De Blasio Floats Election Reforms As Housing, Transit Woes Linger

FLATBUSH, BROOKLYN — The subways are grinding to a halt, public housing tenants are freezing and violence continues to rankle Rikers Island. But Mayor Bill de Blasio is worried about getting New Yorkers to the polls.

The mayor's State of the City address Tuesday night, the first of his second term, laid out a 10-point plan for improving voter engagement and making city elections more democratic. But it was light on new solutions to the problems of the protesters who greeted him outside the Kings Theatre in Flatbush, Brooklyn.

De Blasio's fervor for improving the democratic process comes after less than a quarter of the city's registered voters safely re-elected him to a second term in November. Casting American democracy as under seige, the mayor said the election proposals are key to his agenda of making New York the nation's "fairest big city."

"You can't fight for greater quality with less democracy," de Blasio told the mostly full house at the ornate theater. "History teaches us that fundamental change, fundamental social change, comes from the bottom up, not the top down."

The mayor said he will name a "chief democracy officer" to register 1.5 million new voters in the next four years. He pledged to appoint a City Charter Revision Commission to help by giving the city additional powers when it comes to voter outreach. The panel will also explore a plan for "deep public financing" of city elections, even though the city already matches some campaign donations.

De Blasio's election plan, dubbed "DemocracyNYC," depends in part on the the state Legislature. He wants Albany lawmakers to allow early voting and same-day registration — plans Gov. Andrew Cuomo has endorsed — and reform the state Board of Elections, which de Blasio attacked as incompetent.

But the city will try to do its part by creating an online clearinghouse with information on how to run for office or join a community board, de Blasio said. The mayor also pledged an outreach campaign ahead of the 2020 Census, which he said will help ensure the city strong federal representation and funding.

In what is perhaps a reaction to alleged corruption scandals that cast a shadow over de Blasio's first term, the mayor said every city commissioner and mayoral staffer will disclose all their meetings with lobbyists starting March 1. The city also revamped its lobbying disclosure website to make that information more publicly accessible.

Those reforms come after state and federal prosecutors declined to charge the mayor last year after parallel investigations into his campaign fundraising practices. Emails detailed in news reports show how wealthy campaign donors got increased access to de Blasio and his top aides, even if that access didn't meet the legal standard for bribery. Two de Blasio donors, Harendra Singh and Jona Rechnitz, pleaded guilty to bribery in 2016.

In an effort to get teens more involved, the city will bolster civics education and register students to vote at city schools, de Blasio said. Each high school will also get $2,000 in funding that students will decide how to spend, he said.

The city will also spend $500,000 a year to protect voting machines from cyber attacks, de Blasio said, noting Russian hackers' penetration of election technology in 2016.

The mayor spent much of his 70-minute speech touting his familiar achievements. His universal pre-kindergarten program is now serving 3-year-olds. He promised plans to get more kids reading at their grade level by third grade, but announced no specifics Tuesday.

Affordable housing programs are keeping more New Yorkers in their homes, he said. Every cop is getting a body camera as crime continues to fall. And first lady Chirlane McCray is expanding access to mental health resources and drug addiction treatments.

De Blasio's focus on boosting voter turnout suits his ambition to become a national progressive voice. He said he wants to harness the liberal activism that's burgeound since President Donald Trump's took office as congressional and statewide elections approach in November.

"The moment is ripe for change and we need to meet the moment," de Blasio said.

But his speech contained no new plans to address some of the city's lingering problems, such as broken public housing infrastructure and violence in city jails, which protesters decried outside the theater.

"They’re losers for him," said Seth Barron, a project director at the Manhattan Institute, a conservative think tank. "It demonstrates that all of his proposals aren’t really solutions. They’re at most band-aids or stopgaps."

De Blasio touted the city's $3.7 billion investment in the long-neglected New York City Housing Authority, which has gotten hundreds of new roofs and seen reduced crime in his tenure. While his brief discussion of NYCHA drew resounding applause from the crowd, the mayor announced no new efforts to tackle systemic heating failures or the internal dysfunction that was on display at a City Council hearing last week.

"No heat, no hot water, no rent," public-housing protesters chanted outside before the speech.

De Blasio has blamed the subway system's failures on the state-run Metropolitan Transportation Authority. He again noted the state's responsibility Tuesday, saying his proposed income tax hike on the richest New Yorkers is the most sensible way to give the MTA a cash infusion. He expressed openness to a different plan, so long as any new money raised raised in the city goes into a "guaranteed lockbox" to support city subways and buses.

The mayor noted his 10-year plan to close the Rikers Island jail complex, which remains violent for inmates and guards, and open smaller, safer jails in four of the five boroughs.

But the plan hasn't impressed the city's Correction Officers Benevolent Association, which parked a truck a block from the theater with a screen showing videos of inmates attacking jail guards. Jail reformers also argue the plan should move more quickly.

De Blasio also did not substantively address segregation in city schools or remaining racial disparities in policing. He still has much work to do in those arenas despite his progress toward addressing educational inequities and curtailing the NYPD's stop-and-frisk practices, said Donna Lieberman, executive director of the New York Civil Liberties Union.

"Mayor de Blasio has four years to finish what he started — to rewrite the tale of two cities and ensure New York works for all New Yorkers, and also stands up to the worst ambitions of Trump and (Attorney General Jeff) Sessions," Lieberman said in a statement.

Public Advocate Letitia James, a potential 2021 mayoral candidate, said the mayor's lengthy speech should have shone a light on issues that are closer to the five boroughs rather than national politics.

"I wanted to focus on issues that everyday New Yorkers care about, and I didn't hear enough about that," James said.

(Lead image: Mayor Bill de Blasio delivers his State of the City address at the Kings Theatre in Brooklyn on Tuesday. Photo by Michael Appleton/Mayoral Photography Office)