Chris Quinn-Critical Animal Rights Group Endorses For City Council Seats, Including Hers

NYCLASS, the animal-rights group that's part of a superPAC dumping IEmoney into ads trashing mayoral frontrunner Chris Quinn, is out with a slate of 10 endorsements for Manhattan City Council seats.

17 June 2013
By Celeste Katz

This could get interesting.

NYCLASS, the animal-rights group that's part of a superPAC dumping IEmoney into ads trashing mayoral frontrunner Chris Quinn, is out with a slate of 10 endorsements for Manhattan City Council seats.

“These candidates have pledged to stand with us as we continue to [support] legislation that would allow a pilot program to be tested to replace the abused carriage horses with vintage electric cars," said NYCLASS's Allie Feldman. "We look forward to working closely with all of these candidates during their campaigns and throughout their term as Council members.”

The Democratic slate of six incumbents and four open-seat hopefuls includes Yetta Kurland, a lawyer vying for the West Side District 3 slot Quinn, the sitting Council speaker, is vacating. Also on the list: Harlem's Inez Dickens, who endorsed Quinn for mayor two weeks ago today and is considered a prime candidate to be the next Council leader. 

The rollout comes a week after the anti-Quinn superPAC, NYC Is Not For Sale, announced plans to put its previously cable-only TV spots into network rotation.

Team Quinn -- which just picked up the endorsement of Teamsters Joint Council 16, an umbrella group that includes the carriage-driver-repping Local 553 -- fired back.

The campaign, which also tried to have the ads pulled from cable when they debuted, countered by unveiling a social media push playing up Quinn's legislative work with a couple that claims their son, Manny Lanza, might not have died if the surgery he needed hadn't gotten delayed over Medicaid issues.

No mindreading here, but the endorsements did raise a few questions for me: Namely whether the candidates -- whether they'd have to keep working with Quinn on the Council through the end of this year or serve alongside her as mayor or both -- will feel any tension from being promoted by a group trying so hard to poke holes in the speaker's frontrunner status in the race.

Certainly, it's no secret Quinn has been accused of having a retaliatory streak when it comes to those who cross her politically.

The campaign declined to comment on the NYCLASS announcement, which didn't call her out by name. In past response to criticism, Quinn herself has said she may be a "pushy broad" when it comes to aggressive leadership -- but that's about passion, not payback.

Here's the NYCLASS Manhattan slate, with incumbents marked by an asterisk:

District 1:  Margaret Chin*
District 2:  Rosie Mendez*
District 3:  Yetta Kurland
District 4:  Daniel Garodnick*
District 5:  Micah Kellner
District 6:  Helen Rosenthal
District 7:  Mark Levine
District 8:  Melissa Mark-Viverito*
District 9:  Inez Dickens*
District 10: Ydanis Rodriguez*

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