Your guide to NYC's public proceedings.
TESTIMONY
Testimony by Dr. Jessie Fields from Open Primaries on the fight for open primaries
1:41:20
·
3 min
Dr. Jessie Fields, a Harlem community doctor and board member of Open Primaries, testifies as an independent voter who is excluded from primary elections.
She calls closed primaries a form of "political discrimination" and urges the commission to advance the top-two nonpartisan primary proposal.
She argues that this system, used in 85% of U.S. cities, empowers voters over parties and special interests and would benefit all New Yorkers.
- Dr. Fields argues that forcing independent voters to join a party to vote in a primary is an unfair choice.
- She thanks the commission for considering a top-two nonpartisan primary system, noting it is the norm in most major cities.
- She believes this system puts voters in the driver's seat and would increase electoral competitiveness and improve representation.
- She invokes the legacy of civil rights leaders like Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. in her call to open the barriers of closed primaries.
Dr. Jessie Fields
1:41:20
Good evening.
1:41:20
Should I I'll begin.
Richard R. Buery Jr.
1:41:22
Yes, ma'am.
Dr. Jessie Fields
1:41:23
K.
1:41:23
Thank you for the chance to testify this evening.
1:41:27
I'm doctor Jesse Fields, Harlem community doctor and a board member of open primaries, and I'm one of the independent voters who is excluded from voting in primary elections.
1:41:40
I do not want to join a political party and our city should not be forcing me to make a choice between joining a political party whose longstanding hierarchical policies and practices I do not agree with, that making a choice between my opinions and voting in our taxpayer funded primary elections.
1:42:03
It's not a fair choice.
1:42:05
Closed primaries are a form of political discrimination.
1:42:10
And independent voters, independent New Yorkers who are registered to vote but don't wanna but but want to remain unaffiliated, we have waited long enough for equal voting rights.
1:42:23
We should not have to wait any longer.
1:42:27
I particularly want to thank this commission for focusing on top two nonpartisan primaries, nonpartisan elections.
1:42:35
85% of cities use this model including Dallas, Houston, Boston, Chicago, LA, and many more.
1:42:45
And these cities are functioning.
1:42:49
They have active political parties.
1:42:51
New York is an outlier.
1:42:54
Top two nonpartisan primaries put the voters put the voters in the driver's seat, not the parties and not the top down special interest.
1:43:03
The voters are empowered by nonpartisan top two primary elections.
1:43:09
There's a lot of special interests here that you're hearing from that say it's a bad thing or it's not it's not the right time, but there will never be a, quote, right time for them to give up their power.
1:43:23
That's the appeal of top two nonpartisan elections.
1:43:27
It empowers voters.
1:43:28
It's voter centric.
1:43:30
As your own interim report so aptly demonstrates, top two primaries not only would empower 1,000,000 New York City independents, they would increase electoral competitiveness and improve representation and turnout.
1:43:46
All New Yorkers would benefit.
1:43:49
So why wait?
1:43:51
We don't know exactly what some of the people such as doctor Martin Luther King junior and Fannie Lou Hamer, some of the people who fought for voting rights in this country, we don't know exactly what they would say if they were here to testify today.
1:44:08
But we do know what they said and did when they walked on this earth.
1:44:13
Eleven days before the successful completion of the Selma to Montgomery march, doctor King wrote, quote, when the full power of the ballot is available to my people, it will not be exercised merely to advance our cause alone.
1:44:28
We have learned in the course of our freedom struggle that the needs of 20,000,000 Negroes are not truly separable from those of nearly 200,000,000 in America, unquote.
1:44:39
I hope this commission seizes the moment and advances an initiative to open the barriers of closed primaries to those voters who have been excluded for far too long.
Ahmed Tigani
1:44:51
Thank