By Sarah Hall
Editor
John Katko is ready to get back to work.
Katko (R-Camillus) was reelected as the Congressional representative to the 24th District in November. As the 115th Congress prepares for session this coming January, he has several priorities he’d like to see accomplished.
“I’m excited about several things,” he said. “I think we had a great start [last term] with infrastructure investment. That’s a good start, [but] I think we could do more…. I think comprehensive tax reform is coming…. [Interstate] 81 and the heroin synthetic drug epidemic and tourism are the others…. they’re all high priorities for me.”
Katko spoke to Eagle Newspapers last week about several issues he expects to address in the next term, from the proposed repeal of Obamacare to working with President-Elect Donald Trump.
On repealing Obamacare
One of the first issues Katko expects to address is the long-discussed repeal of the Affordable Care Act, also known as Obamacare.
“I think they’re going to try and take advantage of the first 100 days and get some momentum and get some key things done,” he said. “Obamacare is starting to really collapse under its own weight. More insurance carriers are pulling out of the market like Aetna already did. We’re going to have to do something. How exactly we do, it I don’t know.”
Katko said any new program will be market-based.
“It’s going to be incentivizing people to get insurance through tax credits and open up competition across state lines,” he said.
Katko has said he won’t vote in favor of a repeal unless his fellow Republicans have a proposal in place to replace it. He said that’s still true.
“No one’s going to go back to the time where you don’t have insurance,” he said. “I will never support anything that says, ‘Tough luck, you’re out of insurance now.’ It’s not going to happen.”
On border security
Katko has long been an advocate of securing the country’s northern border; a bill he introduced, the Northern Border Security Review Act, which would require the Department of Homeland Security to conduct a threat analysis to determine whether the U.S.-Canada border is being properly secured, recently went to President Barack Obama for his signature.
But he also said we need better security along the southern border, not only to prevent illegal immigration but to prevent the flow of drugs from Mexico and South America into the U.S.
“I think the heroin that’s killing our children is all across the southern border,” he said. “We’ve got to fix that, and fix it once and for all.”
Katko said he hoped that Trump understood the gravity of the situation.
“I hope he dispenses with the rhetoric and gets down to brass tacks,” he said. “You can’t block whole classes of people from coming into this country. That can’t and won’t be. It’s unconstitutional. I think he knows that. But I think we also have to recognize the fact that brass tacks are we’ve got to secure our border.”
The congressman asserted that the border needs to be secured both electronically and physically, particularly in high-population areas. He said attempts have been made in the past but gained little traction.
“But I have a feeling it might get a little more legs this time,” Katko said.
On the Russian election hack
As a member of the House Homeland Security Committee, Katko said there will be a full investigation into the allegations that the Russians orchestrated the hacking of Democratic Party organizations to help Trump win the election.
“In Homeland Security, we have a very big cyber security presence… and there’s no question that we look into any and all hacks,” he said.
Katko noted that the country has a history of cyber-vulnerability, pointing to North Korea’s hack on Sony Pictures in 2014.
“We are vulnerable as a nation through cyber attacks and that is a huge and growing concern and we’ve got to take it seriously,” he said.
But Katko demurred from saying the results of any investigation would have any impact on the outcome of the election.
“Think about it, there is not a single person saying anything that the actual results were tampered with. They’re saying that they may have influenced the election or people’s thoughts on the election by some of these documents that came out from Wikileaks,” he said. “So this is more of a discussion of, did the Russians try to do it? Did they try to undermine the faith in the process and if so how do we stop it going forward? Those are the questions.”
And while others have questioned Trump’s somewhat chummy relationship with Russia and its controversial leader, Vladimir Putin, Katko said it could be a good thing.
“My initial reaction is to take it back to how our current relations are with Russia, and they’re quite frankly down the toilet,” he said. “I think part of that problem is that they neither fear us nor respect us. So our relationship couldn’t be any worse right now, so taking a different tack might not be a bad thing.”
On Syria and American foreign policy
Katko linked our poor relationship with Russia with the situation in Aleppo, Syria, which fell to pro-government forces last week, worsening the humanitarian crisis in the ancient city.
“We’ve made overtures for humanitarian efforts, but they’ve been rebuffed. And who rebuffed them? Russia,” he said. “The humanitarian efforts are basically saying, ‘Look, Aleppo is going to fall, can you at least hold on and let the civilians get out of there so they don’t get killed in the crossfire?’ And Russia basically said [no].”
Katko said Obama’s “weak” foreign policy is partly to blame for that.
“They’re not afraid of Obama’s administration, and that’s not a good thing,” he said. “I don’t think it’s any accident that they are stepping up their attacks on Aleppo to clear it out before Trump gets into office, because they don’t want to risk Trump taking a different tack.”
He believes Trump’s foreign policy will look very different, “just by simply Trump being Trump.”
“The bad guys respect two things, strength and unpredictability. And if they can’t predict what Trump is going to do with any reasonable degree of certainty, they may not take the liberties that they’ve taken in the past,” he said. “They’ll be a little bit more cautious.”
That unpredictability can be a little unnerving at times, Katko admitted, particularly when he takes to the internet.
“Yeah, he should be put in Twitter time out, for now,” he said. “Just say, ‘You can’t tweet anymore.’”
On Trump and business
Never having had a business mogul for president before, the U.S. is entering into uncharted territory. Trump has business interests worldwide. How can he guarantee there will be no conflicts of interests when he’s Commander in Chief? What level of divestment would be satisfactory? According to Katko, the more the better.
“I heard him say things like, ‘I don’t care about anything else right now, I care more about the presidency,’” he said. “I also heard him say that they’re not going to work on any new deals during his presidency. That gives me great comfort because, if you’re not working new deals you can only influence so much.”
Katko pointed to Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe, former businessman and Syracuse native.
“He divested all of his business interests when he became governor,” he said. “He put them into a blind trust. And that’d be a good thing for [Trump] to do.”
On Trump’s cabinet picks
Those on the other side of the aisle, in particular, have questioned the president-elect’s choices for his cabinet, noting their lack of experience in the fields for which they’ve been chosen. But Katko said he’s impressed by the picks.
“Whether you agree or disagree with his cabinet picks, you can’t deny the fact that these people that he’s picked are highly educated, successful in their fields of endeavor, and whether they’re right fit for the right positions [is something] you can argue,” he said. “He’s not picking rejects of ‘The Apprentice’ either. He’s actually taking a reasoned approach and that gives me some cause for being a little more optimistic.”
While some of those statements may make Katko sound like he’s firmly in Trump’s camp — which may come as a surprise to those who heard him denounce the president-elect’s derogatory remarks regarding women on the campaign trail — Katko said he’s not necessarily on the Trump train yet.
“I didn’t support Trump during the campaign. But when he came into office, it’s time to support him — he’s our president,” he said. “Whoever is in that office, you respect the office and you try and make it work. You can bark all you want before and during the election, but when it’s time to sit down and work, I think it’s time to sit down and work.”
Katko said that sometimes means putting personal feelings aside.
“He is president, and as a country we need to rally around him, whether we like him or not, whether he’s personally revolting to people or not,” he said. “You’ve got to try and make it work.”
That said. Katko emphasized that he would still look out for the people of the 24th district, regardless of party politics.
“I’m certainly not going to sit there and go, ‘Oh, my gosh, he’s president, so I’ll do everything he says,’” Katko said. “If it’s good with constituents and I feel it’s the right thing to do, I’ll do it. If not, then I won’t support him on certain issues.”
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Do Trump’s business connections violate the Constitution?
President-Elect Donald Trump has business dealings worldwide, and his ventures are regularly in contact with foreign governments and government entities. Trump himself profits from those ventures.
But the Constitution — specifically Article I, Section 9, Clause 8, or the Foreign Emoluments Clause — expressly states the following: “… No person holding any office of profit or trust under them, shall, without the consent of the Congress, accept of any present, emolument, office, or title, of any kind whatever, from any king, prince, or foreign state.” The clause is meant to prevent any officeholder from accepting gifts from foreign governments.
Trump has agreed to turn the reins of his company over to his sons and to limit his discussions of the business while in office. But is that enough to eliminate conflicts of interest?
According to Rep. John Katko, Trump’s best option would be to put the business into a blind trust, a financial arrangement in which a person in public office gives the administration of private business interests to an independent trust. In a blind trust, the owner doesn’t know how the assets are managed.
“I think that if he divests himself and puts in a blind trust, he’ll be OK,” Katko said.
If Trump does not divest himself from his business, we enter into murky territory, constitutionally speaking, according to Dr. Tara Helfman, associate professor of law at Syracuse University’s College of Law and a member of the Federalist Society, a group of constitutional scholars.
“The Emoluments Clause explicitly prohibits federal officials from receiving gifts or emoluments (payments) from any foreign sovereign without the consent of Congress,” Helfman said in an email. “It doesn’t go any further than that. A handful of constitutional scholars argue that the clause doesn’t even apply to the President. But assuming that it does, handing the reins of the Trump Organization over to his children won’t resolve all of Trump’s apparent conflicts under it.”
Helfman pointed out that Trump continues to profit even if his children run the business.
“Let’s say that the Trump Organization does business abroad with enterprises in which members of foreign royal families are members,” she said. “There, the exchange of money between the two companies might be seen to benefit the president — at least as the indirect beneficiary of a company run by his children and in which he has a strong interest. But even there, we’re stretching the text of the clause to encompass indirect benefits as opposed to direct payments.”
She noted that even if the Emoluments issues is resolved, Trump will still have many other bridges to cross.
“None of this is to say that Trump isn’t going to run into serious conflicts-of-interests issues,” Helfman said. “It is to say that the Emoluments Clause probably won’t be the biggest of his problems on that front.”
If the president-elect doesn’t divest himself from his business, Katko said he wasn’t sure what action he’d be compelled to take, as a member of Congress.
“I don’t know if it’s impeachable or not, but that would be of real concern,” he said. “It’d be charting new territory there, so I don’t know exactly. It’d definitely be a cause for concern with me for sure.”
