The issue is largely settled and has little to do with the attorney general’s office anyway, but Rockfeller drug law reform has persisted as arguably the most common topic of debate in this year’s Democratic primary.

The reason, not surprisingly, has a lot to do with how Eric Schneiderman’s supporters are hoping to carve up the electorate by pushing the idea that Kathleen Rice opposed the changes signed into law last year.

“If you paid attention to any criminal justice issues at the state level in the last decade, and if you’re a progressive, this is certainly an issue that you know and probably care about,” said Brad Lander, a co-founder of the City Council’s Progressive Caucus, explaining why Schneiderman’s position on Rockefeller drug law reform mattered to him in deciding whom to endorse.

Lander said he believes the candidate’s prominent advocacy on behalf of Rockefeller reform will be key to his connecting with progressives, securing him the votes he needs to win the five-way primary.

“It’s the most useful issue in this race in understanding who’s been a progressive in approach criminal justice,” Lander said, adding that he believes if the questions are “how do we both get the most for our money and restore kids and communities, you look to who has been a champion for those issues in the past.”

Progressives are one group purportedly pulled in by Schneiderman’s near-constant hammering of his past on the issue. African-American and Latino voters are another, according to Council Member Melissa Mark Viverito, the other co-founder of the Progressive Caucus who represents a minority-majority district that runs from East Harlem into the South Bronx.

At least if she has anything to say about how her constituents will cast their votes come September.

“A lot of people are aware of it, but it’s also my responsibility to raise it as an issue. These are individuals that are seeking to represent you, this is an issue that I think should matter to you,” she said. “I’m not sure if on the average people would think of it, but I think through leadership, and education they can be shown why it’s an issue they should think of.”

Asked if she believes Schneiderman is the attorney general candidate for African-American and Latino voters to support, Mark Viverito said, “I totally do,” adding, “he speaks to my community in terms of the issues that he’s taken on.”

After all, following his 2002 primary campaign against Carl McCall, Andrew Cuomo rebuilt bridges with the African-American community in part through coming out strongly in support of Rockefeller reform, even standing with hip hop mogul Russell Simmons in 2004 to support going further than the reforms passed that year. Among the things he spoke out about was changing the judicial sentencing provision, an aspect of the changes that was ultimately part of the 2009 reforms. 

Rice argues that there is no difference of opinion about her supporting the more extensive Rockefeller reforms of 2004, which includes things like eliminating mandatory minimums, and was widely embraced. She backed those changes. 

But the debate over the 2009 reforms is a different story—Schneiderman presents her as being against them. 

While insisting that the state senator is simply on the right side of a politically potent issue, Schneiderman’s campaign has nonetheless been helping things along over the last two months by fostering coverage and conversation of Rice’s Rockefeller past, portraying her as aligning with the conservative positions and switching them after the fact out of political expedience. 

“We believe Democratic primary voters will be interested to learn that Ms. Rice is a moderate—even conservative—lifelong Republican who switched to the Democratic Party four years ago solely to run for political office against the incumbent Republican,” said a Schneiderman campaign insider, of the overall approach.

The hope is to appeal to core Democrats by using Rockefeller as a key example of this.

“Her record fighting against reform of the Rockefeller drug laws, which tore communities apart and disproportionately targeted black and Latino New Yorkers, is one part of that equation,” the Schneiderman campaign insider explained. “We’ll keep talking about it and then we’ll move onto her record on women's issues and wrongful convictions, and we won't stop until voters see the clear choice between a lifelong progressive Democrat who understands that New Yorkers need an AG who will stand up for them—and a recent Republican with a conservative ‘lock ‘em up’ record as DA.”

Still, Rice’s campaign portrays itself as eager for Schneiderman to continue harping on Rockefeller reform, as if it has been all but goading him into doing more of it, for the sake of reminding voters of his connections to the extremely unpopular Legislature.

“Schneiderman’s running a one-issue campaign, and on that one issue, he is forced to highlight his Albany ties and he completely exposes his lack of law enforcement or management experience,” said one Rice campaign source. “He’s playing right into Rice’s hands.”

But while Schneiderman has been treating the attorney general campaign as a two-way race between himself and Rice, Richard Brodsky has also been staking his claim to the very voter blocs Schneiderman hopes to appeal through talking up Rockefeller Reform.

Brodsky claimed just as much, if not more, credit than Schneiderman for supporting Rockefeller reform, given his years of advocacy on the issue while in the Assembly, to which he was first elected two decades before Schneiderman arrived in the State Senate.

And while not discounting the importance of candidates’ historical positions on rewriting the drug laws, he rejected the idea that this contrast could be enough to make for a major plank in a campaign strategy, as well as that Schneiderman could use it as a real entrée to progressive or minority voters who do not already support him.

“Progressive voters don’t know Schneiderman from a hole in the wall. They don’t know me from a hole in the wall. They don’t know Rice from a hole in the wall,” Brodsky said. “So there will not be any one magic bullet, where essentially 65 percent of the electorate is undecided, you’re not going to be able to find a gimmick that gets you across.”