New Yorkers insufficiently bemused by Mayor Eric Adams’ ongoing flirtations with dropping out of the mayoral race can now also take alarm at a developing city-charter crisis. The city council is reportedly scheming with members of the Board of Elections to block proposed amendments to the city charter on the November ballot. That would be against the public interest, and arguably contrary to the law.
The three proposed charter amendments in dispute (ballot questions two, three, and four) were drafted by a Charter Revision Commission (CRC) appointed by the mayor. The questions, if passed, would help expedite the construction of housing in the city, most relevantly by taking decision-making authority away from the council. They would also thereby deprive city councilmembers of long-enjoyed powers, like the ability to veto new developments in their districts.
That helps explain why the council late last month sent a letter to the Board of Elections demanding that the latter refuse to approve the CRC’s charter questions for the November ballot. Media reports indicate that a majority of board members might go along with the plan.
The letter is a mix of political arguments and legal concerns. We can dismiss the political points, which really should be addressed to the voters, not the ministerial body charged with administering elections.
The legal arguments are that the proposed ballot questions violate provisions of state law requiring that such questions “clearly . . . indicate the effect of their approval.” The council argues that “in particular, the three questions fail to inform voters that the ballot proposals will completely eliminate the City Council’s existing authority on behalf of the public to approve or modify a wide range of land use proposals.”
That contention is debatable, given that each of the ballot questions explains that a “no” vote “leaves” final decision-making authority on land-use matters to the council—but it’s the basis for the council’s request that the elections board find authority to reject the ballot questions. The statute that it would invoke to do so reads, in relevant part, “The county board of elections, not later than the fifty-fourth day before the day of a . . . general election . . . shall determine the . . . questions that shall appear on the ballot within the jurisdiction of that board of elections.”
The idea that this provision gives the Board of Elections authority to weigh the quality of the language submitted for referendum by a duly appointed CRC seems preposterous, and the council’s request outrageous. The board is not a legislature, and no law gives it authority to nullify the work of a CRC. Were the board to accede to the council’s request, the action would quickly move to the courts, where the CRC should prevail.
This potential end-run is just the latest turn in a year of political jockeying that has left the council feeling at a disadvantage. The CRC was duly constituted under state law, consisting of 13 members appointed by the mayor and with diverse experience in city government. The city council, however, separately appointed its own CRC. Under the law, a council-named CRC is superseded by one appointed by the mayor; the council is unhappy with this but accepts that only state legislation can change it.
The city council’s CRC published draft recommendations in June but has not yet issued a final report or draft ballot questions. Thus, getting the council’s proposals on the ballot is not the reason for the plot to spike the mayor’s ballot proposals. Rather, the council’s objection is to the substance of the proposals, which constrain its powers to regulate land use.
The council got those powers in a 1989 charter revision, approved by a voter referendum. Previously, final authority over land-use decisions rested with the Board of Estimate, a scandal-ridden body abolished in the charter change.
Powers exercised by the council can certainly be amended by another referendum, such as the one proposed by the mayor’s CRC. I’ve argued that the specific proposed changes would be beneficial for the city. Of course, voters could determine otherwise. The council is fully entitled to mount a public campaign in opposition to the proposals.
However, the council would clearly prefer not to do that, likely fearing that the proposals would pass over its opposition. Thus, the sneaky maneuvers with the Board of Elections.
There is an ongoing housing-supply crisis in New York city, a fact well-documented in the mayoral CRC’s final report. The report makes a compelling case that the length of the land-use review process, and the council’s practice of “member deference”—in which individual council members are granted vetoes over new housing developments in their districts—are important contributors to the crisis. The proposed charter amendments are meant to mitigate those problems.
Now the council is trying to play a weak hand in a last-ditch effort to stop these changes. The elections board should reject involving itself in such shenanigans. The council should fight its political battles in public, where it has to defend its record. Underhanded schemes to deny the voters a say, especially on a well-crafted effort at alleviating a crippling housing crisis, are simply wrong.
Photo: Leonid Andronov / iStock / Getty Images Plus
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