Gotham Gazette

The Place for New York Policy and politics

Dan Quart

Dan Quart

  • Candidates for Manhattan District Attorney on Ending the 'Trial Penalty'

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    Courtroom (photo: @nakrnsm)


    Earlier this year, a report on use of the “trial penalty” -- the increased likelihood that a defendant, if proven guilty at trial, will face a harsher sentence than if they had opted into a plea deal -- in New York showed that its practice by district attorneys threatens the constitutional rights of defendants, limits law enforcement transparency, and weakens the overall integrity of the justice system.

    The report, from the New York State

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  • WATCH: 30 Minutes with the Candidates for Manhattan District Attorney

    Gotham Gazette:

    (l-r) Top: Tahanie Aboushi, Alvin Bragg, Eliza Orlins, Tali Farhadian Weinstein; Bottom: Liz Crotty, Dan Quart, Diana Florence, Lucy Lang


    As part of the "Decision NYC with Ben Max" series of candidate interview s from Manhattan Neighborhood Network and Gotham Gazette, host Ben Max interviewed the eight Democratic

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  • Decision NYC: Dan Quart Discusses His Run for Manhattan District Attorney

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    Dan Quart (photo via campaign)


    As part of the "Decision NYC with Ben Max" series of candidate interview s from Manhattan Neighborhood Network and Gotham Gazette, Democratic candidates for Manhattan District Attorney talked about their campaigns ahead of the June primary. In this episode, Assemblymember Dan Quart joined host Ben Max to explain his vision for the role.

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  • Activists Press Manhattan District Attorney Candidates on How Far They’ll Go on Reform

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    Top (l-r): Tahanie Aboushi, Alvin Bragg, Eliza Orlins, Tali Farhadian Weinstein; Bottom (l-r): Liz Crotty, Dan Quart, Diana Florence, Lucy Lang


    All eight candidates currently running for Manhattan District Attorney gathered virtually last week for a reform-focused forum. The race to be Manhattan’s top prosecutor is taking place as incumbent District Attorney Cy Vance has not stated whether he will seek reelection, but has not been raising money or making campaign appearances. All eight candidates in the running are, like Vance, Democrats,

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  • Manhattan District Attorney Candidates' Fundraising from Within the Borough Varies Widely

    top (l-r): Tahanie Aboushi, Alvin Bragg, Eliza Orlins, Tali Farhadian Weinstein; bottom: Liz Crotty, Dan Quart, Diana Florence, Lucy Lang


    Eight candidates are seeking the Democratic nomination for Manhattan District Attorney this year as it becomes increasingly likely that incumbent District Attorney Cy Vance, a third-term Democrat, will not run for reelection. As the candidates appeal to voters across a variety of platforms and appearances, outlining their resumes and plans for the office, they have been trying to draw distinctions about the support they are receiving ahead of the all-important June

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  • Public Defenders Release Evaluation of Manhattan District Attorney Candidates

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    The Five Borough Defender graph of Manhattan DA candidates (full version below)


    A coalition of New York City's public defenders has released a report analyzing the campaign policies of the Manhattan District Attorney candidates vying to replace incumbent Cy Vance, Jr., and their plans to implement those policies. Vance is unlikely to seek reelection and eight Democrats are running in the June primary.

    The new analysis from Five Boro Defenders was conducted through the group's decarceral lens and based

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  • Manhattan District Attorney Candidates Debate Resumes and Reform Credentials

    Gotham Gazette:

    Top (l-r): Tahanie Aboushi, Alvin Bragg, Eliza Orlins, Tali Farhadian Weinstein Bottom (l-r): Liz Crotty, Dan Quart, Diana Florence, Lucy Lang


    The eight candidates running in the 2021 Democratic primary for Manhattan District Attorney convened virtually on Thursday for a panel discussion to offer their plans for a reimagined District Attorney's office. While all the candidates are talking about extensive reform, some want to go far further than others, and the candidates’ resumes inform those distinctions and, in combination, offer significant differences for voters to choose from in the

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  • The Money Race in the Democratic Primary for Manhattan District Attorney: January Filing

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    Top (l-r): Tahanie Aboushi, Alvin Bragg, Eliza Orlins, Tali Farhadian Weinstein
    Bottom (l-r): Liz Crotty, Dan Quart, Diana Florence, Lucy Lang


    It seems more and more likely that Manhattan District Attorney Cy Vance will not run for reelection as he has not fundraised for his campaign even as a crowded field of Democrats is seeking the party’s nomination in the June primary. The eight candidates running active campaigns and Vance all just filed their latest mandatory campaign finance disclosures, showing their fundraising and spending for

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  • Manhattan District Attorney Candidates Pitch Plans and Pasts to West Side Democratic Clubs

    Gotham Gazette:

    Top (l-r): Tahanie Aboushi, Alvin Bragg, Eliza Orlins, Janos Marton, Tali Farhadian Weinstein
    Bottom (l-r): Liz Crotty, Dan Quart, Diana Florence, Lucy Lang


    Tuesday night, the Chelsea Reform Democrats and Hell’s Kitchen Democrats co-hosted a candidate forum for the nine candidates running in the 2021 Democratic primary for Manhattan District Attorney. Incumbent Cy Vance has not declared whether or not he plans to run for reelection, but he has not been actively fundraising for another run and has not appeared at any of the early forums, where candidates have

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  • The NYPD is Undermining Our Ability to Hold Them Accountable. The Mayor Must Act

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    NYPD Commissioner Shea, Mayor de Blasio, other police officials (photo: Ed Reed/Mayor's Office)


    As an international non-governmental organization, Human Rights Watch (HRW) reports on human rights abuses in every part of the world. Recently, its work brought it to New York City and more specifically, the Bronx. In a newly released report, HRW documented rampant police violence during a summer protest against police brutality, revealing that the NYPD’s

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  • All 9 Democratic Candidates for Manhattan District Attorney Appear at LGBTQ-Focused Forum

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    Top (l-r): Tahanie Aboushi, Alvin Bragg, Eliza Orlins, Janos Marton, Tali Farhadian Weinstein
    Bottom (l-r): Liz Crotty, Dan Quart, Diana Florence, Lucy Lang


    The nine Democratic candidates currently running for Manhattan District Attorney in next year’s June primary shared the Zoom debate stage for the first time Tuesday night at a three-hour forum hosted by the Jim Owles Liberal Democratic Club, an LGBTQ-focused political organization.

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  • Without Vance, 5 Democratic Manhattan District Attorney Candidates Participate in First Debate

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    (l-r) Dan Quart, Alvin Bragg, Tahanie Aboushi, Janos Marton, Eliza Orlins


    With the 2021 Democratic primary for Manhattan District Attorney now under a year away, five candidates for the office participated in a forum hosted by the New York City Program Council and Columbia Law School’s Black Law Students Association. Manhattan’s current District Attorney, Cy Vance, has not yet said if he will seek reelection next year as the borough’s top prosecutor and law enforcement officer, but he was a frequent target of his potential opponents during the event.

    The

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  • The 2021 Manhattan District Attorney Race is Officially Underway

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    Cy Vance (photo: @ManhattanDA)


    Five candidates vying to become the next Manhattan District Attorney will participate in a forum on Tuesday, just under a year before the primary election and over a year after the first candidate in the race announced his campaign. The event, featuring all Democrats, is being hosted by the NYC Programming Council and Columbia Law School. Current District Attorney Cy Vance hasn’t said whether or not he will seek reelection in 2021 and is not participating in the first debate of the race.

    The event comes a week after Vance

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  • Voters Should Be Able to Track Their Absentee Ballots, Lawmakers Say

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    Voting has changed dramatically in New York (photo: Kevin P. Coughlin/Office of the Governor)


    As hundreds of thousands of absentee ballots are being counted more than two weeks after the June 23 primary elections, state lawmakers are pushing a bill that would allow absentee voters to track their ballots and would require election administrators to provide an individual explanation when a ballot is disqualified.

    The latest effort to pass the legislation, which was first introduced in 2013, comes amid an unprecedented increase in absentee voting due to

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  • New York Must Pass the 'Rape is Rape' Bill

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    (photo: the governor's office)


    At the end of August, NBC New York ran a story about a young woman who was raped after going out to a Manhattan bar. Despite the fact that she came forward, wanting justice to be done, the Manhattan District Attorney refused to prosecute the case.

    When a reporter questioned his decision not to pursue charges, DA Cyrus Vance’s staff shared a letter he wrote

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  • In Opioid Fight, City Expands Access to Crucial Medication-Assisted Treatment

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    (photo: Edwin Torres/Mayor's Office)


    New York City is showing modest progress in the fight to curb the explosion in drug overdoses, with the health department reporting 38 fewer deaths last year compared to 2017, after a concerted $60-million effort focused on substance abuse prevention, treatment, and education, especially with regard to opioids.

    One aspect of that fight has been the expansion of access to medication-assisted treatment, which experts and activists

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  • Legislators Pursue Campaign Finance Reform for District Attorneys

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    Manhattan DA Cy Vance (photo: @ManhattanDA)


    District attorneys wield nearly unfettered discretion as to whether to prosecute potential defendants, but nothing in the law prevents lawyers for the accused from donating to a district attorney’s election campaign. Most New Yorkers became aware of this glaring blindspot in the state’s campaign finance law in 2017, following news that Manhattan District Attorney Cy Vance’s campaign had accepted thousands of dollars from an attorney for Harvey Weinstein, the disgraced Hollywood mogul who Vance’s office had

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  • Cy Vance and Jeff Sessions Versus Your Privacy

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    Manhattan DA Vance leads a press conference (photo: @NYPDnews)


    As an elected member of the state Assembly, one of my main priorities is to ensure New Yorkers have a government that works with them to protect their rights and their safety. That’s why I’ve become increasingly concerned by the steps Manhattan District Attorney Cy Vance has taken to undermine digital privacy through his weak position on encryption protection.

    Americans are rightfully worried about the confidentiality of their electronic information, from financial documents

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  • The Next Step to Reform District Attorney Campaign Finance

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    Four NYC DAs  (photo: @ManhattanDA)


    For the past four months, the people of Manhattan have grappled with accusations of their District Attorney cultivating a pay-to-play culture in which the rich and powerful skate by serious criminal charges -- if their lawyers contribute sizable donations to DA Vance’s campaign. In a public display of penance for allowing the appearance of corruption to permeate, Vance requested The Center for the Advancement of Public Integrity at Columbia Law School to investigate ways to better insulate our elected prosecutors

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  • Manhattan GOP Sees Hope on Upper East Side

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    Rebecca Harary with supporters (photo via @TeamHarary)


    When it comes to the New York State Legislature, most electoral attention is paid to the Senate, which Republicans control by a thin majority and only because an elected Democrat caucuses with them and they have a power-sharing agreement with a five-member faction of breakaway “independent” Democrats. This November’s elections will determine control of the chamber.

    In the State Assembly, however, the balance of power is not close. Republicans have been at a massive

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