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A Governor from the City? Help from Unlikely Quarters The Bloomberg Factor “Outer Borough” Presidents Bristle at Stringer’s Reforms Agendas For AG Contest for State Committee Dems to Decide Contest for State Committee Getting Its Foot in the Political Door Grassroots in the Concrete City
Living Wage Advocates Think Big Box Civil Court Action
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A Governor from the City?
After 12 years with Peekskill’s George Pataki (R) as governor, some city advocates see hope on the horizon.
Attorney General Eliot Spitzer, whom almost everyone expects to win the Democratic primary and general election, hails from the Bronx. He has lived in Manhattan most of his adult life, and calls an apartment on Fifth Avenue home.
Someone who has walked the streets of New York every day, some say, would more likely be more invested in what those streets look like.
“He has more of a day-to-day experience with an urban environment,” said Assembly Member Jonathan Bing (D-Manhattan), who counts Spitzer among his East Side constituents, adding that Spitzer would be “more sensitive to things on the city level.”
Spitzer might not be alone. His lieutenant governor running mate, David Paterson, lives across town. All-but-certain to be reelected Comptroller Alan Hevesi lives across the East River in Queens. And the northernmost major party candidate for attorney general lives no more than 30 miles away.
Not to mention Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver (D), who hails from Lower Manhattan.
August might seem a little early to start thinking about what the city might look like under Gov. Eliot Spitzer, but the polls have long made it clear that if Spitzer’s margin of victory in November is less than 15 percent, it will be fair to call it a disappointment.
“I guess even John Faso has faced the reality that he’s the underdog and it’s an uphill fight,” said State Sen. Serphin Maltese (R-Queens) of the Republican and Conservative Party nominee.
The city has perennially gotten the short shrift, enough to feed a century and a half of secession talk in some quarters. The $14 billion difference between what the city sent Albany last year and what it got back even prompted Peter Vallone, Jr. (D-Queens) to reintroduce his formal secession bill in the City Council.
With the city getting back only about 65 cents on every dollar it sends to Albany in taxes, “it’s like you’re in a poker game and you put in $1 and I put in $2 and we agreed to split the pot,” said State Sen. Martin Connor (D-Brooklyn/Manhattan).
Most expect that to change under Spitzer, whether because he and the other likely statewide officials will call downstate home or because they would be catering to traditional Democratic urban constituencies. A metropolitan dreamscape is growing in the minds of many who believe Spitzer will do well by his hometown as governor.
“It’s not you come from Buffalo, so you take care of Buffalo,” said former Gov. Mario Cuomo. “I came from Queens and I took care of Buffalo. You go where the need is.”
Several court cases during Pataki’s tenure have effectively expanded the governor’s power to insert items into the budget.
“Even though we’ve all been living under the same Constitution for decades, it turns out the governor has more power than we realized,” explained Diana Fortuna of the Citizens Budget Commission.
Some also hope Spitzer will do something to combat “unfunded mandates,” which allow the state to make rules for programs it does not fund, such as is currently the case for Medicaid. These cost the city millions, if not billions of dollars each year, which many would like to see returned to municipal coffers.
And if the city faces hard times ahead, having a friend in the governor’s mansion would help as well.
“It was of crucial importance that we had [Hugh] Carey and [Mario] Cuomo, whether it was because they were from the city or because they were Democratic liberals, they limited the damage in a way that an upstate or suburban Republican would not have done,” explained Thomas Bender, a professor of urban history at NYU.
Others are not convinced. City-based governors must still face legislators who call upstate home. Plus, some fear, political reality may force Spitzer to overcompensate for the bias upstaters might naturally assume he has to the city by tilting even more toward state residents north of the metropolitan area, who have been hard hit by job and population loss.
“The reality is that no matter whether you are from New York City or upstate, you’re never going to score political points in Albany or among upstate voters by doing things for New York City,” said Jonathan Bowles, director of the Center for an Urban Future. “Whether you’re a Democrat or Republican, whether you’re from New York City or not, you really have to almost bend over backwards for upstate areas [if you want] to do well politically.”
Since there are powerful suburban legislators within his own party, Spitzer leading a team of downstaters up the Hudson to Albany may not mean the city will make up much of what it has lost over the decades in cash allocations, in attention, in its share of the tobacco settlements, in education funding or anything else. But indirectly, his policies might lead to the city making up some of it.
He has proposed a cabinet-level position for urban development, aiming to anchor growth in the state’s urban centers. As the state’s largest city, New York City is likely to benefit, but not at the same levels, and certainly not at the same proportions, as other places throughout New York.
Nonetheless, Partnership for New York City President Kathryn Wylde said the city could make an effective case for helping New York. By building business and economic growth here, the next governor could generate more tax revenue to help the rest of the state. She said both Spitzer and Faso have been receptive to the Partnership’s proposals of how to do so.
“Hopefully the new governor will be a person that sees New York City as the engine of the entire state economy, who will be sympathetic to the notion that you shouldn’t kill the goose that’s laying the golden egg,” she said.
Mario Cuomo (D), the last governor to come from the city, said he did not have to contend with fears that he was biased toward the five boroughs during his three terms in Albany. He said that his years as secretary of state and then as lieutenant governor enabled him to travel the state, earning him wider credibility.
“By the time I got to be governor, I was fairly well-known around the state. Eliot has some of that advantage as well,” he said, noting the travels Spitzer has made during his eight years as attorney general. “It’s not really a problem of being regarded as an ‘auslander,’ or outsider.”
Nor does Cuomo expect Spitzer to suffer from any sort of provincialism himself.
“It’s not you come from Buffalo, so you take care of Buffalo,” he said. “I came from Queens and I took care of Buffalo. You go where the need is.”
Many say city needs are real, and that help is long overdue. And like Comptroller Bill Thompson (D), they are excited by the prospect of having a governor whom they believe will take a different approach than the current governor.
“I see it at least as having someone listen to the real case we make,” he said.
Norman Adler, a political consultant with Bolton St. John’s who worked for Cuomo when he was governor, was skeptical about the benefits coming to the city under Spitzer.
“A lot, of course, will depend on what Eliot Spitzer does about the budget, so it could be more or not more, because geography is not going to be the number one factor in whether we get money,” he said. “On the other hand, having a governor who comes from the same place as you is like your mother’s chicken soup: it can help, and it certainly can’t hurt.”
The Bloomberg Factor
Where Spitzer Could Make a Difference
City-state relations often have a lot to do with the relationships between their leaders. Will Eliot Spitzer and Mayor Michael Bloomberg (R), who live within half a block of each other on East 79th Street, be kindred spirits or battling egos? Political observers are trying to gauge the dynamic between them.
Bloomberg has yet to make an endorsement in the governor’s race. If he does, most expect him to cross party lines to back Spitzer, much like his predecessor, Rudy Giuliani, who endorsed Mario Cuomo in 1994.
If Spitzer then wins, an endorsement could build up the personal and political capital to help Bloomberg achieve some of his second term goals.
“These are both very smart people, so the good news is that they’ll certainly understand each other,” said Kathryn Wylde, president of the Partnership for New York City. “I think they’re well-matched intellectually.”
Wylde and the Partnership have proposed that the next governor mimic Bloomberg’s model of convening top business leaders for advice on growing the economy. She said Spitzer has been receptive to this idea, leading her to general optimism about the future relationship between the two men.
“I would hope that the pressure to get something done would create an atmosphere where they decide it’s best to resolve these different issues quickly, and on some kind of reasonable compromise basis,” she said.
Jonathan Bowles, director of the Center for an Urban Future, said Spitzer could even model his governing style partially on Bloomberg’s.
“He’s kind of been watching what’s worked for Bloomberg,” he said, suggesting that Spitzer “come up with some issues out of the blue, like Bloomberg has done with the smoking ban.”
Nonetheless, having two city residents in charge may have limited benefits, argued Diana Fortuna, president of the Citizens Budget Commission. Even during the years when Cuomo’s time as governor overlapped with the mayoralty of Ed Koch (D), from 1983 to 1989, the city did not enjoy major gains.
“That was not a time where state aid suddenly jumped,” she said. “It doesn’t make as much of a difference as you might expect.”
By Edward-Isaac Dovere
Transportation
Spitzer has pledged to support the Second Avenue Subway and East Side Access, which would bring the Long Island Rail Road into Grand Central.
With so many transportation projects under consideration—Moynihan Station and the JFK Airport Rail Link being just two of the most prominent and most expensive—Jeffrey Zupan, senior fellow for transportation at the Regional Plan Association, said that Spitzer will have to decide between stretching out the completion dates on projects, canceling some or raising much more money to complete them.
“If Spitzer is serious about improving the transit system, he’s going to have to find a way to raise funds for it,” said Zupan.
Spitzer has repeatedly indicated he does not want to see MTA Chairman Peter Kalikow serve out his full term, which would end in 2012, and his ultimate decision about whether and when to replace Kalikow will also have an enormous impact, Zupan said. Also important will be whether Spitzer can find state funds to help subsidize the MTA. Down from a high of $240 million allocated to the authority’s operating budget in 1992, the state now contributes $191 million (not adjusted for inflation, making this drop even steeper). The withdrawal of these subsidies has forced the MTA to borrow more, raising its debt service, and contributed to the need for fare hikes to make ends meet.
Doing all that would simply be playing catch-up, said William Stern, a chairman and chief executive of the New York State Urban Development Corporation under Cuomo. He argued that Spitzer should look beyond them to “futuristic infrastructure projects,” calling for the construction of the long-discussed rail-freight tunnel linking Brooklyn to New Jersey and for an elevated rail line which would run along most of the perimeter of Manhattan.
Stern argued that New Yorkers must rediscover that sort of transportation innovation which a century ago laid the groundwork for the strength of the city today.
“We’re like trustee babies living off our trust fund,” he said. “We’re living off what was done by New Yorkers who are long gone.”
Education
As the attorney general and lawyer for the state over the past seven and a half years, Spitzer repeatedly declined comment on the Campaign for Fiscal Equity (CFE) case. Recently on the campaign trail, he has revved up his rhetoric and pledged to stop appealing the court decisions in favor of the state putting an additional $4 to $5 billion toward the city public school system over a five-year period.
Given that the total state education operating budget floats around $13 billion, this would mark a significant increase in funds.
With the late March court decision strongly in the CFE’s favor and the sun setting on the term of Pataki, who has repeatedly appealed previous court rulings ordering allocation of the funds, CFE Executive Director Geri Palast has hope.
“I think the exciting part of the new governor is that it gives us a new opportunity to resolve this lawsuit,” she said. “Looking at the likelihood of who will be the next governor, we have a lot to be optimistic for.”
That optimism has led the organization to retool more of its resources toward thinking about how to distribute the money once it is received, rather than simply tackling the legal fight necessary to get it.
If allocated, the majority of CFE money would go to the city, but new funds would also reach poorer districts across the state.
Charter school expansion could also be on the agenda. The Assembly has resisted Pataki’s efforts to increase the cap on the number of charters issued in the state, but with a Democratic governor dealing with the Democratically held Assembly, the politicking undercurrent of the resistance could soon evaporate.
Economic Development & Job Creation
Spitzer’s economic development proposals revolve around cities: from spurring growth on undeveloped land to creating new financing for commercial tenants, he would use cities across the state as nexuses for growth.
“That’s where new forms of job creation might have the most significant impact,” said Assembly Member James Brennan (D-Brooklyn), chair of the Cities Committee. “Greater investment in the City of New York will deal with traditionally Democratic Party and Democratic constituency concerns to deal with urban populations and urban priorities.”
But especially in relative terms, New York will not fare as well as smaller cities upstate, which have long been in decline.
“The City of New York has the disadvantage of being stronger than the rest of the state, fiscally,” said former Gov. Mario Cuomo (D).
Housing
Rent control, rent stabilization, Mitchell Lama and the Urstadt Law are all under the control of the state government. Some say a governor with city sensitivities will restore some of the old rent protections which have been eliminated in the last decade and a half.
Spitzer has promised to preserve existing affordable housing units and create funding and programs which would foster the creation of new ones, and argued that the ceiling at which apartments get deregulated should be raised.
But, according to Rep. Charles Rangel (D-Manhattan), Spitzer should look to an even deeper reform of the existing system.
“One of the things that Eliot Spitzer should be able to do is to advocate that the City Council has control of those issues in the city, and that people upstate have control over what they want to do,” he said.
Others, like Jonathan Bowles of the Center for an Urban Future, are less optimistic.
“I’m not sure any governor is going to cede that power back to the city. I don’t know that the State Senate is prepared to do that,” he said.
Ground Zero
Though Gov. Pataki tried to leave his imprint on Ground Zero, five years after the Twin Towers collapsed and several ceremonial groundbreakings later, progress is stalled. The Lower Manhattan Development Corporation is being disbanded, plans for a Freedom Tower remain in flux and neither funding nor potential tenants for the site seem to be in abundance.
Some hold Pataki responsible, but others argue that the situation involves too many competing interests to drop the fault at anyone’s feet.
Still, people say new leadership in Albany could galvanize a reemergence of the local stake in the area’s fate, pulling it back to the municipal from the worldwide level.
“It’s a national site right now, but this is something which is crucial to New York City, and that has largely been ignored,” explained City Comptroller Bill Thompson (D), a strong Spitzer supporter.
For the sake of meeting office space needs and psychology, he said, “things need to happen and happen faster.”
Medicaid
The federal government provides half of each state’s Medicaid budget. New York is one of three states in the nation that require localities to contribute half of the remaining share. With so many of the state’s poor living in the city, about two-thirds of the state’s Medicaid costs are incurred in New York City, which last year put about $5 billion toward addressing these costs.
“If the state had been absorbing it, there would have been a shift of several billion dollars to state taxpayers,” said James Brennan (D-Brooklyn), chair of the Assembly’s Cities Committee, arguing that a reworked Medicaid funding formula would benefit localities across the state, many of which have struggled under the weight of meeting their contributions. If this happened, Brennan said the state could begin working on different approaches to healthcare, like disease management.
Many expect Spitzer to tackle Medicaid fraud, which means the difference of millions, and perhaps billions, of dollars in the overall Medicaid budget, but lifting the Medicaid budget from localities could have a significantly greater impact.
William Stern, a chairman and chief executive of the New York State Urban Development Corporation under Cuomo, called the current system “a prescription for disaster, because basically you have legislators in Albany voting benefits into a program which they only have to pay 25 percent of.”
Whether this is practical is an entirely different matter.
“The best thing Eliot Spitzer could do is to relieve the city of its Medicaid expense burden, but that’s probably politically impossible,” Stern said.