SENATOR LIZ KREUGER
First an update on Education Reform and Charter Schools: On May 28th, I voted for a package of legislation which will improve New York State's public education system by using student improvement as a factor in teacher evaluation; increase our chances of receiving Federal "Race to the Top" education funds and increase the cap on the number of Charter Schools and their accountability, including Comptroller audits and forbidding for-profit charter schools. I did so because these bills addressed my main concerns, which I outlined in last month's newsletter: that I felt plagued by the one-house version the Senate had passed on May 3rd, which I voted against.A detailed description of the improvements in the final bills is included in the Policy Spotlight below.
In the end, we were able to bring all the players to the table and as a result I believe that the Legislature passed a much better package of education reform bills. The new bills recognize both the value of charter schools when they are correctly run, as well as the need to ensure they are subject to appropriate oversight, are not allowed to cream the least hard-to-serve from existing public schools, and provide for a better community process before any school is approved.
In other Albany business, earlier this month the Senate passed my bill (S.3584-B) authorizing New York City and other localities to utilize Instant Runoff Voting (IRV) in local elections. IRV would provide greater opportunities for voters to express their preferences while at the same time reducing costs for elections. This measure could be of particular importance if the voters of New York City move to a nonpartisan election system, as is currently being considered by Mayor Bloomberg's Charter Revision Commission.
Given our current fiscal crisis, one reason IRV can be so crucial is because it negates the need for separate primary runoffs, which are tremendously expensive. Last year, New York City spent $15 million to hold a Democratic primary runoff election for Comptroller and Public Advocate. Not only was this costly, it was also antidemocratic, since less than eight percent of eligible voters participated. There has to be a better model for running our elections.
Instant Runoff Voting would allow voters to indicate their top choices of candidates for an office by ranking them first, second, third, etc. If no candidate receives 50 percent of the first choice votes, then the candidate receiving the fewest votes is eliminated, and the second choices of voters are counted. This process is continued until a candidate receives 50 percent of the vote. This eliminates the need for separate runoff elections while still ensuring that a marginal candidate does not win with a very small percentage of the vote in a race with many candidates.
This later factor will become particularly important if we move to nonpartisan elections. Because of the cost factor, there is no runoff system for City Council races, only citywide races. In a nonpartisan citywide election, all candidates could appear on one ballot. So, for example, if there were 10 candidates for Mayor, a candidate who received just a small percentage of the vote could win. This opens up the possibility for extremist candidates, or candidates whose views are very different from the majority of voters in the City, to win an election.
This is one reason nonpartisan voting has always been controversial in New York City - it could allow a minority party's candidate to win if the majority party's multi-candidates split the vote too broadly.But it could also allow someone with a small but united base to defeat a slew of mainstream candidates. I don't support New York City adopting a nonpartisan system, but if it does, it will be even more important to adopt instant runoff voting to increase the responsiveness of that system to the will of the voters.
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