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Brian Lehrer: Brian Lehrer on WNYC. The race is heating up ahead of the June 22nd primary in Manhattan for Manhattan District Attorney. If you didn't know Cy Vance is retiring. There are eight Democratic candidates vying for the nomination, which in Manhattan is pretty tantamount to the position. There's also one republican not making as much news coverage for obvious political reasons on the island of Manhattan.

We're going to talk about this race now with some interesting developments recently, and also about some news that DA Vance made yesterday about how he will and will not prosecute around prostitution. Joining me now are Rachel Holliday Smith, reporter for the news organization, The Citi, and Gwynne Hogan, reporter for WNYC and Gothamist. Hi, Rachel. Hi, Gwynne.

Gwynne Hogan: Hi, Brian. Nice to be here.

Rachel Holliday Smith: Good morning.

Brian: I should say, Rachel Holliday Smith was in her previous life a Brian Lehrer Show intern, now made good. [chuckles] Gwynne, the New York Times recently reported that the race can be divided into two camps with three candidates who have not worked as prosecutors, and five who have. Start to make sense of this big field for our listeners.

Gwynne: Sure. There are a lot of candidates running in the race. Just overall, we're looking at a field that is more progressive overall than what we've seen in a generation in Manhattan district attorney race, and I think this is part of the larger question of progressive prosecutors that have been elected to office in cities across the country. In terms of rights, so there's a division between people who have been prosecutors in the past and people that haven't.

To start by who haven't. I have a list in front of me so I don't want to miss anyone because we got eight candidates here; Tahanie Aboushi is a civil rights attorney. Let me see. Lucy Lang was also a prosecutor. Eliza Orlins is our second-- She's a public defender. Dan Quart is a current Assemblyman who's running for the position, and candidates who have formerly been prosecutors. We have Alvin Bragg, we have Elizabeth Crotty, we have Diana Florence, Lucy Lang. I think that's everyone. Am I missing anyone, Rachel? Feel free to jump in if I missed somebody.

Rachel: Okay. I think you got it.

Gwynne: I think that was eight. Okay, I did it. [chuckles]

Brian: Yes. Let's talk about some of them. You mentioned to Tahanie Aboushi, a human rights attorney who's been endorsed by the Working families party. As you reported, Rachel, her experience has been shaped by having a father who was incarcerated while she was growing up. What's her platform?

Rachel: Yes, that's a really big part of her narrative, and something she talks about a lot as why she's running. She really sees her role if she gets this position as changing the district attorney role fundamentally, she really sees prosecution as something that should be rolled back and changed in a major way. She's said that incarceration is a policy failure.

Her perspective is really antithetical to the traditional prosecutor role, and she said that she wants to cut the budget of the DAs office by 50%, for example. She wants to decline to prosecute charges stemming from mental illness, from substance abuse, from the crimes of poverty, as she said. She really sees her role if she got this job to really change the office fundamentally, and to move to a more community-focused public health-focused way of dealing with, as I said, crimes of poverty and substance abuse.

Brian: Based on that language that you just used. How far can that go? Because if one could say the condition of poverty leads somebody into a gang, and as a member of that gang, they commit a shooting. She's not going to not prosecute the shooting, I imagine, because of the root causes of that person's life condition. How would you draw those lines?

Rachel: Yes. I think that she would say that she'd really focus on alternatives to incarceration and an alternative to the traditional prosecution role. It's a really big office, the DA's office. There's hundreds of people who work there, and it's hard to radically shift or steer a big ship like that. She'd have her work cut out to actually make those big changes, but I think that she would try to implement ways, instead of sending someone to Rikers and then to prison to offer them an alternative to incarceration, to not put people in jail, if she could possibly help it.

I should say that district attorneys do have pretty wide latitude in the ways that people are dealt with in the criminal justice system, from everything from bail to plea deals, that sort of thing. She would have a lot of freedom here, but it remains to be seen exactly how that would play out.

Brian: Tough choices once she gets there. If she gets there. Gwynne, I mentioned at the beginning that the endorsements in this race are really interesting, and they're all over the map. In Aboushi's case, what is an endorsement from the Working Families Party probably mean to any voters?

Gwynne: Right. Like I said before, there are so many candidates who are calling themselves progressive and running as reformers and have specific platforms to reform the office. Having the backing of the WFP, which is a well-known group that often backs progressive candidates, that definitely gives her a leg up, and we've seen that in recent polling as well that it's coalesced behind, I believe behind two candidates so far majority of polling, although it's very early, and many people are not even aware of this race at this point.

Brian: Next up, let's talk about candidate and current public defender Eliza Orlins. She's worked as a defense attorney for the Legal Aid Society, and she told the website The Appeal, that she would overhaul the prosecutorial industrial complex using that phrase. Rachel, what else do we know about her platform and her experience? Is there a way to distinguish it from Tahanie Aboushi? They seem to be running in a similar lane.

Rachel: Yes, that's right. She's really focusing on her work, and this is her whole career as a public defender. She's really been on the ground, so to speak, defending people criminally. She talks often about that, why she's running, how that informs her view. She talks often about what she feels are just really unfair treatment to the people that she's represented. Again, crimes of poverty, she really sees this as unequal treatment to people who just are poor.

I'll just name one thing that I know that she's been a real proponent of which sets her apart to some degree, although this is a popular policy choice by many people in the race, which is that she really is pushing for the full decriminalization of sex work. She really sees this as something that should be fully legalized as a way to bring some justice to folks who work as sex workers, but she really, I think, would go for fully trying to overhaul some policies to make incarceration less and to make the need for prosecutions much less.

Brian: On that, let me take a detour into the news of the day, Gwynne, because DA Cy Vance announced his own pullback of prosecuting prostitution crimes. Can you explain what he announced?

Gwynne: Yes. He made an announcement yesterday that his office would decline to prosecute prostitution and unlicensed massage cases and move to dismiss 914 pending cases. He also in that announcement talked about the dismissal of more than 500 open charges, which are based on the charge of loitering for the purposes of prostitution. This was the very hard-fought fight by activists, transactivist, and particular sex work activists who fought for this repeal of what is commonly known as the Walking While Trans ban. That was repealed in February. The 5,000 cases that are now dismissed are no longer illegal.

Brian: Would they still arrest and prosecute Johns?

Gwynne: Yes, his office has said that he's going to continue that. I think that this, just pivoting back to the candidates, we've seen a lot of the candidates discuss like Rachel was just mentioning, Eliza Orlins being on the side of full decriminalization, other more moderate candidates in the race saying they would not prosecute people who engage in sex work, but continue to prosecute Johns. We've seen a division over policies around that as well, but many, many, or most of the candidates in the race have said they would no longer prosecute the prostitution, keeping in line with what DA Vance announced yesterday.

Brian: Let's go on to another candidate Dan Court assembly member representing Manhattan's East Side. He's got some experience getting people to vote for him in that respect. As you report Rachel, he's previously worked as a court-appointed attorney and pro bono criminal defense attorney while in private practice. He's the one with political experience touting his record on repealing bad laws. What's a highlight or two of Dan Court's record that he's running on?

Rachel: Sure, yes. I think that he would probably highlight that he was the co-sponsor of the state's bail reform law, which was to end cash bail, essentially. He fought very hard for that. It's something that he touts as a piece of legislation he actually got through the system and that he fought for years. I will also say that like others in the race, he's talked about lists of things that he won't prosecute, going back to the previous theme.

He's not going to prosecute, loitering, trespassing, resisting arrest. These are things that he's highlighted. He's really looking to say, "I'm a reformer. I've been in the system. I've gotten some things done, but I'm not part of the establishment. I'm someone who worked in the system to change things." Also, critically, not not a prosecutor. He is one of the three in the race who can say proudly, I will say, I have not been a prosecutor. I think he's really highlighting those things.

Brian: We're looking at the eight candidates in the very important race and the news of this week with the conviction of Derek Chauvin just places even more focus on the importance of prosecutors. The race for Manhattan, DA June 22nd Democratic primary is probably going to decide that race to succeed Cy Vance, who is retiring. My guests are Rachel Holliday Smith, who's covering it for the news organization, The Citi, and our own Gwynne Hogan. Gwynne, you reported on Tali Farhadian Weinstein. Can you talk briefly about her background and her platform?

Gwynne: Sure. She's worked as a prosecutor on the federal level. She was an Assistant US Attorney in the Eastern District of New York under Eric Holder who has endorsed her. She then was General Counsel to Brooklyn District Attorney, Eric Gonzalez, and overseed the conviction integrity unit there. The other thing that's interesting about her that I reported on a few weeks ago is that she is by far the biggest fundraiser in the race as of records that we've seen through January. That could change when we see filings in June. She has been able to tap into the very, very wealthy people who are associates and friends of her husband, Boaz Weinstein, who is a hedge fund manager at Saba Capital Management.

She by far has the largest number of big donors. She has several, I think around 21 donors who donated more than $30,000 to her campaign. This is interesting, Brian, or I found it interesting because we have very restrictive caps on donations in New York City elections, which I'm sure you've been talking about, and listeners have been hearing about this matching campaign fund system and a low threshold so that the city will match the donation and it will give people's voices more importance in local elections.

This is a race that is governed by state law because it's a county office, not a city one. The cap for donations is much, much higher. It's higher than what you can donate to a presidential campaign. It's around $38,000, just in the primary. I interviewed one of the hedge fund managers returned my call, I've tried to call many of them and said that he met Tali through her husband and got to know her personally. We've seen her be able to catapult her campaign in terms of fundraising just because of who her circle of close connections are.

Brian: It's so interesting to look at what might scramble some voter's minds if they instinctively recoil from a candidate who gets big donations and has so much money. At the same time, talking about this candidate Tali Farhadian Weinstein, she's got endorsed by Eric Holder, and she's gotten endorsed by Gloria Steinem, who cited the breadth of her experience as a federal and local prosecutor, her commitment to criminal justice reform, and her detailed plans to transform the office's response to gender-based violence. How do we put all that together?

Gwynne: I think this is something that voters will have to decide. She has a very impressive resume. I'm not saying that she is unqualified for this position. She's very qualified. There are many very qualified candidates in this race, but because of her ability to tap into these funds, she is the person that voters are going to see in pamphlets and non-phone calls more often just because she has more resources at this point in the race. I think that gives her a leg up no matter what.

Brian: Let's move on to another candidates. There are several candidates of color. Alvin Bragg is the only black candidate. Rachel, you recently wrote that Bragg served most recently as Chief Deputy Attorney General for the state of New York. He also led a special state unit that investigated police-involved killings and served as a federal prosecutor. Can you talk a little bit more about his experience or the cases that he's been involved with?

Rachel: Sure, yes. Talk about an impressive resume, Alvin Bragg really has done so many things in his long career. As you said, most recently as the chief deputy, which is essentially, the top prosecutor except for the Attorney General in the state of New York, reporting right under the Attorney General. I want to just highlight, this special role that was created in 2015 by then-Attorney General Eric Schneiderman to investigate killings by police. He held that role. He was the first one to hold that role.

He was in a very fraught moment chosen as the person who could handle those investigations, which he did. He's really positioned himself as-- I think he would say he's absolutely a reformer. He's looking for reform to the way that prosecutions are handled into the office, but also he's straddling this line between, "I want to make changes. I want to change policy and change the way that prosecutions are done, and handled, but also I have a lot of experience, especially with, big complicated cases." This goes back to the days when he was a federal prosecutor dealing with really complicated stuff there. He's making a case that he can be a reformer, but also someone who has a lot of experience.

Brian: He's got some marquee endorsements, Preet Bharara, Zephyr Teachout, former Governor David Paterson, and the Building Services Workers Union 32BJ. Should I be surprised Gwynne to see Preet Bharara getting into the endorsements game?

Gwynne: I believe he worked under Preet Bharara. Is that right, Rachel? He's his former boss.

Rachel: I believe that's correct. It would have been-- I'm not going to say that for sure, but I think so.

Gwynne: I think that's why but also, I have to fact-check myself. Sorry, Brian.

Brian: That's an interesting list of endorsements. As listeners, we continue to go down the list. This is an introductory segment, folks. For those of you in Manhattan, who are registered Democrats, who are going to vote in the primary for Manhattan DA in June to succeed Cy Vance, who's retiring. I know this can be really head scrambling. This is why we're doing this introductory segment just to get you a little engaged in this. I know you're going to have to get most of your information elsewhere, but you're hearing these names many of you for the first time for such an important role in today's world, Manhattan DA.

Manhattan DA, not only because of what we might think of today as criminal justice reform and the attempt to redefine the role of the prosecutor in the lives of so many regular people in New York, but also because the Manhattan DA plays a high profile role in things like Vance's investigating Donald Trump's taxes right now and his finances. Because so many big national and international corporations and individuals are located in New York, so much is at stake for Manhattan DA. Let's do more candidates. There are two veterans of the Manhattan DA's office in the race. Let's start with Diana Florence. Rachel, what was her role in the DA's office?

Rachel: She actually oversaw the construction fraud units for quite a long time, and colleagues of mine reported on the strange ending of that role, which was she resigned from that role. At first, the word out of Vance's office was that she declined to bring evidence in that case and so they were knocking her reputation there, but then we reported that she actually says that it was because she was bullied and there was a toxic work environment in Vance's office.

There was some messiness there and she left, she resigned because of those reasons, but she did oversee some fraud cases that were very complicated having to do with the construction industry. She did work as a prosecutor for many years. She's got some good experience in that office, even if she had a bit of a fraught ending to that run.

Brian: There was that ethical violation charge. She also, however, called the Manhattan DA's office, a hostile work environment. That, of course, is a very in the news description when it comes to Governor Cuomo's office, how did she apply it if you know to Vance's office?

Rachel: These is also things that my colleagues report on. I hope I do justice to their reporting, but she was just saying that it was tough to get her work recognized, that it was toxic to some degree, that there was just a lot of top-down approach and even bullying. It's funny that you bring up Cuomo, these are words that we've heard from another top dog in New York State. She hasn't, I have to say, focused a lot that I've heard in the campaign. On that, I think she smartly probably doesn't want to talk about it too much, wants to talk about our experience instead, but that is indeed how things ended there for her.

Brian: As we go through these endorsements, her endorsement based seems to be some building and construction worker unions, including the New York City and Vicinity District Council of Carpenters, the State Ironworkers, Mason Tenders, District Council of Greater New York, and long island, the Construction, and General Building Laborers Local 79, the Heat And Frost Insulators, a union I didn't know until this moment exists. The Heat And Frost Insulators Local 12, and other ones like that.

Rachel: That's amazing.

Brian: By the way-- Did you want to say something about that?

Rachel: I just wanted to say that these candidates are really trying to tout any endorsements that they can for good reason, that's typical in these races, but I also want to just point out that I think they're grasping at anything that'll get the attention right now because a lot of people are undecided here. There's not a lot of polling that has been done in this race. It's a down-ballot race. There's not a lot of good polling data that we can get on this, but I just want to say that Tahanie Aboushi's campaign put out an internal poll recently, which you have to take with a grain of salt because it's an internal poll.

They were just saying she's got momentum, she's top of the list tied at 11%, she had 11% of the people that they surveyed, which was 500 likely voters for the primary, but I have to say that even in this internal poll, which they want to use as a boost for the campaign, 57% of people surveyed said that they were undecided. We really don't know what's going to happen here. Some of those endorsements, even if they seem small, may get out a few votes, a few dozen votes, a hundred votes, and that could really change things.

Brian: That's a good primer on the value of union endorsements, in particular, because they're pretty good at turning out their members and who knows how many heat and frost insulators there might be in Manhattan this year. We do have confirmation by the way, on the fact that Alvin Bragg endorsed by Preet Bharara did use to work. Yes, he was a former assistant US attorney for the Southern District of New York, US attorney's office under Preet Bharara, our producer Lisa Allison went and fact-checked that real quick, Rachel, something you will remember doing as a Brian Lehrer Show intern and then per diem producer.

As we continue for just a few more minutes, we're going to mention two more candidates real briefly in this eight candidates Manhattan DAs Democratic primary with Rachel Holliday Smith, now with the news organization The Citi and WNYC and Gothamist, Gwynne Hogan. Gwynne, there's Lucy Lang, who worked for the Manhattan DAs office like Diana Florence did. Lucy Lang, worked there for 12 years and she has outlined detailed policy proposals on everything from restorative justice to sex crimes, I see. How does she present her campaign briefly?

Gwynne: Yes, she is also presenting herself as a reformer in this race. She like you said, worked in the Manhattan District Attorney's Office, and then she led the Institute for Innovation and Prosecution at John Jay College of Criminal Justice. There, she worked to convene ideas of prosecutorial reform among people all over the country, and that's why we've seen progressive prosecutors from other major cities endorsing her campaign. She's been involved in this on the National level. She is also interested in outlining gender-based violence policy platforms. She's somebody else that has a very impressive resume among many of the candidates in this race.

Brian: Let me touch on one final candidate in this eight field Democratic primary, who might be a contrast with all the others. Gwynne, you tell me Lizz Crotty, as the Times reports on her, she's been less vocal than all the competition about calling for systemic change in the criminal justice system. In a February op-ed in the New York Post, she wrote, "Many of those running for DA have focused exclusively on reform, we need to breathe with both lungs: reform, and safety."

Gwynne, of course, this is the way traditionally and for a long time people used to think of the DA. Somebody who's going to prosecute the bad guys. Now, we talk about reforming the system. There isn't as much mass incarceration. Tell us what we know about Lizz Crotty and how she's trying to distinguish herself.

Gwynne: Lizz Crotty also worked in the Manhattan District Attorney'S Office, she has been a criminal defense attorney for many years. Like you said, she's the only candidate who's not using the word progressive to describe her policies and platforms. There was this very interesting moment in one of the forums a few weeks ago where everyone was asked, "What things won't you prosecute?" You could see her sort of bristle at the question and she pushed back.

She's like, "It's not our job to decide what we do or do not prosecute." That's the job of people who write laws or shape laws. She doesn't have a specific decline to prosecute policy. You know what advocates would say who are pushing for reform is that there are lots of laws on the books that are never enforced and the ones that we tend to enforce when we look at what are the vast majority of crimes that are being prosecuted currently under the Manhattan district attorney, there are vast majority low-level offenses.

There's this question about how you use the limited resources of this district attorney's office. She is very much towing this sort of more centrist traditional prosecutor language with her policy or with her platform, but I will say looking at fundraising levels, it really hasn't seemed to generate much traction in this race so far, again, we'll see when there are more filings in June if she's been able to pick up steam.

Brian: Listeners, they have a little bit on the eight candidates running in the Democratic primary to succeed Cy Vance as Manhattan District Attorney. Gwynne, just as an addendum, no rank choice voting here pick one.

Gwynne: I Know. It's so important. I'm really glad that you brought this up because it's so-- We've been saying rank choice voting, rank choice voting, rank choice voting. This is another very strange situation where there will be no rank choice voting in this race. I actually I'm not exactly sure. I think there may be two ballots if you're a Manhattan voter, but I'm still trying to figure that out.

You have to pick one candidate, which is very interesting with so many progressive's in this race and one or two people who are going more center. There is this concern among progressive activists that the progressives are going to divide the vote and pave the way for a traditionalist candidate. It's very interesting to see sort of how this shakes out because one candidate can win with 30% of the vote in this case.

Brian: WNYC and Gothamist, Gwen Hogan, and Rachel Holliday Smith, a great reporter for the great nonprofit news organization, The Citi. Thank you both.

Gwynne: Thank you.

Rachel: Thank you so much.

 

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