The not-so-surprising flood of endorsements of State Senate candidate Dan Squadron by clients of the consulting firm with which he was once associated, Knickerbocker SKD, continued apace this week. Kavanagh, Bloomberg, and now Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer (who shares Squadron’s experience as a bar owner).
Is it only a matter of time before we see an endorsement of Squadron by Joe Lieberman? Perhaps not made publicly, but instead quietly distributed under the doors with mezuzahs in the Grand street Co-ops the night before the election.
While unveiling the Stringer endorsement, Squadron took the occasion to unveil a package of legislative and process reforms remarkably similar to those proposed by Stringer when he served in the Assembly. Most of those themselves bear a remarkable resemblance to the package of reforms regularly proposed by the State Senate’s Democratic Leadership, even when they were led by Squadron’s opponent, Senator Martin Connor (other aspects resemble legislation currently being sponsored by Connor).
To be fair, Squadron’s implicit and sometimes explicit criticism is that it does not matter what Connor proposed, because very little of what Connor proposed ever passed.
Of course, that is one of the consequences of being in the Minority.
By contrast, Stringer served in the Majority his entire time in the Assembly, and the only aspect of his vaunted reforms which ever saw the light of day was the elimination of "empty seat voting", a worthy change, but one with about as much substantive impact on the process as the elimination of room service on the Titanic.
Subsequently, Stringer’s career as a "reformer" included being Denny Farrell, Tom Manton and Clarence Norman’s 2001 candidate for Public Advocate, but to be fair, it should be noted that, with most candidate’s he endorsed when he was county Leader, Clarence gave Scott little more than a handshake and a bill for services he never rendered. To Scott’s further credit, the Bronx machine which produced his step-father, former City Clerk Carlos Cuevas, preferred the Latin rhythms of salsero Willie Colon to Scott’s "reform" song and dance.
Still the Stringer endorsement puts one in mind of a little more ancient history.
The first time I read of Stringer was in a scurrilous and unfair Village Voice article which accused him of being a "Cohn-head", a claque of Manhattan politicos supposedly part of an evil plot by sleazebag attorney Roy Cohn to take over the New York County Democratic party.
Certainly, Stringer, then running for District Leader, had a strange pedigree for a West Side Reformer. His parent were both regular Democrats of the old school, his father Counsel to ultra-hack Mayor Abe Beame; his mother a regular District Leader, and City Councilwoman for about 15 minutes, before she was beaten by the late great Stan Michels, who Scott later beat for Borough President. Then again, Scott was also a cousin of Bella Abzug, although she was always more a radical than a reformer (and would be proud to say so).
Perhaps because of his pedigree, Scott excelled at the politics of the job. More conventional reformers such as Curtis Arluck may have regarded him with suspicion, but they had to be impressed by his knowledge of nuts and bolts and his operational efficiency. Scott served honorably both as District Leader and a staffer for his Assemblyman, Jerry Nadler. In 1989, he placed a very poor second to Ronnie Eldridge in a multi-candidate race to succeed Ruth Messinger on the City Council (Stan Michels must have breathed a sigh of relief).
In 1992, Congressman Ted Weiss died days before a nuisance primary against a member of the lunatic fringe Fulani-Newman New Alliance Party, forcing area pols to put together a last minute "Vote for the Corpse, It’s Important" campaign. An epic Democratic County Committee meeting involving a large field of candidates, including, Eldridge and (for about 10 minutes) Stringer’s cousin Bella, resulted in the choice of Assemblyman Jerry Nadler to fill the vacanct Congressional nomination, necessitating another epic County Committee meeting to fill Nadler’s seat (I know, big pants to fill).
The front-runner was Stringer, who had helped manage Nadler's campaign for the nomination.
The other major candidates were two other District Leaders, William Nuchow, an International Brotherhood of Teamsters official much beloved in old left circles (speakers at Nuchow’s funeral addressed each other as "Comrade"), and election lawyer Jerry Goldfeder, an also ran in the 1989 Council race who was a favorite among party liberals and party reformers (in the 90s, I once told Jerry I was a "Clinton Democrat", and he replied, "you’re a Republican?").
The meeting was rife with balloting irregularities. Nuchow was initially declared the winner over Stringer by a vote of 9,918 to 9,900 (using weighted ballots).
Later that night, Stringer’s election lawyer intervened and the ballots were reviewed. As a result, Doug Kellner, the Law Chair of the Manhattan Democratic Party, who doubled as Chairman of the Assembly District’s Democratic Committee, subsequently issued an announcement that mistakes had been discovered concerning two ballots worth a total of 116 votes. Kellner declared Stringer the new winner, with a tally of 9,966 to 9,868. Kellner also announced said he would give Nuchow a chance to re-count the ballots. Nuchow said he would fight the reversal.
The Board of Elections saw things differently, and declared Nuchow the victor. Not surprisingly, the matter ended up in Court.
On October 26, 1992, after trial, and just days before the election, Stringer was selected as the winner of the convention by State Supreme Court Justice Martin Evans. Nuchow continued on as the candidate of the Liberal Party, but the Court victory, due in no small part to Stringer’s savvy election counsel, was tantamount to determinative in the anti-climatic vote of the public a few days later.
At the very least, the story of the twin elevations without public input makes the Stringer endorsement seem an odd one for Squadron to showcase at a press conference where he is also announcing a proposal for "reforming the vacancy-filling process."
Little of this history, some of it very colorful, especially the incisive and sometimes biting commentary of Stringer’s steady-handed election lawyer, is accessible on the internet. Somewhere, I’m pretty sure, exists a Gail Collins column that tells the story a hell of a lot better. I’ve done my best to piece the story together from what little survives on the web (mostly Times articles), and from personal memory.
Oh yeah, I forget to mention the name of the election lawyer who made Mr. Stringer’s career in the Assembly, and all that followed, possible:
Martin Connor.
If Bill Nuchow were alive, he’d be turning over in his grave.