Every year in an annual ritual, scores of candidates, many running for the first time are denied a chance to compete in the electoral process or have their campaign efforts severely harmed by the obstacles of ballot access. New York’s election law is among the most stringent in the nation. It poisons the democratic process and is kept in place by incumbents and a political machine which gain advantage by those that it harms. Sometimes more than half of a challenger’s time and resources (for those that make it through the petitioning process), are used up to get through the obstacles put in place to deny them ballot access. Many races are decided in the courts or by Campaign Finance Board (CFB) rules, not the ballot box. It not just the petitions system that machine-backed candidates use to block ballot access, the CFB rule which allows a candidate who challenges his opponent(s) petitions to receive matching funds, but not the candidate(s) he is challenging, has become a weapon to gravely weaken ones challenge(s).

Banking and Politics

As Old As the Republic

By Gary Tilzer

Many economists are now blaming the deregulation of the banking industry by congress as the cause of the nation’s economic crisis. It is important to understand that the intimate relationship between politics and banking policy is not new, nor is its economic influence now unique. Since the nation's beginnings banking regulations have been intimately connected to politics, and the politics of banking is a high stakes game not well understood by the public. It is clearly not understood by today's elected officials who have destroyed Wall Street and the economy of New York City. A review of New York's economic history and banking policy from 1784 to the Civil War clearly shows that banks and banking policy were central to the state's economic development (and closely entwined with politics). It also shows that intelligent banking policy can further economic development while bad policy inevitably causes economic havoc.

"It is a function of government and politicians to invent philosophies to explain the demands of its own conenience." - Murray Kempton 

A couple of weeks ago New York City’s term limits law was extended legislatively by the New York City Council and Mayor Bloomberg based upon the rationale that the City needs consistent leadership to get us through the coming economic crisis. The editorial boards of all the city’s daily newspapers made this exact case to their readers and our elected officials echoed their argument. Council Speaker Quinn said “given the level of economic tumult that exists, I have decided to change my position [opposing the extension of term limits] because I believe the potential of consistent leadership by this council and this mayor would be in the best interest of the city during these hard economic times." 

If the New York City Board of Elections were a patient racing from one highly recommended doctor to another without ever getting better, someone might finally say, ''Hey, wait a minute. Maybe the diagnosis is wrong here.''

But, the prevailing diagnosis of what ails the Board of Elections (BOE) is the system.  Its structure is corrupt and its controllers are unaccountable.  But merely attacking the management of the board is meaningless.  You have to first understand who is pulling the strings and why.

You would never know it from the media that Councilmember Lewis Fiddler funds one of the city’s largest non-profit patronage operations in the city.  Coming in with the third highest amount of member items in the council, with just over $700,000, Lewis Fidler, assistant majority leader and Chairman of the Youth Services Committee, said he is proud to be considered the third "biggest pig" in the council.  The Councilman uses the city’s budget to provide jobs for his friends, campaign workers and to continue the illusion that a once-powerful club is still going strong.

This could have been the time for changing New York’s incumbent protection election system.  During the last council election in 2005, almost two thirds (28 out of 34) of the incumbents running had no primary.  Four of the other six incumbents being challenged won with more than 80% of the vote.   The controversial term limits vote is the only opportunity to negotiate with enough councilmember to get the votes needed for Charter change that will insure real competitive elections in this one party town.  It is a failure of the Citizen Union and other good government groups as well as the newspaper editorial boards and the reform clubs of this city not to demand changes that could have been used as a bargaining chip by both sides in this forced debate.

Councilman Domenic M. Recchia told the New York Times on October 7^th that he favors the extension of term limits, “A lot of us Council members feel that passing it through legislation is giving ample opportunity to the voters of the city to voice their opinions.”  He added: “If the voters don’t like their council member, they can vote him out of office. And if they don’t like the mayor, they can get rid of him too.”  

From Gary Tilzer

An addition of an extra term for city officials will have a chilling effect on competition for elective office, worsening a political system in the City which is already on life support.  The immediate critical problem is not that less than 1% of registered voters during the last primary had a choice at the polls; it is the centralization of control in the hands of a new breed of powerbrokers that has evolved since the corruption scandal uncovered in the 1980’s in the Koch administration.

After the former county leader goes to jail for corruption connected with judicial elections, a U.S. Federal Judge Gleeson calling them unconstitutional - fixed - and extensive condemnation by the city’s newspaper editorial pages, the charade called the Brooklyn Judicial Convention continued like nothing ever happened.  In fact like a wounded animal or king the situation has grown grave and depraved.

Nothing has been learned by the experiences of the past 5 years a delegate whispered into my ear when boss Vito was not looking.  Something very bad is happening to our way of life and culture.  Our system of democracy, separation of powers, built in political party conflict has failed and nobody cares.  The business as usually continuation of the convention is proof that our culture has changed so much that exposure and shame which used to be enough to cause reform has been replaced by a get over society, where morality or doing what is right does not matter.  What is even more frightening, if it was up to the press there would be no record.  Only the Manhattan gadfly a modern day Thomas Paine made sure there was a public record.

By reading the political blogs and newspapers you would never know that Brooklyn Democratic County Leader Vito Lopez lost most of the important contested contests over the past few years.  

This year Lopez backed Senator Martin Connors and lost.  More importantly his power block of voters in Williamsburg is clearly split, with the new Satmar faction headed by Rabbi Glanz/UJCARE, followers of Rabbi Aaron Teitelbaum winning over a third of the vote for Squadron. Connor received 90.86 percent of the Chassidic vote when he ran against Diamondstone two years ago, but only 64.83 percent to Squadron's 35.17 percent on Tuesday.  Vito and his Williamsburg faction of Rabbi Niederman/UJO, followers of Rabbi Zalman Teitelbaum, no longer have the field all to themselves.   A bigger problem for Lopez with Connor’s defeat was that Squadron is a Schumer backed candidate.  Our senator has a long memory; part of that remembrance is Lopez heading up Democrats for D'Amato.  Will the emerging Schumer machine defeat Vito’s smoke and mirrors operation?  

Everyone is familiar with the New Yorker cartoon of the map of the U.S. with only New York and a bunch of cactus desert filling in the rest of the country.  Well if one was to do a map of political change this year, Manhattan would be the cactus and the rest of the country would be colorful, green and jumping with high buildings.  The inability to change or reform coupled with a successful effort to extend term limits will all but shut down local Democracy in New York.  The Obama and Palin movements have bypassed New York.

The City Council’s Own Appalachian Arrangement?
By Gary Tilzer
 

“Someone intentionally designed this scheme. It was no mistake.” Norman Siegel    

(This is the first in a series of artilce on how the public became disconnected from the voting process - in the media capital of the world.) 

Local TV newscasts and the internet are now the public's number one source of news.  While there are signs that newspapers, magazines and cable TV are using their internet sites to expand news coverage, most local TV news stations do little more than repeat the limited news they cover on the air, on their station’s website.