Tuesday, September 9, 2008

Understanding how the Queens Machine works

Excellent post over at Room Eight:

Completive elections throughout the city are the exception. There are 32 legislative seats open in this week’s Primary in Queens (6 Congressional, 7 Senate, 18 Assembly and 1 Council). But there are only three Primaries – the rest are uncontested — due largely to the Queens Democratic Organization’s legal firm and political power. If they can’t talk you out of running, they can challenge your petitions from the Board of Elections through the Court system, exhausting you and your campaign war chest. Their candidates need not spend a cent or a moment, while Democratic challengers are tied up in court going through tens of thousands of dollars in legal fees. Two incumbents and one challenger in Queens were talked out of running to avoid competitive elections in Queens, State Senator Sabini, Assemblyman Lafayette, and Albert Baldeo who got 49% of the vote against a republican incumbent without the help of his own democratic party.

This conspiracy by insiders to shut down New York’s election system is creating a new type of England’s Hanover dynasties, where only family members or extended family members (chief of staff, campaign workers) replace incumbent elected officials. This insider caste system now works more for the special interests than for the people who make up the neighborhoods of this city. How else can you explain why the City Council votes for tax breaks for developers who are doing more harm to New York’s neighborhoods that Robert Moses ever dreamed?

The Parkside Group as campaign consultants helped elected Gifford Miller to Council Speaker and several Queens City Council members in 2001. Between 2002 - 2005 they made over 7 million in fees, mostly in non profits who needed their help to lobby Miller and the Queens councilmember’s for member item funding from the city budget for their groups. With all the scandals coming out in the past year it surprising why the system that elected the speaker of the council has not been examined more closely by the media.

While the Tammany Hall system of government was corrupt and kept much of the money they took from the City’s budget, they were forced to give some of it to the poor, working class, who votes they needed at election time. The new lobbyists/ consultants are answerable to nobody; they keep all their money for themselves and for their summer homes in the Hamptons.

13 comments:

Anonymous said...

Today is Primary Day: vote for Baldeo

Anonymous said...

Great Post
Me and my family are voting for Baldeo today

Anonymous said...

I call on the Republicans of Washington to have the Federal Government step in, and like they did in the South back in the sixties, have judges investigate the machine in Queens for conspiracy to deny American citizens the right to vote.

You read it first here folks

Anonymous said...

May I show you something in a herringbone "TWEED" ?

Anonymous said...

Today's Daily News

Why Sheldon Silver - and other bums - stay in power

"The same goes for the vast majority of his fellow legislators. They collectively enjoy an approval rating of 26%, lower even than that of President Bush. Yet recent history indicates that Albany pols are more likely to be caught in bed with an intern or indicted for corruption than voted out at the polls.

Why? Because the game is rigged. Silver and Senate Majority Leader Dean Skelos run the Legislature as a thinly disguised incumbent-protection racket.

Virtually every step the leaders take - from gerrymandering legislative districts, to shaking down deep-pocketed interests for campaign donations, to spending liberally on taxpayerfinanced newsletters, to doling out hundreds of millions in pork-barrel grants - is geared toward keeping members immune from defeat."

Frank Lloyd Crap said...

Crappy, how bout you put Joe Crowley's face on that fat cat?
It's time we pay tribute to the boss of our legalized mafia.

Anonymous said...

I wish we had Tammany Hall back. At least we would get hot coals at christmas

Anonymous said...

How much does the queens machine make off the queens courts? I noticed all the judges running this year were unopposed. Does anyone know

Anonymous said...

"I noticed all the judges running this year were unopposed."

They haven't had the Supreme Court Judicial Convention yet.

Anonymous said...

Skelos? Are you daft? The Senate districts were drawn up years ago, and the demographics have just about run the GOP totally out of power in the State.

Unless people remember what happened in the Cuomo era, that is.

Anonymous said...

Crime does not pay ... as well as politics.
Alfred E. Newman

“The accomplice to the crime of corruption is frequently our own indifference”

Anonymous said...

Soon Joe's gonna put his clubhouse's name on a firehouse pumper just like Boss Tweed did !

Anonymous said...

Crowley's an Archie Bum-ker!