Taxis in New York City, March 2016 (Lucas Jackson/Reuters)

Low-turnout Election Days such as the one that is happening in New York City today are great opportunities for the political class to sneak through self-serving referenda; “Should everybody live in peace and harmony for ever and ever? Oh by the way, if you agree, we also will ensure our budgets can never be cut.”


Five questions are being asked of New Yorkers this morning. Here’s why, as a conservative, I’m voting No on all of them. (America’s newspaper explains the issues in more depth.)

Question 1: Ranked-choice voting? No thanks. Seems designed to stop any conservative from ever getting elected to anything, since we are hugely outnumbered.

Question 2: The Civilian Complaint Review Board, which investigates police, would be tipped in a left-wing direction by adding a member appointed by the Public Advocate. The measure would also boost its budget and new investigatory powers. Nope. The police oppose question 2 and so do I.

Question 3: Some soothing anti-lobbyist language is used to cover up the real purpose, which is to build the city’s Minority- and Women-Owned Business Enterprise into a full-on mayoral bureaucracy. Sorry, no. Contracts should not be awarded based on merit, not skin color or sex.



Question 4: Spectacularly misleading. Should we maybe think about setting aside monies for a rainy-day fund? Sounds like a great idea! Except this measure doesn’t require it, which means it wouldn’t happen. Again, the true purpose is buried: The measure would forbid cutting the budgets of the Public Advocate and the five borough presidents. None of these offices should exist in the first place. Their budgets should be zero.

Question 5 is just a method for clogging up development by giving more power to delay projects to local community boards. No to this one too.

As the New York Post editorial board puts, it, “the rational voter is best off heeding Groucho Marx’s classic song from Horse Feathers: ‘Whatever it is, I’m against it.’”