Blog: Gale Brewer

Last Thursday, candidates for New York City offices from Council to Borough President to Public Advocate came to The Tank for a night of karaoke: Mayoroke, presented by Democracy for NYC and, of course, Drinking Liberally, and featured in Gawker and Time Out New York. District 4 5 Council candidate Eric Cesnik and his chief of staff sang "I Got You Babe", and Public Advocate hopeful Norman Siegel performed "In the Still of the Night" with his staff as a do-wop backup troupe. Borough President frontrunner Scott Stringer and incumbent Councilwoman Gale Brewer both attended, though only their younger staffers sang songs.

But the best performance of the night was from Borough President candidate Carlos Manzano, who had never done karaoke before and by his own admission was "terrified," yet he got up on the stage and crooned to the tune of INXS's "I Need You Tonight" to rousing applause. Liza Sabater, liveblogging the event, was impressed . Carlos was congratulated by so many people afterward that he has since started joking that if politics doesn't work out, he could try a career as a rock star.

As I explained to one reporter when she asked who did the best job, karaoke isn't about being musically talented or putting on a "good" performance. It's about getting into the spirit of fun and pushing your boundaries of comfort, having ordinary people do something - singing on a stage - that only a small handful usually engage in. Democrats believe in making the political process accessible to the masses, not just a few wealthy elites. So what's more appropriate than having political elites, our professional politicians, join in a true activity of the masses - karaoke?

I honestly don't know what I think about this. On the one hand, the Council recently has been an ineffective check on the power of the Mayor, and longer serving members would have the ability to build up the connections and influence to do so. And there are some great people on the Council (like Brewer) who deserve to have their jobs for more than eight years.

On the other hand, the voters did pass this law, and it's unfair for an elected body to thwart their will without an actual repeal by referendum. Plus, we're seeing a lot of action from elected officials all of a sudden, from people like Gifford Miller, who's running for Mayor, and David Yassky, who after doing very little during the two years I lived in his district is now reportedly leading a faction to broker a deal on the trash disposal conflict, at the same time as he gears up to run for Congress.

What to do? I don't know, which is why Cosmopolity is planning to arrange a debate on this subject. But might there be some more creative solutions to this problem than just extending terms, solutions which allow voters to keep people they like while also empowering new faces to join the Council without having to overcome the huge advantage of incumbency?

For example, what if after two terms, a Councilperson had to receive 55% of the vote, not 50%, in order to win reelection? And then 60% for a fourth term? That way if the people of the Upper West Side really love Gale Brewer, they can keep her as their representative, but at the same time she can't simply rest on a constant power base. And if the incumbent doesn't achieve the requisite vote total, then there could be another later election in which the incumbent is forbidden to run. There are drawbacks to this, such as the high cost of running additional elections, and making sure there is enough time for new candidates to mount a campaign for the suddenly-vacant seat.

Or, perhaps we could force each Councilperson to gather a large number of signatures on a petition in advance of the election in order to be allowed to run despite term limits. With about 160,000 people per council district, perhaps running for a third term would require 10,000 signatures, a fourth term 15,000, and gradually increasing from there. This scheme has the danger that it would further strengthen political machines, who could help their candidates achieve the petition totals.

These two ideas might be great or terrible, and certainly each has some challenges that would need to be solved. But ultimately, might there be a similar way to gradually handicap candidates, so that they can continue to run beyond the current term limitations, but at the same time requiring more from them in each election?