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There is no election to succeed Alexander “Pete” Grannis in the Assembly, but East Side politicians already want to tell you who won it.
Whether Grannis will ever even get confirmation hearings on his nomination to be the new Department of Environmental Conservation commissioner remains in doubt.
But however hard it is to stomach the State Senate Republicans’ tactical dawdling, in this case they have done the residents of Grannis’ Upper East Side Assembly district some good, preempting an effort to sidestep representative democracy.
That is the only way to describe how the once-active field of Democratic hopefuls who began lining up within minutes of the governor’s Jan. 25 announcement of the nomination has been pounded into submission, and winnowed to Micah Kellner.
On the Democratic side (the side which has the edge in registration, despite Republicans looking at the race), after Rep. Carolyn Maloney decided she liked Kellner best, she was quickly joined by Council Members Jessica Lappin and Dan Garodnick, Assembly Member Jonathan Bing, State Sen. José Serrano and Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer. Comptroller Bill Thompson and Council Speaker Christine Quinn, citywide officials who rarely get involved in special elections, were on board with Kellner as well.
Grannis, who first won the seat in 1974, made no endorsement.
“There is a tendency after this long, long run of mine to view this as my seat,” he said, explaining his intent to stay out of the race. “I was borrowing it for these last three decades. And I fully understand that I don’t have the right to will it to somebody.”
The other elected officials who got involved did not seem to share this view, or see any significance of endorsing before an election date was set.
At least publicly, they had a simple reason for their unanimity: reform. Kellner, they said, would bring reform to Albany. He publicized a 12-point “reform platform,” and pledged to do his “best,” and though he was not sure he actually would, added, “I intend to.”
Strong enough words, apparently, for this parade of local elected officials—acting as if they had all reached the conclusion independently—to attempt to decide who won long before anyone even knew whether there would actually be a race, or when it might be if it happened.
That sounds a whole lot more like bullying, protect your own, Soviet-style politics than reform.
Granted, translating endorsements into actual political advantage under normal circumstances can be tricky, with a success rate that is almost impossible to predict. Not so for the closed special election process, wherein the only people who matter in picking party nominees are die-hard activists heavy with political debts and a panoply of reasons to cozy up to the local ruling caste.
Protecting one’s own is nothing new in politics. Calling all of that reform, however, shows just how far we have come.
And it worked. Susan Chamlin, an aide to State Sen. Liz Krueger, announced her withdrawal after a month in the race with a letter which argued, “until Gov. Spitzer calls a special election, there is no race. Yet it appears the race has already been decided. The urgency to move this election forward, in the absence of a vacant seat, has severely limited the electoral process.”
Succinct, but reserved, perhaps in the interest of preserving party unity. The odd urgency to move this election forward did more than just severely limit the electoral process. At best, the machinations sidestepped the process. At worst, they trampled right over it.
Grannis would make a good environmental commissioner, but the Senate Republicans appear determined to include him among the couple of the governor’s nominees rejected out of pocket, for reasons that subvert good decisions for the sake of politics.
Now comes the real question: will any of those who came out to endorse Kellner have the gall to complain about it?