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Anthony Weiner screwed Brooklyn — again

By Lincoln Restler
for The Brooklyn Paper
Community Newspaper Group / Aaron Short

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Anthony Weiner screwed Brooklyn, twice.

The sexting and lies aside, Weiner’s resignation paved the way for a special election on Sep. 13 which empowers the chairman of the Queens County Democratic Party, not Brooklyn voters, to designate the Democratic nominee for Congress. Since we live in an overwhelmingly Democratic borough, the party boss’ selection basically guarantees the election.

But Weiner is just the tip of the iceberg. There are currently six vacancies in the New York State Legislature. According to a study by Citizens Union, by the end of 2011, one-third of our state representatives will be selected via special election. This farce of a process ensures that legislators are more loyal to the party bosses than their own constituents.

Waterford on the Bay

In recent weeks, editorial boards and good governance groups alike have come out against the corrupt special election process, which gives party bosses singular influence in selecting the candidates for a special election. Currently, the law allows the local political machine to select their nominee. When there is a vacancy in a district which includes multiple counties, such as Weiner’s Congressional District, the Democratic Party bosses from the affected counties — in this case Brooklyn’s disgraced party boss Assemblyman Vito Lopez and Queens Congressman Joe Crowley — select the candidate. Since Queens is home to the majority of the district, Congressman Crowley had full authority to make his own choice. This is how Democrats ended up with Assemblyman David Weprin, widely praised for his “loyalty” to the Queens machine, rather than any variety of qualities we might hope for in our newest Member of Congress.

Consider another case: the open state Assembly seat in Brooklyn’s 54th District, which includes Bushwick, Cypress Hills and parts of East New York and Bedford-Stuyvesant. Jesus Gonzalez is a progressive Democrat who grew up in Bushwick, where he works as a community organizer. Although he’s been endorsed by the Working Families Party, Rep. Nydia Velazquez, and the reform democratic organization, New Kings Democrats, the Brooklyn Democratic machine has designated a party loyalist as its nominee. As a result, Gonzalez is forced to challenge the Democratic machine on a third party line instead of voters getting to decide who the Democratic candidate should be.

It’s time to change the law so that voters, not party bosses, determine who will represent us. That’s why I’m supporting a bill sponsored by Brooklyn legislators Hakeem Jeffries and Daniel Squadron to create open special elections, where multiple Democrats can appear on the ballot together.

But it’s not enough. Short of that happening, I am leading an effort to amend the by-laws of the New York State Democratic Party, which not only empowers local bosses to choose their candidates in districts spanning multiple counties, but allows for each of the 62 Democratic county organizations across New York State to establish its own Byzantine process for selecting candidates in special elections.

As a representative for Brooklyn to the New York State Democratic Party, I am actively pursuing this urgent reform of our undemocratic special elections to ensure voters pick our Democratic nominees – not the party insiders.

Brooklyn is a progressive beacon and it’s up to us all to shine a light on corruption and fight for democratic values. That’s why I ran for office in the first place, and that’s what I’ll continue to do.

Lincoln Restler is a Democratic District Leader and State Committeeman representing Fort Greene, Clinton Hill, Williamsburg and Greenpoint.

©2011 Community Newspaper Group

←Carroll Gardens: A thug beats up a woman on Douglass Street
→Prospect Heights: Thief makes getaway in an ambulance?

Reader Feedback

anywho says:
Tammany Hall reinvented. Lopez especially, how old is this guy anyway? He is like a Vampire...keeps coming back sucking the blood out of the community. Crowley, another knucklehead. Love that little Ford you drive in Virginia suburbs.
July 15, 2011, 6:44 am
Peter from Bay Ridge says:
You know what thought Mr. Restler your piece goes to attack the party bosses yet fails to mention even once that the "dirty" special election was proclaimed by the Governor, Mr. Cuomo. Had the Gov not issues a proclaimation then there would have been a primary followed by a general election.

Then you go on taking shots at Lopez and the corrupt party bosses yet you fail to mention how the actual nomination is made. A process that was put in place long before Vito Lopez and Joe Crowley were around I should add.

The county committee- which any registered Democrat in the assembly district has a right to run for, has a meeting where they vote on a nominee. The nominee who gets a majority of the county committee votes gets the nominee. Mr. Lopez is not a 54th AD County Committee Member therefore he gets ZERO votes. Similarly Brooklyn had 28% of the weighted vote for the NY-9 nomination so please quit the Lopez bashing for just a second and speak the truth.

Should the New Kings Dems, or the Old Kings Dems, or any Dems for that matter want to engage in the process of Democratic politics then run for County Committee and then when instances like these arise you can vote the way you want to vote. The party rules are all public information- get a copy and read them so you know how things work.
July 15, 2011, 9:23 am
Peter is clueless says:
Peter, Lincoln is a State Committeeman/District Leader. Furthermore, the New Kings Democrats, for all intents and purposes, "invented" the idea of having young insurgents run for open County Committee seats. Before NKD came around, no one even knew what the County Committee was!
July 15, 2011, 6:37 pm
Adam from Bronx says:
Lincoln, I completely agree with everything you said. I'll just offer this one tidbit...which is that we lucked out on David Weprin...while he is a "product" of nepotism by being a member of one of NY's prominent 5 families in office ie multiple family members currently serving (Weprin, Diaz, Crowley, Rivera, Barron) he's one of the more qualified elected of any of those in any of the aforementioned families. Take a look at his resume and the issues we need to deal with in Washington....if Weprin was terrible and the Cong. district were to still exist in a year, I'd be pissed. However, this has NOTHING to do with the fact that so many elected aren't Democratically chosen for their first "so called election". While a number of these folks who entered office without petitioning to get on the ballot and having a "real election", such as one of my fav Assemblyfolks Ms. Vanessa Gibson, who as Chief of Staff took over for her boss who became Vice Borough Prez, overall, I credit this special election/appointment bs and the whole "half of the Senate went to prison in the past decade" as two of the most significant reasons folks "see no point" in caring about local issues. Having a real canvass and election like Lincoln did (Discl.-I worked on the campaign for week before a Senate camp. last summer) you energize a community on issues. You get people thinking, caring. (Unless theres too many candidates and too much lit in folks mailboxes which gets overwhelming.) (ie the '09 Levin/Theis/Diamondstone et al. race) So on the upside, a number of Brooklyn communities actually had real campaigns in the past 2 election cycles. The downside, most of NY did not at the local level.
July 15, 2011, 6:43 pm
Locavore says:
Weprin is so boring he paints his Easter eggs white. But he's a good politician. If you're Orthodox and Dov Hikind disagreeing with you, you KNOW you must be doing something right! He's not the most exciting candidate in the world but he'll do a good job if elected.
July 15, 2011, 6:51 pm

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