Testimony of NYC ADA President Marvin Rich

Before the Charter Revision Commission, 8/12/99

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, and David Dubinsky, among others, in 1947.

 

Karl Marx wrote, "history repeats itself, first as tragedy, then as farce." In the case of the recurring soap opera of City Charter Commissions appointed by this Mayor, it might better be said that "history repeats itself, first as farce, then as slapstick."

 

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

 

Last year's assignment was to keep Peter Vallone's referendum on Yankee Stadium off the ballot. This year is even worse -- it is a bill of attainder -- a constitutional change aimed at "getting" one man, Public Advocate Mark Green, out of the line of succession to the Mayoralty.

 

But, given the composition of this group, it seems to have broadened its assignment into a "wish list" of increased Mayoral powers and an attempt to get non-partisan elections into the City Charter, thinly veiled by several unnecessary constitutional provisions about guns.

 

As to 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 City's history.

 

As for the powers of the Mayor's office, 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 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 two years. 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. You may believe that the incumbent Mayor is a solitary superman who instantly solves every problem that reaches his attention, but as George Kelling, the father of "broken-windows policing," points out, even his greatest achievement -- the recent victories over crime -- did not result from a single heroic Mayor but from a Mayor expressing a citywide consensus, developed over years. We shouldn't forget that expansion of the police force began under David Dinkins.

 

On the other hand, this body is guided by the Mayor's own view, which prefers bitter conflict to consensus, and assumes that any attitude different from his, whatever the issue, must be a matter of either stupidity or moral turpitude. If your commission were to produce any positive result, it would have to be by persuasion and not by attack. But the sad truth is that very few in this audience trust you to pay even the slightest attention to anything we say, because we believe that you already know what you are going to do. It's hard to believe that Charter Commissions as matters of political expediency have become annual events. But as far as I can see, the only thing that would stop this annual farce is to defeat whatever proposals you make, and hope that future Mayors will learn from this Commission's bad example that the City Charter is the City's constitution, to be treated with respect rather than contempt.

 

Thank you.