With the primary election season moving into the final stretch towards the Sept. 9 voter showdown, one of the more interesting match-ups is the vacant 20th District Senate Seat, formerly occupied by Borough President Eric Adam’s. The election pits Adams’ protege Jesse Hamilton against community activist and educator Rubain Dorancy.
The district is culturally diverse, including reaches into Park Slope, Gowanus, Sunset Park and Brownsville, but it’s heart is centered in the Crown Heights, Prospect-Lefferts Gardens and the Flatbush Avenue area running from Empire Boulevard towards Church Avenue.
For this race, as in many Brooklyn Democratic primary races, it is a battle between the perceived entrenched candidate (Hamilton) versus the perceived party reformer Dorancy. Despite these narratives, both Hamilton ($70,000) and Dorancy ($41,000) have shown the ability to raise money.
Hamilton is the Democratic Male District Leader and has both Adams and Kings County Democratic boss Frank Seddio’s support. But he also has Park Slope City Councilman Brad Lander’s support, which is odd in that he’s considered a major proponent and alley in Mayor Bill de Blasio’s progressive reform agenda.
Rubain Delancy, a Haitian-American, has nabbed de Blasio’s support as well Congress members Yvette Clarke, Hakeem Jeffries and Nydia Velazquez, and City Council members Jumaane Williams and Antonio Reynoso.
A major issue to watch in this contest is a controversial study to rezone Empire Boulevard. This has galvanized a start-up group, Movement to Protect the People, and its outspoken organizer Alicia Boyd, to question Adams, the local community board and de Blasio on their plans to rezone luxury housing with an affordable component into a neighborhood that they think will further destabilize existing affordable housing stock.
Hamilton said he supports the study, which includes a multi-district study of infrastructure of the area. Dorancy says the community, including Boyd and company have to be in the loop on all decisions and studies.
In the end, this one, like all elections will probably rest on GOTV (Get Out The Vote) come election day.
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Just asking? As a journalist, I love a corrupt politician story as much as anybody, but did former Kings County Democratic boss and State Assemblyman Clarence Norman get a bad rap?
Norman was charged, tried and convicted in disgrace after a known long running political disputes with former Kings County District Attorney Charles Hynes, who himself might be facing felony charges and whose mishandling of murder cases, largely against people of color, is getting near legendary.
Hynes had a documented long-standing political feud with Norman over judgeships. As it remains until this day, the Kings County Democratic Organization plays a crucial role in vetting judges, and a reform movement at the time had Hynes support. Hynes had a judge wear a wire tape to catch Norman allegedly taking money from potential judges, but that never panned out.
But Hynes kept after Norman anyway and in 2007 eventually convicted him on stealing $5,000 donated to his re-election committee, for trying to conceal $10,000 in contributions and for shaking down a judicial candidate for $20,000.
KPC is not suggesting Norman was a saint, but when it comes to alleged campaign-related accounting errors, plenty of elected officials get off with a fine. It’s also not above the pale to ask how criminal proceedings were handled against Norman – especially in light of all these muder and other convictions – mainly of black men under Hynes have been handled.
With primary season moving into the final stretch towards the Sept. 9 election, one of the more interesting match-ups is the vacant 20th District Senate Seat, formerly occupied by Borough President Eric Adam’s. The election pits Adams’ protege Jesse Hamilton against community activist and educator Rubain Delancy.
The district is culturally diverse, including strips of Park Slope and Brownsville, but it’s heart is centered in Prospect-Lefferts Gardens and the Flatbush Avenue area running from Emipre Blved to Church Avenue.
Hamilton
rads as er between primary vite cRubain Dorancy –
http://brooklynheightsblog.com/archives/69549
http://vote.nyc.ny.us/downloads/pdf/documents/boe/2014SeptemberPrimary/PrimaryContestListWebVersion.pdf
