Brooklyn Primary Endorsements September 2017
Ok y’all. Strap in, this is a long one: ENDORSEMENT TIME. I gathered this from reading a lot of things: posts on local FB political blogs, friends’ posts, lots of interviews and articles, a few voter guides. I wish I could cite my sources better but I accidentally closed my window with all the tabs I’d been saving. I’m less well-cited than usual. I apologize.
The primary is tomorrow, but to participate you have to be enrolled in a party having a primary (aka, the Democrats or the GOP.) If you’re not, and you lean at all to the left, I highly recommend you consider enrolling in the Dems if you want to be directly involved in electoral politics in NYC. New York State has closed primaries, which means that if you aren’t registered as a member of a party, you can’t vote in its primary. But NYC is a Democratic town and the Democratic primary is the de facto election for most city offices. On the one hand: fuck a closed primary! Change the system! On the other hand, if you’re into electoral politics, you might as well participate where the action is.
Don’t know what or who you’re voting for? Go here: http://www.whosontheballot.org.
LET’S SEE WHAT WE HAVE HERE.
Mayor: Bob Gangi, but mostly NOT DE BLASIO: De Blasio, you had such promise. De Blasio, I liked you so much. De Blasio, your housing plan sucks rocks and your financial conduct feels off and you never lived up to your promise and while I agree Andrew Cuomo is a jackass you really lost that fight. But you’re the mayor, and though I wouldn’t be surprised if you lose in the general to some fiscally-conservative-socially-liberal Republican, the Democratic machine chose you. As such, I don’t think any of your challengers are going to win, but I can’t recommend voting for you. I picked Bob Gangi because he’s hella to the left and two young women of color handed me his flyer at the mayoral debate I went to. That made me like him. So vote for him.
Public Advocate: Tish James: I continue to really like Tish James. The Public Advocate is a funny job and is designed to be a power check on the mayor, and I admit I don’t have a great sense of how effective she’s been at this outside of the spin machine which makes her seem pretty great. I wouldn’t be entirely surprised if there is some blog post I can’t find talking about the machinations behind the scene that make her look less rosy, but what I can see I support very much (housing rights, equal pay work, bad landlord lists, etc.) Additionally, the other guy’s campaign is basically “Tish didn’t have an adversarial enough relationship with the mayor, and also I’m a history professor from Columbia and I know things.” He has no elected experience. BZZT. I wouldn’t vote for him even if I didn't like Tish.
Brooklyn DA: Anne Swern: A lot of what I’ve been reading has been marveling at the fact that this DA race is about reform rather than being tough on crime. A lot of this can be attributed to Ken Thompson’s legacy and his move towards more progressive choices around how the DA works and the power the DA has in setting bail, choosing or declining to prosecute, and the options defendents are given. So who’s the best reformer?
 Unlike a lot of people, I like Eric Gonzalez. I appreciate that he comes from a community impacted by policing and the criminal “justice” system. But word on the street is that public defenders don’t like him and he has repeatedly failed to come out against some systematic reforms I think are important (bail, discovery rules, etc.) I don’t think he’s bad but I don’t think he’s the best. Anne Swern is better rated by several progressive orgs, has committed to ending cash bail, and wants to reform discovery rules that currently favor prosecutors. She’s also worked as a public defender, at least briefly, which to me proves she has had to understand and defend the humanity of defendants over the course of her career. I feel unsure about endorsing a white woman over a person of color, given the borough and who is most affected by the criminal justice system, but I think she will be a good progressive voice; the 5 Boro Defenders’ #KnowYourDA committee, which is entirely POC, ranked her highly in their guide. Why not Mark Fleidner? He just hits every button for me: a far-left white guy with a lot of privilege without a lot of proof of a visceral understanding of how it all goes. Also reports show him as mansplaining/whitesplaining Black Lives Matter to Patricia Gatling, a black woman, and just no.
Civil Court Judges: Consuelo Melendez, Isiris Isella Isaac, Ellen E. Edwards, Fredrick Arriaga, and Patria Frias-Colon. I understand, abstractly, the reason why we elect judges. I don’t think we do a good job of it, though. The above slate is suggested by my genius friend Jen Abrams: (http://mailchi.mp/e46598afcde0/dont-forget-to-vote-on-tuesday-sept-12). She does her own endorsements, including straight SENDING OUT A QUESTIONNAIRE this year, and I trust her judgement. You should trust her judgement too. She goes a lot more into it at the above link, including the complicated politics around this different, better group of “Independent Democrats.”
District 6 Judge: Rupert Barry by a hair, via Jen as well. I’m going with her endorsement; Elena Baron is also a star in the race. I think we’d do well either way.Â
City Council Races other than my own: I haven’t paid much attention to the other races, for the most part, but people I trust have - Make the Road NYC, the Arab-American Association of NY, friends who pay attention, Tenants PAC. If you want to vote by endorsements, here’s a big list from the Gotham Gazette. But if you don’t, or you just want someone to tell you what to do, here are the few races where I feel I know enough to weigh in.
District 2: Carlina Rivera
District 5: Patrick Bobilin
District 38: Carlos Menchaca
District 43: Rev. Khader El-Yateem
City Council District 40: Brian Cunningham, but I really really like Pia Raymond too. This was really hard. Mathieu Eugene, bless his heart, is a waste of space and we deserve better. But he’s a popular incumbent with a strong base, and sadly the race had several challengers which will likely split the opposition vote. For me, it really came down to Brian Cunningham vs. Pia Raymond. Both Cunningham and Raymond have been around the block; Cunningham has been coming up the neighborhood Democratic machine and Raymond has been on the community board and Nostrand Avenue Merchant’s Association. I think they both are smart about policing, housing, participatory budgeting - my gut is that Raymond is a little more conservative than Cunningham, but I also think that’s generational. So why Cunningham? I like that he has the Stonewall Dems’ endorsement, although neither of them talk much about queer issues. I have heard a ton of stories about him showing up places (block parties, neighborhood group meetings), although I am at the same time wary of the fact that I am much more connected to the white side of the neighborhood than the various POC sides and I might be missing Raymond’s doing the same. I appreciate what I have heard from several people about his wonkiness, including nuance around both housing rights in the neighborhood and participatory budgeting. If I could somehow vote for both of them and get them both on the council I’d feel great about that. Buttttt, in the end, it’s Cunningham by a hair.
