The right way to rewrite the Charter
If you’re paying attention to the news, you might have noticed headlines about a new City Charter commission coming soon. If you’re paying close attention, you might have noticed that there are actually two Charter revision commissions on the way — one from Mayor de Blasio and one legislated by the City Council.
The average New Yorker might wonder if we really need two, and that’s a good question. But there are a lot of differences between the two, and I believe the Council’s version is much more beneficial for the people of New York.
You might think I’m biased as Council speaker, but hear me out.
On Wednesday, the Council overwhelmingly passed legislation — which I proudly sponsored along with Public Advocate Letitia James and Manhattan Borough President Gale Brewer — to establish the first City Charter commission since 1989 genuinely tasked with a top-to-bottom review of city government.
This commission is charged with independently examining everything the City Charter covers — from land-use policy to the city budget. It’s quite a mandate. Much debate has arisen since 1989 about the structure of our government, and this is the only way to effectively resolve the issues.
Our commission would have the power to conduct a holistic review of the land use process, including the pros and cons of current land-use review procedures; bring the budgeting process into the 21st century to make it more transparent and less wasteful; and examine the possibility of giving more independence to offices like the city controller and public advocate with oversight power over the mayor.
To be clear, the commission is by no means bound to look at these or any other issues.
That’s the point. It will be fresh eyes with no marching orders on what to examine, other than to find ways to make city government work most efficiently. This is a broad approach and nearly 30 years overdue.
De Blasio’s Charter Revision Commission has a different — and far narrower — agenda. The mayor has made clear that he is looking at ways to reduce campaign contribution limits, increase public funding for elections and enhance voter outreach.
Those are worthy goals. But frankly, they are not the systemic or structural issues that only a Charter commission can tackle. The issues the mayor wants to examine can and should be resolved through legislation. In fact, over the past three decades, the Council itself has routinely strengthened city campaign finance laws through legislation.
Good-government groups have also criticized de Blasio for cherry-picking and pre-determining his commission’s issues instead of encouraging members to act independently, the same criticism that they’ve had of other mayoral Charter commissions over the years.
Former Mayor Rudy Giuliani rolled out his 1998 commission for the stated purpose of enacting electoral reforms, but was also trying to block a ballot initiative to prohibit spending on a new Yankee Stadium in Manhattan. Since ballot questions created by a mayoral commission may bump some other ballot questions, Giuliani was able to table the Yankee Stadium question for a year.
In 1999, 11 of the 15 commission members Giuliani appointed had either served in his administration or were mayoral appointees to other boards. The stated goal of that year’s commission was to streamline city government, but the more likely aim was removing then-Public Advocate Mark Green — a Giuliani foe — from the mayoral line of succession in the event Giuliani won a Senate bid he was contemplating.
Former Mayor Michael Bloomberg also tried to remove the public advocate from the line of succession and used one of his commissions to keep a question about reducing class sizes off the ballot.
Our commission has no pre-set agenda other than to modernize and improve city government. It would have four mayoral appointees, four from the City Council speaker, and one each from the public advocate, controller and each borough president so that we have a broad array of perspectives and experience to draw from.
On Thursday, de Blasio announced the members for his commission, making clear that he is moving forward. So are we. We’d love him to change course, though that seems highly unlikely. You can’t fight City Hall. Or maybe you can? Perhaps our independent Charter commission will want to weigh in on that one.