Welcome to the Capital Connection, a weekly program questioning New York State leaders
on a variety of issues.
Your host is Dr. Alan Shartock, political scientist and professor emeritus at the University
at Albany.
Distributions for the Capital Connection is made possible with the help of New York
State United Teachers, representing professionals in education and healthcare, online at nysut.org.
What's the capital connection?
Hi, I'm Alan Shartock.
Joining us this week and a great pleasure is this Albany County District Attorney David
Sores.
David Sores has served as the Albany County District Attorney since 2005.
Prior to serving as District Attorney, he was assistant District Attorney in Albany
County and Albany County's first community prosecutor, DA Sores is a graduate of Cornell
University and Albany Law School and is a guy who is known for his integrity.
Welcome, DA Sores.
Thank you so much for having me, Alan.
I guess the first thing is that you sit here in Albany.
We've talked about this before and you are the guy who is a charged and who has natural
jurisdiction with watching the legislature.
But frankly, I know this is a bit of a speech.
The legislature has always starved the Albany DA in terms of resources in order to monitor
them.
How do you get around that?
Well, what we've done in the office in the past that's enabled us to prosecute public
integrity cases.
And we've had to really shift strategies where one of the issues in the platforms I ran
on back in 2004 was Rockville, a drug law reform.
And so there's really not that emphasis on prosecuting low level traffickers.
As a matter of fact, we spend more time investigating high level traffickers and we end up taking
a lot of product off the streets before they can even get to those low level people.
But what that shift in philosophy did was provide us with greater resources within the
office to go forward and prosecute white collar crime cases of public integrity.
But I'll tell you that building that's not too far from my office.
It is quite the big monster.
And for us to be able to be as effective as I believe we could be with the jurisdiction
that we have, we do need many more resources, the kind of resources that certain federal
agencies have.
Now, I think you're seeing being put to work in getting the kind of cases that I believe
could be made locally.
Let's talk a little bit about the Moreland and that commission.
The governor sets up a Moreland and that commission.
You've always stood up to the governor when you needed to on things like Occupy and in
which he wanted you to prosecute the kids and you wouldn't do it.
I wanted to ask you something.
You're on the Moreland and that commission.
Is this straight up or is this political sort of theater?
Well, you know, I think that if the composition of the members of commissioners will make up
the Moreland commission, I think if there were a certain quality of people like political
insiders.
I think that the argument could be made that this is yet another group that was brought
together to serve as a political tool.
But when you look at the body of people there and the prosecutors from different communities
and the people who have been public servants in the past, this is not a group of people
who can be heard at like sheep.
There are some pretty interesting independent thinking individuals there.
And one of the reasons why I agreed to come on board was the fact that you had a lot
of independent people, people who I've had relationships with and know that are not
what you would say cronies.
And so I think the people who are sitting in the Moreland commission and all of them
are taking this job very, very seriously.
So I wonder whether this is like a football team in which the coach calls in the plays or
whether there's more democracy.
In other words, if David Sores sees something, he thinks needs attention.
Are you able to then say to the group, I think we ought to look at this.
The co-chairs are wonderful in terms of their deference to the commissioners.
Like I said, we're a comprised of great colleagues, great thinkers, well respected people throughout
the state and pretty interesting conversations.
I can't share with you the substance of the conversations, but there's a lot of interesting
conversation that takes place.
And the co-chairs are very deferential to listening to what everyone is saying.
And I think that the decisions that are coming out of this body reflect the collective
will of the 25 commissioners and the co-chairs.
Now I don't want to give you a hard time, but not much.
But Andrew Cuomo has collected a huge war chest, $29 million we have told.
But the Moreland Commission is trying to take a look at some of the, as I understand
it, the relationship between politics and money and how that's done.
I mean, will they have, they were appointed by the governor, will they have the guts
to look at the governor?
Well, let me just say this.
While I'm not at liberty to disclose what it is that's being considered and reviewed
and discussed, what I can tell you is that everything is fair game.
You know, we were given a directive.
That directive was to root out corruption in state government and in government period.
And we're going to be applying, you know, that, that charge all across the board.
But look, nobody collects huge amounts of money.
I'm not only talking about the governor, but anybody else who legislates your cell phone
silver, look, people, they give you money because they want something back.
You have to be sightless and hearing impaired to be able to not know that.
But it's tough to prove that somebody did it for a specific reason.
What was it?
Plunkett of Tammany Hall said this, you know, there's legal graft and there's illegal graft.
So how do you do that?
Well, that's the problem with the state of New York.
I mean, I think at the end of the day, we tend to focus so much on the individuals because
we're familiar with them.
We tend to focus on, you know, the leadership.
On Shelley, you would do this or that.
But when you really think through this, the problem is in the state and the system that
we've created here where, you know, there are limits to what an individual can contribute.
That limit I believe is somewhere in the neighborhood of about $150,000 in the aggregate.
Companies can, I think, donate $5,000 to campaigns.
But then you have all of these other channels that money can be poured in through.
Stake committees.
You can get this.
You can get this.
You can get this.
And, you know, when you listen to the good government groups and you read a lot of the material
that they're providing and you look through the actual hard data.
And you see that real estate groups, packs are donating millions and millions of dollars,
wealthy, you know, Wall Street stockbrokers are contributing, you know, millions of dollars
for housekeeping accounts.
And then you see those dollars in the same numbers being shifted over to other parties
where they're now being used to attack candidates and they're not being used to build
the party, so to speak, which is what the original intent is, you know, you have to look
at the entire system and say, okay, everything here is broken.
And so whatever happens here, we have to be bold and we also have to create recommendations
that have to be implemented to stop what's happening here and end the culture of corruption.
No, call me naive David source, but here's the issue.
You come out with a bunch of recommendations.
Great report.
You say, we got to close down those housekeeping accounts.
Let's just say you do that and we have to do this.
We have to do that.
And the guys at the legislature thumb their noses at you.
And maybe even the governor thumbs his nose at you.
How do you make them do it?
Well, here's the thing.
This is what's interesting to me and being the Albany County and having that unique jurisdiction
here, it's something that I've been so familiar with over the last decade.
And that is, at the end of the day, whenever you're asking for reform, you're asking for
the foxes to develop absolute security provisions for the handhouse.
And then we all get angry because eggs and chickens are stolen or being misappropriated.
And so what is important here?
And I think that the moment is now, what is important is that we begin to educate the
public about what is happening here.
I think that it's inside baseball when people like you and I get together and we talk about
the issues going on in the capital.
But what we have to do is break the issues down so that we're making the folks who are
sitting right now having a cup of coffee at the diner understand what is truly happening.
And what is truly happening is that a very small group of people are in essence buying
our government.
And it's not just getting a candidate elected, but it's the policies that are flowing
from there that are making it more difficult for the average person to actually exist in
today's economy.
All these decisions that are being made about our budget and who it's impacting, it's
not the vast majority of people in the state that are benefiting from those decisions.
But if I ask my students, what do your parents think of the New York state legislature?
They almost always say they're all a bunch of crooks.
Parents think they're all a bunch of crooks.
So it's not as if people aren't aware.
I think people have thrown up the hands and said, hey, we'll never be able to get around
this because these people will never vote themselves out of power and never vote themselves
out of this position they've got themselves in.
But therein lies the problem.
I think the parents would say yes, they're all a bunch of crooks, but the parents cannot
explain to you why the crooks are doing what they're doing.
In other words, the parents would never say, well, it's the soft money accounts or it's
the LLCs or it's the packs.
They couldn't articulate that.
However, I believe if we can begin to provide that sort of information and make it digestible,
I think then people will know what it is that they need to ask of their electeds and what
they're going to hold their electeds accountable for.
In other words, you need to support legislation that is going to end the LLC loophole.
That's an issue.
That's an issue that they're going to cast their ballot on.
And for those who don't know, what is the LLC?
Well, there are limits to an individual and how much they can donate.
There's limits to a corporation.
In other words, corporation can only donate 5,000.
However, if I have a business, a real estate company, for example, I can open 40 limited
liability corporations and donate $5,000, have $5,000 coming from each of those limited
liability corporations.
And so, and that's what they do to get around the limits that are placed right now in
accordance with our election law.
So it's about really identifying these issues, making these become sort of kitchen dining
room table issues that people begin to have discussions on.
And then it's not going to be when you ask your students about what their parents think
of the Senate or the assembly, their parents aren't going to give a global denouncing them
by painting them all with one brush.
They're going to focus on the system as opposed to the individuals.
Well, from your mouth to God's here, but I'm not so sure that people will ever take that
time to do that.
The New York State is really way behind when it comes to ethics reform.
We all know that.
There are other places that are really clean compared to this state.
And as long as you don't have an issue to run referendum in which those voters you're
talking about can sit there and vote for these reforms, as long as you lead it, as you
said, in the Foxes mouths, to do this, I am not optimistic.
Are you?
I remain optimistic.
I have to be optimistic because it's the only way that I can actually put out my shoes
every morning and come to work.
And I believe that, I mean, look, if I were not optimistic, I wouldn't even be sitting
here.
I mean, what are the odds that a young guy with back then having hair in his head, running
for district attorney on a platform of reforming drug laws?
What are the odds that that guy was ever going to be elected as DA?
So whenever people say things like, I'm not really optimistic about the outcome, I remain
optimistic because if you can build consensus, and I still believe that people in this state
will ultimately decide, you know, the direction of the state, if they know what the issues
are, I have to remain optimistic or else I wouldn't get out of bed and I wouldn't be doing
this.
I wouldn't assure you that.
Well, you're terrific, David Soys.
But, you know, you had something there.
You came into Albany fighting for a new approach to politics and you won.
But you could go directly to the people with that message.
He's got his own the legislature.
They own, you know, and it gets to be very sophisticated.
The governor says he's going to veto, you know, the ability to draw their own districts
and then he doesn't do that.
And most people don't follow that closely.
It was disgraceful, in my opinion, but he did it and he got away with it.
You know, I don't want to beat the horse, but that's what I'm talking about.
Well, and I understand that.
You know, the beauty of a democracy and I think we're seeing, you know, whether you refer
to it as beauty or ugliness right now, both on the national level and on the local levels,
is that you do have a fourth estate.
And I believe that it is incumbent upon the fourth estate to continue to remind the
populace.
And I think what the institution gets away with and the reason why they continue to get
away with it.
I mean, look, we started off the year with a handful of indictments and you would have
thought that that would have, you know, compelled people to come to the table and change.
Except, you know what?
There's going to be a cruise ship that's sinking.
There's going to be a flood somewhere that's going to be a fire.
There's going to be a random mass shooting that's going to draw the attention away from
the issue from them.
But it's really up to the fourth estate to make sure and the editorials because that's
what they pay attention to.
And especially when you're talking about the fall, especially when it's primary time,
when it's election time, people need to be reminded of what has been done and more importantly,
what hasn't been done.
Will you remind me the next time one of the incumbents loses in a primary?
Well, I'll tell you what, I'm hoping that I won't come here with a with egg on my face.
Once this is all said and done and because I'm I think what I can't speak to about the
rest of the commissioners in the moreland, there's a lot of enthusiasm about this opportunity
to really bring about some change.
And I think there's a lot of pride.
There's a lot of honor.
And you feel that enthusiasm in that room.
So I remain hopeful.
Okay.
David Sores, the A of Albany County, there is always a game within a game being played
here.
Andrew Cuomo, I wrote about him a long time ago and with some people took offense, then
I called him a Machiavellian.
You know, he tries to figure out what to do.
So let me present you with a scenario that was presented to me by a really brilliant man
who I don't want to give away his name, but he was terrific.
And he said, you know what Andrew's going to do here?
He's going to use this moreland ad commission to get his code of ethics through the moreland
ad and he is going to take the credit for having done it.
It won't be all that much, but it'll be something.
And then the moreland ad people will go away and Andrew will get all the credit.
What do you think about that scenario?
I think I certainly would never have accepted the appointment.
I think I can speak for about 24 other commissioners that would never have accepted the appointment
if that were going to be the case.
I'm in Albany.
I'm in the capital district.
I sit a few blocks away from that building.
And if there's anybody who understands the game within the game, it is me.
And I did not sign up to be a puppet or a piece on the chess board.
I assure you of that.
I don't think anybody else who signed up for this did either.
Let's talk about guns for a minute, David Sors.
I know that you have felt passionately that there are too many guns out there.
And yet the gun community seems, at least to me, from where I'm looking to be winning
in the struggle, both nationally and locally.
There are just too many guns out there.
How do we get rid of them?
Well, it's always amazing to me when people are talking about the second amendment as if
it's this unfettered, you just can't come anywhere near it as if it's the most important
amendment in our constitution, which is absurd.
By the same token, I understand.
I think I shared with you a story once when I had traveled across country after graduation.
And I'm in the Dakotas and it takes you 30 minutes to go from one house to another.
And that was one of the best experience I ever had in thinking about the gun issue because
in the city, you pick up the phone and you call the police.
They're there and under five minutes.
Their response time is great.
But if you're out in some of the rural places in our community, that call, they're not coming
to you that quickly.
So you have to protect yourself.
You have to, you have to write to bear arms to do just that.
However, you know, if you're seeing some of the guns that we're getting off of the street
and what's being transacted upon and what's getting to the streets from, you know, legitimate
sources, you'd be frightened and you'd be asking for more gun control.
So I don't believe that a lot of the folks who are living in rural parts of our community,
a lot of the people who are the most activist of activists who are talking about the New
York Safety Act and condemning the governor, condemning our president.
I don't believe these people see the world from, from where I'm standing, from where a
lot of the people who are living in urban centers, where we're plagued by gun violence,
are standing.
They're standing on principle, which is great.
But I do believe if people took the time to wear the other person's shoe, you'd start
to see a radical change.
We have far too many guns and the kind of guns that we have are far too sophisticated
to be in the hands of civilians.
These are wartime weapons that we're seeing on the streets of Albany and other streets
in the capital district.
And the answer is?
The answer is to provide thoughtful legislation like the legislation that's been passed in the
New York Safety Act.
Like the New York Safety Act.
Yeah, I believe that.
When you ran for DA, it was a mighty step.
And there had been a developing cadre, and I think this applies because this shows
hurdle all of the state to other communities also, but a progressive coalition began to
emerge in Albany.
First of the school board level, and the school board sent shockwaves through the old guard,
because while Mayor Jennings has been by many people's regards of Mayor, Albany was
always a machine-run city.
So along come a different kind of group.
They may want charter schools.
They may want a more progressive brand of inclusive politics.
And you begin to win, culminating in the election of the first female mayor of Albany.
What do you make of all that?
The voices of the people can only be silenced for so long.
And I believe back in 2004, what we saw was the progressive community, the community that
had been making inroads in school board politics had become much more active in local politics.
We saw that community.
And we also saw the community that had never been as active as it could have, which was
the African-American community.
And what we were able to do was to bring these voices together.
And also we were able to tap into a lot of what I would call the centrist, a more traditional
part of the party that had always had more progressive leanings.
And we were able to bring those groups together.
And the beautiful thing about what's transpired over the course of the last 10 years is that
they've stayed together.
And they continue to bring about change, which is why again, I remain hopeful about the
state, because I think that Albany County was one of the most conservative communities,
even though we were Democrats, we were, I would consider as blue dog Democrats.
We had a machine that reflected those values.
But I do believe that that party that once existed is not the party that exists now.
This is a much more progressive group of people.
And how lucky was Albany to be able to have candidates that were vying for that position
of mayor, one being an African-American gentleman and the other being a woman in the city
of Albany.
So, it says wonderful things about the direction of this community.
Do you think that what has happened in Albany, this Albany sort of plan in which the progressive
forces sort of come to the front?
Do you think that that's a forebearer of what is going to happen in the rest of the
state?
You know, I don't know if it's going to happen in the rest of the state.
I do believe that people are becoming much more active.
I think the same elements, for example, your citizen action, your independence parties,
they're certainly more active in different parts of the state.
In 10 years, I don't know.
I think we still have, it's a tale of two states.
When you talk about New York with a much more conservative elements existing in some
of our rural parts of the state, but I think that you're going to see progressive leanings
in the future.
As District Attorney in Albany, who I think discrepancy has been not given the resources
you need to cover the legislature, and then you look at the tale of two cities, and you
look at the New York City DA's office, it's an empire.
What do you make of that?
Well, you know, what I will say is that I do not believe that DA's district attorney's
offices, I don't believe that the public has ever viewed the district attorney's office
in the way that they should.
We certainly have the ability to do a whole lot more than what we are charged with doing.
For example, there's 38 attorneys in my office.
When you count investigators and support staff, we're about 60 people strong, and we're
dealing in a community with about 300,000 people.
We're way understaffed.
We have to make choices about the kind of crimes that we're going to focus on, and we
try to prioritize those crimes in accordance with the will of the people.
But given all many counties unique jurisdiction, the capital, all of the state offices reside
here.
That gives us incredible jurisdiction throughout the state.
One of the most frustrating experiences that we're having now is with the Board of Elections.
The Board of Elections is a body that unlike any of the other state agencies, they've just
decided not to hire investigators.
When you talk about corruption and you talk about the political system and the cesspool
that it is, there's a body that has the authority to really bring about a lot of change.
Their idea of referring cases is putting together a letter and sending it to the local
DA's office.
But somebody must have told them not to do that.
You don't think that the guy who's sitting at the top of the Board of Elections makes
those kinds of decisions.
Their structure is a bipartisan group where you have a certain number of people that are
appointed by the Democrats, a certain number of people appointed by the Republicans.
And therefore, it's an agency that reflects the same kind of gridlock that you have at
times occurring in the state capital.
So my point is even the Department of Motor Vehicle, the State Board of Education, the
insurance, the insurance fund, all of these agencies have investigators that work
hand in hand with us and help us bring about that kind of relief to the people of the
state of New York, with the exception being the Board of Elections that could in fact
do a lot more in conjunction with all the other 62 DA's throughout the state to bring about
the kind of change that our citizens deserve and demand.
So, last question.
Board of Elections is statewide in place.
You say that it's run equally by the Republicans and the Democrats.
What if the governor of the state were to use his moral suasion to clean the Board
of Elections, or would that help?
That would certainly help.
But I also think that there are other constitutional officers within our state government that also
have a responsibility and I point to the state com controller as well as our attorney general.
And I think that we have to get away from these organizations that are created where one
person has three appointments, the other person has three appointments and they don't extend
those opportunities for other state constitutional officers.
So a lot of these things are what is going to be looked upon and decisions will be made
and recommendations will also be made.
Whether they're acted upon now, there's the true battle.
Well, David Sores, perhaps I shouldn't say this, but you've always been one of my great
heroes and one of my great hopes for our region.
I thank you so much for spending this time with us and reporting in on the Moreland Act
Commission and your own activities as DA.
And I know that we'll count on you to come back again.
Thank you so much, Al.
The Capitol connection is distributed with the cooperation of the public radio stations
of New York State.
David Castina is the producer of the Capitol connection, a production of WAMC Northeast
public radio and Albany.
But for the Capitol connection comes from New York State United Teachers, representing professionals
in education and healthcare, online at nysut.org and Ms. Kasa, the New York State Coalition
against sexual assault, working to support men in their decision to end sexual violence
with the My Strength is not for hurting campaign, online at nyscasa.org.
