A day after State Senate GOP leader Dean Skelos said he would refuse to bring de Blasio’s plan for a vote, Mayor Bill de Blasio and his wife Chirlane ramped up their call for universal pre-k, turning to the base in an urgent call for a vote in the Senate.
“They can�t accept the possibility of no vote on something that the people of New York City have spoken for so clearly,” Mayor de Blasio told a wildly supportive crowd at the famed Bethany Baptist Church in Brooklyn Tuesday morning. “They can’t accept the notion that New York City will be treated like a colony that doesn’t even get to decide its own future.”
�Look at every public opinion poll. The people of New York City have spoken,� said the mayor. �When you have a majority like that, it�s supposed to rule the day, isn�t it? And political machinations are not supposed to overcome that kind of majority,� he added, leading the crowd in a standing chant of, �We want a vote!�
�It can�t be business as usual. Your congregations have to feel this in a way I can only describe as personal. People have to feel like this is about their survival and their children�s survival, because in fact it is,� the mayor continued. �We are all brothers and sisters in this fight. We will accept nothing short of victory.�
�Make no mistake, this is the defining civil rights issue of our day,” NYC’s First Lady Chirlane McCray added. “Universal pre-kindergarten and after school programs are essential to our children’s future, are essential to our future.”
Speaking to reporters following the speech, Mr. de Blasio said, “Reverend Sharpton and I � and so many other people who care about just basic fairness � reject the notion that we would be deprived a vote on such a central initiative, on something so fundamentally important to the people of this city. So we�re going to fight to rectify this. And there�s a lot of time on the clock, and the bottom line is Albany simply must provide us a vote on this issue. The people of this city demand it, and I think � it is shocking to me that in the year 2014, that Senator Skelos thinks he can sweep this under the rug.”
Mr. de Blasio added that he was �miffed� by Mr. Skelos�s surprising move. “I am miffed, because I had spoken with Senator Skelos several times and understood there would be ongoing discussions to see if we could work forward � work on a plan to go forward together,” he said. “This was quite a surprise to me that he would not allow a vote. It�s not a shock, again, that he would have differences on the issue, but I thought we were all trying to work together here to find the solution that would serve our children � and obviously that�s not the case.”
(Jacob Kornbluh – YWN)
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Holder thinks that toieivah marriage is the civil rights issue of the day, and this guy thinks that universal pre-k is the civil rights issue of the day. I guess the term “civil rights issue of the day” is fairly meaningless now.
Anyway, this guy can’t get anything done. He’s a lame-duck mayor already, and he only just got elected.