Once again, non-partisan elections — or top two to use the current jargon — dominated a Charter Revision Commission hearing at Brooklyn College last night. But if proponents dominated at a hearing last month in the Bronx, this time opponents made their voices heard.
A number of people, some bearing signs from New York Communities for Change and others wearing union t-shirts, made their opposition to the idea known by waving sign, applauding and even jeering – much as Independence Party members had done for the other side in the earlier hearing.
This even though the evening kicked off with a more than hour-long presentation by Citizens Union. Although the good government group — whose sister organization publishes Gotham Gazette — has issued a report with some 50 charter recommendations aimed, executive director Dick Dadey, said at increasing participation in elections and government decisions making, it devoted much of its time to pushing for a plan that would create one primary for all candidates in which any registered voter — party member of nor — could vote. The top two vote getters, again regardless of party would then go head-to-head in a general election.
Although Mayor Michael Bloomberg is known to support such a scheme — and unsuccessfully pushed for in 2003 — the proposal is not included in the commission staff’s preliminary draft report. The Citizen Union presentation was an effort to try to persuade the commission to reverse its staff and put the idea on the ballot.
In their comments Citizens Union officials cited declining voter turnout and the fact that many elections were decided in the Democratic primary — not open to some 1.5 million registered New York voters who are not Democrats. While other ideas — changing the voting calendar, for example, or allowing Election Day registration — might increase turnout — Dadey said, “Top two is the best way the charter commission can open up the process.”
Both Dadey and Citizen Union board member John Avlon portrayed top two as a way to loosen the grip of special interest, including union and the Democratic Party. Dadey described Democrats as having “a stranglehold” on the city.
Others who spoke, though, saw the wealthy as the ones wielding power. Citing the expanding role of money and self-financed rich candidates, Public Advocate Bill de Blasio warned, “Nonpartisan elections would lend fuel to this already raging fire.” He called on the commission to do what I could to “stop the expanding influence of money in a democracy.”
Manhattan Borough president Scott Stringer agreed, describing top two as “a reckless proposal that leave parties vulnerable to billionaires steamrolling elections.” And a representative of the Green Party called Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s billions “the greatest threat to democracy at this point.”
Merits of top two aside, some commissioners seemed reluctant to put it on the ballot in November, questioning whether voters would have enough time to consider its carefully. In deciding what to propose, commission chair Matthew Goldstein said, the body should consider, “do we have enough time to analyze the issue… Do we have enough time to educate the voters …, and do we have enough comfort that what we bring forward will have the possibility of success?”
Some commissioners who said they favored a nonpartisan or top two system worried about that last point. “The perfect could be the enemy of the good,” said commissioner Kathryn Patterson. “If we have other proposals, could top two jeopardize them?”
Noting 70 percent of voter said no to nonpartisan elections in 2003 , Stephen Fiala said it might be too risky to put it on the ballot now. If, he said, special interests and the political parties prevail and again defeat the idea “then we will have lost for certain the opportunity … to really push this as an issue.”
Both Dadey and Avlon, though, said much had changed since 2003. This time around, they said, that the measure, as part of a package of other ideas, could win voter approval.
By Gail Robinson on July 20, 2010, 2:01 pm
In category:
Gotham City | 1 Comment »
RSS Feed