Bill De Blasio Takes a Page From Governor Cuomo on Pre-K Pitch

After a historic victory on Nov. 5, mayor-elect Bill de Blasio’s proposed tax increase on the wealthy to pay for universal pre-kindergarten is no longer just campaign rhetoric. To deliver on the promise, the mayor-elect is borrowing a tactic from the very man whose nod he will need in Albany.
Bill De Blasio Takes a Page From Governor Cuomo on Pre-K Pitch
Mayor-elect Bill de Blasio speaks at the Earth Institute's Program on Child Well-Being in the New York City Summit at Columbia University on Nov. 25, 2013. (Eileen Barroso).
Kristen Meriwether
11/25/2013
Updated:
11/27/2013

NEW YORK—After a historic victory on Nov. 5, mayor-elect Bill de Blasio’s proposed tax increase on the wealthy to pay for universal pre-kindergarten is no longer just campaign rhetoric. To deliver on the promise, the mayor-elect is borrowing a tactic from the very man whose nod he will need in Albany.

De Blasio’s tax hike, which will increase taxes on New Yorkers making over $500,000, will require approval from the State Legislature, as well as Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s signature. Legislators, as well as Cuomo, are facing an election year, and have all begun to roll out tax cuts—not hikes—to woo voters.

Despite skepticism about the viability of his pre-kindergarten plan, de Blasio has not given up his conviction. He has refused to offer an alternative plan, saying he would not bet against himself. Instead, the mayor-elect is going back to the grassroots organizations who helped get him win the election to build support for the plan—the same tactic Cuomo often used to pass legislative items.

De Blasio’s first public post-election grassroots stop was a 30-minute keynote speech in front of children’s advocates and teachers at Columbia University. The talking points were mostly recycled from the campaign trail, but he made sure the advocates knew the plan would not work without their support.

“To make this change, everyone in this room has a stake in this and everyone in this room is an actor in this drama,” de Blasio said. “This is a moment is history where we get to determine if we will make the change and it will come down to the work all of you do in the coming months.”

De Blasio’s call to action is reminiscent of the legislative strategy Cuomo often adopted and described in March. The governor visited New York City to build support for his campaign finance reforms. Cuomo discussed how affecting change through politicians was never as effective as using people to drive change, an approach similar to de Blasio’s outreach to the education advocates on Monday.

“If you develop popular will, you create a majority of people supporting an issue,” Cuomo said in March. “Developing public will is hard, time consuming, and expensive. But every initiative that we have won, especially in the last two years, follows that model.”

Cuomo detailed going to hundreds of meetings around the state and spending millions on television advertising. After months garnering support, he would put a poll in the field to gauge his success.

“I leave the politicians there [in Albany], develop the popular support, and then introduce the politicians to the popular support,” Cuomo said. “You would be amazed at how politicians tend to follow the popular support.”

As Cuomo noted back in March, the idea of building public support is not his invention: he learned it during his days in the Clinton administration. With de Blasio using Cuomo’s go-to recipe for success, it does, however, hamper any attempts by the governor to garner public support against the mayor-elect’s tax increase.

At Columbia on Monday, former Mayor David Dinkins, whom de Blasio served under, showed he was not yet convinced the tax would work.

Dinkins said the tax hike may be too difficult to pass in Albany, and instead suggested reviving the commuter tax to raise revenue for the plan.

“I would urge you to have your experts have a good hard look at that and see whether or not this might be more easily done than putting a tax on the wealthy to take care of the rest of us,” Dinkins said.

Support for universal pre-kindergarten and afterschool programs is high among people in the city, but de Blasio may need to continue his outreach to ensure everyone agrees on the method.