City Hall: So no restaurant in Queens? We’re going to eat in Manhattan today.Malcolm Smith: I’m in Manhattan a lot now. I was just meeting with 1199—Dennis Rivera, George Gresham, who’s going to be the new president. Not too bad. This is a light day for me. I go back to Queens after this.
CH: So what’s good here? Since you’re a long time patron.
MS: The Cobb salad is good, the roasted chicken is very good, and the bass. I eat beef every once in a while, but I’m a chicken and fish person.
CH: Do you have any dietary requirements, or food allergies?
MS: I have no allergies, never had allergies, never been in the hospital for any kinds of surgery or anything.
CH: But red meat.
MS: I try to keep it to a minimum. Maybe once every couple of weeks. I do believe in a glass of wine. I think it’s good for medicinal purposes in terms of cholesterol. I have a pretty regular exercise regimen. I’m an early morning person. I rise at 5:30, 6 o’clock in the morning and I have a gym in my basement and I also have a gym in Albany. My regimen is stretching first, then I do weights, then I do treadmill.
CH: I can only think about a cup of coffee in the morning.
MS: No coffee, no tea. People always ask, “How come you are so hyper? Do you drink coffee or tea?” No. No coffee, no tea.
CH: I hear you have a regimen with the stairs in Albany.
MS: Oh yeah. I take the stairs—I don’t do the elevator.
CH: How many flights are we talking here?
MS: Well, my office is on the ninth floor. And I walk from the basement, so maybe it’s about 11 flights. Then when you take the stairs in the capital, that’s like four flights.
[Waitress arrives; Smith orders oysters and a cobb salad.]
CH: Do you cook at all?
MS: Oh yeah. I used to actually be the cook in my house. I grew up with five sisters and brothers. I used to cook breakfast for my mother and father in the morning. In the summertime, I do all the grilling. I guess my specialty is Italian food. I can cook a mean fra diavlo with clams and mussels and shrimp. I cook steak very well. That I will be very pretentious about, I can cook.
CH: Who’s a better cook: your wife, or you?
MS: I think she would say I’m a better cook. I don’t do it as much. Let me put it this way: I have more variety on the menu. I’m sure that she would say that.
CH: Are you and Joe Bruno pals? What’s he like?
CH: Yes, Joe and I are very good friends. He’s a very nice guy, he really is. In all candor, he’s 78 years old. He knows that I know that he’s not going to be in the institution long, but I have a tremendous respect for what the institution means to him. I’ve had candid conversations. “Look, we take the majority, I’ll be the new leader.” But I guarantee I will maintain the integrity of the institution that’s so near and dear to him. And I mean that. This institution is part of his soul. Like he’s the father of it. But we have a very good relationship. Sometimes it’s a father-son kind of thing. I refer to him on the floor sometimes—I’ll say that we’ve had our father-son discussion.
CH: Carl Kruger is a Democrat in the Senate, but he was just given a chair position, so obviously he’s looked upon favorably by Republicans. Does that affect your chances of taking the majority?
MS: Not at all. Carl’s a lifelong Democrat. He’ll always be a Democrat. The minute he switches, he loses his district. His district is like 80 percent Democrat.
CH: What are the odds of taking the majority?
MS: It’s a when. If it’s ’08, it’s 80 percent to 90 percent that we will be in the majority. And I say that because you look at demographics, you look at their members, you look at picking up the Andrew Stewart-Cousins seat—[Nicholas] Spano, who, lifelong Republican, got tons of money from Joe Bruno, spent tons of money in that race prior to election, the Craig Johnson race—always a Republic seat, gone. [Caesar] Trunzo’s seat will probably be the same. Maybe Kemp Hannon. And who knows what we’ll do in upstate New York. But the demographics in New York State have changed.
CH: Who’s number is up in the Republican party?
MS: I think Trunzo and [Serphin] Maltese.
CH: Some people have been critical about how openly you discuss taking Republican seats. When it hasn’t happened yet, it just makes you look like you’re all talk. How do you respond to that? Do you wish you’d held off?
MS: Wait and see. That’s all. There was a Harvard civic program that I was a part of on negotiations. And one of the things we talk about is the ZOPA: zone of potential agreement. And you bring people in the zone where you can move them.
CH: Are you having a good time as minority leader?
MS: I’m having the time of my life right now. I was a young man in Queens, grew up, managed that little business. Then I ran for the Senate. Now all of a sudden, here I am. I’m sitting down with Joe Bruno. President Clinton called me and asked me to fly with him. How good does it get when the 42nd president of the United States is being inducted into the voting rights hall of fame in Selma, Alabama and calls you up and says, “I want you to fly with me to witness this.”
CH: Did you have to check your calendar?
MS: Didn’t have to check my calendar. And two days before I’m trying to get a block association, you know, five dollars.
[Food arrives, and Smith blesses the table]
MS: That is something I do all the time.
CH: At every meal?
MS: Doesn’t matter if I’m sitting with the governor, the president.
CH: You’re a spiritual guy.
MS: Yes.
CH: What do you think of the mayor’s congestion pricing proposal?
MS: I support it, but you don’t want my plan. My plan is no trucks below 86th Street until 13th Street, between Second and Eighth Avenue between 6 a.m. and 6 p.m.
CH: So even as an outer borough legislator, you support congestion pricing?
MS: Well think about it. If you’re coming to the city, once you make it past the bridge you’re going to pay $4 anyway. And if you do that, according to the plan, you’re not getting charged the $8. When I was in business, I wouldn’t send my workers into the city except for certain times. You know how much time you lose going crosstown? That could use two or three hours when I’m paying somebody $35 or $40 an hour.
CH: You said you’re a religious guy who goes to church. Is it hard to reconcile your support of reproductive rights with your faith?
MS: No, because I don’t believe I have the right to take my personal beliefs and make that law. You have to do what’s right for people, and women have the right to choose. Far be it from me to try and tell a woman what to do with her body.
CH: What’s on your bedside table?
MS: People. I read Bill Clinton’s book. I read Obama’s book, “The Audacity of Faith.” I read a great book the other day called “The Carrot Principle.” It’s instructional, has a lot to do with management, about how you can get more out of your team by virtue of acknowledging what they do, how well they do it, versus the stick.
CH: Have you been to any movies recently?
MS: I used to try to go to the movies almost once a week. But I haven’t gone. I’m trying to think of the last movie I saw. Was it “Superman”? Oh, that’s what it was: “Déjà Vu.” That was with Denzel Washington. He was my roommate at Fordham.
CH: No.
MS: Yes!
CH: What was he like in college?
MS: He always used to play basketball, he was very fun. We were shocked when they told us he was going to act in “Othello.” That was his first one at Lincoln Center. I went to that one and we were blown away. Here’s this black guy, he’s going to act “Othello.” We were like, “Give me a break, he ain’t doing ‘Othello.’” He went down to Lincoln Center, we were like, “Oh my God.”
CH: Who do you hang out with when you’re up in Albany? Staffers? Fellow Democrats?
MS: I consciously try to do both.
CH: Who are you subconsciously gravitating to?
MS: David [Paterson]. David and I are good friends.
CH: People have said that you’re too much of a buddy with the Governor. How do you respond to that?
MS: I say, you know what? The Governor and I are close. I have no bones about it. He’s a friend of mine. What people don’t see is that when we disagree, I don’t fight him in the papers. The Governor and I disagree a lot. At the end of the day, if he makes an announcement about something and I know I moved him, I don’t stand up and go “I did it, I did it!”
Even with Joe Bruno. If you read everything about what happened with the pay raises, Joe Bruno was blasting me. What was my response? “Until we do campaign finance, we’re going to hold.” I didn’t go back and say, “You no good son-of-a-gun.” That’s not my style. When he told me I was too close to the Governor—remember, “You’re so far up the Governor’s butt you can’t see”? What did I say? “There’s room, come on up.” So that’s just my style. And some of you guys called: “Are you going to demand an apology?” I could have said, “Yes, I am.” But that would have been the story for the next three days.
CH: I heard a rumor that you supported Pataki for governor.
MS: No, I never did that. That was just a rumor.
CH: Why are people saying that?
MS: They were saying that when I was running for the minority seat—they were trying to say that I kept doing Republicans’ jobs. It was never true, I never did that.
CH: So it was a political calculation on their part.
MS: They were trying to pass a bad rumor. It just was never true. Even Pataki said, “Malcolm never supported me.” Where did that come from?
CH: Do wear a seatbelt?
MS: Yes. Honestly, I started doing that after what happened to Corzine. I would do it every now and then.
CH: Is this a common practice among elected officials?
MS: I think so. For me it was. Because it wrinkles your shirt, it wrinkles your tie, it gets across your neck sometimes. But I do now, no question about it.
CH: If we were going to make a movie about New York State government and the big transition under Eliot Spitzer, who would you cast?
MS: I think I would have I can’t remember his name—he’s married to, oh man, what’s his name? They adopted children.
CH: Brad Pitt?
MS: Brad Pitt. I’d have Brad Pitt play the Governor. I’d have Denzel play me. Joe Bruno would be Robert DeNiro.
CH: And then who plays Shelly?
MS: Shelly would be—I think Shelly would be, right now, at the age that he is, probably somebody like—no, actually, he would be Michael Douglas’s father.
CH: Kirk Douglas?
MS: That’s who he would be. Because you know, Kirk Douglas is like, “Ehh, I’ll figure it out later.”
