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New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio rolled out a $98.6 billion “recovery budget” on Monday – the largest budget in the city’s history – but he’ll only get to spend half of it. Because six months into the next fiscal year, a new mayor will be taking office. So it seemed odd that the mayor’s executive budget was met with near silence from the eight leading Democrats who are hoping to inherit the city – and the $3.9 billion budget gap that de Blasio’s bean counters predict for the next mayor’s first full fiscal year. Shaun Donovan, who once managed the $4 trillion federal budget, was the only candidate who even put out a statement, criticizing de Blasio for failing to make progress on key issues like police reform and “passing the buck to his eventual successor and ultimately, the NYC taxpayer.” (Unlike his arguably misdirected finger-pointing at de Blasio for the census results, Donovan’s budget statement went largely unnoticed.)
Will Corey break the speaker curse?
One might say that Corey Johnson already fell victim to the City Council speaker curse. After all, his run for mayor ended before it began, when he closed his fledgling campaign in September and became the latest speaker to unsuccessfully seek higher office after leading the city’s legislative body. Three of the four speakers before him ran for mayor and lost in the Democratic primary. The other, Melissa Mark-Viverito, ran for both public advocate, then Congress, and lost in both primaries.
Now six months after opting out of the 2021 elections, Johnson is opting back in. He officially kicked off his campaign for New York City comptroller Tuesday with a press conference in Manhattan’s Madison Square Park. And with that, he’ll get a second shot at becoming the first speaker in the modern era to extend his life in electoral politics.