Mayor Bloomberg and City Council Speaker Christine Quinn won: term limits will be extended, allowing them both to run again in 2009. But in the wake of that power play, many LGBT politicos are left questioning their support for the openly gay Quinn, and several LGBT Council hopefuls are left refiguring their campaigns.
Voters twice shot down a referendum to extend term limits, but the City Council voted 29 to 22 to pass the initiative. If term limits had not been extended, 36 of the 51 council seats would have been open in 2009.
“There was part of me that had this sick feeling in my stomach and this sense that it was all just theater and that the deal had already been done,” said Yetta Kurland, an openly gay civil rights attorney who is planning to run for Quinn’s seat next year.
Quinn and Council member Rosie Mendez are currently the only openly LGBT City Council members, but 10 or more LGBT hopefuls had been eying a run for the empty seats across the city.
Kurland is one of three LGBT candidates likely to run for Quinn’s 3rd District seat. The others are Andrew Berman and Brad Hoylman.
“I’m so disappointed by her, and I think I’ve been one of the people who’s held out for her the longest on all of this,” said Kurland on the day after the Council’s vote. “I had this naïve optimism that in the eleventh hour she’d pull through.”
Kurland will continue her campaign for City Council regardless that Quinn will now be up for reelection.
“I certainly am not suspending my campaign because of what I believe to be something that never should have occurred and goes against everything I believe in, everything that motivate me to run in the first place” Kurland said.
Stonewall Democrats President Matthew Carlin said the organization was disappointed with the vote but not surprised.
“They’ve been talking about this for three years, and the financial crisis was just an excuse,” said Carlin. “The main question I’ve been hearing is: will [Quinn] support the mayor for reelection when she’s a Democrat, and he’s not?”
Carlin noted that while Quinn has tarnished her reputation in the LGBT community with this vote, she only needs 26 votes from City Council to stay speaker, and 29 Council members passed this extension, which she championed.
Kenneth Sherrill, professor of political science at Hunter College, also sees an upside for Quinn. “In some ways, it helps [Quinn’s] career rather that hinders it because she was the winning side, and it was a demonstration that she is an effective leader.”
While Quinn may gain respect from the victory, she may also be antagonizing some who’d previously supported her, he said, nothing that other supporters may be more peeved by the manner in which the deal was made, which bypassed voters.
