EDITOR’S NOTE: The Executive Council of the PSC has voted to change our union’s endorsements for NYC mayor in light of the news that Jessica Ramos has endorsed Andrew Cuomo for Mayor. We are now urging voters to rank Michael Blake in fourth or fifth place.
The union has issued its endorsements in the ranked-choice Democratic Party primary for mayor of New York City, set for June 24.
The PSC is urging members to rank the following candidates in any order in the top three slots: Assembly Member Zohran Mamdani, City Council Speaker Adrienne Adams and City Comptroller Brad Lander. It is urging members to rank the following candidates in any order in the fourth and fifth slots: State Senators Jessica Ramos and Zellnor Myrie. In ranked-choice voting, voters have the option to choose up to five candidates.
BIG ELECTION
The fight for the mayor’s office this year is one of the most consequential in recent history. For the PSC, while the state provides the lion’s share of funding for CUNY, the city budget heavily funds the system’s community colleges. These five Democratic candidates are the best suited for replacing Mayor Eric Adams, currently running as an independent, whose painful austerity cuts on the city have included disinvestment in CUNY.
The endorsements were the result of weeks of research by PSC members who serve on the union’s legislative committee. The candidates participated in a mayoral forum hosted by the CUNY Rising Alliance at the PSC’s central offices on March 14. Later, they participated in interviews with members. The union’s delegate assembly approved the committee’s endorsement recommendations for mayor on April 24.
Mamdani has been a fierce advocate for CUNY. In spring of 2022, he voted against the proposed state budget agreement and said in a statement from the assembly floor that he was particularly offended at the shortchanging of CUNY. He cited the economic precarity of PSC members and students alike as a reason to push for even more funding for CUNY. He is also the assembly co-sponsor of the REPAIR Act, which would address the property tax exemption of New York University and Columbia University and divert more financial resources to CUNY.
Speaker Adams has used her influence in the City Council to push back against the mayor’s austerity budgets, including advocating for more funding for CUNY. The City Council hasn’t always been successful in that struggle, but she is credited with leading the establishment of CUNY Reconnect, a successful program that reaches out to re-enroll people with CUNY credits who have not graduated.
Lander, as the city’s top fiduciary, has been a champion for CUNY and has also fought against the mayor’s austerity. He has highlighted that CUNY is the lifeblood of New York, training the city’s future teachers, health-care workers and civil servants. In addition, he played a key role in the successful movement led by PSC members and other union activists against the mayor’s ill-conceived plan to move municipal retirees into a privately-managed health-care plan.
LABOR CHAIR
Ramos has used her position as chair of the state senate labor committee to champion the causes of organized labor generally. She has worked with the PSC to increase state funding for CUNY and fight for more job security for adjuncts. She also worked with PSC members who fought against an ill-conceived state plan to grant Amazon enormous subsidies to build a new facility in western Queens (the deal – thanks to pushback from PSC members, lawmakers like Ramos and many others – never came to fruition).
Myrie has built a reputation in the state senate as a powerful voice for affordable housing, public investment and criminal justice reform. Myrie, along with Ramos, was part of a 2018 progressive Democratic primary slate that successfully ousted conservative Democratic incumbents who had aligned with senate Republicans. Myrie’s and Ramos’s victories helped return control of the house back to the Democrats, allowing a more progressive state agenda to flourish.
STOP CUOMO
The union also believes these five candidates are the best alternative to the candidacy of former Governor Andrew Cuomo, whose time in office was marked by budget cuts to CUNY and a deterioration of the pension system (he resigned as governor in 2021 as a result of sexual harassment allegations against him). The union is asking members not to rank Cuomo at all on the Democratic primary ballot.
“Andrew Cuomo has made very clear since his tenure as governor began in 2011 that he was not a friend to CUNY, but he was a friend to the wealthiest New Yorkers,” said Susan Kang, an associate professor of political science at John Jay College and a member of the union’s Executive Council. “Not only did he try to cut half a billion dollars in CUNY funding in 2016, he repeatedly raided the MTA’s budget so that he didn’t have to raise taxes on the richest New Yorkers. That made it more difficult for our students to come to class. All these things are related.”
The union has issued endorsements in other citywide races as well.
The PSC has endorsed City Council Member Justin Brannan, chair of the council’s finance committee, for city comptroller. The union previously supported him in his council race two years ago because of his advocacy for CUNY, as he had fought Mayor Adams’s midyear budget cuts and sponsored a City Council bill urging state lawmakers to pass the New Deal for CUNY, which would fund hiring more full-time faculty and staff at CUNY in addition to making the university tuition-free again. He also worked closely with Speaker Adams on establishing the CUNY Reconnect program.
RE-ELECT WILLIAMS
The union is also backing the re-election of Public Advocate Jumaane Williams, a two-time graduate of the CUNY system who has joined the PSC at numerous rallies. He was a proponent of public higher education before he became advocate: He served on the City Council’s higher education committee and was a student leader during his time as an undergraduate at Brooklyn College.
PSC members will have the opportunity to vote for these candidates on the same ballot as the mayoral primary.
