MESSAGE
| DATE | 2025-12-22 |
| FROM | mayer ilovitz
|
| SUBJECT | Re: [Hangout - NYLXS] How to resist Mamdani - in the Press
|
the first 2 proposals should be to kill 'rank choice voting' - which is
what gave us mamdani and almost had adams lose in 2021,
and to require a majority ( or even a super majority ) of REGISTERED
voters to actually vote on a Charter proposal for the vote to be
considered legitimate & binding.
( as currently structured, all it takes for a charter proposal to pass
is just one person saying yes and no one saying no and 75-90% of
registered voters don't vote )
The Charter is the City's Constitution, and altering it should have the
same level of difficulty as the US Constitution;
the same proposal that would harden the requirements for a proposal to
pass should also mandate a re-validation vote on all other Charter
amendments
of the last 10-20 years that passed on similar questionable margins.
On 12/22/2025 6:50 AM, Ruben Safir wrote:
> https://www.city-journal.org/article/new-york-municipal-home-rule-law-charter-amendment-zohran-mamdani
>
>
> Joseph Burns
> How New Yorkers Can Resist Mamdani’s Radicalism
>
> The state’s Municipal Home Rule Law allows voters to petition to amend
> their city’s charter.
> / Eye on the News / Politics and Law, States and Cities
> Dec 11 2025
> / Share
>
> Zohran Mamdani won New York City’s mayoral election with the narrowest
> majority in almost a quarter-century, securing barely 50 percent of the
> vote as the Democratic nominee in an overwhelmingly Democratic city.
> That’s hardly a sweeping mandate—nearly half of all voters cast their
> ballots for one of Mamdani’s rivals.
>
> Many of these frustrated New Yorkers are looking to Albany—or even
> Washington—for help. They understand that New York State’s
> constitutional structure gives Albany more power than any of the state’s
> local governments, including that of New York City.
>
>
> But the nearly half of New York voters who oppose the newly elected
> democratic socialist don’t have to wait for Albany to come to their
> rescue. They possess an effective legal tool to rein in the excesses of
> the Mamdani administration: amending the New York City Charter through
> voter-initiated referenda.
>
> Unlike voters in the Western states, New Yorkers have few opportunities
> to make laws through direct democracy. Californians, for example,
> regularly vote on proposals for new laws or amendments to their state
> constitution that began as statewide petitions.
>
> Placing these propositions, known as initiatives, on voters’ ballots was
> a key goal of the Progressive movement. While Progressives saw many of
> their proposals for political reform adopted in the Western states, few
> states east of the Mississippi River—including New York—followed suit.
>
> Over the years, proposals to allow this form of direct democracy at the
> state level have been introduced in Albany. None gained much traction.
> But New York State permits more citizen-initiated lawmaking at the local
> level than many realize.
>
> New York State’s Municipal Home Rule Law (MHRL) allows voters to
> petition to amend their city’s charter, or even to adopt an entirely new
> one. Under this law, a petition with 30,000 city voters’ signature
> triggers a general election vote on a charter amendment. If a city
> council, through inactivity, prevents this amendment from reaching the
> ballot, citizens, by submitting a second petition signed by 15,000
> voters, can bypass the council and force the amendment to a vote on a
> general election ballot.
>
> The New York City Charter also includes a more limited amendment
> process. If 50,000 Gotham voters sign a petition to amend the charter on
> matters related to elected officials’ powers or their manner of
> election, that amendment will appear on the city’s general election ballot.
>
> While it’s not easy for voters to get a charter amendment on the ballot
> through these methods, it’s not impossible, either. In 1993, New York
> voters approved a charter amendment through the MHRL process, which
> proposed term limits for city elected officials. Though the city council
> relaxed these limits to allow Mayor Michael Bloomberg to run for an
> additional term during the 2008 financial crisis, they remain in effect
> today, over 30 years after New Yorkers initially approved them.
>
> Still, citizen-initiated referenda in New York face a major hurdle:
> mayors. Current law allows mayors to form a charter revision commission
> and propose commission-approved amendments that “bump” citizen-initiated
> charter amendments off the ballot. This is only a temporary roadblock,
> however, as bumped citizen-initiated amendments appear on the following
> year’s ballot.
>
> And mayors’ ability to use this mechanism to stall citizen-initiated
> amendments might be coming to an end. Earlier this year, the New York
> State legislature approved a bill stripping city mayors of this power.
> While Governor Kathy Hochul ultimately vetoed this proposal, the state
> legislature could consider and pass a new version during its 2026
> legislative session.
>
> For New Yorkers worried about an extremist Mamdani administration,
> citizen-initiated amendments to the city charter could be a key tool.
> Given that nearly half of the city’s voters cast ballots for someone
> other than the incoming mayor, such measures will likely enjoy an
> enormous base of support.
>
> What might those reforms look like? Several have been floated in recent
> years, including nonpartisan elections and scrapping ranked-choice
> voting for primaries. Citizens concerned about the new mayor and the
> growing political power of his progressive comrades are likely to
> propose other ideas.
>
> Those worried about the Big Apple’s prospects under a committed
> democratic socialist are unlikely to find much relief from Albany.
> Governor Hochul, concerned about her own political future and desperate
> to keep the Democratic Party’s far Left happy, has spent the last three
> months cozying up to Mamdani.
>
> But New Yorkers shouldn’t fret. While Albany may show indifference, the
> citizens of New York, through the process of direct democracy, possess a
> powerful and legally established instrument to halt the excesses and
> radicalism of the incoming Mamdani administration.
>
> Joseph Burns is a partner at Holtzman Vogel and former Deputy Director
> of Election Operations at the New York State Board of Elections.
>
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