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Brian Lehrer: Brian Lehrer on WNYC. One thing we can say with high confidence about the New York City primary results even as the ranked-choice voting calculations have yet to begin, it looks like City Council will have a female majority for the first time ever. Why now? What might that mean for who gets served by policymaking and city government? Christine Chung usually the Queens correspondent for the news organization The City has an article about this. We'll talk about that and other primary vote counting developments for mayor and other offices with Christine Chung from The City.

Laura Nahmias will join us in a minute, former Daily News editorial board member and politics reporter at Politico New York, who now writes a New York politics newsletter called Fun City. I think we just have Christine to start out. Is that right? Christine, Welcome back to WNYC.

Christine Chung: Hey, Brian, thanks for having me.

Brian: Oh, Laura, you're there too. Hi, Laura.

Laura Nahmias: Hi. How are you?

Brian: Good. Laura, let me start with you. The name of your new newsletter, Fun City, you reach deep into the archives for that one. Wasn't that a Mayor John Lindsay reference from the 1960s?

Laura: Absolutely. He was asked at some point about rising crime and disorder on the streets of New York in the late 1960s and responded with something to the effect of, "I still think it's a fun city," and that quote dogged him and the city for the next decade. A little bit tongue in cheek. I still think it's a fun city myself even today.

Brian: Yes. He did say it a little defensively that late '60s era when he was mayor. Late '60s early '70s featured a big transit strike 1966, I think, a big teacher strike in '68, a big power blackout that happened in '65, a big snowstorm in '69, that for Lindsay, got him very unpopular for not getting the streets plowed in Queens very efficiently. How much are you identifying those days with these?

Laura: Not at all really. I think it's a catchy title. You hear constantly these days, and actually ever since the election of Bill de Blasio, this call-back from people concerned about returning to those bad old days where I think any reasonable assessment of numbers, metric standards on cleanliness and crime and everything you could say there's no comparison. You hear this refrain constantly from people concerned about the city and its future, that we might be returning to the old days of the late '60s and '70s in New York City. We're nowhere close, but it's definitely an element of the conversation.

Brian: Christine, let me bring you in on that one. If Eric Adams is elected mayor, considered from a more centrist wing of the party on crime and some other things, you cover Queens. Southeast Queens, largely Black, was maybe Adams's biggest stronghold. Whereas AOC's district in Queens, for example, diverse but more white, Western Queens, went more for Maya Wiley. How would you analyze results around the borough through that lens?

Christine: Well, I think that it remains to be seen what those number two votes will be like for those two candidates, but I do think it's really interesting, like you said, Brian, that there is that sharp divide for the candidates playing out in the borough of Queens. I guess it is a very fun race.

Brian: Fun race. Have you seen these various pieces, Laura, coming out about how white progressives and also progressives of color, but many of the progressives in this conversation are white, may have misread what Black and Latino New York voters of color really want when it comes to public safety considering the map of who voted for Adams and who voted for the more defund-oriented Wiley?

Laura: Potentially, although it did feel, to a certain extent, like that conversation was happening apart from what was going on, on the ground. One of the enduring mysteries of this race to me is that, in a certain sense, Maya Wiley and Eric Adams, both want the same thing. They both want a safer city. They want fewer shootings.

They are just using different language to describe what they wanted, Maya Wiley using more of the language that's ocurrent and academia and appeals to a more progressive, maybe wider base, and Eric Adams talking about community policing and using some of the more traditional terminology to talk about keeping communities safe in a way that doesn't have to be racist or brutal or violent. It seems very clear that they both want the same thing, a city that is very safe for everyone and that doesn't have to lock too many people up to do that.

Brian: Christine, your article on the news site, The City, is called Women Make Forceful Showing in First Round of City Council Votes. Maybe we should begin on this by saying just how male-dominated the 51-member City Council is. Can you do that?

Christine: Yes, for sure. Laura is already talking about previous decades, and in previous decades, the City Council, and enduring to now, has been basically dominated by men. Right now, men outnumber women 37 to 14 in the Council, and I think at its peak, it was 18. There's never really been gender parity. This is compared to a New York City that we live in where there are more women than men. 52% of the population is female.

What's really, really notable about this primary election is that it represents a chance for women to achieve better gender balance in the City Council. Right now, obviously, who knows how things may change in the weeks to come? Tomorrow is the deadline, I believe, for the absentee ballots to arrive back to the boards of election. Right now as things stand at the initial tally, the in-person first-place primary votes has 29 women ahead so far, to fill 35 open seats. If they win, if 29 women win, that is obviously a majority of the Council, the 51-member Council.

Brian: It is incredible that in New York City, it's really not incredible to anyone who knows the history and you look at Congress and any other legislative body in the United States, more or less, but supposedly progressive New York City and we still had only 14 women out of 51 City Council members in this current session. You mentioned that the new group of candidates who seem about to win includes progressive women of color seeking to change the face of the council in some significant numbers.

Want to single out a few of those likely new progressive faces and progressive voices, who our listeners around the area may not be familiar with yet? I'm thinking maybe start with Shahana Hanif.

Christine: Sure. Shahana Hanif is a likely winner [unintelligible 00:08:13] what may happen, but right now she has 39% of the vote over the second-place candidate's 23%. She's running in Brooklyn, Brad Lander, he's obviously running for comptroller. It is a race that is obviously a pretty big margin, something like 16%, 16 points in between them. Right now, I should say that she has a lot of progressive support.

She's made in her platform a really key piece [unintelligible 00:08:47] worker justice for gig workers, for taxi workers as well, taxi drivers. If she wins, she would be one of the first South Asian council members to be elected to the City Council right now. Historically, we have never had any South Asian council members and she may be the first.

A couple other districts who represent potential progressive winners in the Bronx, we have Marjorie Velazquez in district 13. She won in Election Night, won 56% of the vote so far. In district 34 also in the Bronx, we have Jennifer Gutierrez, who won 80% of the first-place votes. Back in Queens, although this is a name that many people know obviously in progressive circles actually, Tiffany Cabán had 49% of the first place in-persons vote on Election Night, pre-absentee counting. These three races may not involve ranked-choice tabulations after the absentee votes are accounted for.

Brian: They may get over 50% on the first round, which avoids ranked-choice voting. For people still confused, what does ranked-choice voting do? If no candidate gets a majority of the votes, 50% plus one, and all the ranked-choice, second, third, fourth, fifth place, votes come into play as they eliminate the lowest vote-getter, and then the second-lowest vote-getter, on and on, until somebody gets to 50% plus one.

If you get 50% in the first round of voting, no ranked-choice voting needed, but in all these races with so many candidates in the field, in many city council districts, to do that is quite an accomplishment, and so it would be in some of those districts you just described and with some of those history-making candidates. Talk a little more about Tiffany Cabán, who some listeners, who are not in Queens maybe or not following these races so closely may think, "I know that name, Tiffany Cabán. Oh, yes, she's the one who barely lost her bid last year to become Queens DA." Which district is she winning in?

Christine: She is winning in district 22, which is former Councilmember Costa Constantinides's district. This covers areas of Western Queens, including Astoria, East Elmhurst, Jackson Heights, and Woodside. This is where she lives, and this is an area where she won resoundingly in her 2019 bid to become Queens's District Attorney. It was a very close race as you mentioned, Brian. She won on Election Night. She had thought she won, declared victory, and then there was a very long, laborious recount in which [inaudible 00:11:41] by only a couple votes.

It, for her, marks a resounding win this time around. It was notable that on Election Night, last Tuesday, despite the fact that she had an incredibly strong showing from the get-go really, as polls close, there was no celebrating until basically, she had reached that 49% threshold.

Brian: Before we bring Laura Nahmias back in and invite some phone callers, what would Cabán's City Council agenda be, as far as you know, from her campaign, compared to her progressive prosecutor agenda when she was running for Queens DA?

Christine: She has basically made policing, which obviously, was a in criminal justice, which were the things that she talked about as DA, in her DA campaign, really, really key campaign promises as well. She basically wants to end the carceral system. She talks a lot about implementing a great new deal as well, but criminal justice and re-envisioning the way in which we police communities is something that Cabán-- a dialogue that she has continued into this City Council campaign as well. She's emerged as a really, really strong voice on those subjects, and I imagine will continue to be so.

Brian: Listeners, anybody want to call in on really anything pertaining to the state of the New York City primary as they wait for the absentee ballots now to be counted, and wait for the ranked-choice voting to begin at the level of mayor or City Council or a borough president or any other race? What about the lack of representation of women in New York City Council historically, and that that may finally change? 646-435-7280. What do you hope that would mean, listeners?

646-435-7280, or you can tweet a comment or a question @BrianLehrer for Christine Chung, Queens correspondent for the news organization, The City, and Laura Nahmias former Daily News editorial board and Politico New York reporter who now writes a brand new politics newsletter called Fun City. 646-435-7280 or tweet @Brian Lehrer.

Laura, on the gender imbalance in legislatures in general, you were a reporter in Albany for Politico New York at one time in Andrew Cuomo's Albany. You're a young woman reporter in Andrew Cuomo's Albany with all we know now about him and about that, and yet another feature was certainly the majority male culture in the legislature, not just in the governor's office. We're seeing still 14 out of 51 members of New York City Council, only 14 are female today. Is this one of the lenses you've looked through as a reporter in your career so far? Do you see policy and substantive negative impacts of that?

Laura: Yes, absolutely. Women are not a monolith in their policy views by any stretch, but the lack of representation meant that certain issues weren't even coming up in Albany, and even at the City Council in Albany, paid family leave was not a discussion until very recently. The lawmakers in Albany and, until relatively recently, in the City Council, didn't seem inclined to examine the structural problems with the campaign system that we've had over many years that contributed to that gender imbalance.

Although I think the City Council and the city as a whole has made a bunch of changes that I think may have helped facilitate what looks like this evening out of the gender balance on the City Council, things like not having the candidates be the hand-picked choices of county party machines, the expansion of the public matching system in New York City's campaign finance system that's allowed more people to compete.

I do think that for all the criticisms we've seen of ranked-choice voting, and people's questions about it, one of the promises that it held out to the city as a system for voting was that it does help elect a more diverse group of representation and more women. For people who wouldn't vote for a female candidate because they have the sense that she couldn't win before, this new system opens up the possibility that you can just vote for who you think would be the best, and that person actually may, in fact, have a shot of winning the whole race with the system.

Those structural changes to the way that we elect people could have massive implications for policy going forward, especially in New York City. We have a ton of federal aid that's come in and coming in, and the City Council plays this incredibly important role in setting the budget and will for years to come. We have these massive issues to look at and fix and address that aren't just women's issues, but they're family issues. they're issues for all New Yorkers, childcare deserts, lack of affordable childcare, the pay disparity for EMS workers, pay disparities. There's just so much that a better-balanced City Council can bring attention to, from their own lived experience and it's just extraordinary.

Brian: Christine, can I get you to comment on one of the things that Laura said in that answer, particularly, that ranked-choice voting, obviously, new this primary, may have helped women candidates attain this place where it looks like they'll be the majority in City Council for the first time? Have you seen that in your reporting?

Christine: Yes, definitely. In a piece that I worked on with a colleague, Ann Choi, we had basically dialed in and looked at the fundraising numbers for woman council candidates a couple of months ago, and found that women of color were actually top fundraisers among all of the council candidates, some 300 people.

A lot of what we heard during our reporting, our interviews with candidates was that ranked-choice voting and also the City Campaign Finance Board's new fundraising rules were key motivators and why they even thought to run for office, that they thought that they now had a chance that they didn't have before. That they didn't have to be clued into the politicking of the area really. By that I mean, knowing key people, and just having that badge from the incumbent, which has been historically, as Laura mentioned, super, super important in deciding who becomes the representative for the area.

One thing I would add, actually, and Laura touched on this already, too, is just that policymakers say female representation is supercritical just because of the focus that it places a new highlight on issues that affect women primarily. I think we see this play out with the City Council right now where Helen Rosenthal, Carlina Rivera, many other names, Laurie Cumbo, Margaret Chin, have been the ones to introduce legislation on issues [inaudible 00:20:03] maternal mortality, on doulas, on childcare. These are issues that don't only affect women, they affect families, but these are legislation that are being introduced by women.

Brian: Let's take a phone call. Alyssa in Forest Hills, you're on WNYC. Thanks for calling in, Alyssa.

Alyssa: Hi, how are you.

Brian: Doing good. What you got?

Alyssa: I think one of the notable races is one that was happening here in district 29 in which not only the two front runners are women but queer women which is a huge step in a community like this.

Brian: Alyssa, thank you very much. Christine, since you're a Queens correspondent, district 29 is on your beat, Forest Hills in there abouts, you're familiar with those candidates?

Christine: I am, yes. District 29 is a really interesting race. It is Karen Koslowitz's current seat. She will be term-limited. It is in Central Queens. I do think it's really interesting that there are two queer women at the top. Lynn Schulman is currently in first place with 22% of the vote, but she's followed very closely behind with 20% of the vote by Aleda Gagarin.

What's interesting about this race too, is that these two women have basically split a lot of the progressive vote, I'm sure, but also split just backing from progressive groups and grassroots support, illuminating the difficulty of winning when there are so many progressive candidates in the race. I really look forward to seeing what happens in this race.

Brian: Let's take another call. Melvina in Manhattan, you're on WNYC. Hi, Melvina.

Melvina: Hi, thanks for taking my call. It's a question about ranked-choice voting. According to the Board of Elections website, they're going to start going through the ranking process before they begin counting the absentee ballots which makes absentee ballots not treated the same way as in-person ballotS, and that just doesn't sound right to me. Is that really what's going to happen?

Brian: Thank you, Melvina. Laura Nahmias, can you take that? I believe she's right. The first round of ranked-choice calculations is supposed to happen tomorrow and that's before all the absentee ballots get tabulated into the mix. Do you get that?

Laura: I think that's correct, but it's also my understanding, and I don't want to speak out of school here, that they're not going to tell us what those results are right away. We're going to have to wait a while to find out what the results of their initial tabulation are, but I am not 100% certain of that.

Brian: Christine, it's one of the things that I wondered about too, exactly what Melvina brings up, because it's also my understanding. We may both have it wrong, but it doesn't make logical linear sense to me right off the bat. I would imagine if the first thing they did last week was to count only the first-place votes among the in-person votes, wouldn't the next thing be to wait until all the absentee ballots are in, which tomorrow is the deadline, and then count all the first-place votes on the absentee ballots and have that total first-place vote to announce to the public and then start with the ranked-choice process?

Christine: Who's to say why the Board of Elections decides to do what they do, but as of tomorrow, June 29th, the City Board of Elections will run the tabulator and they're going to release another set of unofficial in-person results. Those results will be published on the Board of Elections website. According to one of my colleagues reporting, the reason for the seven-day gap is because of the fact that the BOE has to essentially retrieve the counting machines from all [inaudible 00:24:13] across the city, then out of all the data, that takes a really long time.

One thing I would say is that throughout this election cycle but also in the two special elections that happened in Queens, the several in the Bronx earlier this year, one thing that voting advocates have been saying is, "We want results, we want them right away." Maybe if the Board of Elections is trying to be transparent and release what they do have so far with the big [inaudible 00:24:44] this is obviously very incomplete, we won't have absentee ballot data account with that until next Tuesday. I think that's the mindset. The [unintelligible 00:24:57] now as long as people realize that it is very incomplete.

Brian: Here's another caller from Queens, Bill in Rego Park. Hi, Bill, you're on WNYC.

Bill: Hi Brian. Thank you. I'm calling from district 29. I'd like to know what your guests think about the prospect of an Eric Adams mayoralty, together with a city council looking like the one we have now, in what ways they'll be aligned and a little juicier, what conflicts we can look forward to over the next few years if Eric Adams wins.

Brian: Thank you, Bill. It's a great question. Laura, if we take all the reporting together, we see Adams considered from a more centrist wing of the party, this is all in the context of New York City Democrats, we're not talking Mitch McConnell here, but considered from a more centrist wing of the Democratic party. We're talking about City Council as going more progressive than it's been in the last few terms. Will we see certain areas of likely conflict between the new mayor and the new City Council?

Laura: I think we definitely will. I think the two biggest ones are, the first one on policing for council candidates who've made pledges and won endorsements and support on specific promises of cutting a specific dollar amount from the NYPD budget and redirecting that money toward better social services or mental health care. That is not a position that Eric Adams shares. There could potentially be some very heated fights over the budget.

Also, this broader trend that would have happened with any mayor and the council is the question of, what are we going to do about development in the city? We have an affordable housing shortage and yet we've seen in recent years the various council members burned by rezonings in predominantly Black and brown neighborhoods refusing or pushing back against rezonings that would up-zone or allow for the building of taller buildings or more housing units in their neighborhoods.

A lot of the council members who were running and the ones who are ahead at this point in the races have a skeptical view of development in general, and want to overhaul the process entirely, not fight between the council members and the next mayor. It's going to be tense. The question of how they resolve getting more affordable housing without it displacing existing residents and ensuring that it's actually affordable to people is one that I don't think anyone has fully resolved yet at least in theory.

Brian: That is really interesting great preview of what we may be in for that really matters in people's lives and how the conversation may evolve between City Council and Mayor Eric Adams if he is elected mayor starting next year. As a final thought, related to that, Christine Chung, your article on women winning City Council races notes that it's true both in more progressive and more moderate parts of Queens. Who's one of those moderates? Or what's one of those more moderate districts? What about the ideological range of women we may see in the new female City Council majority?

Christine: One interesting district that I would spotlight is district 23 which is in Southeast Queens, where a more moderate candidate, Linda Lee, is in first place right now, but she's trailed only by a marginal amount of votes by Jaslin Kaur, who is the DSA, AOC Working Families Party-backed candidate. I think this race is really interesting in that, it represents the ideological spectrum just in one race and how it can be extremely split just in one district.

Across the council races and the women who are currently in the lead, it does represent a split between more moderate voices and more progressive both voices along the spectrum with Jaslin and Tiffany who were the only two candidates backed by AOC personally in Queens at the more progressive end of the spectrum. I would totally re-emphasize everything Laura said about policing especially and development as being the two key issues in those races as well.

Brian: Laura Nahmias, good luck with the new newsletter. Listeners, if you're interested, you can just Google "Laura Nahmias Fun City", and you'll find how to sign up for it, New York politics newsletter. Laura, good luck with that. Christine Chung, keep up the great work as Queens correspondent for the nonprofit news organization, The City. Thanks both of you for coming on today.

Laura: Thank you so much.

Christine: Thank you so much.

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