Out Lesbian Headed to NYC Mayor’s Office?
Openly lesbian New York City Council Speaker Christine Quinn may be poised for the top political office of New York City -- and one her biggest backers for the mayorship is, reportedly, the current mayor, Michael Bloomberg, the New York Times reported on Aug. 28.
If Quinn were to become the next mayor of New York City in 2013, she would join the rarefied ranks of openly GLBT mayors of the world's great cities. In the United States, Houston has the distinction of being the largest city with an openly gay or lesbian mayor, but abroad it's a different story: Berlin's openly gay mayor is Klaus Wowerheit; the City of Lights, Paris, also has an openly gay mayor, Bertrand Delano�.
Winnipeg, Canada, had an openly gay mayor, Glen Murray, from 1998 - 2004. Mark Kleinschmidt, the third openly gay man to hold office in North Carolina, is the mayor of Chapel Hill. Portland's mayor, Sam Adams, an openly gay man, became embroiled in controversy within weeks of his inauguration following reports that he had been involved with a teenager.
The first openly gay mayor of a state capitol was David Cicilline, who was elected in 2002 to the office of mayor in Providence, RI. Cicilline has since gone on to win election to Congress.
The Times noted that although Bloomberg is a billionaire, his influence may not be sufficient to bring Quinn to power -- if, that is, he publicly endorses her. For the moment, the article said, Bloomberg has only given Quinn his support in private conversations with various individuals.
There seems to be no understanding between the two that Quinn will run in 2013 and that Bloomberg will endorse her as his successor, the article noted.
"She has never asked for nor has he offered his support," Quinn spokesperson Jamie McShane told the Times.
Still, Bloomberg's support for Quinn in the role is, the article said, "the worst-kept secret in City Hall." A former city mayor, Edward Koch, told the Times that based on what Bloomberg has said to him, "There's no question in my mind that of all the candidates, he sees Chris Quinn as far better for the city of New York."
But, Bloomberg added, it's not as though the mayor can simply announce his intention to have Quinn succeed him and then rest easy knowing that his wishes will carry overriding weight with the electorate.
"You cannot anoint; you can influence; you can impact," noted Koch. But, he added, "It is not an overriding endorsement that assures you of success."
Bloomberg may not have the means to ensure Quinn succeeds him or the inclination to press publicly for her election, but he is in a position to groom a public image of Quinn as successor, the article said.
"He can arrange events, he can promote her for the next two and a half years, he can make her the 'vice mayor' so people will think she's the No. 2 person in city government, which, to some extent, she is," the head of New York Civic, Henry Stern, told the Times.
The Times noted that Mayor Bloomberg seemed to be doing that: He included Quinn in a media update about Hurricane Irene over the weekend.
In many cases, an outgoing mayor no longer has the political goodwill of the city's voters, but in Bloomberg's case it was the endorsement of predecessor Rudy Giuliani that helped secure the election.
The political climate of the times also played a crucial role, political consultant Basil Smile suggested to the Times.
"At that time, after 9/11, the city wanted some continuity in leadership, and with the fear of Wall Street collapsing, looked to a leader in the business community to steer the economy in the right direction and get New York City back to work," Smikle said.
"They shunned the old-style machine-constituency politics in favor of a management approach to government."
But if Quinn were to receive a public endorsement from Bloomberg, the article noted, it could backfire to some extent because the liberal voting bloc most likely to support her bid for the mayorship has not approved of all of Bloomberg's policies, especially fiscal actions that entailed budget cuts.
But Bloomberg has also been an ally in the struggle for full legal and civil parity for GLBTs, contributing his own money and other personal resources to the cause of marriage equality in New York -- efforts that helped achieve the recent victory for gay and lesbian families in that state.
Quinn has also been at the forefront of the civil rights struggle, speaking up when episodes of anti-gay violence have rocked the city and attending rallies against bias crime. Quinn also stood up for the gay community in 2009, when it seemed that the police were entrapping gay men in video store stings, with undercover officers approaching gay men and propositioning them, then throwing in a reference to monetary payment the instant before their fellow officers swooped in to make an arrest.
A number of gay men were arrested in such sting operations, and some of them protested the tactic, sparking controversy that led to the end of the stings. Critics charged that the police were engineering the arrests as a way of manufacturing a record of problems at targeted businesses, with an eye to shuttering those establishments under "nuisance abatement laws."
Quinn's office issued a Feb. 13, 2009, statement saying that Quinn had "serious concerns regarding the spike in arrests of gay men in the Village."
The statement said that Speaker Quinn had "raised these concerns with the administration" and that Quinn wished to "make sure no one is being unfairly targeted by the Police Department."