Courtesy of MSNBC.

Dear Commons Community,

Democrat Tom Suozzi is going back to Congress after he won the special election in New York’s 3rd District yesterday to replace former disgraced GOP Rep. George Santos,

Suozzi’s victory over Republican Mazi Pilip cuts Republicans’ already razor-thin House majority by one seat, making legislating even more difficult moving forward. And it could provide a guide for Democrats competing in similar competitive districts this fall, especially when it comes to navigating their political vulnerability on immigration and border security.

The Democrat may seek to be sworn into Congress as early as tomorrow, according to a source with knowledge of his thinking. If not, he may have to wait until the end of the month after the House takes an extended recess for President’s Day.

At his victory party, Suozzi thanked a long list of supporters and aides and ran through some of the attacks he faced in the hard-fought contest.  As reported by NBC News.

“Despite all the lies about Tom Suozzi and the Squad, about Tom Suozzi being the godfather of the migrant crisis, about ‘Sanctuary Suozzi,’ despite the dirty tricks, despite the vaunted Nassau County Republican machine: We won,” he said to applause.

Suozzi may have been helped by a winter storm that walloped the New York City area yesterday, as Democrats built up an early advantage in early votes. But his victory also came amid some built-in advantages in name ID and fundraising as the district’s former congressman and as Democrats outspent Republicans on the airwaves.

“He has the values that I have — to get things done but to take into consideration the people who are in need. And he represents the majority of the middle class,” said Jeanne DeChiaro, who voted for Suozzi in Syosset and said her biggest issues were abortion, immigration, the economy and “the ability to be bipartisan.”

Though President Joe Biden won the Long Island-based district by 8 percentage points, according to calculations from Daily Kos Elections, Republicans have made gains in the area since then. In 2022, Santos won this open seat by 8 points, but he was expelled from Congress in December following his indictment on federal charges and a damning Ethics Committee report that alleged he broke multiple federal laws and misused campaign funds. (Santos has pleaded not guilty and is set to go to trial in September.)

The result is a blow to the Nassau County GOP, which has been energized by a string of victories in recent years amid a backlash to Democratic-run New York City and Albany. Before Santos was ousted, Republicans represented every congressional district on Long Island.

It’s also bad news for Republicans in the House who have struggled to pass even partisan bills. Once Suozzi is sworn in, they’ll face even greater pressure to compromise with Democrats and can only lose two votes to advance GOP legislation, assuming all members are present. House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., celebrated Suozzi’s win and the shrinking GOP majority on X, writing: “One down. Four to go.”

The National Republican Congressional Committee called the race “an uphill battle” from the outset and called Pilip a “fighter with a bright future within the Republican Party.”

“Joe Biden won this district by 8 points, Democrats outspent Republicans two-to-one, and our Democrat opponent spent decades representing these New Yorkers — yet it was still a dogfight. Republicans still have multiple pathways to grow our majority in November,” NRCC Chairman Richard Hudson, R-N.C., said in a statement.

While TV ads in the race focused largely on immigration and abortion, House Majority PAC, a Democratic super PAC, launched an ad in recent days tying Pilip to Santos, describing her as an “ethical nightmare” and raising questions about her finances. Her campaign spokesman, Brian Devine, told The New York Times that she filed an amended financial disclosure report because “a preliminary draft … was inadvertently submitted prior to final review by Mazi’s financial team.”

Santos’ expulsion set off the sprint to the special election, and Democrats coalesced around Suozzi, who represented the district from 2017 to 2023 after having been the Nassau County executive and mayor of Glen Cove.

Suozzi did not run for re-election last year, instead making an unsuccessful run for governor in a bitter primary race against Democratic Gov. Kathy Hochul. Suozzi met with Hochul before his nomination for Tuesday’s contest; he apologized, and Hochul pressed him about his path to victory and his support for abortion rights, according to a source familiar with the meeting.

In the short special election, Suozzi faced a barrage of attack ads on immigration, which Republicans saw as a salient issue for voters watching an influx of migrants hit neighboring New York City. He quickly answered with his own TV ads and stressed his support for a doomed bipartisan border deal, which Pilip opposed.

Democrats also leveraged the issue of abortion, with outside groups launching ads featuring video of Pilip describing herself as “pro-life.” While Pilip said she would not support a national abortion ban, she declined to say whether she would vote to protect abortion rights at the federal level.

Suozzi also stressed his staunch support for Israel in the district, which has a sizable Jewish population, amid its ongoing war with Hamas. Pilip also emphasized her own Jewish faith and her service in the Israel Defense Forces after she migrated to the country from Ethiopia as a child.

Suozzi and Pilip could face off again in November. Both have committed to run for the full term. But the district’s lines could change in an ongoing redistricting process. The state’s redistricting commission has until Feb. 28 to draw a new congressional map, and the state GOP has vowed to challenge it if the party views it as a partisan gerrymander.

Congratulations, Representative Suozzi!

Tony

Dear Commons Community,

A $7 million Super Bowl ad touting Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s run for president prompted an apology from the independent candidate. (see  video below.)

The ad ― produced by American Values 2024, a super political action committee backing Kennedy ― borrowed heavily from a 1960 spot for his uncle John F. Kennedy’s successful presidential bid. It uses the same jingle and co-opts the vintage video. As reported by The Huffington Post.

RFK Jr. shared the ad on X, the former Twitter, but hours later added an apology to his family after his cousin, Bobby Shriver, the son of Eunice Kennedy Shriver, slammed the ad. “She would be appalled by his deadly health care views,” Bobby Shriver wrote of his mother. “Respect for science, vaccines, & health care equity were in her DNA.”

Nevertheless, the ad not only remained on RFK Jr.’s X account, but was pinned to the top of his profile as of yesterday morning.

“I’m so sorry if the Super Bowl advertisement caused anyone in my family pain,” Kennedy wrote. “The ad was created and aired by the American Values Super PAC without any involvement or approval from my campaign. FEC rules prohibit Super PACs from consulting with me or my staff. I love you all. God bless you.”

Kennedy’s press secretary, Stefanie Spear, sang a different tune regarding the big-game advertising, which American Values co-founder Tony Lyons estimated to have cost $7 million, according to CBS News.

“We are pleasantly surprised and grateful to the American Values PAC for running an ad during the Super Bowl where more than 100 million Americans got to see that Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. is running as an independent candidate for president of the United States,” Spear told CBS News.

Robert Shrum, a speechwriter for the late Sen. Ted Kennedy (D-Mass.), said on X that the ad was “straight out plagiarism.” He added: “To quote Lloyd Bentsen with a slight amendment, ‘Bobby, you’re no John Kennedy.’ Instead you are a Trump ally.”

Kennedy, whose anti-vax views align with those of many conservatives, was grabbing 14% of the general vote in a recent poll that imagined a five-person ballot in November. That positions him as a potential spoiler for the expected main candidates, President Joe Biden and his criminally indicted rival, former President Donald Trump.

I saw the ad during the Super Bowl and thought it was ridiculous!

Tony

Tom Suozzi and Mazi Pilip.  Courtesy of The Epoch Times

Dear Common Community,

The special election in New York’s Third Congressional District today will determine who will replace George Santos, the former disgraced Republican congressman and serial liar, for the remainder of the year. But the political ramifications may be felt far beyond the borders of Nassau County and Queens, with lessons for both parties in November.  Here is an analysis courtesy of Lisa Lerer of The New York Times.

The contest pits Mazi Pilip, a little-known Nassau County legislator running as a Republican, against Tom Suozzi, a Democrat who previously held the seat for three terms before leaving to run for governor. The race is expected to be tight — with the last-minute wild card of a major snowstorm today.

Nick Fandos, who has been closely following the race, reported that the powerful Nassau County Republican machine is closely managing Pilip’s campaign. Her election filings do not show a single person on her campaign payroll, an extraordinarily unusual arrangement.

Here’s a guide to the themes dominating the race, and how they could play out in the 2024 general election.

Immigration

Republicans have embraced immigration as their central issue, hoping to capitalize on suburban voter unease about the wave of migrants arriving in cities like New York. Pilip, who was born in Ethiopia before immigrating to Israel and then the United States, has campaigned in front of migrant shelters in Queens, accusing her opponent and President Biden of bringing “the border crisis to our front door.” Republicans have spent millions blanketing the airwaves with ads casting Suozzi as an “open-border radical.”

Suozzi, for his part, has refused to cede the issue, making a tougher stance on immigration a centerpiece of his campaign. He has called on Biden to lock down the border, and said a group of migrant men charged with assaulting police officers should be deported. He also criticized Pilip for opposing a bipartisan Senate border bill.

If Suozzi’s strategy succeeds, his approach could become a new immigration playbook for other Democrats running in swing suburban districts.

Abortion

Since Roe v. Wade was overturned, Democrats have leaned into abortion rights as an energizing force for their coalition. The $13 million they’ve spent on advertising in the race — twice as much as Republicans — has characterized Pilip as an ardent opponent of abortion rights.

Pilip, an Orthodox Jew and the mother of seven children, describes herself as “pro-life.” In the first and only debate of the race last Thursday, she said she would not support a national abortion ban. But she declined to say what abortion restrictions she would support, and attacked Suozzi for pressing her on specifics, accusing him of telling a woman what she believes.

“I went through pregnancy. I suffered,” she said. “It is a personal choice. Every woman should have that choice. I’m not going to tell her what to do.”

If Pilip wins, her approach could become a popular one with Republican candidates, who have struggled to find a voter-friendly stance on abortion since the fall of Roe.

The path to November

Democratic and Republican leaders will be watching tomorrow’s special election to see how their messaging strategies might play out this fall, on a pivotal battlefield.

Control of the House in 2025 may hinge on a handful of suburban areas around New York City like the Third District, which stretches from the outskirts of Queens to the suburbs of Nassau County. Republicans flipped four of those districts in 2022, which helped them win a narrow majority in the House.

At the time, Hakeem Jeffries, the Brooklyn congressman who would soon become the top Democrat in the House, predicted those gains would be short-lived. He described the seats as ones “Republicans are renting, not owning.”

The results of this election will indeed be followed closely!

Tony

Dear Commons Community,

As millions of viewers prepared to watch the Supebowl yesterday,  Donald Trump was on social media issuing an appeal to Taylor Swift , urging her not to endorse President Joe Biden in the 2024 race for the White House.

Trump in his post on Truth Social took credit for the Music Modernization Act, legislation he signed while in office addressing copyright law and streaming rights.

“Joe Biden didn’t do anything for Taylor, and never will,” Trump shared, adding there’s “no way” she could endorse Biden and “be disloyal to the man who made her so much money.”

“Besides that, I like her boyfriend, Travis, even though he may be a Liberal, and probably can’t stand me!” Trump added, referencing Kansas City Chiefs player Travis Kelce, who is competing in the Super Bowl on Sunday.  As reported by USA Today.

While Kelce has drawn criticism from some conservative figures, he has not been outspoken about politics.

Swift endorsed Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris in the 2020 presidential election, and she has long been critical of Trump and other Republican lawmakers. Swift has also said she regrets not getting involved in the 2016 presidential election, when Trump won his first term.

Swift in her 2020 documentary “Miss Americana” also knocked Republican Sen. Marsha Blackburn, R-Tenn., calling her “Trump in a wig.”

The then-president responded to Swift at the time, joking that he liked her music “about 25% less.”

Swift has not offered an endorsement in the 2024 presidential election, but the New York Times reported last month that Biden’s campaign is trying to figure out how to lock down Swift’s support in the coming months.

The star also has a history with drawing voters to the polls. Last fall, Swift helped get more than 30,000 people registered to vote in a single day.

By the way, the Kansas City Chiefs won the Superbowl 25-22 over the San Francisco 49s in overtime.

Tony

Dear Commons Community,

Maureen Dowd yesterday expressed concern about Joe Biden and his staff for the way they are dealing with his growing moments of forgetfulness and stammering during public appearances.  Entitled, “Mr. President, Ditch the Stealth About Health”, she says trying to hide and protect him in our modern, all-day news world will not work.  Here is an excerpt:

“In the days before TV and social media, the White House could suppress the fact that Franklin D. Roosevelt, who contracted polio when he was 39, could barely walk. With the help of a complicit press corps, a censoring Secret Service and a variety of ruses, F.D.R. was even able to campaign giving the impression that he was mobile.

But stealth about health is no longer possible, and the sooner President Biden’s team stops being in denial about that, the better off Democrats will be.

Jill Biden and his other advisers come up with ways to obscure signs of senescence — from shorter news conferences to almost zero print interviews to TV interviews mainly with fawning MSNBC anchors.

But many Americans are quite concerned about the 81-year-old president’s crepuscular mien. It’s the elephant in the room — except that elephants never forget.

Biden is running against a bad man, but that’s not enough. He has to acknowledge to himself that his moments of faltering — which will increase over the next five years — are a big weakness. He and his aides have to figure out how to handle that. Donald Trump, 77, makes his own verbal slips and shows signs of aging, but he conveys more energy.”

….

Dowd concluded:

“But, in a world on fire, with Republicans in Congress spiraling into farce, the Biden crew clearly has no plan for how to deal with the president’s age except to shield him and hide him and browbeat reporters who point out that his mental state — like the delusional Trump’s — is a genuine issue.

Biden is not just in a bubble — he’s in bubble wrap. Cosseting and closeting Uncle Joe all the way to the end — eschewing town halls and the Super Bowl interview — are just not going to work. Going on defense, when Trump is on offense, is not going to work. Counting on Trump’s vileness to secure the win, as Hillary did, is not going to work.

Democrats should grab their smelling salts for a long case of the vapors. It’s going to be a most virulent, violent year.’

So true!

Tony

Mikhail Klimentyev/AFP/Getty

Dear Commons Community,

Donald Trump said yesterday that, as president, he warned NATO allies that he “would encourage” Russia “to do whatever the hell they want” to countries that are “delinquent” as he ramped up his attacks on foreign aid and longstanding international alliances.

Speaking at a rally in Conway, South Carolina, Trump recounted a story he has told before about an unidentified NATO member who confronted him over his threat not to defend members who fail to meet the trans-Atlantic alliance’s defense spending targets.

But this time, Trump went further, saying had told the member that he would, in fact, “encouraged” Russia to do as it wishes in that case.

“‘You didn’t pay? You’re delinquent?’” Trump recounted saying. “‘No I would not protect you. In fact, I would encourage them to do whatever the hell they want. You gotta pay. You gotta pay your bills.’” As reported by The Associated Press.

NATO allies agreed in 2014, after Russia annexed Ukraine’s Crimean Peninsula, to halt the spending cuts they had made after the Cold War and move toward spending 2% of their GDPs on defense by 2024.

White House spokesperson Andrew Bates responded, saying that: “Encouraging invasions of our closest allies by murderous regimes is appalling and unhinged – and it endangers American national security, global stability, and our economy at home.”

Trump’s comments come as Ukraine remains mired in its efforts to stave off Russia’s 2022 invasion and as Republicans in Congress have become increasingly skeptical of providing additional aid money to the country as it struggles with stalled counteroffensives and weapons shortfalls.

They also come as Trump and his team are increasingly confident he will lock up the nomination in the coming weeks following commanding victories in the first votes of the 2024 Republican nominating calendar.

Earlier Saturday, Trump called for the end of foreign aid “WITHOUT “STRINGS” ATTACHED,” arguing that the U.S. should dramatically curtail the way it provides money.

“FROM THIS POINT FORWARD, ARE YOU LISTENING U.S. SENATE(?), NO MONEY IN THE FORM OF FOREIGN AID SHOULD BE GIVEN TO ANY COUNTRY UNLESS IT IS DONE AS A LOAN, NOT JUST A GIVEAWAY,” Trump wrote on his social media network in all-caps letters.

Trump went on to say the money could be loaned “ON EXTRAORDINARILY GOOD TERMS,” with no interest and no date for repayment. But he said that, “IF THE COUNTRY WE ARE HELPING EVER TURNS AGAINST US, OR STRIKES IT RICH SOMETIME IN THE FUTURE, THE LOAN WILL BE PAID OFF AND THE MONEY RETURNED TO THE UNITED STATES.”

During his 2016 campaign, Trump alarmed Western allies by warning that the United States, under his leadership, might abandon its NATO treaty commitments and only come to the defense of countries that meet the alliance’s guidelines by committing 2 percent of their gross domestic products to military spending.

Trump, as president, eventually endorsed NATO’s Article 5 mutual defense clause, which states that an armed attack against one or more of its members shall be considered an attack against all members. But he often depicted NATO allies as leeches on the U.S. military and openly questioned the value of the military alliance that has defined American foreign policy for decades.

As of 2022, NATO reported that seven of what are now 31 NATO member countries were meeting that obligation — up from three in 2014. Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine has spurred additional military spending by some NATO members.

Tony

Damon Winter/The New York Times

Dear Common Community,

The New York Times columnist, Ross Douthat, comments today that Joe Biden should seriously consider bowing out of the Democratic Presidential Nomination.  In a column entitled, “The Question Is Not If Biden Should Step Aside. It’s How”, he reviews Biden’s options and comes to the conclusion that he should step aside during the Democratic National Convention in August. He suggests:

“That would mean not dropping out today or tomorrow or any day when party primaries are still proceeding. Instead Biden would continue accumulating pledged delegates, continue touting the improving economic numbers, continue attacking Donald Trump — until August and the convention, when he would shock the world by announcing his withdrawal from the race, decline to issue any endorsement, and invite the convention delegates to choose his replacement.”

I believe that Douthat’s suggestion is on a lot of Democrats’ minds.

Below is the entire column.

Tony

—————————————————————————————-

The New York Times

The Question Is Not If Biden Should Step Aside. It’s How.

Feb. 10, 2024

By Ross Douthat

Opinion Columnist

Joe Biden should not be running for re-election. That much was obvious well before the special prosecutor’s comments on the president’s memory lapses inspired a burst of age-related angst. And Democrats who are furious at the prosecutor have to sense that it will become only more obvious as we move deeper into an actual campaign.

What is less obvious is how Biden should get out of it.

Note that I did not say that Biden should not be the president. You can make a case that as obvious as his decline has been, whatever equilibrium his White House has worked out has thus far delivered results largely indistinguishable from (and sometimes better than) what one would expect from a replacement-level Democratic president.

If there has been a really big age effect in his presidency so far, I suspect it lies in the emboldenment of America’s rivals, a sense that a decrepit American chief executive is less to be feared than a more vigorous one. But suspicion isn’t proof, and when I look at how the Biden administration has actually handled its various foreign crises, I can imagine more disastrous outcomes from a more swaggering sort of president.

Saying that things have worked OK throughout this stage of Biden’s decline, though, is very different from betting that they can continue working out OK for almost five long further years. And saying that Biden is capable of occupying the presidency for the next 11 months is quite different from saying that he’s capable of spending those months effectively campaigning for the right to occupy it again.

The impression the president gives in public is not senility so much as extreme frailty, like a lightbulb that still burns so long as you keep it on a dimmer. But to strain the simile a bit, the entire issue in a re-election campaign is not whether your filaments shed light; it’s whether voters should take this one opportunity to change out the bulb. Every flicker is evidence that a change is necessary, and if you force Biden into a normal campaign-season role, frequent flickering (if not a burning-out) is what you’re going to get.

Let’s give him the benefit of the doubt, and assume that Biden senses this, that he isn’t just entombed in egomania, but he feels trapped by his own terrible vice-presidential choice. If he drops out and anoints Kamala Harris, she’s even more likely to lose to Donald Trump. But if he drops out and doesn’t endorse his own number two, he’d be opening himself to a narrative of identitarian betrayal — aging white president knifes first woman-of-color veep — and setting his party up for months of bloodletting and betrayal, a constant churn of personal and ideological drama.

There is no easy escape from these dilemmas. But the best approach available to Biden is a distinctively old-fashioned one. He should accept the necessity of drama and bloodletting but also condense it all into the format that was originally designed for handling intraparty competition: the Democratic National Convention.

That would mean not dropping out today or tomorrow or any day when party primaries are still proceeding. Instead Biden would continue accumulating pledged delegates, continue touting the improving economic numbers, continue attacking Donald Trump — until August and the convention, when he would shock the world by announcing his withdrawal from the race, decline to issue any endorsement, and invite the convention delegates to choose his replacement.

Pain would follow. But so would excitement and spectacle, the things that Biden himself seems too old to deliver. Meanwhile any agony would be much briefer than in a long primary battle between Harris and Gavin Newsom or Gretchen Whitmer. The proximity of the general election would create stronger incentives for Harris or any other disappointed loser to accept a behind-the-scenes proffer and fall in line if the convention battle doesn’t go their way. And the format would encourage the party-as-institution, not the party-as-mass-electorate, to do a party’s traditional job and choose the ticket with the most national appeal.

Would Trump and Republicans have a field day attacking Democratic insiders for pulling a fast one on the public? Sure, but if the chosen ticket was more popular and competent-seeming, less shadowed by obvious old age, the number of relieved voters would surely outstrip the number of resentful ones.

This plan also has the advantage of being discardable if I’m completely wrong, Biden is actually vigorous on the campaign trail, and he’s ahead of Trump by five points by the time August rolls around. Like my past suggestion that Joe Manchin should run as a third-party candidate provisionally (also still a good idea!) to see how the Trump-Biden race shapes up, contemplating a convention bow-out gives Biden a way to be responsive to events — sticking it out if he really sees no other options, but keeping a path open for his country to escape a choice that right now seems like divine chastisement.

Dear Commons Community,

Philip N. Cohen, a  professor of sociology at the University of Maryland at College Park, had a fine piece yesterday analyzing the current attacks on sociology in Florida. Entitled, “How Sociology Can Save Itself”, he challenges his colleagues to examine where sociology is as a discipline.  Here is an excerpt.

“They are coming for sociology. “They” is the amorphous campaign against what they call “wokeism,” diversity initiatives, and critical race theory, led by a coalition of Republican activists, conservative foundations, and elected officials. Their current strategy is to manipulate political polarization to undermine the essential role of higher education, but conservatives have been beating the same drum against antiracism since they mobilized white backlash to block affirmative action in the 1970s. American sociology, whose annual conference theme this year is “Intersectional Solidarities,” with a promise on its website to “dismantle ongoing legacies of settler colonialism,” clearly makes an appealing target. The Florida Board of Governors has now propelled this effort by removing a general sociology course from the core-curriculum requirements of its massive state university system.

These are not good-faith actors, but they are good at what they do. If they succeed in lumping the label “sociology” into their basket of deplorable dog whistles, along with “CRT” and “gender ideology,” then our discipline may be in for a prolonged period of retrenchment, to the detriment of hundreds of thousands of students who take our courses every year.

Although I join the American Sociological Association’s (ASA) condemnation of the Florida action, in this case I also agree with a conservative critic of sociology, the sociologist Jukka Savolainen, who recently wrote in The Wall Street Journal that Florida’s action should be a

The Florida situation is a little like wrestling with a pig: We all get dirty, and the pig likes it. These anti-education activists are not interested in reasonable debate. They are culture warriors against the very idea of social progress. But that doesn’t mean our predicament is not real. It is not true, as the Florida commissioner of education Manny Diaz said, that, “Sociology has been hijacked by left-wing activists and no longer serves its intended purpose as a general knowledge course for students.” But we do have work to do if we hope to build and maintain public trust.”

I love Cohen’s analogy of wrestling with a pig.  So true.

Tony

CUNY Chancellor Felix Matos Rodriguez

Dear Commons Community,

Chancellor Felix Matos Rodriguez on Thursday defended multiple rounds of painful spending cuts and a hiring freeze across the City University of New York as measures that have slashed the cash-strapped university system’s structural deficit by “almost half.”

By the end of this year, CUNY expects to shrink its deficit to $128 million, down from a high of $234 million in fiscal year 2022, the chancellor told state lawmakers at a hearing on the state higher education budget.  As reported by The New York Daily News.

“While we have made great strides, there’s still more work to be done,” said Matos Rodríguez.

The Professional Staff Congress (PSC) Thursday continued to blast the most recent cuts ordered by the central CUNY administration.

The PSC slammed what they called “austerity measures,” including larger class sizes and reduced student services from library hours to cafeteria access. At one campus, Queens College in Flushing, more than two dozen full-time substitute lecturers lost their teaching positions within weeks of the spring semester.

“There are resources in the state economy to resist these cuts,” PSC President James Davis said, “and add hundreds of millions more to the CUNY budget.”

Matos Rodriguez attributed the gaping budget shortfalls at CUNY to factors from enrollment declines that accelerated with the pandemic to increased costs. While the school system recently logged a 2% overall enrollment increase, it’s still down about 40,000 students since the fall of 2019.

CUNY’s strategy to address its deficit has included two rounds of across-the-board savings targets and most recently a targeted approach for nine campuses that have “shown signs of more fiscal distress,” he said. On top of the hiring freeze, the university system also created a vacancy review board used when backfilling jobs left empty by attrition.

Matos Rodríguez also credited federal pandemic aid and investments by Gov. Hochul and state lawmakers as helping to close the budgetary gap.

Hochul’s proposal for next school year includes a $36 million increase in operating funds for CUNY’s four-year colleges and a community college funding floor so that no school receives less state aid than it did last year if enrollment drops. The plan also earmarks $441 million to invest in new facilities and repair crumbling campuses.

Just 8% of the university’s 300 buildings are considered to be “in good repair,” according to its strategic plan announced ahead of this school year.

In an effort to boost enrollment and tuition revenue, Hochul last month announced plans for both CUNY and the State University of New York to automatically admit students in the top 10% of their high school classes to their most selective campuses.

The university has also grown its rosters through a city program called CUNY Reconnect, where seven in 10 participants who dropped out but reenrolled are given another chance at finishing their degrees.

Tough economic times for CUNY!

Tony