For Mayoral Hopeful Who Lost Fight to Remove Art, No Regrets

NY TIMES

The deputy mayor, Joseph J. Lhota, never went to see the painting. Just hearing about it was enough.   

  The eight-foot-tall portrait of the Virgin Mary, a semi-abstract collage hanging at the Brooklyn Museum, contained clumps of elephant dung and cutouts of female genitalia from pornographic magazines. Mr. Lhota, a Roman Catholic, was horrified. “As a concept,” he said in a recent interview, “it was offensive.”

In fall 1999, that personal revulsion turned into public policy. Overnight, he became the tip of an unbending Giuliani spear aimed at the museum, seeking to cajole, browbeat and threaten the 190-year-old organization into removing the work of art.

 

Now, as Mr. Lhota promotes himself as a moderate Republican candidate for mayor of New York with urban sensibilities that the national party lacks, his handling of the episode stands out as a deeply discordant moment, raising questions about how he would operate in a diverse city whose current mayor champions unpleasant speech from every quarter.

Arguing that public money should not be used for the desecration of religion, Mr. Lhota threatened the museum’s financing from the city, raised the specter of evicting it from its home in Prospect Heights and declared that, when assessing what art should be displayed to the public, the sensibility that really mattered to him was that of his 8-year-old daughter, Kathryn.

“You need a framework, mental architecture, to understand what you’re looking at so that you don’t go home at night and have nightmares,” he said then.

 

His actions, and those of his colleagues at City Hall, touched off an extraordinary showdown over free speech, respect for religion, and public financing of the arts that eventually entangled Congress, the Catholic Church — even Hillary Rodham Clinton, then the first lady.

The city lost the battle, but 14 years later, Mr. Lhota is unapologetic. “I don’t regret the tactics — at all,” he said.

He defended his conduct and the motivation behind it, even as he acknowledged that his legal reasoning was faulty. “I have a much clearer understanding of the First Amendment now,” he said.

Asked how, as mayor, he would respond to an art display that offended him, he replied: “Ask them nothing. Probably go see it. Enjoy it. Hope there is a ribbon cutting.”

Yet he still appears to be wrestling with the lessons of “Sensation,” as the museum exhibition was called. Mr. Lhota, a seasoned municipal deal maker, prefers to describe the ultimatums that the city issued, including the eviction threat, as routine strategies in a negotiation, not as a flash point in the battles over free speech that raged throughout Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani’s tenure.

 

Should Mr. Lhota become the Republican nominee for mayor, his Democratic opponent would most likely pounce on his role in the museum controversy, linking him to an administration that, in pursuit of a better-behaved New York, ran afoul of the First Amendment by seeking to block a rally for young black men in Harlem, cutting financing for an AIDS housing group that mocked City Hall and firing a police officer who criticized the department.

For many involved in the Brooklyn Museum debate, bitterness toward Mr. Lhota still lingers.

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City Hall’s rawest fury, however, was reserved for the “Holy Virgin Mary,” by the artist Chris Ofili. Mr. Lhota, who had briefly considered becoming a priest, concedes that he did not see the artwork — or the rest of the “Sensation” exhibition — in person, despite living in Brooklyn Heights, about 10 minutes from the museum. He looked at pictures instead.

“The use of the dung, I thought, was gratuitous,” he said.

As Mr. Giuliani denounced the show before it opened as “sick stuff” and “Catholic-bashing,” a sentiment shared by many, Mr. Lhota quickly became the administration’s hands-on enforcer in the case, interviews and court records show. His blunt message to the museum’s chairman: Unless the “Holy Virgin Mary” was removed from the show, the city would cut off the museum’s financing, its $7 million-a-year lifeblood.

 

When the museum balked, Mr. Lhota searched for ways to prevent it from using taxpayer money for the exhibition. He scoured the museum’s century-old lease with the city, discovering what he believed was a violation of its agreement to use a city-owned building: “Sensation” planned to charge attendees $9.75 and restrict entry for children under 17, despite lease rules that required free admission for all.     

 

  When the directors voted to proceed with the show, Mr. Lhota, as the mayor’s representative on the board, cast the sole dissenting ballot. Outside of the museum’s lobby, he announced the city’s punishment: withholding the museum’s first payment of the year, a check for $500,000. 

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 Mr. Lhota -.... said he was looking for “leverage points” to force the museum’s hand. “It was,” he said, “as legitimate as any negotiation is.” New York’s cultural leaders saw it as something much graver: a warning that the Giuliani administration would wield city financing to punish any art that it disliked — “with no due process, no hearings, no place for the museum to argue its case before an impartial body,” said Alan J. Friedman, who ran the New York Hall of Science at the time.

Mr. Lhota, who said he had spent hours at the Accademia Gallery in Florence, Italy, and the Musée d’Orsay in Paris (and once audited an art history course at Georgetown), bristles at the suggestion that he advocated censorship, calling such discussion “noise.” In his mind, the entire affair was a dispute over a lease, escalated by the museum.

He still bemoans the “stubbornness” of the museum’s board. “They latched onto this and made it into an issue that it wasn’t,” he said.

 

Mr. Lhota detailed his feelings about the art, and his actions toward the museum, in a lengthy deposition, part of a lawsuit the museum filed against the city. ....under questioning, he made clear that the city had no set guidelines for determining which art was offensive. He said Michelangelo’s “David” would be acceptable for the museum, despite its depiction of male nudity, but Ron Mueck’s “Dead Dad,” a life-size statue of a naked dead man, would not.

When a federal judge, Nina Gershon, ruled in November 1999 that the city had violated the First Amendment, she cited Mr. Lhota’s testimony. It “reinforces the conclusion,” Judge Gershon wrote, “that it has never contemplated that the city or the mayor would have veto power over the museum’s decisions as to what to display.”

After its court defeat, the Giuliani administration reached a settlement that required it to restore financing to the museum and barred City Hall from any acts of revenge.

 

Lawmakers in New York Tied to Bribery Plot in Mayoral Race

State Senator Malcolm A. Smith, a Queens Democrat, at a White Plains courthouse on Tuesday. Mr. Smith is accused of trying to buy a slot on the mayoral ballot.

NY TIMES

The two men sat in the state senator’s parked car in suburban Rockland County, but New York City was at the front of their minds and the focus of their conversation.

What the senator, Malcolm A. Smith, wanted to do, the other man explained, was going to cost “a pretty penny.”

“But it’s worth it,” replied Senator Smith, a Democrat, according to a transcript of the January meeting. “Because you know how big a deal it is.”

His plan, described by federal prosecutors in a criminal complaint unsealed on Tuesday, was as ambitious as it was audacious. Mr. Smith was going to bribe his way onto the ballot to run for mayor of New York.

But he needed help, from a disparate cast of characters, including a Republican City Council member from Queens, Daniel J. Halloran III, and two Republican leaders from Queens and the Bronx, Vincent Tabone and Joseph J. Savino. And he needed the help of the other man in the car, who, unbeknown to Mr. Smith, was a cooperating witness for the Federal Bureau of Investigation and was recording the whole conversation.

Instead of appearing on the ballot, Mr. Smith’s name has landed in a marquee spot on the criminal complaint. On Tuesday, he, Councilman Halloran and the Republican Party leaders were charged with wire fraud and bribery. The senator was also charged with extortion.

 

Nathaniel Brooks for The New York Times

Empty placard holders reflected the stripped committee posts of State Senator Malcolm A. Smith outside his Albany offices on Tuesday.

 

Arrests Unsettle a Coalition in Albany

 

NY TIMES 

 

Last fall, as a group of breakaway Democrats was preparing to join forces with Republicans to take control of the State Senate, they recruited Malcolm A. Smith, a Queens Democrat, to join their caucus. Senator Smith was rewarded for his defection: he was named chairman of the Social Services Committee and vice chairman of the Finance Committee, and given a larger budget to hire staff.

But on Tuesday, one of the leaders of the Senate stripped Mr. Smith of his committee posts and suggested that he consider resigning,...

 

The charges roiled the states’ leaders, in part because a steady stream of elected officials have been accused of wrongdoing, and in many cases convicted and imprisoned, in recent years. The charges against Mr. Smith were particularly disruptive because he was part of an unusual and fragile two-party coalition controlling the Senate and because he was the only nonwhite member of that coalition, criticized for a lack of diversity.

Within hours of Mr. Smith’s arrest, the placards denoting his committee assignments were removed from the wall outside his office in the Legislative Office Building, and lawmakers denounced Mr. Smith’s alleged conduct. Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo, a Democrat, described the charges as “very, very troubling.”

“We have zero tolerance for any violation of the public integrity and the public trust, so they’re very serious,” the governor said.

 

Senator Jeffrey D. Klein, a Bronx Democrat and the leader of the breakaway Democrats,...[and] Mr. Klein’s coalition partner, Senator Dean G. Skelos, a Long Island Republican, called the charges “extremely troubling”...

If Mr. Smith were to lose his seat, it would not change the balance of power in the Senate — the coalition of Republicans and Democrats could still retain control. But his arrest is a public-relations catastrophe for Mr. Klein and his conference; Mr. Klein started the breakaway group, called the Independent Democratic Conference, in 2011 because, he said, he was frustrated with the dysfunction and scandals that had shaken the Senate Democrats.

“It’s ironic that the I.D.C. was born in part to dissociate itself from the perceived corruption in the State Senate, and now one of its members is tainted by it,” said Dick Dadey, the executive director of Citizens Union, a government watchdog group, referring to the breakaway caucus.

Mr. Klein’s wooing of Mr. Smith raised some eyebrows in Albany, as Mr. Smith’s conduct had previously been investigated.

“Raw political ambition gave birth to the I.D.C., and raw political ambition will likely lead to its demise,” said Representative Hakeem Jeffries, a Brooklyn Democrat and former assemblyman. “It’s a mind-set problem that puts politics over policy.”

 

The arrest of Mr. Smith seemed likely not only to unsettle the coalition of Republicans and breakaway Democrats, who just days ago were celebrating the enactment of the state budget as proof that their alliance was succeeding, but also to worsen the reputation of a legislative body that has been tarnished by a procession of scandals. From what I understand in the papers, not every state legislature has this degree of criminality that’s been exposed,” Preet Bharara, the United States attorney in Manhattan, said. “So clearly there is some problem here, and something more than simply a blunt prosecutor’s tool needs to be brought to bear.”

 

 

 

Quinn Accused of Being Vindictive, Controlling, Temperamental, With Eruptions of Face-to-Face Wrath

THE MAYORAL WARS:


NY TIMES

Christine C. Quinn, the City Council speaker, denied... that she had used the power of her office to avenge grievances with elected officials who disagreed with her.

But hours later, two council members said that was not the case, describing episodes when they believed Ms. Quinn, who as speaker controls the Council’s financial accounts, had cut financing from programs in their districts after a political altercation.

Councilman Peter F. Vallone Jr., a Queens Democrat, said that Ms. Quinn, had slashed city contributions to his district and allowed cuts to a college scholarship fund named for his father after the younger Mr. Vallone opposed a proposal by Ms. Quinn to name the Queensboro Bridge for former Mayor Edward I. Koch.

“It was made clear to me in no uncertain terms that there would be retribution for my vote,” Mr. Vallone said in an interview. “No one should ever be punished for representing the voices of the people who elected them.”

Councilwoman Elizabeth S. Crowley, another Queens Democrat, said Ms. Quinn cut financing for youth programs and senior centers in her district in 2010 after her office issued a news release about local firehouses, before budget negotiations were finished, that failed to credit the speaker.

“It was so brazenly vindictive, I don’t know what else to call it,” Ms. Crowley said. The councilwoman acknowledged that she had erred by sending out a premature and unauthorized news
release, but said Ms. Quinn’s response was inappropriate.
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[A second article (below) in the NY TIMES added this : Asked about the episode last week, Ms. Quinn said that Ms. Crowley had committed “a completely inappropriate, attention-grabbing act” and violated Council protocol. “She was told it was not acceptable, and I did not mince words in telling her that,” she said.

Did Ms. Crowley have her funding cut as a punishment? “It is what happened that year,” Ms. Quinn replied.

Pressed on whether the move was an act of retaliation, Ms. Quinn just smiled: “It is what happened that year,” she said again, signaling that the matter was closed. ]

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Ms. Quinn, as speaker, has wide discretion to distribute an annual pot of Council funds — worth nearly $400 million last year, according to the Independent Budget Office — among the 51 council members. The ability of legislative leaders to reward allies and punish critics is not unique to the Council speaker; powerful lawmakers in Albany and Washington have long used their positions to withhold any number of perks, like grant-making power, office space and committee assignments, to maintain discipline.

Ms. Quinn’s spokesman, Jamie McShane, denied that the speaker had punished Mr. Vallone, saying there were other council members who opposed the bridge renaming but did not see changes in their district funding.

Ms. Quinn, in [a] television interview, said her toughness was an asset in managing a Council that, before her speakership, had been seen as unruly.

“I’ve tried very hard to bring discipline to the City Council, which was for many, many years kind of known as an undisciplined body, without focus,” said Ms. Quinn, who was elected speaker in 2006. She described steps she had taken to bring more order to the Council, including scheduling regular caucus meetings and “asking people to comment when they are supposed to comment, not comment when they are not supposed to comment.”

NY TIMES

A session of the New York City Council had descended into chaos, and lawmakers were openly questioning her leadership. Ms. Quinn, the Council speaker, decided there was one person to blame: Betsy Gotbaum, then the city’s public advocate, who had been presiding.

The response was sudden and fierce. Ms. Quinn summoned Ms. Gotbaum to an office nearby and, with little warning, began shouting at her in increasingly angry tones about appearing weak in front of other lawmakers.

You were like Bambi in there!” Ms. Quinn exclaimed, slamming her hand on a table for emphasis, according to Ms. Gotbaum, who was on crutches at the time.

Ms. Gotbaum was stunned. “I didn’t merit that kind of unprofessional behavior,” she said recently.

 

As she pursues a high-profile bid for mayor, Ms. Quinn, a Democrat, has proudly promoted her boisterous personality, hoping that voters will embrace her blend of brashness and personal charm.

But in private, friends and colleagues say, another Ms. Quinn can emerge: controlling, temperamental and surprisingly volatile, with a habit of hair-trigger eruptions of unchecked, face-to-face wrath.

She has threatened, repeatedly, to slice off the private parts of those who cross her.

She is sensitive to slights: When a Queens councilwoman neglected to credit Ms. Quinn in a news release, the speaker retaliated by cutting money for programs in her district.

Ms. Quinn’s staff, concerned that angry tirades could be overheard by outsiders, added soundproofing to her City Hall office. Wary of her temper, they are known to ask one another: “Did she throw up on you today?”

 

Ms. Quinn is by no means the first hotheaded politician in New York — Fiorello H. La Guardia and Rudolph W. Giuliani, both former mayors, were famed for their outbursts.

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In an interview last week, Ms. Quinn readily acknowledged her angry moments.

“I don’t think being pushy or bitchy or tough, or however you want to characterize it, is a bad thing,” she said. “New Yorkers want somebody who’s going to get things done.”

“Sometimes I yell, sometimes I raise my voice,” she added. “I am trying to do it less, because it’s not always attractive. It’s not always the right thing to do.”

A former housing activist, Ms. Quinn is an adept practitioner of the arts of municipal power, unrelenting in her negotiations and not afraid to intimidate. Her supporters say she has brought much-needed discipline to a Council once dismissed as ungovernable, hammering out useful legislation and calming relations with the mayor.

More than two dozen current and former city officials, lobbyists and political operatives recounted being berated by Ms. Quinn, but few would speak for the record, citing a fear of retaliation. They offered nearly identical accounts of their altercations, describing a rapid escalation of voice and vitriol, occasionally laced with vulgarity.

“Her eyes get really wide, she points her fingers,” one official said. “She gets really close to you. It’s really in your face.”

A former campaign donor who had been called to Ms. Quinn’s office to discuss a legislative proposal said: “She screamed at me for 10 minutes, uninterrupted, and used the ‘F’-word at least 20 times. I was just so startled, I didn’t know what to do.”

On telephone calls, Ms. Quinn can begin unexpected diatribes, her voice growing so loud that callers often have to hold their phones away from their ears.

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Ms. Quinn, who often publicly pokes fun at her own brassiness, is fully aware of her aggressive tendencies, once bragging in an interview that she could “open up the bitch tap and let the water run.” In an e-mail exchange with advocates, Ms. Quinn once offered a wry self-description: “control freak! Lol.”
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In caucus meetings, Ms. Quinn is perceived by lawmakers as aloof and dismissive, rarely looking up from her BlackBerry and loudly cutting off council members who try to raise concerns about pending bills.

At the end of meetings, Ms. Quinn asks, “Any other issues?” She does not wait for the answer before ducking out of the room, adding, “Bye!”

 

Even those subjected to a Quinn dressing-down say that, in happier times, the speaker is also unusually adept at turning on the charm. Her anger can be followed by bursts of ingratiating sweetness.

Colleagues recall telephone calls on birthdays and cheek-kisses at public functions, only days after a high-decibel shouting session. And the members of her staff are strikingly loyal, with close advisers staying by her side for years.

The yo-yo effect, colleagues and advocates say, is disconcerting, leading them to wonder if Ms. Quinn’s tantrums are a calculated tool to maintain order, or the byproduct of a stormy temperament that even her staff is helpless to soothe.

 

 

 

 

 

Deal Reached to Force Paid Sick Leave in New York City

Sherry Leiwant,

LET THE BATTLES BEGIN: THE MAYORAL RACE IS ON

NY TIMES

New York is poised to mandate that companies with 15 or more employees provide paid time off for them when they are sick.

A compromise agreement reached Thursday night resulted from a raw display of political muscle by a coalition of labor unions and liberal activists who overcame fierce objections from New York’s business-minded mayor, Michael R. Bloomberg, and his allies in the corporate world.

The agreement required a high-profile concession from a leading candidate to succeed Mr. Bloomberg. The candidate, Christine C. Quinn, the City Council speaker, had single-handedly blocked action on the sick-leave issue for three years, arguing that it would inflict damage on the city’s fragile economy.

The compromise legislation would eventually force firms with at least 15 employees to give workers five compensated days off when they are ill, a requirement that advocates said would allow much of the city’s labor force to stay home from work without fear of losing a day’s wage — or worse, a job. The advocates said the legislation would provide paid sick leave for one million New Yorkers who do not currently have such benefits.

 

But to the disappointment of those who pushed for a more sweeping version of the legislation, New York City’s mandate would not take effect until spring 2014, and for the first 18 months, it would apply only to businesses with 20 or more employees, according to people involved in the negotiations.

The measure is subject to a vote by the City Council, but a majority of Council members have already indicated they support paid sick leave legislation. Mr. Bloomberg is expected to veto the measure, but there is enough support on the Council to override his veto.

Under the legislation, companies exempt from the requirement because of their low number of employees would have to offer workers five days of unpaid sick leave.

Whether the sick leave is paid or unpaid, firms will be legally forbidden from firing workers for taking such time off.

In a provision designed to placate the city’s corporate leaders, the sick-leave requirement would be suspended should the city’s economy significantly erode, as measured by a financial index kept by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York.

 

Sherry Leiwant, co-president of A Better Balance, an advocacy group involved in the negotiations, called the deal “important for the public health of the city.”