Social Services Commissioner Resigns + The City Council’s Changing Progressive Caucus
No. 309 | Monday February 13, 2023
The NYC Thorn is a weekly roundup of local political news compiled by members of NYC-DSA.
Local News
Social Services Commissioner Gary Jenkins has resigned amidst an investigation into his alleged coverup of an incident last summer in which a homeless family was forced to sleep in a Department of Social Services intake office, in violation of the City’s right-to-shelter law. Deaths among New York's homeless population reached record highs in 2022.
The head of the Department of Correction oversight board has resigned after Correction Commissioner Louis Molina repeatedly took steps to thwart the board’s oversight of Rikers Island (including limiting access to video from jails) since being appointed by Mayor Adams last year.
State Senate Republicans sued the State Senate to force a floor vote on the confirmation of Hector LaSalle to be Chief Judge of the Court of Appeals, after LaSalle was defeated in the Senate Judiciary Committee last month. The GOP appears to have preempted Governor Hochul’s threats to do the same.
Both Janet DiFiore, the former Chief Judge of the New York State Court of Appeals who resigned last year amid an ethics investigation, and Anthony Cannataro, the acting Chief Judge who has replaced her until a new appointment is confirmed, failed to disclose the use of full-time chauffeurs as part of their compensation.
A federal judge upheld New York’s rent stabilization laws, which may pave the way for a challenge from the real estate lobby to be heard by the US Supreme Court.
In-Depth: The City Council’s Changing Progressive Caucus
(Some of the following was originally published in The Thorn in our first In-Depth on the Progressive Caucus in April of 2017.)
History:
The City Council Progressive Caucus was formed in 2009 by Council Members Brad Lander (Park Slope) and Melissa Mark-Viverito (East Harlem) to create a left-liberal bloc within the homogeneously Democratic City Council, in opposition to then-Mayor Michael Bloomberg. Largely aligned with and supported by the Working Families Party (WFP), the Caucus initially consisted of 12 members.
Born out of the ashes of a brutal 2009 election season that saw Mayor Bloomberg and Council Speaker Christine Quinn engineer a temporary term-limit extension that allowed the Mayor to win a third term, the Progressive Caucus came to citywide ascendance in 2013. In the 2013 elections, the Progressive Caucus and the WFP won major victories in the two top citywide offices, with Bill De Blasio winning the Mayoral election and Letitia James winning the Public Advocate seat. Furthermore, with the Caucus gaining seats on the Council, they were able to elect Mark-Viverito as Speaker, in a departure from the previous system of unelected Democratic county bosses selecting a speaker. From 2013 to 2017, the Progressive Caucus was co-chaired by Antonio Reynoso and Donovan Richards.
As the Caucus grew, though, it did not always act as a bloc, and although it added seats in the 2017 City elections, several members of the Caucus challenged each other for the Speakership. Unable to coalesce around a single candidate, the selection process that year reverted back to the old system, with then-boss of the Queens Democratic Party, Joe Crowley, wielding his power on behalf of eventual Speaker Corey Johnson. (Johnson had himself been a Progressive Caucus member, but owed his ascent to the old system.) From 2018 to 2021, the Caucus was chaired by Diana Ayala (Mark-Viverito’s former chief of staff, who ran for her boss’s old seat in East Harlem), Ben Kallos (Murray Hill), Carlos Menchaca (Sunset Park), and Keith Powers (Upper East Side).
Ideology:
The ideological composition and evolution of the Progressive Caucus illustrates the elusive and slippery nature of the “progressive” label. At the peak of the Caucus’ power, from 2014 to 2017, it was identified with Mayor De Blasio and Speaker Mark-Viverito, which yielded genuine improvements such as universal pre-K, paid sick leave, and a plan to close Rikers. In 2018, the Progressive Caucus released an impressive and comprehensive policy agenda that included Free CUNY, strengthening Sanctuary City protections, Fair Work Week legislation, and opposing the Amazon HQ2 deal. In 2020, the Caucus supported calls to cut $1 billion from the NYPD budget.
Nevertheless, Speaker Mark-Viverito held up a vote on the Right to Know Act for years, and the bill passed only when she left the City Council. Many members continued to take large donations from the real estate lobby for years. Only two members of the Caucus—Jumaane Williams (East Flatbush) and Ritchie Torres (Central Bronx)—endorsed Bernie Sanders in the 2016 primary, and there was no meaningful pushback from the Caucus when De Blasio and the Council voted to add 1,300 new officers to the NYPD in 2015.
Since 2021:
During the City elections in 2021, and for the first year of the Eric Adams mayoralty, the Progressive Caucus was a large but mostly dormant body. No mayoral candidate in the 2021 primary had ties to the Progressive Caucus, and the Caucus appears to have released only one public statement (calling for Andrew Cuomo’s resignation) between August of 2020 and this month. The Caucus also did not support a Speaker candidate in 2021 (although two former co-chairs, Diana Ayala and Keith Powers, took leadership roles after endorsing Adriene Adams). Despite the 2021 elections resulting in “the most progressive City Council yet” and the Caucus expanding to 34 total members in 2022, representing almost 80% of City Council, the Progressive Caucus offered little meaningful resistance to Mayor Adams’ austerity budget, with all but six members of the Caucus ultimately voting for the budget in 2022.
In light of this ineffectiveness, on Wednesday the Caucus’s new co-chairs, Shahana Hanif (Park Slope) and Lincoln Restler (Williamsburg), as well as Vice Chairs Carmen De La Rosa (Inwood) and Jennifer Guittierez (Bushwick), announced rule changes “to make the Caucus more cohesive, effective, and strategic,” as well as an updated Statement of Principles. When informed that the new Statement of Principles included language pledging to “do everything we can to reduce the size and scope of the NYPD and the Department of Correction, and prioritize and fund alternative safety infrastructure that truly invests in our communities,” several members refused to sign, leading to over a dozen members leaving the Caucus over the following two days.
As of today, the Progressive Caucus has been reduced from a high of 34 to 19 members, plus Adrienne Adams, who as Council Speaker is an ex-officio member of every caucus, but did not sign the Statement of Principles. How those members plan to act this year remains to be seen.
Join NYC-DSA!
New York City Democratic Socialists of America (NYC-DSA) is gearing up for an exciting 2023! We’re focusing our efforts on building labor solidarity through our union power campaign, and we’re passing impactful legislation in Albany through Tax the Rich 2.0. But winning transformative demands like a free CUNY, social housing, and Build Public Renewables means we need to expand our base and grow our organization. We’re aiming to recruit 500 new members to build our movement to win socialism in NYC.
Members of the NYC-DSA Electoral Working Group formed the NYC Thorn in early 2017 to create an easy way for members to keep up with local political news. In the six(!) years since, thousands of New Yorkers—some of whom are not DSA members—have received, read, and (we hope) enjoyed this newsletter. If you are one of them, please consider taking the next step to join our mass political organization and become a DSA member today!
If you are already a member, please participate in our membership drive! Join a phone bank to call some of NYC-DSA’s thousands of supporters and sign up to recruit your friends, neighbors, and family to join DSA. Any member who successfully recruits three new members using their personalized link will get an exclusive t-shirt!
The NYC Local
Subscribe to the NYC Local, a publication of the Legislative Committee of the NYC-DSA Labor Branch.
Revolutions Per Minute
Listen to NYC-DSA's weekly radio show Revolutions Per Minute. Check out the show here.
