Marcela Mitaynes Wins!

Local News

• The New York Immigration Coalition believes that Council Member Carlos Menchaca (District 38, Sunset Park) intervened to remove almost $1M of funding for its programs from the city budget as a way to punish the organization for its staffers getting involved in the Sunset Park Assembly race this spring against his wishes.
• The MTA has announced that it expects implementation of congestion pricing, which would impose a toll on cars driving through Manhattan below 60th St., to be delayed at least a year, primarily because the federal government has not yet approved the plan.
• New York City has reported an uptick in COVID-19 infections among residents in their 20s and 30s.
• Governor Cuomo announced guidelines to reopen the state’s schools. Under these guidelines and without significant changes in current infection rates, most schools in the state would open for the upcoming school year.
• Gotham Gazette assessed the path forward in Albany for a new class of progressive and socialist Assembly Members who unseated incumbents in last month’s primary.
• Mayor de Blasio announced that the Uniform Land Use Review Process (ULURP), which has been halted since mid-March, will resume in August and be accelerated (though how is yet to be determined).
• Alexandria Ocasio Cortez has begun pressuring Governor Cuomo to tax billionaires, throwing her support behind New York State bills that would impose an ultra-millionaires tax and tax unrealized capital gains of the state’s 119 billionaires.
• The Mayor still wants the 1,300 New Yorkers arrested for violating his illegal curfew to face charges.
• While waiting for the absentee ballots in her election to be counted, NYC-DSA endorsee Phara Souffrant-Forfest addressed staffing shortages at New York hospitals.

Elections

• After trailing on election night by over 450 votes, Marcela Mitaynes pulled ahead of incumbent Assembly Member Felix Ortiz by over 200 votes after absentees were counted, leading Ortiz to concede the race and Mitaynes to claim victory.
• Rep. Eliot Engel officially conceded to Jamaal Bowman.
• Khaleel Anderson, a 24-year-old organizer from Far Rockaway, appears to have won the race to succeed Michelle Titus in Assembly District 31 (Southeast Queens).
• City and State recaps the state of New York’s congressional primaries.
• Gov. Cuomo and the Board of Elections are being sued by two candidates and several voters over the policy of invalidating absentee ballots that were never postmarked by the post office.
• Council Member Helen Rosenthal has dropped out of next year’s race to be City Comptroller.
• Shaun Donovan, housing czar under former Mayor Michael Bloomberg and housing secretary and budget director in the Obama administration, raised the most of any New York City mayoral candidates. However, he does not appear to be opting into the city’s public matching program and the amount raised by other candidates does not yet reflect the matching.
• Voting advocates want legislation from Albany to address absentee voting ahead of the November general election.