Author: Howard Graubard

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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 […]

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“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 […]

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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 […]

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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 […]

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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 […]

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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 […]

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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 […]