Outside Counsel

As I go about my day here in the Queen City of the Lakes what I'm seeing is something quite new to me in my time here: economic activity. Success has a thousand fathers, of course, but there is no denying that the cranes and the construction and everything else has a great deal to do with Andrew Cuomo's WNY economic policies. Andy waltzed to a win last go-round, but he didn't carry Erie County, and he has been flirting with us ever since. As part of this he picked Kathy Hochul as his running mate, and here's the thing: Kathy Hochul kind of personifies what I don't like about Andy Cuomo in one convenient package. She worked in John LaFalce's office when LaFalce was in Congress, and LaFalce was an anti-Choice Democrat. Best case, LaFalce botched the Salamanca deal and brought about the Seneca Casino downtown. He denies that this was his intention, but I've read the statute. Hochul then went on to run the Erie County Clerk's office, a non-ideological position where she opposed the issuing of driver’s licenses to undocumented immigrants. Then she ran for Congress, in a special election in the most Republican district in New York State. She won-- a big upset, and was certainly better than Tom Reynolds, or Chris Lee, her immediate predecessors. She was, however, unmistakably a Blue Dog, and voted to support bills that required states to recognize the concealed weapons permits of other states, and supported hydraulic fracturing. I suppose I could forgive the LaFalce connection, but the rest are deal breakers for me. Either Cuomo picked her in a cynical and wrong-headed attempt to appeal to the Western New York base, or she actually is ideologically aligned with him, or both. In any event, I have a progressive alternative, and that's how I'm voting. It is a win-win as I see it. I get to vote my ideology, and if by some fluke Teachout/Wu win then that's great. If they don't-- well, Wu may edge Hochul, which would have a down ballot effect. If that doesn't happen either then I'll vote for the Democratic ticket with my conscience clear.