New York City Council Speaker Christine Quinn's recent decision to force her members to use stickers to approve budget projects is the last example of a pattern of derision she has employed to publicly humiliate her members and seem more mayoral by doing it.

The public perception of the Council (thanks to the tabs mostly reporting on the idiocy of the few rather than the honorable efforts of the many) is that it is a bunch of hollering, whiny, careless elementary school children. Because of this, there are then two choices for any Speaker of such a reviled body: 1) Through hard work and loyalty, raise the Council to respectability with the quality of your ideas, and the unflagging support of your members; or 2) Cravenly join the chorus of detractors and scold it at every chance.

Disappointingly for this Speaker, she has clearly chosen the latter. Frankly, that’s the smart political move—but it’s also the coward’s way out. There is a pattern here for Quinn. Her "reform" ideas for the Council are much less about transparency, egalitarianism and a more democratic body than she purports—they are actually about insinuating her members are incompetent and consolidating her power. And it goes beyond the budget process changes – that give members less opportunity to introduce their own proposals and her almost unlimited authority over the budget – and the superficial, but still condescending dress code requirements.

For instance: under already instituted rules, members are not now allowed to have a cup of coffee paid for by someone who has business with the City. A cup of coffee! The old rule was no gifts over $50—a respectable standard. Now, it’s any gift, whatsoever. I mean, are we really expected to believe that members are so crooked that a ham and egg sandwich is going to change the fate of a zoning variance? Of course not, only gobs of cold hard cash would, and for a small minority of the membership if the recent past of disgraced member Angel Rodriguez is any measure. The only reasonable explanation for this is that the Speaker wants to look like the Parent, and for the misbehaving members to look like children. If her goal was actual reform, she would make public her own meeting schedule with lobbyists, and force City lawmakers – including herself – to publish details about their donors such as, simply, who their employer is so that bundling can be made harder.

Quinn has also internally proposed rule changes to chastise members who miss committee and Stated meetings. Sounds good, right? They should go to their meetings, shouldn't they? Yes, under ideal circumstances. But who is Quinn to say what those circumstances should or not should be? Right now, her draft proposal (which was circulated to members in February but has yet to be released) would set strict procedures for maintaining a public attendance record, and set limited and incontestable standards for excused absences such as maternity leave or illness. These new rules, for instance, would prevent members from holding open the roll for more than 30 minutes for a member to vote on an item in committee who could not attend for the initial vote. Right now, members who have to arrive late but still want to participate in the vote, routinely post their vote hours after the actual meeting. Under the new rules, those votes would not count—even if they were actually stuck in traffic, or at a fire in their district.

Chalres Barron is a good example of why this rule change would be a bad idea. He missed more than his share of meetings this past year, but he would say he's spending that time trying to save the 14,000 tenants of Starrett City from a billion-dollar bid to buy them out. If he was elected by those people, and he thinks it's better to be organizing and raising awareness around their issues than snoozing through a Lower Manhattan Committee meeting, isn't that his decision? The Speaker’s office will say it’s merely putting these records out there for public consumption. But perception is all that matters—and they know that. This move, with such strict limits on when members can be marked for an approved absence, will make even the most decent members look like jerks. Besides – and this is the point here – the punishment for being truant under the Speaker's plan would only be the public humiliation of her attendance record. It might as well be detention.

Once again, Christine Quinn’s goal is clearly not to make the Council better. It is instead to become its disapproving, more respectable, Mom. This, of course, is not a new idea. Both of the last two Speakers scolded their members from time to time to look more like a leader and separate themselves from the bad Council rep as they ran for higher office. But the politicking behind Quinn’s moves are particularly disappointing. They are a far cry from her political upbringing as a community organizer and housing advocate who understood that most of the City’s business is done outside of City Hall—an advocate, whom I'm sure bought more than a few cups of coffee for legislators.