This week’s biggest Winners & Losers

The House easily passed the Upper West Side Congress member’s bill to codify same-sex marriage rights this week, and while 47 Republicans joined the yays in support of the bill, the Senate sponsors of the bill are going to need that GOP support far more than Nadler did in the House. Opponents say there’s no need to codify marriage equality because it’s not threatened by the Supreme Court, but Nadler and his colleagues are wary.

All those long hours on the road seem to be paying off for the New York City mayor. Three years before his next election, Adams has already secured a tidy $850,000 in fundraising – more than half of which came from addresses outside of the city’s boundaries. These numbers may bode well for the mayor when it comes time for his name to be on the ballot again. For having only just taken office, they dwarf that of his predecessor Bill de Blasio during his first six months in office.

Adams and Gov. Kathy Hochul will likely assure New Yorkers that they are the winners in the newly struck funding deal for Penn Station’s rehab. After all, commuters won’t feel like they’re entering the bowels of hell when arriving in New York City. But don’t be fooled – the real winner is Steve Roth. The Vornado Realty chair is getting a sweet deal to redevelop the areas around the transit hub. In exchange for helping to fund the fixes to Penn, Roth in return gets $1.2 billion in tax breaks. 

Former Bronx County Clerk Luis Diaz traded partisan patronage for a mob bribe, he admitted this week in a guilty plea that forced him out of the cush gig often given to Democratic Party loyalists. Diaz, a former Assemblymember and Bronx Democratic Party faithful, defrauded the court when he falsely told a judge a Genovese crime family associate had completed his court-mandated community service in exchange for cash. Now Diaz must complete 100 hours of community service and is prohibited from ever holding public office again.

Adding to his growing list of failed election runs, the former New York City mayor dropped out of the race for New York’s 10th Congressional District, announcing he was done with electoral politics. Polling with 5% support from likely primary voters, de Blasio tweeted,  “It’s clear the people of #NY10 are looking for another option and I respect that.” And then he faded from the political spotlight to hunt for new ways to stay relevant.

New York state’s messy redistricting process claimed dozens of victims to confusion, chaos and suddenly unviable campaigns, but so far the city’s redistricting process has ensnared only a handful of sitting council members who could see a significant shakeup in their district maps as of next year. Two of those are Council Members Justin Brannan and Alexa Avilés, who, thanks to the redrawing of southern Brooklyn district maps released by the Districting Commission, could end up being forced to vy for the same seat in 2023. So far they’re standing united – pushing the commission to come up with a map that wouldn’t pit them against each other.