By Lincoln Anderson and Andy Humm
Christine Quinn made history Wednesday as the 39-year-old Downtown councilmember won the City Council speaker’s race, becoming the first woman and first openly gay person to hold the second-most powerful government job in New York City.
“I am incredibly proud that in the most diverse city in the world, that diversity is seen as a strength—not an impediment,” Quinn said toward the end of an emotional acceptance speech. Her colleagues gave her a standing ovation for that line.
Quinn, whose district includes Hudson Square, the Village and Chelsea, was always seen as one of the two leading candidates to succeed her close ally, Gifford Miller who is gone due to term limits. She outmaneuvered Brooklyn’s Bill DeBlasio and the other contenders through a combination of political savvy, coalition building, and likeability according to her colleagues and political observers.
During her City Hall maiden speech as speaker, Quinn also teared up while paying tribute to her dad and her partner, Kim Catullo, saying, “I love you both more than words can say.”
“Her colleagues picked her because she was the most qualified,” said Emily Giske, a political consultant and member of the Democratic National Committee. “As a lesbian and as a Democrat, I’ve never been more proud of anything in my life.”
Manhattan’s new borough president, Scott Stringer, said Quinn’s election “shows you can be politically skilled and be progressive.”
The news was already percolating on Monday night when Quinn attended Rosie Mendez’s inauguration to the City Council at the Prince George Hotel ballroom on E. 27th St. Quinn was followed by so many news photographers with cameras flashing and commotion that she chose to duck back outside of the room for awhile so as not to take away from Mendez’s night.
The speaker leads negotiations with the mayor on the budget and all major legislation, appoints Council committee chairpersons and holds the purse strings on some funding allocations to the individual councilmembers.
Quinn promised that under her leadership, the City Council will continue to be “aggressive and active.” She said she’s agreed with the mayor in the past, such as supporting the smoking ban, and also disagreed with him, such as on the West Side stadium, and that she’ll approach working with the mayor with “a solid and professional mutual respect on an issue-by-issue basis.” She noted that, after his big reelection win, the mayor has the support of most New Yorkers.
On two issues affecting the gay community, the equal benefits law for domestic partners of employees of companies contracting with the city and the anti-school bullying law — both of which the mayor has vetoed — Quinn said she’ll continue to fight for the passage of these bills, of which she was a prime sponsor.
Quinn pledged to work cooperatively with the mayor, but said, “We will oppose the mayor when we believe we must. I have done so in the past and I will do so in the future,” she said, but hoped for “a renewed sense of trust and teamwork.”
Asked if she’d tone down her outspokenness now that she’s speaker, Quinn retorted, “It can’t be done.”
Speaking on Tuesday, Councilmember Alan Gerson said he was out in front in support of Quinn, whose district borders his Lower Manhattan district.
“I was the first to give her my commitment and I think she’ll be a great speaker,”Gerson said.
The Council meeting electing Quinn was a lovefest, with hugs and kisses all around. Her colleagues praised her for her work on banning smoking and making sure that funds to fight infant mortality were spread around the city. “I am committed to being a five-borough speaker,” she said.
She also won praise from the leader of the Council’s three Republicans, James Oddo, who noted that they started together as staffers in 1992. He pledged the support of the Republican delegation to her leadership. Should Quinn have the right to marry her partner? “I’m not a proponent of gay marriage,” Oddo said, “but my position has evolved somewhat and I believe certain rights should be protected.”
Oddo told Newsday, “I don’t trust anyone who doesn’t laugh from the belly and she laughs from the belly,” a sound that could be heard from her several times as she was mobbed by well-wishers at City Hall.
But Bill Dobbs, an independent gay activist, criticized Quinn’s selection as a sign of “politics as usual for party bosses and backroom wheeler dealers,” a sentiment echoed by Charles Barron, the only member to abstain on her elevation, who called the process “flawed.”
Dirk McCall, president of Stonewall Democrats, a gay political club, and Gerson’s former chief of staff, said “This is a huge victory. She’s broken the glass ceiling. It says we can elect people citywide who can be out.”
Especially moved was State Senator Tom Duane. He gave housing advocate Christine Quinn her start in politics as his campaign manager in 1991 in his race for City Council, making her his chief of staff. She succeeded him in 1999 when he went to Albany, giving her seniority over most other council members by giving her most of a partial term plus the two four-year terms to which all members are limited. Duane said, “She’s the best. I’m lucky I get to work with her and be her friend. Our own community is lucky to have her as a leader.”
A Catholic priest, Rev. Francis Shannon of Blessed Sacrament Church in Brooklyn gave the invocation, saying “you can feel the friendship and the love” for Quinn. In the balcony, Hasidic leaders and gay leaders, once archenemies, applauded her election enthusiastically and respectfully.
Rosie mendez
The night before, it was Rosie Mendez’s chance to shine, as she and her supporters celebrated her election to represent the Second Council District, which stretches from the Lower East Side to Murray Hill. She fills the seat of Margarita Lopez, who was term-limited after eight years in office. Like Lopez and Quinn, Mendez, 42, is openly lesbian. She and Quinn are now the Council’s only openly gay members.
In his remarks, Senator Chuck Schumer, one of the many politicians in attendance, mentioned how Mendez grew up in public housing in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, went on to achieve a law degree and has been “a fighter” on local issues. He called her “just the kind of person we want to see in public office. We need Rosie Mendez in the City Council,” he said.
Frances Goldin, a veteran Lower East Side housing activist, said Mendez will proudly carry the progressive torch that former Councilmember Miriam Frieldander and Lopez bore, sandwiched around a “blot” when Antonio Pagan was councilmember. Goldin called Mendez “another dynamo.”
“There is no place like the United States or the world that is as varied, as diverse as the Lower East Side,” Goldin said. “It is a place with more radicals and more fighters than anywhere. A lot of yuppies have come in and we have stemmed the tide to a certain degree.”
Lopez, in her turn at the podium, first held up one of her shoes to prove that while some may say Mendez has big shoes to fill, her size is only a 6.
“Rosie doesn’t have to fill a big shoe,” she said.
“She can do this job,” Lopez said of Mendez. “She is strong. She has moral character. You elected her. Trust her.”
When it was Mendez’s turn to talk — after a big hug from Lopez — she first showed a slideshow tribute as the stirring song “Seasons of Love” from “Rent” — which was set in her district — played on the sound system.
She credited her father, who worked 14-hour days in a bodega to put her and her brother through school, with giving her a work ethic, and her mother, a devout Catholic, who took her to soup kitchens, for teaching her compassion.
“I feel very blessed because of the struggles we have engaged in,” Mendez told her friends and supporters, “the laughter and the tears. You’ve given me understanding — not just of progressive politics, but of friendship and love.”
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