Program transcript:

Grant Reeher: Welcome to the Campbell Conversations, I'm Grant Reeher. My guest today is Will Barclay. The Pulaski based Republican has represented New York's 120th State Assembly district since 2003 and was the minority leader of that chamber from 2020 until just last week. He recently announced that he was stepping down from that position, and that he would not run for reelection to the Assembly this coming November. Assemblyman Barclay has been on the program several times in the past. Assemblyman Barclay, it's bittersweet, but welcome back to the program.

Will Barclay: Thanks, Grant. As always, I appreciate you having me on. I will say this is the first interview I have done since I made my announcement that I wasn't seeking reelection and since I've stepped down as minority leader. So, I always appreciated your interviewing style and I think you give a good, fair shake to all sides, so I appreciate that and look forward to talking with you today.

GR: Oh, that's very nice of you, well thanks so much, I appreciate that very much. Well, let me just start with a basic question about the timing of your decision and the timing of your announcement. What were some of the factors that went into that for you?

WB: Well, I think primarily the biggest factor was personal. I served for 23 years. You know, I live in Pulaski, I have two boys and my wife, and they put up a lot with politics and I think I put my time in. So, the timing just seemed right from a personal perspective. I’m 57, so I'm not, I'm older, but not so old that I can't do other things in my life and I figured if I kept running for reelection, some of those other things that I would like to do, you know, I had a shorter time period to accomplish them. So that was a primary reason that I decided to get out. There's other factors, like outside income for one that played a role, but I would say that was a relatively minor role. And I think also it's good to have new blood come in to, you know, I have been leading the conference for six years, I gave it my best shot and there's a lot of successes I think I had there, but it's always good to, I think, get new energy. So that also played a role and I feel very confident with the new leadership that's come in in our conference that's going to lead it appropriately going forward.

GR: You mentioned in the course of that, the outside income limitations and I appreciate that you did that. I was going to ask you about that and concerned that it might be a little sensitive for you, but you brought it up. So, what I'm assuming that is that, you know, there's this new rule, new law, and it's been challenged, but it looks like now it's going to take effect next year. And it limits the outside income that state legislators can make, I believe it's $35,000 a year. Is that correct?

WB: Yeah, that’s correct.

GR: So, I guess what I'm taking from this, then, is that you are a lawyer, and you've had a law career so that that was going to constrain your ability to push out on your law career, is that what you mean?

WB: Yeah, I'm involved in a number of different things, but yes. So, there is, you know, Mrs. Barclay would like me to earn more money. (laughter) I think anybody's family would like to see spouses, you know, earning more money. So, again, that played a role. But I don't want to overblow that, even though I do find that outside income limitation, really a misdirection by the state and bad public policy. You know, we have public financing of campaigns, now we're going to have full time legislators. And what you're going to see is full dependency by members of the legislature on leadership, because they control all that power. And if you don't have enough income or outside job, you're less willing to take, in my mind, risk. And this was never meant to be a full-time legislator. In my mind, I think it's important that we can attract people with backgrounds, you know, with all different occupations. And I worry that, you know, making this a full-time legislature just will not attract maybe some of the people that I think would be very helpful to good government and legislators. But I don't want to dwell too much, because that was a bit. I’m (unintelligible) it didn't play any role, it did play some role. But, you know, I could have gone on for 2 or 4 more years with, you make a very good salary in the Assembly, so it wasn't like we're going to be impoverished by any sense of it, but it did drive me. And one thing, Grant, it did point to sort of a bigger issue that, you know, I've had frustration with all my time serving down there, but I think it's become more acute over the years is the one-party rule. And we hear a lot about the Republicans drifting right. You know, I don't change my ideology. A few issues I've changed on, some to the left, frankly, and some to the right. But, generally I've had my same beliefs since I've been down there. Where I've seen the biggest drift is from the Democrats moving more to the left and that's because it's hard to have a check on that, because, you know, they control the Senate, they control the Assembly and they control executive branch. So, it's been very hard. And that frustration has probably grown in me over the last few years. And that's another reason I think maybe someone new in my position can give a different, maybe it’s perspective or a different fight than I've been doing. Not that I think I did a bad job, but again, I think some new blood, can re-energize things which I fully support.

GR: Well, you know, it's interesting, this is not about you now, with the income. I'm thinking about it more generally, but you brought up something I hadn't thought about, of creating a lack of something to fall back on if you're in the legislature and thinking then about this needing to be your career because you're doing it, not only full time, but it is your entire livelihood. And what just went through my head really quickly was thinking about Congress. Members of Congress know when they get out that they've got, they can take that time in Congress and leverage that into something that they can make quite a bit of money at. And we see all sorts of former members of Congress doing that. I guess that's less true for the state legislature. And so that's a yeah, I hadn't thought about the way it might affect things differentially in that regard. It's an interesting point. Well, let me ask you about some of the positive things, and then I do want to dive into some of the things that you just brought up where your frustrations have been. But what do you think you're going to look back most fondly about your service in the state legislature? What’s going to rise to the top of your fondest memories?

WB: Well, I'll talk public policy and some of the successes we had there. But I think what, you know, I went down there, I thought I would serve six years and here I am serving, by the end it’ll be 24 years. And, you know, the reason being is because I love the people that I was able to work with. And I love my colleagues on both sides, I mean, many on both sides of the aisle. So, I ended up making friendships a lot more deeper than I thought, maybe when I first went down there in the first few years that I served that ended up, I think, keeping me there longer than maybe I initially thought I would, so that was good. I think from a public, one thing I love, I love this area. As I've told you many times, I'm 8 generations, so I'm not moving out of the area. My boys are ninth generation, they love here. I love trying to help my area, Oswego County, particularly is where I'm from, Pulaski. So, you know, I look back and some of the successes, some of the things I've been able to accomplish for the area, and that makes me very proud and makes me think my time in politics was worthwhile. Probably on the apex of all that is being able to save the Fitzpatrick nuclear plant. Albeit I didn't do that alone, but I certainly played a, I think a large role in able to save that end up saving thousands of jobs. And lo and behold, look, now we're even looking at possibly getting another new plant here in Oswego County. So, you know, if I had to point to one thing that, I guess I would say was probably my greatest success or the thing that brought me the greatest happiness in the whole thing was saving that plant. There's a lot of other things, being in the minority, I was like, you know, I didn't have the opportunity to pass a lot of state-wide type of legislation, but I can point to a number of things that either we were able to stop or get reform on that I'm also very proud of because I thought the best I could, I was able to use the bully pulpit to sometimes be able to either stop legislation or shame the Democrats into making changes to that legislation. So, there's a whole host of things I'm very proud of during my career and made it all, for me, made it all worthwhile doing it. Even though people often say, you know, you're in the minority, you can't get anything done. I never, like, took that to heart. You can. You just have to have a realistic perspective on it and not think you're going to be able to change the world in a day.

GR: I'm Grant Reeher, you're listening to the Campbell Conversations on WRVO Public Media, and my guest is New York State Assemblyman Will Barclay. So, in a similar vein there, thinking about the institution itself, the way the institution works. What do you think your biggest impact was as minori...

Will Barclay on the Campbell Conversations