The New York Times reports today that Citizens Union is now backing nonpartisan elections. Here’s Citizens Union’s report.
From the Times:
In a reversal, a prominent government watchdog said Wednesday that it now supported eliminating the role of parties in city elections, adding momentum to an effort to bring the issue before voters in November.
The group, Citizens Union, had opposed the idea of nonpartisan elections seven years ago, when Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg campaigned for it. His effort was handed a decisive defeat by voters.
But in a report released on Wednesday, the group said that turnout had grown so low and elections so preordained that parties should lose their domineering power.
“We want to reduce the gamesmanship,” said John P. Avlon, who led a task force that studied the City Charter for six months. “It’s a remedy to our current problems. Its time has come.”
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Provocateur/ pundit/ organizer Nancy Hanks is a long-time activist in the independent political movement who’s done it all: petitioning to put independent candidates on the ballot from New York to Texas and points east, west, north and south; fundraising for the independent think tank, the Committee for a Unified Independent Party (CUIP), and its online counterpart, IndependentVoting.org; running as an independent for New York City Council from Queens, New York City’s most diverse borough; serving as the current Treasurer of the Queens County Committee of the Independence Party of New York (of the IP NYC Organizations); conducting research for the Neo-Independent, a magazine that addresses the concerns of independent voters.