| | | | |  | | By Emily Ngo, Jeff Coltin and Nick Reisman | With help from Rich Mendez
|  Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries officially endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris. | Francis Chung/POLITICO | Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries presented a united front throughout the three tumultuous weeks the Democrats just weathered. It’s the Brooklyn way, those who know them told Playbook. The New York Democrats maintained regular contact — Schumer using his flip phone because he doesn’t text — as the crisis around President Joe Biden deepened and more of their members called for him to leave the ticket for the good of the party and country. They shared their caucuses’ concerns in separate private conversations with Biden. They also spoke with one another before agreeing to push back on Democrats’ earlier effort to hasten the president’s formal nomination process. Then on Tuesday, after waiting for the majority of party delegates to line up behind her, Schumer and Jeffries appeared jointly in Washington to endorse Vice President Kamala Harris as their party’s pick to succeed Biden. “Now that the process has played out from the grassroots, bottom-up, we are here today to throw our support behind Vice President Kamala Harris,” Schumer said. Schumer and Jeffries are separated by two decades in age and grew up in demographically different parts of Brooklyn, but they have a common leadership and communication style born of the fact that neither is rigid in their ideology, insiders told Playbook. Both leaders work furiously to build consensus behind the scenes and practice a type of patience atypical of the current political climate. Their friendship is not the tight-knit kind Schumer enjoyed with former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, but it’s a bond in its own right. They know the job of government is to represent “people from all walks of life, which is New York,” said one aide. “They’re New Yorkers, they’re Brooklynites, they’re not pushovers,” said another. Schumer himself said as much when he dined with Jeffries, newly ascended to his leadership post, at Brooklyn’s famous cheesecake spot Junior’s in January 2023. “When you come from Brooklyn, you have a great antenna for BS, and you also have a thick skin,” he told reporters afterward. One of the next crucial meetings for the senator and House member? The one with Harris, whom they said they’d speak with “soon.” — Emily Ngo HAPPY WEDNESDAY: Are you also brat? Got news? Send it our way: Jeff Coltin, Emily Ngo and Nick Reisman.
| | | | Live briefings, policy trackers, and procedural, industry, and people intelligence from POLITICO Pro Analysis gives you the insights you need to focus your policy strategy this election cycle. Secure your seat. | | | | | WHERE’S KATHY? Appearing as a guest on MSNBC's Morning Joe, then convening a youth mental health roundtable. WHERE’S ERIC? Appearing in a pre-taped interview on 94.7 The Block’s “Jonesy In The Morning," then hosting a five-borough multifaith tour event. Later he'll be live on Univision’s “Noticias Univision 41” and hosting “Talk with Eric: A Community Conversation.” QUOTE OF THE DAY: “Benjamin Netanyahu is the worst leader in Jewish history since the Maccabean king who invited the Romans into Jerusalem over 2100 years ago.” — Rep. Jerry Nadler, who is nonetheless attending Netanyahu’s joint address to Congress today “out of respect for the State of Israel and the office of the Prime Minister.”
|  | ABOVE THE FOLD | | | 
State Sen. Jessica Ramos said campaign funds will be used to pay for a poll on whether her constituents want a local casino. | Stephanie Keith/Getty Images | POLL POSITION: In a shift, state Sen. Jessica Ramos plans to dip into her own campaign account to pay for a poll that solidified her opposition to building a casino in her district. Ramos told POLITICO in April that “an anonymous donor” would be paying for the $27,000 poll of her Queens district’s residents by the firm Slingshot Strategies — which raised concerns that a rival casino bid was trying to influence her. That poll showed 75 percent of residents in her district didn’t want the gaming facility, she said. She has since come out against Mets owner Steve Cohen’s dream of a casino in the Citi Field parking lot. This month, Ramos told a community board that she’s paying for the poll “out of my campaign money, for the sake of transparency.” “I think this is just a much more straightforward way to do it,” Ramos told Playbook, explaining the reversal. “I didn’t expect people to think that other bids somehow had played a role. And I don’t want people to think that. Since it’s not true.” Neither the payment nor the outstanding liability is reflected in Ramos’ latest campaign finance filing, but she said the polling firm would give her a payment plan. Slingshot Strategies confirmed the same. The cost would be a significant chunk of the $37,848 she reported having on hand this month. Cohen isn’t giving up on the casino, so Ramos is doing her homework. She told Playbook she’s been reading the book “Black Edge,” which is “basically a biography of Steve Cohen.” One chapter is about how “what Steve wants, Steve gets.” Ramos’ response? “Not in Queens.” Cohen’s team declined to comment. Meanwhile, Ramos is making calls to hire staff for a likely run for mayor next year. On that point, she told Playbook to “stay tuned.” — Jeff Coltin
| | CITY HALL: THE LATEST | | | | 
Some of the proposed ballot questions from Mayor Eric Adams' charter revision commission could give him an edge in future tussles with the City Council. | Richard Drew/AP | ADAMS’ BALLOT Qs: A charter revision commission convened by Mayor Eric Adams has released five proposed ballot questions, some of which would give City Hall an advantage in future clashes with the City Council, POLITICO reports. The questions, which will be put before voters in November should they be approved by the commission on Thursday, include a provision that would extend the timeframe required to pass public safety legislation. Another would change the requirements for fiscal impact statements associated with proposed legislation. “I look forward to our fellow New Yorkers flipping their ballot this November and making their voices heard once more on these significant issues,” commission Chair Carlo Scissura said in a statement accompanying the final report. Two provisions, that would alter the balance of municipal power, seem to respond to some of the highest-profile fights between the two branches of government. Adams and the council clashed over a law expanding city housing vouchers, for instance, with cost at the core of the disagreement. Lo and behold, one of the ballot provisions would mandate fiscal impact statements for proposed legislation prepared by both the council and the mayor’s budget office prior to a public hearing. And late last year, lawmakers passed two bills that incensed the mayor: one that requires NYPD officers to document lower-level interactions with the public, and another prohibiting punitive segregation, or solitary confinement, in city jails. Both were referenced in Tuesday’s report, penned by the mayor-appointed commission, as examples of bills that could have benefited from another of the ballot proposals focused on public safety. — Joe Anuta More from the city: — A court document confirmed Tim Pearson played a leading role at the Mayor's Office of Municipal Services Assessment. (POLITICO Pro) — In the battle to head off Adams’ top lawyer pick Rando Mastro, the City Council points to his time under Rudy Giuliani. (Daily News) — The NYPD’s top uniformed cop, Chief of Department Jeffrey Maddrey, will no longer face an abuse of authority case. (New York Post)
| | NEW FROM PLANET ALBANY | | | 
Top New York Democrats are sharing the love — and funds this time around after a brutal down-ticket showing in 2022. | Seth Wenig/AP | STATE DEMS PREP: The New York State Democratic Committee is trying something new this year — working to elect Democrats in New York, POLITICO reports. After a brutal showing in 2022, top Democrats like Gov. Kathy Hochul promised the party machinery would launch an unprecedented coordinated campaign to elect party members up and down the ballot in 2024. That would be a key to Democratic efforts to retake the House in a state that is home to at least half a dozen battleground districts. Similar guarantees have been made in the past and resulted in expenditures that weren’t much more than rounding errors in competitive races. But four months out from Election Day, there’s now at least some evidence that the state party is more actively involved in this November’s races than in those from yesteryear. The party will soon announce that the coordinated campaign with entities like the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee has already hired 60 field staffers and fellows and plans to soon have 100 on the ground. It is also in the process of opening up 30 field offices in competitive congressional districts. And campaign finance disclosure reports filed in recent weeks suggest a jump in the party’s activity. Three different federal and state committees controlled by New York Democrats raised a combined $5.9 million in the first half of 2024. That’s up from around $1.5 million in the first halves of both 2016 and 2012, the two most recent presidential years without a pandemic. — Bill Mahoney FINANCIAL PLAN UPDATE: The state's Department of Budget is set to release a quarterly update to its financial plan today. While the numbers in the update are largely similar to last quarter’s, the report shared early with Playbook, shows that revenue projections remain strong for the state. It also echoes Hochul’s promise that there will be a solution for the $16.5 billion in funding now missing from the MTA’s capital plan after the congestion pricing toll program was halted. “The Division of the Budget expects that the revenue shortfall to the MTA will be temporary and, if not resolved sooner, would be addressed as part of the FY 2026 Budget process,” the report reads. The indefinite pause of congestion pricing is not expected to impact the state’s financial plan, the report also said. — Jason Beeferman More from Albany: — Feds search the Long Island home of Hochul’s former deputy chief of staff. (New York Times) — State Senate Majority Leader Andrea Stewart-Cousins said Harris’ historic candidacy will make for “a whole different kind of race.” (City & State) — Hochul’s pause on congestion pricing has prompted the MTA to halt plans to install elevators at more than 20 subway stations, including one where a mother died carrying her baby and stroller five years ago. (Gothamist)
| | KEEPING UP WITH THE DELEGATION | | More from Congress: — Rep. Marc Molinaro makes the case that upstate voters aren’t buying what Democrats are selling. (City & State) — Democratic House candidate John Mannion said he’s confident Harris will energize voters. (Syracuse.com)
| | | | SUBSCRIBE TO GLOBAL PLAYBOOK: Don’t miss out on POLITICO’s Global Playbook, our newsletter taking you inside pivotal discussions at the most influential gatherings in the world. Suzanne Lynch delivers the world's elite and influential moments directly to you. Stay in the global loop. SUBSCRI | | | | | | | NEW YORK STATE OF MIND | | — The NYPD will install gun-scanning metal detectors at a select few city subway stations later this week, Adams announced. (Daily News) — Adams blamed bad information he received on the shooter who attempted to kill former President Donald Trump, which had led the mayor to link the would-be assassin to social media. (POLITICO) — New Jersey Sen. Bob Menendez will resign next month following his corruption conviction in Manhattan. (POLITICO)
| | SOCIAL DATA | | Edited by Daniel Lippman MAKING MOVES: Caroline Chen has been named environmental justice director at New York Lawyers for the Public Interest. She most recently was senior supervising counsel within NYLPI’s EJ program. WELCOME TO THE WORLD — Shaun Kraisman, co-anchor of Newsmax’s “National Report,” and Brittany Fulcher, a cardiac tech at NewYork-Presbyterian/Weill Cornell hospital, on July 15 welcomed Nora Jean Kraisman, who came in at 6lbs 15oz. Instapics — Elizabeth Grater Corbelle, senior associate at Partners Group, and Michael Corbelle, an educational consultant at Cairn Educational Consulting, recently welcomed Lindley Pardee Corbelle. Pic SPOTTED — At the “Autocracy in America: A Warning and a Response” conference hosted by State Democracy Defenders Action, Democracy Forward and Principles First at NYU Law’s Greenberg Lounge, speakers including Norm Eisen, Skye Perryman, Heath Mayo, Ruth Ben-Ghiat, Ty Cobb, Bill Kristol, George Conway, John Dean, Charlie Dent, Keith Ellison, Michael Cohen, David Frum, Allegra Lawrence-Hardy, Dahlia Lithwick, Norm Ornstein, Maya Wiley, Joanna Lydgate, Paul Raushenbush, Asha Rangappa and Jen Rubin. HAPPY BIRTHDAY: NYC Council member Tiffany Cabán … NYC Council member Rita Joseph … NYT’s Zolan Kanno-Youngs … WSJ’s Kim Strassel … CNBC’s Eamon Javers … Christianné Allen … CBS’ Michelle Kessel … Juergen Baetz … Molly Eisner … Matt Joseloff … Barbara Morgan … Sarah Citrenbaum … Magee Quick McBride … (WAS TUESDAY): Mariane Pearl Missed Tuesday’s New York Playbook PM? We forgive you. Read it here. | | | | Subscribe to the POLITICO Playbook family Playbook | Playbook PM | California Playbook | Florida Playbook | Illinois Playbook | Massachusetts Playbook | New Jersey Playbook | New York Playbook | Ottawa Playbook | Brussels Playbook | London Playbook View all our political and policy newsletters | | Follow us | | | | |
