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Public Advocate Candidate Outlines Election Reform Agenda


polanco bronxnet

JC Polanco on BronxNet


With candidates vying for votes ahead of New York City’s September primary and November general elections, many in and around campaigns know that the state’s antiquated election laws will, in part, ensure that a small percentage of potential voters will cast ballots among limited choices.

One candidate, Juan Carlos Polanco, known as J.C., is currently the presumptive Republican nominee for Public Advocate and has released an extensive package of proposed reforms to New York voting laws.

As a former member of the New York City Board of Elections (BOE), Polanco has had personal experience with the system that certifies candidates and runs elections. In a document provided to Gotham Gazette and subsequent phone conversation, Polanco outlined plans he believes will update, improve, and secure elections in New York through a combination of legislative changes, ballot referendums, and even changes to the state constitution.

“We have to really take a look at our election system and we have to modernize it,” said Polanco, who is eyeing a likely general election matchup with incumbent Letitia James, a Democrat.

Polanco is putting forward 10 proposals, some of which – like expanding the BOE’s reporting in the twice-yearly Mayor’s Management Report (MMR), which details performance of city agencies based on delivery of services – would be relatively easy shifts, and others – like instituting nonpartisan elections and starting a statewide voter identification program – would be fundamental reexaminations of voting in New York that would be very difficult to enact.

Among the former group, in addition to the MMR initiative, Polanco calls for forwarding of voter death and new address data to the BOE from city and state agencies, a new procedure for a nationwide search of the board’s executive director, and an increased budget for the agency to help it run the expanded programs.

The latter group are likely to be much more controversial; chief among them a proposal from Polanco for a statewide “free and fair voter identification program,” which the candidate framed as a compromise for including early voting and and no-fault absentee voting.

Polanco explained that free identifications would be arranged by the BOE using its central voter registration database and then be distributed through municipalities for free to voters who did not otherwise have a valid ID. He could not provide a cost estimate, and when asked why such a program was necessary when research has shown that voter fraud is almost nonexistent, he said there were two schools of thought on voter fraud.

“One is the [President Donald Trump] school, that 3 million people voted illegally in the election. Absolutely not. That’s an extreme view. Then we have the other extreme that no voter fraud happens. And that’s ridiculous,” Polanco said. He insisted that voters who turned up without IDs would not be disenfranchised, as they could fill out affidavit ballots – currently used by voters who arrive at polls to find they’re not on the rolls – that would be counted later if valid.

Another proposed change for voters would be the early voting provisions, which would have to be approved in the unsympathetic Republican-controlled state Senate. The plan would allow New York City residents to vote one week before the election, and to vote absentee without having to prove inability to vote in person, which is currently required for absentee ballots.

Polanco wants to change not only how New Yorkers vote but who they can vote for, by providing free legal counsel to candidates participating in the Campaign Finance Board’s public matching funds program who raise less than $10,000, and easing restrictions on ballot access for candidates.

“Candidates are getting kicked off the ballot after spending all summer campaigning and collecting petitions, and they’re getting kicked off for the most ridiculous reasons,” said Polanco, citing issues like having a slightly incorrect petition number listed on a cover sheet. Indeed, various candidates have been kept off or taken off the ballot for multiple city races this cycle, including one of two final candidates for the Republican mayoral nomination.

Unlike other populous cities like Los Angeles and Chicago, New York has a partisan election system where only voters registered to a particular party may vote in that party’s closed primary; that arrangement generally means that viable candidates tend to be selected only by the city’s registered partisans with one of the two major parties. Polanco wants to shift to a nonpartisan system, where rounds of voting, as opposed to primaries, would whittle down the candidate field.

“If you look at our city, it’s become much more of a nonpartisan city,” he said, adding that independent, or party unaffiliated, voters “are not participating.” While unaffiliated voter enrollment has indeed grown in the city over the past five years, nonpartisan voters still represent a minority (17.6%) of all registered voters. As Polanco looks ahead to the general election, he knows that there are many more unaffiliated registered voters in the city than those registered with the Republican Party (about 10.4% of all registered voters). It is those types of “independents” who helped Rudolph Giuliani and Michael Bloomberg win their mayoral terms.

Finally, Polanco wants to address the undemocratic trend of elected officials stepping down from campaigns after ballot petitions have already been filed, allowing partisan county committees to pick their candidates and denying voters the opportunity to vote in an open primary. “They take it out of the hands of the voters and into the backrooms,” said Polanco of the practice. He said he would like to see, if not his ultimate goal of a nonpartisan election, then at least a mandated primary for special elections.

Polanco suggests that gerrymandering – the practice of drawing districts to maximize or minimize a particular class of voters – is partly responsible for ensuring that Democratic candidates routinely win special elections, though in general city districts are not considered to be gerrymandered.

Polanco acknowledged that in order to enact such an agenda, the Public Advocate – a largely ceremonial citywide elected position with little direct authority – needs to heavily rely on the bully pulpit and organizing, as opposed to hard power. Easier said than done. Polanco would be far from the first person to go to Albany seeking voting reforms. With the Senate controlled by his GOP party-mates through a power-sharing agreement with breakaway Democrats, there has been virtually no appetite for election reform.

He could have some ways around that, he said, such as getting proposals into a referendum to be voted on directly by voters. If the upcoming November vote on whether the state will hold a constitutional convention is approved, Polanco said he would support trying to enshrine some voting reform measures into the updated constitution.

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by Felipe De La Hoz, Gotham Gazette
     

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5 Key Moments from the First Democratic Mayoral Primary Debate


de Blasio Albanese debate

De Blasio & Albanese on NY1


Mayor Bill de Blasio, a first-term Democrat pursuing reelection this fall, faced off against Sal Albanese on Wednesday at the first of two primary debates ahead of the September 12 vote. Over the course of 90 minutes at the Symphony Space on the Upper West Side, the two shared a number of tense exchanges as they made their pitches to voters. De Blasio offered a continuation of his first-term accomplishments in tackling inequality, while Albanese attempted to present himself as the alternative to a mayor who he argued has not done the job well.

Albanese, a former City Council member, went on the attack almost immediately and jabbed at de Blasio throughout, criticizing the mayor’s inability to reign in homelessness, his ties to real estate interests, his “ineffective” affordable housing policy, his nonchalance towards the city’s subway crisis and his “politicizing” of the police. “I think people are looking for reform politics,” said Albanese, selling himself as an outsider with integrity who wants to deliver a better democracy to New Yorkers. Albanese is also running on the Reform Party ballot line regardless of the outcome of the Democratic primary.

As the incumbent, de Blasio came armed with a strong grasp of the intricacies of city policy and comfortably, if at times condescendingly, batted away Albanese’s critiques. On multiple occasions, de Blasio challenged Albanese on his facts, insisting that his criticisms were more often than not falsehoods. (De Blasio’s campaign simultaneously sent reporters fact-checking email blasts in real time.)

De Blasio spent nearly the entire debate touting his record, including universal pre-kindergarten, the creation of affordable housing, reduction in crime, reforms to policing, improvements in educational achievement, and a stronger economy. “We’ve got a lot more to do to make this a city that truly is for everyone,” he said in his opening statement, alluding the organizing theme of his reelection bid, making the city more affordable by creating more housing and good-paying jobs, among other initiatives.

Defending his efforts on the national and international stage, de Blasio emphasized the need to stand up to the Trump Administration and the Republican-controlled Congress. At one point, when asked by a moderator, he definitively ruled out running for president in 2020 if he’s reelected this year. On multiple occasions, he defended himself regarding his focus on the city.

While de Blasio made clear his well-crafted campaign theme, Albanese left a more vague picture of what’s organizing his run beyond thinking poorly of de Blasio and believing the city needs a more ear-to-the-ground leader who can effectively and ethically manage municipal government.

The debate featured much of what both candidates have already said on the campaign trail, peppered with instances of tension and occasional shouts from hecklers in the audience, but no clear game-changing moments. De Blasio entered the debate a heavy favorite in the primary, with a massive advantages in fundraising, name recognition, institutional endorsements, and campaign infrastructure. Albanese is hopeful he will crack double digits in the next public opinion poll.

Albanese, who has focused on the election as a referendum on de Blasio, laid out a handful of policy proposals including “democracy vouchers” to publicly finance elections and a pied-à-terre tax on foreign property owners to subsidize affordable housing. He said he would build more affordable housing through a land bank and nonprofit developers, pledged more city dollars to the MTA, and stressed the need to reform the pension system.

But, he struggled for concrete answers at other times, such as when debate panelists asked how he would reform the city’s child welfare services to reduce racial disparities or what he would do about the city’s jails. Even on his top policy priority of campaign finance reform, he wrestled with his words and had to be pulled back twice by debate moderator Errol Louis of NY1 when he strayed to attack de Blasio in the middle of explaining his proposal.  

Although de Blasio had ready retorts for Albanese for the most part, he was on the defensive when Albanese pressed him on the state and federal investigations into his administration and his fundraising, which ended without any charges filed but words of admonishment by prosecutors. A steady stream of comments from Albanese about transparency and ethics under de Blasio formed a clear theme of the night.

Under questioning, de Blasio pledged that he would never again form an issue-advocacy organization like the Campaign for One New York, which was the subject of a federal investigation, all while stressing the worthy policy goals that the group helped achieve, chiefly universal pre-K.

Among others, there were five especially interesting moments in the debate, which was moderated by Louis and featured questions from panelists Grace Rauh and Juan Manuel Benitez of NY1, Brian Lehrer of WNYC, and Laura Nahmias of Politico New York.

Subway Shame
Early on in the debate, the candidates got into a back-and-forth about the city’s transit system, one of the campaign’s most reliable and oft-debated issues. While the system is operated by the state-controlled Metropolitan Transit Authority, as delays soar and many of the city’s straphangers spend their days stewing in sweat and frustration, many want solutions from the mayor.

“For three-and-a-half years he has said the subway isn’t his job,” Albanese said of de Blasio, and claimed that the mayor knew his recently proposed millionaire’s tax – which would tax the city’s wealthiest residents and divert the funds to the transit system – was “another ruse.”

“I had to shame him into taking the subway a couple weeks ago,” Albanese said, referencing de Blasio’s recent affinity for taking the subway more after having previously said it wasn’t the best use of his time.

The mayor shot back by pointing to his pre-kindergarten plan, which was acted on and passed by Albany legislators after he had first floated a similar tax to pay for it. “Sal, we got it done because we proposed a millionaire’s tax,” the mayor said, arguing that his push forced the issue and secured the funding, the bottom line. He also predicted that he wouldn’t have to worry about Albany obstruction much longer.

“Mark my words, we will have a Democratic state Senate,” de Blasio predicted; the Senate is the only Republican stronghold in statewide government, though barely, and only because of the breakaway Independent Democratic Conference and Brooklyn Sen. Simcha Felder, a nominal Democrat who caucuses with the Republicans.

Money for Nothing?
One spat took place as the prospect of campaign donations and their undue influence was raised. De Blasio has been hounded by accusations that his administration is too accommodating to campaign donors since early on in his term. Local and federal investigations into his campaign activities and the now-defunct Campaign for One New York did not ultimately find criminal liability, but the din of scandal has only lessened, not abated.

Albanese said that “developers are running amok” after giving the mayor large donations, and accused de Blasio of running a pay-to-play administration. De Blasio responded that he was “taking on the real estate industry and winning,” and pointed to policies like mandatory inclusionary housing (MIH), a city policy that requires developers to set aside affordable apartments in market-rate buildings in rezoned areas.

Stating that the country’s “free enterprise system” has positives and negatives, the mayor said “our laws say that you have to go out there and get donations,” an arrangement that Albanese promptly equated to organized crime. “They own you when you get there,” he said, specifically referencing real estate money and lobbyists.

De Blasio said the comments were insulting to public officials from former President Barak Obama to Senator Elizabeth Warren -- both of whom have acknowledged you need campaign donations to run for office but that it doesn’t mean you’re compromised -- on down, and said the Citizens United decision was the “root of all evil.”

Albanese conceded that “the system is broken, but there are good public officials” before calling on de Blasio to release a previously promised list of campaign donors who didn’t receive any official favors. De Blasio pledged the list -- which has morphed into “examples” in an op-ed column -- would be published before the September 12 primary vote.

The Housing Crisis
Affordable housing, a de Blasio campaign focus and administration legacy item, was brought up intermittently throughout the debate, at times for longer stretches than others. One of the pivotal moments on the topic was when Albanese was attempting to outline his affordable housing plan under questioning from Lehrer of WNYC, who pointed out Albanese was only attacking the mayor’s plan without offering his own specifics.

Albanese had reiterated support for a pied-a-terre tax, which would apply to luxury properties owned by wealthy individuals not residing in them, and bashed de Blasio’s plan, saying “the problem with his numbers is that the housing is not affordable.”

“There’s people making $30,000 a year, $29,000 a year who can’t afford to live here, it’s outrageous,” Albanese said, while repeatedly referring to the city’s affordable housing situation as a crisis. As for his plan, he mentioned being on the City Council during the mayoralty of Ed Koch in the 1980s. “I would do what Ed Koch did. He built hundreds of thousands of units, using non-profit developers, and he provided the land,” said Albanese, inflating the Koch numbers.

That idea was immediately derided by de Blasio, who said “it’s not the 1980s anymore. We can’t have what Koch did.” There are few city-owned vacant lots available, he noted. De Blasio acknowledged “no doubt we have an affordable housing crisis,” but insisted that the city’s current reality would render a Koch-esque plan unfeasible, and his strategy of forcing private firms to set aside housing for certain income brackets and providing financing to extend existing affordable housing was the way to go.

Where’s the Mayor?
A discussion that began as a question about de Blasio’s travel habits morphed partly into an assessment of what it means to be the Mayor of New York. De Blasio’s has regularly traveled out of the city on political junkets, often to much criticism, especially for a recent trip to Hamburg, Germany to protest outside the G20 summit of world leaders, where de Blasio said he was offering an alternative representation of American values to that of President Donald Trump.

After assuring Rauh of NY1 that he had no intention of running for president in 2020, de Blasio defended his attempts to build a national profile, saying his predecessors “didn’t deal with a Donald Trump as president, they didn’t deal, a lot of the time, with both houses in Congress being Republican. We’ve to find a new way of protecting our taxpayers’ interests.” He added, “if it takes going to Washington or anywhere else, I will do what it takes for New Yorkers.”

The exchange led to Albanese being asked if he had a prominent enough national profile to represent New York City as Mayor.

“Whenever you become mayor, you become prominent. Even Bill’s prominent,” Albanese said, jabbing at his opponent and drawing one of many smirks from de Blasio throughout the night.

Albanese said he wants to make New York a “modern-day Athens” with a hyper-democratic political system that limited involvement by lobbyists and big-money interests. De Blasio eschewed the notion, instead saying he wants the best New York City possible.

A Transparency Pledge
Somewhat related to the donor conversation was a more general examination of de Blasio’s transparency practices. During the 2013 mayoral campaign, de Blasio said that his would be most transparent administration in history, a claim that hasn’t been borne out by the reality.

De Blasio reiterated a prior pledge not to create any other groups like Campaign for One New York and insisted that “compared to previous administrations we’ve gone a lot farther” on the issue of being transparent about contacts with lobbyists and special interests and been forthcoming with journalists, saying “we should not be unwilling to take those questions.”

This was immediately ridiculed by Albanese, who said “I think Koch was more transparent than you were, shockingly!” he laughed, and referred to how “Koch and [Rudy] Giuliani had press conferences every day, pres availabilities” -- de Blasio has been criticized for holding relatively few press conferences compared to predecessors. He also raised the issue of de Blasio’s use of personal email, recently exposed, obliquely referencing the 2016 presidential campaign and scandal involving Hillary Clinton’s email practices.

After de Blasio brought up that he was cleared by investigators of criminal wrongdoing in their investigations over his fundraising and donor relations, Albanese said “we should have a higher standard for the mayor than not being indicted.”

Three other Democrats who are also on the ballot did not qualify for Wednesday’s debate. The next primary debate is scheduled for September 6.

***
by Samar Khurshid and Felipe De La Hoz
@GothamGazette

5 Things to Watch at First De Blasio-Albanese Debate


de blasio albanese 2013 debate ny1

Albanese & de Blasio in 2013 via NY1


“A win for me is making the case that de Blasio has not been a good mayor and making the case that I can be a good mayor,” Sal Albanese, putting it simply, told Gotham Gazette on Monday, a little more than 48 hours before he was to take the stage against Mayor Bill de Blasio in the first of two Democratic primary debates.

The debate, a 90-minute affair that will air at 7 p.m. Wednesday on NY1 television and WNYC radio, is sure to be lively. The two participants have known each other a long time, served together in the City Council, ran against each other in 2013, and do not seem to like one another.

For de Blasio, the debate will be an opportunity to tout his first-term record and outline his vision for another four years. “You’ll hear a heavy focus on his record, going through his accomplishments of the last four years,” said de Blasio campaign spokesperson Monica Klein in a Monday phone interview, ticking off universal pre-kindergarten, low crime, affordable housing, and other items. “And obviously talking about what his plans are for the second term, which are pretty expansive,” Klein added, providing a few examples like extending public pre-school to three-year-olds.

Earlier Monday, de Blasio had told reporters at an unrelated press conference that he has been preparing for the debate. “We’ve done a number of prep sessions already the same way we did debate prep in 2013,” de Blasio said when asked. “I never take anything lightly. I’ve been an underdog in essentially every race I’ve been in. This is a different dynamic but it doesn’t change my preparation.”

That different dynamic is, of course, that de Blasio -- the incumbent mayor with a massive fundraising advantage and many endorsements from labor unions and other elected officials -- is a heavy favorite. Albanese, however, sees the debate as a major opportunity to get more New Yorkers to learn about his campaign, increase his fundraising for the final weeks of the primary race, and find a way to victory on September 12, in what is expected to be another terribly low turnout election.

Given the one-on-one nature of the debate -- especially juxtaposed to the crowded primary field of four years ago -- expect a pointed, at least somewhat substantive discussion of key issues facing the city. As it should, the debate will feature a good deal of reckoning with the record of the incumbent seeking another term. This is where both de Blasio and Albanese believe they will make key points -- de Blasio believes he has a lot to boast; Albanese thinks de Blasio has been a failure and must be replaced.

“Every mayor does some good things,” Albanese said, recognizing universal pre-K, “but on balance, he has not been a good mayor. That’s why I’m in the race.”

In 2013, de Blasio and Albanese participated in dozens of candidate forums and debates across the city. They were often joined on stage by the other Democratic hopefuls, including Christine Quinn, Bill Thompson, Anthony Weiner, and John Liu. Even during those busy affairs, Albanese almost always homed in on de Blasio, criticizing the soon-to-be-mayor as opportunistic and hypocritical. De Blasio usually swatted away the barbs and returned to his carefully crafted talking points about his equity agenda and the reasons that Quinn, the early frontrunner, should not be mayor.

Wednesday night, it will be just de Blasio and Albanese -- a moment the latter has surely been pining for since the former ran away with 40 percent of the primary vote, followed by 73 percent in the 2013 general election against Republican Joe Lhota. Albanese received less than 1 percent of the primary vote in 2013. Head-to-head with de Blasio, Albanese believes he can make a stronger case than he could in the circus-like 2013 primary.

Wednesday night, Albanese has his shot. Five things to watch for at the first debate:

1. Candidate Preparation

De Blasio said he’s been preparing and not taking anything lightly, despite his significant lead in the polls and in fundraising. Klein, the de Blasio campaign spokesperson, said that as of Monday, de Blasio’s prep consisted of reviewing key topics and the essential points the mayor wants to make in the allotted time. Unlike certain interviews, news conferences, and town halls, de Blasio will have some external time constraints via the debate format and the moderator, NY1’s Errol Louis. De Blasio practices his talking points and gets feedback about specifics he might have left out, Klein said, on broad topics like education.

The mayor had not yet done a mock debate, Klein said, but he would be in a more simulated session before Wednesday. She said the campaign hadn’t yet had someone playing the role of Albanese. Klein would only divulge that she and campaign strategist Phil Walzak, who, like Klein, worked on de Blasio’s 2013 campaign and in City Hall, are among those in the room when de Blasio is prepping. She added that Walzak has some debate experience from high school.

“He’s a pretty experienced debater,” Klein said of de Blasio, “he’s pretty comfortable being up on the stage.” A former City Council member and Public Advocate, de Blasio has participated in his share of debates, and, Klein pointed out, he is familiar and comfortable with those who will be asking him questions Wednesday night: Louis, the moderator, and panelists Juan Manuel Benitez and Grace Rauh of NY1, Brian Lehrer of WNYC, and Laura Nahmias of Politico New York.

The mayor is regularly on his toes and engaged in the issues, Klein added, given his weekly news conferences and regular town hall events. “He’s been talking about all these issues for four years,” she said

“I have a group of people that have worked with me on debate prep,” said Albanese, who is an attorney. “There are so many issues, so many different points that need to be brought up in these debates, it’s hard to get them all in. You want to get in as many as you can. It’s like preparing for a bar exam, really, there’s a lot of material. You’ve got to really drill it into your head.”

Albanese is very knowledgeable about city affairs, drawing on his experience as a teacher and City Council member. He doesn’t always quickly or neatly articulate his ideas, though, and it will be important for him to deliver his messages tightly, so that those watching or listening or seeing news coverage afterward get the best possible impression of him. After 90 minutes, one-on-one, Albanese said, “people will know what you’re about.” In 2013, with seven people on stage, “sometimes you rush through” your chance to speak, he said.

“I’m not a good sound bite guy, this gives me an opportunity to delve into some of the nuances of policy,” Albanese said. “He’s a very good debater,” Albanese said of de Blasio, “I don’t underestimate him. I’ve seen him debate.”

“We had a guy play de Blasio, obviously, during debate prep,” Albanese added. “We know the de Blasio arguments, what they’re going to be.” When asked, he said the de Blasio stand-in had been “David Eisenbach, the public advocate candidate...he’s actually pretty good, he’s a Columbia professor.” Eisenbach is running in the Democratic primary against incumbent Public Advocate Letitia James.

2. How intense will it get?

Albanese must be mayoral, but he also has to throw some haymakers. Will he interrupt de Blasio if he doesn’t think the mayor is addressing the issue at hand? “Hard to say,” Albanese said. “I think you’ve got to be careful with that - you don’t want to come across as a raving lunatic. You have to be assertive, but you have to be a critic. There may be some loud exchanges, we’ll see.”

Asked if de Blasio will go on the attack himself, perhaps critique Albanese’s record or past, Klein said, “We’ll see what happens when they’re on the stage…you can expect him to be pretty focused on talking about his record and his plans for the future.”

Recalling the 2013 tour of forums and debates across the city, Albanese said he remembered several instances where he got under de Blasio’s skin. “Up in the Bronx he got really angry...it was about the garbage, the waste-transfer station [slated for the Upper East Side]. He was arguing he has one near his home, and I said that’s not true, I know the neighborhood, and he got very upset, said I was misleading the public.”

“He also got angry at me when I said his tax-the-rich plan was going nowhere in Albany...I was right,” Albanese said of de Blasio’s signature 2013 proposal to get Albany approval for a city tax hike to fund pre-kindergarten. The state didn’t approve the tax, but provided most of the needed money through the state budget.

“He likes to tell New Yorkers why he’s fighting for them - that works him up, that we need more affordable housing, that we need neighborhood policing,” Klein said of the mayor, “I wouldn’t expect him to be subdued or anything.”

3. What’s Albanese’s vision?

Albanese will surely score some points critiquing de Blasio -- it’s a strong suit for the former City Council member from southern Brooklyn -- but the big question for the challenger is whether he can make the case for himself, and show New Yorkers that he has his own vision, with enough interesting policy proposals to warrant a more serious look.

“That’s what I would like: to talk about the issues in-depth,” Albanese said of the debate. “Give the public a sense of what our proposals are, talk about what’s working and what’s not working.”

“The issues that I think he gets an ‘F’ on are very big issues; integrity in government, transit, affordable housing, mismanagement of agencies,” Albanese said. The challenger has proposals for campaign finance reform, contributing more city money into the MTA, and passing the Small Business Jobs Survival Act, among other planks.

Given the recent attention on the city’s subway meltdown, Albanese will surely focus on his promise to be the “mass transit mayor.” He’ll also sell himself as someone who can restore integrity and management to City Hall -- eliminate “pay to play,” get control of the growing budget, reform the pension system, and more.

It would behoove Albanese to unveil at least one new splashy proposal at the debate and explain in careful detail the broader organizing principle of his campaign.

When de Blasio successfully ran in 2013, he pledged to reduce inequality by ending the “tale of two cities.” This year, de Blasio’s slogan is “Your City,” and he’ll pitch New Yorkers “on his vision for driving New York City forward with a focus on really making the city fairer and more affordable,” Klein said. “He’ll talk a lot of about how important it is that New Yorkers can afford to live in the city that they love.”

4. How well does de Blasio pivot -- and will Albanese and the moderators let him?

When Gotham Gazette asked the mayor on Tuesday about the fact that Albanese plans to stress de Blasio’s ethics issues, the mayor previewed the type of pivot he’ll surely showcase during Wednesday’s debate.

“All those issues were looked at by multiple entities and everything was resolved,” de Blasio said. “I think the election should be not about things from the past that are already behind us, but about what’s going to be necessary for everyday New Yorkers to do better in this city.” De Blasio then said he’s going to talk about affordable housing, lawyers for low-income people facing eviction, improved test scores and graduation rates, “crime going down for four years in a row.” It’s those substantive issues that “people want to talk about,” de Blasio said, and that “they want to know what’s next.”

“I think it must be difficult if you’re a challenger and you’re looking at those facts, I guess you have to try to change the discussion to something else,” de Blasio added.

Albanese said he knows it will be a challenge to get his points to stick and to make sure de Blasio faces the music in real time. “You can’t really get away from your record,” Albanese said. “He’ll say, ‘crime is down, jobs are up, pre-k, municipal ID cards’ -- and some of them are good things, but there’s a huge amount of weakness. Integrity in government is a huge piece of it. You need a higher bar for being mayor than not being indicted.”

“He’s probably going to try the kind-of Rose Garden strategy,” Albanese said, where de Blasio tries to not fully engage with his opponent but instead stress his talking points.

If de Blasio pivots, Albanese said, “We come back to it,” and pointed out the time for rebuttals built into the debate “You’ve gotta be quick on your feet. He’s probably going to pivot quickly from all the negative stuff. And my job is not to let him pivot.”

5. Substance
Even in 90 minutes with just two candidates, the debate won’t get to all the topics of concern to New Yorkers.

Where will the questioners and the candidates take the debate?

As he runs for reelection and as part of his larger equity paradigm, de Blasio is extremely focused on affordability. He’ll want to talk about affordable housing, good-paying jobs, low crime, improving student test scores, and other signs of progress in the city. He’ll want to tout reforms at the NYPD, including new training for officers, the ongoing implementation of body cameras, and the rollout of neighborhood policing. He will of course stress the continued reduction in “stop and frisk,” one of the central elements of his 2013 campaign.

It’s a Democratic primary and Albanese is to de Blasio’s right on some issues, like policing, which is helpful to the mayor. Albanese may offer one of his critiques of the mayor, that many in the NYPD rank-and-file do not like de Blasio. Beyond that, it may be up to the moderators to broach subjects that would otherwise be raised by Bob Gangi, a police reform activist also running in the Democratic primary who did not qualify for the debate, about a lack of more radical reform at the NYPD, especially regarding the practice of broken windows policing, and the limits to de Blasio’s approach to police accountability and transparency.

The city’s homelessness crisis, one of the few areas de Blasio has admitted failure, is sure to come up. Albanese may tie it to a larger argument about de Blasio’s management, which may also include a discussion of the city’s ballooning budget, which has grown about 17 percent under de Blasio and a free-spending City Council that he is largely aligned with. You name the topic, it could easily come up, from transportation options to school choice to traffic congestion to the financial problems at the city's public housing and hospitals.

De Blasio’s proposals for a term two include continuing toward creating 100,000 jobs that pay over $50,000 per year, developing and moving into motion a plan to close the Rikers Island jail complex, and more. “[F]rom 3-K to the mansion tax to the millionaire’s tax,” Klein said, referring to de Blasio’s plans to make pre-school available to all three-year-olds in the city and his proposals to tax large real estate transactions to fund senior affordable and raise taxes on the highest city earners to fund mass transit repairs. For all three of those measures, de Blasio needs Albany funds or approval.

For the incumbent mayor, it will be important to make clear to those consuming the debate or coverage of it that he has plans to move the city forward if given another term.

As for Albanese, the goal is fairly clear: “At the end of the day, I want people to say, ‘Albanese can be a good mayor, he can do the job.'”

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by Ben Max, Gotham Gazette
     

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Gotham Gazette: 
New York City Voters Approve Racial Justice Ballot Measures
New York City Voters Approve Racial Justice Ballot Measures
Gotham Gazette: 
Housing Development in New York City Slows to a Crawl as Officials Debate Tax Incentives
Housing Development in New York City Slows to a Crawl as Officials Debate Tax Incentives
Gotham Gazette: 
City Council Examines Low Voter Turnout, Moving Local Elections to Even Years City Council Examines Low Voter Turnout, Moving Local Elections to Even Years