Quinn's Vulnerability
September 16th, 2009
Perhaps one of the most surprising elements of yesterday’s primary was Council Speaker Christine Quinn’s showing, which was disappointing by most accounts.
Quinn received a little more than 52 percent of the vote (6,868 total votes), while her two competitors, Yetta Kurland (with 4,108) and Maria Passannante-Derr (with 2,117) broke up the rest.
Interestingly, Quinn did worse than when she first ran for office in 1999 – also a four-way, February special election. Then, according to the city Board of Elections, Quinn walked away with 9,155 votes — far ahead of her closest opponent, Carlos A. Manzano who had 3,237 votes. The 1999 election had about 4,000 more total votes than yesterday’s primary.
Her showing yesterday follows her support for the mayor’s proposal to extend term limits and the council slush fund scandal. Her slim majority has raised questions today on whether her speakership is vulnerable, especially after she irritated members last year by proposing reforms to address the slush fund scandal and when she called a vote on the mayor’s congestion pricing plan (we all know what happened there).
With a rush of new members in January, a coup could be possible, even though it’s not exactly clear now who would lead it.
“Even though there is grumbling in the body, somebody has to be able to step up and put together a coalition,” said Baruch College Professor Doug Muzzio. Even though yesterday was surprising, for now, Muzzio added, it’s hard to see who that person would be.
By Courtney Gross on September 16, 2009, 1:51 pmIn category: City Hall, Gotham City | 1 Comment »


September 16th, 2009 at 3:27 pm
Quisling Quinn, who has kowtowed to Napoleon Bonaparte Bloomberg for years, deserved defeat for all the reasons mentioned and more: anti-democratic repeal of two referenda on term limits, corrupt slush fund (still under investigation by the feds), congestion pricing debacle that would have given suburbanites (who pay no commuter tax) cheaper access to the city than residents), selling out the heart and soul of the city to developers, raising the most regressive of taxes, the sales tax, etc, etc, etc. Pray for a viable third-party candidate.