Campaign Finance

Subterms

    More stories

    • 100 Shares99 Views

      in Elections

      N.Y.C. Mayor Candidates Court Unions and Latino Voters

      by

      #masthead-section-label, #masthead-bar-one { display: none }N.Y.C. Mayoral RaceWho’s Running?5 TakeawaysCandidates’ N.Y.C. MomentsAn Overview of the RaceAdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyCourting Unions and Latino Voters: 5 Takeaways From the N.Y.C. Mayor’s RaceEric Adams won three big labor union endorsements, confirming his status as a top contender, and Loree Sutton dropped out of the race.Eric Adams is lining up coveted labor union endorsements.Credit…Michael M. Santiago/Getty ImagesEmma G. Fitzsimmons, Dana Rubinstein, Andy Newman and March 15, 2021Updated 10:56 a.m. ETLabor leaders are throwing their weight behind Eric Adams in the New York City mayoral race.Mr. Adams, the Brooklyn borough president, has won three major labor endorsements in the past two weeks, cementing his status as one of the top candidates in the crowded Democratic primary field.As Mr. Adams rose, Loree Sutton, one of the first women to join the race, dropped out, and the campaigns pushed to qualify for public matching funds. Andrew Yang, the former presidential candidate, announced over the weekend that he had raised an impressive fund-raising haul.Here is what you need to know:Adams wins key labor endorsements.Mr. Adams is making the case that he is the candidate for working-class New Yorkers.“We are building a blue-collar coalition that will deliver results for the New Yorkers who need them the most,” Mr. Adams said last week.He has received support from three unions: Local 32BJ of the Service Employees International Union, which represents about 85,000 building workers in New York; the Hotel Trades Council, which has nearly 40,000 members in the hotel and gaming industry; and the District Council 37 Executive Board, the city’s largest public employees union, representing 150,000 members and 50,000 retirees.The string of endorsements shows that some Democrats believe Mr. Adams has the best chance of beating Mr. Yang, who has been leading the field in recent polls.While Mr. Adams has secured some of the city’s most coveted labor endorsements, Maya Wiley, a former counsel to Mayor Bill de Blasio, was recently endorsed by another major union, Local 1199 of the S.E.I.U. The powerful United Federation of Teachers has not yet picked a candidate.Scott Stringer, the New York City comptroller, had been a contender for the 32BJ endorsement, according to the union president, Kyle Bragg.“But this is more than just about friendships,” Mr. Bragg said, adding that the union had to consider who had “the strongest path to victory.”Sutton’s long-shot bid comes to an end.Loree Sutton, left, has left the mayoral race.Credit…Jose A. Alvarado Jr. for The New York TimesFor Loree Sutton, the retired Army brigadier general who withdrew from the mayor’s race on Wednesday, the turning point came in late February when a state judge rejected a lawsuit seeking to limit in-person petition-gathering during the coronavirus pandemic.Candidates must gather a certain number of signatures in person in order to get their names on the ballot.“I just would not go out and do in-person petition-gathering under these circumstances,” Ms. Sutton said. It was, she said, a matter of “public health principle.”Her mayoral bid was always a long shot. The former commissioner for the city’s Department of Veterans’ Services, she had little in the way of political experience or name recognition. She was running as a law-and-order moderate in a Democratic primary that tilts left.Some advisers had encouraged her to run as a Republican, but doing so would have felt inauthentic, she said. Centrism, she argues, remains an essential part of the Democratic Party.But early on there were signs that her brand of moderation would be unwelcome.She was excluded from an early Democratic forum because she had argued that protesters should be required to obtain city permits.She campaigned on the importance of public safety and rejected calls to defund the police, a posture that seemed out of step with many of her competitors.“Some of the worst atrocities in human history have taken place under the misconception that somehow we can create a utopian society,” she said.In the end, Ms. Sutton pulled out of the race, having raised only $200,000.She has yet to decide whom she will endorse, but she was complimentary of Kathryn Garcia, the former Sanitation Department commissioner, who is running as a pragmatist. And she has not ruled out running for office again someday.“It’s the journey of a lifetime,” she said.Candidates debate how to fix public housing.Kathryn Garcia argues that private management of some buildings in the city’s public housing system can be effective.Credit…Brendan Mcdermid/ReutersAt a mayoral forum on housing on Thursday, a tenant leader at a city public-housing complex, Damaris Reyes, challenged the candidates: “I want to know if you will commit to preservation of public housing, and how you will repair trust and empower resident decision making.”The 175,000 apartments in the city’s public housing system have been sliding into disrepair for decades, with the price tag for replacing leaky roofs, old heating systems, broken elevators and other problems now estimated at $30 billion to $40 billion.But the city’s proposal to fund the repairs by using a program that would hand over management of tens of thousands of apartments to private developers has been greeted with skepticism. Many New York City Housing Authority residents fear their apartments would be privatized, leading to rent increases and evictions.At the housing forum, hosted by the local news channel NY1, two candidates with experience running housing systems said the city’s plans provided a realistic platform.Ms. Garcia, who served as interim commissioner of NYCHA in 2019, said the blueprint would let the city leverage federal money that was already available. She said she could win over skeptics by taking them on tours of the Ocean Bay complex in Queens, where a private landlord has been making repairs. “You know who the best spokespeople are?” she asked. “The people who have actually had their apartments renovated.”Shaun Donovan, who ran the city’s department of housing preservation under Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg and who served as President Barack Obama’s commissioner of housing and urban development, said that partnering with the federal government provided “the only pathway where we can truly get to scale.”Mr. Donovan’s plan also calls for the city to kick in $2 billion a year and includes job-training programs for NYCHA residents who would be hired to do much of the work, he said. Mr. Yang has promoted his own $48 billion — and entirely federally funded — “green new deal” for NYCHA. To combat NYCHA residents’ “massive trust deficit,” the city should “make NYCHA residents the majority of the board of NYCHA itself,” he has said.Public money comes rolling in.Andrew Yang has been a potent fund-raiser.Credit…Mark Lennihan/Associated PressSix candidates now say they have qualified for public matching funds, and a seventh may qualify soon.At the latest donation deadline last week, Mr. Yang proved that he is a strong fund-raiser. He reported that he had met the matching-funds threshold by raising more than $2.1 million from 15,600 individual donors in the 57 days that he has been in the race. Mr. Yang’s campaign said it expects to have raised $6.5 million once public dollars are received.“With 100 days left, we have built the foundation and energy to win,” Mr. Yang’s campaign managers said in a statement.To qualify for public matching funds, a candidate must raise $250,000 from at least 1,000 New York City residents. Those donations are matched at either an $8 to $1 rate or $6 to $1 rate, depending on which plan the campaign chose for a maximum of $1,400 to $2,000 per contributor.Mr. Donovan reported meeting the threshold, which would bring his total raised to $4 million. Ms. Garcia reported meeting the threshold by raising over $300,000 in matchable contributions. Dianne Morales, a former nonprofit executive, said Monday she had qualified for matching funds as well, raising about $320,000 in matchable contributions.The fund-raising leaders have also continued to rake in public dollars. Mr. Adams and Mr. Stringer, the only two candidates who have received matching funds so far, reported having raised a total of more than $9 million each once matching funds were factored in. Ms. Wiley, who announced that she had met the threshold last period before an audit from the Campaign Finance Board determined that she had not, declined to release fund-raising figures. Her campaign was waiting on a ruling Monday from the board.Raymond J. McGuire, a former banking executive who shook up the race when he raised $5 million in three months, is not participating in the public funds program. His campaign said he had raised another $2.6 million since the last filing period.According to campaign finance rules, if a nonparticipating candidate raises or spends more than half of the $7.3 million spending limit, the spending cap could be increased by 50 percent. Matthew Sollars, a spokesman for the board, said a determination on an increased spending cap would be made late next month.A candidate looks for the Latino vote.Scott Stringer, the city comptroller, has a Puerto Rican stepfather.Credit…Richard Drew/Associated PressLittle known fact about Scott Stringer, who is white and Jewish: His stepfather moved to New York from Puerto Rico as a toddler, his stepfamily is Latino and, partly on that basis, he hopes to win over Latino voters in the mayoral election.“Buenos días a todos,” Mr. Stringer said on Sunday in Upper Manhattan, as he formally kicked off his “Latino agenda,” not far from the Washington Heights neighborhood where he grew up. His stepfamily joined him and lauded his record, character and intelligence. “Scott is simpático,” said Carlos Cuevas, Mr. Stringer’s stepbrother, a lawyer.Mr. Stringer’s effort to highlight his family to identify with a particular constituency is not a novel one. Mr. de Blasio relied heavily on his African-American wife and biracial children in his 2013 run for mayor. At a forum about Jewish issues, Ms. Wiley, whose father was African-American and mother was white, made a point of noting that her partner is Jewish and the son of Holocaust survivors.The Latino vote — which is far from monolithic — is coveted, representing about 20 percent of the New York City electorate.The mayor’s race has several candidates of Latino descent: Ms. Morales and Carlos Menchaca, a councilman from Brooklyn, both of whom are Democrats, and Fernando Mateo, a Republican. None responded to requests for comment on Mr. Stringer’s Latino voter push.The same day Mr. Stringer was rolling out his agenda, his competitor Mr. Yang made his pitch to Spanish-language viewers of Telemundo.AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More

    • 125 Shares189 Views

      in Elections

      Inside Stephen Ross' Plan to Influence New York’s Mayoral Race

      by

      #masthead-section-label, #masthead-bar-one { display: none }N.Y.C. Mayoral RaceWho’s Running?5 TakeawaysCandidates’ N.Y.C. MomentsAn Overview of the RaceAdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyInside a Billionaire’s Plan to Influence New York’s Mayoral RaceStephen Ross, the head of the Related Companies, is organizing a meeting of business leaders to “help us get this mayoral election right.”Stephen Ross said he hopes to boost voter turnout among “moderate thinking, pro-growth, and pro-jobs Democrats who typically do not vote in primaries.”Credit…Peter Foley/EPA, via ShutterstockMarch 9, 2021Updated 8:37 p.m. ETThe billionaire developer Stephen M. Ross is rallying fellow business leaders to commit tens of millions of dollars in an effort to push moderate Democrats to vote in the June mayoral primary in New York and “change the future course of the city.”Mr. Ross has scheduled a meeting for Monday to detail his plans to launch the super PAC to “help us get this mayoral election right,” according to an email he sent to colleagues that was reviewed by The New York Times.The campaign would not initially support a specific candidate, but Mr. Ross, the chairman and founder of Related Companies, stressed that the “winner of the Democratic primary for mayor in June will decide if NYC will rebound or languish.”The effort is the starkest example of business leaders using their money and influence to elect a pro-business mayor who would steer New York’s recovery from the pandemic, and to hurt the chances of progressive-leaning candidates whose positions — like slashing the Police Department budget and raising taxes on the rich — alarm many business leaders.“This is truly the most important election of our lifetime and in NYC’s history,” Mr. Ross wrote in the email. “Fortunately, we can do something to change the future course of the city we love.”Candidates considered more palatable to the business sector include Eric Adams, the Brooklyn borough president; Andrew Yang, a former presidential candidate; Kathryn Garcia, the former sanitation commissioner; Raymond J. McGuire, a former Wall Street executive; and Shaun Donovan, a former Obama administration cabinet member.Mr. Yang is the early front-runner, followed by Mr. Adams, according to a recent poll by Emerson College. Mr. McGuire, thought to be a favorite of some in the business community, was in eighth place in the poll.Via a spokesman, Mr. Ross did not rule out backing a particular candidate, when the time comes.But when asked who that candidate might be, Mr. Ross was circumspect.“The one who is best and can help all New Yorkers,” he said. More

    • 113 Shares199 Views

      in Elections

      Inside the Lincoln Project’s Secrets, Side Deals and Scandals

      by

      AdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyInside the Lincoln Project’s Secrets, Side Deals and ScandalsA civil war broke out in the group as it antagonized Donald Trump, with leaders splintering over financial arrangements and revelations of online harassment by a top official.Credit…Mark HarrisDanny Hakim, Maggie Astor and March 8, 2021, 12:32 p.m. ETA few days before the presidential election, the leadership of the anti-Trump Lincoln Project gathered at the Utah home of Steve Schmidt, one of the group’s co-founders, and listened as he plotted out the organization’s future.None of the dissident Republican consultants who created the Lincoln Project a year earlier had imagined how wildly successful it would be, pulling in more than $87 million in donations and producing scores of viral videos that doubled as a psy-ops campaign intended to drive President Donald J. Trump to distraction. Confident that a Biden administration was on the horizon, Mr. Schmidt, a swaggering former political adviser to John McCain and Arnold Schwarzenegger, pitched the other attendees on his post-Trump vision for the project over a breakfast of bagels and muffins. And it was ambitious.“Five years from now, there will be a dozen billion-dollar media companies that don’t exist today,” he told the group, according to two people who attended. “I would like to build one, and would invite all of you to be part of that.”In fact, Mr. Schmidt and the three other men who started the Lincoln Project — John Weaver, Reed Galen and Rick Wilson — had already quietly moved to set themselves up in the new enterprise, drafting and filing papers to create TLP Media in September and October, records show. Its aim was to transform the original project, a super PAC, into a far more lucrative venture under their control.This was not the only private financial arrangement among the four men. Shortly after they created the group in late 2019, they had agreed to pay themselves millions of dollars in management fees, three people with knowledge of the deal said. One of the people said a contract was drawn up among the four men but not signed. A spokeswoman for the Lincoln Project was broadly dismissive and said, “No such agreement exists and nothing like it was ever adopted.”The behind-the-scenes moves by the four original founders showed that whatever their political goals, they were also privately taking steps to make money from the earliest stages, and wanted to limit the number of people who would share in the spoils. Over time, the Lincoln Project directed about $27 million — nearly a third of its total fund-raising — to Mr. Galen’s consulting firm, from which the four men were paid, according to people familiar with the arrangement.Conceived as a full-time attack machine against Mr. Trump, the Lincoln Project’s public profile soared last year as its founders built a reputation as a creative yet ruthless band of veteran operators. They recruited like-minded colleagues, and their scathing videos brought adulation from the left and an aura of mischievous idealism for what they claimed was their mission: nothing less than to save democracy.They also hit upon a geyser of cash, discovering that biting attacks on a uniquely polarizing president could be as profitable in the loosely regulated world of political fund-raising as Mr. Trump’s populist bravado was for his own campaign.Then it all began to unravel. By the time of the Utah meeting, the leaders of the Lincoln Project — who had spent their careers making money from campaigns — recognized the value of their enterprise and had begun to maneuver for financial gain. But other leaders had learned of the financial arrangement among the original founders, and they were privately fuming.Another major problem was festering: the behavior of Mr. Weaver, who for years had been harassing young men with sexually provocative messages.Allegations about Mr. Weaver’s conduct began appearing in published reports in The American Conservative and Forensic News this winter. In late January, The New York Times reported on allegations going back several years. The Times has spoken to more than 25 people who received harassing messages, including one person who was 14 when Mr. Weaver first contacted him.Fresh reporting by The Times found that Mr. Weaver’s inappropriate behavior was brought to the organization’s attention multiple times last year, beginning in January 2020, according to four people with direct knowledge of the complaints, though none of the warnings involved a minor. The Lincoln Project’s spokeswoman, Ryan Wiggins, said it would not comment on issues related to Mr. Weaver while an outside legal review of Mr. Weaver’s actions was ongoing. The group has hired the law firm Paul Hastings to conduct the review.Steve Schmidt, a former political adviser to John McCain and Arnold Schwarzenegger, is one of the co-founders of the Lincoln Project.Credit…Matt Winkelmeyer/Getty ImagesLast June, an employee for a company hired by the Lincoln Project warned in an email that Mr. Weaver’s conduct was “potentially fatal” to the organization’s image. The email, sent to a board member and circulated to other leaders, described multiple instances of harassment. It said Mr. Weaver’s behavior was already damaging relationships with vendors and offered to put leaders in contact with some of the men involved.Over the last month, The Times reviewed documents and conducted interviews with the founders and with scores of current and former contractors, executives, interns and men who were harassed by Mr. Weaver. Some spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive internal deliberations, and others because they feared retaliation from Lincoln Project leaders.The crisis surrounding Mr. Weaver, and the splintering of the group’s leadership, have cast the future of the Lincoln Project into doubt. Within weeks of the meeting in Utah, a battle erupted over who would control the group’s board. There would be threats to sue, to start rival groups and to back different board slates, as millions of dollars were moved in and out of the organization.Even people once associated with the group, including George T. Conway III, have called for its dissolution. But Mr. Schmidt’s faction intends to continue it as a modern media campaign against global forces of authoritarianism, while also monetizing the movement.Save for Mr. Weaver, the project’s top leadership — Mr. Schmidt, Mr. Galen and Mr. Wilson — has not changed. They are hoping that enough of its more than 500,000 donors will remain to keep its coffers filled.Mr. Schmidt, in a recent interview conducted shortly before he took a leave of absence, said this was no time to quit.“I want the Lincoln Project to be one of the premier pro-democracy organizations,” he said. “We believe there is a real autocratic movement that is a threat to democracy and has a floor of 40 percent in the next election. And the pro-democracy side cannot be the gentle side of the debate.”An unexpectedly fast riseIt was not initially clear that the Lincoln Project would be so wildly successful. Then, last May, it released its “Mourning in America” video, a play on a Reagan-era commercial that laid the failures of the country’s pandemic response squarely at Mr. Trump’s feet.The commercial prompted a late-night Twitter barrage from Mr. Trump to his tens of millions of followers. He derided the project as “a group of RINO Republicans who failed badly 12 years ago, then again 8 years ago, and then got BADLY beaten by me,” adding, “They’re all LOSERS.”Mr. Trump’s outburst gave the Lincoln Project a flood of attention it could have only hoped for. Fund-raising surged. In June, the billionaire investor Stephen Mandel donated $1 million, while Joshua Bekenstein, a co-chairman of Bain Capital, and David Geffen each donated $100,000; Mr. Geffen has since given $500,000 in total. (David Dishman, the executive director of the David Geffen Foundation, said that Mr. Geffen’s donations were “specific to their work around the 2020 election cycle.”)It was the start of a wave of contributions, not all from financial powerhouses like Mr. Geffen. The Lincoln Project raised more than $30 million from people who gave less than $200.A hiring spree began, and the organization spread its wings, creating a communications shop, a political division, podcasts and political shows for its website. It went from “eight or 10 people on the first of May, to like 60-plus by late or early July,” Mr. Galen said. “We scaled up enormously quickly.”Initially, the project operated much like a pirate ship. Typical workplace management practices were lacking. The organization has no chief executive. Two of its largest contractors, who were billing the Lincoln Project, were given seats on the three-member board of directors, a breach of normal governance practices.The executive structure was malleable: The two contractors on the board, for instance, Ron Steslow and Mike Madrid, who were each involved in reaching voters through digital advertising and data targeting, were also referred to as co-founders. So were Mr. Conway and Jennifer Horn, a former head of the Republican Party in New Hampshire who joined early on and played a leading role in outreach to independents and Republicans.“This thing was literally a pop-up stand,” said Mr. Conway, an unpaid adviser who had no real operational role before stepping away from the organization last summer. “It was an organization that got big really fast, and more money came in than anyone could have imagined. It was just catch as catch can.”Amid the rapid growth, it was the core group of original founders, led by Mr. Schmidt, who wielded operational control. “I had zero decision-making power,” Sarah Lenti, a Republican political consultant who at one point served as the group’s executive director, said in an interview.Ms. Lenti, who has worked on four G.O.P. presidential campaigns in a variety of roles, added that she “was never privy to what founders were making.”If liberals viewed the Lincoln Project’s mission as noble, the four Republicans who started it had long been practitioners of bare-knuckled political brawling.Mr. Wilson was a longtime G.O.P. strategist known for producing jagged attack ads, like one in 2002 that claimed former Senator Max Cleland, a Georgia Democrat who had lost both legs and his right hand in Vietnam, lacked the courage to defend America against terrorists.The other three were alumni of Mr. McCain’s presidential campaigns. Mr. Weaver is a brooding and mercurial Texan whom Mr. McCain nicknamed Sunny. Mr. Schmidt, played by Woody Harrelson in the movie “Game Change,” championed Sarah Palin as Mr. McCain’s vice-presidential nominee in 2008, a decision he later called a mistake. He and Mr. Weaver are not remembered fondly by the McCain family, judging by a recent tweet from Meghan McCain, the former senator’s daughter, who said that in recent years, “no McCain would have spit on them if they were on fire.”Mr. Galen, once a Schmidt lieutenant and now an equal partner, said of presidential campaigns, “It’s not Montessori school.”Rick Wilson is a longtime Republican strategist known for producing jagged attack ads against Democrats.Credit…Brad Barket/Getty ImagesAs money poured in, robust cost controls were lacking, with founders reaping management fees. And while big payments are common in politics, other Lincoln Project officials and employees were shocked at the scale when federal records revealed that nearly $27 million had been paid to Mr. Galen’s consulting firm, Summit Strategic Communications. It is not known how much of that each of the four received. Their private arrangement shielded even from other senior officials the size of the individual payments.The Lincoln Project directed nearly $27 million to Reed Galen’s consulting firm, from which the four original founders were paid.Credit…Robin Marchant/Getty Images“Based on public reports, I clearly was not compensated anywhere near as lavishly as others seemingly were, earning a small fraction of what some of my male counterparts did,” Ms. Horn said in a recent statement.Obscuring payments via intermediary firms can violate campaign finance laws, but it is unclear whether the Lincoln Project crossed that line.Ms. Wiggins, the spokeswoman, said Summit was one of the prime contractors that managed and performed work for the Lincoln Project, citing voter outreach efforts and placing advertisements. “All prime contractors and subcontractors were paid in accordance with industry standards,” she said.Mr. Galen was also earning commissions on nearly $13.3 million directed to another contractor, Ashton Media, which placed the group’s television ads, a former Lincoln Project official said. The project declined to discuss the commissions but said in a statement that it was “standard practice” to use “either a percentage, fixed-fee or hybrid model for media buying.”Jan Baran, a longtime Republican campaign finance lawyer, said that it was “customary and customarily controversial” for campaign consultants to steer business to their own firms, but that, typically, candidates and PACs negotiate those fees down. What makes the Lincoln Project different, he said, is that “the consultants are their own client, so I’m guessing the negotiations wouldn’t have been as rigorous.”The Lincoln Project’s advertisements ceaselessly needled and called out President Donald J. Trump.Credit…Doug Mills/The New York TimesUnaddressed complaintsIn the midst of the Lincoln Project’s overnight success last summer, a troubling email arrived.“I’m writing regarding a pattern of concerning behavior by Weaver that has been brought to my attention by multiple people,” it began. “In addition to being morally and potentially legally wrong, I believe what I’m going to outline poses an immediate threat to the reputation of the organization, and is potentially fatal to our public image.”The email was sent to Mr. Steslow, the Lincoln Project contractor and board member, by an employee at his company, Tusk, which handled the project’s digital advertising. It described a wide array of allegations dating from 2014 to 2020, including what it called a “bait-and-switch situation” around 2015 in which Mr. Weaver offered to discuss a political job with a young man, then tried to bring him to his hotel room instead. It also said that Mr. Weaver had continued to harass people after the Lincoln Project was founded in late 2019, and that he had “mixed suggestive commentary with official T.L.P. marketing work.”The Times obtained a portion of the message, and multiple people who have read it provided detailed descriptions of the rest. It included an offer to provide more information if Lincoln Project leaders requested it.This was not the first time that allegations of harassment by Mr. Weaver had been reported to project leaders. In January, five months before the email was sent, another person working for Tusk had raised concerns with Mr. Steslow.Ms. Lenti said she was told last March, when she was executive director, that Mr. Weaver “had a history of flirting with gentlemen over Twitter in an inappropriate fashion.”Mr. Steslow pressed unsuccessfully for some time to have Mr. Weaver pushed out, five people with knowledge of the matter said. While he informed other Lincoln Project officials as early as February 2020 of his concerns, three of the people said, there are conflicting accounts of who learned about Mr. Weaver, what they learned and when.Mr. Schmidt has been adamant that he had “no awareness or insinuations of any type of inappropriate behavior,” only rumors that Mr. Weaver was gay, even as concerns about harassment were percolating within the organization he was helping run. Mr. Galen was made aware of the June email, the five people with knowledge of the matter said; he declined to comment on the issue, citing the outside legal review the Lincoln Project has commissioned.John Weaver, accused of harassing young men, took a medical leave from the Lincoln Project in August.Credit…Open Mind/CUNY-TV, via YouTubeThe Lincoln Project did not begin an internal review into Mr. Weaver’s conduct until after the email from the Tusk employee arrived in June. It was led by the group’s general counsel, Matt Sanderson, but was limited in scope, according to Ms. Lenti and others. Ms. Lenti said that to her knowledge, only two people who had complained about Mr. Weaver’s messages were contacted. The June email contained many more allegations that were never followed up on.“I was not made privy to any written report, if there was ever one, and to my knowledge only the two gentlemen were interviewed,” Ms. Lenti said, adding that Mr. Weaver himself had not been interviewed.Mr. Sanderson declined to comment, citing the legal inquiry.By the time the Lincoln Project was founded, Mr. Weaver had been harassing young men online for years. In the most aggressive messages reviewed by The Times, he explicitly offered professional help or mentorship in exchange for sex. Other times, he asked young men about their height, weight and other measurements, and suggested they get drinks or travel together.Mr. Weaver took a medical leave in August, quieting internal dissent. But soon afterward, he was included as an equal partner in Mr. Schmidt’s proposed private media venture. Axios reported in late October that the Lincoln Project was “weighing offers from different television studios, podcast networks and book publishers.”That was news to Mr. Steslow, Mr. Madrid and Ms. Horn, according to three people with knowledge of the matter. It exacerbated tensions that had been simmering since the summer, when the trio had resisted a brief effort by the original founders to strip them of their titles as co-founders, the people said.By Oct. 30, Mr. Steslow, Mr. Madrid and Ms. Horn were already on edge as they gathered at Mr. Schmidt’s Utah house, listening as he outlined his vision for a media company. And it was soon made clear to them that they would not be equal partners. Though Mr. Schmidt had already brought Mr. Weaver in on the media deal, he referred to him indirectly as a “black box” that needed to be resolved, but didn’t give details.Mike Madrid was installed as a board member but was often referred to as a co-founder.Credit…Max WhittakerWhat Mr. Schmidt didn’t say was that the four original principals had already signed a 27-page agreement for TLP Media that named Mr. Schmidt as manager and required each to chip in $100,000 for an equal share, according to a copy reviewed by The Times.Asked about those documents, Ms. Wiggins, the spokeswoman, said: “This is an inactive company — it only ever existed on paper, never conducted any business, and was never capitalized by its due date, making it null. There are no plans to use this business in the future.”Game changeNot long after the election, with relationships fraying over the group’s finances, Mr. Schmidt and Mr. Wilson sought to formalize their control of the project by pushing to join the board of directors, multiple people with knowledge of the effort said. Mr. Steslow and Mr. Madrid were sent a resolution to sign that would add Mr. Schmidt and Mr. Wilson to the board. Mr. Steslow and Mr. Madrid instead requested a meeting to discuss the proposal. They were rebuffed.A bitter standoff began. With Mr. Steslow and Mr. Madrid still in control of the board, Mr. Galen, aligned with Mr. Schmidt and Mr. Wilson, set up a new entity of their own called Lincoln Project 2024. In December, they moved millions of dollars from the existing Lincoln Project into companies they controlled, which would have left behind a hollowed-out shell, several people with knowledge of the dispute said. (Mr. Galen said, “Anything regarding this, I can’t speak to.”)Mr. Steslow and Mr. Madrid, threatened with litigation by the original founders, asked to review the organization’s books, as well as information related to Mr. Galen’s consulting firm.Mr. Conway tried to mediate. “I told them all these threats and counter-threats are going to blow up the organization and destroy something that had done so much good,” he said.It was only during the course of that mediation, Mr. Conway added, that he first learned something about Mr. Weaver’s behavior. Mr. Steslow and Mr. Madrid told him they were concerned that Mr. Weaver might still be getting paid despite having sent inappropriate messages to young political consultants, Mr. Conway said, though he added that he wasn’t given details or told that it involved people who worked with the project.In the end, the transferred funds were returned to the Lincoln Project, Mr. Schmidt and Mr. Wilson joined the board, and a settlement was reached with Mr. Steslow and Mr. Madrid, who departed in December.Both declined to comment, citing a confidentiality agreement. While the organization has publicly offered to waive such agreements, several people with knowledge of the matter said the offers were limited.Jennifer Horn, a former chairwoman of the New Hampshire Republican Party, left the Lincoln Project in January.Credit…Matt Rourke/Associated PressThe infighting remained largely invisible until January, when reports surfaced about Mr. Weaver’s conduct. Ms. Horn soon departed, assailing fellow leaders’ handling of the situation and saying she had only recently become aware of it. “When I spoke to one of the founders to raise my objections and concerns, I was yelled at, demeaned and lied to,” she said.Recriminations were swift. Ms. Horn’s private Twitter messages were posted to the project’s official Twitter account, then quickly taken down, a highly unusual breach of privacy; her lawyers have given notice of a potential lawsuit.Mr. Schmidt retreated, leaving the board he had only recently joined. He also apologized to Ms. Horn for letting “my anger turn a business dispute into a public war” and called her “an important and valuable member of our team.”Those comments were part of a lengthy statement in which Mr. Schmidt said the Weaver episode had reawakened his anger at sexual abuse he had experienced as a boy, as he sought to explain the group’s widely criticized response.“I am incandescently angry about it,” he said of Mr. Weaver’s actions. “I know the journey that lies ahead for every young man that trusted, feared and was abused by John Weaver.”Rehabilitation projectAs the Lincoln Project tries to reboot, in some ways little has changed. The project is still controlled by three of the four men who started it. Cognizant of a lack of diversity in the organization — all four original founders are white — they have asked Tara Setmayer, a Black senior adviser and former House Republican communications director, to lead a transition advisory committee.Ms. Setmayer called the project a movement of people “who decided to get involved to help rehabilitate our democracy.” But from the start, it has blended money with mission. For some, like Mr. Conway, there was no money involved. For others, it was incredibly lucrative.Few have been more omnipresent than Mr. Schmidt, who has gleefully brawled with the Trumps. Remarking on images of the family’s last Jan. 20 photo op, he tweeted, “Uday and Qusay looking sad,” conflating Donald Trump Jr. and Eric Trump with the sons of Saddam Hussein. “Crying Ivanka. Glorious indeed.”George T. Conway III, an unpaid adviser who had no real operational role, has called for the Lincoln Project’s dissolution.Credit…Joshua Roberts/ReutersStuart Stevens, a longtime media consultant who has taken an increasingly prominent role in the project, cried during an interview while talking about his commitment to the cause.“I helped create this monster that is the current Republican Party,” Mr. Stevens wrote in a follow-up email. He called the recent tumult at the Lincoln Project “a rough couple of weeks,” adding: “This isn’t supposed to be easy. We’re human. We make mistakes. There’s stress at the highest level. All you can do is acknowledge, take responsibility and move on.”Whether donors will keep the spigot open, especially with Mr. Trump both outside the White House and off Twitter, remains to be seen.“I’ve been talking to a lot of donors,” Mr. Stevens said. “The support is tremendous. Most of them have been involved in business and had a few rough times. They were drawn to Lincoln Project not because we were H.R. geniuses but because we knew how to fight and were willing to take on our own party. That hasn’t changed.”But the Weaver problem will linger.“The attacks that are coming on us from Donald Trump Jr. and all these other people, they’re gleeful — they love the gift that John Weaver gave them,” Mr. Wilson said in an emotional monologue on the group’s video program “The Breakdown” last month. “What he’s given them is a weapon in their hands.”Shane Goldmacher More

    • 88 Shares129 Views

      in Elections

      How to Keep Extremists Out of Power

      by

      AdvertisementContinue reading the main storyOpinionSupported byContinue reading the main storyHow to Keep Extremists Out of PowerEvery political reform proposal must be judged by its ability to fuel or weaken extremist candidates.Mr. Pildes has spent his career as a legal scholar analyzing the intersection of politics and law and how that impacts our elections.Feb. 25, 2021, 5:00 a.m. ETCredit…Shay Horse/NurPhoto, via Getty ImagesAmerican democracy faces alarming risks from extremist forces that have rapidly gained ground in our politics. The most urgent focus of political reform must be to marginalize, to the extent possible, these destabilizing forces.Every reform proposal must be judged through this lens: Is it likely to fuel or to weaken the power of extremist politics and candidates?In healthy democracies, they are rewarded for appealing to the broadest forces in politics, not the narrowest. This is precisely why American elections take place in a “first past the post” system rather than the proportional representation system many other democracies use.What structural changes would reward politicians whose appeal is broadest? We should start with a focus on four areas.Reform the presidential nomination processUntil the 1970s, presidential nominees were selected through a convention-based system, which means that a candidate had to obtain a broad consensus among the various interests and factions in the party. “Brokered conventions” — which required several rounds of balloting to choose a nominee — offered a vivid demonstration of how the sausage of consensus was made. In 1952, for example, the Republican Party convention selected the more moderate Dwight D. Eisenhower over Robert A. Taft, the popular leader of the more extreme wing of the party, who opposed the creation of NATO.Our current primary system shifted control from party insiders to voters. Now, in a primary with several credible contenders, a candidate can “win” with 35 percent of the vote. This allows polarizing candidates to win the nomination even if many party members find them objectionable. (In 2016, Donald Trump won many primaries with less than 40 percent of the vote.)How can we restore some of the party-wide consensus the convention system required? The parties can use ranked-choice voting, which allows voters to rank candidates in order of preference. This rewards candidates with broad appeal to a party’s voters, even if they have fewer passionate supporters. In this system, a candidate intensely popular with 35 percent of the party’s voters but intensely disliked by much of the rest would not prevail. A candidate who is the first choice of only 35 percent but the second choice of another 50 percent would do better. Ranked-choice voting reduces the prospects of factional party candidates. Presidents with a broad base of support can institute major reforms, as Teddy Roosevelt, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Lyndon Johnson and Ronald Reagan demonstrated.Reform the party primariesMany incumbents take more extreme positions than they might otherwise endorse because they worry about a primary challenge.One way to help defang that threat is to eliminate “sore-loser” laws. These laws, which exist in some form in 47 states, bar candidates who have lost in a party primary from running in the general election as an independent or third-party candidate. Thus, if a more moderate candidate loses in a primary to a more extreme one, that person is shut out from the general election — even if he or she would likely beat the (sometimes extreme) winners of the party primaries. One study finds that sore-loser laws favor more ideological candidates: Democratic candidates in states with the law are nearly six points more liberal and Republicans nearly nine-to-10 points more conservative than in states without these laws.Though Alaska has a sore-loser law, Senator Lisa Murkowski’s 2010 re-election is still instructive. That year, as an incumbent, she lost the Republican primary to a conservative candidate endorsed by the Tea Party and Sarah Palin. But the state permitted an exception to the sore-loser law for write-in candidates, and Ms. Murkowski, running as a write-in Republican candidate, won the general election.If sore-loser laws are eliminated, that reform should be combined with ranked-choice voting in the general election. That would ensure that in a multicandidate general election, the winner would reflect a broad consensus. Other ideas for restructuring primaries to minimize the existence of factional candidates include one adopted by Alaska voters in November: The top four candidates in a single primary move on to the general election, where the winner is chosen through ranked-choice voting.Reform gerrymanderingMany reformers agree on the need to take redistricting out of the hands of partisan state legislatures and give it to a commission. In several recent state ballot initiatives, voters have endorsed this change. But that still raises a question: What constitutes a fair map?Redistricting reform should have as a goal the creation of competitive election districts. Competitive districts pressure candidates from both the left and the right, which creates incentives to appeal to the political center. They also encourage more moderate candidates to run in the first place, because they know they have a greater prospect of winning than in a district whose seat is safe for the other party.In safe seat districts, as long as a candidate survives the primary, that person is assured of winning the general election — which means primary candidates don’t have to move toward the center.The sources of centrism in the House or Senate frequently come from politicians in swing districts or states. In the recent House impeachment, for example, the percentage of Republicans elected with 57 percent of the vote or less who voted for impeachment was more than double that of Republicans elected with more than 57 percent of the vote. Similarly, it was Democrats holding competitive seats who resisted the initial impeachment of President Trump, until news broke of his call with Ukraine.Not every district can be made competitive. But in 2018, maps that emphasized competitiveness could have produced at least 242 highly competitive districts, although only 72 races actually were competitive. The more senators and representatives who face competitive pressures in their general elections, the larger the forces of compromise and negotiation will be in Congress.The goal of creating competitive districts should not take a back seat to approaches that focus on whether the partisan outcomes match vote shares in a particular map. In these approaches, the closer a plan comes to matching the number of seats one party gets to its statewide share of the vote, the fairer that map is deemed to be. So, if 55 percent of the statewide vote goes to Democrats, then Democrats should have roughly 55 percent of the seats in the state Legislature and the U.S. House delegation from the state. The problem comes when a fair partisan map produces candidates, in getting to that 55 percent overall, who are all elected from seats so safe for one party, they never have to compete for voters in the center.If we want to reduce extremist forces in our politics, candidates should have to appeal to a diverse set of interests and voters in competitive districts as much as possible.Reform campaign-finance reformThe way campaigns are financed also has major effects on the types of candidates who run and win.Campaign-finance efforts are now rightly focused on “leveling up” campaign dollars — by providing public funds to candidates — rather than trying to “level down” by imposing caps on election spending. That shift is partly a result of Supreme Court doctrine, but also of the difficulties of narrowing the number of channels through which money can flow to candidates.But publicly financed elections can take at least two different basic forms, and the form taken can have significant ramifications for whether the forces of extremism are further accentuated or limited.In the traditional form of public financing, which is used in around 11 states that have public financing, the government provides grants of campaign funds to the qualified candidates.In the other form — which has taken up much of the reform energy in recent years — the government provides matching funds for small donations. This based on a matching-funds program that has existed in New York City for a number of years.The campaign-finance reform proposal that House Democrats passed after the 2018 midterms, which is now a focus of the Democratic agenda, would include a small-donor matching program. The legislation would provide $6 in public funds to candidates for every dollar they raise in small donations (those of $200 or less), up to a certain level.But there is a risk that making public funding proportional to small donations will accelerate polarization and extremism even further. Research suggests small donors are more ideologically extreme than average citizens and donate to ideologically more extreme candidates. In his campaigns, Mr. Trump raised a higher percentage of his contributions from small donors than any major-party presidential nominee in history.Numerous studies have shown that in general, individual donors (large and small) are the most ideological source of money in politics. Traditional public financing is far more neutral in the types of candidates who benefit.In debating campaign-finance reform, we must focus not just on the values of participation or equality but also on the overall effects different approaches to reform are likely to have on political extremism or moderation.Jan. 6 provided a painful demonstration of the dangerous currents gathering in American political culture. Every proposed election reform must now be measured against this reality to make sure political reform furthers American democracy.Richard H. Pildes is a professor at New York University’s School of Law and an author of the casebook “The Law of Democracy: Legal Structure of the Political Process.”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: letters@nytimes.com.Follow The New York Times Opinion section on Facebook, Twitter (@NYTopinion) and Instagram.AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More

    • 138 Shares139 Views

      in Elections

      Super PACs Are Raising Millions to Sway the N.Y.C. Mayor’s Race

      by

      #masthead-section-label, #masthead-bar-one { display: none }N.Y.C. Mayoral RaceWho’s Running?11 Candidates’ N.Y.C. MomentsA Look at the Race5 Takeaways From the DebateAdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storySuper PACs Are Raising Millions to Sway the N.Y.C. Mayor’s RaceGroups representing big business are already working to influence the contest, while a new organization hopes to push the crowded field of candidates to the left.A super PAC backing Raymond J. McGuire, a former Wall Street executive who is running for mayor, quickly raised more than $1 million.Credit…Todd Heisler/The New York TimesDana Rubinstein and Feb. 19, 2021, 5:00 a.m. ETThe last time there was an open mayoral election in New York City, an independent committee spent roughly $900,000 to help take down the presumptive front-runner, paving the way for Bill de Blasio’s victory.Eight years later, another onslaught of barely regulated money is heading New York’s way, with super PACs poised to play an outsize role in the race for mayor the most important election in recent city history.Business-friendly organizations have already raised millions of dollars. At least one candidate, Raymond J. McGuire, has a dedicated super PAC. And now progressive groups are getting in on the act, creating their own super PACs to supplement their on-the-ground and social media efforts.The rising tide of independent spending highlights the fierce debates unfolding across the political spectrum about how to manage the city’s post-pandemic recovery and what its future should look like.It also points to a hunger among donors in New York City — one of the nation’s political fund-raising capitals — to play a role in this year’s races without being bound by the strict rules governing direct donations to political campaigns.A super PAC called New York for Ray, which backs Mr. McGuire, a former Wall Street executive, has already raised more than $1 million since registering with the state in January, including $500,000 from a theater producer, Daryl Roth, whose husband, Steven Roth, is the head of Vornado Realty Trust; and $500,000 from John Hess, the chief executive of Hess Corporation. It also lists a $2,500 donation from Richard S. Fuld Jr., the former chief executive of Lehman Brothers.At the other end of the spectrum, a group of progressives are starting a super PAC that aims to raise up to $5 million, in hopes of pushing the field of more than 30 mayoral candidates and hundreds of City Council candidates to the left on matters including housing and diverting funding from the police.The super PAC, Our City, is being led by Gabe Tobias, a former senior adviser to Justice Democrats, which played a key role in helping Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez get elected to Congress. Mr. Tobias is also the co-founder of the Movement School, which grew from her campaign.Our City’s board includes Nelini Stamp, a senior official at the Working Families Party, and Ed Ott, the former executive director of the New York City Central Labor Council.“There’s no other effort like this in recent history that I’m aware of, a progressive independent expenditure aimed at winning control of city government,” Mr. Tobias, the director of the group, said. He is hoping to raise $300,000 in the group’s first month and go from there.Several of the leading candidates running in the June 22 Democratic primary for mayor are battling to emerge as the progressive standard-bearer, continuing a trend that has influenced a slew of recent elections from House races to City Hall.But various business interests in New York are trying to mount a counterattack: They persuaded Mr. McGuire, one of the highest-ranking and longest-serving Black executives on Wall Street, to enter the race; they have urged their employees to register to vote in the primary; and they are raising money to push their issues.James L. Dolan, the chief executive at Madison Square Garden Entertainment, has already started The Coalition to Restore New York, a super PAC to which he has directed more than $2 million in monetary and in-kind donations from the various Madison Square Garden affiliates he controls.Mr. Dolan declined an interview request, but his PAC says it is focused on getting the candidates to explain how they would restore the city’s economy, improve public safety and balance its budget. Stephen M. Ross, the developer of Hudson Yards, has put $1 million toward a super PAC called Common Sense NYC, which has a similar political bent as Mr. Dolan’s. It was originally considering targeting both the mayor’s race and the City Council races, but the crowded mayoral field inspired it to focus on the City Council, where it can presumably make more of an impact.The group recently spent roughly $200,000 on a special election for a Council seat in Queens, helping a former councilman, Jim Gennaro, defeat several rivals including Moumita Ahmed, a progressive whose views the group called “extreme” and “reckless.”“It completely changed the race in the final two weeks,” Ms. Ahmed said. It also turned Mr. Ross, who has supported both former President Donald J. Trump and Senator Chuck Schumer, the majority leader, into even more of a boogeyman for the left. (Mr. Ross, whose company owns a controlling stake in Equinox, ignited anger among Democrats in 2019 when he hosted a fund-raiser for Mr. Trump.)Our City’s launch video juxtaposes a picture of Mr. Ross at Hudson Yards with an apparently homeless person sleeping on a cardboard box as a narrator talks about inequality. Mr. Ross declined to comment on the video.The New York Immigration Coalition is also planning to mount an independent expenditure committee, according to Murad Awawdeh, the group’s interim co-executive director.“What progressive organizations and progressives have realized is that super PACs are going to be part of the narrative, and until we have real reform that outlaws them, we have to be able to play the game and participate in that process,” Mr. Awawdeh said.In New York City, candidates running for mayor, and donors seeking to support them, are subject to strict limitations: Individuals who are doing business with the city can contribute up to $400 to a mayoral candidate; other donors are subject to caps varying between $2,000 and $5,100. Wealthy individuals and corporations can make unlimited contributions to a super PAC under New York and under federal law, according to Seth Agata, a former counsel in the governor’s office who helped write New York’s independent expenditure regulations.Even as more super PACs are expected to form in the weeks ahead, it remains to be seen whether outside spending eclipses the nearly $16 million spent during the 2013 New York City elections.Veterans of the mayoral primary that year recall only one independent expenditure committee that mattered. The committee, New York City Is Not for Sale, received backing from an animal rights group seeking to ban horse-drawn carriages. It focused on the race’s putative front-runner, Christine Quinn, then the City Council speaker.The effort ended up mired in controversy. But Ms. Quinn said it had a clear impact on her mayoral prospects.“These independent expenditures are merely ways around the best campaign finance law in the country, and I think they’re very destructive,” she said.New York for Ray is supposed to have a more positive message. Its goal is to increase Mr. McGuire’s name recognition and amplify his message, according to someone involved in the effort.“I have known Ray McGuire a long time and am confident in his ability to lead our city,” Ms. Roth, one of the group’s major donors, said. Mr. Hess, via a spokeswoman, declined to comment. It will be led by Quentin Fulks, an Illinois-based political consultant; Jennifer Bayer Michaels, a former fund-raiser for Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo; and Kimberly Peeler-Allen, an experienced New York fund-raiser who is also the co-founder of Higher Heights for America, an organization that aims to elevate Black women in politics, and the co-chair of its PAC.L. Joy Williams, who is working on Mr. McGuire’s campaign, is the Higher Heights PAC’s chairwoman. A campaign spokeswoman said Ms. Williams was unaware that Ms. Peeler-Allen was working on New York for Ray, and that there has been no coordination between the super PAC and the campaign.A serious super PAC effort on Mr. McGuire’s behalf — especially through paid advertising — could help him overcome his significant challenges with name identification. Among New York political operatives, the matter of whether Mr. McGuire would receive outside help had been a subject of great speculation. In recent months, there have been conversations within prominent Democratic firms about the prospect of doing work for a pro-McGuire independent expenditure effort, according to someone familiar with the conversations.The super PAC sees no gain in smearing Mr. McGuire’s opponents, the person involved in the effort said, given the advent of ranked-choice voting, which will allow New Yorkers voting for mayor to rank their top five choices.“Rule No. 1 is do no harm,” said Jesse Ferguson, a Democratic strategist who has worked on multiple national independent expenditure efforts and lives in New York. “That means understanding how what you say in the campaign could reverberate on your preferred candidate, and how your entrance into the race could even reverberate on your candidate.”AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More

    • 150 Shares169 Views

      in Elections

      Corey Johnson Exited the N.Y.C. Mayor’s Race. Will He Run for Comptroller?

      by

      AdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyCorey Johnson Exited the N.Y.C. Mayor’s Race. Will He Run for Comptroller?Mr. Johnson, the New York City Council speaker, said he expected to decide in the next two weeks whether to run to be the city’s fiscal watchdog.If Corey Johnson decides to run for city comptroller, he will be able to transfer his unused mayoral campaign funds and spend them on the comptroller’s race.Credit…Scott Heins/Getty ImagesJeffery C. Mays and Feb. 16, 2021Updated 4:32 p.m. ETFive months after dropping out of the race for mayor of New York City to focus on his mental health, Corey Johnson, the City Council speaker, said on Tuesday that he was considering a late entry into the city comptroller’s race.Mr. Johnson said that he had been approached by several elected officials and City Council members who said he should consider running to be the city’s fiscal watchdog, and that his desire to contribute to its recovery from the pandemic spurred his interest.“I wouldn’t be considering this if I didn’t feel good about where I am personally and the work I’ve done over the last six months in focusing on myself and my own well-being,” Mr. Johnson said in an interview.Mr. Johnson had been one of the leading Democratic candidates in the mayor’s race, but he announced in September that he was dropping out because he said that dealing with his depression, handling his job as the leader of the City Council, and running for office would be too difficult.Mr. Johnson said he would make a final decision on the comptroller’s race in the next two weeks, before petitioning is set to start. The current comptroller, Scott M. Stringer, is barred from seeking a third consecutive term, and is now a leading candidate in the race for mayor.Mr. Johnson’s potential entry would add a level of star power to the contest. As Council speaker, he has developed a reputation as a civic booster, known for doing back flips and dancing at parades and professing his love for the city.His willingness to share aspects of his personal life is part of his appeal. Mr. Johnson, who is gay, has kept his social media followers apprised of developments in his new relationship, and he has publicly discussed his status as a recovering addict and his H.I.V. diagnosis.He also faced criticism over his response to last year’s Black Lives Matter protests, after the City Council fell short of meeting demands to cut $1 billion from the Police Department’s budget during negotiations with Mayor Bill de Blasio.Mr. Johnson acknowledged that he was “disappointed” that the budget did not cut the $1 billion in police funds.“I wanted us to go deeper,” he said.New York City is facing a deep financial crisis as a result of the pandemic, and Mr. de Blasio has said the city might have to make major budget cuts if it does not receive significant federal funding. The mayor recently announced that property tax revenues could decline by $2.5 billion next year, driven by a drop in the value of empty office buildings and hotels.If he joins the race, he will be able to use the money he raised in his campaign for mayor. He would also likely qualify to receive matching funds from the city, pending an audit. Mr. Johnson currently has about $580,000 in his campaign account, according to the city’s campaign finance board.Mr. Johnson would be eligible to qualify for more than $4 million in public funds, the maximum amount available. The spending limit for the primary for those in the public financing program is $4.55 million.“I wouldn’t have another dollar to raise,” he said.Mr. Johnson, who is prevented from seeking a third consecutive term on the City Council because of term-limit laws, said he started to consider the idea of running for comptroller several weeks ago.“I haven’t made a final decision yet — I have to continue to talk to my family, but I am considering it because I love this city,” Mr. Johnson said, adding that during the recovery, the next comptroller would have to ensure “that all the money we’re spending is spent appropriately, and I feel like I’ve done that as speaker.”The field of candidates running for comptroller has expanded in recent weeks. As recently as a month ago, it was essentially a four-person contest between Brad Lander, a Brooklyn city councilman; Brian A. Benjamin, a state senator; David Weprin, a state assemblyman; and Kevin Parker, a state senator.Then Zach Iscol, a military veteran, dropped out of the mayor’s race and joined the race for comptroller last month. Michelle Caruso-Cabrera, a former anchorwoman for CNBC, also joined the race.Some of the other candidates have a head start on Mr. Johnson. Mr. Lander, for example, has already been endorsed by the New York chapter of the Working Families Party and Representatives Jerrold Nadler and Jamaal Bowman.Still, the news of Mr. Johnson’s potential candidacy was received well by some Council members.“I’m really happy as his friend that he’s doing better,” said Stephen Levin, a councilman from Brooklyn who has not made an endorsement in the comptroller’s race. “The Council is moving forward and we have a big agenda this year.”AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More

    • 150 Shares199 Views

      in Elections

      Stacey Abrams and Lauren Groh-Wargo: How to Turn Your Red State Blue

      by

      Credit…June ParkSkip to contentSkip to site indexOpinionStacey Abrams and Lauren Groh-Wargo: How to Turn Your Red State BlueIt may take 10 years. Do it anyway.Credit…June ParkSupported byContinue reading the main storyStacey Abrams and Ms. Abrams was the Democratic nominee for governor of Georgia in 2018. Ms. Groh-Wargo was her campaign manager. They opened Fair Fight Action in late 2018.Feb. 11, 2021We met and became political partners a decade ago, uniting in a bid to stave off Democratic obsolescence and rebuild a party that would increase the clout of regular, struggling Georgians. Our mission was clear: organize people, help realize gains in their lives, win local races to build statewide competitiveness and hold power accountable.But the challenge was how to do that in a state where many allies had retreated into glum predictions of defeat, where our opponents reveled in shellacking Democrats at the polls and in the Statehouse.That’s not all we had to contend with. There was also a 2010 census undercount of people of color, a looming Republican gerrymander of legislative maps and a new Democratic president midway into his first term confronting a holdover crisis from the previous Republican administration. Though little in modern American history compares with the malice and ineptitude of the botched pandemic response or the attempted insurrection at the Capitol, the dynamic of a potentially inaccurate census and imminent partisan redistricting is the same story facing Democrats in 2021 as it was in 2011. State leaders and activists we know across the country who face total or partial Republican control are wondering which path they should take in their own states now — and deep into the next decade.Georgians deserved better, so we devised and began executing a 10-year plan to transform Georgia into a battleground state. As the world knows, President Biden won Georgia’s 16 electoral votes in November, and the January runoff elections for two Senate seats secured full congressional control for the Democratic Party. Yet the result wasn’t a miracle or truly a surprise, at least not to us. Years of planning, testing, innovating, sustained investment and organizing yielded the record-breaking results we knew they could and should. The lessons we learned can help other states looking to chart a more competitive future for Democrats and progressives, particularly those in the Sun Belt, where demographic change will precede electoral opportunity.We realize that many people are thinking about Stacey’s political future, but right now we intend to talk about the unglamorous, tedious, sometimes technical, often contentious work that creates a battleground state. When fully embraced, this work delivers wins — whether or not Donald Trump is on the ballot — as the growth Georgia Democrats have seen in cycle after cycle shows. Even in tough election years, we have witnessed the power of civic engagement on policy issues and increases in Democratic performance. This combination of improvements has also resulted in steady gains in local races and state legislative races, along with the continued narrowing of the statewide loss margin in election after election that finally flipped the state in 2020 and 2021.The task is hard, the progress can feel slow, and winning sometimes means losing better. In 2012, for example, we prevented the Republicans from gaining a supermajority in the Georgia House of Representatives, which would have allowed them to pass virtually any bill they wanted. We won four seats they had drawn for themselves, and in 2014 we maintained those gains — just holding our ground was a victory.The steps toward victory are straightforward: understand your weaknesses, organize with your allies, shore up your political infrastructure and focus on the long game. Georgia’s transformation is worth celebrating, and how it came to be is a long and complicated story, which required more than simply energizing a new coterie of voters. What Georgia Democrats and progressives accomplished here — and what is happening in Arizona and North Carolina — can be exported to the rest of the Sun Belt and the Midwest, but only if we understand how we got here.Understand why you’re losing.To know how to win, we first had to understand why a century of Democratic Party dominance in Georgia had been erased. For most of the 20th century, Georgia Democrats had existed in a strained alliance of rural conservatives, urban liberals and suburbanites, all unconvinced that voting Republican would serve their ends. After serving as the incubator of the Gingrich revolution in the early 1990s, Georgia turned sharply to the right. When Democrats lost U.S. Senate seats in 2002 and 2004, as well as the governorship in 2002, it showed that former conservative Democrats had fully turned Republican. The Democratic Party lost its grip on power. By 2010, Democrats were losing every statewide race, and in 2012 the State Senate fell to a Republican supermajority. Clearly, Democrats had to change tactics. More