By Michael McDowell

Public hearings targeting the Trump administration will start early next month, Congressman Jerry Nadler told people at a community forum on the Upper West Side this week. And Nadler said he won’t be shy about using subpoena power when necessary.

Nadler, who represents the Upper West Side and other neighborhoods, took constituent questions at social service nonprofit Goddard Riverside on Wednesday. He has hosted an annual forum at Goddard since he was elected in 1992, but due to the government shutdown, he participated via videoconference this year.

Unsurprisingly, he blamed the president for the government shutdown.

“This is President Trump’s shutdown, it’s blackmail, and it’s improper. It’s saying, ‘Can you shut the government down deliberately, and make 800,000 people miss paychecks, and make people who are dependent on government services suffer, can you endanger the government and all these people as a negotiating tactic?’ That is simply wrong…Already, we’re hearing that the right to life people are suggesting that if [Democrats] give in on the wall, than obviously this tactic works, and [the administration] should shut down the government next over the question of aid to Planned Parenthood.”

Preliminaries aside, Nadler turned to his next assignment. As of this week, he is officially Chair of the House Judiciary Committee, and with Democrats in control of the House, the Judiciary Committee is expected to closely scrutinize President Trump, the administration, and family separations at the U.S. border with Mexico. And that’s just a start.

“We are going to start hearings very quickly, covering possible obstruction of justice by the president and the administration, covering abuses of power, covering violations of the Emoluments Clause of the Constitution, covering possible criminal campaign violations. We’ve sent [Acting Attorney General] Matthew Whitaker a list of questions, we’ve told him ‘if you’re going to claim executive privilege, get that now, so that if you have a specific basis for it we can challenge it if necessary.’”

Nadler said these hearings will begin on February 8th, and will be open to the public. They will essentially fulfill the role that the Watergate Committee fulfilled, he added.

What about Special Counsel Mueller, and his investigation?

“Our chief goal is to protect the Mueller investigation. We hope the report, when it comes out, will be made public—we can’t guarantee it, but I have said that if Attorney General [William] Barr does not make the report public, we will subpoena the report, and we will get it…Meanwhile, we can invite Mr. Mueller himself to testify.”

A rapt audience listened as Nadler offered a preview of the months to come.

Some questions took a less grave tone.

For example, one person asked what happened to Rudy Giuliani, given his recent history of “on-air gaffes.”

“There is a parlor guessing game going on in Washington, as to whether he’s got some deep dark motive or whether he’s lost his mind,” Nadler laughed. (Giuliani didn’t respond to a request for comment sent to the White House press office.)

In terms of legislation, thematic priorities for the new Congress include climate change—“probably the most significant danger that we face”—gun violence, and border security, though Nadler was careful to set clear expectations.

“There is a limited amount that we can do, that we can get to pass both houses and be signed by the president. But we can advance legislation, whether on climate change, or gun control, or a million other subjects, that we can pass in the House, that we can tee up for passage when we get a Democratic or decent congress. If you study the history of progressive legislation of the last century, it comes in spurts. It comes at the beginning of the New Deal, it comes in 1965-1966, it comes in 2009, but you have to be prepared when you get the opportunity to ram through a generation’s worth of progressive legislation, and part of our job over the next few years is to prepare the way for that, tee it up. And we will do it.”

For now? Look to Albany, where “we’ll see what progressives can do, when they suddenly have the majority.”

Speaking of local politics, does he plan to endorse any candidate for New York City Public Advocate?

“I don’t know yet, there are only 23 candidates. I may or may not,” he responded, to laughter.

What about SALT—State and Local Taxes—and the tax legislation the Republicans passed in 2017?

“The idea is the following: New York and other states, through their democratic processes, choose to have more generous government programs than other states—schools, housing, health services, etc. That’s a choice that we can have political fights over, and that’s what politics is about at the state level. It has always been the case since the income tax was first introduced, temporarily in the Civil War, and then again permanently since World War I, that you could deduct under your federal taxes state and local taxes that you pay, on the theory that you shouldn’t be doubly taxed. Second of all, you don’t want a situation to arise where you’re really pressuring states not to provide services.”

The new tax bill has changed how those who pay taxes in so-called high tax states—including New York—are able to deduct state and local income taxes, sales taxes, and property taxes, from their federal IRS bill.

Nadler continued.

“What this does, besides being grossly unfair, is pressure state legislatures to suddenly find the equivalent of a 30 percent tax increase…This is a very deliberate attack on state and local government, and on the rights of voters to choose their government services, and we have to get rid of this as soon as we can.”

Adjacent to the subject of taxation, what about the census, and the immigration question the administration has sought to add the next time the census is taken, in 2020?

“As you may know, the administration is trying to rig the Census, by putting in a citizenship question. If you’re an immigrant, the administration hopes you fear answering that question. They figure that the question of citizenship will probably cut the response rate between 5-7 percent, which sounds like a little, but which is a lot in terms of political representation and money, all of which is determined by the census…if you ask the citizenship question, the idea is that you’re going to get an undercount of immigrant populations, which will impact states like New York: fewer congressional representatives, less money from the federal government, and that is the intent of the administration.

A federal court recently ordered the question removed, but the administration hopes to appeal this to the Supreme Court, where they feel they have a conservative majority. A conservative majority may rule they have the right to do this.”

How about abolishing the electoral college?

Nadler discussed the National Popular Vote initiative, which aims to eliminate the decisive role of the electoral college and guarantee that the individual elected president is the candidate who wins the popular vote.

Nadler packed an impressive amount of material into just 35 minutes, and it seemed he was almost certainly in between meetings. The audience lingered.

“I really like him,” whispered a woman. “I hope he’s able to bring the rest along.” A man agreed. “He knows everything, it’s like a civics lesson.”

Goddard posted a video of the forum to YouTube, which is available below.