How lefties wield the protest vote

Jul 01, 2024

Tiffany Cabán, Shahana Hanif and Alexa Avilés

Council Members Alexa Avilés (left) and Tiffany Cabán both voted against the recently passed city budget. | William Alatriste/NYC Council Media Unit

THE NO VOTE: Three DSA-aligned City Council members voted against the city’s $112 billion budget on Sunday, calculating that ticking off Democratic leaders is worth aligning themselves with their left-leaning constituents.

“This no vote will certainly not grow my popularity with the powers that be, but my constituents did not put me in this room to be a rubber stamp on another Mayor Adams budget,” Council Member Tiffany Cabán said.

Cabán, Shahana Hanif and Alexa Avilés voted down the budget that 46 of their colleagues approved, saying it didn’t go far enough in delivering funding for working-class New Yorkers. (Their districts will benefit to some degree from the social services that the council managed to restore and they were granted individual member items for programs in their districts.)

To be sure, Cabán and Hanif already paid a price when they lost their coveted positions as committee chairs last year after rejecting the budget. And it would have been more surprising this weekend if they voted in favor of the spending plan, which takes effect today.

The progressive opposition to the city budget is waning. Last year, 12 people opposed the fiscal plan — quadruple the number of naysayers on Sunday.

Nevertheless, their dissent marked the latest instance of left-flank Democrats wielding protest votes to send a message to party leaders, particularly on measures that would pass without their support.

In April, nearly 15 percent of the city’s Democratic primary voters may have cast blank ballots to denounce the Biden administration’s support for Israel’s military offensive on Gaza.

“President Biden will need to build a broad and diverse coalition like ours if he hopes to win in November and that will remain impossible until he brings this depravity to an end,” “Leave it Blank” campaign co-founder Brittany Ramos DeBarros said then.

And last week, Rep. Jamaal Bowman lost reelection after alienating establishment Democrats.

He voted against several measures key to the president’s agenda, including the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law in 2021, which he explained wasn’t paired with the Build Back Better Act.

The Squad member’s votes were the focus of historically high-dollar attack ads that portrayed him as working against his party’s interests. He paid with defeat.

“Now, Jamaal Bowman cannot fight for what he believes on Israel or about all sorts of other issues that he cares about,” New York-based Democratic strategist Sam Raskin told Playbook.

Protest votes can be effective.

Cabán told Playbook her budget vote was about “the voice, the reasoning and the path forward.” It also behooves her in a Queens district where voters reward politicians breaking with party establishment.

Asked what she would have done if the vote was closer, she said, “If the budget vote hinged on my vote, we’re talking about an entirely different political landscape” and “a very different proposed deal or budget.” — Emily Ngo

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From the Capitol

Eric Adams and City Adrienne Adams shake hands at City Hall.

The Citizens Budget Commission says Mayor Eric Adams' budget did not meet its standards for fiscal integrity and stability. | Michael Appleton/Mayoral Photography Office

LOOK TO THE EXPERTS: Mayor Adams defended his budget cuts, claiming the fiscal experts are on his side — but count actual wonks underwhelmed.

“We had a $7 billion hole in our budget,” Adams said at a press conference celebrating the funding for libraries Monday. “This is smart decision(-making). Any other fiscal analysis would tell us how brilliant (Speaker Adrienne Adams) and I were.”

Later, he bragged about the city’s $8.2 billion in reserves. “That’s what you call smart fiscal management,” he said. “Any financial expert would say — oh wait, they did say that. The bond raters. That I’m doing a good job.”

Bond rating agencies have had a positive outlook for the city, as the mayor incessantly reminds us in speeches. But the financial experts at the Citizens Budget Commission, a watchdog group that typically advocates for saving more, said Adams did not go far enough.

Adams’ savings are "wholly insufficient to protect New Yorkers from massive cuts during a recession,” the CBC wrote Monday, giving the budget a 0 out of 3 on its fiscal integrity and stability checklist and noting that, by one measure, the city ran a $1.1 billion deficit last year.

New York City Comptroller Brad Lander, who’s considering running against Adams, likewise criticized the mayor’s fiscal management, criticizing the budget in a wide-ranging statement for “fail(ing) to provide the long-term fiscal responsibility, transparency, or enough investments in critical services like early childhood education and CUNY that New York City’s future demands.” — Jeff Coltin

SOCIAL BOOST: Tech lobbyists believe a Supreme Court ruling could have major implications for how New York and other states are trying to regulate social media.

The court ruled today that Florida and Texas laws aimed at regulating social media content potentially runs afoul of free speech protections.

Chamber of Progress, a consortium of social media companies and tech firms, cheered the ruling — and its potential impact for New York’s new law meant to regulate content online that kids see.

“This court plainly recognizes that social media curation – including algorithmic curation – is protected speech,” Chamber of Progress Legal Director Jess Miers said. “Today’s decision means that the government will have a very high bar to clear in order to abridge the speech rights of online platforms and users.”

Some of the largest tech firms in the country are part of the industry group, including Meta, Amazon and Apple.

Hochul and New York lawmakers last month agreed to legislation that restricts child users from experiencing content in social media feeds that are generated by an algorithm.

The measure is meant to address critics’ concerns that curated content based on a user’s online interactions has been harmful for children’s mental health.

Hochul has said she expects the law to withstand legal challenges expected from social media firms. — Nick Reisman

IN OTHER NEWS...

— CONGESTION PRICING REVIVAL?: State lawmakers are privately asking Gov. Kathy Hochul to bring back the congestion pricing program, but this time with a lower toll. (The New York Times)

— KALMAN YEGER DIVORCE: Shtetl, a New York Jewish news outlet, reports that City Council Member and Assembly candidate Kalman Yeger refused to grant his wife an official Jewish divorce unless she signed non-disclosure agreement papers. (Shtetl)

— STATEN ISLAND’S ASIAN POPULATION: The forgotten borough has seen its Asian population soar, particularly in the neighborhood of New Dorp. (The City)

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