade. And they wanted to be able to do business with both sides and that. So that's, you know, the when I'm talking about these ideologies, the geographies switch. Of course, by the time by the time of the revolution, New England, where you associate with revolution with, quote freedom and and they then look back to the, the Puritans as having sought freedom from England.

But the, the the funny thing about that, it's a little bit of playing with semantics, because when the Puritans came, yeah, they were seeking religious freedom, but only for themselves. And they persecuted others who were who wanted to settle among them. So, you know, there I think the revolutionaries, a century later, kind of, you know, reading between the lines a little bit.

GR: Yeah. Interesting. You're listening to the Campbell Conversations on WRVO Public Media. I'm Grant Reeher, and I'm talking with Russell Shorto is the director of the New Amsterdam Project at the New York Historical Society, and the author of a new book titled “Taking Manhattan: The Extraordinary Events That Created New York and Shaped America.” And we've been discussing his book, So you use the term Christian nationalism to describe the Puritan set of beliefs, right? Is that…

RS: Well, nationalism? I mean, they weren't thinking in terms of a nation. I was kind of reading later history back into that.

GR: Okay. All right. But you make an association between. Right. Okay. All right. So this is what I'm wrapping my arms around. So is so is Donald Trump the Puritan here? I mean, how do, how do we or or is he a distant echo of a Puritan or. I don't know, I mean, he seems in some ways to be the embodiment of this Dutch way of thinking, you know, just just one, one actor among 100 possible models.

RS: Grant, I wrote a book set 400 years ago. I could, you know, if you want to stretch, you know, it's pull and push and pull. That's good. And I know I'll go along and play along with you, but, you know, I would acknowledge that we are really stretching, stretching these, these notions pretty far. But I think, you know, I think Trump, played into the Puritan, the America first, you know, Make America Great Again, the religious right, that whole side of the equation, which, as I'm arguing, goes back to the Puritans. He plays into that. To what extent he himself is a true believer in that, you know, that's that's anybody's guess.

GR: And certainly in terms of tolerance and that kind of thing, I can see the I can, I can see the, the connections. Well. Let me I'm a political scientist, so you're going to have to forgive the Donald Trump questions and the other kind of questions here. But but, the when I was thinking about this notion of the divide that you identified here and the aspects of the way of thinking about, culture and, and thinking about what's right and thinking about being on missions and America first, that kind of thing.

I started to think about other deep divides in the country that are both old and more recent. That came to my mind, and I was thinking about, well, to go back to like the time of the founding, you had this sort of like, Roman republican tradition and ideas that the founders participated in. But then you had more of these capitalist, individualist, Scottish enlightenment that would be kind of more in line with the Dutch, I think, in that sense.

So you have that that, I was thinking of, first half of the 20th century divides over what's the right role of national government in our domestic affairs? You know, the political arguments you've heard during a time of the New Deal and then second half of the 20th century and into the one we're in now, divides over race and identity and inclusion and how those things should be thought of.

So I know that you are hesitant about taking something that long ago and connecting it to today, but can you help me think about how to place the divide that you've identified, which is very compelling in line with some of these other things over time? How how might this play out?

RS: I think that we're all, you know, it's our mutual inheritance. Is the Enlightenment and the and the Enlightenment we think of again as the 1700s. But the Dutch Enlightenment of the 1600s is what spawned the wider European Enlightenment. So these ideas are very much in the air and animating, in this case the Dutch, and and among that is this notion of liberalism, meaning liberalism as a, as a broad philosophy of individual freedom.

And so I think most people today, that's part of their makeup. The, the, the crux, though, is how you choose to apply it. You know, today, people on the left would say we believe in freedom for all. That's why we think, you know, if you're trans or or you're gay or whatever you are. Whereas people on the right would say no, we believe in individual freedom.

And that's why, you know, you're persecuting us with your pronouns and all that. So, you know, that's where, you know, but I think the important thing from history, from way back history, is that this is all our mutual inheritance. And I would add, maybe that it kind of feels like that broader in inheritance, which is foundational to all of us, is under attack these days, you know, with kind of, tendencies toward dictatorships and that sort of thing in the air.

GR: If you're just joining us, you're listening to the Campbell Conversations on WRVO Public Media. I'm Grant Reeher, and my guest is the writer and historian Russell Shorto. So, this might seem like a, really bizarre question, but what I, as a political scientist and a political scientist in New York, and upstate, I've paid a lot of attention to the division between upstate and downstate, politically and also culturally.

But certainly, it's a big issue you know, in Albany. And so I'm, I'm wondering if this kind of split that you're talking about that happened all these many years ago isn't mirrored, in a way, in the split between upstate and downstate, because upstate has it seems to me again, I'm thinking of the, the abolitionists and the the, the, all the religious movements, like the millwrights and, you know, all the rest of it that came out of upstate, the Mormon, among others.

And, and then contrast that with, again, this sort of more pluralist, inclusive kind of mentality of downstate. I don't know if there's anything there that you think is worth pulling out, but.

RS: Yeah, it's an interesting dynamic. And, you know, as you were asking me that, I was thinking, you know, one thing that I'm curious about, if Andrew Cuomo declares candidacy for mayor of New York, you know, he's associated with the state as a whole and being governor. How are New York, how are the people in New York City going to feel about that kind of thing?

I have spent, most I've spent a lot of time upstate in Albany. And not just, you know, Albany as the capital, but just with the town. So I have a pretty. And I used to live in the city long ago. So I have a, you know, my own personal sense of that vibe and the differences.

And one thing that I would say is interesting, that goes all the way back is in the Dutch colony of New Netherland, the the capital was New Amsterdam. So Manhattan, the second city, was, which then became Albany, because James, the Duke of York, was also the Duke of Albany. And so and Beaver was important as the name kind of suggests, Beaver Town, because that's where they traded with the native people for furs from the Mohawk River Valley.

And then they'd go down to Manhattan. But you had that. You had this tension between those two cities even then, that are 150 miles of wilderness between them. But you had this, you know, and the people in Albany kind of, you know, they were they were more rural back country. They were more Dutch at a time when Manhattan was this polyglot, urban kind of place.

And they were more like the real, you know, we’re the real keepers of morals and all that. So you had those that divide even then.

GR: Yeah. It's interesting. So we got about three minutes left, maybe a little less. And I want to try, if I can, to kind of squeeze in three questions. So this is going to be more of our sort of pseudo lightning round, if you will, for the first one is New York, as you well know, is often called the capital of the world.

And, you know, to, invoke your previous book, “The Island at the Center of the World,” with the rise of China and also some of the dramatic changes in communication technology in recent decades, do you think that New York is going to remain that way? In say 50 years from now? Will we be still calling it the capital of the world, do you think?

RS: Okay, well, I have to be short in my answers and I'll say, no, I can't see how because, you know, but what I the point I make in this book is that, New York, you could say, was the first modern city for all these reasons. And what's interesting is that template has been copied now all over the world, even in places that are sort of, autocratic in cities like, you know, Moscow or Beijing or something like that.

They have this vibe of of that. But no, I don't I think that will change. And it's kind of changing before our eyes.

GR: And the other two questions are more personal in terms of your own relationship with the city, because obviously you know it very well and you know its history very well. The first one is what part or area or place in today's New York most connects you to the past.

RS: Oh that's eastern I used to live in the East Village, and when my daughter was a toddler, I would take her to the churchyard of Saint Mark's in the Bowery to run around and play. And that's where Peter Stephenson's tomb was. And that's how I first connected with all this. So when I'm in the East Village, I. I feel like I'm back home.

GR: Interesting. And did that did that get you started on some of these travels that.

RS: Me started on that that way I got to Charlie Gehring, the translator of the archives in Albany, and that got me on. That's what I've been on that track ever since, basically.

GR: Wow. Serendipitous. And and and maybe this is going to be the same answer then, but let's say you can't use that answer again. What is your own, personal favorite place to be in New York and why?

RS: My favorite place to be, you know, I like, I like walking on Broadway, which is still has a grittiness, still has, kind of, you know, I like walking along the river, of course, Riverside Drive and looking across at New Jersey, even though that's not that's not New Jersey and not New York there. I like a lot of, you know, I'm, I'm most comfortable, most familiar with Manhattan, but now my, my kids live one in Brooklyn and one in Queens. So I'm becoming more familiar with Astoria and and, Flatbush. And so, you know, I'm discovering the city through them.

GR: Okay. So, so the the past is the future, in a way. We'll have to leave it there. That was Russell Shorto. And again, his new book is titled “Taking Manhattan: The Extraordinary Events That Created New York and Shaped America.” If you think you know New York and its significance to the country, you'll want to read this book to read and learn the full story.

But Mr. Shorto, I want to thank you so much for taking the time to talk with us. A lot of fun.

RS: Thank you, Grant. It was fun.

GR: You've been listening to the Campbell Conversations on WRVO Public Media, conversations in the public interest.

On this week's episode of the Campbell Conversations, Grant Reeher speaks with Syracuse City Auditor Alexander Marion. He was elected to the position as a Democrat in November 2023. Prior to that, he served on the staffs of State Senator Michael Gianaris and Syracuse Mayor Stephanie Miner.

USAID has been in the news more lately than at any point since its founding during the John F. Kennedy administration. What exactly does the government agency do? How does it fit with all U.S. foreign aid? Could its work be done more efficiently elsewhere? This week, Grant Reeher talks with Catherine Herrold, a professor at Syracuse University's Maxwell School, and an expert on USAID.

On this week's episode of the Campbell Conversations, Grant Reeher speaks with Julian Zelizer, a Professor of History and Public Affairs at Princeton University, and the author of the new book, "In Defense of Partisanship."

Program transcript:

Grant Reeher: Welcome to the Campbell Conversations, I'm Grant Reeher. Governor Kathy Hochul has given her State of the State address and presented her budget for the year. Back with me today on the program to provide reactions to that and also offer a preview of the legislative session are New York State Senator Rachel May and Assembly Minority Leader Will Barclay. Senator May represents the state's 48th Senate District and leader Barclay represents the 120 Assembly District. Leader Barclay and Senator May welcome back to the program, it’s good to see you both.

Rachel May: Thank you.

Will Barclay: Thanks for having me on.

GR: Well, thank you, thank you both for making the time. Senator May, I'll start with you. A very basic question, and if you could be brief, I'd appreciate it. But what do you think are the most significant new initiatives that the governor has set forward here in the State of the State and also the budget?

RM: So, I'm pleased that she's leaning into issues about both affordability and child poverty. Obviously, here and in central New York and Syracuse in particular, child poverty is a major issue. So the fact that she wants to expand the child tax credit to continue putting some specific money into Syracuse, Rochester and Buffalo for fighting child poverty, universal school lunches, all of those are really important measures, I think, to help lift our kids out of poverty and make life more affordable for parents raising children. Her child care initiatives, I think, are great, but I haven't really seen the money being put behind it. So I feel like that's one where we need to fight for more investment to realize some of those child care savings that she's promising. But I would say on those fronts, it's a pretty exciting budget or at least a budget plan. I would say for agriculture she's done some really good things with dairy farm sustainability, with investing in farm worker housing, a number of the agricultural products that we produce here locally, like maple syrup, she's leaning into as well. So I feel like those are good things. On housing we need to do, I think more than she's proposing, but at least she's proposing some things that I've been calling for, like a revolving fund for housing construction. So, you know, on balance, I think it's a pretty good budget for some of the really key critical issues that we need to be pushing for.

GR: And Leader Barclay, as you took all this in, what was front of mind for you in both what you've set forward in State of the State and the budget?

Will Barclay: Well, in the State of the State, I was, after the State of the State I was pretty complimentary, oddly enough, with the governor because she did what Senator May said. She talked about the issues that seem to be important to New Yorkers and certainly were key issues in this past election. That's affordability and crime. So I was pleased, you know, she talked about it, she talked about a middle class tax cut, which we certainly would support. She talked about the child tax credit, which is a bill that we've had in the assembly that interestingly has been blocked by the assembly majority over the last few years, but hopefully now that the governor's proposed it, maybe they'll look at it in a different view, a different light. So I was happy with that. However, and she also talked about the rebate program, which is a little inefficient, about taking our money and giving it back to taxpayers. But in my mind, any time we're giving money back to the taxpayers, I think it's probably a positive thing that I could support. But then we got to her budget address and it was curious because I was very quiet about how much she was going to talk about spending and she blew the doors out. The budget proposal that she has, which is usually the lowest starting point in this whole budget process, is $252 billion. It's an 8% increase on state funds, I think seven point on all funds percent. And, you know, that's simply the trajectory that I've talked about on this show, I talk about anywhere I go that New York cannot afford to continue on. And I know revenue has been coming in pretty well in this state, but it doesn't seem like there's a political will, either governor or the two majorities to cut taxes. And ultimately, the problem is we're losing people in New York State because it's too expensive to live here. And I didn't see much in this budget other than those few things I mentioned that's going to change that trajectory. So I was sort of disappointed in her budget address. The $252 billion, we're going to be, you know, we spend the most and tax most of any citizens in the United States. And it simply it's just not a system that we can continue on with.

GR: Well, you've anticipated the question I always ask at this time of the year of the two of you or others. And Senator May, I'll kind of just channel what Leader Barclay just said and say, I did want to get your reaction to sort of the big picture of the budget, you know, putting it in context because when you think about specific programs like the ones that you mentioned, you know, it is compelling. I mean, you know, there are good things that you want to do with those things. But, you know, it is this, if my understanding is, it's another record high budget and New York is always on the top or near the top of the list of tax burden relative to other states. The last time I checked, we are still projected to have outmigration from the state that, you know, may cost us another congressional seat the next time we do a census. So, I mean, Senator May, how should New Yorkers be viewing the state's spending and the future trajectory of the state spending from kind of this bigger picture? I don't know if there's a crisp question there, but you have the specific programs that are compelling, but when you look at the whole thing, it does seem like there's a problem.

RM: Well, I will say we are actually being very fiscally responsible, not like increasing deficits or that kind of thing. We have a lot more money to handle some of the real problems in the state because we increased, we made modest increases on the super wealthy a few years ago, everybody predicted that they would all move out of the state when we did that. But in fact, we have more millionaires and billionaires in the state now than we had before, and they are way wealthier than they were before. So that's one of the reasons why the state is bringing in more funds. And honestly, the Republicans in the Senate complain about this every year and then they say, and why don't we have more money for this, this, this, this and this? So it's like, everybody wants more money. We are facing a situation where the Trump administration is probably going to take away a lot of funds that we have depended on, like for Medicaid. And so we have to be making investments now that we can make so that we can put ourselves in a position to weather the storm that is coming, because we can certainly expect to be in the crosshairs of the Trump administration. I do think some of the investments are really good ones. The $200 million for upstate, we were asking for more than that, but I'm glad she put that in there for upstate. I think, you know, really thinking about ways to beef up our infrastructure, get us in position to weather both the climate storms that are approaching and the political storms that are approaching. I think this is a smart way to spend the money.

GR: I want to come back to the Medicaid issue, you brought up something that that I did want to pursue, but Leader Barclay, I’ll come back to you. The senator mentioned the extra tax on millionaires and my understanding is that this calls for the earlier, I guess, renewal of that tax before it was set to expire. Is that, what is your view on that? I mean, would it be possible would it be smart to double down on that effort and to and to really try to get more money out of the very, very wealthiest in New York State? Because, particularly downstate, the senator is right, we've got a lot of those people. New York City has a high concentration of them relative to other parts of the country. So is that one way to go?

WB: Well, first of all, I've never seen a tax that's been instituted in New York State that doesn't continue on. So, which, the Senator is talking about is altering the millionaire's tax so it's put on when we had a fiscal crisis. And oh, we’ll just put it on a few years, but lo and behold, we're not a fiscal crisis now, apparently. But guess what? We're going to take the sunset off and extend that tax going forward. Now, the Senator points out that there's, you know, millionaires and billionaires in the state and they may have increased, but everything's increased. And New York State is growing those millionaires and billionaires at a lower rate than any other state in the country. So, you know, they may not be leaving, but they are leaving New York State. And to further things, the more dependent you get on these wealthy people to cover your revenue requirements in the state, you know, you can just lose a couple of them and that becomes a huge hole in your budget that, in fact, that happened in New York City just a few years ago when, you know, there were something like 29 billionaires were responsible for something like 35%, 40% of New York City's budget. A couple of them left and they had some real deficits on it. So again, it's just not a sustainable system going forward, we have to look at ways. For instance, the governor says on the rebate program, sales tax, we, because inflation, the state's got a windfall from sales tax, which is great. But why don't we look at reducing sales tax? There is a so-called regressive tax that I would think some of the Democrats would want to look at to maybe ease the burden on that. But no, we don't want to do that, we'll just take your money and hand it back, and not back to everybody, just a few, you know, some of the people we, you know, we want to try to be helpful to. So to me, again, it's just more tax and spend more tax and spend in New York. And we're going to just end up with the same results that we've been seeing with people flocking out of our state, unfortunately.

RM: We actually have the lowest middle class tax rates in 70 years and we have been cutting those. And one of the reasons is because we've been able to, you know, have the super wealthy pay a little bit more of their fair share. We have a situation in America where the richest few have gotten infinitely richer. Our state budget is about one Jeff Bezos this year and about 1.6 of a Elon Musk. And we we're seeing people get extremely wealthy and we're seeing ordinary people just falling behind and falling behind. And so we're trying to make the investments in reversing that trend here in New York State. And so far, it's, you know, this budget, I think, shows that that's working to some extent.

WB: One thing I'd ask is, are people leaving New York State because their taxes aren't high enough? Are they leaving New York State because, you know, the cost to live here? They're leaving New York because there is an affordable crisis. They're going to states with lower tax burdens. I mean, it just is evident, it's happening. So we're just going to continue on that same path that we've been on? It doesn't, you know, the facts are the facts.

RM: Most of the evidence is people are leaving because housing is too expensive and we don't have enough of it. And so the more we have more and more housing, the better. But, you know, we've got all these difficulties with local governments refusing to permit more housing, with, you know, zoning codes that are so restrictive that we, it's really hard to build more housing. And so that revolving fund money, the whole point of that is to make it more affordable for developers to build more housing so that they can get the housing that we need.

WB: I think we ought to look at the costs of why housing is so expensive in New York. Developers don't want to take the risk because it's incredibly hard to build a new house in New York. Even upstate is really, really expensive because we put all these requirements on these developers to do it. You know, it's just getting worse instead of better. We now want, you know, heat pumps in every house. Looks like it's going to be $26,000 more money if you require that. So it's just one thing after another in New York State that makes no one want to take the risk of developing housing. That's one of the reasons we have high housing costs.

GR: You're listening to the Campbell Conversations on WRVO Public Media. I'm Grant Reeher and I'm talking with New York State Senator Rachel May and New York State Assembly Minority Leader Will Barclay. And we've been having a very spirited discussion about the upcoming legislative session and the larger picture of spending and the size of government in New York State. Senator May, before the break, you wanted to get in (what) leader Barclay had been focusing on, the number of regulations and new requirements that the state puts on housing as a major contributor to its increase in costs, because developers don't want to take that risk unless they know they're going to get a certain kind of return and just making it more expensive itself to build the houses. That makes sense to me, just thinking of some of my own personal experiences, but you had a response that you wanted to make to that.

RM: Yeah, well, I agree about the regulation, and that's why I have carried several bills that are designed to reduce the kinds of regulations that make it really expensive to build housing. We have one, and the governor picked it up in her budget, it's about the environmental review process for multifamily housing, which is, you know, there are really good reasons to not want to be damaging wetlands or having toxins in the soils or something where you're building housing and I definitely think we need to keep that kind of environmental review. But the review process has been so onerous and has opened projects to lawsuits to such an extent that it becomes almost impossible to build multi-family housing in infill areas, places where there's already public transportation, for example, or walkable communities that the lawsuits that they get hit with are so frequent. And they delay the projects so much that a lot of times they just don't get built and the developers end up building sprawl development way out in a cornfield somewhere, which is not good for the environment either. So we are trying to streamline that and the governor agrees that we should do that. I had a bill last year that got put in the budget that was about new configurations of multifamily housing that make it easier to build more affordable housing and more pleasant kinds of housing for families. So we're working on some of those regulations. I think something like the heat pumps, if we can electrify the buildings, in the long run they will be much cheaper to operate and safer. We won't have all of the dangers of gas in the houses. So you know, sometimes things are more expensive, but in general, I think we are working on the regulations to make it affordable to build more housing.

GR: Okay, I want to get into two big issues with the time we have left. Leader Barclay, I'll ask you my Medicaid question. When I've looked at the New York Medicaid program, it really is mind boggling because of the per capita expense of this program that we have in this state. And it's double or more than double that of California, which just blew my mind when I first realized that. So it's obviously a huge part of the budget. And my impression, though, is that neither party is really serious about doing any serious thinking about how you would go about trimming that back. You hear about waste, fraud and abuse, but at some point some hard decisions are going to get made. And I just, you know, every year when this budget comes out, I see the Medicaid part. Does your party have any plan for doing something about that?

WB: Well, one, I would totally agree with you, Grant. The idea that trying to find a solution to the Medicaid growth is very difficult because it's going to take those hard decisions to make. And unfortunately, you know, we've made some decisions over the last decade or so. Where, just increased the idea, let’s just increase Medicaid programs as much as we could in New York because we would get the federal reimbursement for that, with no guarantee that that was always going to be the case. And maybe in the future, the Medicaid federal portion is going to go down, what are we going to do with that? We have, you know, really high levels of income to still, you know, still qualify for Medicaid in New York. There's been a huge increase over the last, since, I guess, you know, maybe the last six or seven years. And then, you know, every health care organization is dependent on those Medicaid dollars. So somewhere along the line we’ve got to look at it. And it's not incentivizing the right efficiencies in the system because there is ultimately going to be winners and losers in that. And when there's winners and losers, those (unintelligible) get very, very difficult. But, you know, that's what we need leadership from the governor. She probably needs to spend some political capital, and is probably going to go against some of her constituencies that don't want to see that. But, you know, if she could do that, I would be with her. If that meant the overall lowering the tax and spend budget she has.

GR: So, Senator, May, it's tough to talk about this without really getting into the policy weeds and I'll try to summarize what I'm about to say as quickly as I can. But you mentioned something that really caught my attention, which was a concern that you have that under Trump, the federal portion of Medicaid is going to go down and that's going to hurt New York State and it will hurt a lot of other, “blue” states. Prior to Obamacare, this is what I understand, prior to Obamacare, the reimbursement to the states varied from 50% to 75% depending on the states. New York was in the 50% category, so it's a 50/50 split. But then the extra part of Medicaid to bring all the states up, and New York was already pretty high, that part the federal government has paid all or most of that additional expense. I think I've got that about right. So I'm very curious, though, what are you worried about that the Trump administration's going to go after here in this Medicaid formula?

RM: Well, reproductive health first and foremost, but also just in general, they are trying to figure out how to cut federal support for the poor, for people they don't like, whether it's immigrants or LGBTQ folks. So they are strategically trying to figure out how to attack the groups that they have gained so much political capital by demonizing. And we are worried about that. I was at an event yesterday, the Bipartisan Pro-Choice Caucus in the legislature, which isn't actually bipartisan, had a series of presentations from experts about the kinds of ways that both executive orders and taking advantage of right wing judges who are making really extreme decisions in different ways that the administration can really interrupt our ability to offer the kinds of reproductive health care that our population expects.

GR: So and then Leader Barclay, I'll bring you in on something related to this. But, so the way I understand what you're saying then is, the strategy is going to be going after covering certain kinds of things that are related to these other groups or, in that way, then putting federal restrictions on if you're getting Medicaid dollars, you can't spend them on X, Y, and Z and it comes back to that. And so that's going to be the mechanism then, rather than just, we're going to go from 50%, I thought maybe you were saying there's going to be an effort to say we're going to change your formula from 50% to 40% or 30%.

RM: Well, we don’t know. How can we possibly know? Their stock in trade is throwing curve balls and making it impossible to plan ahead. So my expectation is that that kind of change can't happen as fast as some of the other changes that they're making. But, you know, it wouldn't be this year's budget, but next year's budget that it would affect. But we'll see.

GR: Okay, interesting. I'd be stunned to see if you could get the change in the formula writ large across the board, through the Senate. But I understand what you're talking about in terms of targeting, you know, certain kinds of procedures that then are to the benefit of certain people. But Leader Barclay, I want to bring you in on this. More generally, what the senator is talking about relates to this more general point, more generally after Trump was elected in November, there was a conversation in a lot of states, mostly among Democrats, about whether the states are going to form a resistance, you know, what's going to be done in in light of this, and even some competition you know, who's going to be the leader of it? Is it going to be Gavin Newsom in California is going to be Kathy Hochul in New York? What's your sense of where the mindset is now? Is this is New York going to be sort of a fortress of resistance? And if that's the case, if that's what you're getting from the governor or other leaders, is there a danger there of kind of putting yourself in such stark opposition to the presidency?

WB: No doubt. You know, I was pleased right after the election that it seemed the governor softened, maybe her former viewpoints on the president, but now she seems to be ramping that back up. You know, I always think it's best to try to work with somebody before you start attacking them. We just got through an election where the president won, you know, not only the electoral vote, but won the popular vote. So clearly, there is a move in this country that people want change. They want change from the last four years of the Biden administration. It seems to me the president ran on a bunch of these things and he's acting on those things currently. So, New York could, I guess, try to put up some, I don't know what specifically you would do, but some try to Trump-proof New York. But I think you do that your own political peril. And I'm not sure New Yorkers are so in agreement for trying to Trump-proof New York.

GR: Well, Senator May we've got about a minute and a half left. I wanted to give you a chance to respond to that, I mean because it sounds like you see yourself as part of this resistance. Can you talk a little bit about kind of the strategy and how it might end up benefiting the state rather than hurting the state?

RM: Yeah, well, let me start by saying we had this interview two years ago together, and Leader Barclay said that Trump was a thing of the past, that we didn't have to think about him anymore, that he was so damaged by the by the January 6th insurrection that we were going to move on from him and I feel like we are in this ‘Alice in Wonderland’ kind of rabbit hole situation where responsible Republicans are refusing to hold him accountable in any possible way. He wasn't held accountable for that, he hasn't been held accountable for appointing really dangerous people to his cabinet. It looks like the Senate is going to cave on those appointees. And so we are…

WB: How about the people, Senator, how about the people that voted for Trump?

RM: Sorry?

WB: How about the majority of Americans who voted for Trump? He won the popular vote.

RM: He didn’t get a majority, he got a plurality.

WB: Plurality. He won more votes than Kamala Harris.

RM: Right. And so many people were saying…

WB: Because they’re dumb? They don’t know what they’re talking about?

RM: …really going to do what he says he’s going to do, we’re just going to vote for him because he’s…

WB: We’re dumb. We’re dumb, we don’t know what he’s going to do, but we just want change?

RM: No, but like, he kept saying he was going to bring down grocery prices and then almost the instant he was elected, he said, well, honestly, I can't really do that. So he was presenting a set of policies that he couldn't actually carry out.

GR: I hate to I hate to do this, but we…

WB: Unlike Kamala Harris, who was, she was being truthful and honest about everything she ran on and people are just, they just got caught up in the whole thing and they didn't know what they were doing, so they voted for Trump because he was, fooled everybody. Is that, was that the sort of idea?

GR: Well, I am sure the two of you, at this point I am sure the two of you are not going to find common ground on this president.

WB: No.

GR: But I do appreciate both of you making the time, we'll have to leave it there. Obviously, the next year is going to bring up a lot of strong political feelings and views and we saw those here today. That was New York State Assembly Minority Leader Will Barclay and New York State Senator Rachel May. I want to thank both of you for taking time and I want to wish you both good luck with this session. It sounds like one way or another it's going to be interesting. So thanks to both of you.

WB: Thanks for having me on.

GR: You've been listening to the Campbell Conversations on WRVO Public Media, conversations in the public interest.

One of the most competitive, watched and costly congressional elections last November was right here in central New York, in the 22nd Congressional District, where Democrat John Mannion defeated incumbent Rep. Brandon Williams. This week, Grant Reeher talks with Rep. Mannion about his transition from state Senator to member of Congress, his early impressions of the House, and the beginning of President Donald Trump's second term.

Program Transcript:

Grant Reeher: Welcome to the Campbell Conversations. I'm Grant Reeher. Last November, right here in Syracuse in one of the most closely watched congressional races in the entire country. New York's 22nd district, Democratic state Senator John Mannion defeated first-term incumbent Republican Brandon Williams. My guest today is that newly minted Congressman John Mannion. The 22nd district contains all of Onondaga and Madison counties and portions of Oneida, Cortland, and Cayuga counties, including the cities of Syracuse, Utica, and Auburn. Congressman Mannion, welcome back to the program and congratulations.

John Mannion: Thank you so much. It's always a pleasure to be on Grant.

GR: We really appreciate you making the time. I know you're really busy getting up to speed here, so let me just ask you a first basic question. How is the transition going?

JM: I'm enjoying it. You know, it's really been a great experience. Obviously there's a lot to do. I was a state senator and we had to shut down an Albany office and a Syracuse office. And then we are kicking into gear hiring staff. Many of my, staff at the state Senate are with me. Some new folks and certainly some people who have experience here in DC. So I think the the biggest things in the first, from Election Day to now would be a hiring staff, getting the offices up and running. And I will say that, you know, everybody that comes on board has to get an official, email address before they can start communicating with constituents. That seems like a small thing, but it doesn't happen on day one. Doesn't happen the day they sign the papers. So while we're getting our office, going here in Syracuse, which it is, and our website is up. So I encourage everybody who has a constituent case or concern or whatever it might be, to please contact us. And then we will have a Utica office as well, which is a part of this process where we have a goal date of March 31st at the latest. But as far as the team goes, we've got a robust DC team. We have a robust, Syracuse team. And we do have, people hired who are dedicated to the Utica office once it's up and running and they're already working with us.

GR: Well, it sounds like you're getting a fast start. So I know that, at the beginning, and prior to to taking the oath of office, new members of Congress attend a couple different orientation sessions. And I was curious to ask you a question about that, because as a state senator, you already know quite a bit about the legislative process. So I was curious to know what was the most surprising new things you learned when you had this orientation at the federal level?

JM: First of all, I want to say that they were fantastic. The first thing that happened, we were ten days in DC. Then about a week or two later, we were three days at Harvard. And then after session started, we were in Williamsburg, Virginia. Not everybody participated in everyone. I did and found it incredibly helpful. And yes, some of, we know that, knowledge or words or vocabulary power and there's a lot of things that translate from the state legislature to here, but some don't. And one thing that I've found is that while I'll give you an interesting number and then I'll tell you something about the job, if you had to guess. Grant, I hate to turn a question on you in the history, in the history of the House of Representatives, how many people have served in that capacity? And I won't make you answer if you don't want to, but it's a it's 11,000, 11,000.

GR: Okay. Okay. Yeah.

JM: The 11,000 really is an honor and a privilege. Now..

GR: That's a small number. I mean, when you think about it, I think I would have I think I probably would have aired on a higher number I think.

JM: Yeah. Exactly. Exactly. So I would have too. The reason I share that information is because it it took me back a step to think. I'm one of only 11,000 people that have ever run, taken the oath and voted on legislation here. Of those 11,000, how many have been women or are currently women?

GR: I'm going to say, boy, 200.

JM: 250.

GR: I'm not bad.

JM: Yeah. But again, it's a it is a reminder. You know, I look at the, freshman class right now, 17 women in that class, and you go, this is 10% of about 8%, maybe of the women who have ever served. So one one thing about the process that I learned is, committee work is different here. Changes in legislation happened in the midst of the committee. And honestly, in Albany, it felt like those changes in legislation happened more in the conference, meaning the Democratic conference, the party in the majority. So, again, I have not been in the throes of committee work other than just being established on committees. And, some really preliminary, preliminary stuff, but amendments to legislation as it moves and the process, the reconciliation process that we're all going to see coming up here and trying to make sure that we have our spending, our budget in place is also different from the state legislature. And in an ideal world, they both would be very bipartisan on the scale of bipartisanship, we'll see what this Congress brings. But there certainly is opportunity for the minority party to get amendments in. I don't think they'll get in as frequently as the majority party members amendments do. But they will they do happen and they will.

GR: Well, that's good, that's good. That's good to hear. I was also curious to know if you've had any particular, sort of chill down the spine or, you know, civic, civic moments that you started any sort of particular times where it just other than that, other than that number that took you by surprise? Sure.

JM: You know, listen, I, I'm, I'm a Democrat. I've been a Democrat all my life and I've, certainly, you know, Hakeem Jeffries came to the district. I've met other, leaders in the party, President Biden, President Clinton. But I day one down here, we got to meet, or, you know, we were more sort of either was the freshman class or it was just the Democratic freshman class. And then the next day we had a caucus meeting. And in that caucus meeting, you walk into basically what's a briefing from Catherine Clark and Pete Aguilar and Hakeem Jeffries, and you walk through that door and they just keep coming out of the door getting a coffee, which is, you know, Nancy Pelosi comes in and then AOC comes in and, and a lot of people that I had spoken with on the phone, but that was a moment where I'm like, I am in this room right now. I'm in this room right now. And, that was impressive. Also, when we were certifying the Electoral College vote, you know, I was shaking hands with people. And the guy I spoke with was Jon Ossoff, and I didn't recognize them. Probably because I wasn't expecting it. And, he said, I'm John. I said, I'm John. I said, where are you from? He said, Georgia. And I went, oh, yeah, you're that John, I got you. Yes.

GR: So it sort of sounds like a little bit of the experience of you're a, you're a rookie and you're, you're, you're in the majors. And then the coach says, you're going to bat after Jeter.

JM: Yeah. It is, it is a little bit like that. Yes. Yeah. The gravity, the gravity of it is real. And, you can appreciate it here. And of course the, the beauty of it, the majesty of it, the, decorum. So far, it's been it's been really, amazing to be a part of.

GR: You're listening to the Campbell Conversations on WRVO Public Media. I'm Grant Reeher, and I'm speaking with Congressman John Mannion, who has just begun representing New York's 22nd district. So, just tell us a little bit about your committee assignments, how they are going to be able to fit with your desire to work on behalf of the district?

JM: Well, people know my background, and I would not have this job if it was not for, really a passion for public education and it being the great equalizer and all that it does. So I was hopeful that I would get on Education and Workforce, and I did. And, you know, this is a committee that does much more than just education. There certainly is a lot of funding that comes out of it. Title One funding, that is to help some of our, neediest communities and education and, you know, our, our disabilities funding, but also there's workplace protections in there. There's a lot based on, health insurance coverage provided by employers and then apprenticeship programs. So I wasn't just a teacher while I was teaching, I was also a union president. And then I was chair of the disabilities committee in the New York State Senate. The only one. And this is the space where I can really make some positive impact, in, in all those areas. And that's where my knowledge base is coming from. And, you know, when the President was in the campaign and he was talking about dismantling the Department of Education, I disagree respectfully, particularly because of some of the things that I cited around individualized education and funding for students with special needs. So, that's one committee. And then the other one was a little, I had a feeling that was going to happen. This one was a little bit of a wild card. But I was. But I served in the state Senate, and that was to be on the Agriculture Committee and in central New York, you know, we know we've got a very robust agricultural economy and history. I, we have a farm bill that we have to get over the line, and there will be opportunities to me, for me to fight for things that are good for central New York farmers and those that are in that space. And, you know, I again, you asked what surprised me, we know what we're known for here in central New York. There's a lot of things, but but, you know, front of mind is usually dairy or apples. And when I found out apples were a specialty crop, it got my New Yorker up. Let me tell you, I was like, this is a specialty crop, but as you can imagine, those crops that, we don't call specialty crops corn, wheat, soy. We do a lot of that in that space, too. But I'm looking forward to serving on that committee. And I've got a great relationship with local farmers, visited farms, and, and I, I tried to do my best to be their voice in Albany. I'm going to do the same here in DC.

GR: That sounds like a good combination. You know, you mentioned, bipartisanship before, when we were talking earlier and I was wondering, have you on that point or other points, have you, have you spoken to, your, the predecessor to your predecessor, John Katko? So to get any tips about that because he, he made that a priority for his service.

JM: I have. And of course, John and I have a good relationship. If you look back through the annals, you know, I certainly supported Democratic candidates that ran against him, and he supported Republican candidates that ran against me. But we didn't we didn't take shots at each other. We touted the positive things about, the people we were supporting. So he has been helpful and, we, have a lot of common connections being sort of West Side folks here. We actually attended the same schools. I bring that up because he's a little bit older than me, so we weren't in the same grade. But, he has been helpful, and, you know, there's room for bipartisanship. He was a member of the Problem Solvers Caucus. And that caucus that is bipartisan is currently filled. And I've spoken with the leaders of that caucus and expressed interest in it. Hopefully, you know, I'll find, I'll find a spot there eventually. But right now they have their numbers. And as you probably have witnessed, it is a it is a unique, it’s going to be a unique Congress. So, you know, and I and I've already had, very good conversations, certainly with my freshman colleagues and members of the New York delegation that are Republican, because we've got a lot of shared interests, with our with a number of things, you know, the tech hub, the drone hub, salt taxation. So where we, we, we have absolutely going to find common ground.

GR: You're listening to the Campbell Conversations on WRVO Public Media. I'm Grant Reeher, and I'm talking with Congressman John Mannion. The Democrat defeated incumbent Republican Brandon Williams in New York's 22nd congressional district in last November's general election. On that point that I just mentioned there in the in the re-intro, your seat was considered one of the top Democratic targets for, for 2024, really got identified. And, I imagine, in the next two years, your party is going to be very keen to defend it. It's going to keep it in its sights. And I was wondering if you think that fact might help you to be able to leverage some additional funding or projects for the district, you know, through that, through the Democratic leadership?

JM: Well, number one, I hope so. And number two, if uh, I certainly will do my best to remind them of that. You know, in the state legislature, you want to do the right thing and you want to make sure you get your fair share. And I know that I did a good job of that and was a good voice of central New York, now representing central New York in the Mohawk Valley. The process is different. I am a freshman, but like I referenced in the previous, section, there's spaces like in the farm bill where we can get things done for the district and, you know, there's some hangover also that we have to keep our eye on. And that would be, funding that has been appropriated in the past that could be cut if we're not careful about it. And I do, you know, some of that comes from, legislation that might be 1 or 2 Congresses back. And, you know, there's talk about the I-81 funding. There's concern. This has been in the media. We have checked into that immediately and been assured that, we should not be concerned, you know, when the governor or excuse me, when the President signs an executive order that says we're going to pause these funding appropriations. We're in the midst of a project here. We have a contract. That contract is between the USDOT and the New York State DOT. And this is the largest infrastructure project in the history of upstate New York. We want to make sure that's going we can't go back. We've all driven those roads. A lot of us have anyway. And there's no turning back. We've got to complete this project and I'm confident that's going to happen. But there's going to be opportunities there. And, again, we, you know, this is this is governmental, but there's politics with everything in this world. And, I'm going to try to advocate for central New York, regardless of whether, you know, people are looking out for me or not.

GR: Same issue with Micron, too. And I've read about Senator Schumer doing the same thing that you're doing, with, the I-81, making sure that that, that that will, will happen. I wanted to ask you this question that goes back to, the last time that you and I spoke when you were a candidate for Congress, and I asked you, among other things, if Donald Trump should win, the outcome wasn't known back then, would you be likely to join a potential wholesale resistance effort in Congress, you know, to, to try to take him on? And you emphatically said, yes, I will. What? How does that how does that look now? Are we you or what you hearing is trying to figure out more ways to find common ground, or is there, are the are the lines of resistance already forming where where is your caucus and where are you on that?

JM: Exactly. Well, listen, we've got to find we have to work together, and we still have to call out the President. These executive orders, I, I have, you know, I'm participating in this show today. I've already been on other shows. We have a social media presence, some of those executive orders, and I'll start with the commuting or clemency for the January 6th rioters. That is, not the will of the people. It's certainly not the will of the justice system. And what many of the people on the other side of the aisle have said is, look at what Biden did. But I call that out. And I say, I understand that some of that was preemptive because of what the current president was saying about what he was going to do. He was very clear about retaliation and retribution. So, but we're talking about not just people who broke the law. They broke the law trying to interrupt the pillars of our democracy, which is the certification of a free and fair election and the peaceful transfer of power. And that and I that was driven by the current president, and media and social media outlets that perpetuated this lie. And it's very dangerous. Dangerous for me, for my kids. It's dangerous for you. It's dangerous for Republicans and independents, and we can't have that, you know. So these were violent acts made against law enforcement to interrupt our democracy. So I disagree. And I'm going to continue to and in every setting that I can, I'm going to remind people of that. I do, you know, this is one thing about politics, Grant, that I really don't like. You know, somebody will tweet at me from the other side and say, like, I demand that you call out, you know, the governor or you call for this person's resignation. I don't like that, but I am pleading with more Republicans to denounce this executive order, and it's very scary. Some of these are leaders of white supremacist paramilitary organizations are I'm fearful that we're not going to be left in a better place as a result of their release. So we stand up. I stand up with my conference, shoulder to shoulder. They call things out, and I'll use access to the media to do it as well and remind people of what happened on that day and before that day and after that day. People went to federal prison outside of the January 6th rioters because of, trying to overturn an election and, very dangerous. We can't have that. And we need we need everybody to call it out.

GR: If you're just joining us, you're listening to the Campbell Conversations on WRVO Public Media. I'm Grant Reeher, and my guest is Congressman John Mannion from New York's 22nd district. Well, you've kind of given an early, I think grade on the next question, I was going to ask you, but what are your early impressions? I mean, we're in, you know, you and I are talking on Thursday. So what we all, you know, all of 72 hours into this thing. But what are your early impressions of the Trump presidency?

JM: Well, first of all, the people he has around him and himself have had four years to plan. Right? So when we flipped the switch on Inauguration Day, we saw what happened. And like, with his, nominees, he is flooding the zone. He's flooding the zone with executive orders, and presidents have dozens, if not, you know, over 100 executive orders. But some of these are really negatively impactful. And they'll be litigated out in the courts. We've already talked about, you know, the excusing of the January 6th sentences. But also, Biden had an executive order capping the cost of insulin, that's blown up, that's going to negatively impact people's lives. You know, for sure. Certainly, some of the things that are directed at our history and, to try to make sure that everybody has an opportunity moving forward, whether it's, you know, competing for a job or a, spot, you know, program or university, you know, some of those things honestly, are just, mean anti-American and appealing to his base. I don't think it appeals to the broad, you know, American public. And we we heard a lot of in the campaign about saving people money, about costs, about reducing inflation. I don't see that here. I don't see it. And, you know, again, I think he's preying on people's fears, using immigration, an us versus them mentality and demonizing. And it's so robust in what has happened with those executive orders that the Democratic Conference and my team are continuing to weed through it and push back where we can and find allies on the Republican side to push back and advance legislation, or court cases to get this right.

GR: Two, two of them, two of the things that struck me and I and I don't think probably the one I'm going to ask you about is, I'm not a constitutional scholar, but I don't think it's likely to probably survive a court challenge, but one about ending birthright citizenship. And the other one that was in the inaugural address about, taking back the Panama Canal. You know, those are things that get talked about, but I guess I had thought maybe that would be things that would be soft-pedaled once he was in office. But what are your thoughts about this, this notion of rethinking birthright citizenship?

JM: I think it's unconstitutional. You know that my one-word answer is unconstitutional. As somebody whose grandparents, you know, came to this country, right? And, my father was born here. He was a United States citizen. I talked to so many people who have this situation. And if we're going to end that, we're going to be talking about separating families and it's just unconstitutional. I mean, I should stop right there. You know, the president does not have the authority to change the Constitution with a pen stroke. And, that is something that's really, you know, unbelievable to me. And I got so fired up about it Grant, I forgot your second one.

GR: No. That's okay. I just wanted to ask you about that one. I was just mentioning a couple of that that surprised me. The Panama Canal.

JM: Oh, the Panama Canal again, we have relationships around the world, our allies. We are here in 2025. NATO has been in existence 80 years or so, in between 75 and 80. And, the peace by and large, that we've experienced over those 78 or whatever my number of years are here. Has been largely because of our strength and our alliances. And, you know, one of those sessions that we talked about, we went through national security and new member training, and we've gone 78 years without a nuclear bomb detonation, in wartime, not testing. And we've gone 78 years without a world war. And that is possibly the longest period of time going back millennia, that we have not seen such a large-scale war. So the Panama Canal agreement again, let's work through that. But I was hoping hopeful that like tariffs on Mexico and Canada are going to increase costs for Americans and, and ruin some of the projects that we absolutely need related to our infrastructure and, and projects like Micron.

GR: Okay. We got about a couple minutes left. I want to squeeze two questions in if I can. One of the things that's gotten a lot of attention, obviously you alluded to it earlier is the cabinet picks that that the president has made. Just really quick here. Of of all the picks, is there, is there one you think is really the best? Well, who's the best person coming at?

JM: You think that's, you know, I will say this, you know, Marco Rubio, I believe depending on the timing of this, he he has been approved, I believe, you know. Yes.

GR: That's right. Yeah. Unanimously.

JM: Exactly. And he is someone who I think, you know, has served this country. He's he has character. I think he's qualified. I think he's experienced and I, you know, yes, he's already an elected official. And Trump likes to be an outsider and he likes to bring in these outside folks. But what we need from individuals, we need them to be qualified. We need them to have character. We need them to be experienced and have the background to do the job. Clearly not, I mean, I would say probably a majority of these candidates don't fall into that category. I think that he does. And that's that's the kind of, people we need representing our country.

GR: Well, let me let me ask you, you got to be really quick here. Maybe just give me a name. But who is there one of the picks that stands out as the worst?

JM: You know. The health policies that Robert Kennedy Jr is carrying out there to be in charge of basically the largest health care, you know, system in, and when it comes to research that this country does, when it comes to partnerships, you know, and, some of his positions on things, you know, we've, we've I was a biology teacher and we eradicated so many diseases that were so negatively impactful on families, the loss of life, childhood mortality as it relates to, the vaccinations and other treatments for kids. So, you know, I certainly question that one.

GR: I could see people can't see this, but I could watch you. You were having trouble picking one, I think. But you pick that one. We'll have to leave it there. That was Congressman John Mannion. Congressman Mannion, again, thanks so much for taking the time to talk with me. And I do hope that we can speak again as the session unfolds. I'd like to check in with you from time to time, so.

JM: I'm looking forward to it Grant, thank you for having me on today.

GR: Thank you. You've been listening to the Campbell Conversations on WRVO Public Media Conversations and the Public Interest.