Quote:
Originally Posted by McBane
I don't think so. Johnson is using his councilmanic pejorative, that no councilperson is going to upend. Anyone voting against it will be seen as a traitor to a fellow colleague and, more importantly, the longstanding tradition of councilmanic pejorative. Voting against his bill would put the tradition in jeopardy and significantly diminish one of council's most powerful tools. Why would any councilperson want to do that?
If there is a majority in support of Blatstein (and surely he has political connections), Johnson will be pressured in backroom dealings to withdraw the bill to avoid embarrassment and to keep the tradition intact.
Also, how is a one year moratorium going to resolve anything? What incentive does that give either side to compromise and move forward? And how does that help the city's finances? It's just a awful idea and another example of why city council and zoning/development must be kept far away from each other.
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I'm not quite as cynical as you about this yet. It doesn't happen often, but popular backlashes can and do defeat councilmanic prerogative. The trick is that you have to get the media to make the councilman look like an idiot for introducing it, to the point where all the other councilmen look just as foolish if they allow it to go through anyway. See, councilpeople
are sensitive about their image (even if not in the same way you or I might be), and they are aware that if they do enough embarrassing stuff they might eventually face a backlash in their own constituencies.
Essentially, the trick is to stick your hand on the optics lever. Politicians are really sensitive to media optics, so much so that it can be used to override councilmanic prerogative.