Brooklyn v Bronx
Here's a rare glimpse at the usually invisible inter-borough jockeying between two Democratic machines:
It's a check from the Bronx Democratic machine to the campaign of Margarita Lopez Torres, an insurgent Brooklyn surrogate court candidate who has been a huge thorn in the side of the Brooklyn Democratic machine.
Torres not only won the seat and beat the machine, but she led the lawsuit in which Judge John Gleeson wrested control of judicial politics away from county leaders by declaring all judicial conventions unconstitutional [pdf].
The back story here is the rivalry between the two county leaders and colleagues in the Assembly: Vito Lopez in Brooklyn and Jose Rivera in the Bronx, each of whom is jockeying to be the go-to ally of Queens organization.
And there's a personal angle: Lopez donated money to his friend who ran for Assembly against Rivera's daughter, Naomi.
One final, bizarre note -- and the reason this move was below the radar for so long: the check was never cashed.
UPDATE: The Lopez-Torres campaign and Bronx County officials agree the check was never delivered to the campaign, but disagree on whether the campaign knew the check existed. More on Monday. -- Azi Paybarah
all out war between the 2 biggest thieves in NYC... maybe something good will come out of it. But keep in mind that strengthening the Queens corrupt machine would not be good either.
Even Vito must be impressed with Lopez-Torres' integrity on this one.
Lopez Torres won with the support of the WFP and a part of the Brooklyn party that are at odds with Vito. Its not like she won on her own, so why is it a suprise that some other political leaders (even if from another part of the city) supported her? Insurgents winning primaries -- similar to conventions -- only exists in the make believe world of appointed federal judges. Now we get to watch all of the pay outs and cash contributions that will drive supreme court races. I bet that the dirt relating to judicial races had nothing to do with supreme court seats but civil court, which unsuprisingly have primaries.
Yes, she won with supporters like the great reformer Edolphus Towns.
I am so very very very tired of this Saint Lopez Torres crapola.
The decision not to cash that check had to be a political calculation that doing so would cost her votes if made public.
If not, why would she have accepted support of the Towns machine, but not the Bronx machine....who BTW, must be very embarassed to have written this check at this point.....and equally embarassed that she thought it smelled too bad to cash!
Both of the last two commentators failed to notice that the late date of the check would indicate that its existence would't have been revealed until after the primary, so fear of exposure hurting her campaign could hardly have been the motive, although fear of embarassmant might have been.
Query: who reavealed the existence of the check? Since it wasn't cashed, only someone at either end of the transaction could have squealed.
Puleese, like it's unusual for the Bronx machine to venture into a new county?
The Bronx attempted a raid on a civil court seat in Washington Heights this year by running candidates against the party favorites in Manhattan.
Bronx has a history of invading other counties... like running a candidate against Joe Crowley of Queens this year. Suicidal? Perhaps. But it happens all the time.
Azi you were set-up by someone trying to benefit from a Bronx/Brooklyn rift.
Maybe David Weprin?
These insiders who do this crap are despicable.
Margarita Lopez Torres is the
bravest jurist NYC has ever produced and all of our citizens should be eternally greateful to her for taking on the machine.
The bottom line is that the boys in Queens are business people when it comes to politics. The petty fights between the Bronx and Brooklyn folks keep them from ever attaining the power that Queens now wields.
how about denny farrell the boss of manhattan and the boss of all bosses. is he not a boss as well that wields power, does backroom deals, has his loyal group of hacks, and supports judicial candidates. all the bosses practice politics. it is a statewide system folks and not just isolated to a couple of boroughs.
there is no manhattan machine. denny has zero power over manhattan electeds.