Note: I intended this to be just one piece, but to give former Borough President Howard Golden, whence he came from and where he went, his due turned out, even with heavy editing, to require far too many words for just one column, so, in this effort, I’m mostly going to set the scene for his eventual ascension as Brooklyn’s […]
Author: Howard Graubard
Politics with Howard Graubard: POST ELECTION WRAP-UP: ADAM GAZA SWEEPS THE WRITE-INS
The day before election day, when a good number (at least in the context of this year) of the City’s electorate had already cast early votes, I was awakened by a call from my fellow election law practitioner, Ali Najmi, warning of a potential problem in Bay Ridge, where my client, Democrat Justin Brannan, was facing off in a closely-watched […]
“You may be factually accurate, but if I feel differently, what does it matter?” Two cautionary tales by Howard Graubard
Tale #1: Sometime around the turn of the century, I was in love. She may have been too. Or maybe it was just a dysfunctional period of mutually assured destruction we’d suffered together. Anyway, we made each other laugh, which is nearly always how my problems began. Neither of us was involved with anyone else, but, because of what then […]
A SOMEWHAT BIASED SERIES OF DIGRESSIONS UPON A 2023 VOTER’S GUIDE FOR BROWNSTONE BROOKLYN, by Howard Graubard
Searching for a topic for this month’s column, I realized I had forgotten what most New Yorkers never knew, which is that we had an election coming up. The menu Brownstone voters are being presented with consists of barely contested City Council and Supreme Court races, and an uncontested Countywide Civil Court race. Much of the area also has an […]
On Politics: Conventional Wisdom, by Howard Graubard
There has been a bit of hue and cry lately concerning the fact that the Brooklyn Dems have nominated a candidate for Supreme Court who, as a law student, once questioned Roe v. Wade, and later chose to write about it in a smug, self-satisfied manner. This was hiding in plain sight, on a link on the candidate’s own Wikipedia […]
Politics: Do we take rank choice to the next level? By Howard Graubard
New York City’s experiment in rank choice voting applies to all municipal offices, but only in Party primaries, and in special elections, which are non-partisan. It does not apply to the main event; general election are still “first past the post.” Yes, you can argue that, in NYC, Democratic primary elections are, in fact, the main event. But, they are […]
Post Primary Post Mortem, by Howard Graubard
For those who didn’t notice, we had a primary election in Brooklyn on June 27, for which the results are now finalized. On the Democratic side, with one exception, the results in the contested races are almost certainly be game, set, and match, with November a mere formality. By contrast, on the GOP side, the races were all in (at […]
Politics: VOTE TO DISRUPT INJUSTICE, by Howard Graubard
For most voters in Brooklyn, including virtually every Democrat in Brownstone Brooklyn and Sunset Park (outside of the vicinity of Chinatown) there will only be one race on the ballot in this year’s primary: a seat on the Civil Court bench. For most of you, this is a race involving candidates you never heard of the day before yesterday who […]
Who to vote for, by Howard Graubard
It’s annoying to me that I find Eric Adams’ national image far more appealing than the actual reality of the pol I’ve been following for about three and a half often ugly decades, but the thought of political clown Curtis Sliwa and his stupid red hat getting anywhere near City Hall is quite sobering. Nonetheless, I deeply sympathize with those […]
Politics by Howard Graubard: Let’s not let Adams off Scott-Free
One can debate the justice, or the lack thereof, of the rapid fade of Mayoral candidate Scott Stringer, based upon allegations that, 20 years ago, he engaged in acts which, if proven, would constitute the crime of “forcible touching,” a Class-A misdemeanor, which would carry a penalty of up to a year in prison, if the statute of limitations hadn’t […]