I’ve written a number of positive posts about New York Governor Kathy Hochul in the past. She was a breath of fresh air after Andrew Cuomo resigned, and during the first year she served as governor, she signed a lot of good legislation and generally came off as a mainstream Democrat. I thought she’d continue to bring her “Irish Grandmother from Buffalo” energy to the job and probably be a pretty decent governor.
Unfortunately, she ran a pretty terrible election campaign, winning by a little under 6 points, which is, for New York, a very tight race. (New York Democrats ran terrible campaigns in general, and I’ll have a some comments on that in a future post.) After winning her race, Hochul stalled on signing a right-to-repair bill, and added a signing statement to the bill that undermined it. She also vetoed two pieces of labor legislation, one legislating requirements for payment for freelancers, and the other around disclosure of pay by gender and race for state contracts.
She also decided to go to the mattresses for Hector LaSalle, her choice to lead the state court system, even though he had a record of being “pro life” (i.e., anti-abortion) and not being a big supporter of labor. Stephen Robinson has a good rundown of the problems with the appointment at Wonkette, so I’ll spare the details. Keep in mind that the LaSalle appointment is especially galling to Democrats who just lost Congressional seats in part because Cuomo’s conservative judges struck down Democrats’ redistricting plan, which resulted in a dream redistricting for Republicans. As Robinson points out in his piece, this isn’t a “progressive vs mainstream fight” — abortion rights are a core Democratic position, one Hochul has been previously loud and proud about, and it’s simply disqualifying for someone who’s going to lead our courts to have anything but a clear pro-abortion stance.
Hochul lost the LaSalle fight yesterday when his appointment wasn’t voted out of committee in the New York State Senate, where Democrats have a supermajority. Hochul seems to want to keep digging by filing a lawsuit to force a floor vote on the appointment, but at some point I hope she’ll realize that his appointment is dead.
By the way, Hakeem Jeffries also supported LaSalle, even though a large majority of Democrats in the New York State Senate did not. LaSalle would be the first Latino in his position, which probably explains some of the support he’s getting, but I’m sure there’s some other qualified Latino who is more to the left of this guy.
I don’t have a clear reason why Hochul decided that her lackluster election performance somehow justified signing statements, vetoes and a bad appointment, but there’s no evidence that New Yorkers want that. I have some guesses, one being that she said the right things to the leadership of the Democratic Party, including that she’ll nominate LaSalle, and in return that leadership might have dissuaded some possible challengers. Or maybe this is just who she is, and she decided that she’d show her true colors after the election. Either way, I hope to be voting for her primary challenger next time around, assuming that someone decent challenges her. This LaSalle fight almost guarantees that she will be challenged, if she decides to run again, because there’s nothing inspiring or good about her campaign or her behavior after it.
RepubAnon
I’d guess that some “Third Way” consultants got ahold of her, warning her that she needs to “move to the center.” Which means, of course, enacting a Republican agenda.
CaseyL
Another Democrat who takes pains to point out they’re not really a Democrat – like Mayor Adams – and I must say I’m really so very very tired of these clowns.
I just can’t fathom why these not-really-Dems are talking up bipartisanship just when the GOP has gone balls-deep on fascism.
kindness
Reverse discrimination shouldn’t be used as a reason to vote for an abomination. If a Hispanic person HAD to be named, there are no doubt ones that support Democratic views. I’m 45 years removed from NY politics and am so thankful for that.
trollhattan
Is the “Irish grandmother” a Catholic-edition Irish grandmother? Might explain going to the mat for an anti-abortion judge.
Has a site been determined for New York’s Magdalene Laundry?
Roger Moore
I suspect there are two things going on:
PaulB
Far too many people, particularly in the news media, are trying to pretend that this is the radical left-wing against moderate Democrats, and that’s total bullshit. They are also pretending that the rejection is because of just three decisions, which have been mischaracterized. They are somewhat correct on the latter point, but not at all correct on the former. I read an article yesterday that, alas, I can’t find today, that documented a history of questionable decisions on the part of LaSalle.
What is still puzzling about this is just how much of a self-own this is. She sends over a list of candidates she is considering, they tell her that one of the candidates would be a real problem, but that the rest are good, and she then picks that one problematic candidate. Very much, “you’re not the boss of me!” vibes. And then when the nomination is in real trouble, doubling down and delivering that ridiculous MLK speech. “How dare you question my judgment!”
Enough. It’s time for Hochul to cut her losses and to graciously accept defeat. Threatening to sue your own party? WTF?
Anyway
NYers might have better info/context on her championing and pushing thro’ state funding of $800million for a new stadium for the Buffalo Bills. These teams are flush with money – from here it makes little sense to subsidize such ventures. Was there a lot of local pressure to do this?
Nicole
Thanks for putting up a post on this, Mistermix. I’m also super disappointed and frustrated with Hochul’s recent choices. I had really high hopes for her.
I read somewhere yesterday that one reason she may be going to the mat over this is she’s afraid if she’s seen as “losing” this fight that the Legislature will run roughshod over her for the next 4 years, but that’s stupid. Of course, so is nominating an obviously anti-abortion judge right after an election that A) didn’t go great for NYS Dems and B) that was clearly about people wanting abortion to be legal, so maybe she’s just not that bright. Or maybe someone got paid. When it comes to NYS politics, nothing should surprise me any more.
pacem appellant
I love NY, truly, it is my second-favorite state. But California cannot drag the country kicking and screaming into the 20th century by itself. I had hopes that after the drubbing the NY Dems took in 2022, they’d have a come-to-Jesus moment. But as usual, they learned all the wrong lessons. Look, Empire State, help us out here. You got your Dems-caucusing-as-Repubs in-your-legislature problem solved. We know you can do this! I’m pulling for you!
PaulB
One correction to what some people are saying: LaSalle would not be the first Latino judge; he’d be the first Latino *Chief* Judge.
Hochul really can’t find another well-qualified Latino candidate? Seriously?
Jim, Foolish Literalist
Most of it, from what I’ve seen
So did Ritchie Torres, Grace Meng, Jerry Nadler and Lydia Velasquez, who still does, and those members of the Progressive Caucus are the ones I can name from rather casually following this.
I’ve also picked up that NY Senate Dems objections started with the fact that he was a prosecutor, and as a judge, has often acted as a prosecutor in a robe, which is mentioned in the Wonkette post linked
and… using an appearance in a Black church on MLK Day to stump for La Salle was just… “tin ear” doesn’t being to describe it. That was the moment La Salle should have figured out he should have withdrawn, cause his main supporter is either stupid, crazy or both.
Bill Arnold
Zee Zeldin is a MAGA loon who, among other MAGA-ey things, denied the results of the 2020 POTUS election, and if she’s “thinking” that the closeness of the closer-than-expected election for governor was because she was not centrist enough, rather than because she ran a shitty campaign, then she is politically clueless.
neldob
Among my penumbra of gripes is please don’t use right-wing vocabulary like “pro-life” which is not really where most of these numbskulls are. They just pretend. They are forced birth and anti-choice, menstruation monitors. Nor are they, Republicans, fiscally responsible, conservative, patriotic, values voters, pro-family, small government or reality based Ever. And woke is a good thing. And I don’t fight, I work.
PaulB
A pretty good history of how we got here: https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1614391669436170240.html
Key point: “Hochul insists that LaSalle’s critics are distorting his record & being unfair to him. But *even if that were true* would it really be worth burning so many bridges and alienating so many supporters just to ensure this powerful appellate judge gets a promotion?”
West of the Rockies
Kathy shits the bed… and not in a good way.
PaulB
Found the article on some of the rest of LaSalle’s problematic decisions: https://www.syracuse.com/opinion/2023/01/its-not-just-3-cases-broader-record-shows-lasalle-is-wrong-for-chief-judge-guest-opinion-by-gautam-hans.html. From the article:
Consider how he’s treated workers’ rights. In Campanelli v. Long Island Lighting Co., LaSalle joined an opinion holding that utilities could not be held liable for the lead poisoning of a utility worker’s child, even though the utilities took no basic steps to ensure the worker’s clothes were not exposed to lead, which in turn exposed his child.
Look at his rulings on immigrants’ rights. In Matter of Keanu S., LaSalle denied a troubled teenager access to an immigration program for abused, neglected, and abandoned immigrant children because the child was a juvenile delinquent — even though Congress clearly wrote and intended the program for children like him, engaging in an extraordinary level of judicial activism that put New York courts to the right of courts in California, Maryland and Minnesota.
Examine his record on consumer rights. In Aybar v. Aybar, LaSalle joined an opinion that allowed corporations headquartered outside of New York to avoid being sued in the state for their faulty products, holding that such corporations might be outside New York’s jurisdiction even if they had registered to do business in New York.
Then there’s his opinions on victims’ rights. In Howell v. City of New York, a victim’s ex-boyfriend assaulted and stalked her for months. Despite observing him violating multiple restraining orders, the police failed to arrest him, recommended she move away, and even threatened to arrest her if she called them again. When her abuser returned, she did not call the police out of fear of arrest. Her abuser then threw her out of a third-floor window, breaking her knee, pelvis and hip and fracturing her spine. LaSalle joined an opinion throwing out a lawsuit brought by a victim of domestic abuse, shielding the police from liability. Howell was appealed to the Court of Appeals, where Judges Wilson and Rivera each wrote impassioned dissents on how this ruling created a legal landscape that failed to adequately protect victims of domestic abuse.
Last but not least is LaSalle’s record in civil rights and criminal cases. In People v. Bridgeforth, LaSalle refused to find that a prosecutor who discriminated against jurors on the basis of skin color had violated either the United States or New York Constitution. His decision was ultimately reversed by the Court of Appeals. In Matter of Tyler L., LaSalle joined a slim majority to find that a 15-year-old child with an IQ of 74 needed no special protection during interrogation, despite the only expert in the case concluding that the child’s Miranda waiver could not be knowing or voluntary. As the dissenting judges pointed out, the majority pointedly ignored the evidence that the child could only read at a fourth-grade level.
PaulB
A thread on, “8 specific cases that are especially instructive in evaluating LaSalle’s philosophy. These are the cases that (a) LaSalle heard, and (b) split the Court of Appeals on ideological lines. He sided with the conservatives in 7 of them.”
https://twitter.com/TweetsByMahtin/status/1610455780553261057
$8 blue check mistermix
@trollhattan:
You’d think, but Hochul has been a loud supporter of abortion rights every since the Dodd decision. Many, many statements about how New York will be a place of refuge for women from states where abortion isn’t legal. Which makes the LaSalle appointment look like bait-and-switch.
hells littlest angel
This made me laugh. And also makes me hope you never come east of the Rockies.
eldorado
why not both?
Josie
@PaulB:
Wow. After reading the description of these opinions, it is easy to cast doubt on his attitude toward the right of women to have control over their own bodies. I like Kay’s point that judges from now on need to be loud and proud about women’s rights.
Baud
Yeah, from what I could follow from posters here, the whole episode is unfathomable.
Almost Retired
@West of the Rockies: Like Amber Heard? Is that what you mean by the good way?
$8 blue check mistermix
@Nicole:
The Democratic supermajority in the Assembly is only 2 seats over 2/3, and the Senate is exactly 2/3. So this is super stupid, since there’s probably no way they can override a veto (someone’s not going to go along) unless the veto is beyond stupid.
Cacti
I just saw that Hochul’s husband is the Senior VP and General Counsel for the concessions operator at the new taxpayer funded Buffalo Bills stadium.
Nice.
Searcher
I’m really excited to see how a primary goes.
Cuomo had a number of primary challenges that everyone knew had no real chance of success. Both because of her lackluster general election performance and the fact that she’s a she, I assume she doesn’t have the same immunity that Cuomo managed.
Omnes Omnibus
@Baud: I keep think that there must be something we are missing. Even if his defenders are correct that his prior abortion related decision was compelled by binding precedent, there seems to be enough evidence that he is judicially backward.
Baud
@Omnes Omnibus:
The abortion thing was overdone, but he does seem too conservative for NY and especially a Dem controlled NY. I have to assume there’s some deep local angle working here.
Anyway
@Searcher:
I am afraid we’ll end up with a Gov. Pataki or some other bland Rethug …
Kent
Cuomo still casts a big shadow over the state and she came up under Cuomo.
I expect part of it is that. This is how she learned to govern. It is the opposite of say California, where the governor often takes the lead. You would not see Newsom appointing Republican-lite people to important positions.
Benw
@Bill Arnold: I’m calling him Zee Leldin from now on lol.
West of the Rockies
@Almost Retired:
There is no good way. I was just going for a laugh. No kink-shame intended for those who feel otherwise.
West of the Rockies
@Kent:
Have we moved on from the days when a new president was expected to name a few other-party people to cabinet positions?
Steeplejack
Update on that Florida rep who took a fall yesterday (by a minion writing on his account). I am bummed because I had “cleaning gutters” on my card. But “cutting tree limbs” is solid. Thoughts and prayers, of course. Question: What is he doing in Florida? Isn’t the House in session?
topclimber
@eldorado: Except nobody was going to challenge her. Thwarting NY’s first female governor at a time when SCOTUS was clearly gunning for Roe v. Wade was a non-starter.
Baud
@Steeplejack:
House is not in session.
trollhattan
I can see why you’d suspect that. Disappointing–good lord, you’re in for a long four years.
Renie
As a New Yorker I agree 100 percent with this post. She’s been quite a disappointment.
kindness
I know upstate & western NY are more conservative than the greater NYC area but what I don’t understand is why (ostensible) Democrats in NY government always seem to be more at war with other Democrats rather than Republicans. It seems so counterintuitive but then again, I live in the People’s Republic of California now, so what do I know?
JPL
@Steeplejack: I’m glad to hear that he is recovering, but I don’t wish him a speedy return to congress. We need Santos to leave now.
pacem appellant
@Kent: Newsom wouldn’t even dream of taking marching orders from the legislator. And when important vacancies open up, he’d laugh if anyone were to suggest a conservative appointment.
Maybe it’s because NY is so close to D.C. that Hochul is taking a page from timid national Dems and caving to faux right-wing outrage? I genuinely don’t get it.
Geminid
@Nicole: I’m not sure that when you say that Hochul nominated an obviously anti-abortion rights judge if it’s something you heard or something that has a basis you can point to.
I’m glad this nomination failed for many reasons. I think LaSalle’s faults should be looked at objectively though, if only for how it affects judgements made on Hochul and Jeffries.
It wasn’t just Hakeem Jeffries who supported LaSalle; Representatives Nydia Velasquez, Jerry Nadler, Grace Meng, and Ritchie Torres also supported LaSalle. They either live in or adjacent to LaSalle’s appelate district, and their support of women reproductive freedom is as good as any Democrat’s. I do not think they would have supported him if he were obviously an anti abortion rights judge.
Hochul is going to take her lumps over this nomination and deservedly so. So will Hakeem Jeffries. But the people who’ve always had it on for Hochul, and resent Jeffries’ rise in the House- and there are many of each- will use this matter as an opportunity to tear them down, whether or not that’s good for New York’s Democratic party or the national party.
Baud
@pacem appellant: Which timid national Dem are you referring to?
Also too, I just remembered that I haven’t heard anyone bring up Gillibrand’s name in all of this. (I kind of get why Schumer stayed out of it, given the blowback on Jeffries).
Cacti
@pacem appellant: “We need to appoint/elect more Republicans” seems to be a malady specific to eastern blue states.
Not really a problem on the west coast.
Steeplejack
@Baud:
I’m sticking with my “Kremlinology” hypothesis. New York politics has long seemed like a dark edifice from which little light emerges. Everything is about wheeling and dealing—Democrats caucusing with Republicans, Cuomo carefully balancing the two legislative houses to make sure power reverts to him alone, upstate vs. New York City, splinter factions aplenty, etc.—and too little about public policy. We don’t really know anything until we see who’s on the reviewing stand at the May Day parade. This whole LaSalle affair has that quality about it. Our usual assumptions and asssessments seem to be wrong, but not in a way that we can make sense of. I guess I’m just satisfied that he got rejected.
Now I’m interested in the Buffalo Bills stadium and Hochul’s husband’s involvement in that.
Kent
@pacem appellant: I think she is still operating under the very big Cuomo shadow. She was brought up in Democratic politics under Cuomo, both the elder and son.
I don’t think it is the DC shadow. Biden, Schumer, and Pelosi would not have acted this stupid.
Jowriter
@topclimber: There’s got to be a dollar sign in the mix here. I get that she’s an upstate woman and Buffalo-born, and hence her fondness for the Bills and maybe local influence there, but this judge thing is just nuts. If that’s the hill she wants to die on, well alrighty then. We’ve got some time for another NY Democrat to move into position for 2026, if Cuomo’s henchmen don’t do more dirty that we already know they are capable of doing. I had hopes for her, but they are fading fast.
trollhattan
Don’t think this can be overstated. Newsom supports the Party in meaningful ways, especially the national Party. He has had no missteps so far in appointing replacements, beginning with the Harris senate seat, and his cabinet seems mostly solid. IIUC the judicial picks have been solid, but not my area of expertise.
But, he did have that French Laundry dinner, so “Bad Gavin, Bad!”
Baud
@trollhattan: Newsom is very good, at least to this outsider.
Kent
@West of the Rockies: I hope so. Arguably, Obama’s pick of Merrick Garland for SCOTUS was kind of analogous to this state court pick by Hochul.
That was only a Democratic affection anyway. Trump and Bush didn’t appoint them any Democrats.
Jowriter
@kindness: Greater NYC has most all the Democrats, upstate not so much. Tis indeed a mystery why Jeffries et al. could support Hochul’s weird nom. But after more than a couple of decades living here, it is still not apparent to me. A lot of strange things happen here, including the fact that someone gave my name and address–me, a lifelong Democrat– to the revolting rag Epoch Times, which landed in my mailbox this afternoon, looking for a new subscriber. Fodder for the fireplace, that.
Baud
@Kent:
Obviously not, since you didn’t see this type of blowback. This is more like Bush trying to nominate Harriet Myers.
trollhattan
Oh hey, popcorn time y’all.
Kent
The same thing happened out west in Oregon.
Kate Brown rose to the governorship not on her own merits, but because a male governor resigned in scandal. She was more or less a garden variety liberal but a pretty shitty leader compared to say Jay Inslee across the river in Washington because she never really cultivated the public leadership skills that come with the job and are essential. Brown ended her term as close to the most unpopular governor in the country despite having very little policy difference between her and Jay Inslee who remains quite popular. It is all about the intangibles.
A lot of politics is about tone, and neither Hochul or Kate Brown seem to know how to set the right one. Compared to say Inslee or Newsom who rose up by campaigning and winning competitive elections.
Baud
@Steeplejack: Yeah, it’s a good analogy.
I can see Hochul wanting to go right on crime, since that’s what the election attack ads were all about. I don’t get the other stuff though.
Cacti
@Kent: Not really analogous at all.
Garland wasn’t a controversial choice at all and probably would have gotten some Republican votes had Wilmer not helped hijack the 2016 election for Trump.
Kay
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
Not the same thing. They’re not national Dem leaders. Jeffries is. I’m mystified why he would jump in here, so soon after swing state elections went so well for Democrats partly as a result of blowback on the GOP lurching 50 years backward on womens rights. I know NY didn’t go well but presumably NY Democrats can win it again at some point. THE ISSUE is MI, WI, PA, AZ and GA.
He’s no longer a parochial, insidery NY Dem. He’s a national Dem.
Steeplejack
@Geminid
I think the point was that he needed to be an obviously pro-choice judge, in light of the judiciary’s post-Dobbs lurch to the right. People shouldn’t have to pore over sparse and vague clues to figure out what his position might sort of be.
p.a.
Cue the scene from Chinatown: “It’s New York politics, Jake…”
Baud
@Steeplejack:
Yeah, but people were saying “anti-abortion” as a matter of fact, like he was going to Federalist Society events with Alito. It was a distraction, although it may have helped generate interest to kill the nomination.
ETA
We’ll almost always have to do that. Most judge nominees aren’t going to have any good record on abortion.
Kent
@Cacti: Garland’s liberal bonafides are very much in question compared to say Brown-Jackson. He would not have voted to repeal Roe. But how often would he have sided with the Republicans on mundane business-related issues? We can only guess. He could easy have been the Democratic version of David Souter.
Obama put him forward because he thought he was an inoffensive centrist choice that would get through the GOP Senate. He was wrong. And didn’t really try very hard because he thought Hillary was going to win.
CaseyL
@trollhattan: Gavin Newsom routinely gets dismissed, even by “our side” pundits and commentators, as a showhorse, an empty suit, etc.
I have never understood it, and it pisses me off every time I see it.
He is the real deal, and if he knows how to play the media game, that’s all to the good.
Baud
@Kent: I think Garland as a justice would have been very similar to Kagan.
Kent
@Baud: This isn’t about abortion. It is much more about redistributing. It was the NY State Supreme Court that basically handed the House over to McCarthy with a big assist from the incompetent state Democratic Party in NY.
Cacti
@Kent: Luckily for you, we’ll never have to know. We got trusted lefty Neil Gorsuch instead.
Cacti
@Baud: I think he would have been about like Breyer.
Kent
@Baud: And maybe LaSalle would be too. I’m not defending either LaSalle or Garland. But neither of them are obviously solid liberal choices. They are both “centrist” Democrats.
Baud
@Kent:
It is, if you followed the comments here. There are lots of reason this judge shouldn’t have been nominated, much less confirmed. But people were throwing out “Dems supporting anti-abortion” judge as if he were Alito, so people got interested in investigating why Dems would do that, and the evidence was pretty thin.
I’m going to go with all’s well that end’s well, since there seems to be unanimity here that this guy shouldn’t have been confirmed, and I don’t really have a dog in this fight.
delphinium
@Renie:
Agree, between this and the Bill’s stadium funding, my disappointment has been growing.
Cacti
@CaseyL: There’s a simple explanation for that:
He’s not from the eastern time zone.
Baud
Haha. Roberts gave up and said he can’t find who the Dobbs leaker was.
ian
@Omnes Omnibus:
Is this when they use the gavel in the left hand?
Baud
@Cacti: I don’t think anyone would be like Breyer. He’s better than any Republican judge, but he was pretty flaky and idiosyncratic.
CaseyL
Whoa. Just got a breaking news alert from the Seattle Times that Kshama Sawant will not seek re-election to the City Council. As a Socialist/Berner who was more of a danger to other Democrats than she ever was to Republicans, I’m very pleased to see her go – and also very curious about her reasoning.
She says she’ll be part of an effort to launch a national labor campaign. Since she is good on issues (though no good at all on getting those issues passed as policies, or implemented), that would be a nice use of her talent. Unless she’s planning on launching a national Labor Party, which would be a disaster… and thoroughly in keeping with her Bernista “Burn it all down if we can’t get what we want” philosophy.
Cacti
@Kent: He would have been well to the left of Antonin Scalia, the Justice he would have replaced.
lowtechcyclist
@Kent:
A WAG from yours truly who admittedly doesn’t follow NYS politics at all closely:
Cuomo did everything he could to be able to say, “I’m a true-blue Dem, but I can only do so much, the legislature’s tying my hands,” by setting things up so that the Dems in the legislature never had full control. I have no inkling of why, but he clearly wanted to limit what happened under his governorship to Repub-lite levels while getting credit for being a genuine Dem.
Obviously Hochul is fucked with respect to giving some measure of legislative control back to the GQP. But to the extent that she’s taking after Cuomo, maybe she’s realized that sandbagging the state judiciary is her last gasp at being able to play the “I’m a true-blue Dem, but _____ keeps me from doing the things you libs want me to do” game.
pacem appellant
@Baud: Less of an affliction these days, but everything post-Gingrich was about how could Dems appear to be Republican-lite (which is the era I came of political age). @Kent is clear that this is a Cuomo problem. That demon cannot be exercised fast enough.
Baud
@pacem appellant:
Ok, fair. But we need to learn to stop living in the past. That’s the Republicans’ affliction.
Steeplejack
@Baud:
🙄 Couldn’t find a hapless clerk to (plausibly) take the fall for Alito.
lowtechcyclist
@Kent:
Do they call NYS’ highest court the Supreme Court now? Used to be the Supreme Court was the name for the lowest level of the state courts, and the Court of Appeals was the highest. But my knowledge is roughly 45 years old and quite possibly out of date.
Kent
@Baud: I’m not convinced. Abortion may be why some people opposed LaSalle. But the evidence is pretty thin and abortion is a statutory right in New York and has been since before Roe. I see no evidence he would vote to overrule that or even chip away at it. The LaSalle case people cite is pretty weak and decided on other issues, not abortion rights.
I would personally be much more concerned that a centrist judge would join in with the rest of the centrist/conservative justices on the NY Supreme Court to throw out whatever new maps the Democratic legislature comes up with. As long as SCOTUS allows unlimited gerrymandering by GOP States it is criminal negligence for Democrats to voluntary disarm on that front out of high-minded principles. Those high minded principles are about to crash financial markets over the debt limit.
pacem appellant
@trollhattan: Do folks outside of CA even know about the French Laundry dinner party?
Kent
@pacem appellant: I would venture to guess that most folks IN California don’t know about it much less care.
Roger Moore
@Steeplejack:
I wonder how much of this is because of local politics that don’t map well onto traditional Democrat vs. Republican conflict. In particular, I know there’s always a NYC vs upstate thing that creates a whole second dynamic in addition to party politics.
Princess
Sitting over here in Illinois with my progressive governor feeling smug.
lowtechcyclist
@Jowriter:
Same thing happened to me here in Maryland, so strange things like that aren’t just happening in New York.
Kent
@lowtechcyclist: No idea. I’m from Washington. If I gave it the wrong name in my post then that’s my mistake. In most other states, the highest state court is called the Supreme Court.
pacem appellant
@Cacti: I would upvote this comment if that were allowed.
Cacti
@lowtechcyclist: My favorite is their Appellate Division of the Supreme Court.
Really like the non-sequitur of something supreme being subject to appeal.
Starfish
@Steeplejack: Not attacked by a Florida tree iguana? How are we supposed to believe this if it is a normal mistake that any southern person would make, as opposed to something extremely and bizarrely Florida-specific.
pacem appellant
@Kent: We don’t care. I was just wondering. Republicans tried to use that to cudgel Newsom, but it backfired spectacularly, and CA Repubs lost even more caché, and I didn’t think that was possible considering they control no levers of state government.
Feathers
As a proud Masshole, I think it’s important for national Dems, both the party and party infrastructure, to keep more of a rein on the one-party Dem states. Politicians who would be Republicans in other states slip through. There are also issues of corruption that both keep good people from even getting into politics and taint others so that they have a hard time running for national office.
I do consider racism and misogyny to be forms of corruption.
CaseyL
@Steeplejack: New York City politics always struck me as medieval in structure, in view of the city’s age and “embededness” (is that a word?) of the various old power centers.
New York State politics are possibly strange for the same reason.
ETA: @Cacti: True. Very goddamned true. Washington State Governor Jay Inslee ran for President in 2020, and no one paid any attention at all, despite his being a wildly successful governor of a wildly successful state.
Baud
@Feathers: Good point.
Starfish
@Feathers: Yes!
Princess
@CaseyL: I’m really curious about what you see as specifically medieval about them, unless you’re just using medieval as a synonym for “bad.”
lowtechcyclist
@Kent:
That did seem to be his logic. IIRC, Garland had had no trouble getting Senate confirmation for being on the Circuit Court. (But of course that doesn’t always map – less at stake.)
But the downside was that his support among Dems was lukewarm – sure, everyone wanted him confirmed, but few cared enough about him, specifically, to get pissed off rather than just resigned that Mitch & Co. were just going to sit on his nomination.
lowtechcyclist
@Cacti:
Neither was Bill Clinton, but that didn’t seem to slow him down.
Geminid
@Steeplejack: I know that point, or at least in its more general expression: that New York’s supreme court has a rightward tilt and needs a liberal justice to balance it. That’s one reason I was glad LaSalle’s nomination was defeated.
But I think it does matter whether he’s an “obviously anti abortion rights” judge because that is the basis for a lot of outrage being directed at Hochul and Jeffries. I don’t think it’s true, and until someone shows me something besides the case about the New York Attorney Generals subpoena, where LaSalle and two others upheld nine partd of the subpoena and restricted two on 1st Amendment grounds, I don’t think that characterization holds water.
Cacti
@CaseyL: I’m a WA resident, so, I feels ya.
Despite being the first state with with major Covid outbreaks, we ended up being in bottom 5 nationally for death rate, because of the emergency measures Inslee took and the state legislature enacted. Nobody in the beltway media industry noticed or gave a shit.
ian
@Kent:
The good people of New York voted for a constitutional amendment banning partisan gerrymandering in 2014. Here is a link with details. What you call “criminal negligence” might be slightly more complicated than you are giving it credit.
CaseyL
@Princess: No, I meant it literally: powerful guilds, relationships that go back generations, non-public politicking, alliances between groups who should be opposed to one another but aren’t because of under the table dealings; even the arcanity of language.
Cacti
@lowtechcyclist: Only one hour removed. Also went to an elite east coast school.
Beyond that, might as well be from a different planet to the east coast press.
EmbraceYourInnerCrone
@PaulB: Thank you for detailing why LaSalle is the LAST person who should be Chief Justice for NY State.
Cacti
@ian: The right wing of the New York Court of Appeals decided the solution was to let a Republican county level Judge farm the process out to a Pennsylvania based Special Master.
Somehow, that respected the will of people.
Baud
@lowtechcyclist:
Something to remember when we ask ourselves why the GOP is so powerful.
Kent
@Feathers: Some of the one-party Dem states like New York are actually pretty fucking bad on some very important things like voting rights. It is probably easier to vote in Texas than New York. Or at least it was until very recently.
That is inexcusable.
Steeplejack
@Geminid:
I don’t remember a lot of people harping on LaSalle being “obviously anti abortion rights.” There were concerns based on his scant record, and if people overemphasized those few cases it was because there were so few of them. What else did they have to go on? And LaSalle’s critics did bring up all the other non-abortion issues, too. They weren’t just complaining about that one thing.
Roger Moore
@pacem appellant:
I think ones who are looking for a reason to hate on Newsom do.
Cacti
@Baud: “Tell me why I should vote for Hillary without mentioning the Supreme Court?!”
Actual statement from 2016 aggrieved Wilmerites.
ian
@Cacti: The final delegation outcome of NY was 15D-11R. The final governor vote was 53%-47%. The map the elections were held on still gave the Democratic party more of the vote than their overall performance share in the state.
I would have loved it if we could have won more seats in NY. But please don’t hide behind some ‘will of the people’ argument here.
Kent
@Cacti: Climate Change among 1,000 other reasons. But hey, I wasn’t a Wilmerite.
I found those people despicable. And I have actually voted for a Republican over a Green Party candidate in the past.
Cacti
@ian: The new districts were drawn exactly as I described.
Kent
@ian: What was the 2020 presidential vote margin? That is a better measure.
Roger Moore
@lowtechcyclist:
It didn’t slow him down, but it definitely colored the way the national media treated him, which is the point they were making about Newsom. Politicians who do their work outside the East Coast media bubble are definitely treated as lesser than ones who work in one of the Eastern states or in DC.
gvg
@kindness: In a state where one party is the only way to real power for a long time, you may have a bunch of people who are in that party just to have a say. I know that in old Florida of the 60’s, most people were registered democrats because the tradition from after the civil war on was that democrats won every office, therefore the only real power your vote had was in the democratic primaries. This did not start to change until the national democratic party passed the civil rights act and wasn’t republican leaning until Reagan or even later. Anyway, NY has a strong business lean but also a democrat lean. Those trends may confuse the labels. And money corrupts.
Kent
@Roger Moore:
Obama was from the Central Time Zone as was Bush. And Reagan was from the Pacific as was Nixon.
Biden is actually the first president from the Eastern Time Zone since Carter. And before him you have to go back to Kennedy and then FDR.
Deputinize Eurasia from the Kuriles to St Petersburg
I’ve found New York peeps to be a lot more conservative than national trends, particularly those in policy positions – this is evidenced by the attitudes of prosecutors and the judiciary in the so-called liberal bastion of NYC, particularly on issues of pretrial release, sentencing, jail conditions and light treatment of white collar criminals.
JaySinWA
@Kent: I think you are memory holing T a little early
Kent
@Deputinize Eurasia from the Kuriles to St Petersburg: When you have one-party control you sometimes end up with the whole spectrum of liberal to conservative falling within one party. That seems to be the case in NY but for some reason not in CA.
I’m sure some political scientist could come up with theories as to why the difference.
Cacti
@JaySinWA: And let’s be real here, the Bushes were an elite east coast WASP family. They’re about as Texan as chowder.
Kent
@JaySinWA: Oh God yes. Although he is sort of the exception that proved the rule. Since he didn’t exactly win over the national press other than the brown nosers like Maggie Haberman.
Kent
@Cacti: Perhaps. But the only political offices that either of them held before the presidency were in Texas. Congressman in the case of the elder, and 2-term governor in the case of the younger.
I lived in Texas during Shrub’s presidency. While the elder Bush was kind of a Kennebunkport guy, the younger Bush was definitely a Texan. He grew up there, married a prominent Texan wife, lived there the bulk of his life, and they have retired in Texas. It is hard to call him east coast. And his administration was staffed by Texans.
ian
@Kent: According to Wiki, it (2020 election) was 60-37 The point I am trying to make here is that the proposed original map, which would have favored Democratic challengers and incumbents 22-4, is against both the 2014 New York proposition 1 constitutional amendment that banned political gerrymandering, as well as this nebulous “will of the people” argument that Cacti has brought up.
We can (and should!) have a bigger debate about gerrymandering and unilateral disarmament. But to portray the current congressional districts as ‘criminally negligent’ is to ignore the 2014 constitutional amendment that led to this moment. It also makes a mockery of the ‘will of the people’ to argue that 22-4 is a reflection of 60-37.
Omnes Omnibus
@Baud: So do I.
trollhattan
@pacem appellant: @Kent:
I would be surprised. It had a hair-on-fire response around the Capitol, but everything political is magnified here and I never saw a reason to elevate my pulse over it. Do they not know the man owns a winery a stone’s throw from French Laundry? [narrator: They do not. And it makes him seem even more elitist. Also, too.]
CaseyL
The “French DInner” was an issue because of the winery, because Newsom – a part-owner of the winery – opposed a push by a farmworker union to make it easier to join a union. There were a lot of tweets and comments that Newsom had a conflict of interest, and his stance did bother me, but not enough to get deeper into the issue.
Another Scott
CityAndStateNY piece from December:
(Emphasis added.)
It’s not clear to me why she picked him.
This progressive group wanted one of their 3 to be picked, and Edwina Richardson-Mendelson seemed to be highest rated among the various groups.
Hochul really messed this up. Maybe she’ll eventually get it right, but she’s buring a lot of bridges in the process.
Cheers,
Scott.
Facebones
@RepubAnon: Yeah, that’s my opinion. “The race was that close because you were seen as too far left! Gotta firm up those conservative bona fides.”
Never mind that the races were close because NYC tv markets ran CRIME CRIME CRIME all the time on every News program.
Feathers
Calling LaSalle anti-choice may not feel entirely correct to some. However, this uproar is highly important. It lets politicians, as well as judges, know what the new definition of pro-choice is and the the degree to which women’s bodily autonomy must be supported in order to have wide approval within the Democratic Party.
And I like Jeffries well enough, but he needs to know that this is a major fuckup. Yes, politics is, in many ways about dancing with who brung you, but there has been a realignment that all must acknowledge.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@topclimber: except that she had at least two dem challengers, James and Suozzi
whole lotta bullshit in this thread
Geminid
@ian: Also, Albany Democrats did not unilalerally disarm but instead tried hard to gerrymander the crap out of their congressional districts. Some people say they might have tried too hard.
Democrats in Springfield, Illinois drew an even a more obvious gerrymander, but there was a different set of judges and a different state law, so they got away with it.
Geminid
@Another Scott: Part of why Hochul may have picked LaSalle is because he is Puerto Rican and would have been the first Latino on the court.
Baud
@Geminid: It might be good that the gerrymander failed. NY had sort of a mini-wave election for the GOP, and that often beats gerrymanders.
lowtechcyclist
@Baud: You can’t expect people to be ready to fight every battle.
I’m not among the crowd that says they’ve got to give me a reason to vote Dem. Don’t know how to even talk to someone to whom the reasons aren’t obvious.
But I’m not going to take to the streets about everything. I’m not even going to call my Congressperson about everything. “I’m picking a nominee that will be inoffensive to Republicans” didn’t get too many people marching. Hopefully that’s a lesson for leadership to take to heart.
One thing about Biden, he’s governed like a Democrat, and hasn’t apologized for it. It’s worked.
Baud
@lowtechcyclist: Obama governed as a Democrat too.
And the battle for control over the Supreme Court isn’t just any battle.
Geminid
@Feathers: Jeffries did not pick LaSalle, and I did not see his name among the City Representatives who endorsed LaSalle when Governor Hochul announced the nomination. He came in late and spoke at a LaSalle rally last weekend, but he kept quiet about LaSalle before and after (as far as I can tell).
Soprano2
@Baud: Or more likely they found out and didn’t like the answer, so they don’t want to tell us. I’m pretty cynical about this issue, thinking it was probably a conservative.
Kent
@Baud: He didn’t govern as a Democrat in education which is my profession. He basically continued with Bush’s NCLB bullshit and promotion of charter schools. And fascination with tech billionaire’s ridiculous thoughts on education reform.
Arne Duncan was arguably worse than Margaret Spellings and Rod Paige who were Bush’s secretaries of education.
But on a larger scale you are, of course, right.
Kent
@Baud: The legislature can always try again with better maps for 2024. No need to wait until 2030. Texas didn’t when they did mid-term redistributing in the early 2000s.
Roger Moore
@Kent:
WTF? Senior Bush was the VP before being elected President. Before that, he was the CIA director. He was absolutely a known quantity to the DC media before becoming President.
Geminid
@Baud: And it’s good that the Illinois gerrymander succeeded, so Watergirl could be have as her Representative Nikki Budzinski instead of Rodney “F…” Davis!
Budzinski’s 13th CD is a model of gerrymandering. It starts at East St. Louis, runs east one county wide for the most part, through Springfield to Champagne County. Rodney Davis ended running a district starting on the Mississipi and running north of the 13th until it hits the Indiana border. Then it turns south for sixty miles and returns to the Mississippi along the south side of the 13th.
This set up a Republican Rep on Rep battle between Davis and Mary Miller. He had the backing of just about every county party chairman, but she had the backing of Donald Trump. So now Davis is working for a K Street lobby shop.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
with much of “governing like a Democrat” being determined by Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema, because that’s how our government works
topclimber
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Well, James never actually competed. Is that what you mean by BS?
Jumanne Williams and Tom Suozzi (two men, to reference my original point), split the one-third of the vote Hochul didn’t get.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
What would “trying hard” have looked like?
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@topclimber: well, as long as you’re making up words as you go along, like “nobody” and “competed”, I guess you have a point.
horatius
@Steeplejack: He was soooo close to becoming a good Republican.
topclimber
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Concession accepted, BS and all.
Roger Moore
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
And why would it have succeeded when it was completely within McConnell’s power to block the nomination?
Jim, Foolish Literalist
We might well have a chance to find out if Biden can get a USSC nominee past a McConnell controlled Senate.
trollhattan
@CaseyL: If that was an underlying issue it was swept away by the covid framing, during lockdown: “No masks, no social distancing, whah do I gotta wear these dumb masks and not go to Applebee’s?”
HumboldtBlue
@Princess:
Tosses, Princess a beer in the most smug manner possible.
Kent
That is legislating which is distinct from governing.
Biden is very much governing like a Democrat in how the executive branch of the government is using all of the power at its disposal to push a Democratic agenda. In clear contrast to both Clinton and Obama.
Omnes Omnibus
@Kent: Our memories of Clinton and especially Obama differ. No need to denigrate either of them to praise Biden.
Kent
McConnell’s actions were unprecedented. Obama could have played hardball by releasing some OLC legal memo that says something to the effect that “advise and consent” requires that Congress actually take up the nomination and vote it up or down. And then sending Garland up to SCOTUS to sit on the court under the presumption that the Senate has consented by default since they didn’t bother to hold a vote.
At least that would have forced them to have hearings and would have forced Senators like Murkowski and Collins to actually vote him down.
I don’t think the Obama Administration really pursued all of their options since they thought Hillary was going to win anyway.
Dan B
@CaseyL: I’ve seen Kshama Sawant at the local grocery many times. I tried to engage her, playfully encouraged her to purchase the garlic sauce she was debating. She’s a humorless grump. Getting revenge on “corporate dems” would fit right in. A Labor Party would be the opposite means to marginalizing Blue Dogs and would put the GQP in charge. She might get hauled before congress to explain why she, a socialist, should not be imprisoned. FAFO
Kent
@Omnes Omnibus: Clinton’s crime bills, drug war, and welfare reform, and Obama’s failure to take on Wall Street crimes and his republican-lite policies on education were not governing like a Democrat.
There is no area of policy that I am aware of, where Biden’s executive branch is pulling its punches or governing in a conservative fashion for optics or triangulation or whatever. They are just quietly and effectively governing like progressive Democrats.
Kent
@Dan B: Sawant reminds me of the humorless pedants who would stand around in the rain passing out the Daily Worker and holding up “Free Mumia” signs way back when I was in college. Or the “sandalistas” who would tromp down to Nicaragua to support the “revolution”
There will be no national “labor” party because both organized and unorganized labor is much more about actually getting real shit done compared to say the Greens and Libertarians, who are mostly white middle class posers.
Lee Hartmann
Apologies for the pedantic point, but it should be “going to the mat”, not mattresses.
“Mat” as in the mat the wrestlers use.
“Mattress” as in where I go every night, with (mostly) restful results.
I don’t know where “going to the mattresses” came from…
Jim, Foolish Literalist
Okay. Why not? The great thing about green-lanternist, counterfactual Calvinball is you can make up all the rules as you type along!
I guess you missed a memo from the GLCC League. Merrick Garland is an even bigger pussy than Preet Bharara!
Jim, Foolish Literalist
The Godfather. It refers to total war between mafia families.
Citizen Alan
@Cacti: I am 100% convinced that if Hillary had 1 in 2016, the republicans would have rushed through Merrick Garland rather than allow her to have even the theoretical chance of nominating a younger, more liberal Justice. And then, Justice Garland would have cast the deciding vote for the opinion striking down partisan gerrymandering as violative of equal protection, And all our lives would be better by an immeasurable degree today.
Citizen Alan
@CaseyL: I think it’s because people thought he was just grand standing when he unilaterally legalized gay marriage in San Francisco and kicked off that entire debate that led to proposition 13. Of course, now that gay marriage is the law of the land, newsom should rightfully be credited as a visionary. But there can be no visionaries in the Democratic Party other than Bernie Sanders, so apparently not.
Kent
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: You asked what pushing harder to support Garland would have looked like. That was just one off-the-top of my head example. Would it have worked? I have no idea. But from my observation point I didn’t see Obama lift much of a finger to actually really try to FORCE a vote in the Senate. Trump showed us how far one can push the envelope on these types of issues. You basically push it until the Supreme Court says you can’t. And then you just pivot and keep pushing anyway. Obama was too hamstrung by decorum when only one side was being decorous.
As for the DOJ under Biden? They have been pretty damn aggressive about prosecuting the lower level 1-6 defendants. I’m not sure politicizing the DOJ to accelerate the prosecution of Trump is necessarily governing like a Democrat. Like everyone else, I’m somewhat disappointed in what looks to be slow-walking by Garland. But I don’t put that one on Biden. If it is indeed happening, then that is as much of an indictment of him as Obama’s SCOTUS choice as anything else.
Back when Biden made the Garland appointment most of us were actually cheering. Or at least happy with the pick.
Citizen Alan
@Baud: Yeah, now that I know more about his background, I agree hes a bad choice. But it was dirty pool, in my opinion, to focus on that 1 opinion in an effort to paint him as anti choice, rather than simply come out and admit that the real objection is to him being anti-labor and pro cop.
Dan B
@Lee Hartmann: I believe it comes from ‘Once Upon a Mattress’. YMMV
Kent
@Citizen Alan: Alternate histories are always fraught. If Hillary had won in 2016 and governed with Republicans controlling both the House and Senate and then dealing with all the sound and fury through 2-years of COVID it is highly possible she would have lost and we would be in year 2 of the 2020-2024 Trump Administration.
Steeplejack
@horatius:
😹
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Kent: Wow, that… that’s quite a string of words.
Kent
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Shorter version?
weird how both these things involve Merrick Garland.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Kent: well, the problem really wasn’t the length of your comments, though that certainly didn’t help
Kent
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: I’m just one guy with no power. But that is how I see it.
I loved me some Obama and was as inspired and overjoyed as anyone when he won. I was a hard-core Obama caucuser in Texas in 2008 and had about 10 Obama signs on my lawn to counteract the sea of red McCain signs in my subdivision.
But I am also a teacher and I view the Obama years as a lost decade in education. For a whole lot of reasons. And that was his biggest area of disappointment to me.
Omnes Omnibus
@Kent: I agree that education was his weakest area, but, jebus, man.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Kent: I can’t speak to the specifics of your objections to his education policy.
But everything you’ve said about the Garland appointment… well, I’ll let you speak for yourself
You’ve shown me who you are, and I believe you. And I’m more than a little embarrassed for you. That’s as nicely as I can put it.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
I mean…. My god
J R in WV
@lowtechcyclist:
Same thing happened here to Wife — not sure of the RWNJ name of the org, but she’s a long time labor activist and former elected officer and left wing policy supporter. Never going to support a RWNJ publication or organization. Never!
Geminid
@lowtechcyclist: Epoch Times has a big budget and distributes copies far and wide. They’ll even put copies under windshield wipers in parking lots. They’ll use any kind of list to mail you a copy.
J R in WV
@Lee Hartmann:
It came from stories about the mafia, where lower level mobsters would all go to apartments where mattresses were spread out on the floor for them to sleep on, while they waited for an opportunity to attack the other mobster family.
Kent
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: So you are of the opinion that Obama did everything possible to get Garland confirmed? And there was nothing more he could have done to force a confirmation hearing and vote? No political leverage he could have wielded over McConnell or any other GOP Senators?
Kent
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: I’m not talking about the illegal stuff.
But Trump did come in and just started doing things like throwing huge tariffs around at will. Firing FBI directors on a pretense, leaving unconfirmed acting secretaries in place, etc. And people asked “WTF can he actually do that?” And found out that yes, he pretty much can.
I would like to see Democrats do more of that sort of thing. Biden’s attempt to cancel student debt is an excellent example. About the only thing I can think of where Obama pushed the policy envelope was with DACA.
brantl
Mitch McConnell’s face.
David ⛄ 🎅The Establishment🎄 🦌 🕎 Koch
Obama didn’t rotate the tires on my car. Complete failure.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
Jesus.
Somebody gave my dining-room table a computer and has taught it to sea-lion in the name of Green Lanternism.
CaseyL
I don’t know why everyone’s piling on Kent for his remarks about Obama and Garland.
I believe he’s right: Obama didn’t fight as hard as he could have to get Garland seated on SCOTUS, because he was sure Hillary would win in 2016. A lot of us who were upset that Garland wasn’t even getting the courtesy of meetings with Senators were also pretty sure Hillary would win. I mean, c’mon: Donald Trump?
We didn’t know how bad the Wilmeristas would be. We didn’t know how much damage Cambridge Analytica would do. Or Wikileaks. Or Jill Stein. Or James Comey. There were a whole lot of coordinated black swan events around 2016.
Johannes
@lowtechcyclist: NY’s highest court is still the Court of Appeals.