Good morning. Today we'll look at ballot measures that passed last week that call for the city to "reconstruct, revise and reimagine" institutions and laws to promote justice and equity. We'll also look at why some Democrats say the state party chairman should resign. |
 | | Anna Watts for The New York Times |
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On Election Day, New York City got something it has never had before: a preamble. |
The preamble approved last week will go at the beginning of the City Charter and will promote important and noble aspirations — justice and equity. The charter had always plunged straight into an "introductory" section that defined the territory it covers — the five boroughs, although it does not name them. It simply says they remain as they existed when the charter was adopted. |
The soaring purpose of the preamble is to detail "foundational values intended to guide city government in fulfilling its duties," according to the city's Racial Justice Commission, which drafted it. At just under 600 words, the preamble is relatively long, as such things go. Consider: |
- The one-sentence preamble to the United States Constitution runs 52 words.
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- The preamble to the French constitution is twice as long as that — two sentences and 104 words.
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- Brazil's is a single 77-word sentence.
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But those are national documents. The preamble of a model city charter published by the National Civic League in 2011 echoes the United States Constitution by beginning "We the people of," with a blank where the name of the city can be filled in. (The model city charter goes on to lay out a municipal government with a city manager, a job New York City does not have.) |
The 22-word first sentence of New York City's preamble begins the same way, with "We, the people of New York City." The preamble then declares that "we, the people" really does mean everyone — "that our city is a multiracial democracy, and that our diversity is our strength." It says that the city must work to remedy "past and continuing harms" and "reconstruct, revise and reimagine" institutions and laws favoring justice and equity. |
As Proposition 2 on ballots in the city, it passed by 633,583 votes, according to unofficial returns from the city Board of Elections. Proposition 3, a companion ballot measure calling for an office of racial equity, was approved by 559,719 votes. |
The totals for the two measures were well below the city's total for Proposition 1, the $4.2 billion statewide environmental bond issue — and the city's total for Proposition 1, in turn, was 242,069 votes below the total number of ballots cast in the city in the governor's race. |
That may have reflected placement on the ballot: The ballot measures were on the back. Officials including the city comptroller, Brad Lander, and Representative Adriano Espaillat, a Democrat whose district includes Upper Manhattan and the northwest Bronx, began a campaign last month to urge voters to "flip the ballot" and vote yes on the propositions. |
The preamble was drafted by the city's Racial Justice Commission, established when Bill de Blasio was mayor. The chairwoman, Jennifer Jones Austin, said that approval of Propositions 2 and 3 (and Proposition 4, which calls for the city to calculate the "true" cost of living in New York) showed that the proposals had "resonated with voters from all backgrounds and walks of life." She applauded voters for taking "unprecedented steps to upend systemic racism in local government in a way that other cities around the nation can follow." |
A spokeswoman for Mayor Eric Adams said the measures gave the city a year to set up the new racial equity office. She said the size and staff were still to be determined. |
Prepare for a chance of rain, with temps near the high 40s. Rain persists at night, with steady temps in the low 40s. |
In effect until Nov. 24 (Thanksgiving Day). |
 | | Ed Jones/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images |
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Why some Democrats say the party chairman should be replaced |
 | | Mary Altaffer/Associated Press |
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New York Democrats playing the blame game have trained their sights on Jay Jacobs, the party chairman, above. They want Gov. Kathy Hochul to find a replacement for him. |
More than 1,100 Democrats from across New York State — among them State Senators Liz Krueger and Brad Hoylman, both of Manhattan, and the New York City comptroller, Brad Lander — have signed a statement that declared that "the writing is on the wall and has been for some time: Jay Jacobs is not fit to serve as chair." My colleague Grace Ashford reported that the statement called on Hochul to "work with the party to elect a focused, determined, unifying party leader." |
So far, no one in the state's congressional delegation has signed the statement, not even Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who repeated earlier calls for Jacobs's resignation after Democrats lost four House seats last week. Ocasio-Cortez retweeted a link to Grace's article with a message that said: "If we're going to thrive after this election, we need to clean things up from the very top and activate communities across the state." |
Jacobs has repeatedly bickered with the left wing of the party, blaming it for Republicans' inroads. Progressives have said that he mishandled the redistricting process and assailed him for refusing to endorse India Walton, a democratic socialist who won the primary for mayor in Buffalo. Last year Jacobs apologized for an analogy that involved the Ku Klux Klan leader David Duke and Walton, who is Black. (In the November election, she lost to the longtime incumbent Byron Brown, who ran as a write-in candidate.) |
Despite the losses last week, there were signs that Jacobs's stock was still high among some centrist Democrats. Among them was Mayor Eric Adams, who credited Jacobs with Democrats' victories in statewide races and called him a "steady hand" in a tough election cycle. |
Adams has sought to use the Democrats' losses to further his own line of messaging, presenting the turn to Republicans in the suburbs as evidence that progressives have driven the Democratic Party too far to the left. |
Krueger, who chairs the powerful Senate Finance Committee in Albany, also blamed some Democrats' losses on a party so focused on defending against the left that it took large portions of its base for granted. She said that she had privately pushed to have Jacobs replaced before the election as a step toward reinventing the Democratic Party in New York. "Nobody can actually seriously say, here's what the party is, does, and how it is helpful," she said. "And that's pretty disturbing." |
But Hochul has given no indication that she was considering a shake-up. When asked by reporters about Jacobs last week, she had only good things to say about him. "We're not changing anything," she said. |
Caro and I spent that college summer back home in Hoboken, traveling to our internships via Port Authority each day. |
My internship was unpaid, but it came with the stellar consolation prize of an unlimited monthly MetroCard. I got a monthly bus pass, too, and bounced happily around the boroughs to see friends on weekends. Some days, I crossed the Hudson four times since all the rides had already been paid for. |
I planned to spend the last weekend of that July out of town, and I promised Caro my MetroCard before I left so that no free ride would go unused. |
But while waiting at Port Authority for a bus to take me upstate, I realized I had forgotten to make the handoff. I decided to hide the MetroCard somewhere at the terminal. |
I went to Duane Reade, found the cheesiest greeting card in the racks there and stashed the MetroCard between the third and fourth envelopes behind it. I texted Caro the details of the hiding spot (sending a picture would have been too easy). |
On the way home from the city two hours later, Caro found my gift: three days' worth of free subway rides. |
Glad we could get together here. See you tomorrow. — J.B. |
| Melissa Guerrero and Ed Shanahan contributed to New York Today. You can reach the team at nytoday@nytimes.com. |
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