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Brian Lehrer: Brian Lehrer on WNYC. Now, some really interesting and important things that might be on the New York City ballot this November, other than the mayoral race. If you listen to the show, you probably know by now that after the primary in June, we may not end up with just one Democrat on the ballot for mayor in November, depending on who you count as a Democrat. Mayor Adams, elected as a Democrat, is seeking reelection as an independent. Then former Governor Cuomo, who was so far leading in the primary polling, says he might run on a third party line if the Democratic primary voters don't choose him. A guy named Jim Walden has launched an independent campaign. And, if Cuomo does win the Democratic primary, one of the progressives who he defeats might run on the Working Families Party line in November. All of which leads us to one of the other things you may get to vote on.

Mayor Adams empaneled a charter review commission, which can place issue-oriented ballot questions before the voters. One of them, proposed in the commission's preliminary report, is to move beyond ranked choice voting to a system of open primaries, nonpartisan primaries for future mayoral and other city elections. To talk about that concept and some of the other ideas in the report, we're joined by Richard Buery, CEO of the anti-poverty group Robin Hood and chair of the Charter Revision Commission convened by Mayor Adams. He was also a deputy mayor under Bill de Blasio, as some of you may remember. Mr. Buery, welcome back to WNYC. Hi there.

Richard Buery: Good morning, Brian. Good to be with you.

Brian Lehrer: What does open primary mean exactly in your telling of it? One election of all-comers to narrow the field for the general election?

Richard Buery: Yes, but there are different flavors of it. At essence, what we're likely to propose to the voters to consider in November is a process that would have one primary, so there wouldn't be a Democratic primary or Republican primary, be one primary open to all candidates. Candidates would be able to label their party affiliation on the ballot so that voters would understand who they are, what party they represent, but there'd be one primary? We continue to lean into our recent success with ranked-choice voting. In that open primary, people will be able to rank their choices. The top two choices that would emerge would then face off in a general election.

Brian Lehrer: I gather this is different than the non-partisan elections, fully non-partisan elections that Mayor Bloomberg once proposed, correct?

Richard Buery: Well, it's not nonpartisan in the sense that voters would know the party of affiliation of the people on the ballot, but the primary itself is nonpartisan in the sense that it's not a Democratic primary or a Republican primary. Unlike some other places, voters would be fully aware what party a candidate represents.

Brian Lehrer: In this kind of a primary, what you're saying is, you would see the party affiliation next to the name of the individual, but you could wind up with, let's say, two Democrats or two Republicans or two Working Families Party members-

Richard Buery: Absolutely.

Brian Lehrer: -as the final two candidates, because only two make it through to the final round?

Richard Buery: Well, that's the choice. We haven't finalized our recommendations yet. As you know, we released our preliminary report. We're continuing to hear testimony. We have hearings coming up over the next few months. We'll continue to hear from voters about best way to do this. You could have the top two, you could have the top four. There are different ways to do this.

Fundamentally, what this proposal is really looking to try to address is the fact that we, in New York City, have persistently low turnout in elections. Fewer than 30% of registered voters have participated in each one of our mayoral elections since 2009. There are a few challenges. One is we have off-year elections. Our off-year elections, we vote for mayor the off-year from the presidential elections, which we know depresses turnout. Turnout in New York presidential elections is more than double our participation in our off-year mayoral elections. One thing that we're looking at is to move to even-year elections.

The other advantage of having an open primary like this is that we have a million unregistered voters in New York who don't have a chance to participate in either party's primary. I think democracy benefits when more people are able to participate in the political system. One of the advantages of a system like this is that it also brings in more people who can vote and hopefully encourages more people to get engaged with deciding who gets to lead our great city.

Brian Lehrer: Listeners, are you one of the unaffiliated voters who would clearly benefit from an open primary? I read that about 20% of registered voters in New York City are not affiliated with a political party, so you don't get to vote at all in the primaries as they exist. You can call in. Have you ever lived in one of the cities or states elsewhere that already have this in place? 212-433-WNYC. Or maybe you're worried about weakening the strength of the political parties and the other, arguably positive roles that they play in some aspects of civic life? You can call or text on this idea of open primaries. 212-433-WNYC.

Richard Buery, the head of Mayor Adams' Charter Revision Commission, is holding official hearings on this. Still, we call this an unofficial hearing. 212-433-9692 with your comments or your questions. Ask any question about the Charter Revision Commission's proposals. We'll get to a few others as well. This was originally convened to deal with affordable housing issues. There are more non-partisan elections. 212-433-WNYC, 212-433-9692. Call or text.

On moving the mayor election, New York City elections onto even years, same year as members of Congress or the president get elected, is there a trade-off? Was the fear that these offices would get lost in the shuffle for all the ads for statewide or federal candidates a reason that it got placed in the year after the presidential election in the first place? Fear that no attention would be paid to local concerns while everybody's talking about, "Oh, Trump or Harris," and that kind of high-profile thing?

Richard Buery: Well, look, I would say that that may very well be one of the arguments for the status quo, but for me it's a hard argument to justify given that, in this odd-year election and like every other odd year election, there was such low turnout that it's hard to really make the argument that somehow having a presidential election happening at the same time somehow depresses engagement. We have a Mayoral election happening right now, as you mentioned, primary in June, general election in November in an odd year. The debate this year is still very much dominated by national politics. I think at the end of the day, the best way to keep people engaged is to make it easier for them to get to the polls to reduce some of the barriers that keep people from participating.

By the way, it would also save a lot of money. We spend over $40 million a year on these off-year elections. It would also save a lot of money to just have that one cycle. It's definitely a valid point. Again, we'll be hearing from, hopefully, more New Yorkers at the next hearings about the different options of doing this. Ultimately, in November, voters get to decide do they want to keep the status quo or do they want to move to a different system.

Brian Lehrer: As some listeners can hear, your audio is breaking up a little bit, so I'm going to go to a caller. We're going to call you back and try to get you on a more stable line. In the meantime, we'll take a call from Mihai in Manhattan. Mihai, you're on WNYC. Hello.

Mihai: Hello. Thank you. I just wondering if there is this open primary, what is the point in the second step? Because with the rank choice voting, you already have your ranking, and the last step is meaningless.

Brian Lehrer: As soon as we get Mr. Buery hooked back up. We'll put that question to him because we're getting versions of that same exact question from multiple callers. It's interesting that's the dominant question on the board right now. Basically, why do we need this if we have ranked-choice voting? Doesn't ranked-choice voting serve the same purpose? Do we have Mr. Buery back yet? Not quite. Okay, there he is. Mr. Buery, are you there?

Richard Buery: Sorry about that, Brian. [crosstalk]

Brian Lehrer: That's okay. I don't think you were able to hear the caller. The basic question is, if we already have ranked choice voting, doesn't that serve the same purpose, the same winnowing purpose as open primaries?

Richard Buery: It doesn't because we still have party primaries. We have ranked-choice voting certainly in the Democratic primary or the Republican primary, but if you're an independent voter, you don't get to participate in either primary. Now, I think ranked-choice voting has been a great success so far. In its early stages, it's led to increased participation. I think it definitely makes sense to keep that. I'm sure that will be part of our recommendations. The current system does not allow independent voters, which again, are a million voters. I have to say, we heard more testimony on this issue than any other issue.

We see lots of support from a range of good government groups, all suggesting that some version of this would be a good idea, from the Independent Campaign Finance Board to Citizens Union to the Brennan Center for Justice*. We think it's an improvement that builds upon, where I do think has been a successful run with ranked-choice voting.

Brian Lehrer: I think you're saying this open primary, if it were to come to pass, would have ranked-choice voting. It wouldn't just be vote for one and then the top however many raw vote getters go on to the final round, you would have ranked-choice voting in this open primary?

Richard Buery: In the open primary, it would be ranked-choice voting. Then, depending on what we recommended, you'd have ranked-choice voting in the open primary, but then if you had the top two candidates, that could be a one-on-one election in the general election.

Brian Lehrer: Right. Why wouldn't you go to a one-on-one election for the second round? Why might you go to more candidates than that? Then we might have the same kind of free-for-all that we're possibly looking at this year in November, that I thought this proposal is designed to avoid.

Richard Buery: That's a good question. Again, I do think certainly going to the top two has been the model that's recommended by Citizens Union. As I said, it's preliminary. Now that we have these preliminary recommendations out here, we just want to hear from voters, what do they think? It may very well be that the top two is the best way to move forward.

Brian Lehrer: Tom in Brooklyn, you're on WNYC. Hi, Tom.

Tom: Hi. How are you doing?

Brian Lehrer: Good. What you got?

Tom: Can you hear me?

Brian Lehrer: Yes.

Tom: I'm hugely in favor of single primary, all-comers. I'd love to see it everywhere because I think it goes a long way towards reducing the power of the parties, which have now become quite extreme. I think the founders were afraid of parties and the partisanship and tribalism associated with parties. That's exactly what we see now. Whenever someone strays, for instance from the party line, they're threatened with getting primaried, which means that they know that they will be up against the faithful and the true believers and so they move away from positions often that they know are a broader set of voters support, but maybe the parties faithful do not support. I think it's an important time right now to take power away from parties and I think and return it to people. I think this is an extremely effective way of doing that.

Brian Lehrer: Thank you, Tom. You've got a fan in Tom from Brooklyn. A few more minutes with the head of Mayor Adams' Charter Revision Commission. We've been speaking about one of the proposals that they're recommending to put on the November ballot. There are others. Mr. Buery, I hope you'll come back as this process proceeds to talk about some of the others in detail because there are other interesting ones too.

I want you to touch on two of them at least briefly right now because I know the mayor empanelled this commission originally to deal with housing, or at least that's what he said. We now have City of Yes, which is supposed to make building housing easier. I think the most controversial idea in your proposal is ending the practice of letting the sitting city council member from a particular neighborhood, in effect, veto a housing proposal for that area. Can you describe that briefly?

Richard Buery: Well, look, it's clear that our current status quo is not working. We all are living through one of the worst housing crises in our city's history, historically low vacancy rates. One of the challenges is that it's very difficult to build housing in the city. We have some neighborhoods which are functionally off-limits, where no housing gets developed, and other neighborhoods that bear the full brunt. Part of that is our land reform process, our ULURP process.

Brian Lehrer: Ooh, did we lose him? Mr. Buery, are you there?

Richard Buery: I'm here. Can you hear me?

Brian Lehrer: Yes. Now we have you.

Richard Buery: I'm sorry. Sorry about that. I'll just repeat myself. I said that we have a challenging housing crisis in the city that all of your listeners, I'm sure, are fully aware of. The rent is too high. One of the challenges is that it's too hard to build housing. We have some neighborhoods that essentially produce almost no housing. Our land review process called ULURP, one of the challenges is it's very much a one-size-fits-all system, so if you want to build an eight-unit apartment building, you have to go through the same process as if you want to build Hudson Yards, build an entirely new neighborhood. That just doesn't make sense.

One of the challenges if you are trying to build the kind of small project that presumably most people wouldn't have a problem with, it's just too cost-prohibitive. It's too difficult to go through the process for that. At core, we just want to have a system that rightsizes the process to the project. You're describing the principle of member deference, which, of course, is not a legal rule. It's a tradition that is a result of the way that our process works with the city council, potentially, to approve every project.

Brian Lehrer: Right. On that "deference" I've made the sort of joke on this show that there are two things that everybody agrees on regarding affordable housing in New York City. "We desperately need a lot more affordable housing," is number one. Number two is, "Just don't build any near me."

Richard Buery: Yes. NIMBYism is real. It's real and it's powerful. It's often manifested in the voice of a city councilor, who are often put in a very difficult position because the most vocal folks in those districts may be against any change, even when that council member understands that the city needs more housing. Look, I believe, personally, and I think everybody on the council believes that the voice of the local community is represented by the councilperson, is critically important. The question is, should that councilperson have veto power over any development? I think we can find a process that both respects the role and the voice of local council people, but also ensures that we have a broader citywide perspective. That's what we're trying to balance in our recommendations.

Brian Lehrer: We'll see how people debate that and whether it gets actually put on the November ballot. Last thing, from your preliminary report, I see you're looking for a way for the city to do a better job of paying the nonprofit organizations that it contracts with to provide services. A recent report from the comptroller's office said there were 7,000 unpaid invoices worth over a billion dollars. A lot of that for work done in 2024, that long ago. That's even before President Trump is trying to starve a lot of nonprofits. What can be done by changing the charter? Because there is a need to make sure the public's money is going for work that actually is being done, right?

Richard Buery: Absolutely right. Nonprofits, even in the best of times, cannot bear the financial burden. As a result, we have nonprofits that are going out of business, unable to pay staff, unable to take on work, taking out loans. It is really unconscionable. By the way, it's not the fault of the Adams administration. It was true when I was the deputy mayor, it was true before my time with the [unintelligible 00:18:13] de Blasio administration. In fact, I think this administration has done lots of good work to move this work forward. We think there are things that we can do in the city charter that won't solve the problem, but can make it easier.

Things like empowering the Mayor's Office of Contract Services and their ability to standardize processes, procedures, and invoicing, making sure that we're providing nonprofits with strong advances when a contract is registered, making sure they can receive partial payment for invoices, even if there are problems with parts of an invoice, make sure that doesn't hold up the system. Thinking about how we can reduce unnecessary delays and contract renewals by maybe perhaps allowing for an automatic renewal mechanism for recurring contracts from the charter.

I think you have lots of technical things that the charter can help us do. At the end of the day, it still goes down to the actual work and the management of these systems. We want to see what we can do in the city charter to make it easier for these hardworking organizations that are just a critical part of our day-to-day lives in ways that people don't often understand, but that we just can't expect them to be able to do the work in the way that we do business with them, particularly in the world when so many are facing vulnerability because of changes in federal funding.

Brian Lehrer: Richard Buery, once a deputy mayor in the de Blasio administration, now CEO of the anti-poverty group Robin Hood, and for the moment, chair of the Charter Revision Commission, empaneled by Mayor Adams to recommend various things to be put on the November ballot. Thanks for talking through a few of those with us. We always appreciate when you come on. Let's follow up to talk about some of these proposals in more detail.

Richard Buery: Thank you.

Brian Lehrer: Do you want to just tell people how to attend some of your in-person public hearings coming up?

Richard Buery: Absolutely. You can go to our website, the New York City Charter Revision Commission. Just google us. I think it's nyc.gov/charterrevisioncommission. Google me if I have that website wrong-- Google the commission. You can see all the hearings there. You can submit testimony online, in writing. You can email us, testimony, you can come in person, or you can Zoom into our meetings and testify remotely. We really do want to hear voices. I promise you that this agenda is different because of people coming up and sharing their voices. It's really democracy at work. I hope you'll have me back on later on. I promise to have better audio when we do.

Brian Lehrer: [laughs] We'll work that out together. Richard Buery, thank you very much.

*Correction: The Brennan Center supports shifting to even-year elections, but does not have a position on open primaries.

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