On Wednesday night will come an event that I once saw as having the potential to be the opening gun in a new Brooklyn political war.
It may yet come to that, but I am having my doubts.
When Darryl Towns became the State’s Housing Commissioner, he resigned not only from his Assembly seat, but from the Male Democratic District Leader’s slot in his Assembly District.
As I noted, initial press coverage which portrayed the Assembly seat as a Towns family sinecure was obviously influenced by downing one too many Kool-Aid and Grain cocktails in the presence of Towns’ dad, Congressman Edolphus T.
The Democratic nomination for the Assembly would be determined by a Committee consisting of State Senate Martin Malave Dilan, Councilman Erik Dilan, and Female District Leader Jannitza Luna Dilan, with Vito Lopez participating as a non-voting uncle.
Their choice will then be ratified by the District’s Democratic County Committee, which allegedly includes some non-relatives, but not nearly enough to make it a contest.
Towns initially made noise about running for Assembly a candidate related by either blood or marriage (to him, not the Dilans) but it soon became apparent that this was Plan B.
Plan A was to persuade the Dilans to maintain the status quo. Towns magnanimously promised that if they allowed the choice of a new Male Leader to remain with his faction, he would pick a leader who was not his relative.
He would take the job himself.
The District Leadership will be filled by a vote of the members of the County Party’s Executive Committee, the same 42 leaders (minus Darryl Towns) who had re-elected Vito Lopez, plus eleven horses appointed to this Senate by Lopez, doing his best imitation of Caligula.
Towns’ plan was to persuade Lopez to avoid an Assembly race for the Dilans’ (and Lopez’s) choice (Courtesy of Towns’ daughter Deidra), and possible embarrassment at the Leaders’ meeting.
As I outlined, the idea was to put together an alliance of all the black District Leaders, plus the “Reformers,” such as they are, and those leaders either harboring a grudge against Lopez, or susceptible to “Reform“-type pressure.
The theory behind the idea was to put Vito in a situation where he might be dependent on the unholy 11 appointed exec committee members to win the vote. This then would be trumpeted as the ultimate sign of weakness, which it would be.
The thought was to use this possibility to get Vito to agree to give the leadership to Towns in exchange for his support in the Assembly race.
There were several problems with that plan.
The first is that it requires Lopez to have fear of being shamed.
Evidence would indicate that Lopez may be the only person in the County with even less shame than Ed Towns.
Last year, Vito backed Warren Cohn for a vacant District Leadership against Lincoln Restler of New Kings Democrats (NKD). At the time of the Leaders’ meeting, Cohn and Restler were still engaged in a recount, and Restler has pulled slightly ahead (where he stayed) yet Lopez barred Restler from attendance at the Leaders’ meeting while allowing Cohn to be in the room.
Vito has a different concept of what constitutes evidence of weakness.
Last Year at the County Committee meeting, NKD proposed an incredibly lame and toothless series of rule changes that barely qualified as “reforms.”
A slyer leader might have finessed the whole thing by including all this stuff in his own rules changes, thus avoiding the confrontation the “Reformers” were just aching to have.
Some would say that outsmarting the “Reformers” would be a real show of strength.
Vito preferred a shoot to kill strategy.
Another reason the Towns strategy won’t work is that even the leaders who might be inclined to hand Vito a defeat, don’t see a vote proving Vito dependent upon his appointed horses as accomplishing that task
They might want to hand Lopez a defeat, but have no interest in merely handing him an embarrassing victory, especially an embarrassing victory which would not make him blush.
If Erik Dilan is going to be the new Leader no matter what they do, they’d prefer to go with Dilan; they might have a judicial candidate they want to push; why piss off the winner?
Further, voting against Erik Dilan is seen by many, if not most leaders, as undermining their own prerogatives.
Traditionally, a vacant Leaders’ slot is given to the choice of the surviving leader of that District.
Every District Leader intends to survive their Co-Leader, and they all want to choose the new one when the time comes. The only Leader who both knows that he might not survive his Co-Leader, and is alarmed by the prospect of who they might choose to succeed them, is Junior Boyland.
That’s not much of a base to build on.
And last year, Towns backed Boyland’s Co-Leader against Boyland’s choice.
The only reason besides color why this might not matter is that Lopez did so too.
Another problem is the base Towns counts on may not be there.
Surely there are some black leaders who might want something from Vito.
And there are surely some who dislike Ed Towns.
Why does the name Inez Barron come to mind?
Although it would be hard to picture Inez Barron going with the white man‘s choice, her husband Chuckles serves with Dilan on the Council, and stood with the rest of the Brooklyn delegation, except Diana Reyna, in supporting Dilan for City Clerk against the wishes of Christine Quinn.
Might not Inez Barron stand against the man who beat her husband for Congress?
Seriously, it would not shock me if Towns got the vote of every black leader; but it would also not shock if he suffered desertions.
Then there is the perception that Towns may be entertaining a run for the County Leadership, either against Lopez, or when Lopez leaves.
No one I know really believes Towns would be much of an improvement, and the perception of his interest has been such a negative that Towns was forced to send a letter disclaiming any interest.
But that only begs the question why he want to be a leader at all.
No one believes that Towns would be a “Reformer” (which in this crowd might be a plus). Given his own history of support for the likes of Giuliani and D’Amato, no one believes he would be a better partisan than Lopez either.
There are very few measures on which people who have problems with Lopez would find Towns an improvement.
In fact, given Towns’ near obsession with elevating a judge who has never made it through the Party’s Screening Panel, and the record of his political cronies in running challenges against competent sitting judges, there are measures upon which Towns may arguably prove worse.
Plus, there is a perception that Towns can’t be trusted.
As one local operative states (in a quote I stole the other day) “I wouldn’t take Ed Towns word if they notarized his tongue.“
I know three former judges who thought they had Ed Towns’ support for re-election who found themselves with primaries sponsored by Towns’ cronies; primaries he probably could have prevented with one phone call.
By contrast, Vito Lopez is considered as trustworthy as a County Leader gets. The promises may be carefully hedged or conditional, but as one leader told me:
“I can trust Vito. Usually, I can trust him to fuck me. But it’s nice in this business to have something you can rely upon.’
The one great argument for Towns as County Leader is that he would be a very weak leader.
Local autonomy would again replace imposition from the top. Maybe Towns would attempt to exert control in black areas, but more likely, things would get a bit looser everywhere.
There’s two problems with that.
The first is that Vito came in as a move to increase Brooklyn’s power.
For years, Brooklyn, the State’s largest county, had controlled the Democratic leadership at both the Assembly and City Council.
Under Clarence, Brooklyn had even lost the State Senate Minority Leadership.
Under Vito, Brooklyn once again has regained the Senate, and the Council’s Finance Chairmanship. Looser leadership makes more power less likely.
The other problem is that no one really anticipates a challenge against Lopez.
Some who might prefer Towns against Lopez, would not prefer him to Frank Seddio, who is would be less likely (or at least less able) than Vito to impose his will locally, and knows how to smile and say “thank you.”
The resistance Towns has encountered makes a Countywide challenge less likely, which brings us back to the local leadership.
There the “Reform” case for Towns is a bit better.
A vote for Towns is a vote to keep one leader seat in the “not totally owned by Vito” category.
It is a vote for pluralism, which might not be reform, but is the only available alternative.
As one reformer told me:
“Well, the case ain't strong, but I'm in the “Anyone But Vito” camp when it comes to control of the district — and that translates into “Anyone But Dilan” at the moment.”
So, I would expect the “Reform” hardcore (Joanne Simon Jo Anne Seminara, Chris Owens & Lincoln Restler) to either back Towns or abstain.
Beyond that, I don’t know.
Jake Gold and Lori Knipel have a lot of Park Slope in the their district; one might think a pro-Vito vote might hurt them.
But Park Slope’s “Reform” club, CBID, has twice voted to support crazed psychotic Kevin Powell for Congress, rather than to support Ed Towns
One can hardly see CBID making that much of a fuss about not giving Ed Towns a District Leadership.
Perhaps Rock Hackshaw will persuade Lori to support his friend Towns in exchange for support for her race for Borough President.
She can even bring her notary stamp to the closing.
Another vote for Town might be Lew Fidler.
Fidler is on Vito’s shit list because, in 2009, he had the guts to stand up to Vito and support his Council colleague, Diana Reyna, for re-election against Vito‘s co-leader.
Since then, he’s often taken the lead in publicly standing up to Lopez.
Fidler could conceivably do it again. I am pretty certain he would not mind giving Lopez a good slap.
But I’m not so certain Fidler wants to give a slap to Dilan.
If Lew Fidler wouldn’t dessert a Council colleague when it took guts to stand with her, what makes anyone think he would dessert a Council colleague when standing with them would be easy?
But even with Fidler, Gold and Knipel, I don’t see Towns getting to 23 out of 42, let alone 27 out of 53.
As the scrap metal dealer said in the “Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz,” “It’s war and the white man has all the guns.”
A slyer County Leader would go the extra mile in making this fixed fight look fair.
But giving Ed Towns the appearance of a fair fight might look to some to be a sign of weakness.
Can’t have that.
Ed Towns has been told he will not be allowed to address the Leaders’ meeting where his son’s successor for Leader will be chosen. I have been informed by one Leader that Police will be at the meeting to ensure that Towns is not even allowed into the room
A slyer leader might let Towns address the room, all the better to increase the level of humiliation when Towns is rejected.
The question remains whether Dilan, who also is also not currently a District Leader, will be allowed in the room before he wins the election.
All common sense would dictate that Dilan should be treated exactly as Towns until the fixed battle is over.
A slyer County Leader would do so.
But this is the same County Leader who is already having his candidate for Darryl Towns’ Assembly vacancy distribute literature calling himself the Democratic nominee, even though the Special Election has not yet even been set.
I will not predict what Vito will do, but instead direct you to a member of Ed Towns’ staff to ask his opinion of what will happen.
Warren Cohn, who do you think Vito will let into the room?