Don't Mess With Taylor

What is the job of a County Clerk? In Ulster County, it can mean managing DMV processes, preserving 300-year-old land records, and keeping the legal paper trail of everyday life in order. But earlier this year, that job landed one local official, Taylor Bruck, inside a national constitutional standoff.

Only a few months into his role as Acting County Clerk, Taylor received something unusual: a legal judgment from Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, asking him to accept and process it in New York. The judgment involved a New York doctor, telemedicine, abortion medication, and a question that reaches beyond healthcare: Can one state make another enforce its laws?

In this episode, I visit Taylor in his Kingston office to talk about how a routine administrative role quickly became a test case for New York’s brand-new shield law. We talk about constitutional boundaries, state identity, what it means to uphold local law in a national dispute, and how it felt to go from archivist to defendant in a case that could one day reach the Supreme Court.

Chapters

• 0:00 Meeting Taylor In Kingston
• 3:10 The Texas Judgment Lands In Ulster
• 6:55 Reading The Shield Law Line By Line
• 11:30 Risk, Support, And Safety Fears
• 16:35 Hitting Reject And The Media Storm
• 20:25 Texas Demands, Ulster Denies Again
• 23:20 Lawsuit Strategy And Clerk Duties
• 27:40 Kim Davis Contrast And Clerk Limits
• 31:20 States’ Rights Then And Now
• 35:40 Sojourner Truth And Local Precedent
• 39:20 Vintage Baseball And Shared Rules
• 43:00 A Constitution Baseball And Full Faith Clause

Transcript

James Cave: 0:02

Hello and welcome to the Jiffy, a podcast about upstate New York that really takes you places. And today, we're in the office of the county clerk for Ulster County. But that's not because I'm in trouble. It's because I wanted to meet with Taylor Brooke. I first heard about Taylor from my friend Dan Torres. Dan and Taylor co-founded the Kingston Guards vintage baseball team, which I featured in a previous episode. It's a really fun episode. Well, Taylor is Kingston's city historian, and as of this month, he's now officially the Ulster County clerk elect after winning his election. And what caught my attention wasn't just Taylor's winning the election or his devotion to local history. It was the situation he unexpectedly found himself in earlier this year. Okay, here's a little context. In 2024, a new polls-based doctor, Dr. Margaret Carpenter, prescribed abortion medication through telehealth to a patient in Collin County, Texas. It's fully legal here, but it's illegal under Texas law now. And so a Texas court entered a default judgment against Dr. Carpenter, ordering her to pay more than $100,000 in penalties. And Texas Attorney General Ken Paxson's office then tried to have that judgment filed in New York through the Ulster County clerk in an effort to make it enforceable here. And this is where Taylor comes in, because before any of that, he was Ulster County's archivist, caring for 300-year-old documents at Revolutionary War Records and other things, and his supervisor retired due to health concerns. So now Taylor is acting county clerk, and it was just months into this new role as acting county clerk, still learning the system, still thinking the DMV might be his biggest project, when Taylor's office received a notable filing from Paxton asking the Ulster County Clerk to accept and file the Texas judgment to be the first step toward making it valid here in New York. And that put Taylor in, in my view, a really interesting position, although he'd probably call it a stressful one, because suddenly he wasn't the county clerk, the public-facing keeper of records. He was the person who now had to make a pretty important decision. Do you accept a judgment from the Texas Attorney General, knowing that filing it is how a Texas judgment can start to carry legal weight here in New York? Or do you refuse, putting yourself in direct conflict with another state's attorney general? And layered into that is New York's new Shield Law. This passed after the Supreme Court overturned Roe vs. Wade. The Shield Law protects New York doctors from being targeted under other states' abortion laws. So now we've got a local county clerk, newly elected, standing at the crossroads between two states with opposing laws, navigating a question that isn't just administrative, it's constitutional, because it raises questions about can states force another state to enforce its laws? And it's a question that could eventually make its way to the Supreme Court. Now, I grew up in Texas, and when I was a kid, there was this slogan everywhere, don't mess with Texas. It started as an anti-littering campaign, but it quickly became something else. A kind of a cultural symbol of state swagger and pride. And so for Taylor's case, you know, I wanted to know what it feels like when Texas messes with you and how do you handle that? So I visited him at his office in Kingston to find out. So we're here. Thank you for being here. And I say thank you for being here, but we're in your office, actually, right in the city of Kingston. Absolutely. 244 Fair Street. Describe this place. Like what is what does this office look like to you and and uh describe how you're using it.

Taylor Bruck: 3:25

It looks it looks a little bit like a fishbowl, covered in windows. We've got some hotel curtains, but it's it's a nice corner office. Um, first time I've had windows in an office before. Uh all the furniture that's here came with the office. Most of everything you see in this office has been here for like almost a hundred years, just passed down from clerk to clerk. So it's it's very vintage, I would say. A lot of old dusty papers, some knickknacks, and maybe close to a thousand elephants. Um, all of the past county clerks for 97 years have been Republican and they've been collecting elephants.

James Cave: 4:03

So we have all those here with us, too. See, this elephant near you has a busted leg. Is that have anything? Did you have anything to do with that?

Taylor Bruck: 4:10

Uh inadvertently, maybe. Yeah. This is like our literal elephant in the room. It's a white elephant.

James Cave: 4:17

I've started my donkey collection. Yeah, that's good though. Those are those are good-looking donkeys. Very uh eclectic collection of donkeys. Okay, so let's talk about this thing that happened to you. Because something I'm thinking about looks like I grew up in Texas, and when I was growing up, I don't haven't been to Texas in a long time, so I don't know if it's still part of the marketing motto, but it's like, don't mess with Texas. It's like the whole slogan. And in this case, it sort of felt like Texas messes with you. So take me, so you are what is your role before you need to become the acting county clerk? What was your job title like and what were you doing at that point?

Taylor Bruck: 4:52

So I started as the county archivist, um, doing all of the historic management of the papers and our museum. We're the only clerk's office with a museum. So I started just doing all the history stuff, and then I moved up to deputy county clerk for records management and just managed all of the county's records. We have a separate facility with no windows with like 40,000 cubic feet of records that I managed. And um, I was basically second in line of succession. So when my predecessor Nina Poschepak had to resign for health reasons, I was next in line and sort of randomly became acting county clerk in August 2024.

James Cave: 5:36

So what did you think that your job was mostly gonna be like? Like you know, stepping into this role, obviously you couldn't have foreseen that something else would have happened.

Taylor Bruck: 5:45

You know, I knew it was going to be more public-facing records and archives, you know, you tend to just hide in the corner and organize things. But the county clerk runs DMV, so you deal with essentially everybody in the county at some point. So knew it was gonna be a lot more interaction with the public, um, a lot more management of staff. You know, you go from managing a staff of about 15 people to like almost 60. So knew it was gonna be a big lift, but that the the team here was really strong. So it was like, you know, we can kind of ease our way into it. I had been working for the clerk's office for eight years. Like I pretty much knew what had to be done, just had to learn all the technical stuff, and it was exciting, you know. It was like you gotta learn a lot of new laws and all these new forms, but pretty much the most boring parts of government, time to study, you know. That was the plan. Does clerking uh run in your family? It it does. Uh in fact, my what is he? My great-grand uh no great-granduncle? So my great-grandfather's youngest brother was county clerk, Al Spada. He's actually like the longest serving county clerk. He was the county clerk sometime in the 70s, late 70s, like until 2002 or something. But so are some of these elephants may be of his. A lot of them are his. Yeah, we we know that for a fact. But you know, I always just kind of knew like Uncle Al as the clerk. Like we weren't like super close growing up, like never had holidays or anything. I just always thought it was cool that like everyone knows Uncle Al and like he helps all these people. So it's like part of the reason I wanted to work in the clerk's office was like it's a cool thing that no one really knows what they do, but like I kind of did, just because it does run in my family.

James Cave: 7:39

So yeah, it does. And then so this is August, and then how how much time wasn't much time that passed by before you get this notification? Or like what what what is it that how does how are these things communicated? And what was that day like?

Taylor Bruck: 7:54

It can't it was less than six months, I think five months in, it came came through in March. Um, so like right when we're starting to get settled. Um, a lot of our legal documents are filed e-filing now. So they they come through electronically. I'm not the one that looks at them all because like we get hundreds of hundreds a day. But this this one was very strange. So Melinda, who you just walked by when you came in here, she's our judgment clerk. And it's rare to get a judgment from a different state regarding something like abortion medication, like it just doesn't happen. And so she came in, she'd printed it out, and was like, hey, we just got this weird judgment in. Um, do you want me to file it? And we immediately my chief deputy Andrew and I were like, I don't know. Give us some time. Let's let's see. This does seem like out of the ordinary, and then you know, we immediately start googling things, looking into it. Like, do we have to file this? Like that that's the first question we asked.

James Cave: 9:00

Was there anything that about it that felt like what about it felt so like sending off your senses and be and like raising your flags for them?

Taylor Bruck: 9:08

For a normal judgment, if you're filing it, if you're like a municipality or a state filing a judgment, you don't have to really say what it's for. That's like a separate legal filing. You can just say, like, this person needs to pay us $100,000. They said exactly what it was for in great detail. And so that was like red flag, like why. And it it almost seemed to me like they like they wanted us to know what it was about, and so that immediately like triggered something to look into it. And like it being Texas, um, you know, they don't do a lot of business in New York, they don't often like file lawsuits against like constituents of ours, pretty rare. So it stood out immediately, and then when we saw who was against the doctor, Dr. Carpenter, we knew instantly because like this had been a case in Texas maybe two years prior. So like it was in the news. Like as soon as we saw Dr. Carpenter's name, we were like, Jesus, they're like coming after her, like at home now. Like they they went after her in Texas, and now they're trying to file something here in New York. So immediately we were like, okay, messed up. Um, but do we legally have to file this? Because, you know, like as an elected official, you have to follow the laws. I mean, you should, right? So I was vaguely familiar at the time with the Shield Law. Like I remember that it it was a thing, but didn't really know no one really knew what it encompassed because it had never been tested before. So we just read the law, and it was it was really vague. It just said no government employee shall comply with an out-of-state proceeding, civil or criminal, for a healthcare-related service rendered that is legal in New York State. So we just went down the list. We were like, well, we are government employees, the healthcare service that was rendered is legal in New York State, and the judgment is part of a civil filing. So I'm not an attorney, but when I read that, I was like, okay, seems like we shouldn't file this. And then we started reaching out to attorneys, like, for opinions, and couldn't get one. Um really. Really? Were they just not answering the call or they were like, we don't want to touch this? They were like, they were either like, we don't know, because like it's again, it's never been tested, like there's no precedent, there's nothing we can point to and say, like, yeah, no, this'll cover it. Um, we contacted like the attorney general's office. We were like, hey, heads up, we just got this in. And they were straight up like, you're an independent office, you make the decision, whatever you feel is right, and uh like we're prepared to defend the shield law if necessary, but like we can't give you advice on this. And yeah, pretty much every attorney we talked to said that same thing. They were like, we can't give you legal advice on this because there's no precedent.

James Cave: 12:02

So you you read that shield law, just you weren't using any notes, you just recited it from memory. You must have read that over how many times.

Taylor Bruck: 12:11

No, I read it like for a week straight, like almost so like when we received it, we received the judgment, say on a Wednesday, like we didn't reject it until the next Wednesday. And just like fine-tooth comb, just like read it over and over, and we're like, Are we missing something? Like, are we are like it's so broad but so clear in this instance that it should apply. Um, but it just felt weird, like when you talk to like attorneys and stuff, and they're like, We don't know. And we're like, Well, did you read it? Like, it's just says I shouldn't comply. Like, that's how I read it, and they were like, It could be read that way, but you like you never know. So, like, yeah, I read it a lot. And um, yeah, it actually made it easier, like not having any any outside recommendation or anything. Everyone just said, do what you feel is right. I was like, Okay, easy enough. Rejected. We'll figure it out later, right?

James Cave: 13:00

Did they talk to you at all about what might happen? Should you make one decision or the other? Like, would there be support for you from from them?

Taylor Bruck: 13:08

Like, I mean, knowing that they at least the attorney general's office was prepared to defend the shield law, because like that was something I was really concerned about. Was like, I don't want to put the state in a bad position that could then have precedent for shield laws nationwide. Like, I don't want to destroy like abortion rights for people in red states nationwide by making like a stupid rash decision here. So just having them tell me, like, we're good to defend the shield law if it gets to that constitutionality question, it was like, say no more. Great, we'll take care of it from our end. And knowing that like they would have our back if necessary was really important. The things that could happen, that's really all the attorney general's office said. But other attorneys were like, you will probably get sued by Texas. And then my question was always, well, if I accept this, could I be sued by Dr. Carpenter's attorneys for not adhering to the SHIELD law? Because if I was her attorneys, I would sue me for sure. I would say, look, re- I when I read the law, this clerk should not have filed this. And you know, no one was really able to answer that. They were like, I guess they could, but I don't know that they would. And I'm like, well, I'm not willing to take that risk. Uh like I'm not gonna throw my constituent under the bus and hope that like she doesn't sue me to make Texas happy. Like those were my decisions. Like, potentially get sued by my constituent or almost certainly get sued by Texas. And like that's not a hard decision for me to make. So at the end of the day, it was easy. Did you think about all the people that might be mad about what you're gonna do, like what you were about to do? Yeah, like the death threats concerned me for sure. It was it was at around the same time where like some lawmakers, was it in Wisconsin that were killed by like a pro-lifer? And yeah, immediately it was like you you are probably upsetting like some of like the more unhinged people nationwide. Like that scares me a lot. Like my wife was pregnant, like we're about to have our first like kid. So it was like, do I I mean it was never a question like do I still want to do it? It was just like we we should prepare for that. Did you talk to your wife about it at home? Like, how did you guys go about those discussions? No, I definitely talked to her about it. I was like, hey, heads up, this this thing came through. I think it might be kind of a big deal. But you know, my wife is great. She was like, Oh, well, don't file that. She's like, Yeah, whatever, like we'll deal with it. I was like, Well, you w my wife's a blackmail, she's like, All right, you know, let them come, right? She's yeah. So like it was funny. We we laughed about it and just kind of crossed our fingers and was like, all right, I hope I hope people understand that at the end of the day the decision was a decision based on a statute that like we're we are literally following the law, you know. As Ken Paxton said, called me a radical abortionist trying to kill as many babies as possible. Like that's insane. Like, we are really just following the law in this case. Like, fortunate that the law existed. Um, but we we still still to this day just hope that like you know no one takes any very rash decisions about what we did.

James Cave: 16:21

Okay, so take us to that moment, right? You've decided this is now a week has gone by, it's the following Wednesday, and you've got to send a response. What does that moment feel like to you? And also what how does it what's the process for doing that? Like, how do you what is the even the you said it's e-filing? Like, how do you even do that?

Taylor Bruck: 16:36

It's so boring. Uh like when it comes through, there's there's two buttons except or reject. You just hit the reject button and then you have to put a reason in. So we we put in pursuant to the shield law and just hit the button, and then kind of sat back and looked around. We're like, okay. Uh and then like Texas called us immediately, and they were like, Well, why was this rejected? We're like, Well, it's on the rejection paperwork, it says it right there. It's like because of the shield law. And they were like, What's that? And like, I still don't know if I believe them with that question. I'm like, You didn't know that this existed, but maybe just the staffer that called didn't know. But yeah, then we just kind of sat back, we had a press release ready to go. We were like, We're gonna send the press release out at the same time. Um, we kind of talked to our local elected officials to just give them a heads up, like, hey, you're probably gonna get a phone call about this. So just be prepared. And then, like, within 15 minutes, the phone just starts blowing up with press calls and emails and like AP, New York Times, like everyone just reaches out for for more information. Yeah, so we just kind of took took phone calls the rest of that day.

James Cave: 17:44

When that when when like the deluge of attention started coming in, that must have felt overwhelming. I mean, did were you ready and prepared to talk to so many media outlets and come up with I guess what are you coming up with? Sound bites? Are you sort of learning on the fly? Like, what is that like for you?

Taylor Bruck: 17:59

Yeah, I mean, I've never had media training or anything. Um I th I would say we were prepared. Like we were intentionally prepared. We were like, we know we're gonna get these calls, like we know that this is a big deal, so like we're gonna have the press release ready. Um, but it almost felt like a lot of the journalists that we talked to like didn't believe me because there was like there's no precedent on this. So when they're asking these certain things, and I'm like, I don't know. They're like, really? Like, what what did the attorney general's office say? And I'm like, they told me do whatever. They're like, there's no way. I'm like, I swear to god, like I'm not making it up. Like, that is I'm I'm not lying to you. This is literally what happened. There's just there was not very much information to give out. It was like, look, they it came in, we rejected it based on the shield law, and we'll see where it goes from here. Like, I there's not much else to to say. And like, because I'm probably going to be an active litigant, like, like, you know, I can't say all the political things about how abortion should be a right and this and that. Like, I can't say any of that. So there wasn't much to say to them. Like, I almost felt bad about it. I was like, I feel like you wanted to give them something more. I mean, maybe not wanted to, but like, yeah, you you could tell that like they wanted more, and it was like there's just not more. Like, there will be more as that things proceed, and we'll see what the judge says. But as of right now, like this is the precedent-setting thing. How is it gonna turn out? I don't know.

James Cave: 19:27

We'll see. Yeah, that wasn't quite the end of the story, was it? I mean, Paxton gave you a chance to change your mind, come back around, right? What what did he what was the response?

Taylor Bruck: 19:38

It was very nice of him. Um well, I I guess it wasn't very nice of him. They they basically sent another they sent like an email like two months later or something, just demanding that we file it. Which I didn't react very well to, frankly, in hindsight. Like, I don't like when people demand that I do things, especially in like other states. I'm like, you have no jurisdiction here. Like you can't you can ask politely, and then I can deny politely. But if you demand, like absolutely not. So we we rejected it again and like a little more sternly this time, told him, like, you know, you've been told once, I don't know how it works in Texas, but here, like, it was denied, it's always gonna be denied. You can send it a hundred times, we're not accepting it. And then we and then we expected the lawsuit after that. But it that was strange, like we don't get that with other filings where we reject them and then someone comes back and says, No, we demand that you do. Like, that's not how any of this works. Imagine if you could do that, just bully elected officials, and I guess sometimes you can, but yeah, no, not here. That was frustrating.

James Cave: 20:46

Okay, so where where does that leave us in this story, right? Because you've rejected him twice, uh, the lawsuit is on its way. What is New York doing with you? Like, I'm thinking of in terms of like governmental support or encouragement or what's happening on the back end for you there.

Taylor Bruck: 21:06

I will say, like, right after we rejected it, there was like a huge outpouring of support. Like Tish James and the governor, Hokel, like released statements immediately in support of what we did. All of our congressmen, assembly people, like they all released um statements to the press when the press reached out that were super supportive. And that's kind of where it led. Like, in terms of like legal support or anything, it was more just like wait and see until the the lawsuit came in. So, like where that leaves us off, eventually the lawsuit comes in. Um eventually like we get served, like Brook v Texas, and you know, it it lists that I didn't do my job essentially, that you know, this came through in a regular filing format. It met all the criteria, and I should have filed it. And that that's when like we started really the the legal fight. I guess it started a couple months before that. I I had retained an attorney, uh Andy Chelley, who's been great, and he had everything just ready to go. He was like, I'm pretty confident I know um what they're gonna try to do. It's called an article 78. They're gonna say that like you just didn't adhere to like your oath and your job responsibilities, and we just cite the shield law and say, nope, the shield law says here that you're not supposed to file it, and uh we let the judge figure it out from there. So like our attorneys were ready to go as soon as the the court case came in, and um yeah, then then they kind of just went back and forth in legal filings for a couple weeks, which is weird because all the legal filings come through my office.

James Cave: 22:49

So like my staff has is like pulling them in. I mean it's interesting that the argument would be that you are weren't doing your job, like a dereliction of your duty, which which is to uh represent your constituents, which I think in this case I would say you you did that for sure. When when another recent example, um I was doing like trying to think, has something like this happened in the county clerk universe where a state you know, where a county clerk is up against some sort of constitutional question. And it and I was I guess I was surprised to realize that Kim Davis was a county clerk as well in Kentucky. But this is an example where she was acting, refusing to do her job based on her personal beliefs, right? So to me the the argument would apply to her rather than you in this case. But do you want to can you talk a little bit about the Kim Davis thing as it as you see it? Because I'm really curious to hear what you think about that.

Taylor Bruck: 23:41

Yeah. So uh I mean if I'm remembering correctly, Kim Davis was a county cleric, like in Kentucky, who refused to file the same-sex marriage licenses and was sued for like, you know, civil rights infringement of a couple that had a legal right to be married. So like in her case, she was like intentionally breaking the law because of her personal religious beliefs. She even said that, like, that was her argument. Like, no, my religion. Where like in my case, I feel like I was just following the law as was written. Like, if the shield law didn't exist, then like me and Kim Davis would kind of be like these rogue clerks that like decided not to do things. But like it's just insane. Like, I we we get every criminal and civil filing in the county through our office. Like, imagine if I was like, Oh, well, I think drunk driving's cool, like I'm not filing any of those. Like, you just can't decide to do that. There are things that if they meet the legal like requirements, if they have the correct names and dates and everything, you just have to file them. Even if you know that like the case itself is BS, like that's not our job. And that that was something that was complicated about this case. And you know, other county clerks statewide were like, I don't know, is this really something that the clerks are supposed to do? Like, we don't generally read the content of a case and then make a decision based on the content. Like, we make sure that all the technical details are correct. And I was like, Well, then the shield law needs to be more clear about that, because as it's written right now, it just says we are not to comply with it if it's about this thing. We happen to read it, we learned it was about this thing. And so that's an argument that we can make to like the state legislature down the road, but right now it does not seem like um I'm breaking the law by refusing to do this. And so that was our that was our take. But it did, you know, it would there's certainly county clerks statewide that did not agree with that.

James Cave: 25:40

I mean, it brings up the question that I also would love to explore with you about this history of like federal oversight, federal involvement in states' affairs, and this question of states' rights and the the sort of shifting meaning behind that. That's a very heavy phrase in US history, right? I mean, you're also historian. You are you still the city historian of things? Yeah, I am. So t tell me about states' rights as you see it, I think now, because I don't know if you have a different view on the whole thing, now having gone through this process.

Taylor Bruck: 26:13

I think there like my views on states' rights are just constantly evolving now more than ever. But it's ironic to be making the states' rights argument against the state of Texas, right? Because the the federal government throughout this whole thing is largely just like stayed out of it. So, like at the very beginning, when Texas filed the judgment against us, there was like a Mifepristone that the abortion drug. There was a Miphipristone case that was about to go in front of the Supreme Court to see like whether or not this should be banned federally. During this case with me in Texas, like the Trump administration said, drop it. Like, we're not fighting this at the federal level. So it's legal federally, and like that's where it became a state's rights thing, where generally I am a proponent of a strong central government. I think a strong central government avoids things exactly like this, especially in the digital era where you have things like telehealth. Like if you have states with contradictory laws and people can just still communicate like instantly between you're you're bound to have contradictions. So, like if you want something to be banned, especially like a medication or something, do it at the federal level. If it's not banned at the federal level, to me, it's a little wild for states to just be able to ban the it doesn't work. New York tried this with fireworks. It's like, okay, everyone's just gonna go to Pennsylvania and get their fireworks and come back. Like it doesn't really work. It's really easy to just get things from other states if if you want this.

James Cave: 27:46

Well, it goes back to like states' rights being used by basically southern states to protect the institution of slavery, too. So that's why I feel like this question is so interesting in in the way that uh I guess is it an ideology? Is it a theory about a states' rights can shift based on any number of factors? It is a little more complicated.

Taylor Bruck: 28:08

And you can see with things like the shield law now, how like when you have like states that have laws that like a huge portion of your state disagrees with, that like states' rights are really important sometimes now because they can shield you from these other laws. There's actually in Ulster County, like one of the more famous maybe slavery-related states' rights cases happened two blocks away at the courthouse with Sojourner Truth and her son, where like at the time slavery was illegal in New York State, but legal in other states. And New York had a law that said you cannot you cannot sell an enslaved person to another state. And Sojourner Truth's son gets sold to someone in Alabama, and Sojourner Truth knows that this law exists, goes to the courthouse and says, Hey, my son was just sold to Alabama. That's supposed to be illegal because he's supposed to be free when he gets 18. This was at that weird period right after they had abolished slavery, but not really. They're like slavery is abolished once everyone's 18. So like her son is still a little boy, and she knows about this law, and that that's like a huge states' rights fight at the time. And she wins, like famously, the first enslaved woman to win a case against a white man. So like Kingston Ulster County has had states' rights cases like this before where we feel there's injustices being done in other states, and uh thankfully for a number of years, the the laws in New York State have um have kind of been on the constituent side. So we hope that that that continues.

James Cave: 29:47

I have to do a callback to previous episode uh in the podcast feed because it's about the Kingston Guards and the Ulster Nine and Vintage Baseball, of which you're a co founder. Now it's a league, right? You're a co founder. So you have this history's been a part of your life for like you you you're really into the history thing, right?

Taylor Bruck: 30:05

Oh yeah, for sure. My mom used to be she used to work at the Senate House State Historic Site where the first New York State Senate met. So and she was like single mom. And at the end of school every day, like I would go to work with her for two hours and she'd show me like what she's working on and what documents she's transcribing. And yeah, I've always thought this stuff is so cool. Um it's just like in my blood.

James Cave: 30:26

So then Dan comes back from seeing vintage baseball being played, and he's like, Taylor, I have got this idea.

Taylor Bruck: 30:33

Yeah, he's like, why don't we start a vintage baseball team? And you know, I'm kind of a yes man. I'm like, sounds great. Like, let's do it, let's dive right in. So yeah, we've basically studied up on the rules, learned the rules, got contacts for the woman who makes the uniform and the there's like a national league, um, vintage baseball association, and we just kind of randomly started this team. And it got off to a rocky start, too. Like, not a good start. We very much underestimated uh this whole league. I'll never forget our first game. The team that we played showed up, they saw our field and they said, Man, this is Bush League. And we were like, oh, we thought that this was like below Bush League, like we thought this was like a novelty, like jokey thing. They were like, Man, we play baseball. Like, no, we play. So we were like, oh, we have to like recalibrate what we were expecting. So it's taken a few years, but now we're like a pretty competitive team. Um, and uh we we vibe with the other teams more now, I think.

James Cave: 31:35

So what about baseball? Specifically, like the history of baseball in the US and vintage baseball. Like, what does it tell you about things to preserve and and sort of like what what you do in your in your day-to-day life here as a as a county clerk, a not a non-acting, an elect, right?

Taylor Bruck: 31:54

Yeah, it must be said. County clerk elect now. Man, I think baseball, sports in general, but baseball because it's it goes back so far nationally and the era that we play, the 1860s, like through the Civil War, the baseball was in a lot of ways like the great equalizer. Like there this was a thing that like, you know, we're we're fighting over slavery nationally, and like at the end of like the battle one day, you can all take the diamond with black players, confederates, like anybody. And it quite literally like levels the playing field and like it puts everyone on the same same terms. That's like the the beauty of sports, you're all playing by the same rules. That's like something you don't get in any other aspect of life. And it's a really beautiful thing, like in this moment of turmoil and strife through throughout the Civil War, and the soldiers need it too. It's it's a morale booster, but you just like hate people less after like competing against them in sports. I always said, I'm like, if I go if I went down to Texas and like played baseball with Ken Baxton and like his staff, we'd all shake hands and grab beer at the end and be like, Hey, you know what? Good fight, you know, keep it up. When you just like jar in the press and are just like throwing nasty words back and forth, like that's when things get out of hand. Like rhetoric really drives people to insanity, it seems. It gets really nasty. And there's just it's like playing sports with people and against people is like breaking bread in a way. Because you can like take that aggression out in like such a compact and measured way that at the end of it you just like feel better about the other person. Like healthy rivalry is good, I think. And I think this part of the reason it became America's pastime. Uh, you get like New York versus Boston and Philadelphia and these places all trying to now be the best, not just in sports, but like be the best city, be the best at everything. And like it's kind of fun. It's it's I I I love competition. I think competition is like generally good. So that's part of the reason I love sports.

James Cave: 34:01

Okay, now describe this object that you have sitting in the chair next to you. Um, right there.

Taylor Bruck: 34:07

Oh, my baseball? Yeah. This is my constitution baseball that I got from Washington, D.C. It's basically uh it's a baseball with a bit of the constitution on it. It's got the big we the people, you know, July 4th, 1776, John Hancock's nice big signature on it. And it's kind of like my my fidget toy. Like my hands always have to be doing something, like when I'm checking emails and stuff, so I just toss this back and forth. But I've been, you know, had it for years, and I never thought it would be like relevant because there is a constitutionality question to like the shield law itself that I think in down the road here we'll probably get to because the the constitution does say that you have to abide by other states' laws if you're in your state, the full faith and credit clause. So like I can't go murder someone in another state and then come back to New York and say, nope, I'm I'm in New York now, you can't get me. So whether or not shield laws are constitutional, that's the big question in this entire case. And that's why it might be a bigger deal than just like protecting our constituent and like making sure that she doesn't have to pay a hundred thousand dollar fee. Like, this may very well end up in the Supreme Court with them deciding whether or not Shield laws can exist nationwide because it they haven't been tested anywhere. So we'll see.

James Cave: 35:31

So this baseball is essentially you in all of your uh all of your aspects. You've got the baseball, the constitutional crisis, um, the history, the archives.

Taylor Bruck: 35:43

I mean, yeah, I mean in in a lot of ways it I was drawn to it at the time. And yeah, you saw something. He probably could like dilute my entire persona into this one thing, which is is I've never thought of it that way. That's pretty funny.

James Cave: 36:00

What are you looking for it now that you're here, you got 2026 coming up? Like, what's on your mind?

Taylor Bruck: 36:05

Man, 250. Next year's the 250th anniversary of the Revolutionary War. And I was made chair of Ulster County's Rev 250 committee maybe like four years ago now, by Pat Ryan when I was still an archivist. So we've been planning it for a while. Like, how do you celebrate or commemorate the past 250 years? What kind of questions do you like you want to ask? Um, and yeah, it's becoming more and more difficult to question. We're getting guidance from the federal government telling us things like you can't talk about slavery, don't talk about anything that makes America seem bad. But like that's just not how you do history, you know? Like you have to talk about the good and the bad so that you don't repeat the bad. The only reason you would not want to talk about the bad is if you're trying to repeat the bad. So I've got some radical things planned that I'm getting some pushback on, some, you know, tarring and feathering workshops or I get tarred and feathered and explain why political violence is something that has never gone away, not something that we should um we shouldn't be striving for it. But it's not new. Like what's happening, unfortunately, not new, always but always been here. But I'm hopeful, like I have to remain optimistic that next year, the 250th, will be a good opportunity to remind folks like why our founding documents are important, why the founding fathers, flawed as they were, like putting these ideas onto paper, especially the Bill of Rights, just like really basic things that like we never even used to really fight about, like these rights that we find unalienable, they're now like very much under attack. And uh so I'm sort of excited. It's nice when you have political beliefs and the history on your side to back it up, and like next year we really get to show that the history has always been on our side and that we have a long way to go to like get to where the country was supposed to be. We've been going in that direction, you know, a couple steps forward, a couple steps back. But next year we're gonna really hammer home like why America, if it if you don't believe America is exceptional, I'm going to try to convince you that it is. By tarring and feathering yourself. Exactly. And like, and then you get to why they were doing it, right? Like why you don't want a king, why being governed by your peers is good. Like why having people from all over the world have a place that they can all go live together and govern themselves is special. Like that's what makes America unique and special is that no one knew if it would work. No one knew if you can bring people from all different religions, all different backgrounds, and just put them in one place and say, okay, figure it out, guys. Govern yourself, vote for who you think is the best. Like that's why New York City's great. Like, that's why America is America. And like we're totally going this weirdo way where it's like, no, no, no, we're like immigrants are now bad. What do you want to be? Like, what do you think America was supposed to be? Like this is America. The next year's, the next two years really are like a huge opportunity to remind people that that is the American experiment, for better or worse. But like in my opinion, it's been like a resounding success in like so many ways. But we shouldn't forget about how it has not been successful, too, and we're remind folks of that so that we don't repeat it. But that's what makes history fun, is like you can always bring it back to the present day. And it's hard to talk about history without looking into the future. And that's what we always try to like teach students too. You're part of this. Like you're not just learning about history, you're using that as a reference for how you're going to go forward now as an American. And that's something exciting for me.

James Cave: 40:01

Okay, before we go, um, I just want to ask, going back, I want to go back to Kin Paxton really quickly because I stopped doing research because I didn't want to spoil the ending. And I wanted to hear it from you directly. Where are we now? Like what where what is as of today, uh November 12th.

Taylor Bruck: 40:18

What is it? I don't know.

James Cave: 40:19

November 13th. Okay, as of November 13th, what where do we stand? What is happening?

Taylor Bruck: 40:24

As of today, case dismissed, we won. The the ruling came out on Halloween, and it basically confirmed what we believed. The the judge's ruling said I I do have a responsibility to file things that meet the filing requirements, unless specifically uh stated by law that I shouldn't. And in this case, there is a law that specifically says I shouldn't. So the judge said, Yep, based on the SHIELD law, he shouldn't have filed this. There's nothing that that the clerk did that seemed unlawful. Case dismissed. So Texas has 30 days to appeal. We're now, what, 15 days into that? So countdown's on. We we I'm I'm sort of expecting them to appeal, but they haven't yet. So as of today, we won. And we'll see where where it goes from here.

James Cave: 41:21

Now, while I was editing this episode this week, we had a bit of a late breaking update, so I called Taylor up to see what happened.

Taylor Bruck: 41:27

Hey James, how are you?

James Cave: 41:29

I'm alright. I'm recording this. Is that okay? Absolutely. I heard that there's an update. There's been an update. What happened?

Taylor Bruck: 41:37

There has been an update. Um Texas predictably appealed. They they filed a really brief appeal. They they didn't make any additional arguments or anything. They just said they are appealing the decision. And uh so my understanding is now it goes to appellate court and they'll decide whether or not to hear the case at all. And if they decide to, then it'll get assigned to a different appellate court judge and uh we'll continue the process.

James Cave: 42:09

Do you know how long this process typically would take? Like what are you expecting over there?

Taylor Bruck: 42:14

I have no idea how long this process typically takes. Um I I know that for a typical Article 78, which is what they filed against me, there is a pretty strict turnaround. I think it's uh 90 days. So um, unlike some cases that can kind of hang out in court for years um because they're trying to compel a government official to like do their job, um, I think it'll go quicker. But um probably a couple months now, we we sit back and wait and see what happens. I don't know. I'm learning, James.

James Cave: 42:51

Have you heard have you heard from anyone about like odds or what people are anticipating, or is this totally new ground?

Taylor Bruck: 42:58

Well, given that they haven't made a new argument, um we feel the odds are the same as they were going in, you know? They're the law is pretty clear that uh there's a law saying that I should not have complied with this. If they had made the constitutional argument, then it's a whole different case, and you're arguing about whether or not the Shield law is constitutional, but they they still have not made that argument. So um I feel my odds are very good, as good as they were going into the first hearing.

James Cave: 43:28

Okay, well, thanks for keeping us posted, Taylor.

Taylor Bruck: 43:31

Oh, no problem, James. I'll I'll let you know when uh when it goes on to the next court.

James Cave: 43:36

Yeah, we'll be following along. Okay, that does it for this episode of the Jaffee. I want to thank Taylor for his time and Dan Torres for making the introduction. If you got something out of this episode or thought it was interesting, I'd be honored if you told a friend. Word of mouth really helps this podcast grow. Well, thanks as always for listening all the way to the end. Until next time, I'll see you over on the James Cage Instagram feed.