Ravitch to the Rescue After Obama Falters

Last week, we learned that President Obama has pressured Governor Paterson to step aside in the 2010 gubernatorial race. We also learned that Richard Ravitch is now the Lieutenant Governor of New York State. If we had heard the good news on Ravitch earlier, perhaps we never would have heard the bad news on Obama.

Ravitch to the Rescue

In July, Governor Paterson appointed Ravitch as Lieutenant Governor to fill the seat that Paterson himself vacated to become Governor when Elliot Spitzer resigned in disgrace. At the time, the New York State legislature was in turmoil because the State Senate was evenly split between supporters of the Republican Party and the Democratic Party. A Lieutenant Governor would have provided a tie-breaking vote.

But, many disputed the constitutionality of the appointment of Ravitch, a public servant with a spotless reputation and a history of achievement. The lowest courts rejected the appointment as unconstitutional. No Lieutenant Governor had ever been appointed despite the fact that the position had been unoccupied at times.

Last week, the highest court in New York State sided with Paterson and declared that Ravitch's appointment was constitutional. We are confident that Ravitch will serve with distinction.

Perhaps if the support of the courts for the Ravitch appointment had come earlier, the President would have saved himself and Governor Paterson a great deal of embarrassment.

Obama Falters

President Obama has pressured Governor Paterson to drop out of the 2010 race to retain his post at the helm of the executive branch of the government in New York State.

If the timing had been different, President Obama could have appointed Governor Paterson to a high post at the national level and allowed the new Lt. Governor to become the new Governor in New York State. Instead, such an appointment was unrealistic until last week because there was no Lt. Governor. The succession plan for New York State was unclear, and Governor Paterson would have been viewed as irresponsible if he had vacated the Governor's post without clarity regarding who would lead New York State thereafter.

The clumsy and public manner of President Obama's efforts to undermine Governor Paterson seem so unlike President Obama. Obama is a master poker player who keeps his cards close to his vest. One wonders whether President Obama is already losing his touch or if there is something (or someone) outside of team Obama driving the White House attacks on Paterson.

The most recent editorial in the Amsterdam News expressed the views of many. Paterson should refuse to follow the guidance of the President. He should run in 2010. His best revenge will be victory.

And what an unfortunate spectacle for our community to see: its first African-American president asking only the third Black governor since Reconstruction and the first African-American governor in the State of New York's history to quit without a fight.

A governor who, in a short and difficult time, has been able to end the dreaded Rockefeller Laws, get our famously unruly Legislature to settle on a budget on time, and lead the MTA out of its most serious financial crisis in recent memory. And on Tuesday the Court of Appeals ruled that Paterson pick Richard Ravitch could indeed serve as lieutenant governor. The former MTA chief had been handpicked by Governor Paterson, leading to some Republicans to file a legal challenge.

They begin to throw out “If Giuliani runs,” trying to scare folks into saying that Paterson cannot take him on. But does Giuliani want to run? Does he want to be governor? Does he want to deal with the headache of a crazy Legislature? Does he want to do the work? Does Giuliani want to do the fundraising and campaigning so soon after his crushing and humiliating defeat in last year’s presidential race? And is his donor base ready to invest in him after his poor showing when he was presumed to be the front-runner in that race as well? And has he even paid off his debts that he ran up for his presidential bid?We don’t know what the mercurial Giuliani has on his mind. And we do not expect to know until after the November elections. So why ask Paterson to bow out now? Why not wait until November, or longer, to make any kind of decision? Giuliani does pose a clear challenge to the governor. He plays to the worst instincts of white New Yorkers. From his days of inciting a police riot against David Dinkins before he became mayor, to ignoring Black and Hispanic New York City residents and criticizing Black male victims of police brutality, it was an ugly reign of terror for people of color during his eight years here in New York City. But there is a catch-22 or a “chicken before the egg” scenario here. If Paterson stays in the race, does Giuliani get in? If Giuliani gets into the race, does Paterson get out? If Paterson gets out and Giuliani stays out, Andrew Cuomo sweeps Rick Lazio—but anyone could mop the floor with Lazio—so, in that case, why doesn’t Paterson stay in? The whole house of cards is built upon the assumption that Giuliani will run. That is not a foregone conclusion, far from it. And maybe this time New Yorkers will rise above the demagogue tactics of the visceral former mayor. Getting Paterson out would create a free ride for Cuomo to the governor’s mansion, unopposed by a person of color in a primary. And the Cuomo family has not earned that. Make Andrew Cuomo earn our votes. Don’t let him be anointed. And Gov. Paterson, stay in the race. You can still win.

Republican Bloomberg Steers NYC to Record Unemployment

We learned days ago that New York City's unemployment rate leaped last month to 10.3%, the highest level since 1993. Mayor Bloomberg, who is running as a Republican for a third term as Mayor, has had a year to begin a turn-around of the NYC economy, but he has instead dug a deeper hole.

False Claims of Success

Mayor Bloomberg called a press conference in May to announce how successful his leadership had been in revitalizing the NYC economy that Bloomberg's leadership had plunged into a deep recession. But, a reporter asked if the fact that the economy was in excellent shape suggested that Mayor Bloomberg's re-writing of the City Charter in order to extend his own tenure as Mayor was now unnecessary. Mayor Bloomberg responded by ending the press conference and calling the reporter "a disgrace." Perhaps the Mayor should be a harsher critic of himself.

The economy is not improving; it is getting worse because of poor leadership. Bloomberg rejected federal help in the form of food stamps, because he wants to continue to push work requirements on those receiving aid. The federal government recognized that New York City's job opportunities had diminished and offered additional food stamp dollars to those unable to find work. Bloomberg chose to send the aid back to Washington, DC and express his solidarity with those who do not wish to see low income New Yorkers without jobs benefit from federal support. Bloomberg raised taxes on low income New Yorkers through the regressive sales tax increases that he preferred over income tax increases that would have been progressive. Now, we are all suffering because of his failures.

Record Unemployment

In one year, New York City's unemployment rose from 5.9% to 10.3%, a stunning rise in a statistic that is often a good barometer of the state of the local economy. New York City's level of unemployment is higher than the national level and higher than the level of unemployment across the state of New York. While these stats stunned many observers, one could expect bad news to result of Mayor Bloomberg's poor policy-making.

Yet, Bloomberg Claims We Need Him

Mayor Bloomberg claims that we need him to dig us out of the crisis that he has intensified. He says that we need to re-write the election rules, ignore his race-based hiring practices at the Fire Department of New York and his race-based policing practices (and record pace of stop-and-frisk activity in communities of color), and ignore the raises he provided for his own senior staff members in the middle of this recession. We need to do all of this in order to have a stronger economy, according to the Mayor. But, the Mayor's policies have brought us a horrible economy.

Bill Thompson is running for Mayor with a progressive agenda, and a progressive agenda is what is needed in NYC at this time.

It seems that the best way to improve the local New York City economy is to remember Bloomberg's blunders and replace him with another leader when we all vote in November.

Primary Voting Tomorrow in NYC

Please ensure that everyone you know votes tomorrow in the NYC primary elections. We made the same statement in November 2008, and we repeat it now.

Our Endorsements

We endorsed Cy Vance for Manhattan District Attorney last month, and we are eager to see Bill Thompson win tomorrow's primary election and take on Mayor Bloomberg in November.
With Thompson's likely victory tomorrow, we can only hope that the media will be ready to end its infatuation with Mayor Bloomberg and start to hold him accountable for his administration's policies and failures.

Voting Is A Sacred Activity

As we pointed out previously, voting is a sacred activity:

It has long been a cliché to many, but it is a truth that one cannot ignore. For many of us, our ancestors died to give us the right to vote. To squander that vote or to relinquish it because of inconvenience would be obscene, whether we have faith that our individual votes will shape the outcomes of elections or not. Because the 15th Amendment (1870) and the Voting Rights Act (1965) were victories secured by the blood of our ancestors, every election day is a sacred day, and we show our respect for those who made our votes possible by going to the polls and by encouraging everyone we know to join us in that sacred activity - tomorrow and every election day of any sort.

Remember the Importance of the NYC Mayor

As we have also stated previously, Bloomberg should not be seeking a third term. He should be apologizing for his failed leadership in his second term. In NYC's system, the Mayor has far more power than all other institutions of city government combined. The NYC Mayor's power is far greater than that of all other big city mayors. So, when someone uses that power to abuse NYC's residents, that person must not be permitted to continue that abuse. As we stated in July of this year:

Mayor Bloomberg has surpassed his previous demonstrations of arrogance with his granting of retroactive raises to nearly 7,000 members of his staff. In essence, the Mayor's team will receive bonuses representing the additional earnings they would have received if the raises had begun 16 months ago. They get a 4% raise for all of last year and a 4.16% raise for all of this year. As absurd as the bonuses and raises appear on their face, a broader context illuminates how unacceptable this latest mayoral maneuver really is.

1) The Mayor demanded that City Council change the City Charter to allow him to seek a third consecutive term, despite two referenda in which the people of New York City voted overwhelmingly to disallow Mayors to serve for three consecutive terms. In arguing for the third term, Bloomberg has suggested that the intense economic and fiscal crisis facing New York City requires keeping Bloomberg in power (ignoring the fact that Bloomberg got us into this mess). Bloomberg's answer to the economic and fiscal crisis is to give huge bonuses and raises to his staff. Now, at least one of the Deputy Mayors will have a higher salary than the salary provided to the Mayor's office by law. The third term seems unwise.

2) At Manhattan Viewpoint, we have been highly critical of the Mayor's decision to use sales taxes to balance the city's budget. The Mayor's obsession with protecting high earners from taxation has resulted in a painfully regressive budgetary approach that relies on poor people to pay more taxes to fill in the budget gaps created by the
economic downturn and by the Mayor's unfortunate reliance on Wall Street
revenues during his first 1.5 terms. It is ultra-shameful that a mayor who so
thoroughly believes in regressive taxation would be so generous to his own
senior staff during a fiscal crisis. He is demanding that poor people pay more
so that he can pay his top advisers more.

3) Bloomberg is setting a record pace for stopping and frisking people of color. He has given the crime of "walking while black" the official City Hall stamp of approval, and his administration is retaining all of the personal information of those that are stopped. 90% of those stopped are non-white even though whites who are stopped are 2.5 times more likely to have illegal substances or weapons in their possession. Yet, Bloomberg will stop and frisk more people of color this year than any mayor has ever stopped in New York City.

4) The Mayor chose to reject federal aid from the Obama administration because it would have expanded the availability of food stamps to more poor people.Bloomberg
is demonstrating the type of leadership that suggests he should have had only
one term and should certainly not attempt to impose a third term on our great
city.

Unshackling Child Birth for Incarcerated Women

New York State decided late last month to end the practice or chaining pregnant incarcerated women to their hospital beds during childbirth. The practice, called "shackling", has been outlawed by the New York State Legislature and Governor Paterson. New York is the sixth state in the US to outlaw shackling.

Health and Safety During Childbirth

New Yorkers should be proud that New York is one of the first states in the United States to outlaw the shackling of pregnant women during childbirth.

Until now, pregnant women were routinely shackled during childbirth. Advocates for incarcerated women, such as the Correctional Association of New York, have led the fight for the safety of these women and the elimination of the shackling activity throughout the state. The Correctional Association interviewed women who were shackled during childbirth and has allowed all of us to read there stories. The American Public Health Association, American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, American Medical Women’s Association, and American College of Nurse Midwives all supported the imposition of restrictions on shackling pregnant women in prison.

While some may object to the ability of incarcerated women to give birth without being chained to their beds, we should all remember that 83% of women in New York State prisons are non-violent offenders, that 84% of women in New York State prisons are first-time offenders, and that 75% of women in prison were victims of domestic violence. These women are, with few exceptions, not a threat to themselves, their babies, or to the hospital personnel. The new law allows for precautions to be taken in special circumstances and recognizes that exceptions are necessary.

Childbirth is traumatic and stressful without shackles; it is not a realistic opportunity for escape or to attack others physically. In the states that have eliminated the practice of shackling women during childbirth, there have been no escape attempts.

Paterson's Support

Governor Paterson attended a rally in mid-August in support of the legislation that outlawed the shackling of women during childbirth. His willingness to lead and his eagerness to address the needs of a somewhat unpopular constituency (incarcerated women and their unborn children) deserve special praise. Whatever his faults, Governor Paterson has proven to be a consistent and valuable force for addressing longstanding problems in our state's criminal justice system. He signed the legislation repealing the Rockefeller Drug Laws, and he rallied for and signed the legislation that enhances the likelihood of successful childbirth for incarcerated women and their children. The achievements should not go unnoticed.

New York's Abuse of Incarcerated Youth Exposed

The US Justice Department issued a report this month stating that "[s]taff at [New York's Juvenile Detention Facilities] routinely used uncontrolled, unsafe applications of force, departing from generally accepted standards" when dealing with incarcerated youth. Now, the attention turns to Governor Paterson and whether his efforts to fix these problems will be bold enough and quick enough to prevent the abuse from harming more of our children.

Horrifying Abuses

The level of abuse suffered by our children in the four juvenile detention facilities of New York State is beyond anything that we should accept in a modern society, and the abuse reflects the lack of oversight in the system as well as the lack of respect for the rights of those who are incarcerated.

There was one year in one facility (a facility that housed only 50 youth) in which 698 individual "takedowns" (throwing children to the ground and holding them down in a face-down position) of youth occurred, and 123 injuries were sustained by those youth. These facilities house children ages 16 and under and are the wrong places for staff who enjoy inflicting pain on others.

One 15 year old boy from the Bronx was killed in a takedown in 2006, and while his death was ruled a homicide, a grand jury chose not to indict those that killed the boy.

Reasons given by the staff for the takedowns were as flimsy as the taking of an extra cookie during a meal, glaring at a detention facility guard, laughing, and placing sugar in one's own orange juice. The takedown that resulted from the glaring incident caused a broken collar bone.

Suggested Response from the New York Daily News

The New York Daily News offered very specific suggestions with regard to how our State should respond to the new awareness of just how poorly our juvenile detention center. At Manhattan Viewpoint, we hope that Governor Paterson and the State Legislature in Albany will follow the sentiments of the New York Daily News and begin to address the shocking abuses occurring regularly in our juvenile facilities. As the New York Daily News stated on August 28:

The abuses administered routinely in the state's youth lockups are beyond shocking. They are shamefully entrenched and demand an immediate fix. Before one more inmate has his or her teeth knocked out, before one more mentally ill teen is left in his or her own wastes:

Family Court judges must refuse to send additional teenagers into these snakepits.
Governor Paterson must transfer the facilities' 250 residents into secure, therapeutic custody elsewhere.
Gladys Carrion, the well-meaning commissioner of the Office of Children and Family Services, must make sweeping reforms - or get out.
The Legislature must empower Carrion or her successor to upgrade and train personnel and to fire those who use excessive force on residents.

Derek Jeter on MVP Pace in 2009

After last night's superb performance, it is clear that part-time Manhattan resident, Derek Jeter, deserves serious consideration for the 2009 Most Valuable Player Award in the American League.

In suggesting that the Yankee captain be the 2009 MVP, we mean no disrespect to the tremendous performance of Mark Teixeira in 2009 or to any other 2009 performance. But, we do believe that Derek Jeter is on a pace that should be recognized as the 2009 MVP performance by the Baseball Writers Association of America when they cast their votes in October of this year.

2006 Award

In 2006, Derek Jeter lost the MVP vote in one of the closest votes in history. His numbers were astronomical. He batted .343 and had a .417 on-base percentage. He had 14 home runs and 97 RBIs. Minnesota Twins slugger Justin Morneau won the 2006 award with a .321 batting average, 34 home runs and 130 RBIs. Both the Yankees and the Twins made the playoffs, and the fact that the Twins came from far behind in their division at the end of the season while Morneau rasied his batting average by nearly 100 points seemed to influence some of the voters. Both performances were worthy of an MVP award, but Morneau was chosen.

2008 Award

In 2008, Dustin Pedroia won the AL MVP award. He batted .326 and had a .376 on-base percentage. He had 17 home runs and 83 RBIs. While Pedroia's 2008 performance was quite clearly inferior to Derek Jeter's 2006 performance, Pedroia was a deserving MVP. He was a leader on a team that made the playoffs, and he was the offensive spark of that team. Interestingly, Pedroia was a middle-infielder when he won the award in 2008, and his offensive numbers reflected his position at the top of the batting order where RBIs don't come as easily as they do to those who hit in the middle of the line up.

2009 - Yankee Captain Deserving of Consideration

This year, after leading off last night's game with a home run off of Boston Red Sox ace Josh Beckett and collecting a second key hit later in the game, Derek Jeter is hitting .332 with an on-base percentage of .394. He already has 16 home runs with just slightly less than a quarter of the season to play, and he has 57 RBIs as a leadoff hitter. At this pace, the home runs could end up being greater than 20 and the RBIs could surpass Pedroia's 2008 mark of 83. In essence, Derek Jeter is surpassing Pedroia's 2008 performance, even if he is failing to equal his nearly unimaginable 2006 performance.

The most likely competition for the award comes, ironically, from Derek Jeter's own teammate Mark Teixiera, the 2006 MVP award winner Justin Morneau, and Morneau's teammate, catcher Joe Mauer. Two Yankees and two Twins. In politics, one might often be able to pick a running mate or run as a slate. Such arrangements are not available to these players, and often two players from the same team cost each other votes in the process. Mauer was the only player who had a better batting average than Derek Jeter in 2006, and Morneau was the only player with more MVP votes. However, there is reason to believe that the 2009 voting with disfavor Mauer and Morneau.

Team Success a Factor?

With rare exceptions, MVPs are chosen from teams that make the playoffs. There is a theory that is not shared by all but which is quite powerful and suggests that a player cannot be ultra valuable if his efforts fail to put his team in the playoffs. The old Ralph Kiner story about being told by the owner of his team that though Kiner's season had been spectacular, as a last place team, they could not have finished in a worse position if Kiner had played for another team. "We'll finish last without you." If the regular season is actually a competition for the right to play in the post-season, teams that don't make the post-season can be viewed as failures and their best performers ineligible to be the most valuable players in the entire league, given their apparent lack of value to their own teams.

Individual performances have, on occasion, been so much better than all other performances in the league for a given year that even a player on a last place team has won the MVP award. Alex Rodriguez did it in 2003, and Andre Dawson accomplished the same feat in 1987. These two last-place MVPs had performances that were so outstanding that the lack of success of their teams was overlooked by the Baseball Writers Association of America. But, most writers and most followers of Major League baseball believe that the most outstanding performance of a player on a team that earns a spot in the playoffs is the best definition of the MVP in the absence of a truly unimaginably outstanding performance by a non-playoff bound player, such as the 2003 and 1987 experiences. We should note that ever since 1995, four teams have made the playoffs in each league, and MVPs have almost uniformly come from those four teams. In previous eras, as few as one team from each league would enter the post season, and often, writers would pick the MVP from that one team. In 1934, Yankee Lou Gehrig won the Triple Crown and lost the MVP vote to a player from the team that won the pennant. In 1942 and 1947, the same thing happened to Ted Williams. In 1985, Don Mattingly won the American League MVP when the Yankees missed winning their division by just 2 games.

So, a more refined theory of MVP eligibility might be that 1) any player who far surpasses the performance of all other players is appropriate to consider for MVP; 2) in the absence of one dominant candidate, players whose teams either made the playoffs or came very close to making the playoffs should have an advantage in the MVP balloting.

In 2009, Morneau and Mauer are playing for a team that seems highly unlikely to make the playoffs. The Minnesota Twins have a losing record, and they are in third place in the weakest division in the league. While the Twins may experience a resurgence that changes their status, their current trajectory would leave them out of the playoffs and likely leave both Morneau and Mauer out of the MVP race.

Jeter for MVP

Of the teams that are likely to make the playoffs, the Yankees have the only legitimate MVP candidates. Teixiera and Jeter. Jeter has 21 stolen bases and plays the most difficult defensive position on the baseball field. We know that Derek himself would say that he cares little for individual awards and is focused only on winning a 27th championship for the New York Yankees. He is correct to have that attitude, but the Baseball Writers Association of America should take note: If the season ended today - just one day after Yankee captain Derek Jeter hit the first pitch of the game over the right field fence at Fenway Park in a huge game for the New York Yankees - the sometimes Manhattan resident Derek Jeter would have to be the most deserving. That is the easiest endorsement decision we've ever had at Manhattan Viewpoint.

Bill Thompson's Momentum in NYC Mayor's Race

After cutting Mayor Bloomberg's lead in half in late July polls versus late June polls, Bill Thompson got more good news last week when our city's most prominent and largest municipal union, DC 37, endorsed him for Mayor.

Thompson's July Surge

In June, polls showed Bloomberg with a 22 point lead over New York City Comptroller Bill Thompson in the Mayor's race. The gap of 54% to 32% was thought by many to be more likely to widen than to shrink as Mayor Bloomberg's limitless financial resources would drown out any efforts by Thompson to cut into the Bloomberg lead.

But, in July, the polls showed a shift. Suddenly, the Bloomberg lead was only 10 points, and the support for the two candidates stood at 47 to 37 - a race worth watching. Separately, another poll showed that while nearly three quarters of New York City residents believe that Mayor Bloomberg will win re-election to a third term, a majority of New York City residents would like to see a new mayor in City Hall in 2010.

There is some evidence that Bloomberg's enormous campaign spending is hurting his campaign rather than helping it. While Bloomberg has spent approximately $40 million running for re-election, Thompson has spent less than $2 million challenging him. That is a 20 to 1 advantage. In fact, Bloomberg is spending at a pace that is nearly double the record-setting pace he established when he was elected in 2005. Yet, the polls show that Bloomberg's spending is driving down his own popularity and boosting the support of his opponent, Bill Thompson.

At Manhattan Viewpoint, we called on Mayor Bloomberg to limit his own spending. We have also criticized Mayor Bloomberg's racialized policing and his record setting pace of stop and frisks of people of color in New York City, his shifting of gifted and talented public school locations from communities of color to white communities, as well as his underhanded and dishonest (though successful) effort to change the City Charter to allow him to run for a third term, and his love affair with regressive taxation. Perhaps, New York City voters are starting to see what we at Manhattan Viewpoint have been seeing from our headquarters in Upper Manhattan.

DC 37 Endorsement of Thompson Suggests Thompson Can Win in November

DC 37, New York City's largest municipal union, endorsed Bill Thompson for Mayor last week. We then witnessed Bloomberg launch into attacks on the union as irresponsible, while he also accused Bill Thompson of making irresponsible promises to the union. One of the union presidents had an explanation for why Bloomberg failed to get the support of DC 37.

"He's arrogant, too arrogant."

Arrogant, regressive, racially discriminatory, and declining in the polls - a naked emperor who is hoping that his beautiful robes can carry him through the November election.