Flynn was convinced that keeping Wallace on the ticket would lead to defeat and set out to convince the president to dump Wallace. Had Roosevelt not done so, his replacement Harry Truman would not have become president — and a Soviet apologist would have led the United States.

It’s a precedent which Joe Biden, who fancies himself a new FDR, might want to consider following. The parallels are striking. As with FDR, who would die just months following his reelection, concern about Biden’s health and fitness abound. The 1944 Democratic convention — where Wallace lost his bid to remain on the ticket — was held in Chicago. And Kamala Harris’ poll numbers are even worse than Biden’s. According to the polling site 538’s most recent survey, only 38.2% of those surveyed approved of Harris’ performance.

It is hard to conceive of anything that would better revive Biden’s failing fortunes — and reassure the nation that a capable replacement was waiting in the wings — than the bold act of asking Harris to step aside.

To be sure, the identity politics that led Biden to pick Harris in the first place would be hard for him to confront. But in doing so, he could remind voters of Bill Clinton’s “Sister Souljah” moment — the rapper whom the self-styled Comeback Kid dared to criticize and in doing so established himself as a New Democrat centrist. Not that Harris is as extreme as the Bronx-born rapper — but her word salad speaking style and non-performance when it comes to addressing the migrant crisis, as assigned by the president, have won her no broad public following.

At the same time, Democrats have a deep bench of plausible women to replace Harris. Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo, a former governor of Rhode Island, private capital investor and Rhodes Scholar, recently got a star turn on “60 Minutes.” She stood up to public sector unions in resolving the pension financing crisis in Little Rhody. Even better, from an electoral perspective, would be Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, who likes to call herself a pragmatic progressive — and hails from a state whose electoral vote may swing the election. As a Californian, Harris brings no similar boost.

Even more important, both Whitmer and Raimondo have themselves run successfully in closely contested elections and have serious executive experience, something neither Biden nor Barack Obama had before entering the White House. As Biden shuffles slowly off the political stage, such experience would be reassuring to voters — just as was Truman’s experience as the head of a Senate committee investigating World War II contract corruption and his background as a Kansas City county executive.

This is not to endorse Biden — but to suggest that he owes it to the country to look for a vice president convincingly qualified for the most important role of that office: taking over upon the death of the president.

To be sure, Donald Trump, having cut loose Mike Pence — who played a key role in recruiting capable executive talent for their administration — similarly owes it to the country to quickly name his own vice presidential nominee. That person, too, must be able to take over for the 77-year-old Trump, about whose health we can’t be assured either.

Author Roll notes that Roosevelt found a face saving exit for Henry Wallace, as secretary of commerce. Truman, however, distrustful of Wallace for his naïveté about the Soviets, later dismissed him. Wallace, in turn, ran against Truman in 1948 as a Progressive. That election itself reminds us of the present. A four-way race, it featured Truman, Republican New York Gov. Tom Dewey (of Thruway fame), as well as Wallace and “Dixiecrat” Strom Thurmond, who actually carried four Southern states. Truman won anyway.

Face-saving exits for Harris are also possible — whether replacing Merrick Garland as attorney general (the post she held in California) or even Sonia Sotomayor on the Supreme Court,

Dumping Harris would signal that Biden actually has something Americans doubt he possesses: guts. Of course, someone, in an era without big city political bosses, would have to play the role of Bronx leader Flynn. Dr. Jill?

Husock is a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute.

But one especially surprising, common-sense change in the state’s rent regulation appears to be attracting bipartisan support. A state Senate plan would permit up to 6% rent increases following major capital improvements to apartments. Such increases have been restricted since passage of the 2019 version of rent controls. This has meant that property owners have not been able to recover the costs of even state-mandated upgrades, such as lead paint removal, or investments such as new boilers or roofs.

The law has led small property owners especially to respond by taking apartments they can’t afford to fix up when they become vacant off the market entirely.

At a hearing last week of the City Council Housing Committee, members presented with the most recent city Housing and Vacancy Survey were told that 6,586 rent-stabilized units were “not available” because they need “major renovations.” Some 13,680 such units overall were “off market” for 12 months or more. This is what some call apartment “warehousing” — but reflects costs that are too high to make renting profitable.

That some of those numbers have declined from the high-vacancy COVID year of 2021 is no cause for celebration. Indeed, there is good reason to worry that, absent reform, an increasing number of rental units will stay empty.

Small property owners, especially in the outer boroughs, are pinched by rent regs. “Janice” owns four pre-war buildings, with 100 rent-stabilized apartments, near Kings County Hospital in East Flatbush. She reports losing money even on her occupied units. Her per-unit taxes, insurance and utilities average $1,100-$1,200 a month but rents are set by law at $800-$900, with some as low as $400.

When units become vacant, owners must comply with such mandates as lead paint abatement, which “Janice” estimates at $25,000 per unit. There’s more: new appliances, electric upgrades and plumbing older units need. “It costs $60,000 to put the basics in place,” she estimates. “We’re not charities. It’s the city that’s pushing units off the market.” If any of her units becomes vacant, she’ll keep it empty, she adds.

The Housing Survey also reports that almost twice as many rent-stabilized as market units have rodents, broken plaster or peeling paint, leaks or heating breakdowns. Even if a unit is not vacant, owners have an incentive not to maintain — and tenants suffer.

What’s more, the squeeze on rent-regulated owners is linked to the latest banking crisis — that of NYCB, the former New York Community Bank. As Investopedia’s Christiana Sciaudone reports,

“NYCB has a big red flag that many other regional banks don’t have: an $18.3 billion portfolio of loans made to rent-regulated multifamily buildings in New York City. That equaled roughly 22% of all of the bank’s loans at the end of December.” Continues Sciaudone: “High interest rates, persistent inflation and plummeting property values are putting owners of such buildings in a bind, jeopardizing their ability to pay back loans.”

The city has offered a supposed lifeline: the “Unlocking Doors” pilot program to help landlords pay for upgrades. To date, reports the Department of Housing Preservation and Development, it’s received a grand total of one application — maybe because to participate owners would have to agree to accept recipients of housing vouchers, including the homeless, who could alarm other tenants.

A year ago, Council members were up in arms about “warehousing.” Owners of rent-regulated housing were said to be licking their chops at the prospect that the U.S. Supreme Court would declare rent controls unconstitutional — so they were keeping units empty, awaiting their chance to gouge new tenants.

Said Brooklyn Council Housing Committee member Lincoln Restler, “We need to pass legislation in Albany to require that landlords pay fines… when they leave apartments vacant.” Now that even a conservative Supreme Court has allowed rent regulation law to stand, Restler is quiet on the subject. It’s good to see, however, that some in Albany recognize that if landlords are not allowed to operate profitably, they’ll simply stop renting.

There’s never been any guarantee that low-income households are the major beneficiaries of price controls on nearly 1 million rent-stabilized units. As NYU’s Furman Center puts it delicately: “Although many rent regulation systems aim to protect low-income renters, in practice, rent regulation alone may prove too blunt an instrument to reach these households.”

But if rent stabilization is here to stay, lawmakers need at least to make sure that property owners can stay in business.

Husock is a fellow at the American Enterprise Institute. He is writing a book on the history of public housing.

This may be an individual act of generosity but it suggests a plan much better than a tent city on Randalls Island playing fields or the Creedmoor Psychiatric Center parking lot. Better, too, than the just-announced state plan to devote $25 million to pay the rent on individual homes for asylum-seekers. The city’s 335 public housing projects have room, the Housing Authority desperately needs revenue for an $80 billion repair and renovation backlog, and poor tenants who sublet bedrooms could use the money to pay the rent, the collection of which has been lagging since the pandemic.

NYCHA has plenty of room — on empty land it already owns. As a result of its so-called “towers in the park” architecture, the Authority owns no less than 2,400 acres of open green space. Originally conceived as “campuses” of green, too many of these areas have become desolate and dangerous. As one architectural assessment has found: “NYCHA is an urban landbank . . .yet 88% of open space sits behind fences and is inaccessible for resident use. Forty percent of the city’s playgrounds are housed on NYCHA campuses but go mostly untouched because of damage incurred by unintended adult use.”

These are potential sites for modestly-sized tent cities which could have the collateral benefit of injecting lively activity into the projects. What’s more, the city could pay the financially-struggling Housing Authority for the use of the land — rather than paying the Roosevelt Hotel $365 a night for rooms or churches $65 a night for floor space.

But as the example of Camille Napoleon suggests, individual public housing tenants may be willing to take in migrants into NYCHA apartments. Hers may be simply be an admirable charitable act, to be sure. But the city, inspired by her example, might pay NYCHA tenants with empty bedrooms to take in migrants. According to HUD data, 32% of New York public housing tenants are “overhoused.” That’s the technical term for tenants with empty bedrooms and translates into around 16,000 units with unused sleeping space.

Nor is NYCHA New York’s only public housing with room. HUD reports that statewide — including Yonkers, Rochester, Syracuse and Buffalo — 29% of public housing tenants are overhoused. That means that 53,000 public housing apartments have empty bedrooms.

No tenant should be forced, of course, to take in a stranger. But many would likely be willing to rent out rooms at $65 a night or more. Average income per person in NYCHA is just $10,000. Taking in lodgers is a time-honored way for low-income households to increase their income. What’s more, the migrants could help NYCHA tenants, many of whom are elderly, with household chores or grocery-shopping; many NYCHA projects are distant from supermarkets.

It would also help them simply pay their rent — which has become a big problem for NYCHA. As the Citizens Budget Commission has told the City Council, “NYCHA’s rent collection rate, which was as high as 95% as 2016, declined from 88% in February 2020 to 70% by January 2022. As a result of the falling collection rate, NYCHA’s rental income was 12%, or $119 million, below expectations in 2021.” Greater rent collection would help offset the $276 million in yearly operating subsidy the city pays NYCHA — whose operating costs per unit far exceed its income. (Of course, NYCHA should also be trying much harder to lower its costs, inflated by union-dictated contracts.)

This is a chance to solve two crises at once. Instead of paying hotels and churches to let migrants sleep there, the city should pay NYCHA or its tenants. In that way, it would effectively be paying itself. There’s no doubt the Housing Authority needs the money.

Willing public housing residents would have to be granted legal permission to do what a great many already do non-legally: sublet rooms. Asylum-seekers get access to expedited work permits, as the mayor is helpfully suggesting. Wilfred Moreno, staying in Camille Napoleon’s apartment, says he wants to work as a truck driver or mechanic.

The migrant crisis demands imaginative solutions. So, too, does the public housing crisis. Let’s address both at the same time.

Husock is a fellow at the American Enterprise Institute. He is writing a book on the history of public housing.

It’s a small but telling example of the denial-based budgeting in which both the mayor and the Council are engaged. Even as data of which both are well aware tell a story of looming budget deficits that cannot help but reduce basic services, the city continues to add what can only be described as luxury goods to the just-passed $107 billion budget. The migrant crisis and its costs get the immediate attention — but the long-term threats to essential services are the greater problem.

Instead of adding new, marginal services such as composting, the time has come for the city to develop a “quality of life” budget — one that emphasizes clean and safe streets, schools that truly educate, reliable public transit and well-maintained parks and playgrounds. These are the essentials that will give the city a fighting chance to stop the flight of high-end taxpayers and the public safety threats to residents, rich and poor.

Economists from the NYU Stern School, Columbia Business School and the National Bureau of Economic Research have set the context: declining commercial real estate property taxes linked to an office vacancy crisis that shows no sign of ending pose the risk that Gotham will fall into a “doom loop.” Those familiar with Detroit, Cleveland and St. Louis have seen this movie before: falling tax revenues hollow out services, residents flee and revenues fall still further.

This is actually not news to either the mayor or the Council. In his executive budget, the mayor anticipates a $7 billion deficit by fiscal 2027, the result of what it notes are falling Wall Street profits that have dropped 50% since 2021, average home prices and ongoing office vacancies. Even that bad news is based on some rosy scenarios, such as hotels returning to full capacity, as tourism rebounds. (Using hotels for migrants may undercut such hopes).

Yet public officials continue to whistle past this fiscal graveyard. Generous increases in public sector union contracts — including the most recent, that for teachers in a school system that’s been losing enrollment-are characterized as “fair wages” in the budget — but assume that revenues will be adequate to support them while maintaining essential services.

Put broadly, projected spending continues to increase as if good times are rolling. Many new programs seem unassailable — tele-mental health for high school students, expanding free income tax preparation for low-income households, culinary training for school cafeteria workers — but, in a realistic budget assessment should not be sacrosanct. They add up.

New York, far more than other city governments, acts as an engine of income redistribution — through city-funded affordable housing, rent stabilization, free broadband access for public housing and much more. As attractive as these can be, they are, for core budget purposes, simply not as vital as the public services which affect the quality of life for all New Yorkers.

The Parks Department budget will increase (to some $638 million) but pales in comparison to the $1.4 billion Housing Preservation and Development budget — which supports the high per-unit “affordable housing” construction which inevitably serves a fortunate few. The Buildings Department budget will increase but only to $219 million — even as parking garages collapse as a result of intermittent inspection. And, of course there is the city’s right to shelter — unique in the nation — which both accommodates and encourages claims of homelessness and lead the city to spend $4.1 billion on homeless shelters which the truly homeless — those sleeping on the street — seek to avoid.

Much of what city elected officials — especially Council members — prioritize are initiatives aimed at uplifting the marginalized and historically oppressed. Well and good. But as austerity looms and the city’s core fiscal capacity comes under threat, it is time to remember that it is the poor, more than the rich, who need safe parks — they don’t have summer homes. It is the bodega owner not the Upper East Side doorman building that needs police protection. It is the children of the poor — not those able to afford private school — who need schools which can demonstrate success.

There are headlines in adding new services to a growing budget. But this is not the time to do so.

Husock is a senior fellow in domestic policy studies at the American Enterprise Institute.

But in calling for localities — especially on Long Island — to relax single family zoning to permit more home building she makes an unforced error that threatens to sink the whole plan. In calling for a 3% increase in new homes for almost all towns and villages, she adds a big stick: a new state super zoning board that can overrule communities which deny permits to projects which include “affordability”, meaning income-restricted.

This is a recipe for backlash. Anyone who has ever attended a local planning board meeting knows that there is nothing neighbors care more about than what is going to be built next door. The idea that Albany will tell them that they must allow mid or high-rise developments that remind them of big city “projects” will produce an outcry.

Indeed, a similar “anti-snob zoning” law in Massachusetts, which Hochul has cited approvingly, has never stopped being a lightning rod for controversy 50 years after it was enacted — and has led to little housing.

Memo to Hochul: find a way to persuade local communities that it’s in their best interest to allow some new housing, and new types of housing, to be built.

The key phrase should not be “affordable housing” but, rather, what’s being called, in many parts of the country, “missing middle” housing.

Across the country, this is proving to be a potent and persuasive phrase. In some places, including suburban Milwaukee, a higher level of government offers incentives such as infrastructure aid to reduce costs for localities that permit new and denser “naturally affordable” housing types. (Washington County, Wisc. spread the word about this at the recent National Association of Counties conference in Washington, D.C.)

The missing middle includes two and three-family homes which young families can afford through rental income that helps pay the mortgage. It should include “accessory dwelling units” — the “granny flats” which allow older homeowners to move to a smaller place while staying in the town they know. It should include attached single-family row houses where teachers can afford to live.

The garages of raised ranch homes can become new apartments. The basements in Jackson Heights which have flooded need to be upgraded and legalized, so owners can sell them at a profit. There may be as many as 100,000 such units in Gotham, hidden from housing inspectors but providing needed shelter. They need to be brought out of the (literal) darkness through new building codes that make them safe but not too costly. (Uber-liberal Comptroller Brad Lander has long been an advocate.)

The more Hochul talks up “affordable housing” and threatens communities that don’t permit specific types, the more controversy will ensue and the less will be built. It will not be clear to suburbanites — or acceptable to many — that new apartments must be an “inclusionary” mix of income types. To be consistent, Hochul must accept the fact that any new construction will help slake demand and lower prices, especially in the metro area.

The politics of this should be clear to her. The communities her Compact specifically targets — Nassau, Suffolk, Westchester and the rest of the Mid-Hudson Valley — will undoubtedly pressure their representatives in Albany to push back against a state zoning superboard. Already, one Massapequa legislator has charged Hochul with trying to turn Long Island into a “sixth borough” of New York City. Keep in mind that absent legislative approval, Hochul’s plan will die.

Hochul is not wrong to push for new, private housing construction. Indeed, that’s a welcome change from the progressive mantra for an array of public subsidies, which have led to the state’s debt burden. One would wish she’d call out the folly of rent regulation, which leads to too many New Yorkers staying put when they no longer need big apartments.

That would take more political courage than beating up on suburban planning and zoning boards. Taking on home rule will just not work as a political matter. It is clearly the case that, in a state with a falling population, more housing construction will lead to lower prices. Instead of carrying a big stick, Hochul needs to suggest and persuade.

That’s what leadership looks like.

Husock is a senior fellow in domestic policy studies at the American Enterprise Institute.

But making possible the conversion of empty older office buildings into apartments New Yorkers — including newcomers — can afford could benefit from still more imaginative approaches. The city has long over-relied on rental subsidies and tax breaks to bring down rents. The new report proposes more of that approach

Instead — or in addition to — a Midtown revival needs what’s called “naturally occurring affordable housing” (NOAH). It’s housing whose rent — or purchase price — can be naturally low by virtue of its size and configuration.

Former Mayor Mike Bloomberg, whose one-time deputy Dan Doctoroff led the Hochul/Adams effort, was on to this idea in 2015, when he proposed a pilot zoning change permitting “micro-units”: apartments smaller than 400 square feet. Simply put, a building filled with a greater number of smaller units will lead to a lower price for each. As more and more Americans choose to live in single-person households, this concept could be attractive.

Housing affordability historically relied on making possible the construction of a variety of housing types. It’s worth recalling that the single-family homes of Levittown, historically vehicles for upward mobility, were just 750 square feet. Housing affordability requires options. In the outer boroughs, that means two and three-family homes, not just single-family. In Jackson Heights, it means safe conversion of the illegal basement apartments in many row homes.

In Midtown, it means zoning that could permit dormitory-style group living, in which suites surround shared kitchens. It could mean revived single-room occupancy “hotels” with shared cooking and baths. It would mean relaxation of outdated city housing code rules which effectively limit the unnumbered of unrelated persons in a unit. Cohabitating couples with children should have the chance to share quarters. Market-savvy developers, if allowed, will come up with other options to cater to a changing market and new demographics.

Dormitory-style housing could be a particularly good option for the “supportive housing” needed by the mentally ill whom Adams is rightly sweeping off the streets. Space, kitchen and bath requirements inevitably drive up costs better spent on crucial services.

“Making New York Work for Everyone” highlights one key barrier — the fact that newer but still outdated office buildings are barred by state law from housing conversion at all. That has, it notes, “limited the options available for reusing them to add to the overall vitality of the district.”

The report pledges an effort to “refresh these regulations to allow more conversions of a broader range of office buildings within New York City’s business districts.”

But such change should not assume that traditional residential configurations should be the only permitted changes. Nor should a vision for affordable housing assume that subsidy, whether direct or indirect (through required “inclusionary” units) is the only way to ensure income diversity. More than a third of the city’s housing is already price-regulated, subsidized or publicly-owned, and yet our housing crisis is perennial.

Broadly, if the sudden surfeit of empty office buildings is to be converted into housing, we need to get the most out of its space — and provide an imaginative range of market options for the changing preferences of younger residents.

As the report points out, outdated industrial zoning long stood as a barrier to new residential housing, even as artists moved in anyway to transform Soho and Tribeca. (This history is recounted in the excellent current exhibit on the city in the 1960s at the Jewish Museum). Relaxed zoning that paves the way for NOAH will acknowledge that the office and commuting model is no more likely to return that the old garment factories.

That history suggests that abetting the Midtown comeback will require Adams and Hochul not just to work together on legislation but to stand up jointly against vested interests. The hotel employees unions are content to date to see properties remain closed, in the hopes that they will eventually restore bellhop jobs. Major developers prefer complex affordable deals which are barriers to entry for upstart competitors. Undertaxed neighborhoods will oppose the property tax reform that will be new, non-luxury housing pencil out.

Truly making New York work for all — or at least boosting Midtown’s chances for rebirth and reinvention — will require both more imaginative ideas and, on the part of a mayor and governor who say they want to work together, demonstrations of political courage.

Husock is a senior fellow in domestic policy studies at the American Enterprise Institute.

The same local news operations whose anchors and reporters host charity events to help those in need lend their platforms to a lottery that preys on the poor and sends the false message that a windfall of cash — rather than the satisfaction of lifetime achievement — is the secret to happiness.

“Someone may have a very Happy Halloween”, intoned a smiling local CBS2 News anchor, while noting, in passing, that the odds of winning were 1 in 300 million. His enthusiasm is typical.

It’s time for local news to stop this free advertising.

As it stands, they are encouraging those without much money to waste their scarce dollars. Overall, Americans spend a staggering $105 billion in lottery chances every year. Some 28% of Americans earning less than $30,000 buy tickets every week — and spend some $412 a year in doing so. This in a country where a quarter of households lack any emergency savings.

As Jonathan Cohen has written in his new book, “For a Dollar and a Dream: State Lotteries in Modern America,” “The frequency of play, and the amount bet by those who do gamble is particularly high among low-income, nonwhite and less educated Americans.”

It’s their right, of course, to choose this form of entertainment, just as it’s someone’s right to spend their money on beer and cigarettes. But without advertising and promotion, lottery participation falls off. New York State alone spends $74 million a year on lottery ads. That’s no reason for television news to join the party by including Powerball results as part of their actual newscasts.

This is an immense promotional giveaway. Local TV news advertising takes in some $18 billion a year — and New York, in particular, is an especially lucrative local market; ad rates here are second only to in metro Los Angeles. Sixty seconds of purely promotional airtime can be, in effect, a six-figure ad buy.

The same local news operations that hype Powerball go out of their way to associate themselves with causes deemed to help the disadvantaged. WCBS Radio, for instance, broadcasts an annual “Hungerthon” to raise $1 million to reduce hunger by supporting various organizations. It urges that we “Take action to help nourish people in immediate need and address the underlying issues at the root of hunger.” Here’s one idea: discouraging fruitless gambling by not promoting it on air.

There is a broader issue involved here. As Nicholas Eberstadt of the American Enterprise Institute, the author of “Men Without Work,” has powerfully pointed out, we are suffering from an ongoing decline in the workforce participation rate of working-age men. There are, he reports, some four times as many prime working-age men (25 to 34) who have simply dropped out of the workforce as there are those formally unemployed and looking for work.

In part, this is the result of ongoing and increasing forms of public assistance with no work requirement — such as food stamps. But the allure attached to lotteries sends a strong signal: There’s a shot at happiness that doesn’t involve work and, if you’re lucky, you’ll never have to work again. One New York State lottery campaign dubbed “How Would You Spend It?” gets to the heart of the matter.

Rather than encouraging lottery sales, public service advertising would better promote the fact that we face a labor shortage, that jobs are available — and that work and supporting one’s family is the true route to happiness.

Husock is a senior fellow in domestic policy studies at the American Enterprise Institute.

It’s not a question that would normally be asked — but this election, ordered by the courts to correct for gerrymandered congressional redistricting, is different. Its special rules have allowed voters, who usually would have had to register a party status change or choice last February, to make that decision by Aug. 11, just a few days before early voting began and just 12 days before the primary.

In other words, for the first time, New York State, which preens about its voting rights protections (as in the recent state law named for the late Congressman John Lewis) has, by virtue of oversight and circumstance, actually enfranchised voters in ways common, and important, in much of the country.

In much of the country, a variety of versions of so-called “open primaries” are the law. In 15 states, including Georgia, they allow voters to choose which party ballot they want to take on primary day. In a particularly dramatic example, Democrats in Wyoming who want to support Liz Cheney will have the chance to “cross over” to do so. Indeed, according to the National Council of State Legislatures, New York is one of only nine states to have a completely closed primary system. That means not only that Democrats may not vote in a Republican primary — and vice versa — but that unaffiliated voters, or independents, may not vote in primary elections at all.

New York City’s ranked-choice voting system for city primaries may help consensus candidates emerge — but, as a practical matter, only if they run as Democrats, who overwhelmingly outnumber Republicans (and to a lesser extent, independents) in the city. Making impactful voting even more difficult, a change in registration for a typical June primary has to have been made in February, long before the campaign has played out.

This year’s August primary enrollment change loophole only opened because Acting Justice Patrick McAllister in state Supreme Court in Steuben County, who ordered congressional districts to be redrawn, neglected to specify a so-called “blackout” period before the primary election date. Indeed, at one point it appeared that enrollment change on primary day itself was going to be permitted. McAllister ultimately amended his order to specify the Aug. 11 date, of which I was able to avail myself in order to be able to actually cast a meaningful vote in the primary, which will almost undoubtedly decide who my next member of Congress will be.

New York’s closed primary system contrasts sharply with that of another deep blue state, California, where the top two vote-getters in a nonpartisan primary election, no matter their party, face off in November. This means that centrist Republican or Democratic voters have a chance to choose moderates of either party — a pressing need in a polarized America.

To be sure, such change brings risks. For example, Democrats could mischievously push the Republican Party toward Trumpish candidates they hope will be unelectable in the fall.

But California’s “top-two” approach mitigates that problem — while expanding the franchise for independent, “non-affiliated” voters. Indeed, major cities, including Chicago and Boston, elect their mayors on the basis of a nonpartisan preliminary election, followed by a run-off by the top two finishers.

There is every reason to think that party enrollment will be affected by the short-lived primary loophole. Prior to the June 2021 New York City mayoral primary, some 68,000 unaffiliated (independent) voters enrolled as Democrats, as did more than 20,00 Republicans who switched parties. (Those figures were only determined when the political consulting firm Prime New York analyzed state voter file data.) The magnitude of that shift may well have affected the outcome of that primary, narrowly won by Eric Adams.

A more open primary system — including a regular enrollment change date closer to primary day — does not mean that parties will cease to matter. Indeed, it may increase pressure on both major parties to back candidates who will appeal to the median voters.

It may be too much to ask of the famously dysfunctional New York City Board of Elections to report on party enrollment switches and party choosing among the previously non-affiliated. But let’s hope that it and county boards do so. The results will be almost as interesting as which candidates win.

Husock is a senior fellow in domestic policy studies at the American Enterprise Institute.

On closer inspection, however, such a course fails to take into account how poorer neighborhoods could actually become worse off by distributing licenses and loans to small dealers, because of the risk of concentration of such licenses in disadvantaged neighborhoods. Far better to take steps to limit the number of licenses overall and even consider the possibility that the safest course for legalized cannabis would be a regime controlled by a marijuana version of another legal but harmful substance — tobacco.

The rush to distribute licenses to low-income small dealers is on, to be sure. In New York, Gov. Hochul has announced plans to grant the first 100 licenses for the sale of recreational marijuana to those who’d had convictions for once-illegal sale. It will be backed by a proposed $200 million in state funding. A similar approach is part of pot legalization in California, New Jersey and Massachusetts.

Count it as another progressive idea that risks harming those it’s promoted as helping. Because ask yourself: Do we really want a concentration of drug sale licenses in neighborhoods plagued not only by drug-related arrests but by drug use itself?

One analogy to consider. The over-concentration of liquor licenses, and cheap alcoholic beverages, has long been recognized as a problem for low-income minority neighborhoods. A Johns Hopkins School of Public Health study found that “low-income neighborhoods were eight times more likely to have more carry-out liquor stores than white or racially integrated neighborhoods.” The NIH has found that “living in an African-American neighborhood was related to increased spirits/liquor consumption and, in turn, reporting more negative drinking consequences.”

One doubts that ministers in Harlem, Bed-Stuy and Brownsville really want pot shops on every block — but that’s a risk if former drug offenders use their licenses to open dispensaries in neighborhoods with which they’re familiar. Yes, the drug laws may have been too harsh — but they were the law. Most residents of low-income neighborhoods choose to obey the law — to “work hard and play by the rules,” as Bill Clinton famously put it. By putting ex-offenders at the head of the line, we will be rewarding them, at the same time encouraging them to tempt their neighbors once again with drug use.

The damaging side effects of such benevolence are already being played out with the emergence of black markets for pot in states which have legalized it. Notably, Oakland has been plagued by gangland-style robberies of legal cannabis cultivation businesses. In other words, legalizing weed has not eliminated its illegal collateral damage.

Far better to focus on limiting the overall number of pot licenses and preventing concentration in any one zip code. Poor neighborhoods should not be the locus of legal drug dealing, even as suburban municipalities opt-out. A RAND study says the density of recreational marijuana retailers is associated with more use and a higher intensity of use among young adults. Nor should we rule out a Big Tobacco-style cannabis regime. Were a major corporation to be the pot supplier, regulation could restrain it from advertising. Labeling could make clear the emerging health risks for a product which, though touted for medical uses, has never been cleared for any by the FDA.

Pot legalization is here to stay, but it’s far better to treat weed as we do tobacco, which public health infomercials warn us off in graphic terms. We need to avoid the sports gambling and state lottery routes — in which advertisements touting winnings and fun are shown with tiny on-screen warnings about help for the gambling addicts we are undoubtedly encouraging.

As much as 1950s era alarms about marijuana’s role as a gateway to drug abuse have been caricatured, there’s reason to worry with its widespread availability. A new Massachusetts General Hospital study reported in the Journal of the American Medical Association found that medical marijuana users “may be particularly at risk of ‘chronic use disorder’ ” and that pot may be “contraindicated” for depression and bipolar disorder. A previous study found a similar risk of chronic abuse for recreational marijuana.

Pot should be tolerated — but not celebrated. Legalization is with us, but strict control of its distribution and promotion must accompany it.

Husock is a senior fellow in domestic policy studies at the American Enterprise Institute.

As an election that will pit an AOC-style Democrat against a traditional liberal, it will have implications for the party nationwide. But the write-in effort is important in its own right — and holds a lesson for New York City’s method of choosing its own mayor.

It’s tempting to see the Buffalo race only in terms of the national narrative in which Squad-style progressives are battling for the “soul” of the Demoratic Party against a more moderate “establishment.” And, to be sure, it’s all of that. Although long-time community organizer Walton disavows any effort to “abolish capitalism,” she does say that “we have a system that’s been set up to keep certain groups of people impoverished, while other folks, you know, make record profits off of the labor of others.”

Brown, the four-term incumbent, fires back: “She’s talked about defunding the police department at a time when crime is going up in communities all across the country including here. Her brand of socialism is that, ‘I’m going to raise your taxes before even looking or understanding the city budget.'”

But Brown is not just challenging the views of party progressives, he’s effectively arguing that Buffalo — like New York City — goes about choosing its mayor through an overly narrow electoral process. That’s certainly the lesson that can be drawn from the Democratic primary won by Walton — who triumphed over Brown in the June 22 primary with just over 11,000 votes in a city with 155,00 registered voters — including more than 42,000 Republicans and independents who have no voice in a Democratic primary.

The combination of low turnout among the city’s 106,000 registered Democrats and the partisan nature of the election held on a nontraditional date in late June narrowed the electorate in a way Brown (who received just more than 10,000 votes) clearly believes disadvantaged him.

In now running against the nominee of his own party, Brown is joining Andrew Yang in arguing that a partisan primary is not the best way to reflect the views of the overall city electorate. Yang and his new Forward Party explicitly call for expanding the number of voters eligible to vote in party primaries such as New York City’s — which de facto decide the final result. His party, he writes, is “supporting ballot initiatives and campaigns that lead to open primaries.”

That, of course, is not the only path toward expanding the eligible electorate. New York and the state’s other cities could follow the example of Boston and many other cities which hold non-partisan “preliminary” elections, which winnow a wide field to just two candidates in a final election. That city will, as a result, see an election in November matching an avowed progressive Michelle Wu against the moderate Annissa Essaibi George.

Democrats, Republicans and independents will all have a voice.

In effect, Byron Brown has created the same dynamic in Buffalo — without the benefit of a system formally designed that way. One can only wonder if Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez — who received just 16,898 votes in her 2018 Democratic primary victory over incumbent Joe Crowley — would have survived a general election write-in or independent campaign by Crowley, who would likely have appealed to the district’s independents and Republicans.

It’s worth noting that, although New York is not the only major city to have adopted ranked-choice voting to choose its mayor — a system designed, in theory, to ensure that the full range of voter views is reflected in the final outcome — it is the only city that combines ranked-choice with a partisan primary. Keep in mind, there are more than a million independent voters in the five boroughs, people who are effectively denied any choice, ranked or not, in the key Democratic primary.

Buffalo’s Byron Brown has rolled the dice in a high-stakes gamble — one from which the country will be able to draw a number of lessons. With recent polls showing him leading Walton, 59% to 28%, and high-profile endorsements such as that of Long Island Congressman Tom Suozzi, he may well succeed. Let’s hope either way, he teaches a lesson to the Empire State’s largest city.

Husock is a senior fellow in municipal government and urban housing policy at the American Enterprise Institute. He is the author of the new book, “The Poor Side of Town and Why We Need It”.