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Bloomberg To Abandon Non-Partisan Elections Push
By
Jen Chung
Published Aug 10, 2010
Modified Aug 10, 2010
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By
Jen Chung
Published Aug 10, 2010
Modified Aug 10, 2010
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Mayor Bloomberg, the Democrat-turned- Republican-turned- Independent, is reportedly giving up on his quest to end political primaries. The mayor was hoping to convince the City Charter Revision Commission to allow voters to decide on it this fall, but apparently the Reverend Al Sharpton's support of partisan primaries helped kill the plan.
Bloomberg said in 2003 during that year's attempt to end partisan primaries, "When you have partisan elections, a very small group of people determine who gets elected because it's such a small group that votes in the primary, and they pick a candidate and when you have one party that is dominant, another candidate from another party really doesn't have much of a chance." Well, it failed, with 70% of voters voting against it. In 2009, Bloomberg said he wouldn't "chase windmills" again with the issue, but hey, he never said "never"
Critics, like 2009 Democratic mayoral candidate William Thompson and Public Advocate Bill deBlasio, have said that non-partisan elections give well-financed candidates advantages and work to suppress minority candidates. And this past weekend, Sharpton said, "We can't allow people to drive us away from the empowerment of our community... If we end up with no party....We go back to Ground Zero."
Bloomberg spent $7 million to end partisan elections in 2003, but the lack of support from leaders as well as newspaper editorial boards reportedly led to the realization that he wouldn't have enough votes to get the measure through to voters. The good government group Citizens Union supported ending partisan elections; director Dick Dadey lamented to the Daily News, "Our election system is broken, and this would have been a chance to fix it."
Tagged
city charter Revision Commission
mayor bloomberg
Non partisan elections
partisan elections
partisan primaries
reverend al sharpton
Jen Chung
Jen Chung is a former WNYC and Gothamist editor.
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