What Power Does New York City's Mayor Have In A Crisis Like This? | |  | | Michael Appleton/Mayor's Office | |
As recently as six months ago, Bill de Blasio was actively trying to get out of his job as the mayor of New York City.
Now, he's being forced to manage a crisis that will define his legacy. And the process so far has been marked by two familiar problems: the limits of mayoral power, and his penchant for bad optics.
On the first point, my colleague Brigid Bergin writes that there are many things the mayor of the biggest city in the United States ultimately doesn't control:
"For one, he needs help from the state and federal leaders with whom he does not always get along. He's spent weeks urging President Donald Trump to use the full powers of the Defense Production Act to help address the city's exponential need for supplies. He's also been repeatedly bigfooted by Gov. Andrew Cuomo, from the decision to postpone the St. Patrick's Day Parade to closing city schools and playgrounds.
"The mayor has ideas about what should happen. He just can't enact them on his own. We've already seen him float ideas, like a shelter in place order for the city, only to have the governor criticize it and essentially co-opt it days later, calling it by another name. In this case, there's no question more medical personnel are needed. What's not clear is if the mayor will be the most persuasive messenger for the kind of national program he's seeking."
What's also unclear is whether the mayor can be a persuasive messenger about anything when his message keeps changing so dramatically — and as he continues to contradict his own guidance.
A detailed timeline on Gothamist shows that throughout February, as the virus was likely spreading in the U.S., de Blasio repeatedly told New Yorkers to go about life as normal. On March 2nd — the same day San Francisco's mayor was telling residents to plan for school closures and sick family members — de Blasio tweeted that people should "get out on the town despite coronavirus," and then gave a movie date suggestion.
On March 14th, while Dr. Anthony Fauci was recommending a 14-day national shutdown, the mayor still pushed back against calls to close bars and restaurants.
And on March 16th, both the Daily News and the New York Times reported that city health officials had threatened to resign if de Blasio continued to not take the advice of doctors in his own administration.
Even once it became tragically clear that New Yorkers couldn't go about life as normal, the mayor continued to flout social distancing guidance. The day after declaring that restaurants would have to switch to take-out-only, he went to the Prospect Park YMCA to work out. And last weekend, after recommending that New Yorkers wear a "face covering" when going outside, he and his wife were spotted walking in Prospect Park...without anything covering their faces.
On The Brian Lehrer Show this morning, City Councilmember Ritchie Torres — who recently recovered from COVID-19 himself — said that while de Blasio "was slow to act in the beginning," the mayor has been focused on the right things these past few weeks. Namely, building out surge capacity in the city's hospitals.
"Make no mistake. There's been a failure of pandemic preparedness at every level of government," Torres said, adding that the decades-long public health problems now leading to higher death rates in the Bronx are ultimately the fault of the federal government's disinvestment in cities.
[N.S.: What a despicable liar he is. Besides, "Obama" was president, albeit illegally, form 2009-2017, or has Torres forgotten?]
But if de Blasio lacks the resources or authority to make every change he wants, the second-term mayor must know by now that part of the job involves being a role model for his 8.6 million constituents.
Bergin again:
"People saw him at the park and it was an opportunity to show New Yorkers that even the mayor is wearing a face covering outside — no big deal, you can do it, too. Instead, de Blasio lost another opportunity to lead by example."
| | Meanwhile, Do New York State Lawmakers Have Any Involvement Here? While Gov. Andrew Cuomo has proceeded to become a highly active emergency response manager — and a national TV star — it's unclear if state senators and assemblymembers will even vote again before January.
To rewind: Cuomo and the more progressive wing of the state Legislature entered 2020 with conflicting goals. The governor wanted cuts to Medicaid spending. Left-leaning lawmakers wanted a tax hike for millionaires. And then the pandemic hit, creating a warped budget negotiation process that favored the governor and shut out a lot of progressive priorities.
Probably the biggest piece of legislation that lawmakers passed this year (besides the Cuomo-friendly budget) is one that gives the governor sweeping new powers for dealing with the coronavirus.
But with big debates over issues like legal weed and sex work now pushed aside, there's still a fundamental question at hand for all New York constituents: Will your elected representatives spend the rest of the year on the sidelines, or will they be involved in shaping the state's response to this pandemic?
Legislative leaders insist they haven't checked out for good.
"Last week we established a system for remote voting," Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie said on Saturday, "and we are on call to perform our constitutional duties as a co-equal branch of government."
It's unclear what "on call" will look like as the year progresses. (Politico) | | Wisconsin IS Holding A Primary Today Out of concerns for public health — and after 7,000 poll workers said they wouldn't show up — Wisconsin Gov. Tony Evers on Monday postponed the state's presidential primary the day before it was scheduled to take place. Then the Wisconsin Supreme Court immediately overturned that executive order.
So today, in a state that issued a stay-at-home order over two weeks ago, people in masks are lining up (six feet apart) to vote. That is, if they find a polling place and have the time to wait.
The Times reports that in Milwaukee, which was set to have over 180 polling locations, only five are open after so many poll workers called out. There were 2,400 National Guard members being trained to work the election statewide, but that figure won't nearly make up for the number of workers staying home.
Bernie Sanders said yesterday that he was suspending his campaign's get-out-the-vote efforts in the state, adding that "holding this election amid the coronavirus outbreak is dangerous, disregards the guidance of public health experts, and may very well prove deadly."
Joe Biden said last Thursday that he thought in-person voting could still be done safely, though he conceded that "that's for the Wisconsin courts and folks to decide."
A win for Biden, who has been leading in Wisconsin polls for the past month, could push Sanders to drop out of the race.
But the results won't be in for another week — in the legal back and forth over how and when to hold the primary, the end result was that all absentee ballots must be postmarked by the end of today, but the winner won't be announced until Monday, April 13th. (NPR) | | City Councilmember Torres On COVID-19 In The Bronx Hear the full interview with Torres about how his borough is dealing with the pandemic, and what his own experience of having the coronavirus was like. | | | | | |
No comments:
Post a Comment