News Clips

“Last week we kicked off our campaign for a ranked choice voting ballot measure with a broad cross section of New Yorkers–from the business community, to labor, to New American and African American community members and more,” said Susan Lerner, Executive Director of Common Cause/NY and representative of Rank the Vote NYC coalition. “We are excited to bring ranked choice voting to all New York City offices for special and primary election, because New Yorkers deserve elections that lift up our voices, and push candidates to campaign better.”

Good government groups assailed the move. “The Mayor seems hell-bent on providing donors with a backdoor to his administration, repeatedly undermining his own moral authority as the leader of this city,” said Susan Lerner, executive director of government watchdog group Common Cause’s New York chapter.

Susan Lerner, executive director of Common Cause NY, a good government group, said the change would attract more voters to the polls and increase the number of candidates seeking office. "We all naturally rank, so when you have a large number of people running, instead of having to figure out, 'Oh, I like only this one,' but there is another one who also really appeals to you, you're able to rank your top choices," Lerner said.

“Ranked-choice voting is a system that will help voters choose the candidate who has the broadest base of support, because all too frequently what we find is that the winner in these crowded fields is chosen with much less than a 50 percent majority,” said Susan Lerner of Common Cause New York, as she kicked off the press conference. “It’s not as healthy for our democracy as it needs to be.”

As of the last public accounting, 70 percent of the mayor’s 6,700 donors were tied to the city’s powerful Hotel Trades Council that has benefited from de Blasio’s battle against Airbnb. De Blasio also ordered his Planning Department to study mandatory permitting for all new hotels across the city that would give the HTC tremendous leverage to require unionized labor in the hotels. Good-government advocate Susan Lerner said the order, “at a minimum, creates the appearance of impropriety and illegality.”

Brookfield also worked on Greenpoint landing, and gave $50,000 to de Blasio’s political nonprofit — which Common Cause called a “shadow government” — following “a recommendation made by, or on behalf of the Mayor,” JCOPE said.