Monday’s issue of Crain’s is chock-full of interesting political news.
Cracks are forming in the labor coalition pushing for passage of the paid sick leave bill in the City Council, with supporters of Council Speaker Christine Quinn accusing those backing Public Advocate Bill de Blasio of turning the issue into a political football. Chris Bragg has the scoop:
The Working Families Party continues to pressure Ms. Quinn, creating quite a bit of awkwardness for unions that support paid sick days and the speaker’s candidacy. Several union leaders within the party who lean toward Ms. Quinn charge that the party’s staff is attacking her to help Mr. de Blasio, a labor darling who is seen as party leaders’ favored candidate. Mr. de Blasio is trying to catch Ms. Quinn in the mayoral race by promoting his enthusiastic support for mandatory paid sick leave.
Quinn supporter Patrick Purcell, UFCW Local 1500′s political director, said sick-leave proponents should wait for 2014, when a much stronger bill would likely pass with the mayoralty and speakership in different hands. “There has been a shift where this became less about good policy and more focused on political football,” said Mr. Purcell.
Before he ran the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, mayoral hopeful Joseph Lhota was involved in the turbulent battles at Cablevision, where he was a top executive, and smack dab in the turbulent world of municipal finance in the 1980s. Andrew J. Hawkins examines his private sector experience:
Before he earned widespread praise for restarting the subways after Superstorm Sandy, Mr. Lhota was an investment banker who conducted his career at a furious pace. When late for flights, Mr. Lhota would ditch his rental car in front of the agency’s airport office, often leaving the tank empty and the key under the mat.
“Completely frenetic” was how one close associate described him.
When he did have spare time before boarding a plane, Mr. Lhota was known to buy a large bucket of KFC chicken to share with his fellow first-class passengers.
Two charitable organizations bearing the Rockefeller name are on opposite sides of the debate over the paid sick leave bill. Chris Bragg follows the money:
Over the past several years, the Rockefeller Family Fund, a nonprofit established in 1967 by New York Republican Gov. Nelson Rockefeller, has given at least $250,000 toward the union-led push to require companies to offer paid time off. The nonprofit’s $7 million 2010 operating budget came from outside donations and interest accrued from an endowment funded by the family fortune, initially earned by Standard Oil tycoon John D. Rockefeller more than a century ago.
Then, in December, the far larger Rockefeller Foundation announced a $100,000 grant to a nonprofit arm of the Brooklyn Chamber of Commerce. The money will be used to hold 2013 mayoral forums highlighting business issues—and for many small businesses, especially restaurants and retailers, there is no concern more pressing than legislation that would require them to pay for time off if an employee calls in sick.
“If this was a way to say the Rockefeller family was split on the issue, it was a smart way to do it,” said one left-leaning source.
Crain’s columnist Greg David takes a close look at high-income tax rates and asks whether the city’s millionaires are paying too much:
Being a millionaire in California became a lot more expensive this year with the “fiscal cliff” deal that raised federal taxes on the wealthy and the imposition of a state income-tax surcharge that hiked the highest rate to 13.3%. In all, California millionaires face a marginal tax rate of 51.9%, the highest in the nation. The New York Times wondered last week if millionaires would be decamping for greener pastures, especially the eight states with no income tax.
At the bottom of the Times story was an important fact for New York City. The federal increases mean the top marginal tax rate for city millionaires is virtually the same as California’s, at 51.7%. Some of the Democratic candidates for mayor want to raise it so that New York City can again boast the highest tax rate in the land. They think this is a good idea.
Citizens Budget Commission President Carol Kellerman opines on the increasing global competition the city faces in attracting a skilled workforce:
The late Ed Koch proclaimed New York City the “capital of the world,” and many New Yorkers would agree with him. But we have competition—not just from international financial capitals London, Hong Kong and Singapore, but also from U.S. regions like the Capital Beltway and Silicon Valley. These places are attracting highly educated workers at a greater rate than the New York metropolitan area, according to a Citizens Budget Commission analysis.
Human capital is a hot topic. Thriving in the information economy requires a highly skilled workforce with specialized expertise and an ability to innovate. Attracting such a workforce is essential to New York’s ability to retain strength in core industries and cultivate emerging ones.
And although there is much skepticism surrounding the new power sharing coalition in the state Senate, Crain’s editorial board theorizes about it’s possible success:
Just a month into the legislative session, however, there’s reason to believe the “Skleinos” theory that power-sharing will succeed. Messrs. [Dean] Skelos and [Jeff] Klein spoke jointly at an event hosted by this newspaper last week, agreeing on some things and disagreeing on others, but without a trace of the vitriol that for years dominated the Senate’s majority-minority system. (Regular Senate Democrats, during a rocky two years in control of the chamber, did help to ease tensions by sharing resources more fairly between the two parties.)
We are now seeing real bipartisanship in action. It may be true that the Skelos and Klein conferences are embracing it out of necessity—each knows it lacks the votes to get what it wants on its own—but no matter. So far, it is working. For example, the sensible gun-control bill that passed in January would have never come to a vote in last year’s Senate; it would have been blocked by the GOP leadership because Republicans were divided on the issue.
