Spirited Debate

Dem AG Candidates Make Their Cases

By RICHARD STEIER

A debate among the four Democratic contenders for Attorney General Aug. 17 contrasted their views on whether the state's top law-enforcement official must represent the Governor in all cases, regardless of whether the AG believes his position is wrong or unconstitutional.

The Chief-Leader/Pat Arnow STAKING OUT HIS TERRITORY: During the Aug. 17 debate among the four Democrats seeking to become Attorney General, Sean Patrick Maloney established himself as the most conservative of the candidates, stating his support for the death penalty and saying he would not refuse to represent the Governor in cases where he personally disagreed with his position, explaining, 'You take an oath, you do the job.'

The spirited segment of a face-off that also highlighted former Public Advocate Mark Green's attacks on front-runner Andrew Cuomo was triggered by incumbent Eliot Spitzer's decision to continue defending Governor Pataki's position in the Campaign for Fiscal Equity lawsuit. The state has lost two different appeals of the ruling that it discriminated against city public-school students when it came to funding, one before its highest judicial body, the Court of Appeals.

Shouldn't Impose Views

Sean Patrick Maloney, a litigating attorney who, like Mr. Cuomo and a third candidate, Charlie King, once worked for President Clinton, said he would follow Mr. Spitzer's lead in representing the Governor regardless of whether he disagreed with him on an issue. "You take an oath, you do the job," he said, contending it was wrong for the Attorney General to substitute his own views for the will of the Legislature and the Governor.

Mr. Green said that while he agreed, he believed an Attorney General should occasionally break with the Governor on matters of principle. "I cannot defend laws against same-sex marriage, or for the death penalty, because I believe both positions are immoral," he said. "And I can't make the best case, so I would ask someone else to" by farming out the job of representing the Governor on such issues.

Mr. King chided Mr. Green for having changed his position on same-sex marriage, implying he had done so as the political tides have shifted on this issue among state voters. But he added, "You can do your job and not represent the government when it is clearly violating the New York State Constitution or the United States Constitution."

He said he was the only candidate who had unequivocally stated that he would not make the state's case in a continued appeal of the most recent CFE ruling by an Appellate Division panel.

'Enough's Enough'

"Enough is enough," Mr. King said, noting the lawsuit has dragged through the courts for the past 13 years. "Let's enforce the law of the State of New York."

Mr. Cuomo put in, "On the CFE, I agree with Charlie 100 percent. This is a tragedy. This is the dysfunction of Albany at its worst. This is years of prolonged debate when we have lost an entire generation of children. We do have two education systems in this state, and it's not public and private, it's rich and poor."

By continuing to fight the verdicts that upbraided state government for using an unfair funding formula to give the city school system less than its rightful share of aid, Mr. Cuomo continued, "The great equalizer has turned into the great discriminator."

Spitzer Disappoints

While each of the four Democrats praised Mr. Spitzer's stewardship, several expressed disagreement with his position in favor of a new death penalty statute and said he had failed to duplicate his successes in prosecuting Wall Street corruption when it came to Medicaid fraud. On that issue, however, they said the incumbent had been hamstrung by Mr. Pataki's unwillingness to have the state Health Department cooperate in bringing more than a handful of cases.

The Chief-Leader/Pat Arnow NO LOVE LOST: The two leading Democratic candidates for State Attorney General, Andrew Cuomo (left) and Mark Green, declined to shake hands before their debate, and while Mr. Cuomo accused his foe of having 'announced a 30-day attack campaign' to close the gap in the polls, Mr. Green insisted he was just bringing the facts to the public.

Mr. Cuomo said that if elected he would enlist local District Attorneys to assist in bringing Medicaid fraud cases, prompting Mr. Green to assert that this was "a bad idea" because DAs have other priorities and lack expertise in this area. Mr. Cuomo fired back that DAs are already bringing such cases to a limited extent, and that Brooklyn DA Charles J. Hynes has said his office could pursue more such cases if a revolving loan fund was provided to cover the costs.

Regarding their positions on the death penalty, Mr. Maloney drew a protest from Mr. Green when he said he was the only person on the stage who "believes Osama bin Laden deserves to be put to death," with the former Public Advocate saying that it was understood that during a war a government and soldiers looked to kill their enemies.

Where He'd Favor It

Mr. Maloney said he would favor capital punishment "in extreme cases" that included the murder of a cop or firefighter and acts of terrorism that caused the loss of life. But he also criticized the death penalty statute that was enacted in 1995, Mr. Pataki's first year in office, and later ruled unconstitutional by the Court of Appeals.

"The law we had was terrible, and I'm glad it's gone," Mr. Maloney said. "I don't think it was racially neutral, I don't think it guaranteed that we weren't executing innocent people, and I don't think that [candidates for capital punishment] got good lawyers."

Mr. King said he opposed the death penalty but would defend it in court if a bill was enacted that passed constitutional muster.

Cuomo: 'Don't Need It'

Mr. Cuomo, whose father, ex-Governor Mario M. Cuomo, was famously against capital punishment as an inappropriate response for government to take and pressed life without parole as an alternative, said he was "disappointed" that Mr. Spitzer was proposing to restore the death penalty.

"I don't think we need it, I don't hear a clamor for it," he said. He indicated, however, that he, too, would represent the state in defending a statute if it were adopted.

Mr. Maloney drew applause from the audience at Pace University when he pledged, if elected, to "crack down on the corrupt authorities - the MTA, the others that are robbing us blind. Get after Con Ed that is asleep at the switch while 100,000 people in Queens are without power for nine days."

A Courtroom Job?

The candidates clashed over how much courtroom experience an Attorney General should have - and how recently they had tried cases - with Mr. King saying of his opponents, "I don't think any of them has been in a courtroom arguing a case this century. I have."

Mr. Cuomo acknowledged that he hadn't tried a case personally since 1984, when he was an Assistant District Attorney in Manhattan, but added, "Eliot Spitzer as Attorney General, I think if he spent an hour in court the last eight years, it was a lot. That's not the job. The job is managing and supervising attorneys." He noted that he oversaw 350 of them when he was U.S. Secretary of Housing during the Clinton Administration.

Mr. Green lately has tried to cut into Mr. Cuomo's double-digit lead in the polls by attacking his tenure at the Department of Housing and Urban Development, citing critical articles in the New York Times and City Limits to bolster his case.

Caught in Crossfire

In response to a question posed to the candidates by one of the journalists on the debate panel, Mr. Maloney said of the better-known opponents flanking him, "Being between these two men is a little like being in a UN peacekeeping force." He then chided Mr. Green, saying, "We will not beat Jeanine Pirro and the Republicans with these negative attacks. You might win this primary, Mark, but you will not win the election with this kind of negative strategy."

Mr. Green did not back off, however, saying that citing facts did not represent negative campaigning. He then contrasted his record as an outspoken opponent of smoking and tobacco companies with Mr. Cuomo's decision while at HUD to provide "$4.2 million for smoke shops on Indian reservations."

He returned to the issue again late in the debate, charging that Mr. Cuomo as Housing Secretary failed to ensure that the agency reduced its use of pesticides to protect children who lived in public housing, prompting Mr. Spitzer to eventually sue HUD.

When Mr. Cuomo responded that the suit was filed against the Bush Administration after he had already left office along with Mr. Clinton in early 2001, Mr. Green retorted that the lawsuit also cited the agency for noncompliance during the years when Mr. Cuomo was at HUD.

'You're No Spitzer'

"If Spitzer, who you say is a model, basically has to go to court because you refused to comply with the law, why should people vote for you to succeed your model?" Mr. Green asked.

During the "lightning round" of yes or no questions posed by the debate moderator, New York 1 anchor Dominic Carter, all four candidates responded "yes" when asked whether they'd like to see Hillary Clinton become the next President.

When the four men were asked whether cops and firefighters should have the right to strike, only Mr. King said they should.