The race for the public advocate’s office in New York City needs to be explained. Like, what the heck is the public advocate’s job? Well, apart from being first in line to succeed the mayor in the event of resignation or something more lethal, the public advocate is charged with safeguarding the public’s interests in all matters. The word ombudsman is apt.
There is also a little secret about the position. It gives a politician a high profile without having any specific responsibility. In other words, you can’t blame the PA for things going wrong, but the PA can always get on the talk shows. The first PA, Mark Green, used his tenure to secure the Democratic nomination for mayor in 2001. Betsy Gotbaum succeeded him but retired from politics after two terms. There was a brief attempt to draft her for mayor as I recall. And, of course, the current occupant of the office is Bill de Blasio, the front-runner in the mayor’s race if the polls are to be believed.
Republicans Run — No One
On the Republican side, no one is running for the position this time around. That’s right. The GOP is simply conceding the job to the Democrats. In one way, this makes perfect sense. The Republicans don’t believe in paying salaries for superfluous functionaries, and surely, all elected officials should safeguard the public interests (quit smirking). And that means, the Public Advocate’s job doesn’t need doing. On the other hand, keeping a watch on government officials to make sure the taxpayers get what they paid for is a Republican virtue. In truth, the GOP just doesn’t have anyone who wants the damned job who could possibly win it.
Sidique Wai
So, on to the Democrats. We’ll go in reverse alphabetical order just for the fun of it, and that means Sidique Wai. Sidique is an immigrant from Sierra Leone, who arrived here in 1972. That makes him more of a New Yorker than me by a good decade and a half. If the race were based on who has the best American success story, he’d win in a landslide. Starting as a doorman, he was active in Local 32BJ and put himself through Fordham. He wound up as Deputy Director of NYU’s Institute of African-American Affairs and later became co-chair of NYU’s Association of Black Faculty, Administrators and Staff.
His current gig is administrative staff analyst/advisor to the NYC Police Commissioner, which means he tries to keep community-police relations cordial. And he believes policing is the top issue, followed by affordable housing and improving the economy. As PA, it is hard to see how he can create jobs, and to be honest, I am not so sure I’d want Ray Kelly’s people in that job. I think the position should be a bit farther away from the NYPD.
Daniel Squadron
Next is State Senator Daniel Squadron, who represents western Brooklyn and lower Manhattan in Albany. He’s a minion of US Senator Chuck Schumer; indeed, he was Chuck’s co-author of the book Positively American: Winning Back the Middle Class Majority One Family at a Time. Of the candidates running, he’s the only one with a big TV presence.
He has a position on just about everything. He opposes the Citizens United decision, supports LGBT rights, and has introduced several bills in Albany covering affordable housing, transportation, summer youth employment, gun control, and the usual pack of good-government liberal issues. A Yale man, he’s probably the biggest policy wonk on the ballot for any office this week.
Reshma Saujani
Third up is Reshma Saujani, a former litigator and former deputy public advocate. She’s a lawyer by training and worked off part of her $200,000 student debt at the white-shoe firm of Davis Polk and Wardell. Her interest in politics includes an internship in the White House Office of Public Liaison under President Clinton. Try as I might, I could not help but think of Monica Lewinsky when I read that. I know it’s wrong, and unfair, but well, there you have it. Blame Spitzer, Weiner and President Clinton.
She formed South Asians for Kerry in 2004, and she was a Hillary Clinton supporter in 2008, serving as vice-chair of the New York delegation to the convention that nominated Barack Obama. She lost a race for Congress in New York’s 14th CD, and she has started a nonprofit organization Girls Who Code, which aims to get females into tech jobs.
On the issues, she’s a Clintonista through and through — in another time, she (like the Clintons) would have been a Rockefeller Republican. There is a pro-business slant to her liberal positions — the dreaded triangulation. At the same time, she does have a view of immigrant, LGBT and women’s rights that is far more prominent and better developed than the others running in this race. She backs gun control, calls stop-and-frisk racist, and takes special notice of seniors. She wants to create a seniors’ advocate for New York City. It’s a nice idea, but then, shouldn’t the public advocate argue for seniors as part of the overall job?
Cathy Guerrero
Fourth is Cathy Guerrero, who describes herself as a “mother, university professor, small-business owner and athlete.” She is a fifth-generation Staten Islander, but she now lives in Manhattan. She teaches education and politics at Columbia as well as at NYU. She has a consultancy for small businesses and nonprofits, and has worked in the Archdiocese of New York in several high-profile roles.
Her pitch on the street is “Do you know what Guerrero means in Spanish? It means warrior,” implying that she’s a fighter. Her website doesn’t give a laundry list of issues and positions. Instead, she has four: education and children, where she will make sure my voice is heard; housing and homelessness, where she says something must be done — but I don’t quite know what; small business and union protection, where she notes she runs a business and her grandfather was a longshoremen, which is nice but tells us nothing; and veterans and their families, where she has the passion and the smarts to help them — how, I couldn’t tell you.
To be fair, the PA job doesn’t lend itself to specific actions, but rather, to setting priorities for using the “bully pulpit.” A fifth thing she lists on her website is a desire to make the office more relevant.
Letitia “Tish” James
And so finally, we reach Letitia “Tish” James, “a fighter for all New Yorkers.” She’s a former Assistant Attorney General under Eliot Spitzer and is a former public defender. She introduced the Safe Housing Act as a member of the city council, and she chaired the council’s Contracts Committee.
I applaud her for writing a coherent statement of what she will do, which allows me to note she’s against stop-and-frisk, wants to force companies that do business with the city to pay their workers more, and opposes school closings. All of which is great — then she says, “I will hold the mayor — whomever he or she may be — accountable and make sure our city continues to move in the right direction.” That suggests she understands the biggest job the PA has.
Those are the players, and frankly, I can’t find many differences among them. Public advocate is one of those jobs that doesn’t really lead so much as influence. If it weren’t for the fact that the PA is next in line for mayor, I’d say the job doesn’t matter much. But if something should happen to the mayor . . .
And maybe that’s the best way to choose. Forget voting for public advocate, vote for your next vice mayor.
Check out our guide to the Democratic Mayoral Primary.
One Comment
Leave a Reply