If Mayor Bloomberg implements nonpartisan elections, it’ll only help wealthy candidates like himself, Public Advocate Betsy Gotbaum charged yesterday.
“I think history shows that to be true,” Gotbaum said at a City Hall press conference where she and a dozen allies urged the mayor to delay a referendum that could reconfigure the election process and the line of succession for City Hall.
Gotbaum is next in line to take over if the mayor can’t serve. But if Bloomberg gets his way, she’d be replaced by a deputy mayor.
The mayor also wants voters in November to abolish party labels in local elections.
Several Democratic officials warned that minorities would be hurt the most if candidates could no longer run using party labels.
But the mayor wasn’t budging.
He said the independent panel he appointed would decide when to put referendum issues before voters – and they’d make the ultimate decision.