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Gun Violence, Redistricting Challenge and More Driving Chappaqua’s Kristen Browde in her Bid for State Assembly

March 22, 2020 by Grace Bennett

PHOTO BY CAROLYN SIMPSON, DOUBLEVISION PHOTOGRAPHERS

When Kristen Browde’s son Theo came home from Horace Greeley, where he’s a sophomore, and told her about a second mandatory lockdown drill, Browde said her decision was made up to run for state assembly in New York’s 93rd district. “This generation has grown up with the fear that their school could be next.”

Browde, who has sat on the Chappaqua School Board’s financial advisory committee for almost ten years, said one of the things the committee often has talked about is how to “harden” our schools, but her contention is that security measures inside schools are not nearly enough.

“It remains easier in New York, in spite of our SAFE Act and red flag laws and all the progress we have made, to buy a high powered weapon–a military style weapon–and ammunition, than it is to buy a pack of Sudafed–and that is just wrong.”

A former TV broadcaster, Browde cited experience that includes decades of effective lobbying in Albany as a national and local officer for and on behalf of The American Federation of Television and Radio Artists (now SAG-AFTRA). She worked on legislation to ban the use of non-compete contracts that kept industry salaries low or stagnating.

“When I worked at Channel Five and Channel Four, the broadcast companies would put a non-compete clause into our contracts. This would say ‘even after you leave my station, you cannot go to work for anybody else in this market for a certain amount of time.’ The result of that was that the employee’s bargaining power was substantially reduced because you would have to sit out six months or even a year without a salary–and that is how they kept you where you were at a lower salary, too. “It took seven years to get it passed. Back then, the Republicans were controlling the state legislature.” Browde proudly stated that she finally helped pass the Broadcast Employees Freedom to Work Act.

“And now that the State Senate (a last bastion of the Republicans), has flipped, all of a sudden, bills that had been bottled up for years… were finally able to be brought to the floor and enacted into laws signed by Governor Cuomo.

“In recent years I have had the opportunity to build relationships with people like the Governor and with the leaders of both houses, in the course of working on these issues. I know who they are and who we need to work with to make changes happen.”

Gun violence prevention will be her top priority. “Every parent who puts their kid on a school bus in the morning wants one thing–to get that kid back at the end of the day. It is not just the kids that are growing up with this fear, parents are as well. We are having to spend huge sums of money on school security… But if we can protect just a little bit more and at no cost, we ought to be doing that… Do the background checks and do the positive identification. You don’t stop with the weapons; it’s about the ammunition too. Moms Demand Action has a tremendous legislative program, so does the Brady Campaign. Both have absolutely solid things that this legislation should be working on in the next session.”

Browde cited another critically important legislative task ahead: redistricting.

“We are going to have a census. It is almost certain that New York is going to lose a Congressional seat… Nita Lowey’s seat is a pretty safe Democratic seat. Sean Patrick Maloney’s is not. There are lines that are almost certainly going to be redrawn… We will need to protect the sanctity one person, one vote, rather than protect the sanctity of an individual politician. We have seen that in places like North Carolina what happens when you have tremendously gerrymandered districts that pack all the Democrats into one tiny little area: the Republicans, even though they are only 50% of the state, control 75-80% of the Congressional seats. We can’t let that happen anymore.”

The conversation veered into today’s antisemitism which hits close to home for Browde. “My father’s family fled Germany on Kristallnacht and his dad, my grandfather, didn’t get out, but his mom did.”

“Whether it is, anti-Jewish, anti-Black, anti-Hispanic, we have to use every single resource that is humanly possible to bring to bear to battle hate… That’s a conversation that we in New York can start. Frankly, we in New York have the biggest problem with it right now.

At this juncture, Peter Moses, Browde’s campaign advisor and a longtime journalist himself, pointed to Browde being “incisive, direct, and a listener” as key strengths during her media career. It’s that same skill set, he said, that helped her pass legislation in Albany.

“It is why (Westchester County Executive) George Latimer has her on a couple of committees. The fact that she’s really bright may have influenced him, but what keeps her there, what she keeps bringing to the table with all the new roles she takes on, is her ability to communicate and listen.”

Melding Career Strengths Toward Key Consensus Building

“I’ve gone from reporter to divorce lawyer, which I used to describe as combining the two least respected professions in America into one stellar career, Now I’m adding politician, so it’s a trifecta,” Browde chimed in with a smile.

“As a divorce lawyer, you are dealing with people who at one point said they love each other and now can’t see eye to eye about anything and you are trying to bring them together to a settlement that they can both live with. When you are doing a job of a legislator, or let’s say, someone who is trying to persuade other legislators to come over to your side, you are doing the same thing. People who want the same thin–which is the best for the people of the state of New York.”

“I’m also trying to figure out what the other person really needs, because frankly, while I don’t agree with the policy positions espoused by most Republicans, the fact is I don’t think they are bad people. I just think they have a different view of what is best…there are common points and if we can get together on those common points, then that is fine.

Browde reminded me too that “the sticking point right now is not the Republicans. In Albany today, Democrats control all three houses, the two houses of the legislature and the Governor’s mansion, which are the three critical points of power in Albany. The problem is that the Democrats in the Assembly often can’t reach an agreement. I’m pretty good at getting Democrats together… and have worked with people across the party, from the extreme left to the more conservative members of the party… and we got bills through and we got bills signed.”

“It is less about policy differences than effectiveness,” said Browde. “What I have shown is that first off, I don’t stop. I don’t stop. I am good at bringing people together who don’t start agreeing… the only effective way to work in a legislative setting is to build coalitions.”

Browde shared her optimism in the challenge to win the seat with “approximately 90,000 registered voters stretched out from Harrison and White Plains up to the Connecticut line.”

“I am not Michael Bloomberg, I am not self-financing, so we are doing the same thing that everybody else is which is raising money through various Democratic Party channels: “People get fired up about my campaign–they’re visiting us at KristenForNY93.com. People are energized about the political process in general right now. The June 23rd primary is the focus right this minute, and then it is off to November!”

Filed Under: Cover Stories Tagged With: 93rd Assembly seat, albany, broadcaster, Consensus building, gun violence, Kristen Browde, lobbying, Redistricting, The American Federation of Television and Radio Artists

Assemblyman Buchwald on Albany, the Minimum Wage and Raising a Family in Westchester

June 3, 2016 by The Inside Press

Todd Shapera Photo
Todd Shapera Photo

By Andrew Vitelli

The man who represents New York’s 93rd Assembly District entered politics in 2009, with the economy at rock bottom and Americans’ trust in government in a dive that lasts until today. Assemblyman David Buchwald, a Democrat whose district spans from Harrison in the south to Westchester’s border with Putnam in the north and includes both North Castle and New Castle, has found that people’s faith in government to accomplish even the simplest task is close to zero.

“Unfortunately today, a lot of folks have such low expectations for government that even to get a phone call or email returned either surprises them or pleases them,” Buchwald, elected to the Assembly in 2012, said in an interview with the Inside Press at his Mount Kisco office. “My goal is not just to be responsive but also to help address the underlying issues that folks are contacting me about.”

Part of restoring trust, Buchwald says, is just being responsive to citizens’ concerns. He points to an Armonk woman who was having trouble with her Medicaid due to a computer glitch and a Harrison man who wanted more attention paid to the POW flag.

“There’s no better feeling in the world than to take a problem that a constituent felt was intractable before they contacted me and to use the authority of my office to solve that problem,” he says. “I truly take to heart the mantra, which I repeat all the time at my office, that I have 133,000 bosses.”

But Buchwald, a White Plains resident, understands restoring trust in government will require more than just constituent services. In recent years, New York State has been plagued by corruption, with many of Albany’s most powerful figures of yesteryear going to the big house for violating the public’s trust. Five years ago, Senator Vincent Leibell, whose district overlapped with parts of Buchwald’s current district, was convicted of felony corruption charges. Most recently, former Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver was sentenced to 12 years in prison for corruption. Since his first year in office, Buchwald has been pushing for a constitutional amendment to strip government officials of their pensions if they are convicted of a felony relating to their role in government. A previous bill, which was passed in 2011, achieved this only for officials who took office after that point.

“There, unfortunately, are a handful of folks who over time haven’t lived up to their end of the oath of office that they took,” Buchwald explains. “And my view is that those corrupt officials should not be automatically entitled to their taxpayer-funded pension.”

Changing the state’s constitution is a tall task–it must pass both the Assembly and the Senate twice, in consecutive terms, before going before the voters. So far the two chambers have been unable to agree on the language. There’s been some opposition to the bill from organized labor out of fear that any changes to pension rules could set a dangerous precedent. “My view is the exact opposite,” Buchwald asserts. “My view is that as long as New Yorkers continue to read articles about corrupt officials sitting in jail collecting their state pensions, that is what erodes support for public pensions.”

Now in his fourth year in office Buchwald, one of Albany’s youngest lawmakers at 37 years old, holds a joint degree in law and public policy. Buchwald would seem ill-suited for today’s anger and braggadocio-filled politics; he often appears more comfortable explaining the nuance of his position than delivering soundbites, and even his criticism of his legislations’ opponents is measured and at times sympathetic. If there’s one thing he seems to disdain, it’s empty rhetoric and those who employ it.

At the Gra in School on New York Primary Day: David Buchwald with Hillary Clinton. Ann Styles Brochstein/Hillary NOW Photo
At the Grafflin School on New York Primary Day: David Buchwald with Hillary Clinton.
Ann Styles Brochstein/Hillary NOW Photo

Buchwald’s Road to Politics

Buchwald, who grew up in Larchmont, recalls being Mamaroneck High School’s senior class senator in 1996, the year he graduated. It would be nearly another decade and a half before he’d make another run at elected office, but Buchwald says his interest in public policy dates back to his childhood.

“I just thoroughly enjoyed reading the newspaper and observing the world around me,” Buchwald remembers. “And growing up in a family where your professional life is made most meaningful when you are serving the public at large or those in need of support. That’s something I took to heart from a young age.”

Buchwald comes from a family of legal minds; his mother, Naomi Reice Buchwald, is a federal judge in the Southern District of New York while his father, Don, is a former assistant United States attorney. David went to Yale as a physics major but by sophomore year knew a career in physics wasn’t in his future.

“I never found a particular branch of physics that I was interested in devoting my life to,” Buchwald says. “And that’s really what you need to do in order to go on to graduate school.”

Buchwald began actively moving towards public policy, first working for NERA, an economic consulting firm in White Plains, before returning to school. He studied public policy at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government, earning an MA and a law degree from Harvard Law School in a joint four-year program with the goal of becoming a practicing lawyer.

Buchwald came out of law school as a tax attorney, practicing at Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison. Buchwald said it was after graduate school that he began getting involved in area non-profits and going to local Democratic Party meetings, campaigning on behalf of other candidates. Up to this point, Buchwald had not envisioned himself running for office, but warmed quickly to the idea when the opportunity arose. “It was very natural when some folks in White Plains approached me to run for our city’s Common Council,” Buchwald says. “I very gladly took up that challenge.”

Tumultuous Times in White Plains

Buchwald was one of three candidates, all Democrats, elected to the council in 2009, beating two Republicans in a city with more than twice as many Democrats as Republicans. His first year turned out to be a tumultuous one for the city. Adam Bradley, the mayor at the time, was arrested on domestic violence charges in February 2010, fewer than two months after Buchwald had been sworn in. Bradley resigned a year later, though he was eventually exonerated in court. Buchwald said the city government was “left in limbo” in the year between Bradley’s arrest and his conviction (which was later overturned).

“I thought it was very important that White Plains turn the page,” Buchwald said. Tom Roach was appointed to fill the vacancy and remains the mayor today. While the fallout from Bradley’s arrest was, in Buchwald’s words, “not a challenge one could have expected from the outset of my tenure,” the city was also one of many dealing with the fallout of the global financial crisis.

“The challenge that every local government had at that time as we were going through the Great Recession was how to preserve high-quality services while not undermining the long-term fiscal health of the city,” Buchwald says. He also noted that the city increased the hours of the library during the heart of the recession after learning that library usage was up. Bike lanes were installed on many city streets. Perhaps most significantly, the city rezoned several of its office properties to allow mixed-use development and draw in a wider range of businesses.

“I always found [Buchwald] to be somebody that you could work together with on something and come out with a good outcome. I appreciate that kind of person,” Mayor Roach told Inside Armonk. “When you’re talking to somebody who is intelligent, who cares, who does the work, it’s always a pleasure, and David very much fits into all those categories.”

In 2012, Buchwald announced his run for the assembly. The 93rd Assembly District, with newly drawn borders, leaned strongly though not overwhelmingly Democratic. Buchwald was taking on incumbent Republican Robert Castelli, a former New York State Police Officer who had won a special election after the seat was vacated by Adam Bradley (who left the position for his ill-fated stint as White Plains mayor). Castelli was the first Republican in a generation to hold the seat in Albany and was re-elected in November 2010.

“I felt, on a number of levels, that there was a need for change in the district,” Buchwald recalls. “My predecessor, though a good man, was out of step with Westchester values and I thought I had a skill set that might appeal to voters.”

Castelli had been well-liked across the district, but Buchwald criticized the Republican for his vote against legalizing gay marriage and for voting against gun control legislation. Spurred in part by the increased turnout of a presidential election in a county where President Obama beat Mitt Romney by more than 20 points, Buchwald won with 53 percent of the vote in one of Westchester’s most closely-watched elections. “Between it being a redistricting year and a presidential year, both put me at a disadvantage,” Castelli told Inside Armonk, looking back at the election. “Had it been an off year, not a presidential year, and had it not been gerrymandered, I’m pretty that sure I would have won it.”

Buchwald ran unopposed for re-election in 2014, and announced last month that he will seek a third term. While the Republicans hadn’t settled on a candidate to oppose Buchwald as this edition went to press, Westchester GOP Chair Doug Colety said he was in the process of interviewing candidates and that the Republicans would definitely have an opponent for Buchwald this election.

Conventional thinking holds that, with Chappaqua resident Hillary Clinton leading the ticket as the Democratic presidential candidate (which looked almost certain as we went to press), any Republican running in the district will have an uphill battle. Colety, however, believes that with the right candidate and enough resources, anything is possible.

“Nobody knows what turnout is going to be,” Colety explains. “I think everything is in play.”

In the Assembly

Buchwald said he ran for the assembly in large part because the position, unlike the White Plains Common Council, allowed him to serve full-time in elected office. “The state assembly job is one that I thoroughly enjoy, and that’s both because of the work that I get to do as a legislator up in Albany but all the more because of the work I get to do here in the district,” says Buchwald. “At the heart of that is solving constituent issues.”

But while helping a constituent access Medicaid, or even cracking down on corrupt officials, may be seen as a clear positive, lawmaking is filled also with difficult votes. The state’s budget, passed this spring and signed by Governor Cuomo, included a gradual minimum wage hike to $15 an hour. Buchwald, who ran in part on raising the minimum wage from its rate at the time of $7.25 an hour (it’s now $9), supported the minimum wage hike, saying it will be a great help to many lower-income families.

“I think that, overall, it will be a net positive and most of all it will help many hard-working residents of New York State that should be encouraged based on the value of their labor,” Buchwald explains. “On some level, it will stimulate spending, because now more families will have more resources. But there’s also the argument that it could inhibit job growth.”

Among those making that argument is the Business Council of Westchester, which put out a press release detailing uneasiness within the county’s business community over the debated $15 wage floor. According to the council, nearly two-thirds of businesses surveyed oppose the plan, with 37 percent saying it would cause layoffs and 15 percent saying they’d be forced to shut their doors.

“When you say, ‘increase the minimum wage,’ it sounds great, but you have to look at the consequences,” said John Ravitz, the council’s Executive Vice President and COO. “It’s going to have a direct effect on businesses throughout the state.”

Buchwald said he had heard from opponents of the hike, but that the majority of his constituents supported it. He noted that the minimum wage jump would take place over six years in Westchester, and that budget officials will analyze the effects and can suspend scheduled hikes if need be.

“I’d say the feedback I’ve gotten has overall been quite positive,” Buchwald said. “Overall, it has yet to be seen what the net effect is going to be, though I believe it’s going to be positive because there will be more demand for goods and services produced by businesses in Westchester.”

Ravitz, for his part, said the Business Council has a strong relationship with the assemblyman and that Buchwald was also receptive to the group’s concerns.

“We’re not always going to agree,” Ravitz said. “We made sure that Assemblyman Buchwald and all the members of the assembly from Westchester knew our position on the minimum wage.”

66-_MG_0941

Raising a Family in Westchester

On March 1, 2014, Buchwald married Lara Samet, a litigation attorney who had clerked for Judge Naomi Reice Buchwald, David’s mother. “Lara and I hit it off right from the start,” Buchwald recalls. “She knew a lot more about me early on because she had essentially had lunch with my mom every day for a year. The more I learned about Lara, the more fascinated I was.”

A year later, David and Lara welcomed their daughter, Anna, who just celebrated her first birthday. Buchwald said he is motivated by having a daughter who will eventually attend public school in New York State.

“The fact that the state has stepped up and righted some of the past practices that shortchanged Westchester’s public schools I think is a tremendous accomplishment,” Buchwald said. He pointed specifically to increases in state aid to the Chappaqua and Byram Hills School Districts during the time he has spent in office. “For all of our children, we have to make sure that we have the best education possible in New York State.”

DSC_0171

Though Buchwald is a White Plains resident, he says he loves visiting both Armonk and Chappaqua. He points to state funding used to repave Route 117 and Route 133 in Chappaqua, and to a new pedestrian crosswalk in Armonk. He has attended events in both communities, including the Armonk Lions Club Fol-De-Rol Ceremony and Frosty Day and the Chappaqua Rotary’s Community Day and Memorial Day Parade.

David at Grafflin waiting for Hill
David Buchwald with a group of constituents including members of “Chappaqua Friends of Hill”

“Both Armonk and Chappaqua are little slices of Americana, and getting to be supportive of both communities is very, very easy, because the people in both places are down to earth and want to see what’s best for their neighbors,” he says. “My job is to help further that vision.”

Recently in White Plains: David Buchwald–with his wife and daughter beside him–announcing a third-term run for the Assembly.
Recently in White Plains: David Buchwald–with his wife and daughter beside him–announcing a third-term run
for the Assembly.

Chappaqua and Armonk are both located near the middle of Buchwald’s 93rd Assembly District (his district office is just north of the hamlets, in Mount Kisco). While the territory he represents is diverse, the assemblyman believes that what his constituents have in common outweighs their differences.

“This is a fantastic slice of New York State to represent. I go from 40-story skyscrapers in White Plains to horse farms in Bedford and North Salem,” Buchwald says.

“Each community has its unique characteristics that make it special, but overall we have a shared vision of the need for investments in education, in our transportation infrastructure and in keeping taxes under control so that people and businesses can thrive here in Westchester.”

Andrew Vitelli is the editor of Inside Armonk magazine.

Filed Under: Armonk Cover Stories Tagged With: albany, assemblyman, David Buchwald, Inside Press, minimum wage, politics, theinsidepress.com, Westchester

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