Leaving Gracie Mansion, Mayor de Blasio looks ahead

Preparing to leave office and his official residence on Dec. 31, the mayor of New York acknowledges the bittersweet days ahead as he vacates one of the world's most visible posts, accompanied by the relief from all its responsibilities.

"Eight years is enough," he smiled following a 40-minute interview with The Buffalo News. "I'm a big believer in term limits more than ever."

But de Blasio also is anticipating what lies ahead. While avoiding anything near declaring for another office, he has much to say in his waning days as mayor about state government – another indication of his anticipated candidacy for governor next year. Instead, he emphasizes that he will remain in public life, for now pushing his ideas to pay for vastly expanded educational opportunities by taxing the super wealthy.

It all contributes to his broader vision of making state government a change agent for every day New Yorkers. He dwells extensively on the "stress" they face each day in finding child care or the need for pre-K education or more affordable housing. It sounds a lot like a platform for statewide office.

"It should not be so hard to live in New York State. It just shouldn't," he said. "State government needs to do a lot more to respond to the everyday lives of New Yorkers.

"There's a lot I'll be talking about."

Indeed, de Blasio is already talking. He is careful to note that mayoral duties remain, especially monitoring the greatest challenge of his mayoralty – Covid-19. He is proud of New York City's bounce back from the dark spring days of 2020, when refrigerator trucks were pressed into temporary morgue duty as the national epicenter of Covid-19 deaths – even if some still level their share of criticism.

He lists other achievements. Though many in New York City lament new waves of crime, the mayor points to an overall 11% decrease "even with the impact of Covid." Like in New York City, he wants universal pre-K throughout New York State. He is ready to tout them all.

De Blasio's immediate plans after leaving Gracie Mansion involve touring the state, meeting with officials and regular citizens, "expressing my vision but also hearing their concerns." At this point, that vision centers around his education proposal that he calls "the single most ambitious education strategy ever launched in the history of this nation." He lists goals like universal pre-K, expanding the program to include 3-year-olds, free after school programs and seven weeks of free full-day summer education and enrichment for grades K-12.

Now, he says similar programs should be "all day, all year, all free," and seeks to implement them around the state.

It's all part of his goal of relieving family stress by addressing the "costs and burdens" of parenting. He notes that child care, especially in New York City, too often thwarts employment opportunities because of its soaring costs. Paid sick leave also relieves an economic burden, he said, and he wants to expand on the 200,000 units of affordable housing he has added in the city.

Now de Blasio appears certain to expand that notion by traveling the state and labeling Albany a place that "re-enforces the status quo rather than challenges it." And that means financing the programs he envisions with new taxes on the wealthy – the same concept that Govs. Andrew M. Cuomo and Kathy Hochul have rejected.

"I believe the wealthy have not paid their fair share of taxes. People who do very well can do better," he said. "That's been off the table in Albany for years."

The idea is sure to raise Republican hackles during the 2022 election, should he win the Democratic primary and compete in the November general election. But a primary poses its own challenges, especially against Hochul or more moderate candidates like Rep. Thomas R. Suozzi of Nassau County – who is already taking note.

"I have no problem with taxing the wealthy, but it should be done at the federal level because New York State has become unattractive," Suozzi said this week. "So many people have left for North Carolina or South Carolina or Florida. We can't keep chasing people out of our state.

"When a wealthy person leaves, they take their business with them, and they take their employees, and we lose those jobs. We have to figure out how to make (New York) attractive again."

Still, de Blasio is betting that New York voters are ready to shake up their state government. He constantly refers to Albany's "status quo" as unacceptable, as well as untouchable. He defines it as "an unwillingness to challenge those who have done very well," and being "unresponsive to the lives of working families and their stress."

"I fought early and often for a minimum wage," he said, "and if the status quo in Albany had its way, that would have never happened. I have a history of understanding what it takes to change the rules of the game for working people."

Now the mayor believes his concept of "relieving stress" in the lives of everyday New Yorkers will also appeal to voters. He avoids the intricacies of the coming gubernatorial horse race, but views it all through the lens of history. The Great Recession and all its disruptions of New Yorkers' lives, he said, led to his 2013 election and his kind of progressive politics. It is also no coincidence, he added, that uber-progressive Sen. Bernie Sanders came close to snaring the Democratic presidential nomination in two elections.

The effects of Covid-19, as well as a political environment "supercharged" by the Donald Trump era, de Blasio said, now allow his ideas to play on a statewide stage. He calls himself a "pragmatic progressive" and not a "dreamy progressive," believing that a "profound series of shocks" brought on by Covid-19 and Trump sparks a desire for major change not seen in recent elections. 

He also believes his kind of Democratic politics is not confined to the liberal bastions of New York City or big upstate cities, but can prove attractive to most voters in the state.

"I think that among independents and Republicans, too, a high percentage also believe the wealthy should pay," he said. "The elites in the Democratic Party try to tap dance their way out of that position, but it's where the electorate is.

"Here is the great difference: Are you willing to say out loud that the wealthy should be asked to pay more? If you are, then you identify with people as being on their side."

For now, de Blasio seems unfazed by history and the failure of so many New York mayors to advance politically (only Mayors DeWitt Clinton and John T. Hoffman ever became governor). But like his belief that voters across New York State can support him after the effects of Covid-19 and Trump, he also thinks they can accept a former mayor of New York.

His brief and unsuccessful quest for the presidency in 2020, he said, taught him much – including how to prepare for what now lies ahead.

"I learned there is a very strong feeling that every day people are trying to find a way forward," he said. "There is just so much of a desire to make things better in some way."