GOP Leaders Use Ballot Access to Fight for Patronage and Power

It is not only challengers to local offices who are held hostage, even billionaire mayors must contend with Tammany Hall’s control of New York's Ballot Box. The dance in the media about some Republican county leaders who are unhappy with the mayor is really the result of a behind the scenes, closed-door battle on who gets to be Number 1 with the current mayor: Giuliani, Pataki or the county leaders themselves. What the Republican county leaders are saying is: we don’t want the former mayor and governor acting as our middle men with the mayor. The buzz is that Bloomberg is demanding that Pataki and Giuliani deliver the Republican leaders before their meeting on February 25th.

Even A Dead Party Has Power in NYC  read more »

Using the Courts and the CFB Rules to Win Elections

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).  read more »

Banking and Politics: As Old As the Republic

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.  read more »

"It is a function of government and politicians to invent philosophies to explain the demands of its own convenience." - 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."  read more »

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.

The BOE is closely guarded by the incumbent protection society, because it serves as a gatekeeper to deliberately make it very hard and costly for anyone independent of the insiders from winning party positions or elected office. Since Robert Wagner in the 1960s, New York City mayors have tried to reform the BOE, but they have been mostly rebuffed by its arrogant leadership. In each instance, the mayor usually settles for threatening to withhold funding from the Board, until it makes minor changes.  read more »