By: Gary Tilzer
Will Rank Choice Voting Confusion Give the Opportunity to Lobbyists to Fully Control the City Council?
Even the old pros of NYC politics have no idea who will win most of the city council races. That is because almost every race will have multi candidate fields (Some have as much as 10 candidates) which will be determined by the new untested and unpredictable Rank Choice Voting (RCV) system. In multi-candidate races it is impossible to predict or poll the order of a candidates dropping out. There is also no way to predict or poll who the drop out candidates will have as their 2nd, 3rd ,4th, or 5th choices. In other words, RCV new counting system is a roll of the dice, impossible to prognosticate, analyze or control.
Most New Yorkers do not know about RCV or how it works (see more below). These voters are likely to vote for only one candidate. A poll by WPIX in March showed that only 40% of New Yorkers knew about ranked-choice voting.
Winning after the first ballot using the RCV counting system will depend little on candidate’s support in the district. It will be decided by the candidate who makes the best cross endorsement deals with their opponents. It will also depend on a candidate’s union, liberal ideological political machines support-like the Working Families Party and the Democratic Socialists of America who will tell their members who to vote as their 2nd, 3rd, 4th, and 5th choice, making those candidates more likely to win in later counting rounds of RCV. Critics believe RCV gives more weight to ideological and union voters, making RCV an unfair way of deciding elections. It is a self-made disaster for NYC government to make major changes to the city’s vote counting system before the most important NYC election ever. It should not have been tested in a year when most of city government is being changed because of term limits.
The RCV Count May Take Months Delegitimizing the Council
It took the NYC Board of elections six weeks to count the election last year, when there were no close races or RCV. One upstate congressional race which was close and went to court took over three months. With dozens of close RVC close races expected this year, most winding up in court, it is quite possible that many of the results will not be known for months, further delegitimizing the council ability to govern. “Weeks from Pivotal Primary, Still No Software to Count Ranked Choice Votes” The City, May 12th
While a lot has been written in the press about how important it is that the next mayor to be an experienced manager, nothing has been written about the abilities of the new council, the co-leader with the mayor of city government. We know from the current council that many members are not up to the job. There are now candidates running for council seats who never had a real job, running with the help of lobbyists with over $100,000 in city matching money. Some of them will get elected. Hope for the best of the new council members leadership and management abilities but expect the worst from the council as it faces the much more important job of rescuing the city.
The Council Speaker Runs the NYC Council
Historically the power of the city council resides in the Council Speaker positions. The Speaker assigns council members to chairs of committees who audit the city, puts together the budget with the mayor and act on a check on the mayor.
Historically, the Democrat’s County Leaders battle each other to pick the new council speaker. In the last two council speaker races the mayor and lobbyists campaign consultants, who now run most of the council campaigns, pushed themselves into the smoke-filled room with county leaders to pick the last two council speakers, Cory Johnson (2018) and Melissa Mark-Viverito (2014).
Former Congressman Crowley Connected Establishment to the Council
In the past, former Queens county leader former Congressman Joe Crowley played the lead role in picking the new speaker since most of his borough council delegation was held together by the consultant lobbyists the Parkside Group. Crowley resigned as Queens Democratic County Leader after he lost his congressional seat to Alexandria Ocasio Cortez (AOC). With Crawley gone, there is nobody that Kathryn Wylde’s NYC Partnership, the Times or what is left of the city’s establishment can reach and make sure the next council speaker will fight to reduce crime, not raise taxes on the rich, fix the city’s financial crisis, and solve the city’s long-standing problems with homelessness, and education.
Advance Group: ACORN Activist to Shadow Government Lobbyists Bos
AOC is not the only ideological political machine that has weakened the control of the elected Democratic Party county leaders over the last decade. The Working Families Party, Democratic Socialists of America and the Anti-IDC coalition all work with the liberal unions and lobbyist consultants who are involved in most of the council races. The lobbyist consultant Scott Levinson’s Advance Group is working for 10 council candidates this year and Doug Forand’s Red Horse for 12. Levinson comes from the very progressive ACORN organization and Forand’s website represents that he seeks to elect progressives and that he works for progressive organizations. Red Horse has worked for most of the city sitting District Attorneys and AG. They and other lobbyists stepped into the void created by the weakened county leaders who are no longer running council campaigns.
Wayne Barrett: Lobbyists Elects Kings for They Can Eat the Kings Met
Other lobbyist consultants who stepped into the void and are working for several city council candidates this year include: Mark Guma Communications, Jonathan Yedin’s Power Play Strategies, Rebecca Katz’s New Deal Strategies, Luis A. Miranda, Jr., and Roberto Ramirez’s Hamilton Campaign Network (the new MirRam Group), Even Stavisky’s Parkside Group, Hank Sheinkopf’s Meridian Strategies. The late Village Voice investigative reporter Wayne Barrett said in 2010: Sheinkopf elects Kings (elected officials) so he can eat the Kings Meat (get pay to play patronage for his clients).
In the confusion caused by RCV, the loss of Congressman Crowley there is little doubt that the lobbyists will use the council members they elected to select the new city council speaker. There is no doubt that the unelected lobbyists will then use the new council speaker to deliver the zoning changes or contracts their clients pay for, adding to the existing pay to play corruption in the city.
The current city matching fund programs has created a lobbyist-controlled shadow government in NYC. Berlin Rosen who works for gentrification developers such as Two Trees is working for comptroller candidate Brad Lander, whose political base are the new gentrifying residents of Brooklyn, brought into the city by the Berlin Rosen’s developers. Bill Hyers was de Blasio’s campaign manager in 2013, when the mayor was arrested to protest the closing of LICH hospital. Hyers is a lobbyist for Airbnb and became the lobbyist for the luxury developer building on the LICH hospital site after the mayor closed the hospital in his first year in office. The Advance Group works for real estate developer Edison Parking, which is being criticized as the main developer benefiting from de Blasio’s plan to change the zoning in lower Manhattan. The Advance Group acquired Edison Parking as a client in 2013, after it helped its then owner Steve Nislick, who was funding a PAC run by the Advance Group, NYCLASS. NYCLASS was supposed to ban horse carriages in central park but was used to go around the matching fund spending limits to raise money for running commercials which destroyed Speaker Quinn’s mayoral campaign in 2013.
Council Speaker Mark-Viverito was fined for using illegal help from the Advance Group to become speaker. The Advance Group was fined by the Campaign Finance Board for using NYCLASS funds it controlled to contribute to two council campaigns it was running. One city council campaign was Mark Levine’s, who was fined and is currently running for Manhattan Borough President.
NYCLASS’s Nislick also helped fund the mayor’s PAC Campaign for One NY (CONY). “(CONY) PAC transaction to fund upstate senate campaigns (by the mayor) appear contrary to the intent and spirit of the laws that impose candidate contribution limits,” said Manhattan DA Cy Vance, when he dropped his de Blasio pay to play investigation. By finishing the (CONY) money laundering investigating, Cy Vance could have taken down a big piece of NYC shadow government. Berlin Rosen, Bill Hyers and Red Horse all worked for and were paid by the (CONY) PAC.
The current NYC matching fund program encourage campaign consultant lobbyists pay to play corruption. The lobbyists have taken over the NYC election system, turning it into a turnkey operation run by consultants. Candidates can now hire lobbyist consultants to manage their campaigns, fundraise and to collect their petitions to get on the ballot. In 2009 the Working Families Party (WFP) and unions that supported electing liberals formed a company called “Data and Field” that provided reduced services to candidates WFP endorsed, including de Blasio for Public Advocate, Brand Land and Jumaane D. Williams for City Council. Data and Field was ended by an order of the Campaign Finance Board but the lobbyists who run campaigns still find ways to put their client’s money and workers into campaigns they are running.
The last NYC reformer and current council candidate Sal Albanese said that under the current 8 to 1 matching fund programs, pay to play corruption is running rampart. When Albanese sat on the NYC Charter Commission a couple of years ago, he tried to replace the city’s matching funds program with a Seattle matching fund program called “Democracy Vouchers.” Under the Democracy Voucher system, the government gives four $25 vouchers to registered voters and asks voters to assign their vouchers to their preferred candidates, leading to money disbursed to candidates.
Democracy Vouchers are the most democratizing and egalitarian method of public funding for a campaign that has been invented, according to Albanese. It makes every eligible participant in the city worth the same amount to a candidate, whether they’re a bartender or a bank president.” Democracy Vouchers system does not allow lobbyists to raise money for candidates, especially those with no community ties that will only be loyal to the lobbyists that elected them. The vouchers will also cut down large multi-candidate races. The city will not waste millions funding candidates who have no support in the district they are running in.
Besides changing the city’s matching fund system to Democracy Vouchers, the charter commission should also limit council terms to two years terms, with a limit of 3 terms. In these times of massive problems in city governance, we cannot afford to have a bad city council, like we do now. The city charter also needs to add a recall provision for all city elected offices. The damage done by the de Blasio mismanagement and lying has made New Yorkers feel hopeless and powerless, damaging the city’s culture and will to organize and fight for a better city.
Yang and Adams Wants Illegal Campaign Investigation from the CFB Which Has A History of Ignoring Illegal Campaign Contributions
Both Mayoral candidates Yang and Adams have charged illegal campaigns spending in each other’s campaigns with the Campaign Finance Board (CFB). The CFB has never fined the de Blasio campaign with illegal use of Data and Field in 2009 and NYCLASS in 2013. It unclear if mayoral candidate Maya Wiley was investigated by the DOJ or the FBI for her legal advice as the mayor’s lawyer on campaign contribution, when de Blasio was investigated by U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara when he investigates de Blasio pay to play. The one person who surely knows is former Department of Investigation Commissioner Mark Peters who investigate along with the feds and Manhattan DA the pay to play charges against de Blasio. Peters is now a campaign consultant for Shaun Donovan. The Advance Group and the de Blasio campaign was never fined using NYCLASS money to destroy Speaker Quinn’s mayoral campaign. The NYCLASS PAC was only fined for late filings, never for misuse of their PAC to go around the election law. The WFP was never fined for laundering outside money into Data and Field to help their endorsed campaigns. The UFT and its hired consultants Berlin Rosen, Red Horse and the Advance Group were never fined for using the PAC united for the Future to help candidates who campaign they were running.
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How the Rank Choice Voting System Works: If a candidate wins an outright 50% plus one vote or what is called the majority of first-preference votes, he or she will be declared the winner. If no candidates win an outright majority of first-preference votes, the candidate with the fewest first-preference votes is eliminated. The second-preference choice is then counted for the candidate that was eliminated and counted for the remaining field. A new tally is conducted to determine whether any candidate has won an outright majority of the adjusted voters. 5. The process is repeated until a candidate wins a majority of votes cast.
All 51 seats in the New York City’s legislative body have an election this year and, thanks to term limits, 35 of those are open and up for grabs. All but two remaining incumbents have primary challengers.
With multi-candidate fields perhaps three candidates with the help of incumbency will win on the first ballot count with the 50% of the vote, that is needed to win in the new RVC system: Charles Barron, Gail Brewer and James Gennaro, were all former incumbents who were term limited out; Eric Dinowitz is the son of long time Assemblyman Jeffrey Dinowitz.
Hundreds of candidates have lined up to take those jobs, which will come with a shortened two-year term due to redistricting rules. Many races have 10 or more contenders as of May, according to Board of Elections records. In Council District 26 in western Queens, for example, at least 15 Democrats are running for Councilmember Jimmy Van Bramer’s seat.
There is at least a half dozen contenders for the speaker job so far, according to City & State’s reporting: Alicka Ampry-Samuel of Brownsville, Adrienne Adams of Jamaica, Justin Brannan of Bay Ridge, Keith Powers of Midtown and the Upper East Side, Carlina Rivera of the Lower East Side and Rafael Salamanca Jr. of the South Bronx.
