On Tuesday, November 5th, millions of New Yorkers went to the polls. However, beneath the glamor and media blitz of the presidency, there were six ballot proposals to amend the New York State Constitution or New York City Charter. Proposition 1, or the Equal Rights Amendment, was a statewide measure to increase protections for abortion and LGBTQ rights in New York State. It garnered widespread media attention, and campaign resources were used for and against the proposal. The other five proposals were to amend the New York City Charter and received almost no mainstream media attention. There were no political ads or campaign events about these five. Despite their seeming irrelevance, these proposals will likely affect New Yorkers in the coming years more than anything else on that ballot. This is the story of those five proposals—what they are, how they got on the ballot, and most importantly, what they mean for you.
Like so many things that quietly shape our lives, our story begins in City Hall, where New York City Council Speaker Adrienne Adams and Mayor Eric Adams (no relation) have a contentious relationship. Mayor Adams’ preferred candidate for Speaker, Councilmember Fransisco Moya, lost the Speaker race to Adrienne Adams. Since then, the two have clashed on policy and budgetary matters. This culminated in May, when after a series of unpopular executive appointments made by the Mayor, Speaker Adams introduced legislation requiring the mayor to gain approval from the City Council for 21 appointments, including the commissioner of the Sanitation Department and the commissioner of Children’s Services. The legislation would work as a check on executive power by creating a similar system to the one in which the United States Senate approves the President’s Cabinet. Since this change would require a modification to the New York City Charter, it needed to pass the City Council and be voted on directly by New Yorkers on Election Day.
Unsurprisingly, Mayor Adams wanted to avoid this legislation reaching the ballot of New Yorkers. He told reporters that he opposed the legislation because he believed in a “strong executive system,” but it didn’t seem like there was much he could do. Or was there? Under the New York City Charter the mayor can create a Charter Revision Commission to propose changes to the City Charter and send those revisions to the ballot. Why does this matter? City law also states that the mayor’s ballot propositions and the City Council’s ballot propositions cannot coexist on the ballot, and that the mayor’s proposals take priority. This would mean that the proposals of a Charter Revision Commission would effectively knock the City Council’s proposals off the ballot. He did just that and staffed the commission chock full of loyalists and personal friends.
After minor tweaks and a contentious hearing where an Eric Adams advisor stormed out, the City Council’s advice and consent measure passed the council by a margin of 46-4. However, the mayor’s Charter Revision Commission quickly released five ballot proposals, knocking the Council’s proposals off the ballot. In 2019, Mayor Bill de Blasio created a Charter Revision Commission, which deliberated for nearly a year before releasing their proposals. Eric Adams’ commission released theirs in just over two months, a move that conveniently knocked legislation Mayor Adams didn’t like off the ballot. Unsurprisingly, the council cried foul. Speaker Adams said, “We believe that the charter commission was indeed empaneled to thwart [the advice and consent measure].” A coalition of groups called No Power Grab NYC was formed, urging New Yorkers to vote no on the proposals, and a group of elected officials including Rep. Jerry Nadler, Comptroller Brad Lander, and dozens of City Council members, state senators, and assembly members all publicly denounced the legislation. The City Council sent out flyers to registered voters, urging them to vote against the measures. But just what was in these measures? Let’s find out.
Proposal 2: This proposal would increase the Sanitation Department’s authority to pick up trash and ticket street vendors, which opponents say will lead to crackdowns on a largely immigrant workforce.
Proposal 3: This proposal would require the mayor’s office to publish an estimate of a bill’s cost in addition to the City Council’s existing estimate. Of course, if the mayor doesn’t like a piece of legislation, they could delay the forecast’s release for as long as possible. This essentially gives the mayor a pocket veto.
Proposal 4: This proposal is widely seen as being in direct response to the “How Many Stops Act,” which requires police officers to record the race, age, and gender of civilians they approach during investigative encounters. The act was supported by police accountability groups and opposed by Mayor Adams, a former police captain. The proposal requires the city Council to take longer to hear public info before passing laws on public safety departments, like the NYPD and the FDNY. Critics say this would make it harder for the city Council to respond to urgent needs, like fire safety regulations.
Proposal 5: This proposal claims to take suggestions from Comptroller Brad Lander, the chief financial officer of New York City, to help with transparency in infrastructure building. However, Mr. Lander has called it “meaningless” and “a cynical effort to distract New Yorkers.”
Proposal 6: This proposal would codify the existing position of Chief Business Diversity Officer in the city charter and allow the mayor’s office to release film permits. Critics say that the changes could have been made through the normal legislative process and that doing it through the commission decreases public input.
Despite the widespread push for these proposals to be rejected, on election day, proposals 2–5 were accepted by voters (proposal 6 was narrowly rejected). I am willing to bet that most of those voters did not know much about the ballot proposals or why they were created. Why is that? And perhaps more importantly, why am I writing about this in a school newspaper? It’s because of one simple reason. Local news is dying.
Because of the internet, you can make much more money targeting newspapers at a nationwide audience. If you do that, you can’t spend too much space talking about New York City ballot proposals because your readers in Tulsa, Seattle, or Boston won’t care. But we can’t let local news die—it’s so essential. Local news organizations like The Gothamist and The City were the only publications regularly discussing the ballot proposals. In the next couple of years, we must all do our part to ensure that we remain knowledgeable about what’s happening in our country and local communities. To do this, we must look in our libraries, outside our windows, and yes, in our school newspapers.