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Four Women Running for Mayor Pitch Candidacies to ‘Amplify Her’


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Four women running for Mayor (photo: @AmplifyHerNYC)


There’s never been a woman elected Mayor of New York City and four of the candidates attempting to change that fact through next year’s election met for a forum Tuesday night hosted by Amplify Her, an organization dedicated to electing more women to office in New York City.

Former New York City Sanitation Commissioner Kathryn Garcia, nonprofit executive Dianne Morales, former city Veterans Affairs Commissioner Loree Sutton, and Maya Wiley, a civil rights attorney and former counsel to Mayor Bill de Blasio, participated in the forum. All four are Democrats and all are first-time candidates for any elected office.

They are competing in a much larger and still-growing field of candidates in what is set to be the first mayoral race with a party primary in June and featuring ranked-choice voting, which allows voters to rank up to five candidates in order of preference, rankings that come into play if no candidate is the first choice of a majority of voters. It encourages politicians to speak to a wider array of voters and replaces costly runoff elections while electing a winner based on depth of support beyond a simple plurality of first-place votes.

According to the event’s organizers, a ranked-choice straw poll was being sent to Amplify Her members and the group’s endorsement will come “in the new year.”

While any of the four would be the first woman elected mayor, Morales or Wiley would mark only the second person of color in the role after David Dinkins, and Sutton would be the first openly gay mayor in the city’s history. At one point, all but Morales served concurrently in the de Blasio administration, but Wiley, Garcia, and Sutton have all had harsh words for their former boss as they seek to replace him.

“I’m thrilled to be on an all-women panel, not that I find any of the men boring,” Garcia half-joked during her opening statement, while also noting that “women lead differently” and that “when you have a problem, give it to a busy woman. She’ll get it done.”

Garcia is running on her record as an experienced city government leader who has been called into several crisis situations, including as interim chair of NYCHA and “covid food czar.” She’s centering her campaign around strong government management and good city services, as well as the need to fight and prepare for climate change.

“We can’t build a new city if we follow the old rules,” said Morales, who is Afro-Latina. “I believe it’s important to not just elect a woman, but to elect a woman of color as the next mayor. We need to be committed to centering and elevating the voices and experiences of women of color.” Morales’ campaign is centered upon a community-first model of returning power to those who’ve often not been heard at City Hall.

“We can and must be a city where we can all live with dignity,” said Wiley, a former chair of the Civilian Complaint Review Board for NYPD oversight, and said “we can put the public back in public safety.” During the forum Wiley reiterated her position that NYPD Commissioner Dermot Shea should have been fired for how the police department treated Black Lives Matter protesters during the spring and summer.

Sutton said she would make a good mayor because “I know relationships are at the heart of the matter” and “it’s about forming safe and productive partnerships, reaching out and engaging with communities.” Throughout the forum, she proposed public-private partnerships to address the city’s needs. She added, “we can’t build back, we need to build forward.”

Garcia, who has repeatedly called the city’s current situation a “shitshow,” warned “we don’t want to return to” a New York City like the 1980s, when she grew up, noting that she was scared to take the subway after 8 p.m. at the time.

The first questions posed to the candidates were about how they have supported women, particularly in running for office and especially women of color. Each candidate said their campaigns’ senior leadership are comprised either entirely or mostly of women.

Sutton, who was the founding commissioner of the city’s Veterans Affairs Department, said she put an emphasis on hiring underrepresented groups, recalling an official at the city’s Equal Employment Office once telling her, “Commissioner Sutton, you have a distinct underrepresentation of white men.” She also highlighted her experience as a veterans surrogate for Hillary Clinton during her 2016 presidential run and her donations to women candidates, stating “politics as usual won’t cut it. We have to put women in charge at every opportunity.”

Morales noted she was a supporter of now-Congressional Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s first run in 2018, “before it was cool.” She also said that, as a nonprofit executive, “the majority of people I’ve served have been women of color.” She said she believes in “lift as you climb” as a motto for helping other women succeed.

Wiley referenced her work in the de Blasio administration transforming the Commission on Women’s Issues, which she described as “antiquated,” into the Commission on Gender Equity. She also touted her role as co-chair of the campaign for ranked-choice voting, saying that under the system “non-traditional candidates have more opportunity.”

“We worked very hard to recruit women as sanitation workers, said Garcia, who described the department as “highly male-dominated” and a “uniformed, paramilitary force.” She said she’s worked “to make sure that everyone is at the table because we [women] often are not.” Like Wiley, she voiced support for ranked-choice voting, saying it “gives everyone an opportunity to throw their hat in the ring.”

The candidates were also asked about their support for defunding the police and, more broadly, about their vision for public safety.

“Public safety is way too important to be left on the shoulders of the police,” said Sutton, who added “public safety is a shared responsibility.” She proposed establishing a public safety council to coordinate between public safety-related agencies and expanding the use of comp-stat to other agencies.

“All agencies are likely to lose funding,” said Garcia of the city’s budget woes. But like Sutton, she is not a proponent of “defunding the NYPD.”

Morales, who emphasized she was the first mayoral candidate to call for defunding the police, said it was necessary to “redefine and reclaim public safety,” with housing at the forefront because “no one can be safe and healthy without first having a roof over their head.”

Wiley has also repeatedly voiced support for moving significant funds from the NYPD to other services and programs. She voiced support for a “housing first strategy” and said the city “cannot and should not be policing in schools.” As an alternative, she proposed “student support teams” for school safety and “participatory justice funds” that would empower communities with high crime rates to address problems in their communities.

When asked about childcare and workplace protections, Sutton said that the city “has to develop public-private partnerships.”

Wiley said that the city needs to strengthen enforcement agencies for workplace justice and better coordinate with the state on the issue. She also said the city’s workforce development programs need to “more effectively target low-income workers,” including through CUNY, the public university system.

Morales criticized the “traditional recovery model” that “prioritizes corporations,” when the majority of New Yorkers are employed by small- or medium-sized businesses. She has said she would focus city investment and incentives on those smaller and medium-sized businesses.

When asked how each candidate would close the city’s looming budget gap, Wiley said called for going to Albany for higher taxes on the wealthiest New Yorkers, as well as a vacancy tax, and said the city needs to “cut fat not bone” when making budget cuts, and that “while we will go through a budget cut process, it will be a moral process.”

Morales said she would try to prevent cuts by “working with the new super-majority” in the State Senate, because “as the city goes so goes the state.”

Garcia said efficiencies can and must be found throughout city government and said the city must work with labor unions to find additional savings.

The rest of the questions asked at the forum were directed at candidates individually, though rounds of questions often applied to a theme.

Garcia said that supporting local businesses, particularly those owned by people of color, needs to be part of creating an equitable post-covid city. She proposed forgiving sales tax liens and “having the city get out of the way with permits.”

With looming MTA budget cuts, Morales said “it’s really important to make sure we take care of the outer boroughs” and called potential fare increases “absolutely unacceptable.” She proposed increasing express bus services and adding bike lanes in the city’s transit deserts.

Sutton said that police oversight “involves more than the CCRB,” pointing to the NYPD’s internal affairs bureau and inspector general, adding “as mayor it’s important to ensure that all three of those elements are in balance.”

When asked if the Council should have a greater role in appointing the NYPD commissioner, Garcia said no, believing that it would reduce accountability, but also saying “you have to have the guts to fire appointees if they’re not following orders.”

While reiterating her call for the firing of Commissioner Shea, Wiley also criticized the NYPD’s handling of protests this summer and said “kettling is never appropriate,” describing the tacit as escalatory.

At different points during the forum, both Wiley and Morales expressed support for reusing vacant commercial properties as affordable housing. Both also support congestion pricing. When asked about reducing car traffic, Morales said the city has to “move away from every individual thinking they have the right to drive around the city.”

Morales also said she is supportive of ending mayoral control of city schools, though she wants to figure out a better model than simply returning to a flawed Board of Education system that preceded mayoral control, which was granted by the state to Mayor Bloomberg early in his tenure and has been renewed several times since.

When asked if they would take donations from real estate, police unions, or finance industry lobbyists, Wiley and Morales said no to all three; Garcia said no to real estate and the finance industry; and, Sutton said yes to all, saying she believed in her own ability to “separate out bad actors.”

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by Andrew Millman, Gotham Gazette
   

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Max & Murphy Podcast: Maya Wiley Runs for Mayor


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Maya Wiley on the train (photo: @mayawiley)


December 16, 2020 - Max & Murphy Podcast: Maya Wiley Runs for Mayor

Maya Wiley joined the show to discuss her candidacy for Mayor of New York City, including why she's running, what she means by "dignity," her ideas for job growth, her record on internet access, and her platform on school desegregation.

Listen to the conversation and let us know what you think -- we're on Twitter @TweetBenMax and @JarrettMurphy. You can listen to the show through the embedded audio below or download the episode wherever you get your podcasts, under "Max & Murphy," and listen to Max & Murphy live on Wednesdays at 5 p.m. on WBAI radio, 99.5FM or wbai.org.

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by Ben Max, Gotham Gazette
     

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$17 Million in First 2021 Election Public Matching Funds Payout; Adams and Stringer Lone Mayoral Candidates to Receive


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Mayoral candidates Scott Stringer, left, and Eric Adams


The New York City Campaign Finance Board (CFB) on Tuesday awarded $17.3 million in public matching funds to 61 candidates for office, kicking the 2021 municipal election into high gear. All of city government is on the ballot next year, starting with June party primaries, and most current officeholders can’t seek reelection due to term limits.

The public funds payment is the first in the 2021 cycle, under new voluntary campaign rules that match qualifying donations at an 8-to-1 ratio and come with significantly lower individual contribution limits. The program, which also includes spending caps for participants, incentivizes small-dollar fundraising, curtails the influence of wealthy donors, and helps level the playing field for candidates across the board.

The initial payouts were based on campaign finance filings made back in July, and went to just two candidates for Mayor, one candidate for Comptroller, two for any Borough President position, and 56 candidates of hundreds running for the 51 City Council seats. Another round of CFB payouts will be coming on January 15, and then another on February 15 based on the filing due in January, at which time many more campaigns are expected to qualify for public funds.

In the crowded Democratic mayoral primary, Brooklyn Borough President Eric Adams and Comptroller Scott Stringer were the only candidates to receive public funds, meeting the dual thresholds required to qualify. By July, a mayoral candidate had to raise at least $250,000 from a minimum of 1,000 donors who are New York City residents. 

Adams’ fundraising has so far eclipsed the entire field, and he received nearly $4.4 million in public funds. As of July, he had about $2.2 million in his campaign account. “Every day New Yorkers making low-dollar contributions have powered our movement from the beginning,” Adams said in a statement on Tuesday, in part. “Thousands of New Yorkers who gave only what they could to our campaign may have each made small contributions, but now, together, their voice is big. We have received nearly 7,000 contributions from New Yorkers from every walk of life who live in every corner of our city—and low-dollar donations from working people make up the vast majority of what we have raised.”

Stringer received just over $3.3 million in public funds, and had about $2.3 million in his campaign account in July. “Comptroller Stringer is running for mayor to fight for the people of New York, not the wealthy elite and powerful special interests,” said Cameron Hellerman, a campaign spokesperson, in a statement. “We're proud to be part of the most progressive campaign finance system in the country, and we're thrilled with the momentum behind our grassroots campaign.”

Fundraising and campaign spending between July and January and cash balances will be evident in the filing due next month.

Mayoral candidates who are participating in the program but who did not qualify based on their July filings include former city Veterans Services Commissioner Loree Sutton, former nonprofit executive Dianne Morales and and former federal Housing Secretary Shaun Donovan; though Donovan has not yet filed that he is participating, a campaign spokesperson confirmed that he will be seeking public funds.

Since the last filing, several other candidates have also jumped into the race but have not yet been required to file any campaign finance disclosures. They include former city Sanitation Commissioner Kathryn Garcia, former counsel to the mayor Maya Wiley, City Council Member Carlos Menchaca, former Citigroup executive Ray McGuire, veteran-turned-entrepreneur Zach Iscol, and several others.

U.S. Rep. Max Rose, who recently lost his reelection bid, and former presidential candidate Andrew Yang are both also considering running for mayor. Rose recently opened a campaign account with the Campaign Finance Board.

The next public funds payment will be awarded on January 15, which will also be based on the July filing. The next campaign finance filing is also due January 15, covering the previous six months of fundraising and expenditure, and a public funds payment will be disbursed on February 16 based on that filing. 

Mayoral candidates who participate in the public matching funds program must abide by a $7.3 million spending limit in each the primary and the general, and another $343,000 in out-year spending, for a total limit of nearly $15 million for the entire race. They can raise a maximum of $2,000 from a single donor under the new program and can receive a maximum public funds payment of about $6.5 million in each of the primary and general elections.

Most mayoral candidates have chosen to engage in the new program except for McGuire. Having just launched his campaign earlier this month, he has yet to file any campaign finance reports but his campaign said that he had quickly raised more than $2.3 million.

For a candidate like McGuire who has not opted into the program, there is no spending limit and he can raise as much as $5,100 from a single donor. However, if a non-participating candidate spends half the matching program spending limit, which is $3.6 million in the primary, then the limit automatically increases by 50% for participants of the program, to just under $11 million for the mayoral primary (or general). If a non-participant spends three times the spending limit, nearly $22 million, then the spending limit is eliminated for all candidates.   

In the race for city comptroller, only City Council Member Brad Lander, a Brooklyn Democrat, qualified for public funds, getting $2.34 million from the CFB. Comptroller candidates are also limited to $2,000 contributions but have lower thresholds for qualifying for matching funds – they must raise at least $125,000 from a minimum of 500 donors from New York City. Comptroller candidates can spend a maximum of $4.55 million in each the primary and the general, along with the $343,000 out-year limit, for a total of over $9 million. Comptroller candidates can receive a maximum of just over $4 million in each phase of the election.  

“I’m honored to have earned the support of thousands of New Yorkers, who are putting their trust in me as the candidate best suited to ensure that NYC’s recovery from this crisis centers those who have been most marginalized and secures a just and equitable future for all New Yorkers,” Lander said in a statement. “New Yorkers can be proud of our strong public finance program, which enables candidates to run grassroots campaigns that are accountable to everyday New Yorkers, not wealthy donors and corporate PACs.”

The three other declared Democratic candidates running in the comptroller primary, all of whom are participating in the public funds program but did not qualify for the initial matching funds payout, are State Senator Brian Benjamin, who had $386,000 in the bank as of July; Assemblymember David Weprin, who had about $144,000; and State Senator Kevin Parker, who had raised just over $3,000. Parker and Weprin only recently officially launched their campaigns. 

There were only two initial public funds payments made in races for borough president. Borough president candidates participating in the new public funds program can raise a maximum of $1,500 from an individual donor. They are limited to spending up to $1.64 million in the primary and general each and $153,000 in out-years, for a total of $3.43 million in an election cycle. They can receive a maximum of $1.46 million in public funds in the primary and general each.   

Only one candidate qualified for public funds in each of the races for Manhattan and Staten Island borough president.  

Democratic City Council Member Ben Kallos received $460,651 for his campaign for Manhattan borough president. He had about $104,000 in his campaign coffers in July. “I am proud of the grassroots support my campaign has been getting over the last months demonstrated today by the CFB payment. We are ready and eager to hit the ground running in 2021,” Kallos said in a statement. “I am very much looking forward to working on behalf of the entire Borough of Manhattan expanding on the work I have been doing in the Council around improving education, affordable housing, making government more accountable and homelessness.”

Kallos faces a crowded Democratic primary field that includes fellow City Council Member Mark Levine; State Senator Brad Hoylman; Kim Watkins, president of Community Education Council 3; Elizabeth Caputo, former Manhattan Community Board 7 chair; and Lindsey Boylan, former deputy secretary for economic development and housing for New York State. 

In the Staten Island borough president race, Republican City Council Member Steven Matteo received about $382,000 in public funds. He had a campaign balance of about $156,000 in July. The only other Republican candidate who has registered a campaign committee in the race is Leticia Remauro, a public relations consultant and former chair of Community Board 1, and she has yet to show any fundraising. Democratic activist Tom Shcherbenko has said that he is running but has not created a campaign committee.  

Besides the citywide and borough-wide races, 56 candidates running for City Council also received public funds, 14 of whom received the maximum payment of $160,444 for the primary. City Council candidates who participate in the program can only raise $1,000 from individual donors under the new rules (for each the primary and general). They can spend $190,000 in each the primary and general and $51,000 in out-years, for a total of $431,000.

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by Samar Khurshid, senior reporter, Gotham Gazette
     

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