Elections

The 1.6 million voters who signed a petition for the Republican-led recall effort have 30 business days to ask to have their names removed if they so choose.SACRAMENTO — Fueled by partisan fury and a backlash against pandemic shutdowns, a Republican-led campaign to oust Gov. Gavin Newsom of California has officially qualified for the ballot, officials said on Monday, setting the stage for the second recall election in the state’s history.In a widely expected filing, the California secretary of state’s office found that recall organizers had collected 1,626,042 signatures on their petition, more than the roughly 1.5 million required to ask voters to remove Mr. Newsom from office.The announcement sets in motion a series of procedural steps that should culminate in a special election. No date has been scheduled, but it is expected to be sometime in November. Between now and then, the state will review the cost associated with sending the proposed recall to voters, and those who signed the petition will have 30 business days to ask to have their names removed if they so choose.State officials say, however, that those hurdles are unlikely to prevent a vote, even though only a year or so will remain before Mr. Newsom, who was elected in 2018, comes up for re-election.Several Republican candidates have already announced challenges to Mr. Newsom, including Caitlyn Jenner, a transgender activist; Kevin Faulconer, a former mayor of San Diego; and John Cox, a businessman who lost to Mr. Newsom in 2018.More are expected to follow, although Mr. Newsom, a Democrat, is widely expected to prevail. In recent polls, a majority of California voters have said they were disinclined to remove him from office, and his approval ratings have improved as the coronavirus crisis has waned. Mr. Newsom’s backers have characterized the recall effort as a futile bid by Republican extremists to make their shrinking party relevant in the state.Started early in Mr. Newsom’s administration by conservative activists who took issue with his stance on immigration, the campaign gained traction late last year as the state struggled to contain the spread of the coronavirus. Although California initially kept cases low, swiftly imposing a shelter-in-place order, infections soared as pandemic fatigue gradually provoked resistance.But the recall drive did not gather real momentum until early November, when its organizers, arguing that the pandemic had impaired their ability to circulate petitions, persuaded a judge to extend the signature-gathering deadline. That evening, Mr. Newsom attended a birthday dinner for a lobbyist friend at an exclusive wine country restaurant after exhorting Californians to stay at home to curb the spread of the coronavirus.The governor apologized after news of the episode leaked, calling it a “bad mistake” and saying that he “should have gotten up and left” as soon as he arrived at the restaurant. But the misstep was costly.On the night of the dinner, 55,588 people had signed the petitions. One month later, there were nearly 500,000 signatures.Recall attempts are common in California, but few make it onto the ballot. Petitions for removal from office have been filed against every governor in the last 61 years.The only governor to be recalled, however, was Gray Davis, who was ousted in 2003 by Arnold Schwarzenegger as the state strained to rebound from the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, the dot-com bust, and rolling blackouts. After he took office, Mr. Schwarzenegger, a Republican, faced his own barrage of attempted recalls.Mr. Newsom’s supporters have stressed the crossover between recall backers and supporters of former President Donald J. Trump, QAnon conspiracy theories and the anti-vaccine movement. The recall’s chief proponent, Orrin Heatlie, a retired sheriff’s sergeant from Yolo County in the Sacramento area, had joked on Facebook about microchipping migrants. Mr. Heatlie has said that he published the comment to be provocative but that it was not meant to be taken literally.On Monday, the governor’s campaign warned that the pro-Trump and far-right activists behind the recall would seek to roll back the state’s progress in controlling the pandemic, protecting the environment and legislating gun control.Juan Rodriguez, the manager of Stop the Republican Recall, said in a statement that the move to remove the governor “threatens our values as Californians and seeks to undo the important progress we’ve made under Governor Newsom.”Proponents of the recall, however, framed it as a bipartisan referendum on the governor and the policies of a state whose leadership has been dominated in recent years by Democrats. Mr. Faulconer, who governed as a moderate in San Diego, called it a “historic opportunity to demand change” for Californians of all political parties.And Randy Economy, a spokesman for the recall effort, countered that if “California is at a crossroad,” it is because “people are frustrated at the destructive policies, divisive politics and manipulative tactics conducted by Gavin Newsom since the day he became governor.” More

The 1.6 million voters who signed a petition for the Republican-led recall effort have 30 business days to ask to have their names removed if they so choose.Fueled by partisan fury and a backlash against pandemic shutdowns, a Republican-led campaign to oust Gov. Gavin Newsom of California has officially qualified for the ballot, setting the stage for the second recall election in the state’s history, officials said on Monday.In a widely expected filing, the California secretary of state’s office found that recall organizers had collected 1,626,042 signatures on their petition, more than the roughly 1.5 million required to ask voters to remove Mr. Newsom from office.The announcement sets in motion a series of procedural steps that will culminate in a special election. No election date has been scheduled, but it is expected to be sometime in November. Between now and then, the state will review the cost of the election, and voters who signed the petition will have 30 business days to ask to have their names removed if they so choose.State officials say, however, that those hurdles are unlikely to prevent a vote, even though only a year or so will remain before Mr. Newsom, who was elected in 2018, comes up for re-election.Several Republican candidates have already announced challenges to Mr. Newsom, including Caitlyn Jenner, a transgender activist; Kevin Faulconer, a former mayor of San Diego; and John Cox, a Republican businessman who lost to Mr. Newsom in 2018.More are expected to follow, although Mr. Newsom, a Democrat, is widely expected to prevail in the deep-blue state. In recent polls, a majority of California voters have said they were disinclined to remove him from office, and his approval ratings have improved as the coronavirus crisis has waned. Mr. Newsom’s backers have characterized the recall effort as a futile bid by extremists to make Republicans relevant in the state.Launched early in Mr. Newsom’s administration by conservative activists who took issue with his stance on immigration, the campaign gained traction late last year as the state struggled to contain the spread of the coronavirus.But the drive did not gather real momentum until early November, when its organizers, arguing that the pandemic had impaired their ability to circulate petitions, persuaded a judge to extend the signature-gathering deadline. That evening, Mr. Newsom attended a birthday dinner for a lobbyist friend at an exclusive wine country restaurant after exhorting Californians to stay at home to curb the spread of the coronavirus.On the night of the dinner, only 55,588 people had signed the petitions. One month later, there were nearly 500,000 signatures.Recall attempts are common in California, but few make it onto the ballot. The last governor to face one was Gray Davis, who was ousted by Arnold Schwarzenegger in 2003. More

The US Department of Homeland Security on Monday announced an internal review to address the threat of domestic violent extremism within the sprawling federal agency.Homeland security secretary Alejandro Mayorkas said senior DHS officials would explore ways to detect and prevent extremism within.The government agency has a huge range of functions under its umbrella, ranging from the Secret Service, transport security, and an office countering weapons of mass destruction, as well as the US Coast Guard and the country’s primary immigration enforcement agencies.“Domestic violent extremism poses the most lethal and persistent terrorism-related threat to our country today,” Mayorkas said.“As we work to safeguard our nation, we must be vigilant in our efforts to identify and combat domestic violent extremism within both the broader community and our own organization.”DHS did not cite any specific incidents in announcing the review and did not immediately respond to questions about the review.The agency has increased its focus on domestic extremism since Democrat Joe Biden won the 2020 presidential election and took office in January.Past incidents include a Coast Guard lieutenant who was accused of being a domestic terrorist and was convicted on weapons and drug charges last year.Shortly after Biden took office, DHS issued a rare terrorism bulletin warning of the lingering potential for violence from people motivated by antigovernment sentiment after the election.This suggested that the 6 January 2021, insurrection at the US Capitol in Washington DC, by extremist supporters of Donald Trump, incited by the outgoing Republican president and for which he was impeached for an historic second time, may embolden extremists and set the stage for additional attacks.The agency also directed state, local and tribal agencies receiving annual DHS grants to direct 7.5% of the funds toward addressing the threat from domestic extremism. More

The case, from California, could affect the regulation of “dark money” in political contests.WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court on Monday seemed skeptical of California’s demand that charities soliciting contributions in the state report the identities of their major donors.A majority of the justices appeared to agree that at least the two groups challenging the requirement — Americans for Prosperity, a foundation affiliated with the Koch family, and the Thomas More Law Center, a conservative Christian public-interest law firm — should prevail in the case.It was less clear whether the court would strike down the requirement entirely for all charities as a violation of the First Amendment’s protection of the freedom of association. And the justices gave few hints about whether their ruling, expected by June, would alter the constitutional calculus in the related area of disclosure requirements for campaign spending.Justice Stephen G. Breyer repeated concerns expressed in supporting briefs that the case could have broad implications. “This case is really a stalking horse for campaign finance disclosure laws,” he said.In the context of elections, the Supreme Court has supported laws requiring public disclosure. In the Citizens United campaign finance decision in 2010, the court upheld the disclosure requirements before it by an 8-to-1 vote. In a second 8-to-1 decision that year, Doe v. Reed, the court ruled that people who sign petitions to put referendums on state ballots do not have a general right under the First Amendment to keep their names secret.If the approach of the groups challenging California’s requirement for charities were adopted, Justice Sonia Sotomayor said, “I don’t see how the public disclosure at issue in Doe would have survived.”Derek L. Shaffer, a lawyer for the challengers in Monday’s case, said that the electoral context was different and that charities needed protection given the nation’s volatile political climate. He added that California’s reporting requirement subjected donors to the real potential of harassment, particularly in light of the state’s history of failing to keep the donor lists secret.“Think about medical organizations that may take views about masking, about vaccinations,” he said.Contributing to a charity for Asian-Americans, he said, might have seemed uncontroversial not long ago. “But today, in 2021, sad to say,” he said, “it could be a life-or-death issue that their identities have been disclosed.”Justice Clarence Thomas appeared to agree that donors may be endangered by disclosures of their identities. “In this era,” he said, “there seems to be quite a bit of loose accusations about organizations — for example, an organization that had certain views might be accused of being a white supremacist organization or racist or homophobic.”The challengers received support from hundreds of groups across the ideological spectrum, including the Chamber of Commerce, the Cato Institute, the Electronic Frontier Foundation, the American Civil Liberties Union, and the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund.Justice Brett M. Kavanaugh read from a supporting brief filed by the last two groups: “A critical corollary of the freedom to associate is the right to maintain the confidentiality of one’s associations, absent a strong governmental interest in disclosure.”The case, Americans for Prosperity v. Bonta, No. 19-251, concerned a requirement that charities file with California a copy of an Internal Revenue Service form that identifies major donors. Federal law requires the I.R.S. to keep the form confidential.California also promised to keep the forms secret, but it has not always done so. According to court papers, it had inadvertently displayed over 1,800 forms on its website. The state has said that it has imposed new security measures.Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. said there was little reason to trust the state. “The brief filed by the A.C.L.U. and the NAACP Legal Defense Fund says that we should regard your system as a system of de facto public disclosure because there have been such massive confidentiality breaches in California,” he told Aimee A. Feinberg, a lawyer for California.She responded that a judge had said the state’s efforts “to rectify past lapses and to prevent them in the future were commendable.”Mr. Shaffer said California had other ways to investigate potential fraud, including by auditing individual charities.Justice Elena Kagan said not all charities objected to making their donors’ names public, suggesting that a blanket rule was not needed. “Most charities disclose their donors,” she said. “In fact, it’s part of their strategy, that the more disclosure there is, the more fund-raising and association there is.”Mr. Shaffer said that anything less than a ruling doing away with the requirement entirely for all charities “will be a Pyrrhic victory.” Requiring thousands of charities to litigate whether their donors could be subject to harassment would be, he said, a burden at odds with First Amendment freedoms.Elizabeth B. Prelogar, the acting United States solicitor general, proposed a middle ground that did not seem to interest the justices. She urged the Supreme Court to return the case to the federal appeals court in California for a fresh look at whether the two groups challenging the requirement had provided sufficient evidence that their own First Amendment rights had been violated. More

Mr. Collins, a former Republican congressman and ardent defender of former President Trump, was seen as an experienced potential challenger to Senator Raphael Warnock or Gov. Brian Kemp.ATLANTA — Doug Collins, a former U.S. congressman and ardent defender of former President Donald J. Trump, announced on Monday that he would not seek any statewide office in 2022, at once narrowing the field of Republican candidates for Senate in Georgia and removing a potential intraparty challenge to Gov. Brian Kemp.Mr. Collins’s decision is a setback for Mr. Trump’s hopes of fielding a strong, experienced Republican candidate for Senate or governor next year. Mr. Collins was widely seen as more likely to run for Senate; his announcement now deprives the Trump-supporting wing of the Georgia Republican Party of an experienced challenger to Senator Raphael Warnock, a freshman Democrat who won a special election in January and will be up for re-election to a full term next year.Herschel Walker, the former N.F.L. and University of Georgia football star, has been rumored to be considering a run, and Mr. Trump has urged him to jump into the race. Kelvin King, a contractor and Trump supporter, announced his candidacy earlier this month, and Latham Saddler, a former Navy SEAL and former White House fellow in the Trump administration, has filed paperwork stating his intention to run.Other ambitious Georgia Republicans seeking higher office may also end up trying their luck in the primary. Mr. Warnock is a political newcomer, and Republicans are hoping that his election this winter, as well as that of Senator Jon Ossoff, a fellow Democrat, were anomalies explained in part by the false claims of election fraud pushed by Mr. Trump and his allies, which may have depressed turnout in those Senate races.Moreover, national Republicans are likely to spend big to defeat Mr. Warnock in the general election in an effort to wrest control of the Senate away from the Democrats. It is expected to be one of the most hotly contested and closely watched elections in the country next year.Mr. Collins was also seen as a potential primary challenger to Mr. Kemp, the Republican incumbent who drew the ire of Mr. Trump for refusing to acquiesce to the former president’s demands to try to subvert the election results.Mr. Trump has vowed to campaign against Mr. Kemp and may get behind other pro-Trump statewide candidates in advance of the November 2022 election. Vernon Jones, a former Democrat turned Trump ally, announced his candidacy for governor earlier this month.Mr. Trump had hinted at the idea of backing Mr. Collins for statewide office, although he mentioned him as a potential candidate for governor, rather than senator, at a rally in Georgia in December.As Mr. Trump continues to seek retribution against Republicans in Georgia, he also endorsed another loyal ally, Representative Jody Hice, in March for a bid to unseat the current secretary of state, Brad Raffensperger, in the state’s Republican primary. Mr. Raffensperger also enraged Mr. Trump by declining to help him overturn the presidential election results in the state. More

BERLIN — For the past two and a half years, since it became clear that Chancellor Angela Merkel would not run for office again, there’s been one great unresolved question in German politics: Who will succeed her?Last week, after the two parties leading in the polls nominated their candidates, we got much closer to finding out. Ms. Merkel’s Christian Democratic Union eventually chose Armin Laschet, the party head. The challenger from the ascendant Green Party is Annalena Baerbock. With the addition of Olaf Scholz of the Social Democratic Party, a credible candidate whose party is lagging behind in the polls, the lineup for September’s election is all but complete.After over 15 years of rule by Ms. Merkel, Germany is at a crossroads. In Mr. Laschet, a 60-year-old regional governor, and Ms. Baerbock, at age 40 the youngest candidate ever to run for chancellor, voters have a stark choice between an icon of continuity and a herald of change. The person voters choose will shape the country’s future, perhaps for decades.So who exactly are the candidates? And what would a Germany led by any of them look like?Armin Laschet, the leader of the Christian Democratic Union and a regional governor, is an icon of continuity.Filip Singer/EPA, via ShutterstockAnnalena Baerbock, co-chair of the Green Party, is the youngest candidate ever to run for chancellor.Leon Kuegeler/ReutersLet’s start with Mr. Laschet. A practicing Catholic from Aachen, an old city that borders the Netherlands and Belgium, he shares with Ms. Merkel a Christian, humanitarian worldview. “He takes the C in C.D.U. very seriously,” Cem Özdemir, a Green Party lawmaker who has known Mr. Laschet for decades, told me. And like Ms. Merkel, Mr. Laschet is described as personally modest and mostly fair in political discussions and negotiations. “You usually get along with him quite well,” said Ulla Schmidt, a Social Democratic lawmaker who has known him for 35 years.Open to new ideas and different positions, Mr. Laschet is notable for having many friends across the political spectrum. As a young lawmaker in the early 1990s, he was among the first in his party to meet with representatives from the Green Party — at a time when many in the C.D.U. still thought of the Greens as a bunch of eco-punks who could not be trusted to run anything, let alone a country.Mr. Laschet was also one of the first in his party to openly embrace the idea that Germany is a country of immigrants. “He has earned himself a lot of respect in migrant communities, because he has listened to what they had to say,” Serap Güler, a Christian Democrat born to Turkish immigrants who serves in Mr. Laschet’s administration in North Rhine-Westphalia, told me.Along with his broadly pro-immigration stance, Mr. Laschet is enthusiastic about education, a tough combatant of organized crime and a vocal opponent of the far-right Alternative for Germany party, with which he has vowed never to cooperate. A true man of the political middle, he could be expected to govern the country competently and fairly. But his candidacy, already weakened by his poor ratings, is a gamble that Germans want more of the same.Ms. Baerbock, by contrast, offers something truly new. Born in 1980, she represents the generation that came of age after the country’s reunification. Raised in Hanover in the west, she now — by way of a stint in Brussels, where she was an office manager for a Green Party lawmaker in the European Union — holds a seat in Brandenburg in the east. Her approach is refreshingly relatable: A mother of two young children, who has spoken about the struggles of being a working mom, she’s unafraid to bring together the personal and the political.But she doesn’t shy away from substantive debates — about climate change or foreign policy — or difficult political negotiations. In 2017, for example, when the Greens were discussing a possible coalition deal with the Christian Democrats and the Free Democratic Party (which pulled out at the last moment, scuppering the plan), Ms. Baerbock demanded the country end its use of coal and even brokered a compromise, impressing opponents and colleagues alike with her tenacity and command of detail.Those qualities have been visible in her leadership of the party, a position she surprisingly won, along with a co-chair, in 2018. Famously afflicted by infighting between its left and right flanks, the Green Party under Ms. Baerbock has been notably united. That has contributed to the party’s remarkable ascendance, from a marginal environmental force to a serious contender for power. Once regularly polling at 5 percent or 6 percent approval, the party now stands at around 20 percent — with room to grow.In its slow but steady rise, the party moved to the political middle, in style and substance, and toned down some of its more radical ideas, such as the dissolution of NATO. Even so, the party’s platform for the national election is notably far-reaching, calling for a “social-ecological transformation” and a zero-emissions economy. (The Christian Democrats have yet to release their platform.) Many of the document’s details remain vague, but it is radical in its language and ideas.Were Ms. Baerbock to become the Greens’ first-ever chancellor — the party served as the junior partner in a national coalition with the Social Democrats from 1998 to 2005, but has never before stood a chance of reaching the chancellery — it would certainly be a great political experiment.Inexperience, political adversaries say, would be a major hindrance. While it’s true that Ms. Baerbock has no government experience, she’s known for her perseverance and willingness to fight. In the race to become the party’s candidate, she started as the underdog — her co-chair, Robert Habeck, was expected to clinch it — but she systematically and strategically built support, both inside and outside the party.It’s easy to see how she did it: In conversation, she comes across as a quick mind, as well as tough and disciplined. And she clearly has a talent for motivating and enthusing others. Unlike Mr. Laschet, whose candidacy was fiercely contested, she is loved by her party.In recent months, the government’s failure to stem the tide of new coronavirus infections, bolster the health service and roll out vaccinations has stung. Germans seem ready for something new. The question is: How new will it be?The Times is committed to publishing a diversity of letters to the editor. We’d like to hear what you think about this or any of our articles. Here are some tips. And here’s our email: [email protected] The New York Times Opinion section on Facebook, Twitter (@NYTopinion) and Instagram. More

The New York City mayor’s race has eight weeks to go before the June 22 primary, and endorsements and donations are beginning to help it take shape.Raymond J. McGuire, a trailblazing Black businessman who is trying to parlay his decades of success on Wall Street into a successful run for mayor of New York City, has tried to discourage comparisons to Michael R. Bloomberg, the billionaire ex-mayor who won office in 2001 as a Republican.His efforts to do so will not be helped by the latest financial disclosure statements, which cement the notion that he will be the wealthiest mayor, if elected, since Mr. Bloomberg.He will also have one more competitor in the June 22 Democratic primary than originally thought. Here’s what you need to know about the race:Women for WileyOf the four women trying to become New York City’s first female mayor, Maya Wiley, a former counsel to Mayor Bill de Blasio, may have the best shot: She is consistently in third or fourth place in early polling and was endorsed by the city’s largest union.Now several women’s groups are beginning to coalesce behind her.Amplify Her, a group that works to elect women in New York City, will announce its endorsement of Ms. Wiley this week. Marti Speranza Wong, the group’s executive director, said members liked some of Ms. Wiley’s proposals, including cutting $1 billion per year from the police budget and addressing the Black maternal mortality rate.“It’s not just about electing any woman — it’s about sending a woman to City Hall who won’t shy away from tackling the deep inequities in our city,” she said.Ms. Wiley was also recently endorsed by Emily’s List, which aims to elect Democratic women who are in favor of abortion rights, and by the Higher Heights for America PAC, which supports progressive Black women.Emily’s List said Ms. Wiley would prioritize the city’s most vulnerable residents during the recovery from the pandemic and noted that New York City is behind other major cities like Atlanta, Boston and Chicago that have female mayors.Interestingly, the chairwoman of the Higher Heights PAC, L. Joy Williams, is working for Mr. McGuire’s campaign. And Kimberly Peeler-Allen, one of the co-founders of Higher Heights, is the treasurer of New York for Ray, a super PAC supporting Mr. McGuire’s campaign.Ray McGuire will work for $1 a yearMr. McGuire, who left his position as a vice chairman at Citigroup to run for mayor, will still receive payouts from his former employer over the next four years, and has numerous investments in securities and various businesses, according to a financial disclosure report from the Conflicts of Interest Board.According to the report, Mr. McGuire will receive a total of $5.8 million from Citi, distributed over four equal payments starting next year.The disclosure report also revealed that Mr. McGuire received $500,000 in deferred compensation from Citi and that he also earned a minimum of $1 million in dividends, interest and capital gains from the company in 2020.Mr. McGuire has business investments valued at anywhere from $3 million to $5.4 million; stocks and bonds in more than 130 companies valued at a minimum of $9 million and a maximum of $22 million; and owns three properties in Ohio with a minimum value of $850,000 to at least $1.3 million or more.Mr. Bloomberg took $1 per year in salary, and Mr. McGuire said he planned to do the same.Other candidates also reported their earnings.Andrew Yang, the ex-2020 presidential candidate, reported earning between $677,000 and $2.5 million from book royalties, his former job as a commentator on CNN and speaking fees. Mr. Yang also expects to earn a minimum of $600,000 in future book royalties.Chris Coffey, Mr. Yang’s co-campaign manager, said that Mr. Yang will take a salary if elected.The former federal housing secretary Shaun Donovan reported no income; a spokesman said that he and his family “made a decision to dip into savings so that he could dedicate himself full time to running for mayor.” Donovan gets his public fundsOn Thursday, the New York City Campaign Finance Board gave Mr. Donovan’s campaign $1.5 million in matching public funds. But it had to overcome some initial hesitation before doing so.The week before, the board withheld the funds, because it wanted to ensure that there had been no improper coordination between the former federal housing secretary’s campaign and the super PAC supporting him — which is almost entirely funded by Mr. Donovan’s father.As of Sunday, the super PAC had reported raising $3.1 million, $3 million of it from Michael Donovan, Mr. Donovan’s father and an ad-tech executive. Super PACs are not allowed to coordinate with campaigns, and both Mr. Donovan’s super PAC and his campaign asserted there had been no coordination whatsoever. Mr. Donovan’s father, Michael, said he and his son kept their conversations to personal matters.“We are following the law,” said the younger Mr. Donovan in an interview last week.Coordination is notoriously difficult to prove. Even so, the campaign finance board wanted to do its due diligence and noted some displeasure even as it gave Mr. Donovan the matching funds.“In this election cycle, several single-candidate super PACs have been established, particularly in connection with the race for mayor, and a significant level of contributions and expenditures is occurring to and by these PACs,” said board chair Frederick Schaffer in a statement. “This development poses a particular challenge to the goals of the city’s system of public campaign financing.”Mr. Schaffer said that the board might look into amending the law and its regulations once the election is complete.Earth Day endorsements and a composting kerfuffleHe might not be leading in the polls, but Scott M. Stringer, the city comptroller, seems to have cornered the market on support from climate activists.Earth Day brought Mr. Stringer an endorsement from Mark Ruffalo, the actor and anti-fracking activist. Sunrise Movement NYC, a group of young activists fighting climate change, announced that it was endorsing both Mr. Stringer and Dianne Morales, a former nonprofit executive.Sunrise cited Mr. Stringer’s work to divest city pensions from fossil fuel, while Mr. Ruffalo credited Mr. Stringer’s opposition to hydrofracking and his governmental experience.New York City is particularly vulnerable to sea level rise, and several other candidates used Earth Day to tout their own big green ideas.Mr. Yang revealed his favorite park on Twitter and traveled to a former landfill in the Rockaways, which he said should be used for solar power generation.Eric Adams, the Brooklyn borough president, said he would create a school focused on preparing students for green careers and would make New York “the wind power hub of the Eastern Seaboard.”Earth Day, like any other day on Earth, was also the setting for a political scuffle.After Mayor de Blasio announced that he would partially resurrect the city’s curbside composting program — whose demise was a byproduct of the pandemic — his former sanitation commissioner, Kathryn Garcia, issued a withering statement saying his plan would render composting a “luxury” product available only to those with the wherewithal to wade through the paperwork.“If New York City is going to lead on climate and sustainability, we need to go bigger and bolder,” she said. “We need to make the curbside organics program mandatory, permanent, and ensure equity in its design by leaving no neighborhood behind. There is no halfway on an issue as important as the fight against climate change.”A 13th Democrat makes the ballotThe field of 12 Democrats to appear on the ballot in the primary for mayor on June 22 had appeared to be set, but it will now be a baker’s dozen, after Joycelyn Taylor, the chief executive of a general contracting firm, earned a late spot.Ms. Taylor, who challenged a decision by the New York City Board of Elections that she did not receive enough signatures, will appear last on the ballot after Mr. Yang. Ms. Taylor’s campaign celebrated on Twitter, saying that she was “lucky 13!”She is running as a working-class New Yorker who grew up in public housing and is calling for ownership rights for longtime residents of public housing and for the City University of New York to be free, among other proposals.At the same time, several candidates might not appear on the Working Families Party ballot line after there was a snafu over new filing rules during the pandemic.The Board of Elections had rejected some notarized forms with electronic signatures that could affect Tiffany Cabán, a City Council candidate, and Brad Lander, who is running for city comptroller, among others, and it us unclear whether they might be reinstated.A spokeswoman for Mr. Lander, Naomi Dann, said that he was “proud to be supported by the Working Families Party,” and was focused on winning the primary. More

The endorsement from Ruben Diaz Jr., the Bronx borough president, could help Mr. Adams reach Latino and Bronx voters in the New York City mayor’s race.When Ruben Diaz Jr. dropped out of the New York City mayor’s race last year, his decision surprised many. He had the support of the powerful Bronx Democratic Party, an alliance with Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo and strong ties to Latino voters.But Mr. Diaz, the Bronx borough president, still can influence the race: His endorsement became one of the most coveted in the contest — potentially carrying weight in the Bronx and among Latino voters, who make up roughly one-fifth of Democratic primary voters.On Monday, Mr. Diaz will announce that he is endorsing Eric Adams, the Brooklyn borough president, boosting Mr. Adams’s hopes of trying to assemble a diverse coalition to defeat Andrew Yang, the former presidential hopeful.“There have been so many issues where I witnessed firsthand how much Eric loves New York, but also how critical it is to have someone who has the life experience of a New Yorker to help inform them about how to fight for all New Yorkers,” Mr. Diaz said in an interview.Mr. Diaz, who is of Puerto Rican descent, said that his trust in Mr. Adams was built over a two-decade relationship, and recalled how they met in 1999 at a rally in the Bronx after the police killing of Amadou Diallo, a young Black man whose death became a rallying cry for changes to the Police Department.His endorsement follows other prominent Latino leaders who have backed Mr. Adams: Fernando Ferrer, the former Bronx borough president who twice ran for mayor, and Francisco Moya, a city councilman from Queens. None of the leading Democratic mayoral candidates is Latino or has strong roots in the Bronx.Latino voters could be a major factor in the Democratic primary and Mr. Diaz’s endorsement could be significant, said Bruce Gyory, a Democratic strategist who published a lengthy piece this month examining the demographics in the race.“If you take that endorsement and put resources and energy and outreach behind it, it could become an inflection point for reaching that fifth of the vote that is Hispanic,” he said.With Mr. Yang leading in the limited polling available, Mr. Adams has tried to consolidate support beyond his base in Brooklyn. Mr. Adams was endorsed by six elected officials in Queens last week, and declared himself the “King of Queens.”Mr. Adams said in an interview that Mr. Diaz’s endorsement was important for the coalition he was building in Brooklyn, Queens and the Bronx. He said he believed his campaign would speak to Latino voters.“Public safety, employment, and having affordable housing and a solid school system — these are my messages I’ve been saying for the last 35 years,” he said.Mr. Adams said he would get that message out through ads and mailers in the coming weeks. Mr. Adams had the most money on hand of any candidate as of the last filing date: more than $7.5 million. He has not yet bought any advertising time on television, but was shooting an ad on Saturday.All of the mayoral front-runners have been courting Latino leaders. Mr. Yang was endorsed by Representative Ritchie Torres of the Bronx, the first openly gay Afro-Latino member of Congress.Scott M. Stringer, the city comptroller, has ties to the Latino community through his stepfather and was endorsed by Representative Adriano D. Espaillat, the first Dominican immigrant to be elected to Congress. Maya Wiley, a former counsel to Mayor Bill de Blasio, was endorsed by Representative Nydia Velázquez, the first Puerto Rican woman to serve in Congress.Asked if Mr. Adams was the strongest candidate to beat Mr. Yang, Mr. Diaz said Mr. Adams was the best person to be mayor, but still chided Mr. Yang for leaving the city during the pandemic for his second home in New Paltz, N.Y.“This is the time when New York needs someone to run the city, not run from the city,” Mr. Diaz said.County party leaders are not officially endorsing in the Democratic primary. The Bronx Democratic Party, which is led by Jamaal Bailey, a state senator, has not made an endorsement, and neither has the Brooklyn Democratic Party, though its leader, Rodneyse Bichotte Hermelyn, a state assemblywoman, endorsed Mr. Adams.The city has never had a Latino or Hispanic mayor — except for John Purroy Mitchel, who served a century ago and whom some consider the first Hispanic mayor because he descended from Spanish nobility.In the mayor’s race this year, Dianne Morales, a former nonprofit executive who is of Puerto Rican descent, is running as a Democrat. Fernando Mateo, a restaurant operator and advocate for livery drivers who was born in the Dominican Republic, is running as a Republican. More