Tonight, I was privileged to attend the installation of
Daniel Garodnick, Democrat on NY City Council with my parents and my girlfriend. Garodnick attended my high school and was in my brother's grade. So I can vouch for his character. Frankly, the only reservation I ever had about him is that he was a skilled public speaker even at the age of fourteen. I did not trust that skill then but I do now. Of course, he's even better now.
It was a real pleasure to hear, not just from the man himself, but from his fellow Democrat office holders as well, of what he's done with his talents. He's done a lot of nifty things that appear in his bio.
Non-New Yorkers may not know how important the
Campaign For Fiscal Equity lawsuit was. Basically, the State owes the City money, and the Republican Mayor and Governor have not solved the problem.
As the campaign's website notes, a court has already "ruled that New York City schools need nearly $15 billion to provide students with their constitutional right to the opportunity to receive a sound basic education. Unfortunately for the children of New York, the state still has not complied with the court's decision."
So that's one of the good things Garodnick's been involved with.
City Council Speaker Christine Quinn, who is both the first gay person and the first woman to lead the City Council, praised Garodnick's pro bono work of LGBT issues. She noted that he did what was right even though it was not necessarily good for his political career. She also praised his organization and hard work. She said that after you meet with him, you're likely to get an e-mail thank you before you return to your office. My father whispered to me that this had been his experience while volunteering for the Garodnick campaign.
When I heard Quinn talk about Garodnick's pro bono work, I remembered a diary here on Kos talking about how different were the Alito and Ginsbug. Ginsburg was proud of what she'd done and Alito had to pretend he'd done everything under duress. Garodnick has done things he'd proud of and lots of people are proud of him.
The Rabbi of Central Synogogue, Peter J. Rubinstein, is proud of him.
Perhaps the biggest surprise came at the installation ceremony himself, when the judge, US District Court Justice Colleen McMahon, said that she was the only person in the room (did I mention we were at the Temple of Dendur at the Metropolitan Museum of Art?) who had not been involved in Garodnick's campaign, but that he had clerked for her. She administered the oath and then they hugged.
I was still thinking about how proud we can all be to be progressive. We believe in the things that are important, the causes that will eventually be adopted by everyone. And in the future, those who oppose us will fall over themselves and pretend that they too were always in favor of civil rights, gay rights, the rebuilding of African-American churches in the South, a higher minimum wage, cultural instutions, and full funding for education. In the future, everybody will pretend they fought for the things that Garodnick is fighting for now.