BY YANNIC RACK AND LINCOLN ANDERSON | Alice Cancel, the Democratic pick to succeed Sheldon Silver as state Assemblymember for Lower Manhattan’s 65th District, got a last-minute boost ahead of the special election next Tuesday with an endorsement from the city councilmember who represents the district.
Margaret Chin voiced her support for the current district leader at a press conference on Friday morning — alongside colleague Rosie Mendez, who had previously endorsed Cancel — pointing to her strong roots in the community and highlighting her years-long support for public housing residents on the Lower East Side.
“In this special election, I actually have a vote! I’m in the 65th Assembly District, and my question was, who am I going to vote for? And when I thought about it, the answer was easy,” said Chin, who has represented Council District 1 for the past six years.
“Alice knows the community, she knows our schools, our small businesses, she knows about public housing. And she’s worked with the tenants — Latino, Chinese, African-American,” Chin added.
However, Cancel’s lone new local endorsement didn’t do much to stop the juggernaut by Yuh-Line Niou, who only has continued to pile up more high-profile endorsements.
In the past two weeks, Niou, who is running under the Working Families Party line for this special election, was endorsed by The New York Times, Public Advocate Letitia James, Upper West Side Assemblymember Linda Rosenthal, and a posse of influential Latino leaders, including Bronx Borough President Rubén Diaz, Jr.; Assemblymembers Marcos Crespo, Francisco Moya, Luis Sepúlveda, Robert Rodriguez and Maritza Davila; plus Councilmembers Ritchie Torres, Carlos Menchaca and Antonio Reynoso.
“Although Mr. Silver’s days as a power broker are supposed to be over,” the Times wrote, “his wife, his friends and a former aide managed to overpower the candidate-selection process earlier this year and maneuver a Silver apologist onto the Democratic ballot. Their choice, Alice Cancel, is a district leader who shows little enthusiasm for cleaning up the culture in which Mr. Silver thrived.
“The Working Families Party picked a far better candidate: Yuh-Line Niou. … Her fluent Mandarin would serve her well in Chinatown, an underserved part of the district, as would her experience as an advocate for the elderly and poor.”
Said Public Advocate James, “Yuh-Line is the best candidate to move this community forward and build a stronger city for working families. She understands firsthand the need to support seniors, families and children by protecting tenants, improving our public schools, and making our streets safer. Yuh-Line will help reform Albany and bring transparency and accountability to our government.”
Rosenthal said, “At a time when the Legislature is working to restore the public’s trust after a series of high-level public corruption cases, I am proud to endorse Yuh-Line Niou, who will be a strong, independent voice for reform. The Assembly needs more women like Yuh-Line Niou, who will fight on the issues that matter most to us, like protecting tenants, improving our schools and easing income inequality. The residents of the 65th A.D. deserve an elected official who will place their needs first and will help them navigate complicated government bureaucracy and be a strong voice in Albany. Yuh-Line Niou is that person and I look forward to working closely with her to continue to bring progressive change to New York State.”
Niou was previously endorsed by City Comptroller Scott Stringer, former Comptroller John Liu, state Senators Brad Hoylman and Daniel Squadron and Assemblymember Brian Kavanagh.
Niou also recently won the support of a big labor bloc, including District Council 37 and the New York Council of Supervisors and Administrators, Bricklayers, Steamfitters and the Mason Tenders District Council.
Cancel has served as district leader for close to 25 years and previously worked for Silver, as well former state Senator Martin Connor. She currently works for Stringer as a community liaison.
Niou is currently chief of staff to Queens Assemblymember Ron Kim, the state Legislature’s only Asian-American member. Niou — who clearly appears to have strong backing in Albany — hopes to become the second. The support of Stringer — widely seen as a leading future candidate for mayor — is said to be especially important in helping her continue to rack up political endorsements.
Meanwhile, Chin was joined in her call for supporting Cancel by two local tenant leaders and Mendez, who threw her weight behind the longtime Lower East Sider early on, in the run-up to the County Committee vote that overwhelmingly picked Cancel as the Democratic candidate in February.
“During the last few months, Alice has been attacked, and I don’t know why — she has done nothing wrong, but to work and represent the people in this district,” said Mendez, supposedly referring to criticism over Cancel’s ties to Silver, the disgraced former Assembly speaker and powerful Lower Manhattan advocate who was convicted on corruption charges earlier this year.
“She was content being district leader and never seeking higher office, except all these people here — not once, not twice, but multiple times — asked her to run,” added Mendez. “And she decided to heed that call.”
Niou’s camp, meanwhile, has blasted Cancel as a “do-nothing district leader.”
The crowd of around four dozen residents and supporters that gathered under sidewalk scaffolding in front of the Hamilton-Madison House settlement in Two Bridges on Friday also included John Quinn, Cancel’s husband and the head of her Lower East Side Democrats political club, which played a pivotal role in swinging the County Committee vote to her.
The special election to fill the vacant seat of Silver will take place on April 19 — the same day as New York’s presidential primary — when Cancel will face off against Niou, Green Party candidate Dennis Levy and Lester Chang, running on the Republican, Reform, Independence and Clean Up the Mess party lines.
Both Chin and Mendez emphasized that Cancel has lived in the district for decades — and drew critical comparisons to Niou, who grew up outside of New York City — in Texas and Washington State — and only moved to the Financial District recently.
“Alice is the one who really knows this district and gets things done,” said Mendez, who started to work with Cancel after Mendez became district leader in 1997.
“Alice just has to learn Albany, as opposed to her opponent, who has only lived in the district for a year and knows Albany — I don’t know that that’s a good thing — and has to learn the community!”
Ringed by New York City Housing Authority tenants at the press conference, Cancel listed the agency’s huge budget deficit as one of the key issues she would address if elected.
“As a legislator, I will continue to advocate that the state provides its fair share of funding to NYCHA,” she said, to supportive shouts and applause. “And I will work to make sure that community-based review with a robust resident participation process is implemented for any infill development plan.”
The de Blasio administration, like the Bloomberg administration berore it, wants to shoehorn in new mixed-income housing on NYCHA properties, including parking lots, to generate income for the cash-strapped agency.
Cancel bagged endorsements from Aixa Torres, president of the Alfred E. Smith Houses tenant association, and Nancy Ortiz, who heads the Vlaceck Houses tenant association.
“Alice has been a fighter for this community, and she is one of the first people I always call for help, for support,” Torres said. “We have fought a lot of battles, but Alice’s greatest contribution to us who live in public housing has been stopping evictions and supporting our children by fighting for education.”
She added that she was one of the voices urging Cancel to run for office, implying that the candidate was more than just the pick of the establishment.
“It was the community, not any elected official, not any club,” she said.
“Alice has saved thousands of NYCHA residents from eviction, and assisted them with getting stipends so they don’t have to move out of their homes,” agreed Ortiz.
The 65th Assembly District covers most of the Lower East Side, as well as Chinatown, Little Italy and Lower Manhattan, and also stretches up into Soho and a small part of the East Village.
An open Democratic primary election for the Assembly seat will follow in September, featuring candidates not running in the special election, including District Leaders Paul Newell and Jenifer Rajkumar, as well as Chinatown activist Don Lee and Community Board 3 Chairperson Gigi Li.
