Vote, Citizens Union is trying to get you to the Polls

Citizens Union is one of the oldest good government organization in New York City. They want everyone to vote and they are working to make it happen. Listen to Executive Director Grace Rauh explain how elections are secure and how they are working to get more people’s voices heard in elections.

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Transcription

David Martin: This is the good government show.

Grace Rauh: 127 year old good government group. New York City’s oldest good government group.

Right now, we have seen really steady declines in voter turnout in our local elections over the last several decades. I think people should be concerned about any attempt to roll back recent efforts to make it easier for people to participate in in elections. We should not be putting up more barriers to prevent people from exercising their constitutional rights to participate in elections.

Good government is accountable. It’s ethical, but it’s also effective. The most basic thing you can do is become an informed voter. Go out and vote, and then make sure that your friends and neighbors are also participating as well.

David Martin: Citizens Union is one of the oldest good government organizations in New York City. This is an organization we wanted to talk to more voters, more people participating. That’s how we get good government. You’re going to hear it from the new executive director of Citizens Union, a former reporter who’s now a champion of voting rights. Welcome to the Good Government show.

I’m Dave Martin. First, help us share the message of good government by liking us and sharing us where we are on Facebook, X, YouTube, Instagram and blue Sky. Please share a show with your friends and review us right here where you’re listening and join our Good Government Show community. Check out our website for the link. Grace Rauh is the new Executive Director of Citizens Union.

It was created back in 1897. At the time, it was a new political party, largely working to combat the insider cronyism that was part of New York City, exemplified by Tammany Hall. This political machine all but ran New York City corruptly for decades. Go watch the movie Gangs of New York. Or better yet, read the book. Citizens Union is now a nonprofit, and they focus on keeping New York City accountable, and they work to make sure everyone knows they have a voice in government.

We talked in the later part of this summer. New York’s current mayor, Eric Adams. He had just had one of his top advisors indicted and arrested, and now he’s dropped out of his race for a second term. New York’s mayor’s race is drawing national attention, as it often does. We talked about voting elections. And yes, they’re secure and we discuss ways to improve voter turnout.

We talked about open primaries, ranked choice voting and moving the election for mayor and local elections to line up better with presidential elections. As you’ll hear, Citizens Union’s goal is to get more people voting, more people participating in elections overall. That sounds like good government for everyone. More people involved. One thing that stood out to me in our conversation is that 1 million New Yorkers are registering independents.

Nationally, more new voters are not lining up with either party. And as Grace will explain, open primaries bring those independent voters into the voting process earlier and more often. A really interesting conversation about voting, voting integrity. And, well, just good government. After the break, my conversation with Grace Rauh, executive Director of Citizens United. The Good Government Show is sponsored by our.

That’s o u r for our community. Get involved. We hear that all the time from government leaders. Our co-branding with your government’s name and logo, your staff and the people you serve are connected and part of your community. From any device your members provide reliable data and meaningful feedback. Ask a question like do we want more parkland or better homeless services?

More engage conversations come through the our app. Visit our co that’s o rco.com and book a demonstration. It was called the War to End all Wars but it didn’t. Three royal cousins, all kings, one from England, one from Germany and one from Russia. Blundered their way into a war. A completely avoidable war that left millions dead in the trenches across Europe.

Good government show executive producer Jim Ludlow details the blunders, mistakes and bluster that started World War One that didn’t end all wars. The book The Royal Cousins details the events and creates an alternative history. Imagine a world War one never happened. It didn’t have to. Just read it yourself. Download the book today on Amazon. It’s just $0.99 and a timely look at history.

Welcome to the Good Government show. I’m happy to have with me Grace Rauh. She is the new executive director of the Citizens Union here in New York City. So welcome to the show.

Grace Rauh: Thank you. Thanks for having me.

David Martin: Thank you for coming. And I think you are actually the first New York City person I’ve actually spoken to on the show. I live here, and we’ve talked to all across the nation, but not in New York. So welcome New York.

Grace Rauh: I am honored. I’m proud to represent the five boroughs.

David Martin: Yes, yes, the five boroughs. So let’s just first talk about where we are. This is Citizens Union. I think I read somewhere this is 128 years old.

Grace Rauh: Yes. 127 year old good government group. New York City’s oldest good government group.

David Martin: All this good government. I’m in the right place.

Grace Rauh: Yes. Perfect. I mean, how have we not found each other before? I’m relatively new here, but.

David Martin: We’re here now, and we’ll chat.

Grace Rauh: Born again? Exactly. Soon. So Citizens Union was really founded to counteract the rise of Tammany Hall and corrupt machine politics in New York. So this was at a time on the late 1800s where the political machine really ran the city. Right? Elections, in many cases, the outcomes were preordained and, city jobs were given out as political favors.

The idea of a civil service sector where people were hired based on their skills and talents, and that that is what made up the public sector workforce really didn’t exist. Or at least that was not.

David Martin: And we should point out that we’re about five blocks from what’s called the Tweed Courthouse, built by Boss Tweed, who ran New York City politics. And I think pocketed several million dollars personally when he built this courthouse.

Grace Rauh: Yes, which is now the headquarters of the New York City Department of Education and Tweed courthouses. So it’s just adjacent to City Hall. So we are we are in lower Manhattan. We are a stone’s throw away from where all the action, is happening. Yes. And so.

David Martin: If I’m not mistaken, I hear the subway rumbling underneath our building here.

Grace Rauh: You may, you may. Okay. So, you know, really, this was a time when corrupt insider machine politics ruled the day. And Citizens Union was created initially as a political party to actually run candidates for office, but then to be a voice for reform and to organize New Yorkers who wanted to see better government, more ethical and accountable government, and also more effective government that was addressing their needs.

So that’s the history in a nutshell, so to speak, and go way, way deeper. Yes, you.

David Martin: Could.

Grace Rauh: But.

David Martin: I normally would.

Grace Rauh: But that’s you know, that’s sort of the foundational base. And and here we are more than a century later still really doing this work. And arguably, you know, we always say it’s it’s never been more important than it is right now. But but that is truly, frankly, how it feels. I joined the organization in June as its new executive director against a backdrop nationally of really unprecedented threats to democracy and democratic institutions across this country.

And then locally. We’re also in uncharted waters where we’ve had a mayor of New York City, Mayor Eric Adams, who was the first sitting mayor in New York history to be indicted on corruption charges. And as we are sitting here having this conversation, you know, just a few days ago, there was another round of indictments for not of the mayor, but of several folks in his close orbit, including one of his longtime chief advisers and very dear friend on corruption charges.

David Martin: So one of the things that I know Citizens Union is paying attention to closely and working on is let’s just call it, for umbrella term voter reform. My first question, and I think everyone’s first question is we hear so much about, oh, the system is rigged and the ballots are rigged and the elections are all tainted. Our elections safe.

Grace Rauh: Yes. So elections are safe. Elections in New York City.

David Martin: I mean, there’s no voter fraud.

Grace Rauh: Well, I would say if you’re asking me at a high level for election safe, can we have faith in the system in New York? The short answer is yes. We have some absurd outlier cases. There was a very strange city council primary contest that got some press attention, and some attention from us and others where there were some votes that were counted that appeared to have been made by people who are no longer living.

And the results of the election was certified by the New York City Board of Elections.

David Martin: But there’s always outlier cases.

Grace Rauh: Yes. So I don’t want to dwell. I you know, I want.

David Martin: 1 or 2 nationally, locally, there’s something.

Grace Rauh: These are very much sort of exceptional outlier cases. We have been strong advocates and calling for dramatic reforms, an overhaul of the New York City Board of Elections, which is essentially run by the two political parties, the two main political parties, the Democrats and the Republicans. And so the parties and the party apparatus has had, outsized influence over the elections process, which is partly why it has been in many cases, like an insider’s game, right, where to meet all of the requirements to get on the ballot requires not only excellent legal counsel, but but someone who understands how to read all of the very detailed fine print of the election law.

And so there are many cases where people who are not political insiders have attempted to run for office and have been, you know, sort of unceremoniously kicked off the ballot because they didn’t have the proper number of signatures and exactly the right way, and they didn’t check every single box. So the system certainly needs and demands a lot of reform.

But at a high level, I just want to say, like, our elections are safe in New York and people should have confidence in that.

David Martin: They’re safe in a huge city like New York with, you know, five boroughs and people all spread across the entire region. I’m pretty sure that we can get it straight in other places.

Grace Rauh: Absolutely.

David Martin: So some of the things I’ve done, a little bit of research and some of the things that you’re talking about advocating for, I want to talk about a little bit in detail, ranked choice voting, moving the local elections to not off year elections, but in line with presidential elections and also open primaries. Let’s start with open primaries.

Sure. And this is these are New York issues, but these are the same issues that people are facing across the nation. And many people already have open primaries. Right?

Grace Rauh: Right. So open primaries is an election reform that we at Citizens Union are very much in support of. And in a nutshell, what it would mean is that registered voters in New York, regardless of their party affiliation, would be able to vote and participate in what are currently closed Partizan primaries. Right now, we have more than 1 million registered voters in New York City who have chosen to not be members of a political party.

They don’t want to join the Democratic Party. They don’t want to be Republicans, and they do not have a voice in these really critical early primary elections, which historically in New York has effectively been where the big decision is made about who the next mayor is, because we have so many more registered Democrats than Republicans in New York.

What we’re going through right now, we’re having this conversation in the backdrop of a hotly contested mayor’s race during a general election, which is a bit of an outlier scenario for us. But the last several mayoral elections have basically been decided in the Democratic primary, and the winner of the Democratic primary has sort of coasted to victory. And in November.

David Martin: As I understand it, I don’t know if this is true locally, but nationally. Aren’t independent voters the largest selection of new voters?

Grace Rauh: That’s correct. In New York City, I can speak to New York City. This is the fastest growing group of voters. Are the so-called independents. Right.

David Martin: And all those people don’t vote in primaries.

Grace Rauh: Correct? Not in New York City. And we are an outlier here. So in the context of the conversation about open primaries, New York City is actually really behind the curve. Other major cities across the U.S. have either open primaries or nonpartisan municipal elections, and they’ve had them in place in some cases for many, many years. So we look at a city like Boston, Chicago, Los Angeles, San Francisco, they all have some version of an open primary or nonpartisan election for municipal contests.

And, you know, I think at a high level, part of the argument is that, like, there’s no, as we say in New York, there’s no Republican or Democratic way to pick up the garbage. We just want sort of the city to run properly. And so there shouldn’t be sort of a partizan lens through which we are selecting our leaders.

But more importantly, really, we are shutting out the fastest growing group of voters and over a million New Yorkers who are effectively disenfranchized from choosing their elected leaders. So what that means is that typically the mayor of New York City is elected by a tiny fraction of the voting public. In New York, it’s only a sliver of the low turnout,

David Martin: Primary.

Grace Rauh: Primary voters who choose the winner of the Democratic primary, who then, in most cases, just goes on to say all to victory in November. And so when nine out of ten New Yorkers look at each other and say, well, how did this person get to City Hall? I didn’t support them. They’re right in there. Makes the case work that many New Yorkers did not actually pull the lever or fill in the bubble, as we do now for the person who’s the mayor.

David Martin: But the argument against open primaries is it’s it would be in New York City, as, for example, you could easily have two Democrats run off as the final two candidates for for an election, right?

Grace Rauh: Yes. So so there are sort of a couple of different models are sort of the top two model, as you describe, where the top two vote getters in, primary would then face off against each other in a general election. There’s other places where it could be the top four vote getters in a primary who face off against each other in a general election.

But yeah, so you could have a scenario where sort of the two candidates you know, in the general are both members of the same party. That could happen.

David Martin: Why isn’t that a problem?

Grace Rauh: Well, I think it is, right now, under the current system, you’ll have at least two, sometimes more candidates from different parties who are facing off in the general election. But because of our sort of heavy concentration of registered Democrats in New York, it’s not a fair fight or a fair contest. The idea here is that by opening up the primary system, you ensure that more New Yorkers are able to participate in a meaningful way.

And that’s what’s key here, really in a meaningful way. And selecting the leaders of their city. But also it ensures that anyone running for citywide office in New York really has to make their case to New Yorkers. Cross. Yeah. Across the board, all.

David Martin: Voters.

Grace Rauh: To all voters, to all New Yorkers, not just to one subset of the Democratic primary base, but they need to be in all neighborhoods talking to all New Yorkers. And we think that that is good for government, for building more trust in government. We think that when we have more people participating in our elections, not only is the electorate more representative of the city as a whole, but we’re also going to be electing leaders who feel like they need to be accountable to New Yorkers.

David Martin: It sounds like good government.

Grace Rauh: Wait a.

David Martin: Last.

Grace Rauh: Thank you. Yes, yes, that is that is exactly what we believe. And and, you know.

David Martin: We’re on the same page together. Let’s talk about something else, which is, I hope, also a good government. Can you explain ranked choice voting. And I know this is gaining popularity across the nation. And it’s I think this is the second mayoral election with ranked choice voting. What is it and why is this a good thing?

Grace Rauh: So ranked choice voting is a relatively new election reform put in place in New York City. And what it what it does is it allows voters to not just pick a single candidate, but basically list candidates in order of preference on their ballot. And they can choose up to five candidates to list. Why is this important? What does this mean?

It means that if your top candidate doesn’t have enough votes to actually win the primary outright, and let’s say they get cast aside, right, they have no shot at winning. Yes, your vote still counts. You still have a voice. The election counters that the the people who are tallying the votes then go to, your second choice candidate.

And if that person is still on the running, they’re going to get your vote. And it means that at the end of the day, when all of the ballots are tallied, the final outcome is reflective of what the most number of voters in that election want. Does that make sense?

David Martin: Yes. But can’t you in that system, though, isn’t it possible that everybody gets the candidate that they’re like, yeah.

Grace Rauh: Well, so in theory that could be it could, but it’s the candidate that the largest sort of proportion of the voting public can live with and is excited about, which is a better outcome.

David Martin: I like that it’s a voter they could live with.

Grace Rauh: It’s the. Yeah. So, so and.

David Martin: I’m not opposed to that.

Grace Rauh: That if it is someone that you can’t live with that you strongly oppose, they should not be on your ballot. So if it is someone where you think this person has no business being in City hall, I would never want them to be the mayor of New York. You should not put them as your fifth place choice. You should just leave them off your.

I was going to Ireland.

David Martin: Can you vote for. Let’s say there’s sake of argument. Five candidates running and you and two of them you don’t want at all. Can you just vote for three?

Grace Rauh: Yes, yes, yes. So you can just vote for three. What we have seen in New York in this mayoral election is a much more sophisticated sort of strategic use of ranked choice voting, both by voters and by the campaigns. So we saw this in the Democratic primary for mayor, where previously you had sort of a scorched earth campaign mindset, right?

If you were running for office, let’s say, your four opponents, your job is basically to destroy these opponents. I mean, you want to criticize them. You want to make the case that they have no business holding this job. You’re the only one who’s, you know, has the right experience and the right vision to win under ranked choice voting.

That’s not actually what you want to do, because you want to convince people that you’re the best person for the job. But you may also want to convince supporters of another candidate that you should be their second place choice. Okay. Right. So you already we talked about under open primaries trying to speak to a broader sort of cross-section of the electorate.

Ranked choice voting also allows that to happen. It’s just happening within a closed primary system. So what we saw that was pretty incredible during the Democratic primary in New York City is candidates who were running against each other were actually cross endorsing one another. So Zoran Mamdani, who won the Democratic primary in New York City, cross endorsed Brad Lander.

Our city controller. The two of them said, okay, put this other guy as your number two. And they each said that to their supporters. But they didn’t stop there. The two of them did campaign appearances together. They went out.

David Martin: And which is largely how the how the winner won is because they supported each other and the others fell aside. And now we have this election that we have now.

Grace Rauh: Yes, exactly. But that type of campaigning was, you know, I’m a former political journalist. I was 17 years, worked as a reporter, most of that time covering New York politics. The idea of two candidates running for the same position, effectively sort of campaigning arm in arm in the final weeks of an election, something like that would have been unimaginable not that long ago.

So it has also changed the nature of campaigning.

David Martin: Does it get us better candidates? Does it get us and does it get us better elections?

Grace Rauh: So I think it gets us better elections in that the results, the outcome of these elections is more reflective of what the voting public wants, right? Their preferences are better reflected in the outcome of these elections. Whether it gets us better candidates, I think is a separate question. Truly. Yeah.

David Martin: Let’s move on to that question. That so the other thing that I know that, Citizens Union is working on is the off year elections. They’re called off year elections. The presidential elections are every four years, and then every two years there’s other races, you know, governors races, Congress every two years, you know, some Senate races you’re talking about in New York City.

Anyway, moving the mayoral elections to the same year as the presidential elections, obviously, just better turnout. Are there other benefits?

Grace Rauh: Well, so turnout is the main benefit to right now. We have seen really steady declines in voter turnout in our local elections over the last several decades, where we often have turnout. Under 25% of eligible voters are coming out to vote in these municipal elections.

David Martin: So under 25% of the voters in New York City, potentially are going to be voting for the New York City mayor this year.

Grace Rauh: Yes, yes we have.

David Martin: That’s a little scary.

Grace Rauh: Oh, yeah. I mean, this could be.

David Martin: You should see her face.

Grace Rauh: Oh, this could be better than usual because we have a the race feels unsettled to a certain extent. Right? Not in the way that we have. We have an incumbent mayor who, you know, has been tarnished by both, you know, criminal charges and scandal and indictments and all of that. But who is running for reelection? We have a former governor of New York, Andrew Cuomo, who lost to.

David Martin: The Democrats at a time its.

Grace Rauh: Primary. Yes. Who was running on his own independent ballot line. We have a Republican, Curtis Lee, who was running as a Republican. We have Zoran Mamdani, who was running as the Democratic nominee.

David Martin: What’s going on in New York City likes.

Grace Rauh: A lot going on. And then Jim Walden, who is running as an independent. So we really have a full and active general election campaign. So that could lead to an increase in voter turnout in November. But we are traditionally seen at traditionally very low, often under 25%, even in the Democratic primary this year, which got more attention. And there was a ton of interest in it.

We did see an increase in voter turnout, but it was only just about 30% of eligible Democratic voters came out in that primary. So that was.

David Martin: Crazy.

Grace Rauh: Yes it does. I mean, I,

David Martin: I mean, 30% of New Yorkers did vote, you know, for in an election is.

Grace Rauh: Stunning. I think there.

David Martin: Is because more than 30% complain.

Grace Rauh: Oh, well, that’s for sure. 120% complain. But the you know, I think it speaks to some of the challenges that we are trying to address with this reform to move our local elections to presidential years.

David Martin: Is it right to do.

Grace Rauh: Hard to move?

David Martin: Is it hard to do to make that move?

Grace Rauh: Yes. So the first step, is that New York City voters in November, in addition to turning out to vote for the next mayor of New York City, they are also a number of ballot initiatives that they’re asked to weigh in on. And one of them has to do with this election reform. So they will be asked, do you support moving local elections to align with presidential election year?

David Martin: So they say yes, and then it’s done.

Grace Rauh: If only it were that easy. That mean is that easy? It requires a state constitutional amendment. So piece of cake. That essentially will signal to the state legislature that New Yorkers demand that we enact this reform. And then there are a number of, whoops, I don’t need to list them all here, but hurdles that need to be cleared at the state level in order to make that change in the state constitution.

David Martin: Does it save money, too?

Grace Rauh: Yes. So so yes, it would save money by consolidating the elections.

David Martin: But essentially there’s still going to be elections every two years. They’ll still be off year elections in New York City, right? Yes.

Grace Rauh: So gubernatorial elections will still be taking place well in in even years. Right.

David Martin: Congress, gubernatorial? Yes. Any city council in New York City anyway?

Grace Rauh: I believe those would also be part of this shift as well. Okay, so so, but by doing that, it means that you would almost instantaneously double, if not boost even more the turnout, because the time that we know people go to the polls to vote is during a presidential election year.

David Martin: So we have to talk about this today. We are having this conversation, at the end of August. There was a headline in the paper today about the president’s attempt at eliminating Mail-In ballots and some voter machines. Are you concerned and should people be concerned?

Grace Rauh: I think people should be concerned about any attempt to roll back recent efforts to make it easier for people to participate in, in elections? So something like mail in ballots has enabled all sorts of people to vote, either absentee or because for any number of reasons, they can’t go to the polls in person. We should not be putting up more barriers to prevent people from exercising their constitutional rights to participate in elections.

So that is certainly a major concern in our view. Things like mail in ballots, that should really be a baseline and we should be looking to further innovate from there, not roll back basic election reforms that have enabled more people to participate in the system.

David Martin: And one of the things that we all need to keep in mind is we really, actually don’t have a national election for president. We have 50 state elections. And and really, the state governments determine when, where, how the elections take place. Some states have mail in ballots. Some states use one kind of voting machines, some states use another kind of voting machine.

But it’s up to individual states. It’s not a federal election nationally. Correct?

Grace Rauh: Correct. Yes, yes. And we saw the you know, when when there were attempts by President Trump and, and his allies to intervene in certain state elections and the outcomes of them, that became very clear to many people across the country when they realized, oh, this is done on a hyper local level. And that’s where these checks and balances are really in place.

And that’s why it is so important that we have strong and independent entities and government leaders who are overseeing our elections and ensuring that that they are safe.

David Martin: In conclusion, tell people, are elections. Well handled, are they well maintained? Are they well-run and are they fair?

Grace Rauh: I can speak to New York, which is again at a high level. Yes. Yeah. Yes. Our elections are safe. They could be run better. I mean, everything could be run better. So I don’t want to say that, but they are safe. People are able to turn out, they are able to vote. They are able to participate in New York.

That’s really critical and important. And shout out to the poll workers who come out and essentially put on our elections and turn, you know, many schools across public schools across New York City and clean places.

David Martin: Workers, well, are.

Grace Rauh: You there? Yes. Oh, yeah. No, that the work is, is hugely important. You have to.

David Martin: Be there at.

Grace Rauh: 5:00. It’s it’s no joke. But, you know, it also, we don’t want to say everything is great, so there’s nothing to do. I mean, it requires organizations like Citizens Union and many of our partners across the city who are very proactive in terms of ensuring that our our elections are executed in a way that is accessible and that the results, you know, are are shared publicly quickly.

And that all goes well. So this is not to say that like, we don’t have challenges, we do, which is why we we’re here and we’re keeping our eye on the ball. But thanks for that. People in New York certainly should have faith in the results that come out on election night.

David Martin: All right. Well that was easy part. Are you ready for the hard part?

Grace Rauh: Okay.

David Martin: All right. The that’s coming up. Once you wrap up this episode of The Good Government Show, give a listen to our friends over at Good News for lefties. This daily podcast highlights news stories that show there’s more good news out there. Other people in government are really trying to do the right thing. That’s good news for lefties. Listen, we’re listening now.

After you get done with this episode, hear more good government stories with our friends at How to Really Run a City for mayors. Kasim Reid of Atlanta and Michael Nutter, a Philadelphia, and their co-host, journalist and author Larry Platt talk with guests and other mayors about how to really get stuff done in cities around the nation. Check them out where you’re listening now or through their nonprofit news site, The Philadelphia Citizen.

Dot org slash podcasts. All right. So now we have a it’s our good government show questionnaire. We ask this of people we speak with mostly their elected leaders. I will temper this a little bit for you. But the first question is the same for everyone. What is good? Government defined it.

Grace Rauh: Good government is accountable. It’s ethical, but it’s also effective. We could have the most sort of. And trust me, in New York we’re a long way away from having this. But let’s say we have the most kind of accountable ethical leadership at City Hall. If that team is not delivering for the people in terms of addressing their needs and delivering services that are necessary for New York City to function and for people to thrive, then we have a problem.

So to me, it is both accountable government and effective.

David Martin: If people are frustrated with government, if they don’t like what they see, what should they do?

Grace Rauh: Well, first of all, they should vote. So let’s get our voter turnout up, okay?

David Martin: All right.

Grace Rauh: They should vote. They should show up if it’s a political season and people are running for office, they should find someone that they do like who is running for office and try and help that person. Right? Like, if you want to change government, we need to have good people in government who are actually making laws setting policy.

So find someone who you like, their message, you believe in what they’re trying to do. Or maybe you’re you say, I’m I’m the messenger. I’ll run for office. Right. So so get involved. And there are so many different ways to do that. It may be on a hyperlocal level, like forming a block association, or in New York City, going to testify at a community board.

But really, the most basic thing you can do is become an informed voter, go out and vote, and then make sure that your friends and neighbors are also participating as well.

David Martin: Read the paper.

Grace Rauh: Yes. I mean, we’re both I mean, you’re you’re still a journalist, but I’m a former journalist. And, you know, being well informed is essential.

David Martin: Let’s talk about that. You were a journalist and now you switched over. I would say that you’re more of a public advocate now. What made you make the change? And you know what inspired you to do this?

Grace Rauh: So I after 17 years, I left journalism, but I never left. Really, what I felt like was my calling as a reporter, and still feels so central to the work that I do now at Citizens Union, which is advocating for New Yorkers. I’m just doing it in a in a somewhat different way. You know, as a reporter who covered City Hall, I felt like I was constantly I wanted to inform the public about the decisions that were being made and who was making them and why they were making them, and wanted people to understand how the decisions being made in city government would affect their lives.

So in many respects, I’m doing somewhat similar work at Citizens Union. I’m just wearing a slightly different hat. And I have a slightly different role to play. But ultimately, I want to make sure that our government is accountable, transparent, and delivering for New Yorkers.

David Martin: Can you ever see yourself running for office, or is that the last thing in your mind?

Grace Rauh: I.

David Martin: I’m sure you’ve thought about it.

Grace Rauh: I you know, it’s like I believe in the power of having good people in leadership positions and government. And the way to do that is to participate, in there are many different ways to participate. So I can’t quite imagine running for office, to be honest. Mostly because the process to run for office, hats off to people who do it.

It’s really, really hard and grueling work, but so but.

David Martin: When you cover it for so long, you see all these people, you know, and you get to know them, you have a different.

Grace Rauh: Perspective, you have a different perspective. And some people, you know, it’s it’s funny, like some people are just hardwired for politics and campaigns. I don’t know that I’m one of those people that’s hard wired for it. Otherwise, I think I probably would have gone into it a long time ago.

David Martin: So you see you see government. You’ve seen government up close, both as a, as a reporter running around city hall and meeting elected officials at every level. I mean, you cover New York City, you you meet presidents, you meet senators, you meet governors. What would you like people to know about government that they don’t know?

Grace Rauh: So I think people should understand that government is filled with individuals, at least in New York. But this is true nationally as well. Who really care about their community and helping other people. We have seen such vilification of government workers. The idea that people are only going into public sector jobs because they could never get a job in the private sector, I mean that in my experience, is just simply false.

The people that I know who work in city government could easily go out and make more money in the private sector, but they feel a real calling to public service, to giving back, to making a positive.

David Martin: And you’re talking.

Grace Rauh: About their community.

David Martin: Deputy director of sanitation and, yes, the bikeway director for.

Grace Rauh: Absolutely, for Department of Transportation, people who work at City planning, who are trying to allow for more affordable housing to be built across New York, people who are trying to make it easier for families to afford childcare in New York City. I mean, city government is filled with people who are dreaming about a brighter future for New Yorkers, and that is what has called them, in many cases into government.

Is that true of every single employee? No. Of course not. But but this idea that, you know, I’ve just been so disheartened by the, attacks on public sector workers and this idea that a government, It’s it’s I think that that’s a dangerous road to go down. I think it’s, a bad road to go down.

And so I think people should understand that government can, when it sets its mind to it, not government. But leaders like these leaders in government can do big things to help people live better lives. But that’s also why it’s so important that we get the ethics and accountability piece right. Because when we have, as we do right now in City Hall, a mayor who has just been so stained by corruption charges and allegations for him personally and members of his inner circle, it just completely, understandably breeds distrust in government.

And if you are someone who wants to give back to their community, who has real skills to offer, you may not even consider going to work for an administration that has this kind of baggage. Right? And that’s bad for that’s bad for New York.

David Martin: I misspoke earlier, you’re actually the second New Yorker I’ve had on the first New Yorker was former mayor Bill de Blasio, and we had a conversation about, you know, him being the mayor. And I asked him this question. I’m going to ask you, best pizza in New York.

Grace Rauh: Oh, okay. Well, I just went recently. I’ll give a shout out to Luigi’s, which is and South Park Slope, okay. On Fifth Avenue, I think the cross is 21st. Maybe it’s between 20th and 21st.

David Martin: That’s a ten minute bike. Okay.

Grace Rauh: Oh, it’s so good. Oh, have you not been there? I guess not. Oh it’s amazing. And there are always like.

David Martin: I go to Giuliani’s side of the Brooklyn Bridge. You used to be Patti Smith.

Grace Rauh: Amazing. That’s. Yes. Yes I know that spot.

David Martin: Locally in Carroll Gardens.

Grace Rauh: Yeah, yeah. I mean, if you can get in, I mean, locally, it’s like I’ve been there. It’s fabulous, but impossible to get in. But, yeah. So I would say for, like, a classic old school slice, Luigi’s is amazing. And you know that it’s amazing because there are always, like, almost many times that I’ve been there. There’s sort of a fire truck that’s double parked, and all the firefighters are in there getting slices.

It’s like old school Brooklyn. It’s fantastic. Well, Bill.

David Martin: De Blasio’s choice was too far.

Grace Rauh: Oh, yes. Well, I mean, de far as a class act, as well.

David Martin: Any other favorite to New York spots.

Grace Rauh: On the pizza front? Anything? Oh, my gosh, so many. I mean, if we’re talking food,

David Martin: I got to ask because you’re in between your house and my house is dinosaur barbecue. Are you a regular?

Grace Rauh: So, I enjoy.

David Martin: I live in Cow Gardens, Brooklyn. You live in Park Slope, Brooklyn.

Grace Rauh: I enjoy dinosaur barbecue. But if we’re going to talk barbecue, then I have to go with hometown. Oh, it in Red hook, which is just off the charts.

David Martin: It is.

Grace Rauh: That.

David Martin: Brisket fantastic.

Grace Rauh: Is off the charts. Phenomenal. Yes. So I will give them and I’m from, my mother and her family is all from South Carolina. So we have, I have like, deep, barbecue, credentials when I, when I give hometown a shout out, I will also say it’s not in our wonderful borough. But this summer, I had an amazing night eating my way through the Queens Night Market in flushing, okay.

Which is phenomenal. And this, it’s been around for a decade, but basically this sort of, as I understand it, retired semi burnt out lawyer started this night market of all these different food vendors from primarily from Queens but from really all over the world.

David Martin: Which goes back to some of the Asian night markets.

Grace Rauh: Oh yes. Yes. And it’s in the food is absolutely incredible. So that was also fantastic.

David Martin: All right. We have to get on this because be here forever. You’re the new executive director of Citizens Union. What’s your number one priority looking forward.

Grace Rauh: Our number one priority. In addition to, moving our elections to, align with presidential ones, is really restoring ethics and integrity to City Hall. I mean, I think we are still processing really what it has meant for New York to have a mayor who was indicted on corruption charges and to have so many members of his inner circle who have also faced charges of their own.

David Martin: Jimmy Walker never got charged with anything. Mayor Jimmy Walker back in the 30s.

Grace Rauh: As I understand it, this was the first time, this was the first time sitting mayor, who was indicted. Okay, on corruption charges. We put together a proposal for. We think there should be a way for the public to remove a mayor from office for misconduct. New York is one of the only big cities in this country that does not have something like that in place.

You know, I’m sure I imagine the assumption probably was that if you had a mayor who was indicted on corruption charges, there would be so many there would be such an outcry that they would just resign from office. But that’s that’s not where we are right.

David Martin: Here in New York.

Grace Rauh: Yeah. So so I think for us, the idea of, really working with whoever the next mayor is to not only put more safeguards in place, but also, you know, some of these changes are really more about sort of the tone that you set at the top, the people that you are hiring into senior level positions, the commitments that you make as an elected leader in terms of your transparency and accountability to the public.

And I think that New Yorkers really need to see, assuming we have a new mayor on January 1st, that there is going to be a new era of reform and accountability and ethics at City Hall.

David Martin: This is the good government show. We always bring it back to good government. Can you give me an example of a good government project you’re excited about that you’re working on.

Grace Rauh: In terms of good government projects that we’re working on and excited about? It’s it’s these election reforms because, at its most.

David Martin: Are you are you confident they’re going to go through?

Grace Rauh: I am confident that the even year switch. Yes. I’m confident that the change that we want to make to move local elections to presidential years will go through. This is a reform that is widely supported by elected officials across New York City. It has been hugely popular, and polling when it’s been on the ballot in other parts of the country, it has passed by really significant margins.

So I’m confident that New Yorkers will affirm that they do want this change when it’s on the ballot. But it’s also important that we educate them about why this is needed and why, fundamentally, having more people turn out to vote and having a more representative electorate is part of strengthening democracy. That’s really important.

David Martin: In some ways. It’s funny, you know, New York City, you think this is this huge progressive place and everything happens here. But in some ways it’s fallen behind initiatives that have happened in other cities. And it’s you’re catching up.

Grace Rauh: Well, we’re trying to I mean, we certainly are trying to say.

David Martin: Is that a fair representative.

Grace Rauh: That we’re trying to catch up? Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, I think, I think for reform organizations like ours, we’re certainly trying to catch up. I mean, it is.

David Martin: Just because it’s so big and so entrenched and been here so long and there’s so many rules and rules that have been in place for a long time.

Grace Rauh: I think that’s right. And because the system, the status quo benefits people who are in power, right, like people who are in power by definition benefited.

David Martin: From.

Grace Rauh: This. Yes, they benefited from the status quo. And so any time you are trying to change the status quo and, you know, potentially create more pathways for more people to participate in the system that can be viewed as threatening to to those who are in power and to those for whom the system is working out just fine. Thank you very much.

So so you know, but but we know that we have a problem when we look at historical voter turnout charts that show the percentage of eligible voters who are turning out, it is just a steady and frankly, depressing decline. When we look at the last several decades in New York. And so something has to give, right? We have a problem.

We cannot keep going down this road. We need to open up our closed Partizan primary system to let that fastest growing group of voters who have chosen not to be part of a party, they’re rejecting the party system. They they probably have a lot of reasons for doing that, but we should be allowing them to participate in our early elections, which have been so consequential historically.

And we should be making common sense changes to our election calendar, just to make it easier for people to vote on local races at a time when they are much more likely to already be going to the polls when they’re choosing the next president.

David Martin: Grace Rauh, you have your work cut out for you.

Grace Rauh: Indeed, yes. Thank you.

David Martin: Your for your first months as the, new executive director of Citizens union here in New York City, a lot in front of you. And, but I like your things. Yes. And, I like what you’re doing.

Grace Rauh: Good luck. Thank you.

David Martin: In the city of, say, Texas, they don’t leave good government up to, well, fate. Join me in for another show I host. As fate would have it, my co-host is David Billings, the former mayor of fate who shares his opinions and thoughts on what good government is. And fate. As you’ll hear, they don’t leave it up to fate.

So listen right here we are listening now to as fate would have it. Well, if you’re not motivated to vote now and go back and listen again. In 2024 as presidential election, just 65% of all eligible voters voted nationally, just about 15% of all the voters were under the age of 30. As gray said, on average, just about 25% of all eligible voters actually vote for mayor.

Any move to include more people involved in voting, that’s just good government, or at least more participatory government. Good to hear. Citizens Union is around and working to increase voter turnout, and they’re fighting on several fronts. And make no mistake, they’re working for all of us voters, not just for one party or another, but working to bring more people to the voting booth.

Grace and Citizens Union is on it, and that’s good news. And with luck, better government. Well, that’s our show. Thanks for listening. Please like us and share this with your friends and our viewers right here where you’re listening, and check out our website. Good Government show.com for extras. Help us keep telling stories of good government and action everywhere.

Join us again for another episode right here. I’m Dave Martin and this is the good Government show.

The Good Government show is a Valley Park production. Jim Ludlow, Dave Martin, that’s me and David Snyder are the executive producers. Our show is edited and produced by Jason Stershic. Please subscribe, then share and like us and review us. That’s the best way to make sure we’re able to keep telling these stories of our government working for all of us.

Then listen to the next episode of The Good Government Show.

**This transcription was created using digital tools and has not been edited by a live person. We apologize for any discrepancies or errors.