Backroom Deal for Mark-Viverito

Brooklyn Democratic chair Frank Seddio, urged by mayor-elect Bill deBlasio, has cut a deal to give Council Member and early deBlasio supporter Melissa Mark-Viverito the votes she needs to become the next City Council speaker.

Like deBlasio, Mark-Viverito, a San Juan, Puerto Rico native with degrees from Columbia and Baruch who represents East
Harlem, is regarded as a populist.

Seddio's move

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Bratton Will Return under deBlasio

Mayor-elect Bill deBlasio announced this morning at the Red Hook Community Justice Center that he will name William Bratton as commissioner of the New York Police Department.

Bratton, who has become an international figure since his first stint as NYPD commissioner in the mid-1990s, was the front-runner for the job.

Choosing the high-profile, generally well-regarded Bratton appeared to

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Will Recchia "out-Italian" Grimm on the South Shore?

Even before Bill deBlasio was elected mayor of New York City, he and the Democratic Party had locked onto Democratic City Council Member Dominic Recchia's upcoming fight for Conservative Republican Michael Grimm's seat in the 2014 congressional election.

In the run-up to the mayoral election, deBlasio campaigned with Recchia at the Excelsior Grand in New Dorp, calling his former City Council

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Bay Ridge Democrats Phone Bank for deBlasio

Local Democratic club Bay Ridge Democrats, which helped get out the vote on Primary Day, will be phone banking for Bill de Blasio, the Democratic candidate for mayor from 7-9 PM tonight, September 24, at 8710 3rd Avenue in Bay Ridge.

Volunteers are asked to bring their cellphones. The club will supply the rest.

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DeBlasio Surges

In the run-up to the Democratic Primary on Tuesday, city Public Advocate Bill deBlasio racked up a 36% lead in a recent Marist poll, just four points away from the 40% he needs to shut out his rivals.

The poll shows former city Comptroller Bill Thompson and Council Speaker Christine Quinn tied at 20%. Former Congressional Rep. Anthony Weiner is rocking a big 7%.

On the Republican side, kitten

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Saying "No" to Powerful Men

It has become her greatest political liability. Why did Democratic mayoral candidate Christine Quinn, who emphatically denied in 2007 that she would change her mind on term limits, reverse her position a year later?

According to the New York Times, it was not, as people thought, just a back-room deal with Mayor Michael Bloomberg, but a bid by a speaker besieged by a slush fund scandal and

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Albanese: Quinn, deBlasio Playing Politics with Public Safety

Democratic Mayoral candidate Sal Albanese blamed the civil unrest outside City Hall today -- after news broke that the City Council had overriden Mayor Michael Bloomberg's veto of the Community SafetyAct -- on Democratic rivals Bill deBlasio and Christine Quinn. The two have put on "election season blinders" to demonize police officers, Albanese said, in what he called a naive show of political

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Gentile Endorses deBlasio

Endorsing New York City Public Advocate Bill deBlasio for mayor yesterday, Council Member Vinnie Gentile (D-43rd District) cited deBlasio's understanding of Southern Brooklyn's needs: community hospitals, strong neighborhood schools, and safe streets.

While other mayoral candidates have ignored the city's hospital closure crisis, Gentile said, deBlasio has been on the front lines of the battle

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DeBlasio: LICH Coded

Update 7/20/13

According to an email blast today from deBlasio, SUNY is violating the temporary restraining order issued by State Supreme Court Justice Baynes yesterday by continuing to divert ambulances and trying to move patients out of LICH.

De Blasio has demanded that SUNY comply with the terms of the TRO. Hospital staff, responding to SUNY's attempts to move their patients out of LICH,

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Albanese: deBlasio Jumped the Shark at LICH Protest

In a press release today, Democratic mayoral candidate Sal Albanese, responding to the news that rival Democrat Bill deBlasio had staged a protest action with Long Island University Hospital staff at the offices of hospital operator SUNY Downstate, questioned his rival's commitment to saving the critically-endangered LICH.

DeBlasio, in a statement today, joined Albanese in calling on Governor

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