NY STATE OF MIND. My home city and state have made me proud these last few days. Two days ago, The New York Times reported that "nearly two-thirds of the members of the City Council are co-sponsoring a measure to shed a little light on the shadowy process by which co-op boards decide which apartment buyers to accept and which to reject." This is an important move to do away with a mechanism that currently allows illegal discrimination on the basis of age, race or other factors. Then, on Earth Day, Mayor Michael Bloomberg announced an ambitious plan to reduce New York's pollution and contributions to greenhouse gas emissions (including a long overdue proposal for congestion pricing in Manhattan.) And finally, the Times reported today that "Gov. Eliot Spitzer will introduce a bill in the coming weeks to legalize same-sex marriage in New York." It is heartening to see cities and states take the lead on issues where Washington has remained so stubbornly retrograde.
But this is also a stark reminder of the importance of local elections and how much more effort progressives should be putting into them. Both Bloomberg's green initiatives and Spitzer's gay marriage proposal are likely to get caught in the quagmire that is Albany politics. In particular it is vexing to see that in New York, a state where Democrats hold a 5-3 advantage among registered voters, they still have not broken the Republican choke hold on the State Senate. For progressive change to happen from the ground up, activists and donors need to focus on state legislative races and the like -- both so that progressive policies can be passed at the state and local level, and so that Democrats can control the redistricting process. Until then, all the governor and mayor's good intentions may not make any real difference.
--Ben Adler