For 15 years, voters suffered through Christine Quinn's self-interested dealings as she hitched her political wagon to Mayor Michael Bloomberg. Speaker Quinn's close working relationship with Mayor Bloomberg is turning off voters from supporting her mayoral campaign. Now that Speaker Quinn is desperate to rescue her political future, she is about to throw Mayor Bloomberg and his legacy under the bus. Her efforts to divorce herself from Mayor Bloomberg may be too little, too late.
The Slush Fund Legacy and the Future of Member Items
"Given her current standing as a leading candidate to be New York City’s next mayor, it’s hard to believe that five years ago City Council Speaker Christine Quinn’s political future was on life support. In April 2008 The New York Post reported that Quinn and her staff in the Speaker’s office had hidden millions of taxpayer dollars by allocating grants to a “slush fund” with phantom organizations, alleging that Quinn would later use the money to dole out political favors." (City & State)
Hank Sheinkopf, an advisor to Bill Thompson, predicts that the growing grassroots movement against Christine Quinn, and her political doctrine of corruption and neoliberalism, will fail. What do you think ?
Democratic Party political consultant Hank Sheinkopf said that he thinks most of the protesters’ arguments against Christine Quinn are bogus.
Among the lone few truly real Progressive voices in New York City, one person spoke up to question the outrageous statements by Mr. Sheinkopf. Gerson Borrero took to Twitter to express his dissent to Mr. Sheinkopf's lack of any political ethics.
Despite the ongoing protests, political insiders say the [growing grassroots] movement [against Christine Quinn] probably won’t gain enough traction to affect the November mayoral primary.
“There’s always unusual things that occur in every mayoral election, and this is the first unusual thing that’s occurring here,” said Democratic Party political consultant Hank Sheinkopf, who added that he thinks most of the protesters’ arguments are bogus.
“The speaker makes deals,” he said. “That’s the nature of legislative government. Her job is to make deals.”
Sheinkopf, who is serving as an advisor to mayoral candidate Bill Thompson, also downplayed Quinn’s status as the Democratic front-runner. A recent poll has her far ahead of the pack, with 35 percent of likely voters pulling the lever for her as compared with 11 percent for Public Advocate Bill de Blasio and 10 percent for Thompson.
Have we reached a low point in New York City politics, where campaign consultants cannot attach the most corrupt mayoral candidate for fear of exposing the shared, underlying political corruption that exists amongst all of the mayoral candidates ?
Imagine what I could do, if I did this full-time ... ?
Une lesbienne, future maire de New York?
A lesbian, future mayor of New York?
Par ALEXIS BUISSON
By ALEXIS BUISSON
Et si le prochain maire de New York était une lesbienne? La «speaker» ouvertement homo de la ville, Christine Quinn, est pressentie pour succéder à Michael Bloomberg en 2013.
And if the next mayor of New York was a lesbian? The openly gay "speaker" of the city, Christine Quinn, is tipped to succeed Michael Bloomberg in 2013.
Le malheur des uns fait le bonheur des autres. L'humiliante chute du chouchou des sondages pour la mairie de New York, l'élu démocrate du Queens Anthony Weiner, dans une rocambolesque affaire de «sexting» sur Twitter, a relancé la course pour le poste de maire. L'actuelle «speaker» de la ville, sorte de président du conseil municipal, Christine Quinn fait désormais figure de favorite. Si elle est élue en 2013, elle serait la première femme à occuper ce poste. La première lesbienne aussi.
The misfortune of one is the happiness of others. The humiliating fall of the darling of the polls for mayor of New York, Queens-elected Democrat Anthony Weiner, in an incredible case of "sexting" on Twitter, has raised the race for mayor. The current "speaker" of the city, a sort of chairman of the council, Christine Quinn is now a favorite figure. If elected in 2013, she would be the first woman to hold this position. The first lesbian, too.
Véritable pile électrique, la démocrate de 44 ans, descendante d'une rescapée irlandaise du naufrage du Titanic, est entrée dans la vie politique à 24 ans. Elle a participé en tant qu'assistante à l'élection de Tom Duane, premier conseiller municipal ouvertement gay de New York. Elle a ensuite servi comme directrice du New York Anti Violence Project, une association qui lutte contre la violence envers les LGBT.
Real electric battery, the Democrat, 44, descendant of an Irish survivor of the sinking of the Titanic, entered politics at age 24. She participated as an assistant to the election of Tom Duane, the first openly gay alderman of New York. She then served as director of the New York Anti Violence Project, an organization that fights violence against LGBT people.
Longtemps dans le placard
En 1999, elle fait son entrée au conseil municipal de New York comme l'élue des bastions homos de Chelsea et de Greenwich Village. Pendant la campagne, ces adversaires, dont deux gays, l'accusent d'être hétérosexuelle pour la décrédibiliser! En vain. Elle devient «speaker» en 2006, soit le deuxième personnage politique de la ville derrière le maire.
Long in the closet
In 1999 she entered the New York City Council, voted by the bastions of gay Chelsea and Greenwich Village. During the campaign, these opponents, including two gay, accused her of being heterosexual to discredit ! In vain. She became "speaker" in 2006, the second-highest political figure of the city behind the mayor.
Eduquée dans des écoles catholiques en dehors de New York, elle est longtemps restée dans le placard. Aujourd'hui, les droits des LGBT font partie de ses chevaux de bataille. Son combat du moment: la légalisation du mariage homo dans l'Etat de New York. Devant les législateurs d'Albany, la capitale de l'Etat, elle évoque régulièrement son union avec l'avocate d'affaire Kim Catullo pour pointer l'injustice de la situation actuelle.
Educated in Catholic schools outside of New York, she had long been in the closet. Today, LGBT rights are part of her war horses. Her struggle of the moment : the legalization of gay marriage in the State of New York. Before legislators in Albany, the state capital, she regularly refers to his union with the business lawyer Kim Catullo to point to the injustice of the current situation.
Embarquée par la police
Aussi à l'aise dans les assemblées politiques que dans la rue, Quinn est de toutes les manifestations pro-homos de grande ampleur. Elle a même été embarquée par la police en marge de plusieurs défilés new-yorkais de la Saint Patrick, pour avoir tenté de s'infiltrer dans ces cortèges où gays et lesbiennes n'ont pas droit de cité.
Board by the police
Equally at home in political assemblies in the street, Quinn is all pro-gay events of great magnitude. She has even been embedded by the police in conjunction with several parades in New York on St. Patrick, for trying to infiltrate these processions in which gays and lesbians have no place.
Malgré son engagement, Christine Quinn ne fait pas toujours l'unanimité chez les homos new-yorkais. Plusieurs groupes lui ont reproché son soutien en 2008 à une loi qui a notamment permis au maire Michael Bloomberg de se présenter pour un troisième mandat. Bloomberg était dans leur collimateur depuis février 2005. Il avait alors fait appel de la décision d'un juge de Manhattan stipulant que l'illégalité du mariage homo à New York violait la constitution de l'Etat. Une poignée de militants gays l'a bruyamment rappelé à la «Speaker» mi-mai, en manifestant en marge d'un événement de levée de fonds pour sa campagne. «Si Christine Quinn croyait vraiment dans les droits des LGBT, pourquoi a-t-elle récompensé Bloomberg d'un troisième mandat?» peut-on lire sur le blog Christine Quinn Sold Out, une plateforme anti-Quinn.
Si elle était élue, elle ne serait pas la première lesbienne à diriger une grande ville américaine. En 2009, Annise Parker a été élue à la mairie de Houston... au Texas (lire notre article). Tout est possible.
If elected, she would not be the first lesbian to head a major American city. In 2009, Annise Parker was elected mayor of Houston ... Texas (see our article). Anything is possible.
It was noted in this space last week how well Brooklyn Democratic boss Vito Lopez fares in City Council Speaker Christine Quinn’s annual tax-dollar giveaway.
There have been developments.
Lopez, a state assemblyman and the subject of a federal corruption investigation, needed a front-end loader to haul away the so-called member-item cash lavished on him in the new city budget by Quinn — who used four pliant council members as cutouts.
But it turns out that Quinn took a fire ax to Queens Councilman Peter Vallone’s share of the boodle.
Vallone is a truly singular council member, in the sense that he has thus far managed to avoid attracting the attention of federal prosecutors, and it seems unlikely that he ever will.
But he irked Quinn by vocally opposing the renaming of the Queensboro Bridge in honor of former Mayor Ed Koch — so the speaker slashed his member-item take by 42%, or roughly $600,000.
Let’s be clear: Nobody should be getting member-item money.
These are lump-sum appropriations that corrupt the political process by giving incumbents cash to curry unfair favor with constituents; simultaneously, these cash goodies give bullying council bosses undue leverage over their underlings.
And Vallone — who apparently irritated Quinn and had his cash yanked as an example — proves the point.
Yet Quinn is cool with Lopez, who attracts the FBI like overripe pork attracts flies. Quinn channeled $4.4 million this year to his Brooklyn power base — the Ridgewood Bushwick Senior Citizens Council — through Brooklyn council members Domenic Recchia, Erik Dilan, Stephen Levin and Elizabeth Crowley.
While some $3.75 million is earmarked for alleged “capital construction,” the rest neatly covers salary and benefits for:
* Chris Fisher, Ridgewood executive director/Lopez campaign treasurer ($607,000).
(Quinn also managed to find $2 million for the United Federation of Teachers’ academically shaky charter school — but that’s a tale for another day.)
One final note: Quinn is many things — brash, personable, ambitious, maybe New York City’s next mayor.
But we’ve never thought her to be petty.
Until now.
Because she wasn’t content with punishing just Vallone for his temerity. She also took it out on the councilman’s father — former Council Speaker Peter Vallone Sr., arguably the last person to perform the office’s duties with decorum and dignity.
Cut from the budget was $6 million for a City University public-policy program named in his honor.
That’s the Vallones’ loss, to be sure.
But mostly it’s the city’s.
Christine Quinn should be ashamed.
Meanwhile, check out what other blogs are saying about this latest disgraceful turn about Speaker Quinn's slush fund scandal :
Op-Ed Bonus ! What a disgrace. How does Christine Quinn find hundreds of thousands of dollars for an indicted political slime ball, and millions in aggregate monies for member items, but she could not find $1 to save St. Vincent's Hospital in her very own city council district? This is sick and twisted. When are the over-taxed, over-fined, over-ticketed, over-tolled, over-run people of New York City going to wake up and vote Christine Quinn out of office? I realise that LGBTQ people want to rally around a leader, but damn, can't we pick one with a little bit of integrity? How about just a minimal standard of integrity? Is there a lowest common denominator of integrity we can demand out of LGBTQ leaders? How about a lowest expectations of integrity? If we scraped the bottom of Christine Quinn's diluted soup pan of weakened integrity broth, would we find any integrity sediment at all?
Gary Tilzer's blog, True News From Change NYC, about New York government corruption, political reporting, and other commentary about government transparency, has been restored. Earlier today, it had been discovered that the True News blog had been suspended by Google for inexplicable reasons overnight. The suspension of the blog had become a focal point of support today by many New York bloggers and activists. No reason for the suspension is yet known, but New York bloggers suspect political censorship might have been one motive behind the removal of the blog.
