Talking Statues Give Voice to History 05
Office of Councilmember Corey Johnson
Divisive UWS Candidate Draws Finance Board Complaint 06
In UWS Reelection Bid, Helen Rosenthal Has Both Opponents and Antagonists
City Councilmember Corey Johnson being arrested after sitting-in at Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell’s office on July 19.
With Senate Sit-In, Health Care Advocates Refuse to Gamble that McConnell Will Fail BY PAUL SCHINDLER One day after efforts by the Trump administration and the US Senate’s GOP leadership to dismantle President Barack Obama’s Affordable Care Act appeared to have collapsed, up to 500 activists descended on Senate offices demanding that Republicans work on “providing health care rather than taking it away.” That’s how Eric Sawyer, the vice president of public affairs and policy at Gay Men’s Health Crisis, explained the efforts of his group and other health care advocates in Washington on July 19. In tandem with hundreds of others — including about 200 New Yorkers representing Housing Works, VOCAL-NY, Rise and Resist, Gays Against Guns, ACT UP, and Positive Women’s Network, as well — GMHC staff and clients staged sits-ins at the offices of the 49 GOP senators who had not yet rejected Majority Leader Mitch McConnell’s call for an outright repeal of Obamacare without putting forward any immediate replacement. That was the strategy McConnell adopted on July 18, after it became clear the Republicans lacked the 50 votes needed to pass his Obamacare replacement bill. The repeal with no replacement option has been scored by the Congressional Budget Office as even worse than McConnell’s replacement bill, leaving 32 million more Americans uninsured by 2026, versus the 22 million who would be forced out of care under the measure the GOP leadership had abandoned. Events, however, quickly overtook that provisional SIT-IN continued on p. 4
July 27 – August 9, 2017 | Vol. 03 No. 15
Office of Councilmember Helen Rosenthal
City Councilmember Helen Rosenthal (in red, at podium) at a Day Without A Woman rally on International Women’s Day this past March 8.
BY JACKSON CHEN Incumbent City Councilmember Helen Rosenthal has at least four opponents in her bid for reelection to her District 6 seat, but those are not the only political antagonists she faces on the Upper West Side. Rosenthal will face off against challengers Mel Wymore and Cary Goodman in the September 12 Democratic primary, and the winner will go up against independent candidates Bill Raudenbush and David Owens on November 7. With nearly a full term under her belt, Rosenthal said she hopes to continue her progressive agenda on issues including school rezoning, tenant protections, and pay equity for women. In addition to the incumbent’s four challengers at the ballot box, there appears to be continued resistance toward Rosenthal below the surface from the Community Free Democrats (CFD), a political club that includes heavy-hitting West Side politicians including Congressmember Jerry Nadler, Comptroller Scott Stringer, and Assemblymember Linda Rosenthal.
When the councilmember beat out six other candidates in the 2013 Democratic primary for the open District 6 seat being vacated by Gale Brewer — who went on to become borough president — one of her defeated opponents was Marc Landis, CFD’s choice, who finished third. Rosenthal also found herself at odds with CFD’s leading lights over School District 3’s controversial school rezoning on the Upper West Side. While Rosenthal ultimately backed the Community Education Council 3’s majority vote to push through the rezoning, Assemblymember Linda Rosenthal did not support the changes. The assemblymember joined State Senator Brad Hoylman and a representative from Nadler’s office in a September 2016 rally against the rezoning plan presented by the Department of Education. Separately, in an interview with the New York Times, Stringer said the DOE and the de Blasio ROSENTHAL continued on p. 4
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