Holy Shit In The News : Quinn helps Queens make the case against Mark-Viverito
As one of my activists friends said, "This does NOT mean that Melissa Mark-Viverito is bad or that Garodnick is good." I want to add to that by saying : This is all about the great lengths that corrupt political insiders go to, to strike backroom deals to determine the who becomes selected to be the next Council speaker. In this insider race, the people have absolutely NO say. The same machinations that former Council Speaker Quinn is using, each of Mayor de Blasio and Councilmember Mark-Viverito are using. How is this making "progress" ? How is this consistent with ending the rubber-stamp City Council that we had during the Bloomberg-Quinn era ? All the people, who say, "Let's reform how we pick the Council speaker #nexttime," you give former Council Speaker Quinn free license to do her shit right now. How is this #winning ? Me, I've lowered my expectations. Instead of hoping that people will come forward to make a demand for reforms, I'm just hoping that one side will get so desperate to win this Council speaker race that they will break so many laws that it will trigger a federal corruption investigation. We've got about 7 days to go. Let's see who gets burned ?
Quinn's involvement augments earlier reports that Gov. Andrew Cuomo was also answering Queens County Democratic Political Boss S.O.S. signal.
It would be one thing if the Queens County Democratic Party was moving in a truly reform direction vis-à-vis Mayor de Blasio and Councilmember Mark-Viverito, but that's not been explained. If the Queens County Democratic Party were going to serve as a check on the mayor's expansive influence over every corner of city government, that would be great. There's room for a populist check to emerge to balance the mayor's anticipated neoliberal bent, all his fake "progressive" talk notwithstanding. But it remains to be seen how the Queens machine "evolves" in a new political landscape, where the mayor has emerged to be so dominant.
