QuoteAnna Lopez Brosche will be next year's president of the Jacksonville City Council after winning a tight — and at times heated — race on Tuesday against John Crescimbeni.
Brosche's challenge of Crescimbeni, the council's vice president, broke the council's long-standing tradition to select the vice president as president. She won in an 11 to 8 vote.
Full article: http://jacksonville.com/news/metro/2017-05-23/anna-lopez-brosche-elected-jacksonville-s-next-city-council-president
4 Democrats voted for Brosche over John Crescimbeni, the most experienced Dem on Council except for Hazouri. It's an interesting comment on local party politics.
Quote from: Tacachale on May 24, 2017, 05:09:54 AM
4 Democrats voted for Brosche over John Crescimbeni, the most experienced Dem on Council except for Hazouri. It's an interesting comment on local party politics.
The opposite was true as well.
^^ Try as they might, there's no fitting the Jacksonville City Council into a partisan rubric. It's fake partisanship at election time. I will never end my crusade to remove party labels from local races, or failing that, bring back a real partisan primary to pick actual Democrats and Republicans as party nominees.
We are so ill-served by the unitary election system that we've saddled ourselves with.
Quote from: Jimmy on May 25, 2017, 10:12:27 AM
^^ Try as they might, there's no fitting the Jacksonville City Council into a partisan rubric. It's fake partisanship at election time. I will never end my crusade to remove party labels from local races, or failing that, bring back a real partisan primary to pick actual Democrats and Republicans as party nominees.
We are so ill-served by the unitary election system that we've saddled ourselves with.
George Washington said the same on his farewell speech in Philadelphia.
2 parties had already formed to compete for his replacement.
Alexander Hamilton formed the Federalists, in turn Thomas Jefferson formed the Anti-Federalists.
He hoped the President would maintain the leadership role and Congress the will of the people. Elections based on what was best for the Union, not to maintain power.
Instead we have party planks and the will of campaign donors and lobbyists.
I think they would be impressed with what we have accomplished, but astonished at how much money flows through the Hill.
Both Ron Littlepage and A.G. Gancarski have reported that there was some drama behind the scenes in this election. Apparently, Mayor Curry had backed Crescimbeni for council president. According to these Gancarski, it happened because Brosche was seen as less enthusiastic about the Mayor's pension reform deal. For some background, the City Council President is usually picked from the previous year's Vice President. Crescimbeni was veep last year, so it's something of a coup that Brosche won.
According to Littlepage:
Quote
Ron Littlepage: Progress on Laura Street Trio is a game changer for Downtown
Posted June 23, 2017 06:06 pm
By Ron Littlepage
...
The following is the sort of thing you won't get people to say on the record, but I've been told by several council members and insiders that Curry and his administration intervened in the council leadership race to try to swing it to Brosche's rival, John Crescimbeni, who had been a big supporter of Curry's pension bailout plan.
Traditionally, a mayor getting involved in a council leadership race is verboten.
It that indeed happened, the question is, will Brosche hold a grudge?
...
Unrelated to Downtown, if the possibility of a flap between Brosche and Curry caught your political attention, here's another thing to watch.
As president, Broche gets to assign council members to the committees.
One of the most influential is the seven-member Finance Committee.
Brosche named Garrett Dennis as chair and Reggie Brown, Reggie Gaffney and Katrina Brown as members.
All four are African-Americans who represent districts that include neglected neighborhoods, and all four voted as a block to put Brosche over the top in the council presidency race.
Handing out plum assignments to supporters isn't unusual. But what is unusual is having four African-American district council members on Finance who represent areas that include poor neighborhoods.
Having them form a majority on Finance should provide some interesting decisions when it comes to Finance divvying up the money during this summer's budget process.
...
http://jacksonville.com/opinion/ron-littlepage/2017-06-23/ron-littlepage-progress-laura-street-trio-game-changer-downtown
According to Gancarski:
Quote
Civil War in CITY HALL
A look at the Curry/Brosche rift
Posted Wednesday, June 28, 2017 12:15 pm
story by A.G. GANCARSKI
...
The biggest misconception right now in local politics is that the mayor had no rooting interest in the council president race between Democratic VP John Crescimbeni and Republican Finance Chair Anna Lopez Brosche.
There was, in fact, interest—they wanted Crescimbeni in.
Crescimbeni represented an extension of the Era of Good Feeling. As did Anderson and Boyer, he knew what the mayor's office wanted and would work with them, as he did selling the pension referendum.
Sure, Curry is a Capital-R Republican, but City Council and Jacksonville government have always been more than D and R constructs. Crescimbeni can do business. And was willing to; the council presidency was something he sought for decades.
Crescimbeni had some help. A senior staffer in the mayor's office, one with a particular council liaison role, was said by pro-Brosche forces to have pressed the administration's Vote for Crescimbeni case. And, contend those same forces, Councilman Hazouri pressed Fire Union Head Randy Wyse into making calls on behalf of Crescimbeni—a rich historical irony on the order of Marco Rubio being photographed in a Che Guevara shirt.
They didn't want Brosche in there, allegedly. And they were, allegedly, playing hardball to keep her out.
Brosche wasn't "all in" on pension reform; she had questions and qualms about the plan being a magic bullet, about the added cumulative debt burden, and so on. Yes, she voted for it—after those questions were resolved. But, unlike Crescimbeni and Hazouri (Democrats who recorded ads in favor of the plan) and Bill Gulliford, she was in the skeptics' column.
(Notable: between them, Gulliford and Hazouri have one committee post. And Crescimbeni is also marginalized.)
Brosche got a coalition of support outside the good ol' boys club: backbencher Republicans (Danny Becton, Al Ferraro, Doyle Carter) and all four Dems from minority-access districts. All got treated well in committee assignments, with black Dems holding a margin that could win any vote in Finance.
...
http://folioweekly.com/stories/civil-war-in-city-hall,17753
Gulliford earlier said he'd refuse any committee appointments if Crescimbeni didn't win (I think more due to the vice presidential tradition rather than anything specific to this election).
The district Dems vote in a block, so this should have been a lock for Crescimbeni even without the Mayor's support. However, Crescimbeni is pretty prickly, and apparently Brosche was able to swing the district Dems by offering more active committee roles than Crescimbeni would. Oddly, this election is both a loss for the Mayor, and for Democratic solidarity. It'll be at most a minor setback for the Mayor, but it has big consequences for the Democrats. There hasn't been a Democratic council president or veep since 1993 I believe, and if someone as powerful as Crescimbeni can't pull it off, it's bad medicine for them. At this point, Hazouri is their only hope, probably for the foreseeable future.
Several Council members did not attend the installation in protest over the vote. That said, Crescimbeni was man enough and did.
I am encouraged by Brosche and feel that she will continue many of the initiatives started by Boyer.