Testimony of NYC ADA President Marvin Rich

Before the Charter Revision Commission, 6/7/98

I am Marvin Rich, President of the New York City chapter of Americans for Democratic Action, the national liberal organization founded by Eleanor Roosevelt, Arthur Schlesinger, David Dubinsky, and others, in 1947.

 

Since we are being given exactly three minutes to testify, I won't waste much time in talking about the silly circumstances of this body's creation. The creation of this commission had nothing to do with any serious consideration of the best features of the city of the future, but it is rather a tactical move to keep some issues off the ballot. To propose permanent changes in a constitution as a tactical move in a war of lame-ducks goes too far.

 

Your commission, unlike any previous charter commission in this city's history, does not even pretend to represent a fair cross section of the views of city residents -- you are simply a group of friends and colleagues of the incumbent Mayor.

 

But what does not seem to have occurred to anyone, in this rush to judgment, is that the incumbent Mayor will only be in power for three and a half more years -- at the maximum. Even if you believe that the Mayor is never wrong and his opponents are always wrong, you should not be in the business of handing out powers to his successors, who are extremely unlikely to share the same views on public policy as he. It is one of the oldest rules of constitutional reform in a democracy that you should remember that the powers you claim today for yourself will some day be held by your political enemies.

 

We often hear that "socialism in one city" can't work -- why do you think that Stalinism in one city will? After all, the original proposals advanced by leaders of this body were to solve the "problem" of disagreement with the Mayor by simply "abolishing" his opponents, the Public Advocate and the Independent Budget Office.

 

As for the proposal to have non-partisan elections, Professors Robert Salisbury and Gordon Black pointed out a generation ago that "non-partisanship gives some additional weight to class by means of differential turnout, and this in turn gives upper income groups relatively greater power in the local community. . . . the effect is accounted for in terms of class rather than traditional party identification." ADA doesn't believe that the interests of the wealthy need MORE weight at this moment in New York's history.

 

Less polemically, the model of governance that New York City has been drifting toward for this whole century has been more British than American in inspiration. By the standards of Americans, Margaret Thatcher or Tony Blair are elected dictators. The only check on their power is an election five years down the road. In the case of term-limited incumbents, even that check is not very effective, as we have been learning in the last year. Not only does a system which concentrates all power in a single office run against the American genius of separated powers, but in this multi-ethnic city concentrating too much power in a single office is in itself dangerous and potentially divisive -- it is only too likely to turn elections into desperate "winner-take-all" struggles along the lines of 1989 and 1993. Dispersion of powers gives everyone a chance for a share -- that's the way it's done in our nation, and it ought to be the way it's done in our city.

 

In a city of eight million, are we really to believe that all wisdom resides in one man or one office? The nature of our society is that it requires a wide consensus in order to carry out any major objective. As George Kelling, the father of "broken-windows policing," points out, the recent victories over crime did not result from a single heroic Mayor but from a Mayor expressing a city-wide consensus, developed over years.

 

If this commission is to produce any positive result, it will have to be by persuasion and not by attack. Despite the bad circumstances of the creation of this commission, it can still do a good, modest job -- but that is true only if it reaches out to the many groups that have been involved in questions of charter reform day-in and day-out. And you should not be governed by false "deadlines" imposed by considerations of short-term political games.

 

Even if your final proposals are useful ones -- and I am optimistic enough to believe that is still possible -- the task of getting them into law is more difficult because of the course you have followed thus far.

 

After you finish these rushed "hearings," I hope that you will have more serious, extended discussions with a representative cross-section of experts and activists who have worked for years to make this a more livable, more prosperous city.

 

Thank you.