The NYC Special Election of 1950

Last night there was a lively debate for the Public Advocate special election on February 26th. As previously noted, this is the first city-wide special election since 1950, when Acting Mayor Vincent Impelliteri was elected to complete the term of recently-resigned Mayor William O'Dwyer.

This upcoming special election was triggered when former Public Advocate Tish James was elected as New York State Attorney General last November and subsequently vacated the office. She ran for AG after former NY AG Eric Schneiderman resigned in a scandale.

Not surprisingly, scandale is what triggered the last city-wide special election in 1950. O'Dwyer was under heat for his connections to organized crime so he accepted President Truman's offer to become Ambassador to Mexico and promptly resigned in the summer of that year. City Council President Impelliteri became Acting Mayor and then ran in the special election.

This was at a time when Tammany Hall still exerted a lot of power over NYC politics and, for whatever reason, Tammany and Impelliteri had had a falling out -- so Tammany didn't support him for mayor. So Impelliteri, or Impy as he was popularly known, quickly created and ran on his own party line -- the Experience Party -- and won.

His victory would be short-lived. In 1950, the New York State government was completely controlled by Republicans, under the leadership of Governor Tom Dewey, and they did everything they could to thwart Impy's initiatives to govern the city (it's the opposite today, where the Democrats completely control the New York State government). Robert Moses was another powerful presence, heading various state and city agencies that turned Moses' policy preferences (i.e. building highways) into the mayor's. So Impy was boxed in -- and, in 1953, Tammany got its revenge when it supported Robert Wagner in the 1953 primary and Impy lost.

NYC would then not have another city-wide special election until now -- for almost 69 years. And whoever wins this race for Public Advocate will be in a powerful position to run for mayor either in 2021 or later on.