Congressional primary roundup

Not mentioned here is a pretty interesting race in Brooklyn. Yvette Clarke vs. Adam Bunkeddeko. She won. But barely.

Change is in the air.

Grimm resigning

From the NY Observer:

It’s official: Congressman Michael Grimm will serve just five days of the term he won in November.

Mr. Grimm, a Republican, confirmed late Monday night in a statement that he would resign from the House of Representatives effective January 5. The resignation comes after he pleaded guilty last Tuesday to a single count of felony tax evasion at a restaurant he owned before running for Congress.

“This decision is made with a heavy heart, as I have enjoyed a very special relationship and closeness with my constituents, whom I care about deeply,” Mr. Grimm said. “The events which led to this day did not break my spirit, nor the will of the voters. However, I do not believe that I can continue to be 100% effective in the next Congress, and therefore, out of respect for the Office and the people I so proudly represent, it is time for me to start the next chapter of my life.”

Dan Donovan is considered the strongest candidate to replace Grimm.

NYPD is the wrong target

Why Did the Protesters Go After the Cops When It Was Elected Officials That Control the Prosecutorial System That Let the Garner Chokehold Cops Go?

Pols Set-Up Cops: Blame Game

Community activist Tony Herbert who introduced a family member of officer Rafael Ramos, said it the best: elected officials are using the cops, turning the community against them. 

Herbert asked why are the elected officials forcing to the cops to raise money for the city? The relationship between the community and the police is strained, Herbert said, cops are forced to give out parking tickets, act as tax collectors for government. That creates tension between the community and cops. 

Herbert also has complained about why the cops are forced to deal with people who have mental problems, when it was the elected officials who have not properly dealt with that population. Police did not cause bad schools, high black unemployment, homelessness or the inequities of the criminal justice system that puts male blacks in jail at a much higher rate, elected officials did. 

In other words, he says, the pols use the cops. Yet they have to deal with the problems that are created by government failure. The pols have escaped any blame with the Grand Jury system which they control. It was the Grand Jury run by the Staten Island DA Donovan that failed to indict the cop who put the chokehold on Garner. Yet the words out of de Blasio, Sharpton and dozens of elected officials many, who have a say on how the state's prosecutorial system works, have all been directed to blame the cops.

Peace on Earth, goodwill to men.

Vito probe closed

From the NY Post:

State Assemblyman Vito Lopez, who was accused of groping young female staffers, is not expected to be charged criminally following a months-long investigation, The Post has learned.

Staten Island District Attorney Dan Donovan, who is operating as a special prosecutor, is expected to announce today that his investigation didn’t find enough evidence to charge Lopez, sources told The Post.

The harassment allegations lodged by two Lopez staffers last summer led to the revelation that Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver had quietly authorized a payment of $103,000 in taxpayer funds to settle previous allegations by two other women against Lopez.

The controversy rocked the state’s political hierarchy and sparked an investigation by the state’s Joint Commission on Public Ethics.

In February, the commission issued a scathing 58-page report to the Legislative Ethics Commission and Donovan, who asked the LEC not to release it until his investigation into the allegations was finished.

With Donovan’s probe complete, the LEC is expected to release the report as early as today. The report was so explicit in outlining how Silver’s staff handled the allegations that members of the LEC asked JCOPE to redact it.

From the Politicker:

Although Assemblyman Vito Lopez was cleared of criminal charges today, the same can not be said of a highly-revealing report from the New York State Joint Commission on Public Ethics–which concluded that Mr. Lopez fostered a shockingly sordid work environment in clear violation of official standards of conduct.

In the scathing 68-page report, Mr. Lopez–who was stripped of his powerful committee chairmanship and his position atop the Brooklyn Democratic Party after sexual harassment allegations first surfaced last year—engaged in such acts as hanging mistletoe in his district office and forcibly kissing a staffer, shoving his hand “all the way up” the inner thigh of another staffer and more. Mr. Lopez has insisted he’s done nothing wrong.

With minimal paraphrasing, Politicker has compiled some of the most shocking findings detailed in the JCOPE report...

The latest in the Gropez saga

From the Village Voice:

Much to the dismay of the National Organization of Women, women's rights attorney Gloria Allred, Assembly candidate Frank Commisso Jr., and thousands of New Yorkers, we're sure, Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver is off the hook for his tax-payer funded coverup of allegations of sexual misconduct by his old pal/current disgraced Assemblyman Vito Lopez.

The Joint Commission on Public Ethics has decided to not investigate Silver's role in sweeping sexual harassment allegations made against Lopez under the rug by paying two of his accusers more than $103,000 in taxpayer money to essentially keep their mouths shut about Lopez.

From the Daily News:

Staten Island District Attorney Dan Donovan is doing what state ethics investigators won’t – investigate Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver.

Donovan was granted permission by a state judge Friday to “investigate allegations that funds, both public and private” were used by the Assembly leadership to settle two sexual harassment complaints against Lopez earlier this year.

Deputy Chief Administrative Judge Fern A. Fisher, in issuing the order, said the disbursement of funds represented possible violations of, among other things, the state penal law and public officers law.

Fisher’s order comes after it was reported that the Joint Commission on Public Ethics had decided to limit its probe on the matter to Lopez’s actions and not Silver’s decision to settle the earlier case before it was sent to an Assembly ethics committee.

Court spokesman David Bookstaver, a court spokesman, said Fisher issued the new order in order to give “more specificity” to the scope of Donovan’s investigations.

Donovan was named by Fisher to head up the Lopez investigation last week after Brooklyn District Attorney Charles Hynes - citing his longstanding political ties to Lopez – asked that a special prosecutor be named for the case.

From the NY Post:

It sounds delusional, but besieged Assemblyman Vito Lopez has told some people he might run for the City Council next year.

“He was saying this right after he was charged with sex harassment,” said one stunned source.

Whether Lopez means it or not is impossible to tell.

Assuming he isn’t slapped with criminal charges — and that remains far from certain — there’s nothing that would stop him from becoming a council candidate in 2013.

Lopez has been obsessed for years with grabbing the Bushwick seat now held by Diana Reyna, a former aide he’s never forgiven for breaking with him, acting independently and refusing to toe his dictatorial line.

It's not just a "Bushwick seat." Part of Ridgewood is gerrymandered into council district 34.

DAs cruising toward unopposed victories

From City Hall:

In the Bronx, the city's longest-serving district attorney, Robert Johnson, a 63-year-old Democrat, is reaching out to Republican and Conservative party leaders about running on their ballot lines. In Queens, District Attorney Richard Brown, 78, is hopeful that he too will again get the endorsements of all the major parties in a race in which no challengers have emerged. Even on Staten Island, which was the rare DA race to feature two candidates in the last election, the Democratic Party has yet to find a challenger to run against the incumbent, 54-year-old Dan Donovan.

So while the three incumbents are beginning the motions of running for re-election, the political questions are really mostly focused on whether Johnson and Brown are secretly plotting retirement while grooming hand-picked successors, who might be in position to succeed the prosecutors when they step down, and occasionally, on the thin but still swirling rumors about who might take on Donovan.

In Queens, "Judge" Richard Brown is already setting his sights beyond the upcoming election. He said he plans to match former Manhattan DA Robert Morgenthau's feat of serving until age 90.

"There's only about 15 years to go," said Brown, who has been in office since June 1991.

If Brown even comes close to Morgenthau's longevity, the field of potential successors will have to look elsewhere if they want to run for public office.

Council Member Peter Vallone, Jr., who has been subject to speculation about a DA run for years, said he is raising campaign funds, but would only consider running if the seat were vacant.

"I'm not even thinking of Judge Brown's office because he's there and he intends to hold that position for a long time," Vallone said. "So obviously I've got some other options to consider, such as borough president, and I'm looking into it."

Another potential successor, former Council Member Melinda Katz, said she had not thought that far in advance.