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TESTIMONY
Testimony by Ben Weinberg, Director of Public Policy at Citizens Union, on election reform, mayoral removal, and ethics oversight
1:47:19
·
5 min
Ben Weinberg from Citizens Union presents proposals to strengthen NYC democracy and governance, focusing on combating declining voter turnout by moving city elections to even years and opening the closed primary system to unaffiliated voters (potentially via a top-two primary). He also advocates for creating a clear, charter-based process for mayoral removal due to misconduct and strengthening the Conflicts of Interest Board (COIB) with an independent, increased budget.
- Recommends moving city elections to even years to boost turnout.
- Advocates for opening the primary system to over 1 million unaffiliated voters.
- Supports creating a charter mechanism for mayoral removal for misconduct.
- Recommends independent and increased funding for the Conflicts of Interest Board (COIB).
Ben Weinberg
1:47:19
Good Good evening.
1:47:33
My name is Ben Weinberg.
1:47:35
I am the policy director at Citizens Union.
1:47:38
First, I wanna thank the commission and the commissioners for holding this hearing.
1:47:42
I know you are a housing folks commission, so we are grateful of you holding a government reform on not one hearing, but two.
1:47:50
Today, we published a report that lays out a series of recommendations and reforms we believe are needed to strengthen our democracy, our ethics laws, and our checks and balances in city government.
1:48:02
In my remarks today, I'll I'll just focus on a few key proposals, but our report includes more than that.
1:48:08
So I welcome any questions and comments on any proposal there.
1:48:11
So first on democracy and elections.
1:48:15
The slide which I asked to put up the screen there, thank you very much, illustrates an alarming trend we have with voter turnout in city election.
1:48:24
It's dropping.
1:48:25
It's declining for decades.
1:48:27
If you see the orange line, it basically drops with every cycle.
1:48:31
The orange line, there's the mayoral turnout.
1:48:33
In the last in all election, less than one in four registered voters cast a ballot.
1:48:39
That was a historic blow.
1:48:41
Now we've done a lot to make voting easier in New York, but we haven't really been able to move the needle on voter turnout.
1:48:47
So we have to reverse the trend, and we have two recommendations for that.
1:48:51
One is moving our city elections to even years.
1:48:55
So our all year election calendar is really suppresses border turnout up and down the balance, and that's clear from every start, campaign, or experience of other cities.
1:49:06
Turnout from mayor is not only very low.
1:49:09
It's also our electorate is older, is wider, and is wealthier than the city of the whole.
1:49:14
Now the impact of moving the election year would be significant.
1:49:18
And if you click the next slide, you'll see how other cities that have changed their election year, how how that impact the turnout over there.
1:49:26
Now the state legislator already moved many local elections to be in the year, and there is an ongoing campaign to amend the state constitution, which currently requires, unfortunately, that our city elections will be on on year.
1:49:38
So our ask from the commission is first to kind of support that effort to increase Alberta turnout, and secondly, to consider what how the charter might need to be changed should the constitution change.
1:49:49
The second point is about opening our primary system.
1:49:51
So, you know, our closed partisan primary system currently excludes over a million unaffiliated voters from being able to participate in our elections or in our primary, and that number keeps going up.
Richard R. Buery Jr.
1:50:02
So if you can click to the
Ben Weinberg
1:50:03
next slide, you'll see the number of unaffiliated voters is on the rise.
1:50:07
We know from studies that these voters want to participate.
1:50:12
They want to be part of of of our primary system.
1:50:16
Our proposal is to behold a two what's called the top two primary system that's used in California and Washington and other jurisdictions.
1:50:23
And but there are other ways to go about it.
1:50:27
The other reform I'll mention here was I mentioned earlier about checks and balances, and that is, you know, a glaring omission in our charter, which is the which became apparent lately, and that is that we don't have a clear process for removing a mayor for exceptional circumstances related to its contact.
1:50:46
And removal does rest only the power rests with the governor who reads absolute authority.
1:50:51
We do feel strongly that the charter should establish a revert a removal mechanism that would be practical, fair, and balanced.
1:50:58
That's easier said than done.
1:51:01
And we detail in our reports several challenges.
1:51:03
You know, impeachment was mentioned earlier, but impeachment is usually a two step process.
1:51:08
We have two chambers, but in New York City,
Shane Moynihan
1:51:10
we have only one legislative chain.
Ben Weinberg
1:51:12
There's also recall elections, but recall elections is kinda has a mixed history, I would say.
1:51:17
And there are also risks of partisanship, obviously.
1:51:20
We are working on a more detailed proposal and look forward to presenting it to this commission in the future.
1:51:25
And I was just calling to commissioners so we know that we are very supportive of changing state law to limit the power of the governor as well.
1:51:33
Finally, in all of our ethics, our report lists several ways to strengthen our anti corruption regulatory regime.
1:51:40
One way is to strengthen the conflicts of interest forward.
1:51:43
The COAB has a very critical role that face budget stagnation and staff cuts.
1:51:49
There's a tension with the COB budget.
1:51:52
The people who funded that agency are the people who are regulated by that agency.
1:51:56
Other agencies in that same situation have received protected or independent budget, like the campaign finance board or the public advocate or the CCRB in another context.
1:52:05
So we do recommend providing the COIB with independent budgets and significantly increased budgets.
1:52:12
And if that is provided to increase their powers to several other areas, which we detailed in the report, including lobbying to oversight.
1:52:21
Again, I wanna thank you for your work and your commitment and your public service, and I'm happy to answer.