Former U.S. Rep. Joe Crowley may get his revenge by proxy on Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez in a district attorney race -- after being embarrassingly dethroned last year.
Crowley,
previously a top Democrat whose years-long political career was
derailed by the self-described Democratic Socialist, is opposing
Ocasio-Cortez’s growing influence in New York state politics.
He’s helping raise money for Queens Borough President Melinda Katz, a
district attorney candidate who’s competing against public defender
Tiffany Cabán, the candidate backed by Ocasio-Cortez, Politico reported.
"Melinda
and I both grew up here, went to school here, have sung together at
countless community parties here, and most importantly have dedicated
our careers to improving the lives of the people who call this wonderful
borough home,” Crowley wrote in the fundraiser email, asking for
donations of $50 to $200.
“For as long as I’ve known Melinda, she’s always shared my commitment
to making Queens a safer, more just place for our families, and I know
she’ll do the same from the DA’s office.” Katz is among the
leading candidates in the seven-way Democratic primary to fill the seat
that became vacant after DA Richard Brown died last month.
Joe Crowley, the ex-congressman and former Queens Democratic leader who just landed a job at a powerhouse DC lobbying firm, is holding a St. Patrick’s Day campaign fundraiser March 9 as if he’s running for another office. After losing in a stunning upset to Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez in last June’s Democratic primary, Crowley created a new state campaign committee called “Joe for NY.” The move was a head-scratcher, since Crowley lost to Ocasio-Cortez by
15 points in a Bronx-Queens district that he represented for a decade. The fundraiser is raising even more eyebrows because Crowley last
week stepped down as the longtime Queens Democratic Party chairman after
taking a job at the lobbying firm Squire, Patton, Boggs — seeming to
remove himself from electoral politics. Tickets to the March 9 Crowley fundraiser at the Globe Tavern in Sunnyside, Queens, are going for $40 to $250. Crowley’s family resides in Alexandria, Va., though he has kept a house in Woodside, Queens.
Joe Crowley is leaving another elected office behind.
The
former New York congressman — who lost his longtime House seat to
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez in last year’s midterms — stepped down Tuesday
evening as the chairman of the Queens Democratic Party, telling the
Daily News, “It’s time to move on.”
“It’s
the right choice for my life,” Crowley said in a phone interview. “I’m
very proud of the work I’ve done. I got a great career and I enjoyed it
very, very much.”
The
former Democratic boss — who served as a representative for the
Queens-Bronx-spanning 14th District for 20 years and was considered a
possible candidate for House speaker before his midterm defeat — said
he’s resigning to dedicate himself wholeheartedly to his new job as a
lobbyist for Washington, D.C., powerhouse Squire Patton Boggs.
“That’s certainly part of it,” Crowley said, adding he will split his time between the capital and New York.
So that election hearing for the chair at the Georgia Diner was a colossal waste of time. Except to boost up Crowley's ego and fragile sense of self-worth and entitlement
Bipartisanship is tough to come by inside Congress, but two formerly powerful House members are finding it on the outside.
Former
congressmen Bill Shuster of Pennsylvania and Joe Crowley of New York,
who have known each other for about 20 years, plan to work together in
lobbying and government-relations.
Shuster, 58, who was chairman of the House Transportation Committee, retired.
Crowley, 56, once seen as a possible successor to Speaker Nancy Pelosi, lost his primary to now-Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.
The former congressmen are open to joining a firm, or starting their own.
Joe Crowley, the longtime New
York congressperson who was unseated in a primary by Alexandria
Ocasio-Cortez, remains extraordinarily popular among both Democrats and
Republicans in the House, making him K Street’s biggest whale for 2019.
Among the closest to landing him, according to sources familiar with
Crowley’s post-congressional employment journey, is the video game
industry’s lobby group, known as the Entertainment Software Association. Nintendo, Microsoft, Sony Interactive Entertainment, and Ubisoft are only some of the members of the ESA. Politico first reported
on Monday that Big Console is among the potential landing spots for
Crowley. The former New York congressperson has also had early
discussions with two other groups, Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld
and Hogan Lovells, according to the report. A spokesperson for the ESA said that Big Console is “not commenting
on the search process.
However, we will make an announcement when the
time is appropriate.” The video game industry’s top legislative concerns
involve rules around data privacy — they collect an awful lot of data —
as well as intellectual property, patent law, and net neutrality
regulations.
On hyper-local issues, however, upstairs-downstairs divides can become acute—and the symbolic positions that feel good on a national level can turn into real-world decisions that impact people’s lives. Most voters in liberal cities have seen these fights: Upscale parents in Democratic neighborhoods whose liberalism vanishes when it comes to bringing in students from poorer neighborhoods (as on Manhattan’s Upper West Side) or pooling PTA funds between richer and poorer schools (as in Santa Monica, California). This is even more common in the area of housing, and in particular affordable housing, where well-off liberals tend to lose interest in “affordability” the minute it threatens to change their neighborhoods or dent their real-estate values.
This problem played out in Queens as well, in a way that suggests the gulf between insider get-it-done politics and symbolic wins. On 82nd Street, just down the road from Crowley’s district office, developers proposed converting an abandoned movie theater into a 13-story mixed-use project with three stories of affordable units in it. Crowley was in favor of it—it meant permanent jobs at the Target that was going in on the ground floor, union construction jobs in the building of the thing, and more housing, in particular affordable housing.
Ocasio-Cortez opposed it, saying that it would bring gentrification and that the affordable housing wasn’t affordable enough. Politically, it was a winner for her: It gave her a chance to bash Crowley for being in thrall to the real estate industry. The portion of the district where it is slated to go up isn’t so much gentrifying as changing; Latinos are moving away and Asian immigrants are moving in. It has grown less white over the past decade, if anything, but she got a boost from the surrounding, whiter neighborhoods that have helped spearhead the opposition, fearing that the project was out of scale with the neighborhood and would increase vehicle and pedestrian traffic.
Ocasio-Cortez won the election, and three weeks later, the local councilman who supported the project withdrew his support. Neighborhood activists claimed victory—over the real-estate industry, over gentrification, over the old insider system.
Just one thing: The project is still going forward.
Crowley and other local elected officials had been negotiating with the developers to add more affordable housing, but once he lost, any leverage to add it to the project vanished. Legally, the developers can still build 10 stories without any go-ahead from the government—and without bringing any new affordable housing to Queens at all. Which is what the developers have suggested they intend to do.
Veteran Rep. Joseph Crowley, defeated by newcomer Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez in a primary election that shocked the political world, is laying the groundwork for a comeback.
Crowley has formed a state campaign committee “Joe for NY,” and is holding a fundraiser Oct. 29 at the Fitzpatrick Grand Central Hotel in Manhattan, where the maximum suggested donation is $10,000.
According to an email sent to “Irish Americans & Friends Crowley” by Walter Swett of the firm Dynamic SRG, who is the Crowley committee’s campaign treasurer, the group was “established to position Joe for future opportunities in public service.”
Outgoing Congressman Joseph Crowley has retained the chairmanship of the Queens Democratic Party–despite losing his primary to Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez in June.
The Queens Democratic Party voted 60 to four to reelect Crowley during a meeting at the Georgia Diner this morning, reported the New York Post.
Crowley, who has been the party’s chair since 2006, has been long known as a Queens “kingmaker” with powerful influence on party endorsements and appointments.
Although he lost by a wide margin to Ocasio-Cortez in June, his victory this morning suggests that he has managed to hold on to sway within the party, analysts said.
Among the four dissenting voters was Hiram Monserrate, who was elected a Democratic district leader for the 35th district last week, reported the New York Post.
City councilman Jimmy Van Bramer presides over one of New York City’s hottest real estate markets: western Queens. And one of its submarkets, Long Island City, is on track to get 6,200 new residential units by next year and sits at the heart of crucial zoning, infrastructure, transportation and urban planning issues that affect much of the city.
The 49-year-old councilman, who represents LIC, part of Astoria, Sunnyside and Woodside, was raised in his district by a printer father and painter mother, both union members. Since taking office in 2009, he has found himself facing down developers and community activists alike, while trying to stay true to both his core principles and his working-class neighborhood roots.
Over the past few years, he’s netted some victories for his district, like a new modern library for Hunters Point South in LIC and protected bike and bus lanes along Queens Boulevard. He’s also run into controversy over development and transit issues, like when he refused to greenlight a 2016 rezoning for a 200-unit affordable apartment building developed by Phipps Houses in Sunnyside. And last year he clashed with neighbors and businesses along Skillman Avenue in Sunnyside for proposing protected bike lanes there and along 43rd Avenue after two cyclists were killed by motorists. (After getting pushback from local merchants and the community board over bike lanes replacing parking spots, he abandoned the plan. Congressman Joe Crowley—recently unseated in a surprise victory by democratic socialist candidate Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez—even weighed in on Twitter to oppose the bike lanes.)
The New York Times called dozens of the Queens party machine’s nominees for county committee. The candidates for 21 seats were running without their consent.
Most of these candidates did not know they were running at all until a reporter told them; two, including Ms. Gambichler, found out when they got letters from the city Board of Elections showing how their names would appear on the Sept. 13 primary ballot. Only four candidates The Times spoke to said they were running on purpose.
The total number of unsuspecting candidates could be considerably higher: Party leaders fielded more than 1,300 nominees, at least a hundred more than in the last race in 2016.
What’s more, the machine is press-ganging nominees even as reform-minded candidates seeking the same entry-level seats at the table, inspired by Ms. Ocasio-Cortez and Bernie Sanders, are being disqualified in droves for falling afoul of complex filing rules.
It is not entirely clear why the party would want to populate the committee with people who did not know they were on it. But any seats filled by party candidates would not be filled by insurgents.
Many of the machine’s unwitting soldiers are elderly or in poor health, and were confused or upset to learn of their political careers from a reporter’s phone call.
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s upset victory over Rep. Joseph Crowley shocked New York political observers, in part because Crowley was thought to have a strong foothold in his native borough of Queens, where he is chairman of the county Democratic Party.
At first, it was assumed that demographic turnover in his district, which spans northwestern Queens and the northeastern Bronx, had harmed Crowley, as the Italian and Irish populations have been supplanted by Latinos and Asians.
Demographic turnover was indeed to blame for Crowley’s loss, but not the kind that was widely assumed. But some of the election districts in which Ocasio-Cortez performed best were in mostly white neighborhoods in western Queens. The congressman fell victim to gentrification and that force may upend expectations in Democratic primaries throughout Manhattan and western Brooklyn and Queens. And the rise of younger voters who are newer to their districts and unattached to incumbents could power insurgent candidates throughout New York City.
So you had your minions usher in all this development for tower people and the tower people voted against you. How deliciously ironic!
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, a 28-year-old socialist who made New York’s affordable housing crisis a focal point of her Democratic primary campaign for the House of Representatives, defeated Rep. Joe Crowley of Queens by a stunning 15 point margin on Tuesday.
During the 2018 election cycle, Crowley, who represents New York’s 14th Congressional District and has long headed the Queens County Democratic machine, raised more money than he ever had before, bringing in $3.4 million, according to election data analyzed by the nonprofit group Open Secrets. The most generous industry was real estate, which accounted for at least $380,000, or more than 10 percent of the total raised.
Other major donors perhaps not represented in that total are also connected to real estate. Executives from Blackstone Group, the investment firm that is one of New York City’s largest landlords, gave $35,000, making it one of Crowley’s biggest corporate donors. This included donations from Jonathan Gray, the company’s current COO and former head of real estate, who gave $5,400. And Votesane PAC, a political action committee that counts many realtors as contributors, was another of Crowley’s largest donors this cycle, with $76,500 donated, records show.
Crowley’s most prominent real estate donors over the last 18 months included Related Companies executives, members of the Rudin real estate family, Rob Speyer, Jed Walentas, William Mack, Joseph Simone, Frederick Elghanayan, Scott Rechler, John Catsimatidis, Jeff Gural, landlord SL Green Realty and Washington lobbying group the Real Estate Roundtable.
Ocasio-Cortez campaigned against the influence of real estate money in New York City politics. “It’s time we stand up to the luxury developer lobby. Every official is too scared to do it – except me,” she tweeted in April. As of June 6, she had raised $301,000 for her campaign from 180 donors, federal elections records show. About a quarter of that came from Democratic candidate-supporting fundraising platform ActBlue.
THE RISE OF Congressman Joe Crowley, D-N.Y., has coincided with lucrative lobbying contracts for his younger brother, John Crowley, an attorney who goes by the first name Sean, and previously specialized in wills and estate law.
Sean Crowley serves as a partner at Davidoff Hutcher & Citron LLP, a powerhouse law firm with offices in Albany, New York City, and Washington, D.C., that advertises its ability to connect clients with congressional leadership.
Over the last decade, clients with interests before Congress have retained Sean Crowley through his lobbying firm, paying more than $4.5 million to influence and monitor government policies, according to a review of contracts by The Intercept.
Clients in recent years have included Oracle, AbbVie, NBCUniversal, Juniper Systems, New York Community Bancorp, Abbott Labs, and Elections Systems & Software.
In many cases, the interests of Sean Crowley’s clients have overlapped with his elder brother’s legislative and political work.
Wow, you don't say? Now why did the Queens Courier choose to print this 900+ word ass licking piece instead of delving into this shady business?
HOUSE DEMOCRATIC CAUCUS Chair Rep. Joe Crowley, D-N.Y., is raising last-minute campaign cash from a corporate lobbying firm famous for its ties to the Republican Party.
Faced with a surprisingly strong challenge from progressive first-time candidate Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez in New York’s Democratic primary, Crowley, the fourth-ranking House Democrat, is slated to appear at the the offices of BGR Group on 13th Street in Washington, D.C., on Wednesday afternoon for a fundraising reception, according to a copy of an invitation obtained by The Intercept.
The fundraiser is at an odd venue for a Democrat who claims to be an avowed opponent of the GOP.
The invitation lists Crowley’s position in leadership of the Democratic Party and as a member of the powerful Ways & Means Committee, which oversees tax policy. The fundraiser, which asks for $500 minimum to attend as an individual and $1,000 to attend for political action committees, is at an odd venue for a Democrat who claims to be an avowed opponent of the GOP.
BGR is named for its founding partners, all of whom are Republican: Haley Barbour, the former Republican National Committee chair; Ed Rogers, a former aide to President Ronald Reagan; and Lanny Griffith, a former education official in President George H.W. Bush’s administration.
What fantastic "progressive" values! Champion of the Democratic Party! Our next House Speaker! Hip, hip, hooray!
Above is a link to the debate between Joe Crowley, 20 year incumbent, and newcomer Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.
During this debate, a stuttering Crowley was so nervous that he used the term "meat & butter" instead of "meat & potatoes" or "bread & butter", which is what it appeared he was trying to say.
He repeatedly lied about living in Woodside, and said his family lives in Virginia because raising a family was "hard". (Her comeback on this was priceless.)
He's head and shoulders above anyone else because he grew up in Woodside, because it's so diverse! (Yet when he grew up there, it was like 85% Irish.)
He also claims that the controversial Jackson Heights project that he and his puppets Katz & Moya supported against the wishes of the community was approved by the community board, when it actually went down in flames there.
He also has convinced himself that he has a history of electing "progressive" candidates although he supported the likes of Christine Quinn and Paul Vallone and had several non-compete agreements with Republicans.
I'll tell you right now that the lady came out looking like a champ in this one, with well thought out responses and revealing a distinct platform.
The Queens Machine boss then doubled down on his BS by skipping out on a debate in the Bronx. From City & State:
At a congressional primary debate between Rep. Joseph Crowley and his Democratic challenger Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, there was a notable absence: Crowley.
The debate, hosted by The Parkchester Times in the Bronx and moderated by reporter Robert Press, instead featured a surrogate on the part of Crowley. Debating Ocasio-Cortez in his place was former New York City Councilwoman Annabel Palma.
Palma, who was term-limited out of office at the end of 2017, now serves as the deputy commissioner of strategic initiatives at the city Department of Social Services. She was ranked by City & State as one of the five worst city councilmembers in 2016.
According to journalist Robert Press, who moderated the debate, Palma began discussing her record as a New York City councilwoman. Press said he had to remind her that she was there to represent Crowley and discuss congressional issues. Palma told City & State that she focused on her joint work with Crowley while she was in the City Council and what she witnessed him doing for her community.
Was his cousin Elizabeth too busy for this? Or did he just want one of his Hispanic minions to represent him in a debate against another Hispanic person? Whatever the case is, it speaks volumes about the type of elected this guy is if nothing else we have brought you does.
Someone brought this to my attention. Mr. Crowley sat for a video that not only assails Donald Trump but also the fact that he lived in a semi-suburban community that had big houses and lots of trees. This describes a nice chunk of Crowley's district, so one has to wonder why he doesn't call out his own constituents for being white supremacists as he believes this is what led to Trump becoming an asshole?
Sweeney’s office, according to the Daily News, made $30 million as counsel to the public administrator of the court from 2006 to 2017, administering the estates of people who died without wills. He did not respond to The Intercept’s request for comment, and he declined to comment to the Daily News last year about his work. Scott Kaufman, who served as Crowley’s campaign treasurer for 17 years, made almost half a million dollars from assignments by the court from 2006 to 2017, the New York Post reported last June. Kaufman’s haul prompted a state probe into possible pay violations. He did not return The Intercept’s request for comment, but he told the Post last year that he was in compliance with state rules on court appointments. “Any review will conclude that the rules have been complied with,” Kaufman said. A spokesperson for the Office of Court Administration declined to comment on the investigation, but noted that “Scott Kaufman is currently eligible for appointments,” meaning he is still able to accept court appointments as a public administrator.
Crowley’s allies in the machine, Ocasio-Cortez charged, “defend him in court and they bump his opponents off the ballot,” referring to ballot challenges filed with the Board of Elections against candidates Crowley did not support or who oppose the machine. Last year, as DNAInfo reported, a candidate in a City Council primary was booted from the ballot for not having enough valid signatures; she said she was bullied for not “kissing the ring” of the party boss, Crowley. In that race, Crowley supported Assemblyman Francisco Moya, who went on to defeat Hiram Monserrate, a former council member and state senator who was expelled from the legislature after a 2009 conviction for assaulting his girlfriend.
The machine has a tight relationship with developers. Ocasio-Cortez noted in a follow-up email that Crowley’s organization reaped large sums of real estate money before the Queens machine installed the new City Council speaker, Corey Johnson, who has since “led the council in rezoning neighborhoods for luxury developments — pricing out local families and constructing high rises when the city already has 275k vacant units.”
Pelosi has been in power so long that only 58 House Democrats seeking re-election this fall have known another floor leader. In the interim, a long line of lawmakers viewed as potential future speakers have taken themselves out of the running. First, Rahm Emanuel left to be White House chief of staff and then mayor of Chicago. Then, Chris Van Hollen opted for a Maryland Senate seat, Xavier Becerra opted to be California attorney general, and Debbie Wasserman Schultz of Florida was fatally sidetracked by her national party chairmanship.
Crowley remains the only member mentioned among that group who’s still got a shot.
To take it will require him to win an 11th term, of course, which is proving more work than usual. The district, which covers northwest Queens and a slice of the Bronx, is lopsidedly Democratic, but in June he faces his first contested primary in 14 years against Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, a 28-year-old political operative and community organizer running an impassioned grass-roots campaign to his left.
“We have basically, on one side, a multimillion-dollar machine candidate that was never elected, who does not live in the district — he lives in Virginia, his children go to public school in Virginia,” she told the Queens Courier. “It’s really kind of the pinnacle of someone who is a little out of touch but very influential.”
Her reference is to the old-school way Crowley cruised into Congress after a dozen years in the state Assembly: His mentor Thomas Manton, who was both the Queens Democratic chairman as well as a congressman, announced his retirement from the House so late in the 1998 campaign that it was effectively up to him as the party boss to pick a replacement nominee. (Crowley has been county chairman himself since Manton died in 2006.)
Now, he portrays his blue-collar sensibilities as just right for leading his party in combating a president “born on the other side of the tracks” — meaning the Long Island Expressway, which separates Crowley’s Elmhurst from Donald Trump’s Jamaica Estates.
Like the president, Crowley said early in the Trump administration, he’s ready to use colorful language to express outrage and frustration and aims to “talk turkey and talk straight” to workers. “Part of my strength is that I come from the same borough,” he added. “Maybe I sound a little bit like him. But my life could not be more divergent.”
Italicized passages and many of the photos come from other websites. The links to these websites are provided within the posts.
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