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Scott Stringer's Strengths and Weaknesses as He Runs for Mayor


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Scott Stringer in 2009, with two other officials who ran for mayor (photo: William Alatriste/City Council)


[This article is part of a series on the leading Democratic mayoral candidates' strengths and weaknesses.]

After years of working his way up through the hierarchy of elected office in New York, and one aborted run for mayor, Comptroller Scott Stringer this past week declared himself a candidate for the highest office in New York City in the 2021 election. It was an effective campaign launch featuring an impressive array of initial endorsers and the logical next step in a long and successful political career in which Stringer has made many allies along the way. The Democratic Manhattanite, currently serving as the city’s chief fiscal officer and one of just three citywide elected officials, will now have to convince New York City voters that his career has best prepared him to take over from Mayor Bill de Blasio as the city’s chief executive and save it from the dire circumstances brought on by a poorly-handled pandemic and its resulting recession.

While he’s not known for any particular accomplishment or focus area, Stringer has been a solid and steady liberal presence in New York politics and government for his entire adult life, unwaveringly supportive of key progressive causes like women’s reproductive and LGBTQ rights, gun control, and campaign finance reform. He’s been a political reformer working within the system, mostly friendly to clubhouse politicians while at times staking out his own ground but mostly not ruffling feathers, playing the long-game. He’s strategic and calculating, playing politics with the best of them while also recognizing that good policy can make good politics. He ran for comptroller with no particular qualifications for the highly-technical parts of the position, which offered a promotion from borough president, chance to improve the city he loves, and better perch to eventually run for mayor. Recently, he’s lurched further leftward amid shifting winds within the Democratic Party, masterfully backing insurgents and betting on underdogs, building a diverse set of allies as he seeks to become yet another white male mayor.

Though even many who know him may struggle to name a signature issue, as Stringer enters the fight of his life to become the city’s 110th mayor, he is perhaps most respected for winning tough elections.

Indeed, Stringer’s strengths and weaknesses as a mayoral candidate lie in the fact that he has been a career politician, someone with decades of public service who’s been angling to become mayor for much if not all of that time. He was a member of the state Assembly representing the famously liberal — and vote-rich — Upper West Side, from 1993 though 2005. From 2006 till 2013, he served as Manhattan borough president, before being elected to his current role as city comptroller.

After essentially being gifted the Assembly seat by his mentor, now-Rep. Jerry Nadler, Stringer won two hard-fought primary contests to initially take the offices of borough president and comptroller, the latter of which came after he briefly ran for mayor in 2012. Since he ascended to that citywide post by defeating former Governor Eliot Spitzer in the 2013 comptroller primary, Stringer has been preparing for a full mayoral campaign, almost launching one in 2017.

Now, term-limited out of his current role like de Blasio and most of city government, he believes it’s his time.

With just over nine months till the June 2021 primary election, in which he will face a crowded field of Democrats, Stringer is undoubtedly in for another highly-competitive campaign. But it will also be the first citywide election with ranked-choice voting in place, which will give voters a more expansive voice in who they select and may cause candidates to both attempt to appeal to more voters and play nice with more of their competitors. Stringer, some early thinking goes, could make for an attractive second choice to a large number of voters excited by someone else but also interested in a steady, experienced hand. If he can secure enough first-place votes, in a large field Stringer could ride those second-place votes to victory in what is also known as instant-runoff voting. To win, he’ll have to assemble a more diverse base of support than he’s had in his prior close elections, where he’s been powered to victory largely by white voters, starting with his Upper West Side base, and he clearly knows it.

Political observers and consultants say that, as with every mayoral election, the 2021 race will to some significant degree be a reaction to the current mayor. They believe voters will look for a decisive leader who can manage the day-to-day operations of city government while also offering a grand vision for the city’s recovery. And some say identity politics may not be an overriding factor if a candidate can show they are capable and credible. 

“The most important force in this race for the candidates who are running is the shadow of de Blasio,” said Ravi Gupta, co-founder and managing partner of Arena, a national progressive organization that trains left-leaning Democratic candidates and campaign operatives. “Voters are going to want an explicit contrast with the current mayor.”

[Read: Promising 'Leadership at City Hall,' Scott Stringer Officially Launches 2021 Mayoral Campaign]

For almost seven years now, Stringer has served as the city’s top fiscal officer, keeping a watchful eye on the mayoralty in more ways than one. Under his official duties, he has monitored the de Blasio administration’s fiscal practices, audited the performance of city agencies, and criticized wasteful spending, while also overseeing the city’s massive public pension funds, among other roles. His office has exposed major problems and spending inefficiences at the city's public housing, homeless shelter system, prisons, and more. Under his political hat, he has for decades meticulously crafted alliances with prominent labor unions like the United Federation of Teachers (UFT) and, more recently, progressive left Democrats who are ascendant in his party to build an effective base that could help him win the mayoral race. 

“Scott Stringer’s record of fighting for progressive causes throughout his career is second to none,” said Charles Kretchmer Lutvak, a spokesperson for Stringer’s campaign, in a statement. “In the Assembly, he was one of the few Democratic voices opposing deals cut by their own Speaker to weaken the rent laws, he wrote the bill to repeal Governor Pataki’s tax cuts for the wealthy, and he led the fight to pass once-in-a-generation rules reforms in Albany — other legislators booed at him when he ended 'empty-seat voting.' Twenty-one years ago, he was arrested after the police murder of Amadou Diallo, and nearly a decade ago, he spoke out against stop-and-frisk. As comptroller, he’s taken on climate deniers and launched the first major public divestment from fossil fuels. The vision the Comptroller laid out this week as he announced his candidacy for mayor is a natural extension of his decades-long fight for the people over the powerful.”

As his campaign notes, Stringer has always been knee-deep in the nuts and bolts of government. In the Assembly, he had a reputation for pursuing reform, particularly changes to the chamber’s rules that he advanced in opposition to his colleagues. When he ran for borough president in 2005, it earned him the endorsement of the New York Times editorial board, which said he had “the credentials for the job and a sterling reputation as a catalyst for reform” and that he had “shown himself to be committed to the principles of good government.” As borough president, he sought to reform and improve the functioning of community boards, starting with the appointment process. 

As comptroller, Stringer has released a long list of plans to deal with everything from the unequal distribution of high-speed internet in the city to solving Puerto Rico’s debt crisis. He has put particularly notable proposals to expand affordable childcare, improve mass transit access, and to create a new “universal affordable housing” model. He’s also used his leverage over the nearly $200 billion public pension funds to push for divestment from the fossil fuel industry, which, along with other environmental stances he’s taken, has been lauded by environmental activists, and to encourage more diversity on corporate boards. He’s successfully urged the city to increase the number and value of contracts awarded to Minority- and Women-Owned Business Enterprises (MWBEs) and had also been pushing for years for there to be a chief diversity officer appointed at every city agency, a step the mayor took through executive order in July. These plans, stances, and accomplishments are already forming the basis of Stringer’s mayoral platform, as he indicated at his launch event from his childhood neighborhoods of Inwood/Washington Heights.

Stringer’s many plans have yet to receive the type of scrutiny that will come with running for mayor. In public appearances, he’s shown potential for future struggles by regularly relying on vague talking points and values statements and not providing specifics when asked about budget remedies, his own policy plans, or alternatives to de Blasio policies he's critiquing.  

[Read: Scott Stringer Has a Plan for That]

Stringer is widely considered to be an effective retail politician, comfortable in many settings -- skills honed by decades of political activity but also indicative of an affable personality, readiness to collaborate with local officials, and penchant for telling crowds what they want to hear. On many days, before the pandemic, he would make appearances across the city, glad-handing community activists, nonprofit leaders, business executives, and other elected officials. He’s held many town halls and roundtables, opportunities to both help him do his current job and build his 2021 operation. He has a reputation for showing up and listening. Those who have worked for him emphasize that point.

“I’ve campaigned with Scott in past elections. What makes him so formidable is not just that he has a preternatural ability to connect one-on-one with a voter on the street, or that he’s incredibly politically shrewd. It’s that he will outwork anyone, anywhere,” said Devon Puglia, a media consultant who previously worked as Stringer’s communications director in the comptroller’s office. Puglia pointed out how Stringer keeps a packed schedule.  “That is really an under-the-radar differentiator, and it may be his greatest strength as a candidate. No one will out-hustle Scott,” he said.

But Stringer has some spots on his record that may become flashpoints in the campaign, especially as candidates seek to draw out differences within the Democratic field. He embraced real estate developers before he rejected them. He endorsed de Blasio for reelection after critiquing the mayor’s fundraising activities that landed the mayor under multiple law enforcement investigations. He backed the lifting of term limits helping then-Mayor Michael Bloomberg and many other officials seek and win a third term. He was a long-time establishment figure, part of a pay-your-dues political culture, before he began backing upstart progressives who managed to depose incumbent Democratic legislators.

He’s put down a marker on controversial issues where he’s deemed it appropriate or advantageous, but also avoided taking tough stances on a number of hot-button issues, like the specialized high school admissions test, while holding positions that often provide room to hide when desired. These are, in a sense, perks of the jobs of borough president and comptroller. For instance, while he was the first major elected official to call for the closure of the Rikers Island jail complex, he has been muted on the plan for four modernized borough-based jails that are meant to replace it. But his support of the Close Rikers movement and other criminal justice reforms and the effort to divest city pension funds from fossil fuel companies and other environmental causes sets him up to potentially win the support of some of the city's most ardent activists.

Stringer is one of three elected officials either running or likely to run, along with Brooklyn Borough President Eric Adams and City Council Speaker Corey Johnson. He lays claim to a far longer career in elected office than either and is the only one with a citywide win under his belt.

Winning the hard-fought 2013 primary with 52.1% of the vote against the former governor, who got 47.8%, Stringer showed political chops, including sharp debate performances, that no one who watched would underestimate now. He won the 2013 general election with 75% of the vote. He was reelected in 2017 with 72% of the vote. He has already raised $2.7 million in campaign cash – and has $2.3 million remaining as of July 11 – which places him first in the early field, and more than $470,000 in small-dollar contributions that could qualify for an 8-to-1 match under the city’s public funds program, according to his campaign. Several other declared or exploring candidates -- Dianne Morales, Loree Sutton, Maya Wiley, Kathryn Garcia, Shaun Donovan -- are first-time candidates for office, which brings its own advantages and disadvantages.

“He is well known by the New York electorate. People have seen him in many offices,” said George Arzt, a Democratic political consultant who has worked for Stringer’s campaign in the past. “He knows his politics. He’s born and bred in politics.”

While Democratic primary voters, who tend to be the most dedicated and consistent base of the party, may readily know of Stringer, the most recent poll that included him from Quinnipiac University, in April 2019, found that 31% of city voters didn’t know enough to approve or disapprove of the job he’s done as comptroller. He received approval from 48% and disapproval from 21% of voters in that poll, including 54% approval from Democratic voters, 17% of whom disapproved.  

Stringer has a long list of allies, including Democratic stalwarts like Nadler and Upper West Side Assemblymember Linda Rosenthal. The Assembly member was among those who endorsed Stringer at his campaign launch announcement, where he was also backed by several other state legislators, including young, first-term members like State Senators Alessandra Biaggi, Jessica Ramos, and Julie Salazar, each of whom Stringer endorsed over long-time incumbents. Those Senators were part of a wave of progressives who helped shift the balance of the Senate to Democrats, giving the party control of both houses of the Legislature and paving the way for 2019 passage of a sweeping agenda of progressive legislation that stalled for years.  

“I don't think it was a cynical political ploy. I think he took a real gamble in supporting these first-time candidates,” said Arzt, countering some of the criticism that Stringer skeptics have levelled. Stringer was also endorsed by Assemblymembers Yuh-Line Niou and Catalina Cruz, both of whom he previously endorsed over establishment figures, as well as Assemblymember Bobby Carroll of Park Slope, State Senator Robert Jackson and Assemblymember Al Taylor of Upper Manhattan, and State Senator Brian Kavanagh of Lower Manhattan and Downtown Brooklyn.

The opening coalition of diverse supporters quickly helped to some degree counteract questions about Stringer’s potential viability with voters of color as a white man in an increasingly non-white city, though those questions are certain to persist.

Stringer is jumping into a race that could eventually include several candidates of color, including Adams, who is Black, and at least two women of color, Morales and Wiley. In some quarters of the Democratic Party, there are calls for the next mayor to be a person of color who can better grasp and tackle structural racism that has served to entrench everything from housing inequity to school segregation. But it’s impossible to say whether race, ethnicity, gender, or other demographic information, like LGBTQ status, will be a central or deciding factor for voters. In the last wide open mayoral primary, in 2013, de Blasio, whose wife and children are Black, brought together a coalition of white progressives and voters of color, winning more Black support than Bill Thompson, the Black former city comptroller.

Stringer’s presence around the five boroughs, including in many communities of color, serves not only to boost his name recognition but also signals his interest in the job of mayor, said Gupta. “Scott is a New Yorker through and through and somebody who loves the city and has wanted to be mayor for pretty much his entire adult life probably,” he said. “And normally that kind of ambition is off-putting to voters but I actually think in this case, voters may like to see somebody who has wanted the job because they have somebody right now who seems almost disinterested in...probably the best political job in the world.”

As Gupta noted, part of the challenge may be the evolving definition of who and what is considered progressive in the age of Trump. Longstanding Democrats have recently been brought down by challengers who profess ideologies that hew further to the left and more radical than what has been generally accepted in past elections. It’s not just enough to support the building of affordable housing or reforms to the criminal justice system, candidates must now also eschew campaign donations from the real estate industry or from law enforcement unions. In his campaigns for Manhattan borough president and comptroller, Stringer readily accepted maximum campaign contributions from real estate developers, and he continued to do so for his mayoral run. He had already built a formidable war chest for his latest campaign before joining other Democratic candidates in saying that he would not accept any further real estate developer contributions – a pledge Johnson made from the start of his fundraising. Stringer hasn’t returned previous donations but also hasn’t raised any real estate donations in the latest fundraising cycle from January to July of this year, according to his campaign.   

But Gupta said that might not be a make-or-break for Stringer. “I think it's going to be meat and potatoes issues that determine this race, not professed ideology,” he said. “New Yorkers are a little bit skeptical of rhetoric. They want to see results.”

Voters may not be ideological about their choices in June 2021, said Dr. Christina Greer, political science professor at Fordham University. “I think ranked-choice voting could work in [Stringer’s] favor because he is a known quantity to social service organizations and social justice organizations and he has a built-in base already,” she said. “It depends, I think, on the borough, it depends on how people think about their own personal finances, how they feel about public safety, the welfare of the city, the coronavirus. All those factors will dictate who they choose as their number one and who they choose their number two.”

Though in his kickoff event he attempted to offer key principles of ethics, management, and leadership, and highlighted his policy focus on affordable housing and child care, Stringer has yet to offer a bold vision for the city’s future. The next mayor of New York City could very well inherit multiple crises – a huge budget hole, widespread unemployment, continued unaffordability, a longstanding homelessness crisis, crumbling public housing, mistrust between police and communities, to name just a few.

“I think there's a real appetite right now for a big thinker and he will have to prove that he's that person despite what is a very conventional political background,” said Eric Phillips, senior vice president at Edelman, a consultancy, and former press secretary to de Blasio. 

Phillips said Stringer has an advantage of having shown that he’s good at management as well as politics, particularly with his risky endorsements of progressive Democratic challengers. “Being the mayor of New York City is a political job and it’s usually done well by people who are good at politics…To do something of substance from a policy perspective in New York City requires you to coalition-build, it requires you to understand what the public thinks of you, it requires political skill. So I don't view that as cynicism. I view that as a requirement of the job,” Phillips said. 

But Phillips, echoing Gupta’s point, said voters will chiefly back the candidate who they think can make the city run effectively and efficiently. “The largest bloc of primary voters in this city are people who are really focused on trash and snow and roads and schools and public safety,” Phillips said. “They don't want fewer cops, they want better cops, and ultimately I think people like Scott Stringer will factor well into that equation.”

[This article is part of a series on the leading Democratic mayoral candidates' strengths and weaknesses.]

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by Samar Khurshid, senior reporter, Gotham Gazette
     

Read more by this writer.

Ben Max contributed to this story.

As City Reopens, De Blasio’s ‘Better Buses’ Plan Stuck in Traffic


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Mayor de Blasio on the bus (photo: Michael Appleton/Mayor's Office)


Early in June, when New York City was just entering phase one of its economic “reopening” and the city still had daily triple-digit coronavirus death counts, Mayor Bill de Blasio announced an ambitious plan, the Better Bus Restart Initiative, to add 20 more miles of bus lanes and five new busways by October, in addition to making the 14th Street busway permanent. While this plan, offered during a unique opportunity to rethink city street use, did not go as far as many public officials and advocates would have liked, it was a significant move by a mayor who has paid limited attention to the city’s buses, ridden by about 388,000 people, mostly low-income people of color, each weekday before the pandemic hit.

Now, just over three months later, only four of the nine announced bus projects -- five busways and four extended bus lanes -- have been completed. The Jay Street busway opened behind schedule earlier this week in Downtown Brooklyn, and several others delayed, most notably the Main Street Flushing busway that de Blasio said launch in June. Busways offer city buses near-exclusive use of their routes, with limited additional vehicular traffic allowed, and thus faster mass transit speed for riders.

The Department of Transportation estimates that “more than 45,000 daily bus riders on seven routes” are benefiting from faster service as a result of the completed projects, and described the previous situation on Jay Street as “a bottleneck for buses.”

A DOT spokesperson says it is “still planning to complete implementation this summer and fall” on the Better Buses program. The Jay Street busway was originally planned to start in August. We are working closely with community advisory boards on the remaining bus projects,” said a DOT spokesperson.

The three other completed bus projects in the Better Buses program are bus lanes on East 14th Street, 149th Street, and Malcolm X Boulevard. DOT says that they've completed 4.4 miles of the planned 20 miles of new bus lanes under this initiative so far. On the horizon, a bus lane on the E.L. Grant Highway is currently under construction in the Bronx.

Along with Main Street Flushing, two of the other announced busways are also already behind schedule. Busways on Jamaica Avenue in Queens and 5th Avenue in Manhattan were expected to be operational by July, per de Blasio’s initial announcement, which he said on June 8 was not getting sufficient press attention. The final remaining busway, on 181st Street in Manhattan, was announced to start in October.

On the Main Street busway specificially, DOT is taking more time to continue community outreach, according to a spokesperson, who noted the department recently gave a presentation to the project’s Community Advisory Board. It has also scheduled two information sessions, via Zoom, for local residents, on September 10 in English and Chinese and September 14 in English, Korean, and Spanish.

The DOT spokesperson also noted the other infrastructural improvements the department has made in recent months, including activating Transit Signal Priority at 285 intersections, installing Real Time Passenger Information at Bus Time Signs at 40 stops, adding bus lane cameras to several new routes, and constructing bike lanes to accompany the Jay Street busway.

This hasn’t satisfied many transportation advocates.

“It’s become clear that we’re headed towards a crisis,” according to a spokesperson for Transportation Alternatives, a nonprofit advocacy group. The group has begun calling the looming crisis “Carmageddon.” According to Transportation Alternative’s recent report by that name, in August, bridge and tunnel car crossings were less than 20% off pre-pandemic levels, while bus ridership was still down 35% and subway and rail ridership down nearly 75% from pre-pandemic levels. Road traffic overall was only off 9% from 2019 levels, despite many New Yorkers continuing to work from home.

The report surmises, “As more commuters opt to drive, and little accommodation is made for the safety and efficiency of those who do not, New York could soon see a gridlocked, exhaust-choked, and crash-laden ‘Carmageddon.’”

“The City must act quickly to avoid this impending catastrophe,” a Transportation Alternatives spokesperson said. “The only way to stem car traffic and its repercussions is to invest in a citywide network of bus and bike lanes, and more forward quickly with congestion pricing. The future of our streets is at stake.”

Earlier this month, Transportation Alternatives’ executive director, Danny Harris, was one of 12 members of Mayor de Blasio’s Surface Transportation Advisory Council, convened in June to advise the mayor on the city’s transportation needs during its recovery from the pandemic shutdown, who criticized the mayor’s handling of transit amid the city’s reopening process and his failure to more fully consider and move on the advisory council’s recommendations. They cited problems including rising traffic fatalities and rising car ownership rates that the mayor is not, in their opinion, properly addressing.

The open letter was signed by leaders from Transportation Alternatives, NYPIRG Straphangers Campaign, AAA of New York State, the Community Service Society of New York, Via, Riders Alliance, the Tri-State Transportation Campaign, the NYC BID Association, the Brown Bike Girl, and the Regional Plan Association, as well as Sam Schwartz, a former city traffic commissioner, and Quemel Arroyo, a disability transit advocate.

These members of the mayor’s Surface Transportation Advisory Council simultaneously released its numerous suggestions, highlighting several in the 12 members’ letter, with public transportation as top priority. The council members called for at least 40 miles of emergency bus lanes to be implemented this summer. They also want to see a connected bike network, expanded sidewalks, and repurposed street and parking spaces for restaurants, retails, cultural institutions, and open space.

Additionally, they declared these “improvements must prioritize communities of color, neighborhoods without adequate transportation and public space infrastructure, and streets most impacted by traffic crashes and pollution.”

“It is not enough to tell New Yorkers not to buy a car. We need the City to actively promote and restore public confidence in alternative modes of transportation, including taxis, for-hire vehicles, and pooled rides,” the letter reads.

If traffic congestion surges further, the group advocates a “contingency plan for vehicular restriction into the Manhattan Central Business District,” including HOV2+ restriction during peak periods and continued work towards congestion pricing

According to the letter, “Recovering from COVID-19 requires us to reimagine our city, especially our streets, for the better. Without your decisive and immediate action, we may lose New York City’s future to growing congestion, pollution, inequality, and traffic violence.”

On September 2, when the open letter was publicized, de Blasio was asked if he had done enough on transportation and to respond to the critiques from his own appointees. He responded, “If folks are disgruntled and they don’t want to acknowledge what’s really happening, well, I can't do much about that. I can only tell you what’s happening.” He then cited the Open Streets initiative, the 14th Street busway, expanded bike lanes, the Citi Bike program, the NYC Ferry, and expanded Select Bus Service, saying “that sounds like a lot to me.” He did not answer whether or not he would implement the group’s call for 40 miles of emergency bus lanes or other suggestions.

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by Andrew Millman, Gotham Gazette
   

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Promising 'Leadership at City Hall,' Scott Stringer Officially Launches 2021 Mayoral Campaign


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Scott Stringer launches his 2021 mayoral campaign


Comptroller Scott Stringer, a term-limited Democrat, officially launched his campaign to run for mayor on Tuesday, seeking to replace outgoing Mayor Bill de Blasio in what is expected to be a hard-fought contest that has drawn more than a dozen exploring or declared candidates so far.  

Stringer, a Manhattanite serving his second term as the city’s top fiscal officer, pledged to “bring leadership back to City Hall” and centered his campaign pitch on fighting inequality, much like de Blasio had done when he won his first term in 2013. But Stringer presented himself as a contrast to the two-term mayor, taking direct aim at de Blasio’s failings and what Stringer depicted as his inability to make good on his promise to create a more equitable city.  

“We never closed the book on the tale of two cities,” Stringer said, evoking the message that got de Blasio elected. “If anything over the last eight years, we've written more chapters.”

Speaking near Inwood Hill Park in Upper Manhattan, close to his childhood home, Stringer addressed long-standing and new crises assailing the city and its most vulnerable communities, borne of the decisions of successive administrations and dramatically worsened by the coronavirus pandemic. He noted that that the neighborhood he stood in and grew up in was among the hardest hit by COVID-19 and is also home to many of the New Yorkers of color who have been considered essential workers throughout the pandemic.

Accompanied by his wife, Elyse Buxbaum, and two young children, and surrounded by a diverse group of state legislators from four boroughs announcing their endorsements of his mayoral bid, Stringer went through a variety of key issues during his remarks, centering affordability, especially affordable housing, child care, racial justice, climate resiliency, and more.

At the same time, he spoke in deeply personal terms of how it has affected him and his family, including the death of his mother from the virus. “It's because we love the city, that we must acknowledge that we have a public health crisis, an economic crisis, and a social justice crisis raging all at once,” he said, “and I believe we can overcome them all.”

The Democratic mayoral primary, which will be held in June 2021, will likely decide who becomes the next mayor because of the party’s overwhelming seven-to-one voter enrollment advantage over Republicans (there are more party-unaffiliated registered voters than Republicans in the city). It will also be the first citywide primary that employs ranked-choice voting, requiring candidates to appeal to a broader swathe of voters than they may otherwise.

Besides Stringer, several candidates have declared or are exploring a mayoral bid including Brooklyn Borough President Eric Adams, City Council Speaker Corey Johnson, former Counsel to the Mayor Maya Wiley, former Obama and Bloomberg commissioner Shaun Donovan, former Commissioner of the City Department of Veterans Services Loree Sutton, former Sanitation Commissioner Kathryn Garcia, former nonprofit executive Dianne Morales, and others. 

Stringer made a long list of promises to tackle the many problems that de Blasio too had sought to fix but on which the mayor has shown insufficient progress, sure to make him a punching bag throughout the race. Repeatedly contrasting himself with a mayor seen as aloof and ineffective, Stringer vowed to "manage the hell out of this city."

He said he would fill the city’s expected $4.2 billion budget gap for the next fiscal year by cutting wasteful agency spending, curtailing outside contracts, and measuring spending by performance. He also said he would push for increasing taxes on the wealthy, a step that would require state legislative action and that stymied de Blasio for years. Stringer touted his plan for rebuilding the city’s economy, which has been decimated by the pandemic, and investing in small businesses, and businesses run by women, people of color, and immigrants. 

Taking aim at the mayor’s housing plan, which critics say has failed to build sufficient amounts of low-income housing while encouraging real estate speculation, Stringer referred to his own plan in promising a stronger approach. He reiterated his legally-dubious proposal for “universal affordable housing” that would mandate 25% of units in any new development be made permanently affordable. He also said he would triple new affordable housing for homeless families and create the city’s first land bank.

“When I'm mayor, we're going to end the crushing cycle of speculation, eviction, and displacement,” he said. “No more giving away the store to developers. No more unaffordable ‘affordable housing.’ We will put an end to the gentrification industrial complex, and end policies that perpetuate a cycle of segregation in our neighborhoods.”

How Stringer would ensure new housing is built or that neighborhoods become more integrated remain open questions. As he did again on Tuesday, he has repeatedly railed against the neighborhood rezonings de Blasio has ushered through, all in low-income communities of color, to add more housing density, including rent-capped units, but he did not offer a vision for areas of the city he believes should see significantly more housing development.

Referencing others among the many policy plans he’s offered as comptroller, Stringer vowed to triple the number of children receiving city-funded childcare and a “full-court press” on climate change, in part through resiliency projects and forbidding fossil fuel infrastructure. He also pledged to take on school segregation, but did not say how.

Some of Stringer’s harshest criticism for de Blasio came on the mayor’s approach to police brutality and accountability. De Blasio came into office promising to hold the NYPD to account but has since disappointed his supporters and others by regularly capitulating to the police department, taking a conservative approach to transparency, and making mostly modest reforms around accountability. Stringer pointed to the recent mass protests sparked by the police killings of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor, and the NYPD’s often violent response against protesters. “The mayor and the police commissioner repeatedly excused the inexcusable, defended the indefensible, and failed to take responsibility for violence against New Yorkers. That ends the day I'm sworn in as mayor,” he said. “As mayor, I'm going to say to the NYPD what Bill de Blasio has not. ‘You work for the people of the city and you're not an independent agency. You work for us.’”

Stringer added that he would make sure the NYPD knows it is not an independent agency and that its officers, whom he offered some praise, work for the people. 

Stringer also made assurances that his administration would be more transparent, with a less-than-oblique reference to Mayor de Blasio’s ill-fated attempt to shield his communications with several outside advisers that his administration termed ‘agents of the city’ when blocking Freedom of Information requests  a move later overturned in court when NY1 and the New York Post sued for access.

“There will be no ‘agents of the city’ in a Stringer administration,” he said, in a jab that could also double as critique of Wiley, who came up with that tenuous legal formulation when she was the mayor’s counsel.

Stringer’s mayoral campaign is a culmination of years of preparation. A career elected offiicial, he first won office in 1992, securing a state Assembly seat. He became Manhattan Borough President from 2006 through 2013, and he briefly ran for mayor in 2012 before dropping down to the comptroller’s race, where he cleared the Democratic field until former Governor Eliot Spitzer decided to run. Stringer impressed many in the political world, as well as voters, in the campaign against the far-better known though scandal-plagued Spitzer, in part by calling on long-standing connections within the Democratic establishment and labor unions, especially his close ties with the teachers union, the United Federation of Teachers. He also had the support of the Working Families Party and major local newspaper editorial boards, among others, and exceeded expectations in their debates.

In 2017, Stringer again eyed a mayoral run as de Blasio faced the risk of legal entanglements or even prosecution from one state and one federal investigation into his fundraising activity. When prosecutors did not indict the mayor nor any of his close associates, Stringer demurred from challenging him.

In recent years Stringer has made a concerted effort to court the left, progressive wing of the party, building significant political capital with some while raising questions about where he stands ideologically and whether he’s playing cynical political games in the interest of his own ambitions. Similar questions have been raised as he’s shifted from a more developer-friendly borough president to a mayoral candidate disavowing campaign contributions from major real estate players.

Like Johnson and Donovan, Stringer is facing questions about being a white man running for mayor in an increasingly diverse city, and running against at least two, if not three candidates of color, two of whom are women. New York has never elected a woman as mayor and has not elected a person of color since David Dinkins became the city’s first Black mayor in 1990. Asked after the announcement about whether the city may want to see a person of color elected next year, Stringer insisted that he can build a broad base of support and will represent the interests of communities of color as he has throughout his career. “I've assembled what I think is the beginning of a multiracial, intergenerational group of supporters. And I'm going to go to every community...and I'm going to make my case,” Stringer said. “I believe people vote for the mayor who best represents the hopes and dreams of every diverse community...I ask people to vote on the basis of how we bring the city back economically for communities of color. Who's the best person who has the track record and experience and the social justice credibility from a government lens to get this done.”

In state elections over the last few cycles, Stringer endorsed a lengthy list of progressives, including a number of women of color, some of whom were challengers who successfully ousted Democratic incumbents and helped shift the balance of the state Legislature to give Democrats full control. Several of those he endorsed introduced him on Tuesday, reciprocating the support, including State Senators Allessandra Biaggi, Robert Jackson, Jessica Ramos, and Julia Salazar, and Assemblymembers Catalina Cruz and Yuh-Line Niou. Other elected officials also joined in support, including State Senator Brian Kavanagh, Assemblymembers Al Taylor, Linda Rosenthal, and Robert Carroll, and state Assembly candidate Amanda Septimo. The initial wave of endorsers represents parts of four boroughs other than Staten Island and a large group of the state’s younger, more diverse vanguard of progressive leadership.

Stringer has also in recent cycles endorsed the far-left candidacies of Jamaal Bowman, who successfully ousted Rep. Eliot Engel, and Tiffany Cabán, who narrowly lost in the 2019 Democratic Primary for Queens District Attorney. Both Bowman and Cabán, like Salazar, are members of the New York City Democratic Socialists of America.

Asked on Tuesday about seeking the DSA endorsement for mayor, Stringer demurred, saying he would be pursuing support from many groups and he did not want to get into a specific list at today’s announcement.

***
by Samar Khurshid, senior reporter, Gotham Gazette
     

Read more by this writer.

Ben Max contributed to this story.



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