Cascade of union cash poured into Council primaries

A dynasty appears to have ended in Eastern Brooklyn. 

Chris Banks, a longtime community organizer, looks to have eked out a victory in the Democratic primary for the City Council seat that Charles Barron, most recently, and Inez Barron, his wife, have called their own for nearly two decades. Blame, at least in part, the unions. 

Altogether, their political action committees spent more than $200,000 either trumpeting their support for Banks, a moderate, or castigating Barron, a self-described socialist. 

Brooklyn Council Member Charles Barron at a City Hall Park housing rights press conference last month. Union-affiliated political action committees …

That was the second-most, after that expended on behalf of Marjorie Velázquez in the East Bronx’s 13th District, spent by political action committees on a Council race this primary season, an election that drew few to the polls, and consequently amplified the influence of expenditures and endorsements. 

Of the total spent by unions in Barron’s 42nd Council District, more than half came from the  Labor Strong Coalition, a group of unions that includes 32BJ SEIU, District Council 37, the New York State Nurses Association, the Hotel Trades Council and the Communications Workers of America. It shelled out $122,173, the most it expended in any of the 11 Council races to which it altogether contributed more than $700,000. The Police Benevolent Association spent $30,784, all of it chastising Charles Barron’s “defund” stance. The message, in two internet video ads and on a billboard, was simple. 

Addressed to “East New York,” a 30-second video soberly intoned, “Did you know that our City Council Member Charles Barron wants to defund the police. That means fewer cops, more crime and less safety for our neighborhood and our families.”

The self-styled revolutionary has long advocated for a radically different approach to law enforcement than policing. 

“Certainly it was about his consistent demonization of police officers and supporting of policies that make our job more difficult, more dangerous, and makes his constituents less safe,” the PBA’s communications director, John Nuthall, said last week.

Given Barron’s more radical stance, it mattered little that Banks has also highlighted the need for non-police solutions to crime, noting in campaign material that parts of the 42nd District are among “the most over-policed neighborhoods in the city.”

Other unions and labor PACs backed Banks for a variety of reasons. A mass mailing in early June by the New York City District Council of Carpenters, costing nearly $18,000, said Banks represented “a new generation of leaders,” a not-so-subtle dig at the Barrons, against whom Banks unsuccessfully faced off for seats in the Assembly — against Inez Barron in the 2012 Democratic primary and against Charles in the 2014 Democratic primary — and on the Council — against Inez Barron in the 2013 Democratic primary. 

Altogether, the Carpenters Council, through its PAC, Carpenters for Progress, spent $55,734 boosting Banks, nearly $36,000 of it on two mass mailings in early June promoting Banks as a “lifelong resident and community leader” who will “expand access to affordable housing,” “secure more funding for hospitals, schools, public transit, and seniors” and also “work closely with the NYPD to protect our streets and our rights.”

But Kevin Elkins, the council’s political director, suggested that ousting Charles Barron was just as imperative for the union. 

“Charles Baron has been anti-trade-union for a long time. Doesn't care if there's worker protections on the development in his district, doesn't care about making sure his own constituents have chances to get into the unions, and definitely doesn't care about any constituents who are in a trade union,” he said last week. 

Barron has long been opposed to market-rate housing in his district, among the city’s poorest.   

“We believed in Chris,” Elkins said. “Chris is someone who wanted to see change in his district. The district had been ignored and left behind by Charles’ leadership.”

With 99 percent of votes counted, Banks tallied just over 50 percent of the 5,958 ballots cast, while Barron polled just over 43 percent, with most of the rest going to outsider Jamilah Rose. It appeared likely that Banks’ total would remain above 50 percent, meaning the ranked-voting system would not come into play, which could have given Barron a route back. 

But that just over 8 percent of the district’s roughly 72,000 actively registered Democrats cast ballots in the primary likely served to boost Banks’ union backers, since low turnouts amplify the influence of money and coordinated campaigns. 

Labor backs ‘gutsy’ Velázquez

But it was the 13th Council District’s Velázquez who most benefited from unions’ largesse. 

Altogether, union-affiliated PACs pour nearly $220,000 to support her candidacy, with the Labor Strong Coalition spending $100,000, the Laborers Building a Better New York Coalition —  composed of the Mason Tenders District of New York, the Asbestos, Lead & Hazardous Waste Laborers and Construction & General Building Laborers Local 79 — $61,375 and the carpenters council, $57,562. 

The cascade of cash pouring into the district followed Velázquez’s eventual support, in October, of an upzoning of a portion of Bruckner Boulevard that paves the way for a four-site residential development in Throggs Neck. 

Elkins, of the carpenters council, called Velázquez’s support for the project, despite opposition from many in her district, “gutsy.”

Velázquez, he said, “stood up for unions and her district and made sure that no one in her district was going to be exploited as a worker,” he said. “It was the right thing to do, and we need those kinds of people in office. So that was a no-brainer to go in and make sure we stand by her the same way she stood by us.”

Velázquez pulled away in the primary, polling two-thirds of the vote cast in a four-person race in which 8 percent, just, of the district’s 53,544 active registered Democrats cast a ballot. 

She will face either Kristy Mamorato or George Havranek in November’s general election. In either case, given Velázquez’s tighter-than-expected, 11-point general election win in 2021 against an unheralded opponent, and where the upzoning vote still stings for some, expect an infusion of union cash to again try and make a difference in the east Bronx.

richardk@thechiefleader.com