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      Black Mayors of 4 Biggest U.S. Cities Draw Strength From One Another

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      The mayors of New York City, Los Angeles, Chicago and Houston have banded together as they confront violent crime, homelessness and other similar challenges.As the race for Los Angeles mayor began to tighten late last year, Karen Bass, the presumptive favorite, received some notes of encouragement from a kindred spirit: Lori Lightfoot, the mayor of Chicago.Ms. Lightfoot had successfully navigated a similar political path in 2019, becoming the first Black woman to be elected mayor of her city, much as Ms. Bass was trying to do in Los Angeles.And even though Ms. Bass’s billionaire opponent had poured $100 million into the race and boasted endorsements from celebrities like Kim Kardashian and Katy Perry, Ms. Lightfoot urged her Democratic colleague to keep the faith in a series of personal visits and text messages.“She was up against somebody who was very, very moneyed and was leaning into people’s fears about crime, about homelessness — frankly, very similar to the circumstances that I’m facing now in my city in getting re-elected,” Ms. Lightfoot said in an interview. “I just wanted to make sure that she knew that I was there for her.”Ms. Lightfoot and Ms. Bass belong to an informal alliance of four big-city mayors tackling among the toughest jobs in America. They happen to be of similar mind in how to address their cities’ common problems, like violent crime, homelessness and rising overdose deaths.They also happen to be Black: When Ms. Bass took office in December, the nation’s four largest cities all had Black mayors for the first time.The Democratic mayors — Ms. Bass, Ms. Lightfoot, Eric Adams of New York City and Sylvester Turner of Houston — say their shared experiences and working-class roots as Black Americans give them a different perspective on leading their cities than most of their predecessors.Mr. Adams visited Mayor Lightfoot last year during a fund-raising trip to Chicago.Tyler Pasciak LaRiviere/Chicago Sun-Times, via Associated PressIn interviews, the four mayors discussed how their backgrounds helped shape their successful campaigns, and how they provide a unique prism to view their cities’ problems.“We have to be bold in looking at long entrenched problems, particularly on poverty and systemic inequality,” Ms. Lightfoot said. “We’ve got to look those in the face and we’ve got to fight them, and break down the barriers that have really held many of our residents back from being able to realize their God-given talent.”Politics Across the United StatesFrom the halls of government to the campaign trail, here’s a look at the political landscape in America.Michigan G.O.P.: Michigan Republicans picked Kristina Karamo to lead the party in the battleground state, fully embracing an election-denying Trump acolyte after her failed bid for secretary of state.Dianne Feinstein: The Democratic senator of California will not run for re-election in 2024, clearing the way for what is expected to be a costly and competitive race to succeed the iconic political figure.Lori Lightfoot: As the mayor of Chicago seeks a second term at City Hall, her administration is overseeing the largest experiment in guaranteed basic income in the nation.Union Support: In places like West Virginia, money from three major laws passed by Congress is pouring into the alternative energy industry and other projects. Democrats hope it will lead to increased union strength.To do so can require navigating a delicate balancing act.Ms. Bass was a community organizer who witnessed the riots after the Rodney King verdict; Mr. Adams drew attention to police brutality after being beaten by the police as a teenager.As a congresswoman, Ms. Bass took a leading role in 2020 after George Floyd’s death on legislation that aimed to prevent excessive use of force by police and promoted new officer anti-bias training. It was approved by the House, but stalled in the Senate, and President Biden later approved some of the measures by executive order.In Chicago, Ms. Lightfoot served as head of the Chicago Police Board and was a leader of a task force that issued a scathing report on relations between the Chicago police and Black residents. Mr. Adams founded a group called “100 Blacks in Law Enforcement Who Care” in the 1990s.As mayors, all now in their 60s, they have criticized the “defund the police” movement, yet have also called for systemic policing changes.In Chicago and New York, Ms. Lightfoot and Mr. Adams have pushed for police spending increases and have flooded the subway with officers. That has invited criticism from criminal justice advocates who say they have not moved quickly enough to reform the departments.“As a city, we have to have a police department that is successful,” Ms. Lightfoot said. “And to me, successful is defined by making sure that they’re the best trained police department, that they understand that the legitimacy in the eyes of the public is the most important tool that they have, and that we also support our officers — it’s a really hard and dangerous job.”Mr. Adams agreed. “We can’t have police misconduct, but we also know we must ensure that we support those officers that are doing the right thing and dealing with violence in our cities,” he said.The four mayors have highlighted their backgrounds to show that they understand the importance of addressing inequality. Mr. Adams was raised by a single mother who cleaned homes. Ms. Bass’s father was a postal service letter carrier. Ms. Lightfoot’s mother worked the night shift as a nurse’s aide. Mr. Turner was the son of a painter and a maid.Maurice Mitchell, the national director of the Working Families Party, a prominent left-leaning group, said the mayors’ lived experience was all the more reason for them to “take a more expansive view of Black life that is expressed in their policies and in their budgeting,” and to prioritize schools, libraries, youth jobs and mental health care.“We want our communities invested in, in the way that other communities are invested in and the investment should not simply come through more police,” he said.In December, Ms. Bass became the first Black woman to be elected mayor of Los Angeles.Lauren Justice for The New York TimesThe four serve as only the second elected Black mayors of their respective cities. New York, Los Angeles and Chicago each went more than 30 years between electing their first Black mayor and the second; Houston went nearly two decades.The mayors have worked together through the U.S. Conference of Mayors as well as the African American Mayors Association, which was founded in 2014 and has more than 100 members — giving the four Black mayors an additional pipeline to coordinate with other cities’ leaders.“Because we’re still experiencing firsts in 2023, it’s our obligation that we’re successful,” said Frank Scott Jr., the first elected Black mayor of Little Rock, Ark., who leads the African American Mayors Association. “It’s our obligation that to the best of our ability we’re above reproach, to ensure that we’re not the last and to ensure that it doesn’t take another 20 to 30 years to see another Black mayor.”Of the four, Ms. Bass, a former chairwoman of the Congressional Black Caucus, is perhaps the most left-leaning, characterizing herself as a “pragmatic progressive” who said she saw similarities between Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and herself as a young activist.“That’s who I was — that’s who I still am,” Ms. Bass said. “It’s just that, after a while, you want to begin to make a very concrete difference in people’s lives, as opposed to your positions and educating.” On her first day as mayor, Ms. Bass won praise for declaring a state of emergency on homelessness that gives the city expanded powers to speed up the construction of affordable housing. She also supports legislation by the Los Angeles City Council, known as “just cause” eviction protections, that bars landlords from evicting renters in most cases.A similar law in New York has stalled in the State Legislature, though supporters are hoping to pass it this year and have called on Mr. Adams to do more to help them.All the cities share a homeless crisis, as well as potential solutions. Houston has become a national model during Mr. Turner’s tenure for a “housing first” program that moved 25,000 homeless people directly into apartments and houses over the last decade.Now New York City is starting a pilot program based on Houston’s approach that will move 80 homeless people into permanent supportive housing without having to go through the shelter system.Mr. Turner, a lawyer who became mayor in 2016, said he called Mr. Adams after he won a close primary in New York in 2021 to offer his support. He defended Mr. Adams’s plan to involuntarily remove severely mentally ill people from the streets — a policy that has received pushback in New York.“I applaud him on that,” Mr. Turner said. “Is it controversial or some people will find controversy in it? Yes. But what is the alternative? To keep them where they are?”Mr. Turner, who is in his final year in office because of term limits, said he set out with a goal of making Houston more equitable. “I didn’t want to be the mayor of two cities in one,” he said.“I recognized the fact that there are many neighborhoods that have been overlooked and ignored for decades,” he later added. “I grew up in one of those communities and I still live in that same community.”Mr. Turner has claimed success for a “housing first” program that moved 25,000 homeless people directly into apartments and houses over the last decade in Houston.Go Nakamura for The New York TimesAnxiety among voters about the future of their cities could make it difficult for the mayors to succeed. Ms. Lightfoot, who is seeking a second term, faces eight opponents when Chicago holds its mayoral election on Feb. 28, and her own campaign shows her polling at 25 percent — well below the 50 percent she would need to avoid a runoff.Mr. Adams, a former police officer who was elected on the strength of a public safety message, has seen his support fall to 37 percent as he enters his second year in office, according to a Quinnipiac University poll.Concerns about crime are affecting both mayors. Chicago had nearly 700 murders last year, a major increase from about 500 murders in 2019 before the pandemic. In New York City, there were 438 murders last year, compared with 319 in 2019.In March, Mr. Adams met with Ms. Lightfoot while visiting Chicago for a fund-raiser at the home of Desirée Rogers, the former White House social secretary for President Barack Obama. At a joint news conference with Ms. Lightfoot, Mr. Adams reiterated his position that the communities most affected by policing abuses also tend to need the most protection.“All of these cities are dealing with the same crises, but there’s something else — the victims are Black and brown,” Mr. Adams said.Of the four mayors, Mr. Adams, in particular, has sought to align his colleagues behind an “urban agenda,” and to call in unison for federal help with the migrant crisis.Mr. Adams has also argued that the mayors’ messaging should be a model for Democratic Party leadership to follow, rather than what he called the “woke” left wing that he has quarreled with in New York.“The Democratic message was never to defund police,” he said, adding: “We’re just seeing the real Democratic message emerge from this group of mayors.” More

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      Lori Lightfoot Seeks a Second Term as Chicago Mayor

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      CHICAGO — Mayor Lori Lightfoot met recently with two dozen Chicagoans at a campaign event in a plush apartment building in the city’s affluent Lincoln Park neighborhood. Before long, she shifted into the rapid-fire mode that defined her career before City Hall, when she was a federal prosecutor known for her tenacity.She rattled off statistics, handpicked to show that Chicago was on the upswing: The number of shootings in the city had fallen 20 percent in 2022, after spiking during the pandemic. Homicides were down 14 percent. Carjackings decreased, too.“You know that crime is a complicated issue — you can’t just snap your fingers and make it disappear,” she said, adding: “If you don’t feel safe, none of the rest of it matters.”Whether Chicagoans believe that the city is getting safer could determine Ms. Lightfoot’s political future. Four years ago, after a politically battered Rahm Emanuel decided not to run for re-election, Ms. Lightfoot emerged from the back of a crowded pack to replace him. She ran as an anticorruption reformer who promised to do away with the old, clubby ways of governing in Chicago. She was elected in a landslide over more prominent, more experienced opponents, sweeping all 50 wards to become the city’s first Black woman mayor.Less than a year into her first term, though, Ms. Lightfoot, a Democrat, was hit with the Covid-19 pandemic and all its attendant crises — and she now governs a restless city that has yet to fully shake off its pandemic malaise.Chicagoans have a lot of gripes about the last several years, and many people have laid the blame at Ms. Lightfoot’s feet. Public transit has been shaky, with riders complaining of long waits for buses and “L” trains. Chicago’s school system has steadily lost enrollment, and in 2019, parents endured a teachers’ strike that shuttered schools for 11 days.The Willis Tower looms over the Chicago skyline and the north branch of the Chicago River.Jamie Kelter Davis for The New York TimesChicago’s public transit has been shaky, with riders complaining of long waits for buses and “L” trains.Jamie Kelter Davis for The New York TimesMs. Lightfoot spoke to a small group in a North Side condominium building about her policies on education, crime and other issues.Jamie Kelter Davis for The New York TimesAbove all other issues, crime has unsettled Chicago. Though many kinds of violent crimes fell in 2022, robberies, thefts and burglaries increased from 2021, according to the Chicago Police Department. The North Side is “as safe as it’s been in a generation,” Crain’s Chicago Business wrote in October, but other parts of the city have visibly suffered.“The city is worse than it’s ever been,” said Pamela Wortham, 65, as she pushed her grocery cart out of a Jewel-Osco store. Her neighborhood, South Shore, has struggled with gun violence and poverty. “But with the right person,” she said, “we could come up again.”Politics Across the United StatesFrom the halls of government to the campaign trail, here’s a look at the political landscape in America.Union Support: In places like West Virginia, money from three major laws passed by Congress is pouring into the alternative energy industry and other projects. Democrats hope it will lead to increased union strength.A Chaotic Majority: The defining dynamic for House Republicans, who have a slim majority, may be the push and pull between the far right and the rest of the conference. Here is a closer look at the fractious caucus.A New Kind of Welfare: In a post-Roe world, some conservative thinkers are pushing Republicans to move on from Reagan-era family policy and send cash to families. A few lawmakers are listening.Flipping the Pennsylvania House: Democrats swept three special elections in solidly blue House districts, putting the party in the majority for the first time in a dozen years by a single seat.Whether that person is Ms. Lightfoot, who is seeking a second term at City Hall, will be determined in the next few weeks. She is an unpopular mayor whose support has nose-dived in the last four years, in part because of her performance and in part because of the circumstances of the pandemic. Her own polling shows her leading an unwieldy pack of nine mayoral candidates, several of whom have run unsuccessfully before — but it shows her doing so with only 24 percent of the splintered vote.The mayoral election on Feb. 28 has attracted a long line of challengers, including Representative Jesús G. García, whose Congressional district includes parts of the city, and Paul Vallas, a former head of the Chicago Public Schools. Unless a candidate wins more than 50 percent of the vote — an extremely unlikely scenario — there will be a runoff in April between the two top finishers.Mr. Vallas, who was endorsed by The Chicago Tribune’s editorial board, has made solving the city’s crime problem his signature campaign issue. Mr. García, the son of Mexican immigrants, would be Chicago’s first Latino mayor; he won enough votes in the 2015 mayoral race to force Mr. Emanuel into a runoff.Edwin Eisendrath, a businessman and former alderman who has endorsed Mr. García, said that he supported Ms. Lightfoot in 2019 but has been disappointed in her approach to governing.“We have great universities, we have fabulous neighborhoods, we have important transit infrastructure — in the world of climate change, we have water,” he said, referring to Lake Michigan. “But there’s an enormous leadership gap in Chicago that we all feel, particularly in the last three years.”Many people point to her temperament. Ms. Lightfoot has sparred with the City Council; the Democratic governor of Illinois, J.B. Pritzker; and legislators in Springfield, particularly over a law that created an elected school board.The city was focused on rooting out corruption when she was elected mayor four years ago, said David Axelrod, the Chicago-based political strategist.Red lanterns hung overhead in Chicago’s Chinatown neighborhood this month. Jamie Kelter Davis for The New York Times“The city is worse than it’s ever been,” said Pamela Wortham, 65, a resident of the South Shore neighborhood.Jamie Kelter Davis for The New York TimesA new condominium building sits among century-old houses in the Avondale neighborhood.Jamie Kelter Davis for The New York Times“She was the outsider prosecutor, the avenger who was going to come in and bring about change,” Mr. Axelrod said. “She’s a very pugnacious person. But the skill set that is required to run a city — you need some of that pugnaciousness, but you also need to cajole, recruit, compromise. The very qualities that made her appealing four years ago may have been a bit of an obstacle here.”In interviews around Chicago, many residents said they were frustrated with Ms. Lightfoot, bothered by a sense that the city has stagnated under her watch and unsure whether they wanted to give her another chance.Ms. Wortham said that her neighborhood, South Shore, had deteriorated while other areas of the city, especially on the North Side, have been thriving. She said that when she was a little girl, growing up in the house where she still lives, she could ride her bike to a nearby beach on Lake Michigan without any problems. Now she tells her 10-year-old granddaughter to stay inside, where she is safer.Ron Bailey, 57, a salesman from the South Side, said he was disappointed that the mayor had not lived up to her promises to overhaul the Chicago Police Department.“People are still suffering from the pandemic’s effects,” he said. “We see on the news every day what’s going on. There is a crisis of hope in our communities, and unless that crisis is addressed, we’re going to keep getting what we get.”Jens Ludwig, a professor and the director of the University of Chicago Crime Lab, said that though the numbers of violent crimes have declined, it was not yet clear whether that was the beginning of a longer trend.“We don’t quite appreciate the effect of the pandemic enough on the crime problem,” he said. “You can see, all sorts of behavior problems have really gone up in the pandemic and post-pandemic period — motor vehicle deaths, disciplinary problems with kids, people fighting on airplanes. All of that stuff is part and parcel of the underappreciated lingering mental health consequences of the pandemic.”Ms. Lightfoot’s supporters say that her achievements — under difficult conditions — have been understated. The unemployment rate in Chicago is 4.3 percent, down from 18.3 percent in April 2020. The city’s economy remains diverse, a hub of transportation, manufacturing and technology.Jesse Chacon, 35, who lives on the West Side, said he voted for Ms. Lightfoot once and would probably do so again. “The city’s been good for me and for my family,” he said as he entered an “L” station this month, naming at least four relatives who work in the city’s public schools, fire department or police department.Jesse Chacon, 35, who lives on the West Side, said he would probably vote for Ms. Lightfoot. “The city’s been good for me and for my family,” he said. Jamie Kelter Davis for The New York TimesA mural by a local artist in the Logan Square neighborhood on the North Side.Jamie Kelter Davis for The New York TimesCondominium towers in the Lincoln Park neighborhood of Chicago.Jamie Kelter Davis for The New York TimesUnder Ms. Lightfoot, Chicago has made progress on improving its finances and has earned upgrades from credit rating agencies. The nonpartisan Civic Federation applauded Ms. Lightfoot last fall for including sizable supplemental payments to the city’s pension funds in her most recent budget, though it criticized her for a lack of transparency on police budgeting.“A lot of people have a very short memory of all that she accomplished,” said Tamar Newberger, a North Side resident who introduced Ms. Lightfoot at the campaign event on Monday. “The financial health of our city is greatly improved.”Anton Seals Jr., a founder and community organizer on the South Side, said he has seen a burst in Black entrepreneurship in Chicago in recent years, and praised Ms. Lightfoot for working on initiatives to invest in neighborhoods on the South and West Sides.“I think, to her credit, what she’s attempted to do is to shine a light and send resources to communities that haven’t gotten it,” he said. “At least in this administration, you’ve had a commitment to try to do something.”Among the campaign promises that Ms. Lightfoot has yet to fulfill is a vow to draw more people to live in Chicago. Its population grew by nearly 2 percent between 2010 and 2020, to more than 2.7 million people, though the city then lost roughly 50,000 residents during the pandemic, erasing that growth, according to census data.Juliana Santamaria, 34, a paralegal, is one former Chicagoan who left the city for the suburbs in recent years, driven out of the Pilsen neighborhood when her rent jumped by $400 a month. As she waited for an Uber with a friend in Pilsen this month, she said she missed living in Chicago and was mulling what she would do when her teenage children graduate from high school.“It’s one of my goals, to move back,” she said. More

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      Hazel McCallion, No-Nonsense Canadian Mayor for 36 Years, Dies at 101

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      Tough, pragmatic and brusque when she had to be, she helped transform Mississauga from a sleepy Toronto suburb into one of the country’s largest and most dynamic cities.Hazel McCallion, who as the longest-serving mayor in Canadian history transformed the sleepy Toronto suburb of Mississauga into a multicultural dynamo and the country’s sixth-largest city, died at her home there on Jan. 29, nine years after she ended her 36-year run. She was 101.Doug Ford, the premier of Ontario and a close friend of Mrs. McCallion’s, said she died from pancreatic cancer.When Mrs. McCallion first won office, in 1978, Mississauga was a sprawling centerless community of about 250,000 people, little more than an extension of Toronto, its much larger neighbor to the east. Today it has a dense downtown core of skyscrapers, robust arts institutions and 750,000 people.And while Mississauga in the 1970s was overwhelmingly white, the city is now one of Canada’s most diverse, drawing immigrants from East and South Asia.Mrs. McCallion did not just survive but thrive through 12 terms by blending thrifty pragmatism with open-armed populism.Though she leaned slightly to the political left, she did not hew to a party platform or ideology. Her singular goal was to bring prosperity to Mississauga, which she did by keeping budgets trim — the city rarely carried debt or raised property taxes — and being unafraid to assert her city’s interests against its neighbors or in the Ontario provincial government.A copy of The Streetsville Booster, a community newspaper founded by Hazel and Sam McCallion, from 1978, the first year she ran for mayor of Mississauga. She won that election and went on to serve 12 terms.Cole Burston/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images“Hazel McCallion does not caution,” the magazine Toronto Life wrote in 2003. “She berates. She harangues. She, well, bites off people’s heads.”But if politicians and bureaucrats feared her, voters loved her.After she decided not to run for re-election in 2014, she picked her successor, Bonnie Crombie, who won handily. No one was surprised: Mrs. McCallion left office with an 85 percent approval rating. They called her Hurricane Hazel, a tribute to her brash style more than a reference to the weather disaster that killed 80 people in Toronto in 1954.Her reputation was cemented just months after she took office, when a train carrying tons of toxic and flammable chemicals overturned near the middle of Mississauga. She immediately ordered most of the town, some 220,000 residents, to evacuate. Over several days she was there alongside the police and firefighters, ushering people to safety, undeterred by an ankle sprained along the way.And when it was over, she was fierce in her demand for damages.“It will be an astronomical sum,” she told reporters, “and somebody is going to get the bill.”Mrs. McCallion played professional hockey in the 1930s, and she remained the picture of ruddy health through her time as mayor, a fact that endeared her to voters. Even into her 80s, she carried a hockey stick in her car trunk, in case she came across a game. She fished, hiked and once, when she was 87, biked five miles to work to promote alternatives to driving.Mrs. McCallion in an undated photo. She won re-election repeatedly without campaigning or fund-raising, and she never faced serious opposition. Tara Walton for The New York TimesShe had come to politics from a career with an engineering company, starting in 1964 as a candidate for a municipal office in Streetsville, a village within Mississauga’s borders. After the two entities, along with a few others, combined to create the city of Mississauga, she moved effortlessly into the mayor’s office after defeating the incumbent by just 3,000 votes in her 1978 race.She never faced another serious opponent, and in two of her elections she didn’t face one at all, winning by acclamation. She did this without campaigning or fund-raising; she encouraged supporters eager to open their wallets to give to charity instead.“I don’t run a campaign, as you know,” she told the Canadian Press news agency in 2010. “I’m there with them four years. I don’t wait for an election to come along to campaign.”She was Mississauga’s chief booster, promoting it as a dynamic place that welcomed the businesses and the influx of immigrants entering Canada in the 1970s and ’80s.She was not without critics, who considered her imperious and even dictatorial. And she conceded that she kept a tight grip on the Mississauga City Council, allowing little dissent, at least in public.In 1982 and again in 2009, she was accused of failing to disclose conflicts of interest: first when land she and her husband owned was included in a possible development project, and later when she lobbied for a hotel project in which one of her sons was an investor.The first instance was not illegal at the time, and the second, which did go to court, was thrown out by a judge in 2013. Taken together, it was a record her defenders considered remarkably clean for a political career that began before most of her voters were born.A selection of McCallion memorabilia at the 2022 exhibition. “Having time on my hands is not acceptable,” she once said when asked if she thought about leaving office.Tara Walton for The New York TimesHazel Journeaux was born on Feb. 14, 1921, in Port-Daniel, a small town on the Gaspé Peninsula in southeast Quebec. Her father, Herbert, ran a fishing and processing company, and her mother, Amanda (Travers) Journeaux, was a nurse.The family moved to Montreal when Hazel was still a child, and after high school she took secretarial and business classes before being hired by M.W. Kellogg, an engineering company.She spent several years as a professional hockey player in Montreal, cementing a lifelong love for the sport. She played center for a team sponsored by Kick, a cola brand, and made $5 a game, the equivalent of about $65 in U.S. dollars today. In 1987 the Women’s World Hockey Championship named its trophy the Hazel McCallion World Cup.Her hockey career ended in 1940, when Kellogg opened an office in Toronto and she was sent to manage it.She married Sam McCallion in 1951. He died in 1997. She is survived by her sons, Peter and Paul; her daughter, Linda Burgess; and a granddaughter.Mrs. McCallion spent more than two decades as a manager with Kellogg before leaving to work with her husband and his printing business, and to get involved in politics in Streetsville. After three years on the village council, she was elected mayor of Streetsville in 1970.After the creation of the city of Mississauga, she served on its council for four years before being elected mayor in 1978 at age 57.Before, during and after her time as mayor, she led a backbreaking workday, rising at 5:30 and starting meetings at 7. She swatted away questions about leaving office, even long after most people her age would have retired.“Having time on my hands is not acceptable,” she told The Toronto Star in 2001, when she was 80. “If I quit, I’d have to find something very challenging to do. And what could be more challenging than being mayor?”After she finally did end her run as mayor in 2014, at 93, she continued to work. She served as the first chancellor of the Hazel McCallion Campus of Sheridan College, a Toronto-area technical school; she advised Mr. Ford, the Ontario premier; and she oversaw the Greater Toronto Airport Authority, a job that in 2019 took her on a tour of the world’s busiest airports.In a 2022 interview with the newspaper The National Post, she summed up her philosophy by recalling something her mother would ask her when she was young: “What do you want to accomplish in life? Do you want to be a follower or do you want to take advantage of opportunities to be a leader?” More

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      Repeat Election in Berlin Speaks to the ‘Chaos’ Many Residents Feel

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      The do-over vote on Sunday is only the tip of the iceberg for a city some see as in crisis: short on housing, schools and efficient governance.BERLIN — The city’s airport came in more than $4 billion over budget and nine years late. Then there is the chronic housing shortage, the overcrowded schools and the crumbling subway system. If all of that is not enough to dispel any notion that Berlin is a model of efficiency, then maybe this Sunday’s court-ordered repeat election is.The vote is meant to make right the many things that went wrong in September 2021, when city and district governments were up for election but there were too few ballots and polling booths, leading to long lines at polling stations, amid the confusion of roads closed because of the Berlin Marathon.That election was annulled last year, and a panel of judges ordered a new vote, a first in modern German history. (Federal elections, also held that day, will not be done over on Sunday.) When the ballots are cast this time, there will be outside observers from the European Council, the top human rights panel on the continent — the sort of monitoring more typically done in places where there is fear of vote tampering or intimidation.“Berlin is unfortunately turning into a ‘chaos city’ — starting with politics,” Markus Söder, the belligerent governor of Bavaria, who appears to relish attacking the politics of the German capital, said recently.The disputed 2021 election was a win for the Social Democrats, the party of Chancellor Olaf Scholz, which has been running Berlin’s government for 22 years. Franziska Giffey became the first woman elected the city’s mayor, and she formed a coalition with the Greens and the far-left Die Linke party.A crowded evening commute on Thursday at the Alexanderplatz stop.Ingmar Nolting for The New York TimesTrain access cut off because of construction repairs at the Nordbahnhof station.Ingmar Nolting for The New York TimesBut current polls have the conservative party in the lead ahead of Sunday’s election, and 68 percent of Berliners say their trust in their political institutions has declined since the last vote, according to a recent poll.Facing a major housing crisis, the city of 3.8 million is short about 125,000 apartments. Schools are understaffed, and parts of the public transportation system are offline for extensive repairs. Construction sites can snarl busy streets for months, if not longer. Major building permits can take years to process. And city services can be glacially slow, with some Berliners complaining that it can take months to get appointments for something as simple as registering a new address.“What I hate is the chaos, especially when it comes to the bureaucracy,” said Silvia Scheerer, 64, dressed in an elegant black fur-trimmed winter coat and waiting patiently for the subway, at a spot where since October trains have been running on a reduced schedule.Labor Organizing and Union DrivesApple: After a yearlong investigation, the National Labor Relations Board determined that the tech giant’s strictly enforced culture of secrecy interferes with employees’ right to organize.N.Y.C. Nurses’ Strike: Nurses at Montefiore Medical Center in the Bronx and Mount Sinai in Manhattan ended a three-day strike after the hospitals agreed to add staffing and improve working conditions.Amazon: A federal labor official rejected the company’s attempt to overturn a union victory at a warehouse on Staten Island, removing a key obstacle to contract negotiations between the union and the company.Electric Vehicles: In a milestone for the sector, employees at an E.V. battery plant in Ohio voted to join the United Automobile Workers union, citing pay and safety issues as key reasons.A social worker who regularly deals with city workers in her job, she says she sees how swamped they are.“It’s worse than it’s ever been,” said Ms. Scheerer, who spent half of her life in Communist East Germany, where she said the city bureaucracy and transportation actually worked quite well.A construction site in Berlin on Thursday. It’s not uncommon for such work to disrupt busy streets for months at a time.Ingmar Nolting for The New York TimesMorning traffic on the A100 highway on a recent weekday.Ingmar Nolting for The New York TimesPart of the problem is how city government is structured. At the top level, the city is run by a mayor and senators who are elected by a city Parliament, similar to a state house in other German states. Below that are 12 district councils, each headed by a district mayor.“‘I am not in charge of that, I am not responsible for this’ and always pointing to somewhere else — that’s a classic in Berlin,” said Lorenz Maroldt, the editor in chief of the Berlin daily newspaper Tagesspiegel and a longtime chronicler of city politics and their dysfunction.This complex approach to governing makes building a single bike path that crosses several districts a nightmare, says Stefanie Remlinger, the district mayor of Mitte, in Central Berlin, which has nearly 388,000 citizens and 2,000 district staff members to handle their needs.A factor in both the housing and school crises: Berlin has absorbed thousands of new residents and refugees in recent years. Ms. Remlinger’s district currently has 55 schools; it needs five additional ones, she said, just to accommodate all of the newly arriving children.Stefanie Remlinger, the district mayor of Mitte, in her office.Ingmar Nolting for The New York TimesA visualization of the movement of rental bicycles in Berlin. The city’s complex system of governing makes it hard to do something like build a single bike path across several districts.Ingmar Nolting for The New York Times“Since 2015 we’ve been in crisis mode,” Ms. Remlinger said. “We’ve had a major refugee crisis to deal with, corona, the war, and with it another refugee crisis and inflation.” As in many other countries, workers are striking for better wages. This past week, both educators and other public-sector workers walked off their jobs over several days, meaning garbage piled up, medical procedures were rescheduled and students were not taught.Jochen Christiansen, 59, a sanitation worker, moved to West Berlin in the 1980s to avoid military service, as men living in the city were exempt from West Germany’s draft. Four decades ago, he said, the city worked: Rent was affordable, the schools were fully staffed and the bureaucracy was efficient.During a recent protest of city workers demanding a pay raise of 10.5 percent, he showed little sympathy for the city’s history of undertaking big-budget projects, like the beleaguered new airport, while neglecting its salaried public-sector workers.“I think it’s important to show that we’ll defend ourselves,” he said as he marched with a crowd of 2,500 public workers through central Berlin.A protest by public-sector workers in Berlin on Thursday.Ingmar Nolting for The New York TimesRalf Kleindiek is Berlin’s first chief digital officer.Ingmar Nolting for The New York TimesBut if many of Berlin’s challenges seem not unexpected for a European capital city dealing with new arrivals, inflation and a shortage of skilled workers, the failure to run an election crystallized the feeling that the administration could do better.“The vote itself might be one of the most instructive lessons on how this city doesn’t work,” said Ralf Kleindiek, who has taken on the formidable task of trying to bring the administration into the 21st century as its first chief digital officer.But luckily, says Mr. Maroldt, the newspaper editor, the city’s many problems have not robbed it of its many charms.“Despite its best efforts,” he said, “politics has not managed to spoil the fun of Berlin for most people.”Closed streets and construction work have become common sights in Berlin.Ingmar Nolting for The New York Times More

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      Arkansas City Elected an 18-Year-Old Mayor to Turn Things Around

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      EARLE, Ark. — The shoe factory closed and the supermarket pulled out. So did neighbors whose old homes were now falling apart, overtaken by weeds and trees. Likewise, the best students at Earle High School often left for college and decided their hometown did not have enough to lure them back.Jaylen Smith, 18, could have left, too. Instead, when he graduated from high school last spring he resolved to stay put in Earle, a small city surrounded by farmland in the Arkansas Delta, where his family has lived for generations. More

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      The Key Elections Taking Place in 2023

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      Among the races to watch are governors’ contests in Kentucky, Louisiana and Mississippi and mayoral elections in Chicago and Philadelphia.It might be tempting to focus on the 2024 presidential election now that the midterms are in the rearview mirror, but don’t sleep on 2023: key races for governor, mayor and other offices will be decided.Their outcomes will be closely watched for signs of whether Democrats or Republicans have momentum going into next year’s presidential election and congressional races — and for what they signal about the influence of former President Donald J. Trump.Virginia and New Jersey have noteworthy state house elections, and in Wisconsin, a state Supreme Court race will determine the balance of power in a body whose conservative majority routinely sides with Republicans. Here’s what to watch:Kentucky governorOf the three governors’ races this year, only Kentucky features an incumbent Democrat seeking re-election in a state that Mr. Trump won in 2020. The race also appears packed with the most intrigue.Gov. Andy Beshear won by less than 6,000 votes in 2019, ousting Matt Bevin, the Trump-backed Republican incumbent in the cherry-red state that is home to Senator Mitch McConnell, the Senate G.O.P. leader.A growing field of Republicans has ambitions of settling the score in 2023, including Daniel Cameron, who in 2019 became the first Black person to be elected as Kentucky’s attorney general, an office previously held by Mr. Beshear. Mr. Cameron, who is seen as a possible successor to Mr. McConnell, drew attention in 2020 when he announced that a grand jury did not indict two Louisville officers who shot Breonna Taylor. Last June, Mr. Trump endorsed Mr. Cameron for governor, but there will be competition for the G.O.P. nomination.Attorney General Daniel Cameron, signing the papers for his candidacy last week, is among Republicans seeking to challenge Gov. Andy Beshear this year.Timothy D. Easley/Associated PressKelly Craft, a former ambassador to the United Nations under Mr. Trump, is also running. So are Mike Harmon, the state auditor of public accounts, and Ryan Quarles, the state’s agricultural commissioner, and several other Republicans. The primary will be on May 16.Louisiana governorGov. John Bel Edwards, a Democrat who narrowly won a second term in 2019, is not eligible to run again because of term limits. The open-seat race has tantalized some prominent Republicans, including Jeff Landry, the state’s attorney general, who has declared his candidacy.Two other Republicans weighing entering the race are John Schroder, the state treasurer who has told supporters he will run, and Representative Garret Graves.Shawn Wilson, the state’s transportation secretary under Mr. Edwards, is one of the few Democrats who have indicated interest in running in deep-red Louisiana.Electing a New Speaker of the HouseRepresentative Kevin McCarthy won the speakership after a revolt within the Republican Party set off a long stretch of unsuccessful votes.Inside the Speaker Fight: Mr. McCarthy’s speaker bid turned into a rolling disaster. “The Daily” has the inside story of how it went so wrong and what he was forced to give up.A Tenuous Grip: By making concessions to far-right representatives, Mr. McCarthy has effectively given them carte blanche to disrupt the workings of the House — and to hold him hostage to their demands.Looming Consequences: Congressional gridlock brought on by far-right Republicans now seems more likely to lead to government shutdowns or, worse, a default on debt obligations.Roots of the Chaos: How did Mr. McCarthy’s bid become a four-day debacle? The story begins with the zero-sum politics of Newt Gingrich.Mississippi governorGov. Tate Reeves, a Republican, is running for a second term. But the advantage of incumbency and a substantial campaign fund may not be enough to stop a primary challenge, especially with his job approval numbers among the lowest of the nation’s governors.Philip Gunn, Mississippi’s House speaker, has been coy about possible plans to enter the race after announcing in November that he would not seek re-election to the Legislature. Among the other Republicans whose names have been bandied about is Michael Watson, the secretary of state. But Mr. Reeves is the only Republican to have filed so far; the deadline is Feb. 1.A Democrat hasn’t been elected governor of Mississippi in two decades, since a contest was decided by the Legislature because the winning candidate did not receive a majority of votes. Not surprisingly, few Democrats have stepped forward to run. One name to watch is Brandon Presley, a public service commissioner. Mr. Presley is a relative of Elvis Presley, who was from Tupelo, Miss., according to Mississippi Today, a nonprofit news website.U.S. House (Virginia’s Fourth District)The death in late November of Representative A. Donald McEachin, a Democrat from Virginia, prompted Gov. Glenn Youngkin, a Republican, to schedule a special election for Feb. 21.In December, Democrats resoundingly nominated Jennifer McClellan, a state senator, to represent the party in the contest for Virginia’s Fourth District, which includes Richmond and leans heavily Democratic. She could become the first Black woman elected to Congress in Virginia, where she would complete the two-year term that Mr. McEachin won by 30 percentage points just weeks before his death.Republicans tapped Leon Benjamin, a Navy veteran and pastor who lost to Mr. McEachin in November and in 2020.Chicago mayorMayor Lori Lightfoot of Chicago, a Democrat who in 2019 became the first Black woman and first openly gay person to lead the nation’s third-most populous city, faces a gantlet of challengers in her quest for re-election.That test will arrive somewhat early in the year, with the mayoral election set for Feb. 28. If no candidate finishes with a majority of the votes, a runoff will be held on April 4.Mayor Lori Lightfoot of Chicago faces several challengers in her re-election bid.Jim Vondruska/ReutersThe crowded field includes Representative Jesús G. García, a Democrat who is known as Chuy and who was overwhelmingly re-elected to a third term in his Cook County district in November and previously ran unsuccessfully for mayor. In the current race, Ms. Lightfoot has attacked Mr. García over receiving money for his House campaign from Sam Bankman-Fried, the criminally charged founder of the collapsed cryptocurrency exchange FTX.Ms. Lightfoot’s other opponents include Kam Buckner, a state legislator; Brandon Johnson, a Cook County commissioner; Sophia King and Roderick T. Sawyer, who both serve on the City Council; Paul Vallas, a former chief executive of Chicago public schools; and Ja’Mal Green, a prominent activist in the city.Philadelphia mayorAn open-seat race for mayor in Pennsylvania’s foremost Democratic bastion has attracted an expansive field of candidates. The office is held by Jim Kenney, a Democrat who is not eligible to run again because of term limits.Five members of the City Council have resigned to enter the race, which city rules require. They are Allan Domb, Derek Green, Helen Gym, Cherelle Parker and Maria Quiñones Sánchez.The field also includes Rebecca Rhynhart, the city’s controller, who has likewise resigned in order to run; Amen Brown, a state legislator; Jeff Brown, a supermarket chain founder; and James DeLeon; a retired judge.Wisconsin Supreme CourtConservatives are clinging to a one-seat majority on Wisconsin’s Supreme Court, but a retirement within the court’s conservative ranks could shift the balance of power this year. The court’s justices have increasingly been called on to settle landmark lawsuits involving elections, gerrymandering, abortion and other contentious issues.Two conservative and two liberal candidates have entered what is technically a nonpartisan election to succeed Judge Patience D. Roggensack on the seven-member court.Daniel Kelly, a conservative former justice on the state Supreme Court who lost his seat in the 2020 election, is seeking a comeback. Running against him in the conservative lane is Jennifer Dorow, a circuit court judge in Waukesha County who drew widespread attention when she presided over the trial of Darrell E. Brooks, the man convicted in the killing of six people he struck with his car during a Christmas parade in Waukesha, Wis., in 2021.Janet Protasiewicz and Everett Mitchell, judges from Milwaukee County and Dane County, which includes Madison, the capital, are seeking to give liberals a majority on the court.The two candidates who receive the most votes in the nonpartisan primary on Feb. 21 — regardless of their leanings — will face each other in the general election on April 4.Legislature (Virginia and New Jersey)Virginia is emerging as a potential tempest in 2023, with its divided legislature up for re-election and elected officials squarely focused on the issue of abortion — not to mention a Republican governor who is flirting with a run for president.Gov. Glenn Youngkin wants to ban most abortions after 15 weeks of pregnancy, emboldened by the Supreme Court’s repeal last summer of Roe v. Wade, the 50-year-old constitutional right to an abortion.His proposal is expected to resonate with Republican lawmakers, who narrowly control the House of Delegates. But it is likely to run into fierce opposition in the Senate, where Democrats are clinging to a slender majority. All seats in both chambers are up for election.Another Mid-Atlantic state to watch is New Jersey, where Republicans made inroads in 2021 despite being in the minority and are seeking to build on those gains. More

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      $142,000 a Year: State Legislators’ Expected New Salary

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      Lawmakers are headed to Albany today to vote themselves a raise that would make them the best-paid legislators in the nation.Good morning. It’s Thursday. We’ll find out why the State Senate and the Assembly will convene today in an unusual special session. We’ll also look at why some New Yorkers say race shapes the criticism of Mayor Eric Adams.Tristan Spinski for The New York TimesState lawmakers are gathering in Albany today to give themselves a raise. If only a salary bump were that easy for everyone. The bill before the lawmakers, who already get six-figure base salaries for a five-month scheduled session in Albany, would boost their pay to roughly twice the median family income in the United States and slightly more than five times what lawmakers in neighboring Connecticut make. I asked my colleague Jesse McKinley for details.How are lawmakers in New York paid in comparison with other state legislators?Pretty darn well. According to the National Conference of State Legislatures, New York lawmakers rank No. 2 in the nation in base pay, thanks to a raise they received in 2018. California, which has a habit of besting New York in all kinds of categories (population, economic output, number of professional baseball teams) is No. 1 for the moment.Won’t this make lawmakers in New York the best-compensated in the nation?Yes, with Thursday’s anticipated pay hike, Albany’s 213 lawmakers will now have the highest base salary of any in the country: $142,000 a year, from the current $110,000 a year. State lawmakers in California will still be taking home $119,702 a year.What’s the catch?The concession made by lawmakers to get that $32,000 raise is that they will agree to a $35,000 cap on outside income, something that good government groups have long pushed for (though some would like an even lower threshold for such nongovernment earning).The concern is the potential for corruption and conflicts of interest that could arise from, say, working in a law firm. Legislative leaders say this is a big step toward wiping out Albany’s well-deserved reputation for money-driven malfeasance. But the $35,000 limit won’t take effect until 2025, unlike the raise, which will take effect on Jan. 1.Why did they go back to Albany for one day just to give themselves a raise?Albany loves leaving things till the last minute, including its budgets, which used to be chronically late and now are only periodically late.The more germane answer, however, is that the bill authorizing the raise has to be approved before the new session of the Legislature begins in January. Lawmakers cannot vote themselves a raise that takes effect during the same session as the vote. It says so in the state Constitution. Obviously time is running out between now and January — hence, a lot of people descending on the capital for a one-day-only session.Will Gov. Kathy Hochul sign the bill raising their compensation? What happens if she decides not to sign it?The governor hasn’t explicitly said she’ll sign the bill to hike the lawmakers’ pay, but she’s expressed support for such an increase in the past. Also, it seems unlikely to me that the legislators would go all the way back to Albany without an implicit understanding that Hochul — a Democrat, like the leaders that control both houses of the Legislature — is cool with higher salaries.If she decided not to sign the bill, my best guess is that she would get very few Christmas presents from legislative leaders this year.What has the reaction been?Giving yourself a raise is always a bad look for politicians, even if many outside groups agree that it’s not unjustified. Republicans have lambasted the raise — and its timing during a “special session” — and some watchdog groups have said it doesn’t go far enough to limit outside earning.But legislative leaders stand by it, including the speaker of the Assembly, Carl Heastie. “I don’t think there’s enough money in the world,” he said recently, “that could compensate you for being away from your families.”WeatherPrepare for wind gusts and rain persisting through the evening. Temps will be steady around the low to mid-50s.ALTERNATE-SIDE PARKINGIn effect until Dec. 26.The latest New York newsJohnny Milano for The New York TimesCrimeSuffolk cyberattack: The malicious cyberattack that forced the county government offline for weeks this fall began more than a year ago, officials revealed.Brooklyn subway shooting: The man accused in a shooting spree on an N train has told his lawyers he wants to admit to the April attack. He is expected to plead guilty to terrorism as well as a firearms charge.Councilman’s home invaded: Protesters descended on the home and the office of a gay member of the New York City Council, vandalizing the walls with homophobic graffiti and attacking one of his neighbors, over his support for Drag Story Hour events at libraries.More local newsA fall triathlon: The New York City Triathlon will move to the fall, with a race date of Oct. 1, following years of interruptions from extreme summer heat.Seasonal staples are back: After one holiday season lost to the pandemic and another curtailed by Omicron, “The Nutcracker” is being danced, “A Christmas Carol” is being performed and “Messiah” is being sung again.“Almost Famous” closing: “Almost Famous,” a stage adaptation of the acclaimed 2000 film, will close on Broadway on Jan. 8 after facing soft ticket sales in a competitive market.Race and criticism of the mayorDavid Dinkins in 1988.Joyce Dopkeen/The New York TimesThe end of the year is in sight — the end of Mayor Eric Adams’s first year in office. It has been a difficult 12 months in which he faced the challenges of moving the city past the pandemic, reinvigorating a weakened economy and tempering heightened fears of crime.Some New Yorkers have questioned whether he moved fast enough to address intractable problems like homelessness and a lack of affordable housing. Complaints have also focused on his hiring practices, his response to the crisis at the Rikers Island jail complex and how he handled the influx of migrants from Texas.But my colleagues Jeffery C. Mays and Emma G. Fitzsimmons write that several Black leaders are raising concerns that criticism of the mayor has been shaped by race. They suggest that implicit racism undermined Mayor David Dinkins, the city’s first Black mayor, a generation ago, and could undercut Adams now.Adams himself said that he was accustomed to criticism, but that when some people “look at these two Black mayors, Dinkins and my role now, there are those that wish we fail.”“Look at all the mayors,” he said. “Dinkins and I are the only two mayors that people talk about how we went out at night. They used to say he had a tuxedo in his car all the time because he went out to different galas and balls and what have you. That’s the role of the mayor.”Adams’s allies may be hoping to discourage criticism at a time when his popularity appears to be waning: In a recent Siena College poll, 50 percent of voters in the city viewed him favorably and 35 percent unfavorably.Adams, a former police captain, has sought to have a better relationship with the police than Dinkins did: He brought back a controversial plainclothes police unit. He has also dispatched waves of officers to address crime on the subway and protected police funding in his budget while often standing by officers accused of misconduct.Adams said he had drawn two lessons from Dinkins’s loss to Rudolph Giuliani in 1993: Focus on making “real changes in office” and do not allow your political coalition to erode. He has made sure that his base feels heard after winning the mayoralty with a coalition of Black and Latino voters and moderates outside Manhattan.“My secret sauce is everyday working-class families,” he said, adding that he had met some of those families on a recent visit to the Rockaways in Queens. “They’re just not complicated. They just want a safe place to raise their children and families. Those are my folks.”METROPOLITAN diaryRock, rock, rockDear Diary:“Rock, rock, rock,” I heard a voice repeating. “Rock, rock, rock.”I was walking up a trail into the Ramble in Central Park when I came upon the voice’s owner: a tall, slender man with a twist of silver hair over one eye.I waited, not wanting to interrupt whatever it was that he was doing.“Rock, rock, rock,” he said again in a monotone. “Rock, rock, rock.”Two minutes later, a red cardinal flew down from a tree, landed on a large flat rock and did the hokey pokey, hopping tentatively toward the middle of the rock.That was when I noticed a single peanut in the shell sitting there. The cardinal grappled with how to lift the nut. After finally securing it, the bird flew off.The man turned to me.“The wife is much smarter,” he said in a serious tone. “I’ve known the family for years. I never have to wait when she’s around.”— Sharyn WolfIllustrated by Agnes Lee. Send submissions here and read more Metropolitan Diary here.Glad we could get together here. See you tomorrow. — J.B.P.S. Here’s today’s Mini Crossword and Spelling Bee. You can find all our puzzles here.Melissa Guerrero, Morgan Malget and Ed Shanahan contributed to New York Today. You can reach the team nytoday@nytimes.com.Sign up here to get this newsletter in your inbox. More