Quinn Jeered At Candidate Forum

The NY Times reports tonight that Christine Quinn has been drawn into the Halloran/Smith scandal:

It was a dark chapter in Christine C. Quinn’s political career, and the City Council speaker had hoped she could leave it behind. 

But a snippet of wiretapped conversation abruptly resurrected questions on Wednesday about Ms. Quinn’s oversight of a controversial City Council earmark program, igniting the latest flash point in the race to be New York City’s next mayor. 

The wiretap, released on Tuesday in a corruption case that had nothing to do with Ms. Quinn, featured the voice of Daniel J. Halloran III, a Queens councilman, boasting that he could extract tens of thousands of dollars from the City Council to be used as a bribe. 

There is no evidence that Mr. Halloran took steps to follow up on his promise, and Ms. Quinn, a Democratic candidate for mayor, said on Wednesday that the reforms she had installed during her tenure would have prevented any such illegality from occurring. 

But that did not stop her rivals in the mayor’s race from accusing Ms. Quinn of allowing corruption to blossom under her watch, and forcing the speaker onto the defensive on an issue that has dogged her for years. 

At issue is Ms. Quinn’s oversight of a pot of Council funds, worth nearly $400 million in 2012, that she doles out to lawmakers each year, to use largely at their own discretion to finance programs in their districts. The system has provided the speaker with leverage to reward and punish lawmakers as she sees fit; she chooses how much money each lawmaker gets to allocate. But at one period during her tenure, in 2008, misuse of the funds led to a federal investigation and the arrests of several council Members and aides. 

The earmarks, often referred to as member items, have been criticized by civic groups, and Mr. Halloran’s suggestion that he could exploit the system was quickly seized on by Ms. Quinn’s opponents. 

“This has reached an unsustainable point,” Bill de Blasio, the public advocate and a Democratic mayoral candidate, said at a news conference where he called for the earmarks to be eliminated. “The system is broken beyond the ability of small reforms to fix it.” 

“These things happened on her watch,” Mr. de Blasio added, in case anyone had forgotten who he was choosing to blame for the matter. 

Mr. de Blasio’s comments echoed a statement from William C. Thompson Jr., another Democratic candidate, who said Ms. Quinn had failed to curb “a history of corruption and a broken system” of earmarks in the Council. A third Democratic candidate, Sal F. Albanese, accused Ms. Quinn of “abuse.”

The Times story says de Blasio may be as vulnerable on the earmark attack as Quinn, since he received over $5 million dollars in earmarks over his eight year City Council career.  But then the Times story notes this:

But Ms. Quinn may ultimately be more vulnerable to attacks on a different issue: her vote in 2008 to overturn the city’s term limits law and allow Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg to seek a third term. At a candidate forum on Wednesday, Mr. Thompson called the episode a disgrace; Mr. de Blasio said the speaker had “undermined the democratic process.” Ms. Quinn, who defended her decision, was met with loud jeers from the left-leaning crowd. It was one of the most blistering receptions she has received on the campaign trail thus far. 

They should be hammering her on the term limit shenanigans over and over and over and noting all the damage Bloomberg has done in the last four years as a result of her actions.

No term limit shenanigans, no third (illegal) term for Bloomberg.

At any rate, it's good to see her receive a blistering reception from a lefty crowd.

She deserves at least that.