Reformer: September 2009

From Dick Dadey, Executive Director

Since the last edition of the Reformer just three short months ago, Citizens Union and Citizens Union Foundation have been hard at work evaluating local elections, hosting candidate debates, issuing candidate preferences, offering solutions to end the State Senate chaos, advocating for the Governor to use his legal authority to appoint a new Lieutenant Governor, and urging for the adoption of real ethics reform, among other things. With your participation and support, Citizens Union has been able to not only inform elected officials and the public, but shape the consideration of issues and policies.

The one thing that all of these things have in common is Citizens Union’s nonpartisan, common ground approach in addressing important policy issues. What you will read below reflects this view and approach to our work. Thanks for making our work and victories possible.

Legislation Introduced to Transfer Prosecutorial Power to the Civilian Complaint Review Board

Councilmembers Dan Garodnick, Bill de Blasio, Al Vann and other members of the City Council introduced legislation in July, Intro 1048, which would transfer to the Civilian Complaint Review Board (CCRB) the responsibility and power to prosecute the cases it substantiates. Citizens Union worked closely with Councilmember Garodnick to craft the legislation, which is the realization of one of the major reforms that were recommended in CU’s 2008  Issue Brief and Position Statement on Public Oversight of Police Misconduct. A  press release  to announce the bill’s introduction and a  fact sheet in support of the legislation were also issued by Citizens Union and Councilmember Garodnick.

Dick Dadey and Councilmember Garodnick also recently co-authored an article, “Putting Civilian Review Back Into the CCRB,” for the Huffington Post under their New York section which presents the policy argument for the legislation and aims to increase awareness of this issue.

Citizens Union plans to work with the Council in the coming months to build support for this important legislation. During our evaluation of candidates running for municipal office this year, we asked all candidates about their position on this proposal as a way to garner additional support. Citizens Union will work closely with the new class of Councilmembers – many of whom support this legislation – who will be entering office in January 2010 to pass this critically needed legislation.

 

The New York City Conflicts of Interest Board – the city’s ethics watchdog – on August 3, 2009 released a series of legislative proposals, as well as a user-friendly chart summarizing the proposals, to implement substantive and technical amendments to the city’s ethics laws. The Board’s recommendations fall within four categories and include changes such as ensuring budget protection for the Board, giving the Board investigative power, and prohibiting public servants from receiving any gift of value. Since the Board cannot implement these changes on its own or via regulation, the Board forwarded a letter outlining its proposals to the City Council Speaker Christine Quinn for the Council’s consideration. Citizens Union is in the process of evaluating the Board’s proposals and will continue to track the status of these proposals and keep our supporters abreast of any changes. Much like it did at the state level, Citizens Union is also looking at the entire area of city ethics oversight and may propose additional and necessary changes to the city’s structure and approach.

 

The City Council this summer upgraded its website to include a new web-based legislative search tool that better allows users to peruse legislation, Councilmembers’ sponsorships, committee reports, and track legislative history. Dick Dadey supported the new tool in the Council’s press release, which gives more information about the functions of the tool. Citizens Union will continue to advocate for more transparency of Council operations, including ways to further improve its website and users’ ability to find information, such as hearing transcripts and testimony.

 

Court of Appeals Upholds Governor’s Authority to Appoint a Lieutenant Governor to Fill the Vacancy

In a  decision  overturning previous rulings made in lower courts, the New York State Court of Appeals upheld the governor’s ability to appoint a lieutenant governor should there be a vacancy in the office. This is not only a victory for the Governor, but also for Citizens Union which proposed the idea in July and then filed two amicus briefs in the courts on this issue. Citizens Union and Common Cause/NY issued a  joint statement  applauding the court’s decision which the organization believes is correct on the legal merits, and removes any uncertainty regarding the line of succession to the governor.

The legality of the Governor’s action was initially challenged in Supreme Court, Nassau County by Senators Dean Skelos and Pedro Espada, where the court granted their motion for a preliminary injunction barring Richard Ravitch from serving as lieutenant governor and denied the Governor’s motion to dismiss the lawsuit. The Supreme Court’s decision was appealed to the Appellate Division for the Second Department where Citizens Union and its good government colleague Common Cause filed its first  amicus brief  urging the court rule that the Governor had the legal authority to appoint Richard Ravitch as Lieutenant Governor. The Second Department affirmed the lower court’s decision, which was appealed to the state’s highest court – the State of New York’s Court of Appeals Citizens Union and Common Cause/NY filed a  second amicus brief  in support of the governor’s ability to appoint a lieutenant governor.

In July, a little over a month into the State Senate’s stalemate, Citizens Union, along with Assemblymember Gianaris and its good government colleague Common Cause/NY, issued a joint letter and held a  press conference  to express their collective belief that current law and the New York State Constitution read together allow Governor Paterson to appoint a Lieutenant Governor. Governor Paterson shortly thereafter, on July 8th, appointed Richard Ravitch as lieutenant governor which Citizens Union  supported .

In reaching its position, Citizens Union relied upon a number of legal scholars and civic leaders, including several on its board such as Richard Briffault, Columbia Law School Professor; Robert M. Kaufman, Proskauer Rose partner and former President of the New York City Bar; Alan Rothstein, General Counsel at the New York City Bar; Peter Sherwin, CU Chair and Partner at Proskauer Rose; and John P. Avlon, noted author and media commentator.

 

After calling for ethics reform before the Senate leadership struggle, Citizens Union was encouraged to learn that ethics reform was on the Senate’s agenda for its special session on September 10, 2009. The Senate leadership aimed to improve upon the ethics proposals contained in A.9032 (Silver)/S.6064 (Squadron) passed by the Assembly at the end of the June legislative session by introducing S.6157 (Sampson). This chapter amendment of a bill would have strengthened the Assembly bill in several much-needed ways; it would have required random review or audits of filed disclosure statements, created an independent campaign finance enforcement unit at the Board of Elections, and provided for a three-year sunset provision to ensure the efficacy of the law is evaluated in a timely manner. Despite its best efforts, however, the Senate was unable to pass these reforms during the special session, which prompted Citizens Union and its good government colleagues to issue a  statement  applauding the State Senate’s efforts to pass ethics reforms and stating that it was imperative that both the Assembly bill and the proposed chapter amendment be passed as a package instead of passing only parts of the reform necessary to improve the state’s ethics laws. Citizens Union will continue to call on Albany’s elected leaders to pass critically-important ethics reform during the upcoming 2010 legislative session and during any special sessions called prior to then.

 

Citizens Union recently offered its comments on seven legislative proposals that were drafted by the Commission on Public Integrity (CPI), which are currently on its website, to amend the State Lobbying Act by submitting a written  statement  to the CPI. Citizens Union stated that lobbying reforms should generally be part of a holistic approach with changes to the state’s election, ethics and campaign finance laws to ensure that all intersections of money and politics are monitored and abuses of power prevented by a single entity. The statement also urged the Commission to strengthen its legislative proposals by including greater clarity and specificity regarding the scope and intention of the bills.

 

Local Candidates Primary Preferences – Voters Directory

Prior to the September 15th primary election, Citizens Union released our annual voters’ directory which listed every contest for municipal public offices that were on the primary election ballot. Members of Citizens Union’s Board, as well as nonpartisan member interview teams from Citizens Union’s Local Candidates Committee, evaluated candidates for Mayor, Comptroller, Public Advocate, Manhattan District Attorney and many key City Council races. Our preferences, candidate questionnaires, and candidate summaries can be found in the online version of the voters’ directory.

Despite the abysmal voter turnout on September 15th, when only eleven percent of registered Democrats went to the polls, there were some notable results at the end of the day that highlight Citizens Union’s success in increasing electoral competition, as well as the need for further reform to improve elections in the city. Of fifty-one members in the City Council, at least twelve new members and quite possibly as many as fourteen will be sworn in at the beginning of the year. In addition, as a sign of growing competition in the city and perhaps some ramifications of the recent council vote to extend term limits, ten city council members were either defeated or won reelection with less than fifty percent of the vote.

This primary season, Citizens Union’s preferred candidates fared well on Election Day, where they won five of the eight primaries in City Council districts with an open race: Ydanis Rodriquez in Manhattan’s 10th, Kevin Kim in Queens’ 19th, Mark Weprin in Queens’ 23rd, James Van Bramer in Queens’ 26th, and Brad Lander in Brooklyn’s 39th. Our other three preferred candidates lost – S.J. Jung lost to Yen Chou in Queens’ 20th, Lynn Schulman lost to Karen Koslowitz in Queens’ 29th, and Evan Thies lost to Steve Levin in Brooklyn’s 33rd. In addition, CU’s preferred candidates won election in two of the six contests in which we opposed the incumbent: Danny Dromm over Helen Sears in Queens’ 25th and Jumaane Williams over Kendall Stewart in Brooklyn’s 45th. An additional incumbent that we opposed was defeated, but not by our preferred candidate – Margaret Chin won over incumbent Alan Gerson and CU preferred candidate PJ Kim in Manhattan’s 1st. In addition, incumbents that CU preferred who won included: Chris Quinn in Manhattan’s 3rd, Robert Jackson in Manhattan’s 7th, Inez Dickens in Manhattan’s 9th, Leroy Comrie in Queens 27th, Diana Reyna in Brooklyn’s 34th (please note this is a particularly close race that is likely to be challenged in court), Letitia James in Brooklyn’s 35th, and Al Vann in Brooklyn’s 36th. In the competitive Manhattan District Attorney race, Cyrus Vance beat CU’s preferred candidate Leslie Crocker Snyder.

In the citywide races, Bill Thompson, the CU preferred candidate, won the Democratic Primary Election for Mayor and will go on to face Mayor Michael Bloomberg in November. In addition, both CU preferred candidates for Comptroller and Public Advocate, John Liu and Bill de Blasio respectively, ended the night with the most votes. Each will go on to face the candidate with the second highest number of votes in a run-off Democratic primary election – Liu will face David Yassky and de Blasio will face Mark Green – which will be held on Tuesday, September 29, 2009. You can watch the run-off debate for Public Advocate on September 23rd and the run-off debate for Comptroller on Thursday, September 24th at 7 p.m. on NY1 or listen on WNYC radio.

For complete coverage of the election and results for all the races you can go to Gotham Gazette.

  At the end of the last school year in June of 2009, Citizens Union presented its first Future Reformer Award as part of our partnership with the Urban Assembly Academy of Civic Engagement (Civic), which is given to a civic-minded and dedicated student who is interested in improving his or her community and New York City. Citizens Union proudly presented the award to Ivyuriko (Ivy) Ortiz, a 7th Grade Scholar, now in the 8th grade, at the school. From the moment Ivy joined Civic, she has stood out as a leader. During her first year at Civic, Ivy took the theme of the school to heart and joined the City Year Young Heroes program, where she completed over 100 hours of community service during the weekends. Ivy is also a member of Honor Court at school, where she helped to develop the school court system and now sits to hear cases regarding infractions committed by her peers. Ivy has such a keen sense of justice that she stopped to sign a petition about rent increases in Harlem (and encouraged others to do the same) during a school bowling trip. In addition to her work around civic engagement, Ivy is also a tireless performer. She sings in almost every school talent show and takes singing and dance classes outside of school.

Citizens Union hosted a Democratic Primary debate with candidates running in Queens Council District 26 to replace Councilmember Eric Gioia, who ran for Public Advocate. The debate held at LaGuardia Community College in Long Island City featured candidates Deirdre Ferrick, Brent O’Leary and James Van Bramer, as well as then-candidate David Rosasco. The candidates had a lively discussion about development in the district, mayoral control of city schools, and their qualifications to be the district’s next councilmember. During the audience question and answer period the candidates were asked by a new resident what they felt were the most important ways to foster community in the district and all of the candidates emphasized the need to make the councilmember’s district office serve as a place where residents can receive information about community activities, groups and resources. Note: Citizens Union’s preferred candidate Jimmy Van Bramer won the primary election for this seat. 

 

Citizens Union, along with its colleagues NY1, NY1 Noticias, the Daily News, WNYC, and Time Warner Cable, has played an active role in co-sponsoring three New York City Campaign Finance Board debates for candidates running for the three citywide municipal offices – Mayor, Comptroller and Public Advocate. Under the Campaign Finance Act, participating citywide candidates are required to take part in debates before each election. Below are links to archival audio and video for the debates that have already taken place.Citizens Union will also be co-sponsoring the First Mayoral Debate for this fall’s General Election on Tuesday, October 13, 2009 at El Museo Del Barrio from 7:00 – 8:30 pm. Mayor Michael Bloomberg, though not a participating candidate in the City’s Campaign Finance Program, has agreed to take part in the debate with Comptroller Bill Thompson. The debate will be televised live on NY1, broadcast on WNYC radio (93.9FM/820AM), and webcast at www.ny1.com. Citizens Union is seeking the help of members and supporters to be volunteers for this important debate, so if you are interested in volunteering, please contact Rachael Fauss at rfauss@citizensunion.org.

First Mayoral Primary Debate for Democratic Candidates – August 26, 2009 NY1 Video | WNYC Audio Second Public Advocate Primary Debate for Democratic Candidates – September 8, 2009 NY1 Video | WNYC Audio Second Comptroller Primary Debate for Democratic Candidates – September 10, 2009 NY1 Video | WNYC Audio

For over half a century, Citizens Union and Citizens Union Foundation have held their Annual Awards Dinner to honor leaders who have made significant contributions toward improving the civic life of the City of New York.

This year, former Mayor Ed Koch will receive CU’s Public Service Award for his many years of service to the City of New York. Former CU and CUF Board Chair Richard J. Davis will receive the Robert F. Wagner, Jr. Award, which is named in honor of CU’s former board chair who was a leading civic figure in his time. Peter J. Beshar, Executive Vice President and General Counsel of Marsh & McLennan Companies and a former New York State Assistant Attorney General, will receive our Business Leadership Award. Lisa M. Quiroz, Senior Vice President of Corporate Responsibility at Time Warner, which supports literacy and civic engagement among youth, will receive our Civic Leadership Award.

This year’s Dinner will take place on October 29th at The Pierre. Proceeds from the event support CU and CUF’s policy, research and public education work aimed at ensuring fair elections and promoting good government and political reform in New York City and New York State.

For reservations, sponsorship opportunities or more information, please contact Kristine Bruch at 212-228-7446 x15 or kristine@mcevoyandassociates.com. You may also purchase tickets or make a contribution online.