Posted on 07/09/2021 3:59:59 AM PDT by MtnClimber
In the 2019 off-year election here in New York City, there was almost no reason to bother to vote. There were no elections on the ballot for any significant political office, whether federal, state, or local. But they took the occasion to put to the voters five propositions to amend the New York City Charter. One of those propositions provided for replacement of then-current voting procedures with a complicated “ranked choice voting” (RCV) system. Nobody can remember what the other four Charter amendment propositions were about. (Go here if you are curious.)
Previously, the system provided for runoff elections. In a multi-party race, if the leading candidate received more than 40% of the vote, that candidate would win outright; but if no candidate crossed that threshold, there would be a runoff between the leading two candidates. Multi-party races are unfortunately common in New York City, because we don’t have an effective two-party system as exists at the federal level. The Republicans are often non-competitive, and therefore, most elections are determined by the Democratic Party primary. To enter the Democratic primary for Mayor, you only need to collect a big 2,750 signatures from registered voters. And thus we can find ourselves with large numbers of candidates in the primaries. Indeed, nearly every seat with no incumbent running for re-election draws a large field. And since all City offices now have limits of two terms for office-holders, there are many, many open seats for every City election. As an illustration, with current Mayor de Blasio term limited, his seat is open, and the recent primary on June 22 had some thirteen candidates for Mayor in the Democratic race.
Throughout New York City in the recent election, voters had to contend with multiple races with five or ten or even more candidates running. In my own district, besides the race for Mayor, there was a race for City Comptroller, one for Manhattan District Attorney, and another one for City Councilman. All had large fields for voters to learn about and then rank.
The newly-proposed system in 2019 seemed overly complicated to me, and I didn’t see what was wrong with the occasional runoff. But RCV was pitched as a form of “instant runoff.” It won with about a 3-1 majority.
Now we have just had our first experience with the new system. The primaries were held on June 22. Since then it’s been two-plus weeks of the Perils of Pauline (including an admission by the Board of Elections that the initially-reported results included some 100,000+ test ballots that had not been eliminated before tallying actual votes). Just yesterday (July 7), the second-ranked candidate for Mayor (Kathryn Garcia) finally conceded. So we now finally know that the Democratic candidate for Mayor will be Eric Adams.
Remarkably, Adams was the closest thing to a “conservative” candidate in the race. As an example, he won the endorsement of the New York Post. The election was very much dominated by the issue of crime, with the rates of murders and of gun violence up dramatically during the mayoralty of de Blasio, most of that in the past two years. Adams explicitly made himself the law and order candidate. Actually, that wasn’t too difficult, because several of his more progressive opponents advocated for some form of defunding or “repurposing” of the policing function, even in the face of the big crime spike. Given that Adams served as a policeman himself for some 22 years (retiring as a Captain), he has a good deal of credibility in this area.
So far so good. But beyond the one area of crime, it’s difficult to tell where Adams may be headed. The best place to look for his campaign stands is this list of “Eric Adams’ 100+ Steps Forward For NYC.” There is some reason for optimism here. After 8 years of de Blasio’s blowout spending and giving the progressives everything they wanted, Adams actually talks (modestly) about reining back the cost and burden of City government, at least a little. For example:
-“SAVE $1.5B AND AVOID LAYOFFS BY SIMPLY NOT HIRING ANYONE NEW FOR TWO YEARS”
-“MANDATE EFFICIENCY”
-“REIN IN HOSPITAL COSTS”
-“SLASH THE RED TAPE”
-“ELIMINATE THE FEES FOR STARTING (OR RE-STARTING) A SMALL BUSINESS”
OK, it’s a start. But there’s also plenty in here about new initiatives on crazy progressive stuff that will just throw more taxpayer money down the drain. A few examples:
-“RETURN TO URBAN AGRICULTURE”. There’s a reason why nobody invests private capital in building a farm in the Bronx. (Hint: the land is way too expensive.)
-“PROVIDE EVERY PARENT WHO NEEDS IT WITH CHILDCARE”. Doesn’t every parent “need” childcare?
-“MOVE FROM CRADLE-TO-CAREER TO PRENATAL-TO-CAREER”.
-“MAKE NEW YORK CITY THE WIND POWER HUB OF THE EASTERN SEABOARD”. Oh, please. To his credit, Adams does not make wild “climate” promises (a la de Blasio) like making the City “carbon free” in some short number of years. Most of the “climate”-related stuff in this dossier is small beer, like, for example, buying more electric buses.
If you are looking for the plan to rein in the wildly excessive New York City spending on K-12 education (well over double the national average per student) or on Medicaid, you will not find that here.
And of course there’s the obligatory plan for an increased tax on “ultra-millionaires.” Here the proposed tax will be “temporary” for two years, and will only apply on income over $5 million. As we all know, that’s not the way any temporary ultra-millionaire tax has ever worked in history.
The summary is that this guy is much, much less bad than what we could have gotten. Most of his proposals are fairly vague, and it’s hard to know which of them will be implemented and which will fall by the wayside. If he really does pay some attention to efficiency in City government and to public safety, he might actually bring the City back from the brink where it currently finds itself.
NYC really needs Rudy back!
Just another NYC leftist... to no one’s shock, I’m sure.
Let me ask you this...If these voters are such a lock, why does Deep State need to steal elections?
Note to Gothamites: Repeal RCV and get rid of those RCV enabled voting machines, or you’ll never get your city back.
I don’t think Rudy at his age has the energy to do what he did for NY again, but another of his mold would be wonderful.
The city is a vast machine, designed to produce a huge revenue flow to the governing faction, while at the same time, the governing faction is in the process of outstripping in every way that can be imagined, the very capability of this machine to generate this revenue flow.
The governing faction is struggling very hard to shoot themselves in the foot yet again.
That’ll show them all, by gosh.
Curtis Sliwa is on the Republican ticket....
Bottom line: If the majority of NYC voters are as loony left as Deep State would like us all to believe, Deep State wouldn’t have to cram RCV and those machines down voters’ throats.
If NYC wants its city back they have to repeal RCV and go back to dumb voting machines.
Rudy’s son would indeed have name recognition. The Dems have “party boys”. Let him run for mayor and see what happens. He’s been working on President Trump’s team for a couple years.
Surely he jests?
“Surely he jests?”
He’s not jesting. And don’t call hi, Shirley!
(Thanks for the set up)
I remember several years ago when the otherwise prescient Second City Cop all but endorsed the candidacy of Lori Lightfoot for Chicago Mayor as the “lesser of two evils.”
We all know how that worked out.
And this, my FRiends is how the left gets power..
Off year elections, held in the middle of summer, that only those not working will participate in...
A simple law, requiring all elections to be held on the same day each year would eliminate this loophole.
Just try and pass something like this, and the resistance will be more intense than voter ID
I heard he was dead...........
I think you posted this too soon. Currently, they’re in the “Looking for blackmail material” phase. If they can’t find anything that they can use to control him, they’ll have to move on to step 2.
I take it you have never seen escape from new York.... Everyone says.. Snake Plisskin...I heard you were dead...
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.