The Losing New York City Council Speaker Candidate Is Less Corrupt Than The Winner

The Losing Council Speaker Candidate #constantcontact http://t.co/tmpGyWojvJ

— Louis Flores (@maslowsneeds) January 7, 2014

About 36 hours remain before the next class of New York City Councilmembers file into City Hall to vote for the next Council speaker. Supporters for both candidates are freaking out. I just got flamed on Facebook by an animal rights activist. I get it. People want their candidate to win ; consequently, they mistakenly think that by attacking me they will help their candidate win -- as if I have that much influence, as if I ever did ? I just want to point out that I'm in this for reform. It doesn't matter who wins anymore, it never did. The Council speaker race is all about how desperate the candidates can get to out broker the sleaziest backroom deals to win. The political coverage so far in this year's speaker race has exceeded the scrutiny former Council Speaker Christine Quinn got in 2005. By that measurement, we've already won, because some of the true extent of backroom dealing has been described by a couple of bloggers and a handful of mainstream media reporters. Meanwhile, some activists still contact me with questions about where the corruption exists ? After a series of YouTube videos, blog postings, links to other blogs and other news reports, tweets, and newsletters, all this information is available on Google. Now, let's see which Council speaker candidate dares to go for bust. Word is that every corrupt favour is being called in from every political hack in town. The fight has stopped being one to win, but a race to the bottom, because, technically, the winner only wins after putting together the most corrupt backroom deals to round up support. The winner readily risks flouting campaign finance laws and ethics regulations. If the desperation to win reaches new highs, let's hope that whatever remaining scrutiny on the Council speaker race will report that escalated corruption. Only in the Council speaker race will the candidate that comes in second actually be the one that is less corrupt than the winner.