GOP's newest coup: NYC primaries non-partisan? (VOTE NO!!!)

[robbedvoter]

Sneak Attack by Bloomberg
October 31, 2003
By BOB HERBERT
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/10/31/opinion/31HERB.html
Now the mayor is personally, though quite stealthily, ponying up the millions to finance the campaign to get the measure passed by voters. I got a flier in the mail a few days ago trumpeting the ballot proposal and stressing how good it would be for Democrats! The flier was headlined, "New Voices for a Stronger DEMOCRATIC PARTY."
The Republican Party was never mentioned. Nor was Mr. Bloomberg, even though he bankrolled the mailing. The flier said, "Paid for by Committee to Empower All New Yorkers."
This whole effort by the mayor has had the integrity and the dignity of a three-card monte game. Mr. Bloomberg should be ashamed of himself. This is not the way you make such a fundamental change in the way public officials are elected.
A measure of how undemocratic the process has been is the fact that virtually all of the major nonpartisan good-government groups in the city are opposed to the mayor on this issue. That includes the League of Women Voters, Common Cause, the city's Bar Association, the New York Public Interest Research Group, the City Club and the Brennan Center for Social Justice at the N.Y.U. School of Law.
"I think the process has been abysmal from the beginning," said Deborah Goldberg, director of the Brennan Center's Democracy Program. She noted that revising the City Charter should be approached with the kind of seriousness and sense of responsibility that one would bring to amending the U.S. Constitution.
"It's a process you should use very sparingly," she said.
For a mayor to manage the charter change process the way Mr. Bloomberg has in this case, and then to use his personal wealth to campaign for passage of the resultant ballot question, "to me is a real distortion of the political process in a way that is deeply damaging to our democracy," said Ms. Goldberg.
Gene Russianoff, the straight-arrow senior attorney at the Public Interest Research Group, expressed a similar concern. He said, "I'm hoping at some point someone realizes that it's just bad for the city's democracy for mayors, any mayor, to use the Charter Commission as a blunt instrument of their political power. In this case, a blunt instrument of political power and personal wealth."
*** Vote NO on NYC Question 3 on Tuesday November 4 ***
*** Vote NO on NYC Question 3 on Tuesday November 4 ***
*** Vote NO on NYC Question 3 on Tuesday November 4 ***

[HFishbine]

1. Question

NYC can make its own election laws? I thought elections were governed by state lawmakers.

[ShaneGR]

3. NOPE

Internal City elections are covered by a city charter.

[HFishbine]

5. Intersting

Thanks. Odd. But I'll take your word for it.

[jumptheshadow]

6. Yes, it is strange

Seeing that we're beholden to the corrupt, ineffectual and secretive state legislature on so many other issues.

[jumptheshadow]

2. We're both voting no

It seems like someone is trying very hard to change the fact that this is a Democratic town, doesn't it?

On edit: This campaign started under Giuliani.

[Dover]

4. Mr. Bloomberg..........New York is NO California !...............n/t

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