Program transcript:

Grant Reeher: Welcome to "The Campbell Conversations", I'm Grant Reeher. Last week we heard from Onondaga County Executive Ryan McMahon. My guests today are the principal leaders of the county legislature and the Democratic Majority caucus there. Nicole Watts is the county legislative chair. Chairwoman Watts is in her first term of service and represents the 9th legislative district. Nodesia Hernandez is the legislature's majority leader. She's in her second term of service, and she represents the 17th district. Chairwoman Watts, majority leader Hernandez, welcome to the program.

Nodesia Hernandez: Thank you for having us.

GR: Really appreciate you making the time. And majority Leader Hernandez, I want to start with you. I wanted to ask about the transition for the Democrats from being in the longtime in the minority now to all of a sudden being in the majority party. It was quite a switch in the last election. Did it take some kind of reframing of a mindset, you know, to get out of sort of the party of opposition mentality? I've heard that from other legislatures in other places, and I didn't know if that would be something that was affecting you.

NH: So, like you said, I'm in my second term. So, we did two years in the minority, and then now you know, being in majority, you have to remember that you have some control now, right? And you have to weigh that you have some power play. And it takes the mindset of doing a lot of the heavy lifting in the minority and now being able to actually get some work done. And when I say that I mean, in the minority there were five of us, now there's ten of us. So having the five of us, it was a little bit, you know, easier as far as whipping those votes. Having the ten of us now, it's a little bit more difficult to bring all the minds together and making sure that we're all on the same page. But the transition part is making sure that we let our counter-partners know, our colleagues know, that we're here to get the work done. And it's a good thing to get the work done together. And we have to remind ourselves that we're often told that we need to collaborate, but in the situation we're in now, we need those to collaborate with us. It’s a good thing to collaborate with us, because we need to get some work done. (unintelligible) work together and get it done.

GR: And just to follow up quickly, so, in the opposition, you know, you're always thinking, okay, how do I criticize this, how do I sort of make a reasoned argument against it or, you know, push back? Well, now you've got to build things. So, did that, was there a kind of a mental shift that you and your colleagues needed to go through?

NH: Definitely. Because it went kind of from always defending our position, right, to now having defend our position, right? So, when I say that, I say things, I can give you a quick example, in the minority we were often having to defend why we wanted memorializing resolutions, right? Now, being in the majority, we can say we want these memorializing resolutions because it's what we need. So that mindset went from making sure that we let our colleagues know that we need them to be on board with certain things that we need to get done, and those things, the things that you weren’t on board with before, but now it's a chance. So, you know, maybe you might want to change for the better yourself and be on board and get some work done.

GR: That makes sense. Chairwoman Watts, the big picture question for you. How do you see the role of the county legislature in the governance of the county? Where does it fit into that that puzzle?

Nicole Watts: When I talk to neighbors, they often say, you're a what? A legislator? County? What does that do, right? And I often say it's the congress of the county, right, where the lawmakers, I think another really key piece that the legislature represents is representation. You know, we are each engaged with unique districts throughout the county, a broader geographic area with people that have very different experiences. That representation piece becomes all the more important. And so, when we're coming to decisions that are being put in front of us, we are all coming to the table with our district in mind, which might have a little bit of a different perspective, right? If you're representing Clay, where Micron's happening, it's a bit different than my district that's down the highway, where our poverty statistics look different than it looks in Clay, right? But we also are both significantly impacted by some of these things that are happening. So, I think that the legislature has a keen role in terms of representation of the people and the different voices that make up our county across the region. And then we're entrusted with responsibilities that have to do with the making of laws, whether those are like, laws as we traditionally think of them, or resolutions that are adopting particular practices. And of course, the very, very big piece, which is the budget, in terms of working through the budget and how the public resources are being utilized to serve the needs of the people of our county. We also this year have been focusing a lot of energy on making sure that we are not only equipped with the information about what's happening at the county, but we have an accountability just like it is at every level of government. That's why we were set up in the structure that we were, in our system of government was to have checks and balances. And so that other key piece of accountability, I believe it's really important for us to know, at least at a cursory level, what is happening across the many departments and the many different services and things that we offer. And so, we've been calling in a lot of the departments, actually, all of them, we've said that every department needs to come in to present before the legislature before the budget time, so that we have at least a starting awareness of how things are going, how the money is being spent, public monies, and so that we can enter the budget with a level of awareness and have an opportunity to ask meaningful questions that aren't trying to fit into the pressure cooker that is the budget process. So, I think that's the other key role, right? So, accountability, representation, lawmaking and the budget.

GR: Have you had to think about, I know you're in your first term so this is all new to you, but have you and the legislature had to think about fundamental change in your role? Because before the legislature was Republican and you had a, you know, obviously very outspoken, strong minded county executive, and so the tendency I think was to go along, whereas now are you thinking about, okay, we need to be a reactive body as well as a proactive body?

NW: Absolutely. The analogy I found to be helpful is a dance, right? So, the legislature historically has operated a bit like a waltz where you had a leader and the legislature kind of danced with the county executive. And now we have to dance the tango.

GR: (laughter)

NW: Which requires both parties to actively be dancing together. And sometimes there's a little tension in it too, right? And so, I think that we are learning that though. We've already done a few dances together where we didn't necessarily want to move in the same directions, and we've been navigating our way through that. I think it's important for people to see and experience the legislature as a strong and representative voice of their, what they want to see in government, right? We are not all one particular swath, we are not one particular politic. Whether you're looking at us as a legislature, even within our caucus, right, we represent different districts, different perspectives, and then that extends throughout our county government. And it's extremely important for the legislature to be its own entity, to have its own voice and to be respected as such, because we've been entrusted with a particular role that is distinctly different than what the county executive is responsible for. And it's really important for us to lean into that role. And I do think that we're doing that in a pretty distinctly different way, in terms of how we're hosting our meetings and some of the things that we're doing than had been previously done.

GR: And Majority Leader Hernandez, I know it's early days so far for the party, but what do you think have been your biggest successes so far as a caucus?

NH: The caucus right now, you know, the transition is going well because right now we're in a situation where we're actually getting work done, right? In the minority it was a lot of battling back and forth battle between the minority and the majority. But now I see our transition as us getting work done and collaboratively getting work done. I like to say, I was a teacher for 17 years, and I feel like I still have that educator hat on, right? I’m educating folks to learning and knowing what that transition looks like, what needs to get done, and at the same time, like Chairwoman Watts said, there's 17 of us, right? In my legislative caucus there's ten of us, and we do represent districts. And we also have to represent those districts in a way that we make sure our constituents are happy, because we do have to get reelected. But while we represent in those districts, we have to also make sure we represent the county as a whole. And that's the...