Mayoralty of Rudy Giuliani
Encyclopedia
Rudy Giuliani
(full name "Rudolph William Louis Giuliani") served as the 107th Mayor of New York City
from January 1, 1994 until December 31, 2001.
Commissioner Bill Bratton, adopted an aggressive enforcement and deterrence strategy based on James Q. Wilson
's Broken Windows research. This involved crackdowns on relatively minor offenses such as graffiti, turnstile jumping, and aggressive "squeegeemen," on the principle that this would send a message that order would be maintained and that the city would be "cleaned up."
At a forum three months into his term as mayor, Giuliani mentioned that freedom does not mean that "people can do anything they want, be anything they can be. Freedom is about the willingness of every single human being to cede to lawful authority a great deal of discretion about what you do and how you do it".
Giuliani also directed the New York City Police Department to aggressively pursue enterprises linked to organized crime, such as the Fulton Fish Market
and the Javits Center
on the West Side (Gambino crime family
). By breaking mob control of solid waste removal, the city was able to save businesses over $600 million.
One of Giuliani and Bratton's first initiatives was the institution in 1994 of CompStat
, a comparative statistical approach to mapping crime geographically in order to identify emerging criminal patterns and chart officer performance by quantifying apprehensions. The implementation of CompStat gave precinct commanders more power, based on the assumption that local authorities best knew their neighborhoods and thus could best determine what tactics to use to reduce crime. In turn, the gathering of statistics on specific personnel aimed to increase accountability of both commanders and officers. Critics of the system assert that it instead creates an incentive to underreport or otherwise manipulate crime data. The CompStat initiative won the 1996 Innovations in Government Award from the Kennedy School of Government.
Bratton, not Giuliani, was featured on the cover of Time Magazine in 1996. Giuliani forced Bratton out of his position after two years, in what was generally seen as a battle of two large egos in which Giuliani was unable to accept Bratton's celebrity.
Giuliani continued to highlight crime reduction and law enforcement as central missions of his mayoralty throughout both terms. These efforts were largely successful. However, concurrent with his achievements, a number of tragic cases of abuse of authority came to light, and numerous allegations of civil rights abuses were leveled against the NYPD. Giuliani's own Deputy Mayor, Rudy Washington, alleged that he had been harassed by police on several occasions. More controversial still were several police shootings of unarmed suspects, and the scandals surrounding the sexual torture of Abner Louima
and the killing of Amadou Diallo
. In a case less nationally publicized than those of Louima and Diallo, unarmed bar patron Patrick Dorismond
was killed shortly after declining the overtures of what turned out to be an undercover officer soliciting illegal drugs. Even while hundreds of outraged New Yorkers protested, Giuliani staunchly supported the New York City Police Department
, going so far as to take the unprecedented step of releasing Dorismond's "extensive criminal record" to the public, and he came under wide criticism. While many New Yorkers accused Giuliani of racism during his terms, former mayor Ed Koch defended him as even-handedly harsh: "Blacks and Hispanics ... would say to me, 'He's a racist!' I said, 'Absolutely not, he's nasty to everybody'."
The amount of credit Giuliani's policies deserve for the drop in the crime rate is disputed. He may have been the beneficiary of a trend already in progress. Crime rates in New York City started to drop in 1990, two years before he took office. A small but significant nationwide drop in crime also preceded Giuliani's election, and continued throughout the 1990s. Two likely contributing factors to this overall decline in crime were federal funding of an additional 7,000 police officers and an improvement in the national economy. But many experts believe changing demographics were the most significant cause. Some have pointed out that during this time, murders inside the home, which could not be prevented by more police officers, decreased at the same rate as murders outside the home. Also, since the crime index is based on the FBI crime index, which is self-reported by police departments, some have alleged that crimes were shifted into categories that the FBI does not quantify.
According to some analyses, the crime rate in New York City fell even more in the 1990s and 2000s than nationwide and therefore credit should be given to a local dynamic: highly focused policing. In this view, as much as half of the reduction in crime in New York in the 1990s, and almost all in the 2000s, is due to policing. Opinions differ on how much of the credit should be given to Giuliani; to Bratton; and to the current Police Commissioner, Ray Kelly
, who had previously served under Dinkins and criticized aggressive policing under Giuliani.
Among those crediting Giuliani's policies for making New York safer were several other cities nationwide whose police departments subsequently instituted programs similar to CompStat
.
In 2005 Giuliani was reportedly nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize
for his efforts to reduce crime rates in the city. The prize went instead to Mohamed ElBaradei and the IAEA
for their efforts to reduce nuclear proliferation.
redevelopment project saw Times Square transformed from a center for small privately owned businesses such as tourist attractions, game parlors, and peep show
s, to a district where media outlets and studios, theaters, financial companies, and restaurants predominate, including MTV Studios, an ESPN Zone
, and (formerly) a large Virgin Megastore
and theater. A few city councilmembers voted against the rezoning that led to the change, partly because they did not want to see the sex shops dispersed to other neighborhoods.
Throughout his term, Giuliani also pursued the construction of a new sports stadium in Manhattan, a goal in which he did not succeed, though new minor league baseball stadiums opened in Brooklyn, for the Brooklyn Cyclones
, and in Staten Island
, for the Staten Island Yankees
.
Conversely, Giuliani refused to attend the opening ceremonies for a Dinkins success, Arthur Ashe Stadium
in Flushing Meadows
, Queens
, stating his anger with a contract that fines the city if planes from LaGuardia Airport fly over the stadium during U.S. Open
matches. Giuliani boycotted the U.S. Open throughout his mayoralty.
During the Giuliani administration, police conducted sweeps of parks and other public places to arrest homeless people and move them to shelters. Critics charged that the purpose was not to help the homeless but to remove them from sight. The pastor of Fifth Avenue Presbyterian Church
, Reverend Thomas Tewell, said: "I think the police and the administration in New York were a bit embarrassed to have homeless people on the steps of a church in such an affluent area. The city said to us that it's inhumane to have people staying on the streets. And my response was that it's also inhumane to just move them along to another place or to put them in a shelter where they are going to get beat up, or abused, or harassed." The church sued the city of New York, Giuliani, and Bernard Kerik, asserting a First Amendment right to minister to the homeless on its steps.
In 1998, when the City Council overrode Giuliani's veto to change how homeless shelters were run, Giuliani served an eviction notice on five community service programs, including a program for the mentally ill, a day-care center, an elderly agency, a community board office and a civic association in favor of a homeless shelter. Giuliani asserted he specifically chose the site because it was in the district of chief bill sponsor Stephen DiBrienza. The plan came under heavy criticism, especially for the eviction of the program serving 500 mentally ill patients, and Giuliani backed down. In an editorial, The New York Times called the event a "dispiriting political vendetta" and asserted that "selecting sites [for homeless shelters] as a punishment for crossing the Mayor is outrageous."
, who had previously supported Giuliani for re-election, said of the Mayor, "I don't believe he likes black people. And I believe there's something fundamentally wrong in the way we are disregarded, the way we are mistreated, and the way our communities are being devastated. I had some hope that he was the kind of person you could deal with. I've just about lost that hope." After the minister criticized him, Giuliani diverted funds away from projects connected to him, and when Butts supported Governor George Pataki
's re-election, Giuliani told Pataki he should not accept Butts' support. (Pataki did accept the endorsement.)
Giuliani said that by not dealing with black leaders, he could "accomplish more for the black community." State Comptroller H. Carl McCall, who is black, claimed that Giuliani ignored his requests to meet for years, and then met with him after the Amadou Diallo
shooting "for show." Queens Congressman Gregory Meeks
said that he never met or talked with Giuliani in his entire eight years in office.
Giuliani's schools chancellor, Rudy Crew
, an African-American, later said, "I find his policies to be so racist and class-biased. I don't even know how I lasted three years.... He was barren, completely emotionally barren, on the issue of race."
Giuliani has been accused of supporting racial profiling
, specifically in the shooting death of Amadou Diallo
, a West African immigrant, by the NYPD
under his watch. Many African Americans were outraged by Patrick Dorismond
's death.
later said, "Giuliani never got his hands around the school system. There is no question that it's gotten worse the last eight years, not better." Giuliani has been accused of diverting funds for school repair from poor districts to middle-class ones. A large debt left after the Giuliani administration has resulted in less money to spend on education, according to some sources.
. In April 1999, two days after the Columbine massacre
, he stated that he would like to "blow up" the Board of Education. Conflict between Giuliani and schools chancellor Ramon C. Cortines over some of the mayor's proposals for public education eventually resulted in Cortines' resignation. However, the decision on the policies was not up to City Hall, but the Board of Education. In particular, Giuliani supported a for-profit privatization plan for public schools that parents voted against. Cortines and Giuliani had however been able to agree on a plan to privatize school maintenance and repair that earned praise from the New York Times.
Cortines was the first of three school chancellors, all people of color who left office during Giuliani's tenure. Cortines, Mexican-American and gay, resigned after a spat in which Giuliani told the press Cortines should not "be so precious" and called him "the little victim," terms that many later felt had a gay-baiting tone. Cortines said that Giuliani was intolerant of ideas other than his and demanded total conformity from those he worked with: "He's made it very clear that no matter what I do or say, unless I acquiesce to all of his wishes, that I am not a good manager and I am not showing good leadership."
Cortines' replacement as schools chancellor, Rudy Crew
, had been a close friend of Giuliani's for years, but their relationship soured over the issue of school vouchers. Giuliani had said in his 1993 campaign that parochial school vouchers were "unconstitutional." Yet in 1999 he placed $12 million into the budget for parochial school vouchers. Crew felt that Giuliani began pressuring him to leave immediately they were on less friendly terms. The day of Crew's wife's funeral, Giuliani leaked a letter to the tabloids and Crew fielded press calls before leaving to deliver her eulogy. He later told a Giuliani biographer: "This is a maniac. On the day I was burying my wife, I have these people concocting this world of treachery.... When Rudy sees a need to take someone out, he has a machine, a roomful of henchmen, nicking away at you, leaking crazy stories. He is not bound by the truth. I have studied animal life, and their predator/prey relations are more graceful than his." Of Giuliani's disagreement with Chancellor Crew, former Mayor Ed Koch
said, "It's like his goal in life is to spear people, destroy them, to go for the jugular. Why do this to Crew? And I'm not a fan of Crew." Some speculated that Giuliani pursued the issue of vouchers at the expense of his relationship with Crew because he was looking towards an upcoming Senate run.
When the city's five-year contract with schoolteachers ran out and negotiations with the city had not yet begun, teachers' union president Randi Weingarten said that a strike was not off the table if the city did not offer a contract. Giuliani told the press that he would put Weingarten in jail if she led a strike; under New York state law, government employees could not strike. Weingarten said that she would lobby the state legislature to allow employees to strike if the government had refused to negotiate in good faith. Giuliani objected to the teachers' request for a pay raise to align their salaries with those in the suburbs. Teachers pointed out the city's then budget surplus and the number of teachers leaving the city. Giuliani called for merit pay based on student test scores, a plan which was derided by teachers as ineffective.
. During its first term, the Giuliani administration cut taxes, cut spending, and reduced the munipical payroll, thereby closing the budget gap. By Giuliani's second term, the upward swing of the mid-late 1990s dot-com bubble
, which especially benefited New York's financial sector, resulted in greatly increased tax revenues for the city; soon there was a budget surplus of $3 billion. City spending then rose 6.3 percent a year, above the inflation rate, and the city payroll increased again, especially for police officers and teachers.
The bursting of the dot-com bubble, combined with the increased spending and the effects of an accounting decision that Giuliani had pushed for regarding city pension funds, led to a reversal of city finances, with the result that by the beginning of 2001, a $2.8 billion budget gap was forecast. When the city's economy suffered badly as a result of the September 11 attacks, that gap worsened to $4.8 billion, which was inherited by Giuliani's successor, Michael Bloomberg
.
called "a massive program" to get city employees to expand the number of low-income, uninsured children and adults covered by public health entitlement programs such as Medicaid
, Child Health Plus and Family Health Plan. Promoting enrollment in his HealthStat program, Giuliani said at the time that the program could be "a model for the rest of this country for how to get people covered on the available health programs."
policy of preventing city employees from contacting the Immigration and Naturalization Service
about immigration violations, on the grounds that illegal aliens must be able to take actions such as sending their children to school or reporting crime and violations without fear of deportation. In 1996 Giuliani sued the federal government over a new federal law (Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act of 1996
) that overturned the 1985 executive order by then mayor Ed Koch
that barred government employees from turning in illegal immigrants who were trying to get government benefits from the city. He ordered city attorneys to defend this policy in federal court. His lawsuit claimed that the new federal requirement to report illegal immigrants violated the 10th Amendment. The court ruled that New York City's sanctuary laws were illegal. After the City of New York lost an appeal to the United States Supreme Court in 2000, Giuliani vowed to ignore the law.
In a Minneapolis speech two years later he defended his policy: "There are times when undocumented immigrants must have a substantial degree of protection." In 2000, Giuliani said of New York City, "Immigration is a very positive force for the City of New York. Immigration is the key to the city's success. Both historically and to this very day."
Giuliani also expressed doubt that the federal government can completely stop illegal immigration. Giuliani said that the Immigration and Naturalization Service
"do nothing with those names but terrorize people." In 1996 he said that the new anti-illegal immigration law, as well as the Welfare Reform Act
, were "inherently unfair." In 1996, Giuliani said, "I believe the anti-immigration movement in America is one of our most serious public problems." In the same year he said, "We're never, ever going to be able to totally control immigration in a country that is as large as ours." He went on to say, "If you were to totally control immigration into the United States, you might very well destroy the economy of the United States, because you'd have to inspect everything and everyone in every way possible."
radio. He avoided one-on-one interviews with the press, preferring to speak to them only at press conferences or on the steps of City Hall. He made frequent appearances on The Late Show with David Letterman television show, sometimes as a guest and sometimes participating in comedy segments. In one highly publicized appearance shortly after his election, Giuliani filled a pothole in the street outside the Ed Sullivan Theater
.
Giuliani was not shy about his public persona; besides Letterman he appeared on many other talk shows during his time in office, hosted Saturday Night Live
in 1997 and introduced it again when the show resumed broadcasting after September 11.
Giuliani performed in public dressed in women's clothing three times, and almost a fourth:
Elliot Cuker, a friend and advisor to Giuliani, told The New Yorker
, "I am the one who convinced him that it would be a great idea to put him in a dress, soften him up, and help him get the gay vote."
Jerry Nachmann of WCBS-TV
said of the Giuliani staff's intrusions with the media, "I say without regret and with no remorse that as editor of The New York Post
I used to torture David Dinkins every day of his life. And there were calls. But the calls were never, 'Put the Mayor on before sports and weather.'"
Giuliani was also criticized for dismissing journalists who had been appointees of the Dinkins administration. John Miller, police department spokesman, was pressured to resign after publicly disagreeing with Giuliani's cutting of his staff and replacement of police officers with civilians.
reported that Giuliani was threatening Time Warner
to get them to carry Rupert Murdoch
's new Fox News Channel
on their cable network. Time Warner executive Ted Turner
suggested that Giuliani had a conflict of interest because his wife, the broadcaster Donna Hanover
, was employed by a television station owned by Murdoch.
In the wake of the unfolding Murdoch illegal surveillance and bribery scandals erupting in the US and UK, Giuliani was among a small number of public defenders of the accused Murdoch as "a very honorable, honest man" Giuliani was described by Federal Judge Denise Cote as having violated constitutional principles in an "improper" relationship with Murdoch's Fox News, and Giuliani's wife at the time benefited significantly financially from her employment at Fox.
Chairman Yasser Arafat
ejected from a Lincoln Center concert held in celebration of the 50th anniversary of the founding of the United Nations. While Giuliani called Arafat an uninvited guest, Arafat said he did hold a ticket to the invitation-only concert, which was the largest such gathering of world leaders ever held. "Maybe we should wake people up to the way this terrorist is being romanticized," Giuliani said, and noted that Arafat's Palestinianian Liberation Organization had been linked to the murder of American civilians and diplomatic personnel. President Clinton protested the ejection and a senior administration official called it "an embarrassment to everyone associated with diplomacy" and a setback in the Middle East peace process Clinton was trying to help broker, in which Arafat was a necessary participant. The New York Times criticized Giuliani's action in an editorial, saying that Arafat had met with Jewish leaders earlier that day and held a Nobel Peace Prize
: "It is fortunate that New York City does not need a foreign policy, because Mayor Rudolph Giuliani, who evicted Yasir Arafat from a city-sponsored concert for United Nations dignitaries on Monday night, clearly lacks the diplomatic touch... The proper role of New York, as the UN’s home city, is to play gracious host to all of the 140 or so world leaders present for the organization’s gala 50th birthday celebrations... In fact, he has needlessly embarrassed the city at a moment when New York's hospitality should be allowed to shine." The two preceding mayors, David Dinkins and Ed Koch, held a joint press conference in which they denounced Giuliani's actions. Koch said, "Mayor Giuliani has behavioral problems dealing with other people." Lawrence Rubin, executive vice chairman of the National Jewish Community Relations Council, said that Giuliani's actions were solely for political reasons and did not help the Israeli-Palestinian peace negotiations; he pointed out that Israel regularly met with the Palestinian leader in peace negotiations.
if it did not remove a number of works in an exhibit entitled "Sensation: Young British Artists from the Saatchi Collection.
" One work in particular, The Holy Virgin Mary
by Turner Prize
-winning artist Chris Ofili
, featured an image of an African Virgin Mary on a canvas decorated with shaped elephant dung and pictures of female genitalia. Giuliani's position was that the museum's display of such works amounted to a government-supported attack on Christianity; the artist, who claimed to be referring to African cultural tropes, Ofili decided to say nothing. He stated "I just thought, what's the point of throwing anything out there at all? I've already done the painting and they're going to work that to mincemeat. It was this American rage. I was brought up in Britain, I don't know that level of rage. So it was easier and perhaps more interesting not to say anything. I'm still glad I didn't".
In its defense, the museum filed a lawsuit, charging Giuliani with violating the First Amendment
right to freedom of speech. Religious groups such as the Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights supported the mayor's actions, while they were condemned by groups such as the American Civil Liberties Union
, accusing the mayor of censorship
. The museum's lawsuit was successful; the mayor was ordered to resume funding, and the judge, Federal District Judge Nina Gershon, declared: "There is no federal constitutional issue more grave than the effort by government officials to censor works of expression and to threaten the vitality of a major cultural institution as punishment for failing to abide by governmental demands for orthodoxy."
violations lawsuits against the mayor or the city. Giuliani's administration lost 22 of 26 cases.
Some of the court cases which found the Giuliani administration to have violated First Amendment rights included actions barring public events from their previous location at the City Hall steps, not allowing taxi drivers to assemble for a protest, not allowing city workers to speak to the press without permission, barring church members from delivering an AIDS education program in a park, denying a permit for a march to object to police brutality, issuing summons and seizing literature of three workers collecting signatures to get a candidate on the presidential ballot, imposing strict licensing restrictions on sidewalk artists that were struck down by a court of appeals as a violation of artists' rights, using a 1926 cabaret law to ban dancing in bars and clubs, imposing an excessive daily fee on street musicians, imposing varying city fees for newsstand owners based on the content they sold, a case against Time Warner Cable, and an incident in which Giuliani ordered an ad for New York magazine
that featured his image taken down from city buses. The ad featured a copy of the magazine with the caption, "Possibly the only good thing Rudy hasn't taken credit for."
Giuliani and his administration encountered accusations of blocking free speech arising from a lawsuit brought by Fifth Avenue Presbyterian Church for removing the homeless from the church's steps against the church's will, and during his 1993 campaign, when he criticized incumbent Mayor Dinkins for allowing Louis Farrakhan
to speak in the city. After being criticized for impinging on freedom of speech, he backed down from his criticism of Dinkins.
In 1998, 1999, and 2000, Mayor Giuliani received a "Muzzle Award" from the Thomas Jefferson Center for the Protection of Free Expression
in Charlottesville, Virginia
. The Muzzles are "awarded as a means to draw national attention to abridgments of free speech." The 1999 award was the Center's first "Lifetime Muzzle Award," which noted he had "stifled speech and press to so unprecedented a degree, and in so many and varied forms, that simply keeping up with the city's censorious activity has proved a challenge for defenders of free expression."
More than 35 successful lawsuits were brought against Giuliani and his administration for blocking free speech. In his book Speaking Freely, First Amendment
lawyer Floyd Abrams
said Giuliani had an "insistence on doing the one thing that the First Amendment most clearly forbids: using the power of government to restrict or punish speech critical of government itself."
, which had avoided the issue for years, to pass legislation providing broad protection for same-sex partners. In 1998, he signed the local law that granted all city employees equal benefits for their domestic partners. Empire State Pride Agenda
, a LGBT political advocacy group, described the law as "a new national benchmark for domestic partner recognition."
manufacturers and distributors. The ramifications of this action extended beyond the end of Giuliani's mayoralty: President Bush signed the Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act
in October 2005 in an effort to protect gun companies from liability. In 2006, the Tiarht Amendment was added to an appropriations bill and was signed into law. The amendment seeks to prevent ATF data from being used to sue gun companies. Despite these two legislative attempts to end the case, the case remains active.
wrote in response, "I am offended by your suggestion that New York's substantial cultural achievements, such as they are, obligate Virginia and other states to accept your garbage." Other politicians also were upset about the proposed arrangement. Virginia State Senator William T. Bolling said, "This represents a certain arrogant attitude that is not consistent with the way we do business in Virginia." Even owners of trash repositories and other businesses that would benefit from the deal spoke against the Mayor's statements, saying they gave New Yorkers and Virginians a bad name and would harm their business in the long run. One such owner, Charles H. Carter III, said, "Giuliani couldn't have said anything that could have harmed his own cause more. He is definitely not presidential material."
A month earlier, Giuliani had similarly infuriated then New Jersey Governor Christine Todd Whitman
when he announced a plan to ship garbage to New Jersey without consulting her beforehand. She issued a press release saying, "Whitman to New York's Garbage Plan: Drop Dead" and said the plan was "a direct assault on the beaches of New Jersey."
The situation arose when Giuliani closed New York City's existing landfill, Fresh Kills on Staten Island
, calling it an "eyesore," although it contained 20 to 30 more years' worth of space for garbage. Critics alleged that the decision was made for purely political, rather than financial or environmental reasons. Staten Island had been an important constituency in electing Giuliani to his two terms, and would again be important if he ran for the Senate in 2000.
The plan to export trash was expensive and not environmentally friendly. A year after the landfill closed, New York City's sanitation commissioner said, "Fresh Kills was really closed without an awful lot of thought, you know, if the story be told." Garbage trucks taking trash out of the city were estimated to make an extra 700,000 trips a year. The New York State attorney general's office sued the city for not properly taking the environmental effects into account. The lawsuit alleged that air pollution along Canal Street, leading to the Holland Tunnel
, had increased 16% due to the plan. Mayor Bloomberg now budgets $400 million a year to barge New York City's garbage to landfills in Virginia
and Ohio
. In five years, the city's trash budget rose from $631 million to more than $1 billion because of the garbage transfer costs. The city cut back on recycling to save money. The New York Times and Daily News have both run editorials calling for Fresh Kills to be re-opened.
to humans had ever occurred and that the legalization bill would require ferrets to be vaccinated against rabies as dogs are. She later wrote that at the public hearings proposing to ban ferrets, no citizen or veterinarian spoke against ferrets, only representatives from the Department of Health, City Council, and Mayor Giuliani himself.
David Guthartz, founder of the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Ferrets, called a radio show Giuliani was hosting to complain about the citywide ban. Giuliani responded:
radio. The show quickly became known for Giuliani's "bullying therapist" approach to callers, and gained the second-largest audience on AM radio in its time slot.
Some of each program was devoted to discussing current city events, or to Giuliani's political philosophies. Then calls from the public were taken; many were from citizens with problems that Giuliani was sympathetic to and enlisted help for. But when Giuliani disagreed with a caller, he let them know it. While Giuliani's debate with the ferret fan described above became the show's most well-remembered exchange, there were many others, on a wide variety of topics: a complaint about handling of the Amadou Diallo
case brought the Giuliani response "Either you don't read the newspapers carefully enough or you're so prejudiced and biased that you block out the truth"; a query about parking privileges for a well-to-do firm received "Well, let me give you another view of that rather than the sort of Marxist class concept that you’re introducing"; a question about flag handling brought "Isn't there something more important that you want to ask me?"; and in commentary about dog owners who do not clean up after their pets, Giuliani said such people have "a whole host of other problems that play out in their personalities."
Sometimes the baiting went both ways. As depicted in the documentary Giuliani Time
, Parkinson's disease
patient John Hynes called Giuliani's show in January 2000 to complain about being cut off from Medicaid
after paying more than $100,000 of taxes in his life before he was disabled with the disease. Hynes accused the New York City Human Resources Administration
of repeatedly opening fraud investigations on him, then dropping the case for lack of evidence, only to re-open it. Hynes told Giuliani, "The biggest thing you could do to reduce crime would be to resign, sir. Crime would drop like a rock if you resigned. You're the biggest criminal in the city." Giuliani responded, "What kind of little hole are you in there, John? It sounds like you are in a little hole. JOHN! Are you okay there? You're breathing funny." Hynes replied: "No, I'm not okay. I'm sick, and you cut me off my food stamps and Medicaid several times; but I suppose you don't give a damn about that either." Giuliani replied, "There's something really wrong with you there, John. I can hear it in your voice.... Now, why don't you stay on the line. We'll take your name and your number and we'll send you psychiatric help, 'cause you seriously need it." After Hynes hung up, Giuliani continued, "Man! Look, it's a big city, and you get some real weirdos who hang out in this city, and that's what I was worried about on, uh, New Year's Eve. I wasn't, you know – I figured, the terrorist groups and all that we could keep under control – worried, but who knows what, what's living in some cave somewhere. So, uh, and John called up. John calls up from Queens, but who knows where he's from." Hynes subsequently said, "Mr. Giuliani showed a total lack of respect for all disabled people when he mocked me after I revealed that I was sick."
won Game 7 of the Stanley Cup Finals
, as Giuliani and his son were at the game at Madison Square Garden
. The Rangers' Stanley Cup win in 1994—first in 54 years
—made Giuliani the first New York City mayor to witness a first New York sports team championship victory during their first year in office since Ed Koch
when the New York Yankees
, of which Rudy Giuliani is an enthusiastic fan, won the 1978 World Series
.
Then father and son were often seen at Yankees games. Giuliani has also been to games of the New York Mets
as well, including their season openers in 1996
, when he threw out the ceremonial first pitch along with the Governor of New York
George Pataki
, and in 1998
, and when the Mets hosted the first professional sporting event in New York since September 11, 2001. Giuliani said about rooting for the Mets: "I'm a Yankee fan overall, but I root for the Mets in the National League, certainly against the (Philadelphia) Phillies
(Mets' primary rivals)."
On May 8, 2007, the Village Voice published a feature questioning whether Giuliani might have received gifts from the New York Yankees
baseball team that violated a city ordinance against receipt of gifts by public officials. The gifts possibly included tickets, souvenirs, and World Series
championship ring
s from , , , and . However, the Yankees' public relations firm produced documents that the rings were sold to Giuliani for a total of $16,000 in 2003 and 2004, although this departs from usual industry practice. The article further questioned whether Giuliani properly reported these gifts or paid any necessary taxes on the gifts. The rings have been estimated to have a market value of $200,000, and the tickets to box and Legends seats a value of $120,000. Much of this information was substantiated by a subsequent May 12 New York Times report. The New York Times described Giuliani's role during his mayoral term as "First Fan" and "the team's landlord," providing the public Yankee Stadium
to the franchise for a rent lower than that paid by residents of the adjacent St. Mary's public housing project.
couple who alleged that their building's supervisor improperly maintained the facilities, resulting in the man's genitals being burned by the shower, which hurt their sexual life and ultimately caused their marriage to break down; the jury denied their claim.
Rudy Giuliani
Rudolph William Louis "Rudy" Giuliani KBE is an American lawyer, businessman, and politician from New York. He served as Mayor of New York City from 1994 to 2001....
(full name "Rudolph William Louis Giuliani") served as the 107th Mayor of New York City
Mayor of New York City
The Mayor of the City of New York is head of the executive branch of New York City's government. The mayor's office administers all city services, public property, police and fire protection, most public agencies, and enforces all city and state laws within New York City.The budget overseen by the...
from January 1, 1994 until December 31, 2001.
Crime control
In his first term as mayor, Giuliani, in conjunction with New York City Police DepartmentNew York City Police Department
The New York City Police Department , established in 1845, is currently the largest municipal police force in the United States, with primary responsibilities in law enforcement and investigation within the five boroughs of New York City...
Commissioner Bill Bratton, adopted an aggressive enforcement and deterrence strategy based on James Q. Wilson
James Q. Wilson
James Q. Wilson is an American academic political scientist and an authority on public administration. He is a professor and senior fellow at the Clough Center for the Study of Constitutional Democracy at Boston College....
's Broken Windows research. This involved crackdowns on relatively minor offenses such as graffiti, turnstile jumping, and aggressive "squeegeemen," on the principle that this would send a message that order would be maintained and that the city would be "cleaned up."
At a forum three months into his term as mayor, Giuliani mentioned that freedom does not mean that "people can do anything they want, be anything they can be. Freedom is about the willingness of every single human being to cede to lawful authority a great deal of discretion about what you do and how you do it".
Giuliani also directed the New York City Police Department to aggressively pursue enterprises linked to organized crime, such as the Fulton Fish Market
Fulton Fish Market
The Fulton Fish Market is a fish market in The Bronx, New York, United States. It was originally a wing of the Fulton Market, established in 1822 to sell a variety of foodstuffs and produce...
and the Javits Center
Jacob K. Javits Convention Center
Jacob K. Javits Convention Center is a large convention center located on Eleventh Avenue, between 34th and 38th streets, on the West side of Manhattan in New York City. It was designed by architects I. M. Pei and partners. The revolutionary space frame structure was undertaken in 1979 and...
on the West Side (Gambino crime family
Gambino crime family
The Gambino crime family is one of the "Five Families" that dominates organized crime activities in New York City, United States, within the nationwide criminal phenomenon known as the Mafia . The group is named after Carlo Gambino, boss of the family at the time of the McClellan hearings in 1963...
). By breaking mob control of solid waste removal, the city was able to save businesses over $600 million.
One of Giuliani and Bratton's first initiatives was the institution in 1994 of CompStat
CompStat
CompStat—or COMPSTAT— is the name given to the New York City Police Department's accountability process and has since been replicated in many other departments...
, a comparative statistical approach to mapping crime geographically in order to identify emerging criminal patterns and chart officer performance by quantifying apprehensions. The implementation of CompStat gave precinct commanders more power, based on the assumption that local authorities best knew their neighborhoods and thus could best determine what tactics to use to reduce crime. In turn, the gathering of statistics on specific personnel aimed to increase accountability of both commanders and officers. Critics of the system assert that it instead creates an incentive to underreport or otherwise manipulate crime data. The CompStat initiative won the 1996 Innovations in Government Award from the Kennedy School of Government.
Bratton, not Giuliani, was featured on the cover of Time Magazine in 1996. Giuliani forced Bratton out of his position after two years, in what was generally seen as a battle of two large egos in which Giuliani was unable to accept Bratton's celebrity.
Abner Louima
Abner Louima is a Haitian who was assaulted, brutalized and forcibly sodomized with the handle of a bathroom plunger by New York City police officers after being arrested outside a Brooklyn nightclub in 1997....
and the killing of Amadou Diallo
Amadou Diallo
Amadou Diallo was a 23-year-old Guinean immigrant in New York City who was shot and killed on February 4, 1999 by four New York City Police Department plain-clothed officers: Sean Carroll, Richard Murphy, Edward McMellon and Kenneth Boss. The four officers fired a total of 41 shots...
. In a case less nationally publicized than those of Louima and Diallo, unarmed bar patron Patrick Dorismond
Patrick Dorismond
Patrick Moses Dorismond was a security guard and father of two children who was killed by an undercover New York Police Department officer during the early morning of March 16, 2000...
was killed shortly after declining the overtures of what turned out to be an undercover officer soliciting illegal drugs. Even while hundreds of outraged New Yorkers protested, Giuliani staunchly supported the New York City Police Department
New York City Police Department
The New York City Police Department , established in 1845, is currently the largest municipal police force in the United States, with primary responsibilities in law enforcement and investigation within the five boroughs of New York City...
, going so far as to take the unprecedented step of releasing Dorismond's "extensive criminal record" to the public, and he came under wide criticism. While many New Yorkers accused Giuliani of racism during his terms, former mayor Ed Koch defended him as even-handedly harsh: "Blacks and Hispanics ... would say to me, 'He's a racist!' I said, 'Absolutely not, he's nasty to everybody'."
The amount of credit Giuliani's policies deserve for the drop in the crime rate is disputed. He may have been the beneficiary of a trend already in progress. Crime rates in New York City started to drop in 1990, two years before he took office. A small but significant nationwide drop in crime also preceded Giuliani's election, and continued throughout the 1990s. Two likely contributing factors to this overall decline in crime were federal funding of an additional 7,000 police officers and an improvement in the national economy. But many experts believe changing demographics were the most significant cause. Some have pointed out that during this time, murders inside the home, which could not be prevented by more police officers, decreased at the same rate as murders outside the home. Also, since the crime index is based on the FBI crime index, which is self-reported by police departments, some have alleged that crimes were shifted into categories that the FBI does not quantify.
According to some analyses, the crime rate in New York City fell even more in the 1990s and 2000s than nationwide and therefore credit should be given to a local dynamic: highly focused policing. In this view, as much as half of the reduction in crime in New York in the 1990s, and almost all in the 2000s, is due to policing. Opinions differ on how much of the credit should be given to Giuliani; to Bratton; and to the current Police Commissioner, Ray Kelly
Raymond W. Kelly
Raymond Walter Kelly is the current Commissioner of the New York City Police Department and the first person to hold the post for two non-consecutive tenures. A lifelong New Yorker, Kelly has spent 31 years in the NYPD, serving in 25 different commands and as Police Commissioner from 1992 to 1994...
, who had previously served under Dinkins and criticized aggressive policing under Giuliani.
Among those crediting Giuliani's policies for making New York safer were several other cities nationwide whose police departments subsequently instituted programs similar to CompStat
CompStat
CompStat—or COMPSTAT— is the name given to the New York City Police Department's accountability process and has since been replicated in many other departments...
.
In 2005 Giuliani was reportedly nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize
Nobel Peace Prize
The Nobel Peace Prize is one of the five Nobel Prizes bequeathed by the Swedish industrialist and inventor Alfred Nobel.-Background:According to Nobel's will, the Peace Prize shall be awarded to the person who...
for his efforts to reduce crime rates in the city. The prize went instead to Mohamed ElBaradei and the IAEA
International Atomic Energy Agency
The International Atomic Energy Agency is an international organization that seeks to promote the peaceful use of nuclear energy, and to inhibit its use for any military purpose, including nuclear weapons. The IAEA was established as an autonomous organization on 29 July 1957...
for their efforts to reduce nuclear proliferation.
Urban reconstruction
Following up from an initiative started with the Walt Disney Company by the Dinkins administration, and preceded by planning and eminent domain seizures that went back to the Koch administration, under Giuliani the Times SquareTimes Square
Times Square is a major commercial intersection in the borough of Manhattan in New York City, at the junction of Broadway and Seventh Avenue and stretching from West 42nd to West 47th Streets...
redevelopment project saw Times Square transformed from a center for small privately owned businesses such as tourist attractions, game parlors, and peep show
Peep show
A peep show or peepshow is an exhibition of pictures, objects or people viewed through a small hole or magnifying glass. Though historically a peep show was a form of entertainment provided by wandering showmen, nowadays it more commonly refers a presentation of a sex show or pornographic film...
s, to a district where media outlets and studios, theaters, financial companies, and restaurants predominate, including MTV Studios, an ESPN Zone
ESPN Zone
ESPN Zone is a Southern California-based chain of two sports-themed restaurants that include arcades, TV studios, and radio studios that are currently franchised, but formally owned by the American cable network ESPN. The first ESPN Zone opened in Baltimore, Maryland, on July 11, 1998, in the Power...
, and (formerly) a large Virgin Megastore
Virgin Megastore
Virgin Megastores is an international chain of record shops, founded by Sir Richard Branson on London's Oxford Street in early 1971. Virgin Megastores are best described today as entertainment retailers....
and theater. A few city councilmembers voted against the rezoning that led to the change, partly because they did not want to see the sex shops dispersed to other neighborhoods.
Throughout his term, Giuliani also pursued the construction of a new sports stadium in Manhattan, a goal in which he did not succeed, though new minor league baseball stadiums opened in Brooklyn, for the Brooklyn Cyclones
Brooklyn Cyclones
The Brooklyn Cyclones is a minor league baseball team in the Short-Season A classification New York - Penn League, affiliated with the New York Mets. The Cyclones play at MCU Park just off the Coney Island boardwalk in the New York City borough of Brooklyn....
, and in Staten Island
Staten Island
Staten Island is a borough of New York City, New York, United States, located in the southwest part of the city. Staten Island is separated from New Jersey by the Arthur Kill and the Kill Van Kull, and from the rest of New York by New York Bay...
, for the Staten Island Yankees
Staten Island Yankees
The Staten Island Yankees are a minor league baseball team, located in the New York City borough of Staten Island. Nicknamed the "Baby Bombers," the Yankees are a Short-Season A classification affiliate of the New York Yankees and play in the New York - Penn League at Richmond County Bank Ballpark...
.
Conversely, Giuliani refused to attend the opening ceremonies for a Dinkins success, Arthur Ashe Stadium
Arthur Ashe Stadium
Arthur Ashe Stadium, a part of the USTA Billie Jean King National Tennis Center located within Flushing Meadows-Corona Park in the New York City borough of Queens, is the main tennis stadium of the US Open, the last of each year's four Grand Slam tournaments, and also where the annual Arthur Ashe...
in Flushing Meadows
Flushing Meadows-Corona Park
Flushing Meadows-Corona Park, often referred to as Flushing Meadow Park, Flushing Meadows Park or Flushing Meadows, is a public park in New York City. It contains the USTA Billie Jean King National Tennis Center, the current venue for the U.S...
, Queens
Queens
Queens is the easternmost of the five boroughs of New York City. The largest borough in area and the second-largest in population, it is coextensive with Queens County, an administrative division of New York state, in the United States....
, stating his anger with a contract that fines the city if planes from LaGuardia Airport fly over the stadium during U.S. Open
U.S. Open (tennis)
The US Open, formally the United States Open Tennis Championships, is a hardcourt tennis tournament which is the modern iteration of one of the oldest tennis championships in the world, the U.S. National Championship, which for men's singles was first contested in 1881...
matches. Giuliani boycotted the U.S. Open throughout his mayoralty.
Relations with the Homeless
During his 1993 campaign, Giuliani proposed to drastically curtail city services for the homeless, setting a limit of 90 days for stays in shelters. Opponent Dinkins accused Giuliani of punishing the children of the homeless with the policy. This contrasted with Giuliani's campaign promise during the 1989 campaign to build hundreds of new homeless shelters around the city. Advocates for the homeless sued the mayor over an alleged failure to provide proper medical treatment to homeless children.During the Giuliani administration, police conducted sweeps of parks and other public places to arrest homeless people and move them to shelters. Critics charged that the purpose was not to help the homeless but to remove them from sight. The pastor of Fifth Avenue Presbyterian Church
Fifth Avenue Presbyterian Church
The Fifth Avenue Presbyterian Church is a large congregation of the Presbyterian Church . The church was founded in 1808 as the Cedar Street Presbyterian Church and has been located on Fifth Avenue at 55th Street in midtown Manhattan since 1875. It has approximately 3,250 members from a variety...
, Reverend Thomas Tewell, said: "I think the police and the administration in New York were a bit embarrassed to have homeless people on the steps of a church in such an affluent area. The city said to us that it's inhumane to have people staying on the streets. And my response was that it's also inhumane to just move them along to another place or to put them in a shelter where they are going to get beat up, or abused, or harassed." The church sued the city of New York, Giuliani, and Bernard Kerik, asserting a First Amendment right to minister to the homeless on its steps.
In 1998, when the City Council overrode Giuliani's veto to change how homeless shelters were run, Giuliani served an eviction notice on five community service programs, including a program for the mentally ill, a day-care center, an elderly agency, a community board office and a civic association in favor of a homeless shelter. Giuliani asserted he specifically chose the site because it was in the district of chief bill sponsor Stephen DiBrienza. The plan came under heavy criticism, especially for the eviction of the program serving 500 mentally ill patients, and Giuliani backed down. In an editorial, The New York Times called the event a "dispiriting political vendetta" and asserted that "selecting sites [for homeless shelters] as a punishment for crossing the Mayor is outrageous."
Race Relations
A well-known Harlem minister, Calvin O. ButtsCalvin O. Butts
Calvin O. Butts, III , is the Pastor of the Abyssinian Baptist Church in the City of New York, President of the State University of New York College at Old Westbury, and Chairman and founder of the Abyssinian Development Corporation, an engine for $500 million in housing and commercial development...
, who had previously supported Giuliani for re-election, said of the Mayor, "I don't believe he likes black people. And I believe there's something fundamentally wrong in the way we are disregarded, the way we are mistreated, and the way our communities are being devastated. I had some hope that he was the kind of person you could deal with. I've just about lost that hope." After the minister criticized him, Giuliani diverted funds away from projects connected to him, and when Butts supported Governor George Pataki
George Pataki
George Elmer Pataki is an American politician who was the 53rd Governor of New York. A member of the Republican Party, Pataki served three consecutive four-year terms from January 1, 1995 until December 31, 2006.- Early life :...
's re-election, Giuliani told Pataki he should not accept Butts' support. (Pataki did accept the endorsement.)
Giuliani said that by not dealing with black leaders, he could "accomplish more for the black community." State Comptroller H. Carl McCall, who is black, claimed that Giuliani ignored his requests to meet for years, and then met with him after the Amadou Diallo
Amadou Diallo
Amadou Diallo was a 23-year-old Guinean immigrant in New York City who was shot and killed on February 4, 1999 by four New York City Police Department plain-clothed officers: Sean Carroll, Richard Murphy, Edward McMellon and Kenneth Boss. The four officers fired a total of 41 shots...
shooting "for show." Queens Congressman Gregory Meeks
Gregory Meeks
Gregory Weldon Meeks is the U.S. Representative for , serving since 1998. He is a member of the Democratic Party. The district includes most of Southeastern Queens including Jamaica, Laurelton, Rosedale, Saint Albans, Springfield Gardens, and Far Rockaway, as well as John F. Kennedy International...
said that he never met or talked with Giuliani in his entire eight years in office.
Giuliani's schools chancellor, Rudy Crew
Rudy Crew
Rudolph F. "Rudy" Crew is professor of Clinical Education at the University of Southern California's Rossier School of Education. He is a former Superintendent of Miami-Dade County Public Schools...
, an African-American, later said, "I find his policies to be so racist and class-biased. I don't even know how I lasted three years.... He was barren, completely emotionally barren, on the issue of race."
Giuliani has been accused of supporting racial profiling
Racial profiling
Racial profiling refers to the use of an individual’s race or ethnicity by law enforcement personnel as a key factor in deciding whether to engage in enforcement...
, specifically in the shooting death of Amadou Diallo
Amadou Diallo
Amadou Diallo was a 23-year-old Guinean immigrant in New York City who was shot and killed on February 4, 1999 by four New York City Police Department plain-clothed officers: Sean Carroll, Richard Murphy, Edward McMellon and Kenneth Boss. The four officers fired a total of 41 shots...
, a West African immigrant, by the NYPD
New York City Police Department
The New York City Police Department , established in 1845, is currently the largest municipal police force in the United States, with primary responsibilities in law enforcement and investigation within the five boroughs of New York City...
under his watch. Many African Americans were outraged by Patrick Dorismond
Patrick Dorismond
Patrick Moses Dorismond was a security guard and father of two children who was killed by an undercover New York Police Department officer during the early morning of March 16, 2000...
's death.
General policy goals
One of Giuliani's three major campaign promises was to fix public schools. However, he cut the public school budget in New York City by $2 billion from 1994 to 1997 and trimmed the school repairs budget by $4.7 billion, and test scores declined during his terms. His successor Michael BloombergMichael Bloomberg
Michael Rubens Bloomberg is the current Mayor of New York City. With a net worth of $19.5 billion in 2011, he is also the 12th-richest person in the United States...
later said, "Giuliani never got his hands around the school system. There is no question that it's gotten worse the last eight years, not better." Giuliani has been accused of diverting funds for school repair from poor districts to middle-class ones. A large debt left after the Giuliani administration has resulted in less money to spend on education, according to some sources.
Relations with the Board of education
Giuliani expressed frustration with the New York City Board of EducationNew York City Department of Education
The New York City Department of Education is the branch of municipal government in New York City that manages the city's public school system. It is the largest school system in the United States, with over 1.1 million students taught in more than 1,700 separate schools...
. In April 1999, two days after the Columbine massacre
Columbine High School massacre
The Columbine High School massacre occurred on Tuesday, April 20, 1999, at Columbine High School in Columbine, an unincorporated area of Jefferson County, Colorado, United States, near Denver and Littleton. Two senior students, Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold, embarked on a massacre, killing 12...
, he stated that he would like to "blow up" the Board of Education. Conflict between Giuliani and schools chancellor Ramon C. Cortines over some of the mayor's proposals for public education eventually resulted in Cortines' resignation. However, the decision on the policies was not up to City Hall, but the Board of Education. In particular, Giuliani supported a for-profit privatization plan for public schools that parents voted against. Cortines and Giuliani had however been able to agree on a plan to privatize school maintenance and repair that earned praise from the New York Times.
Cortines was the first of three school chancellors, all people of color who left office during Giuliani's tenure. Cortines, Mexican-American and gay, resigned after a spat in which Giuliani told the press Cortines should not "be so precious" and called him "the little victim," terms that many later felt had a gay-baiting tone. Cortines said that Giuliani was intolerant of ideas other than his and demanded total conformity from those he worked with: "He's made it very clear that no matter what I do or say, unless I acquiesce to all of his wishes, that I am not a good manager and I am not showing good leadership."
Cortines' replacement as schools chancellor, Rudy Crew
Rudy Crew
Rudolph F. "Rudy" Crew is professor of Clinical Education at the University of Southern California's Rossier School of Education. He is a former Superintendent of Miami-Dade County Public Schools...
, had been a close friend of Giuliani's for years, but their relationship soured over the issue of school vouchers. Giuliani had said in his 1993 campaign that parochial school vouchers were "unconstitutional." Yet in 1999 he placed $12 million into the budget for parochial school vouchers. Crew felt that Giuliani began pressuring him to leave immediately they were on less friendly terms. The day of Crew's wife's funeral, Giuliani leaked a letter to the tabloids and Crew fielded press calls before leaving to deliver her eulogy. He later told a Giuliani biographer: "This is a maniac. On the day I was burying my wife, I have these people concocting this world of treachery.... When Rudy sees a need to take someone out, he has a machine, a roomful of henchmen, nicking away at you, leaking crazy stories. He is not bound by the truth. I have studied animal life, and their predator/prey relations are more graceful than his." Of Giuliani's disagreement with Chancellor Crew, former Mayor Ed Koch
Ed Koch
Edward Irving "Ed" Koch is an American lawyer, politician, and political commentator. He served in the United States House of Representatives from 1969 to 1977 and three terms as mayor of New York City from 1978 to 1989...
said, "It's like his goal in life is to spear people, destroy them, to go for the jugular. Why do this to Crew? And I'm not a fan of Crew." Some speculated that Giuliani pursued the issue of vouchers at the expense of his relationship with Crew because he was looking towards an upcoming Senate run.
When the city's five-year contract with schoolteachers ran out and negotiations with the city had not yet begun, teachers' union president Randi Weingarten said that a strike was not off the table if the city did not offer a contract. Giuliani told the press that he would put Weingarten in jail if she led a strike; under New York state law, government employees could not strike. Weingarten said that she would lobby the state legislature to allow employees to strike if the government had refused to negotiate in good faith. Giuliani objected to the teachers' request for a pay raise to align their salaries with those in the suburbs. Teachers pointed out the city's then budget surplus and the number of teachers leaving the city. Giuliani called for merit pay based on student test scores, a plan which was derided by teachers as ineffective.
Budget management
Mayor Giuliani inherited a $2.3 billion deficit from his predecessor, David DinkinsDavid Dinkins
David Norman Dinkins is a former politician from New York City. He was the Mayor of New York City from 1990 through 1993; he was the first and is, to date, the only African American to hold that office.-Early life:...
. During its first term, the Giuliani administration cut taxes, cut spending, and reduced the munipical payroll, thereby closing the budget gap. By Giuliani's second term, the upward swing of the mid-late 1990s dot-com bubble
Dot-com bubble
The dot-com bubble was a speculative bubble covering roughly 1995–2000 during which stock markets in industrialized nations saw their equity value rise rapidly from growth in the more...
, which especially benefited New York's financial sector, resulted in greatly increased tax revenues for the city; soon there was a budget surplus of $3 billion. City spending then rose 6.3 percent a year, above the inflation rate, and the city payroll increased again, especially for police officers and teachers.
The bursting of the dot-com bubble, combined with the increased spending and the effects of an accounting decision that Giuliani had pushed for regarding city pension funds, led to a reversal of city finances, with the result that by the beginning of 2001, a $2.8 billion budget gap was forecast. When the city's economy suffered badly as a result of the September 11 attacks, that gap worsened to $4.8 billion, which was inherited by Giuliani's successor, Michael Bloomberg
Michael Bloomberg
Michael Rubens Bloomberg is the current Mayor of New York City. With a net worth of $19.5 billion in 2011, he is also the 12th-richest person in the United States...
.
Health care
In 2000 Giuliani initiated what the New York PostNew York Post
The New York Post is the 13th-oldest newspaper published in the United States and is generally acknowledged as the oldest to have been published continuously as a daily, although – as is the case with most other papers – its publication has been periodically interrupted by labor actions...
called "a massive program" to get city employees to expand the number of low-income, uninsured children and adults covered by public health entitlement programs such as Medicaid
Medicaid
Medicaid is the United States health program for certain people and families with low incomes and resources. It is a means-tested program that is jointly funded by the state and federal governments, and is managed by the states. People served by Medicaid are U.S. citizens or legal permanent...
, Child Health Plus and Family Health Plan. Promoting enrollment in his HealthStat program, Giuliani said at the time that the program could be "a model for the rest of this country for how to get people covered on the available health programs."
Opposition to federal immigration law
Giuliani was criticized for embracing illegal immigrants because of his continuation of a sanctuary citySanctuary city
Sanctuary city is a term given to a city in the United States that follows certain practices that protect illegal immigrants. These practices can be by law or they can be by habit...
policy of preventing city employees from contacting the Immigration and Naturalization Service
Immigration and Naturalization Service
The United States Immigration and Naturalization Service , now referred to as Legacy INS, ceased to exist under that name on March 1, 2003, when most of its functions were transferred from the Department of Justice to three new components within the newly created Department of Homeland Security, as...
about immigration violations, on the grounds that illegal aliens must be able to take actions such as sending their children to school or reporting crime and violations without fear of deportation. In 1996 Giuliani sued the federal government over a new federal law (Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act of 1996
Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act of 1996
The Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act of 1996, Division C of vastly changed the immigration laws of the United States.This act states that if an immigrant has been unlawfully present in the United States for 180 days but less than 365 days...
) that overturned the 1985 executive order by then mayor Ed Koch
Ed Koch
Edward Irving "Ed" Koch is an American lawyer, politician, and political commentator. He served in the United States House of Representatives from 1969 to 1977 and three terms as mayor of New York City from 1978 to 1989...
that barred government employees from turning in illegal immigrants who were trying to get government benefits from the city. He ordered city attorneys to defend this policy in federal court. His lawsuit claimed that the new federal requirement to report illegal immigrants violated the 10th Amendment. The court ruled that New York City's sanctuary laws were illegal. After the City of New York lost an appeal to the United States Supreme Court in 2000, Giuliani vowed to ignore the law.
Public statements on illegal immigration
As Mayor of New York City, Giuliani encouraged hardworking illegal immigrants to move to New York City. He said in 1994:"Some of the hardest-working and most productive people in this city are undocumented aliens. If you come here and you work hard and you happen to be in an undocumented status, you're one of the people who we want in this city. You're somebody that we want to protect, and we want you to get out from under what is often a life of being like a fugitive, which is really unfair."
In a Minneapolis speech two years later he defended his policy: "There are times when undocumented immigrants must have a substantial degree of protection." In 2000, Giuliani said of New York City, "Immigration is a very positive force for the City of New York. Immigration is the key to the city's success. Both historically and to this very day."
Giuliani also expressed doubt that the federal government can completely stop illegal immigration. Giuliani said that the Immigration and Naturalization Service
Immigration and Naturalization Service
The United States Immigration and Naturalization Service , now referred to as Legacy INS, ceased to exist under that name on March 1, 2003, when most of its functions were transferred from the Department of Justice to three new components within the newly created Department of Homeland Security, as...
"do nothing with those names but terrorize people." In 1996 he said that the new anti-illegal immigration law, as well as the Welfare Reform Act
Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Act
The Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996 is a United States federal law considered to be a fundamental shift in both the method and goal of federal cash assistance to the poor. The bill added a workforce development component to welfare legislation, encouraging...
, were "inherently unfair." In 1996, Giuliani said, "I believe the anti-immigration movement in America is one of our most serious public problems." In the same year he said, "We're never, ever going to be able to totally control immigration in a country that is as large as ours." He went on to say, "If you were to totally control immigration into the United States, you might very well destroy the economy of the United States, because you'd have to inspect everything and everyone in every way possible."
Media management
After he was elected mayor, Giuliani started a weekly call-in program on WABCWABC (AM)
WABC , known as "NewsTalkRadio 77 WABC" is a radio station in New York City. Owned by the broadcasting division of Cumulus Media, the station broadcasts on a clear channel and is the flagship station of Cumulus Media Networks...
radio. He avoided one-on-one interviews with the press, preferring to speak to them only at press conferences or on the steps of City Hall. He made frequent appearances on The Late Show with David Letterman television show, sometimes as a guest and sometimes participating in comedy segments. In one highly publicized appearance shortly after his election, Giuliani filled a pothole in the street outside the Ed Sullivan Theater
Ed Sullivan Theater
The Ed Sullivan Theater, located at 1697-1699 Broadway between West 53rd and West 54th, in Manhattan, is a venerable radio and television studio in New York City...
.
Giuliani was not shy about his public persona; besides Letterman he appeared on many other talk shows during his time in office, hosted Saturday Night Live
Saturday Night Live
Saturday Night Live is a live American late-night television sketch comedy and variety show developed by Lorne Michaels and Dick Ebersol. The show premiered on NBC on October 11, 1975, under the original title of NBC's Saturday Night.The show's sketches often parody contemporary American culture...
in 1997 and introduced it again when the show resumed broadcasting after September 11.
Drag appearances
Giuliani was the most visible cross-dressing New York politician since Lord Cornbury and was frequently described as such in the press during his term and in assessments of his mayoralty since.- On March 1, 1997, at the New York Inner CircleInner Circle (parody group)The Inner Circle is a parody group established in 1922 by New York City newspaper reporters covering City Hall. The organization is a successor to Amen Corner and the Association of City Hall Reporters, two groups of reporters who would parody local politicians at what were called 'stunt dinners'...
press dinner, an annual event in which New York politicians and the press corps stage skits, roastRoast (comedy)A roast is an event in which an individual is subjected to a public presentation of comedic insults, praise, outlandish true and untrue stories, and heartwarming tributes, the implication being that the roastee is able to take the jokes in good humor and not as serious criticism or insult, and...
each other and make fun of themselves, with proceeds going to charity. In his appearance he first imitated Marilyn MonroeMarilyn MonroeMarilyn Monroe was an American actress, singer, model and showgirl who became a major sex symbol, starring in a number of commercially successful motion pictures during the 1950s....
. Then, he appeared in a spoofing stage skit "Rudy/Rudia" together with Julie AndrewsJulie AndrewsDame Julia Elizabeth Andrews, DBE is an English film and stage actress, singer, and author. She is the recipient of Golden Globe, Emmy, Grammy, BAFTA, People's Choice Award, Theatre World Award, Screen Actors Guild and Academy Award honors...
, starring at the time on Broadway in the cross-dressingCross-dressingCross-dressing is the wearing of clothing and other accoutrement commonly associated with a gender within a particular society that is seen as different than the one usually presented by the dresser...
classic Victor Victoria (about a woman pretending to be a man pretending to be a woman). Under his drag name "Rudia" and wearing a spangled pink gown, Giuliani said he was "a Republican pretending to be a Democrat pretending to be a Republican." - On November 22, 1997, hosting Saturday Night LiveSaturday Night LiveSaturday Night Live is a live American late-night television sketch comedy and variety show developed by Lorne Michaels and Dick Ebersol. The show premiered on NBC on October 11, 1975, under the original title of NBC's Saturday Night.The show's sketches often parody contemporary American culture...
, he played an Italian American grandmother in a bright floral dress during a long sketch that satirized Italian-American family rites at ThanksgivingThanksgivingThanksgiving Day is a holiday celebrated primarily in the United States and Canada. Thanksgiving is celebrated each year on the second Monday of October in Canada and on the fourth Thursday of November in the United States. In Canada, Thanksgiving falls on the same day as Columbus Day in the...
time. - On March 11, 2000, at another Inner Circle dinner, he was on stage in male discoDiscoDisco is a genre of dance music. Disco acts charted high during the mid-1970s, and the genre's popularity peaked during the late 1970s. It had its roots in clubs that catered to African American, gay, psychedelic, and other communities in New York City and Philadelphia during the late 1960s and...
garb spoofing John TravoltaJohn TravoltaJohn Joseph Travolta is an American actor, dancer and singer. Travolta first became known in the 1970s, after appearing on the television series Welcome Back, Kotter and starring in the box office successes Saturday Night Fever and Grease...
in Saturday Night FeverSaturday Night FeverSaturday Night Fever is a 1977 drama film directed by John Badham and starring: John Travolta as Tony Manero, an immature young man whose weekends are spent visiting a local Brooklyn discothèque; Karen Lynn Gorney as his dance partner and eventual friend; and Donna Pescow as Tony's former dance...
, but also appeared in drag in taped video clips that reworked the "Rudy/Rudia" theme again. These included a bit in which he flirts with (normally dressed) real estate mogul Donald TrumpDonald TrumpDonald John Trump, Sr. is an American business magnate, television personality and author. He is the chairman and president of The Trump Organization and the founder of Trump Entertainment Resorts. Trump's extravagant lifestyle, outspoken manner and role on the NBC reality show The Apprentice have...
, then slaps Trump for trying to get too "familiar" with him, and an exchange with Joan RiversJoan RiversJoan Rivers is an American comedian, television personality and actress. She is known for her brash manner; her loud, raspy voice with a heavy New York accent; and her numerous cosmetic surgeries...
that sought to make fun of his then-Senate race rival and fellow dinner attendee Hillary Rodham ClintonHillary Rodham ClintonHillary Diane Rodham Clinton is the 67th United States Secretary of State, serving in the administration of President Barack Obama. She was a United States Senator for New York from 2001 to 2009. As the wife of the 42nd President of the United States, Bill Clinton, she was the First Lady of the...
. - In October 2001, Giuliani agreed to appear in drag on the gay-themed television series Queer as Folk to raise aid money for gays and lesbians affected by the September 11 attacks, saying "If it means more money for relief funds, sure." However, the appearance never took place.
Elliot Cuker, a friend and advisor to Giuliani, told The New Yorker
The New Yorker
The New Yorker is an American magazine of reportage, commentary, criticism, essays, fiction, satire, cartoons and poetry published by Condé Nast...
, "I am the one who convinced him that it would be a great idea to put him in a dress, soften him up, and help him get the gay vote."
Role of press staff professionals
Giuliani's spokeswoman, Cristyne F. Lategano (who would later deny allegations of an affair with her boss when his wife said Lategano's relationship with him had damaged her marriage), admitted that she and her staff refused to allow the mayor to conduct interviews with reporters who she thought would not be sympathetic to his views. Some reporters alleged that she had kept information from the public with her actions. After the police spokesman, John Miller, resigned in 1995, he said that Giuliani's press office had forgotten that public information was public. Some City Hall reporters maintained they were harassed by Lategano if they wrote something she found unflattering and that she called them late at night. Giuliani defended her, saying that he did not care whether his press secretary pleased reporters, and at one point gave Lategano a higher post as communications director and a $25,000 raise during a time when his office had called a budget crisis. In one incident, Lategano called newsrooms alleging impoprieties by one of previous Mayor Dinkins' appointees. The allegations were later found to be false, and reporters said that the allegations by Lategano were meant to divert attention from tax impoprieties of one of Giuliani's own appointees. The New York Times wrote that the incident "put a cloud over the integrity of the Giuliani press office, if not that of the administration itself."Jerry Nachmann of WCBS-TV
WCBS-TV
WCBS-TV, channel 2, is the flagship station of the CBS television network, located in New York City. The station's studios are located within the CBS Broadcast Center and its transmitter is atop the Empire State Building, both in Midtown Manhattan....
said of the Giuliani staff's intrusions with the media, "I say without regret and with no remorse that as editor of The New York Post
New York Post
The New York Post is the 13th-oldest newspaper published in the United States and is generally acknowledged as the oldest to have been published continuously as a daily, although – as is the case with most other papers – its publication has been periodically interrupted by labor actions...
I used to torture David Dinkins every day of his life. And there were calls. But the calls were never, 'Put the Mayor on before sports and weather.'"
Giuliani was also criticized for dismissing journalists who had been appointees of the Dinkins administration. John Miller, police department spokesman, was pressured to resign after publicly disagreeing with Giuliani's cutting of his staff and replacement of police officers with civilians.
Fox News conflict of interest
In 1996, The New York TimesThe New York Times
The New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851. The New York Times has won 106 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any news organization...
reported that Giuliani was threatening Time Warner
Time Warner
Time Warner is one of the world's largest media companies, headquartered in the Time Warner Center in New York City. Formerly two separate companies, Warner Communications, Inc...
to get them to carry Rupert Murdoch
Rupert Murdoch
Keith Rupert Murdoch, AC, KSG is an Australian-American business magnate. He is the founder and Chairman and CEO of , the world's second-largest media conglomerate....
's new Fox News Channel
Fox News Channel
Fox News Channel , often called Fox News, is a cable and satellite television news channel owned by the Fox Entertainment Group, a subsidiary of News Corporation...
on their cable network. Time Warner executive Ted Turner
Ted Turner
Robert Edward "Ted" Turner III is an American media mogul and philanthropist. As a businessman, he is known as founder of the cable news network CNN, the first dedicated 24-hour cable news channel. In addition, he founded WTBS, which pioneered the superstation concept in cable television...
suggested that Giuliani had a conflict of interest because his wife, the broadcaster Donna Hanover
Donna Hanover
Donna Hanover is an American journalist, radio and television personality, television producer, and actress, who appears on WOR radio in New York City and the Food Network. From 1994 through 2001 she was First Lady of New York City, as the then-wife of Rudy Giuliani...
, was employed by a television station owned by Murdoch.
In the wake of the unfolding Murdoch illegal surveillance and bribery scandals erupting in the US and UK, Giuliani was among a small number of public defenders of the accused Murdoch as "a very honorable, honest man" Giuliani was described by Federal Judge Denise Cote as having violated constitutional principles in an "improper" relationship with Murdoch's Fox News, and Giuliani's wife at the time benefited significantly financially from her employment at Fox.
Actions related to foreign policy
In 1995, Giuliani made national headlines by ordering PLOPalestine Liberation Organization
The Palestine Liberation Organization is a political and paramilitary organization which was created in 1964. It is recognized as the "sole legitimate representative of the Palestinian people" by the United Nations and over 100 states with which it holds diplomatic relations, and has enjoyed...
Chairman Yasser Arafat
Yasser Arafat
Mohammed Yasser Abdel Rahman Abdel Raouf Arafat al-Qudwa al-Husseini , popularly known as Yasser Arafat or by his kunya Abu Ammar , was a Palestinian leader and a Laureate of the Nobel Prize. He was Chairman of the Palestine Liberation Organization , President of the Palestinian National Authority...
ejected from a Lincoln Center concert held in celebration of the 50th anniversary of the founding of the United Nations. While Giuliani called Arafat an uninvited guest, Arafat said he did hold a ticket to the invitation-only concert, which was the largest such gathering of world leaders ever held. "Maybe we should wake people up to the way this terrorist is being romanticized," Giuliani said, and noted that Arafat's Palestinianian Liberation Organization had been linked to the murder of American civilians and diplomatic personnel. President Clinton protested the ejection and a senior administration official called it "an embarrassment to everyone associated with diplomacy" and a setback in the Middle East peace process Clinton was trying to help broker, in which Arafat was a necessary participant. The New York Times criticized Giuliani's action in an editorial, saying that Arafat had met with Jewish leaders earlier that day and held a Nobel Peace Prize
Nobel Peace Prize
The Nobel Peace Prize is one of the five Nobel Prizes bequeathed by the Swedish industrialist and inventor Alfred Nobel.-Background:According to Nobel's will, the Peace Prize shall be awarded to the person who...
: "It is fortunate that New York City does not need a foreign policy, because Mayor Rudolph Giuliani, who evicted Yasir Arafat from a city-sponsored concert for United Nations dignitaries on Monday night, clearly lacks the diplomatic touch... The proper role of New York, as the UN’s home city, is to play gracious host to all of the 140 or so world leaders present for the organization’s gala 50th birthday celebrations... In fact, he has needlessly embarrassed the city at a moment when New York's hospitality should be allowed to shine." The two preceding mayors, David Dinkins and Ed Koch, held a joint press conference in which they denounced Giuliani's actions. Koch said, "Mayor Giuliani has behavioral problems dealing with other people." Lawrence Rubin, executive vice chairman of the National Jewish Community Relations Council, said that Giuliani's actions were solely for political reasons and did not help the Israeli-Palestinian peace negotiations; he pointed out that Israel regularly met with the Palestinian leader in peace negotiations.
Brooklyn Museum art battle
In 1999, Giuliani threatened to cut off city funding for the Brooklyn MuseumBrooklyn Museum
The Brooklyn Museum is an encyclopedia art museum located in the New York City borough of Brooklyn. At 560,000 square feet, the museum holds New York City's second largest art collection with roughly 1.5 million works....
if it did not remove a number of works in an exhibit entitled "Sensation: Young British Artists from the Saatchi Collection.
Sensation exhibition
Sensation was an exhibition of the collection of contemporary art owned by Charles Saatchi, including many works by Young British Artists, which first took place 18 September – 28 December 1997 at the Royal Academy of Art in London and later toured to Berlin and New York...
" One work in particular, The Holy Virgin Mary
The Holy Virgin Mary
The Holy Virgin Mary is a painting created by Chris Ofili in 1996. It was one of the works included in the Sensation exhibition in London, Berlin and New York in 1997–2000...
by Turner Prize
Turner Prize
The Turner Prize, named after the painter J. M. W. Turner, is an annual prize presented to a British visual artist under the age of 50. Awarding the prize is organised by the Tate gallery and staged at Tate Britain. Since its beginnings in 1984 it has become the United Kingdom's most publicised...
-winning artist Chris Ofili
Chris Ofili
Chris Ofili is a Turner Prize winning British painter best known for artworks referencing aspects of his Nigerian heritage, particularly his incorporation of elephant dung. He was one of the Young British Artists, and is now based in Trinidad.-Early life:Ofilli was born in Manchester. He had a...
, featured an image of an African Virgin Mary on a canvas decorated with shaped elephant dung and pictures of female genitalia. Giuliani's position was that the museum's display of such works amounted to a government-supported attack on Christianity; the artist, who claimed to be referring to African cultural tropes, Ofili decided to say nothing. He stated "I just thought, what's the point of throwing anything out there at all? I've already done the painting and they're going to work that to mincemeat. It was this American rage. I was brought up in Britain, I don't know that level of rage. So it was easier and perhaps more interesting not to say anything. I'm still glad I didn't".
In its defense, the museum filed a lawsuit, charging Giuliani with violating the First Amendment
First Amendment to the United States Constitution
The First Amendment to the United States Constitution is part of the Bill of Rights. The amendment prohibits the making of any law respecting an establishment of religion, impeding the free exercise of religion, abridging the freedom of speech, infringing on the freedom of the press, interfering...
right to freedom of speech. Religious groups such as the Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights supported the mayor's actions, while they were condemned by groups such as the American Civil Liberties Union
American Civil Liberties Union
The American Civil Liberties Union is a U.S. non-profit organization whose stated mission is "to defend and preserve the individual rights and liberties guaranteed to every person in this country by the Constitution and laws of the United States." It works through litigation, legislation, and...
, accusing the mayor of censorship
Censorship in the United States
In general, censorship in the United States, which involves the suppression of speech or other public communication, raises issues of freedom of speech, which is constitutionally protected by the First Amendment to the United States Constitution....
. The museum's lawsuit was successful; the mayor was ordered to resume funding, and the judge, Federal District Judge Nina Gershon, declared: "There is no federal constitutional issue more grave than the effort by government officials to censor works of expression and to threaten the vitality of a major cultural institution as punishment for failing to abide by governmental demands for orthodoxy."
Civil liberties
Litigants filed several civil libertiesCivil liberties
Civil liberties are rights and freedoms that provide an individual specific rights such as the freedom from slavery and forced labour, freedom from torture and death, the right to liberty and security, right to a fair trial, the right to defend one's self, the right to own and bear arms, the right...
violations lawsuits against the mayor or the city. Giuliani's administration lost 22 of 26 cases.
Some of the court cases which found the Giuliani administration to have violated First Amendment rights included actions barring public events from their previous location at the City Hall steps, not allowing taxi drivers to assemble for a protest, not allowing city workers to speak to the press without permission, barring church members from delivering an AIDS education program in a park, denying a permit for a march to object to police brutality, issuing summons and seizing literature of three workers collecting signatures to get a candidate on the presidential ballot, imposing strict licensing restrictions on sidewalk artists that were struck down by a court of appeals as a violation of artists' rights, using a 1926 cabaret law to ban dancing in bars and clubs, imposing an excessive daily fee on street musicians, imposing varying city fees for newsstand owners based on the content they sold, a case against Time Warner Cable, and an incident in which Giuliani ordered an ad for New York magazine
New York (magazine)
New York is a weekly magazine principally concerned with the life, culture, politics, and style of New York City. Founded by Milton Glaser and Clay Felker in 1968 as a competitor to The New Yorker, it was brasher and less polite than that magazine, and established itself as a cradle of New...
that featured his image taken down from city buses. The ad featured a copy of the magazine with the caption, "Possibly the only good thing Rudy hasn't taken credit for."
Giuliani and his administration encountered accusations of blocking free speech arising from a lawsuit brought by Fifth Avenue Presbyterian Church for removing the homeless from the church's steps against the church's will, and during his 1993 campaign, when he criticized incumbent Mayor Dinkins for allowing Louis Farrakhan
Louis Farrakhan
Louis Farrakhan Muhammad, Sr. is the leader of the African-American religious movement the Nation of Islam . He served as the minister of major mosques in Boston and Harlem, and was appointed by the longtime NOI leader, Elijah Muhammad, before his death in 1975, as the National Representative of...
to speak in the city. After being criticized for impinging on freedom of speech, he backed down from his criticism of Dinkins.
In 1998, 1999, and 2000, Mayor Giuliani received a "Muzzle Award" from the Thomas Jefferson Center for the Protection of Free Expression
Thomas Jefferson Center for the Protection of Free Expression
The Thomas Jefferson Center for the Protection of Free Expression is an independently funded organization associated with the University of Virginia and dedicated to the protection of freedom of speech. Founded in 1989 and headed by former UVA president Robert M...
in Charlottesville, Virginia
Charlottesville, Virginia
Charlottesville is an independent city geographically surrounded by but separate from Albemarle County in the Commonwealth of Virginia, United States, and named after Charlotte of Mecklenburg-Strelitz, the queen consort of King George III of the United Kingdom.The official population estimate for...
. The Muzzles are "awarded as a means to draw national attention to abridgments of free speech." The 1999 award was the Center's first "Lifetime Muzzle Award," which noted he had "stifled speech and press to so unprecedented a degree, and in so many and varied forms, that simply keeping up with the city's censorious activity has proved a challenge for defenders of free expression."
More than 35 successful lawsuits were brought against Giuliani and his administration for blocking free speech. In his book Speaking Freely, First Amendment
First Amendment to the United States Constitution
The First Amendment to the United States Constitution is part of the Bill of Rights. The amendment prohibits the making of any law respecting an establishment of religion, impeding the free exercise of religion, abridging the freedom of speech, infringing on the freedom of the press, interfering...
lawyer Floyd Abrams
Floyd Abrams
Floyd Abrams is an American attorney at Cahill Gordon & Reindel. He is an expert on constitutional law, and many arguments in the briefs he has written before the United States Supreme Court have been adopted as United States Constitutional interpretative law as it relates to the First Amendment...
said Giuliani had an "insistence on doing the one thing that the First Amendment most clearly forbids: using the power of government to restrict or punish speech critical of government itself."
Gay rights
During Giuliani's mayoralty, gays and lesbians in New York asked for domestic partnership rights. Giuliani in turn pushed the Democratic-controlled City CouncilNew York City Council
The New York City Council is the lawmaking body of the City of New York. It has 51 members from 51 council districts throughout the five boroughs. The Council serves as a check against the mayor in a "strong" mayor-council government model. The council monitors performance of city agencies and...
, which had avoided the issue for years, to pass legislation providing broad protection for same-sex partners. In 1998, he signed the local law that granted all city employees equal benefits for their domestic partners. Empire State Pride Agenda
Empire State Pride Agenda
The Empire State Pride Agenda is a statewide political advocacy organization in New York that advocates for lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender rights, including same-sex marriage. ESPA was founded in 1990 through the merger of the New York State Gay and Lesbian Lobby and the Friends and...
, a LGBT political advocacy group, described the law as "a new national benchmark for domestic partner recognition."
Gun control lawsuit
On June 20, 2000, Giuliani announced that the City of New York had filed a lawsuit against two dozen major firearmFirearm
A firearm is a weapon that launches one, or many, projectile at high velocity through confined burning of a propellant. This subsonic burning process is technically known as deflagration, as opposed to supersonic combustion known as a detonation. In older firearms, the propellant was typically...
manufacturers and distributors. The ramifications of this action extended beyond the end of Giuliani's mayoralty: President Bush signed the Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act
Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act
The Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act was passed by the U.S. Senate on July 29, 2005, by a vote of 65-31. On October 20, 2005, it was passed by the House of Representatives 283 in favor and 144 opposed. It was signed into law on October 26, 2005, by President George W...
in October 2005 in an effort to protect gun companies from liability. In 2006, the Tiarht Amendment was added to an appropriations bill and was signed into law. The amendment seeks to prevent ATF data from being used to sue gun companies. Despite these two legislative attempts to end the case, the case remains active.
Virginia Trash Controversy
On January 13, 1999, Giuliani suggested a "reciprocal relationship" whereby other states such as Virginia were obligated to accept New York City's garbage in exchange for being able to visit New York City's cultural sights. Then Governor of Virginia Jim Gilmore IIIJim Gilmore
James Stuart "Jim" Gilmore III is an American politician from the Commonwealth of Virginia, former 68th Governor of Virginia, and a member of the Republican Party. A native Virginian, Gilmore studied at the University of Virginia, and then served in the U.S. Army as a counterintelligence agent...
wrote in response, "I am offended by your suggestion that New York's substantial cultural achievements, such as they are, obligate Virginia and other states to accept your garbage." Other politicians also were upset about the proposed arrangement. Virginia State Senator William T. Bolling said, "This represents a certain arrogant attitude that is not consistent with the way we do business in Virginia." Even owners of trash repositories and other businesses that would benefit from the deal spoke against the Mayor's statements, saying they gave New Yorkers and Virginians a bad name and would harm their business in the long run. One such owner, Charles H. Carter III, said, "Giuliani couldn't have said anything that could have harmed his own cause more. He is definitely not presidential material."
A month earlier, Giuliani had similarly infuriated then New Jersey Governor Christine Todd Whitman
Christine Todd Whitman
Christine Todd "Christie" Whitman is an American Republican politician and author who served as the 50th Governor of New Jersey from 1994 to 2001, and was the Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency in the administration of President George W. Bush from 2001 to 2003. She was New...
when he announced a plan to ship garbage to New Jersey without consulting her beforehand. She issued a press release saying, "Whitman to New York's Garbage Plan: Drop Dead" and said the plan was "a direct assault on the beaches of New Jersey."
The situation arose when Giuliani closed New York City's existing landfill, Fresh Kills on Staten Island
Staten Island
Staten Island is a borough of New York City, New York, United States, located in the southwest part of the city. Staten Island is separated from New Jersey by the Arthur Kill and the Kill Van Kull, and from the rest of New York by New York Bay...
, calling it an "eyesore," although it contained 20 to 30 more years' worth of space for garbage. Critics alleged that the decision was made for purely political, rather than financial or environmental reasons. Staten Island had been an important constituency in electing Giuliani to his two terms, and would again be important if he ran for the Senate in 2000.
The plan to export trash was expensive and not environmentally friendly. A year after the landfill closed, New York City's sanitation commissioner said, "Fresh Kills was really closed without an awful lot of thought, you know, if the story be told." Garbage trucks taking trash out of the city were estimated to make an extra 700,000 trips a year. The New York State attorney general's office sued the city for not properly taking the environmental effects into account. The lawsuit alleged that air pollution along Canal Street, leading to the Holland Tunnel
Holland Tunnel
The Holland Tunnel is a highway tunnel under the Hudson River connecting the island of Manhattan in New York City with Jersey City, New Jersey at Interstate 78 on the mainland. Unusual for an American public works project, it is not named for a government official, politician, or local hero or...
, had increased 16% due to the plan. Mayor Bloomberg now budgets $400 million a year to barge New York City's garbage to landfills in Virginia
Virginia
The Commonwealth of Virginia , is a U.S. state on the Atlantic Coast of the Southern United States. Virginia is nicknamed the "Old Dominion" and sometimes the "Mother of Presidents" after the eight U.S. presidents born there...
and Ohio
Ohio
Ohio is a Midwestern state in the United States. The 34th largest state by area in the U.S.,it is the 7th‑most populous with over 11.5 million residents, containing several major American cities and seven metropolitan areas with populations of 500,000 or more.The state's capital is Columbus...
. In five years, the city's trash budget rose from $631 million to more than $1 billion because of the garbage transfer costs. The city cut back on recycling to save money. The New York Times and Daily News have both run editorials calling for Fresh Kills to be re-opened.
Ferret Ban
Giuliani vetoed a bill legalizing the ownership of ferrets as pets in the city, saying that it was akin to legalizing tigers. He sent a memorandum, "Talking Points Against the Legalization of Ferrets," to City Council members saying that ferrets should be banned just as pythons and lions are in the city. Councilman A. Gifford Miller said afterwards that Giuliani's "administration has gone out of its way to invent a ridiculous policy." The editor of Modern Ferret magazine testified that ferrets are domesticated animals that do not live in the wild and whose natural habitat is within people's homes. She argued that no case of ferrets transferring rabiesRabies
Rabies is a viral disease that causes acute encephalitis in warm-blooded animals. It is zoonotic , most commonly by a bite from an infected animal. For a human, rabies is almost invariably fatal if post-exposure prophylaxis is not administered prior to the onset of severe symptoms...
to humans had ever occurred and that the legalization bill would require ferrets to be vaccinated against rabies as dogs are. She later wrote that at the public hearings proposing to ban ferrets, no citizen or veterinarian spoke against ferrets, only representatives from the Department of Health, City Council, and Mayor Giuliani himself.
David Guthartz, founder of the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Ferrets, called a radio show Giuliani was hosting to complain about the citywide ban. Giuliani responded:
"There is something deranged about you. ... The excessive concern you have for ferrets is something you should examine with a therapist. ... There is something really, really very sad about you. ... This excessive concern with little weasels is a sickness. ... You should go consult a psychologist. ... Your compulsion about – your excessive concern with it is a sign that there is something wrong in your personality. ... You have a sickness, and I know it's hard for you to accept that. ... You need help."
Radio show
From 1994 to 2001, Giuliani hosted the Live From City Hall With Rudy Giuliani show weekly on Friday mid-days on WABCWABC (AM)
WABC , known as "NewsTalkRadio 77 WABC" is a radio station in New York City. Owned by the broadcasting division of Cumulus Media, the station broadcasts on a clear channel and is the flagship station of Cumulus Media Networks...
radio. The show quickly became known for Giuliani's "bullying therapist" approach to callers, and gained the second-largest audience on AM radio in its time slot.
Some of each program was devoted to discussing current city events, or to Giuliani's political philosophies. Then calls from the public were taken; many were from citizens with problems that Giuliani was sympathetic to and enlisted help for. But when Giuliani disagreed with a caller, he let them know it. While Giuliani's debate with the ferret fan described above became the show's most well-remembered exchange, there were many others, on a wide variety of topics: a complaint about handling of the Amadou Diallo
Amadou Diallo
Amadou Diallo was a 23-year-old Guinean immigrant in New York City who was shot and killed on February 4, 1999 by four New York City Police Department plain-clothed officers: Sean Carroll, Richard Murphy, Edward McMellon and Kenneth Boss. The four officers fired a total of 41 shots...
case brought the Giuliani response "Either you don't read the newspapers carefully enough or you're so prejudiced and biased that you block out the truth"; a query about parking privileges for a well-to-do firm received "Well, let me give you another view of that rather than the sort of Marxist class concept that you’re introducing"; a question about flag handling brought "Isn't there something more important that you want to ask me?"; and in commentary about dog owners who do not clean up after their pets, Giuliani said such people have "a whole host of other problems that play out in their personalities."
Sometimes the baiting went both ways. As depicted in the documentary Giuliani Time
Giuliani Time
Giuliani Time is a documentary by Kevin Keating about Rudy Giuliani, former Mayor of New York City.The Village Voice called this 2006 documentary "an incisive portrait of power seizure and class combat as it was performed, by the numbers, on the municipal level." The film contains several archival...
, Parkinson's disease
Parkinson's disease
Parkinson's disease is a degenerative disorder of the central nervous system...
patient John Hynes called Giuliani's show in January 2000 to complain about being cut off from Medicaid
Medicaid
Medicaid is the United States health program for certain people and families with low incomes and resources. It is a means-tested program that is jointly funded by the state and federal governments, and is managed by the states. People served by Medicaid are U.S. citizens or legal permanent...
after paying more than $100,000 of taxes in his life before he was disabled with the disease. Hynes accused the New York City Human Resources Administration
New York City Human Resources Administration
The New York City Human Resources Administration/Department of Social Services is a Mayoral Agency of the New York City government in charge of the majority of the city’s social services programs. HRA helps New Yorkers in need through a variety of services that promote employment and personal...
of repeatedly opening fraud investigations on him, then dropping the case for lack of evidence, only to re-open it. Hynes told Giuliani, "The biggest thing you could do to reduce crime would be to resign, sir. Crime would drop like a rock if you resigned. You're the biggest criminal in the city." Giuliani responded, "What kind of little hole are you in there, John? It sounds like you are in a little hole. JOHN! Are you okay there? You're breathing funny." Hynes replied: "No, I'm not okay. I'm sick, and you cut me off my food stamps and Medicaid several times; but I suppose you don't give a damn about that either." Giuliani replied, "There's something really wrong with you there, John. I can hear it in your voice.... Now, why don't you stay on the line. We'll take your name and your number and we'll send you psychiatric help, 'cause you seriously need it." After Hynes hung up, Giuliani continued, "Man! Look, it's a big city, and you get some real weirdos who hang out in this city, and that's what I was worried about on, uh, New Year's Eve. I wasn't, you know – I figured, the terrorist groups and all that we could keep under control – worried, but who knows what, what's living in some cave somewhere. So, uh, and John called up. John calls up from Queens, but who knows where he's from." Hynes subsequently said, "Mr. Giuliani showed a total lack of respect for all disabled people when he mocked me after I revealed that I was sick."
Sports teams
Giuliani's son Andrew first became a familiar sight by misbehaving at Giuliani's first mayoral inauguration, then with his father, five months after the inauguration when the New York RangersNew York Rangers
The New York Rangers are a professional ice hockey team based in the borough of Manhattan in New York, New York, USA. They are members of the Atlantic Division of the Eastern Conference of the National Hockey League . Playing their home games at Madison Square Garden, the Rangers are one of the...
won Game 7 of the Stanley Cup Finals
1994 Stanley Cup Finals
The 1994 Stanley Cup Final was a best-of-seven playoff series contested between the Eastern Conference champion New York Rangers and Western Conference champion Vancouver Canucks of the National Hockey League...
, as Giuliani and his son were at the game at Madison Square Garden
Madison Square Garden
Madison Square Garden, often abbreviated as MSG and known colloquially as The Garden, is a multi-purpose indoor arena in the New York City borough of Manhattan and located at 8th Avenue, between 31st and 33rd Streets, situated on top of Pennsylvania Station.Opened on February 11, 1968, it is the...
. The Rangers' Stanley Cup win in 1994—first in 54 years
Curse of 1940
The Curse of 1940, also called Dutton's Curse, was a superstitious explanation for why the New York Rangers of the National Hockey League did not win the league's championship trophy, the Stanley Cup, from 1940 to 1994.-Popular theories:...
—made Giuliani the first New York City mayor to witness a first New York sports team championship victory during their first year in office since Ed Koch
Ed Koch
Edward Irving "Ed" Koch is an American lawyer, politician, and political commentator. He served in the United States House of Representatives from 1969 to 1977 and three terms as mayor of New York City from 1978 to 1989...
when the New York Yankees
New York Yankees
The New York Yankees are a professional baseball team based in the The Bronx, New York. They compete in Major League Baseball in the American League's East Division...
, of which Rudy Giuliani is an enthusiastic fan, won the 1978 World Series
1978 World Series
-Game 1:Tuesday, October 10, 1978 at Dodger Stadium in Los Angeles, CaliforniaWith Yankee ace Ron Guidry unavailable at least until Game 3, the Dodgers pounded twenty-game winner Ed Figueroa. Figueroa left after two innings, allowing home runs to Dusty Baker and Davey Lopes. Lopes would add a...
.
Then father and son were often seen at Yankees games. Giuliani has also been to games of the New York Mets
New York Mets
The New York Mets are a professional baseball team based in the borough of Queens in New York City, New York. They belong to Major League Baseball's National League East Division. One of baseball's first expansion teams, the Mets were founded in 1962 to replace New York's departed National League...
as well, including their season openers in 1996
1996 New York Mets season
The New York Mets' 1996 season was the 35th regular season for the Mets. They went 71-91 and finished 4th in the NL East. They were managed by Dallas Green and Bobby Valentine...
, when he threw out the ceremonial first pitch along with the Governor of New York
Governor of New York
The Governor of the State of New York is the chief executive of the State of New York. The governor is the head of the executive branch of New York's state government and the commander-in-chief of the state's military and naval forces. The officeholder is afforded the courtesy title of His/Her...
George Pataki
George Pataki
George Elmer Pataki is an American politician who was the 53rd Governor of New York. A member of the Republican Party, Pataki served three consecutive four-year terms from January 1, 1995 until December 31, 2006.- Early life :...
, and in 1998
1998 New York Mets season
The New York Mets' 1998 season was the 37th regular season for the Mets. They finished the season with a record of 88-74. Despite placing 2nd in the National League East, the Mets fell one game short of playoff contention following a catastrophic collapse during the final week of the season. They...
, and when the Mets hosted the first professional sporting event in New York since September 11, 2001. Giuliani said about rooting for the Mets: "I'm a Yankee fan overall, but I root for the Mets in the National League, certainly against the (Philadelphia) Phillies
Philadelphia Phillies
The Philadelphia Phillies are a Major League Baseball team. They are the oldest continuous, one-name, one-city franchise in all of professional American sports, dating to 1883. The Phillies are a member of the Eastern Division of Major League Baseball's National League...
(Mets' primary rivals)."
On May 8, 2007, the Village Voice published a feature questioning whether Giuliani might have received gifts from the New York Yankees
New York Yankees
The New York Yankees are a professional baseball team based in the The Bronx, New York. They compete in Major League Baseball in the American League's East Division...
baseball team that violated a city ordinance against receipt of gifts by public officials. The gifts possibly included tickets, souvenirs, and World Series
World Series
The World Series is the annual championship series of Major League Baseball, played between the American League and National League champions since 1903. The winner of the World Series championship is determined through a best-of-seven playoff and awarded the Commissioner's Trophy...
championship ring
Championship ring
A championship ring is a ring presented to members of winning teams in professional sports leagues, and—in North America—college tournaments. In recent years, it has become common for American, and Canadian high schools to give championship rings to teams that win the state or provincial...
s from , , , and . However, the Yankees' public relations firm produced documents that the rings were sold to Giuliani for a total of $16,000 in 2003 and 2004, although this departs from usual industry practice. The article further questioned whether Giuliani properly reported these gifts or paid any necessary taxes on the gifts. The rings have been estimated to have a market value of $200,000, and the tickets to box and Legends seats a value of $120,000. Much of this information was substantiated by a subsequent May 12 New York Times report. The New York Times described Giuliani's role during his mayoral term as "First Fan" and "the team's landlord," providing the public Yankee Stadium
Yankee Stadium
Yankee Stadium was a stadium located in The Bronx in New York City, New York. It was the home ballpark of the New York Yankees from 1923 to 1973 and from 1976 to 2008. The stadium hosted 6,581 Yankees regular season home games during its 85-year history. It was also the former home of the New York...
to the franchise for a rent lower than that paid by residents of the adjacent St. Mary's public housing project.
Jury duty
In August 1999, Giuliani served as jury foreman for a civil suit; he is believed to be the first sitting mayor of New York to have served on a jury. The case concerned a HarlemHarlem
Harlem is a neighborhood in the New York City borough of Manhattan, which since the 1920s has been a major African-American residential, cultural and business center. Originally a Dutch village, formally organized in 1658, it is named after the city of Haarlem in the Netherlands...
couple who alleged that their building's supervisor improperly maintained the facilities, resulting in the man's genitals being burned by the shower, which hurt their sexual life and ultimately caused their marriage to break down; the jury denied their claim.
See also
- Political positions of Rudy GiulianiPolitical positions of Rudy GiulianiBelow are remarks and positions of Rudy Giuliani, former candidate for the Republican nomination for President of the United States.An August 2006 poll from Rasmussen Reports showed that the American public perceives Giuliani overall to be a moderate...
- September 11, 2001 attacksSeptember 11, 2001 attacksThe September 11 attacks The September 11 attacks The September 11 attacks (also referred to as September 11, September 11th or 9/119/11 is pronounced "nine eleven". The slash is not part of the pronunciation...
- William J. BrattonWilliam J. BrattonWilliam Joseph "Bill" Bratton CBE is an American law enforcement officer who served as the chief of police of the Los Angeles Police Department , New York City Police Commissioner, and Boston Police Commissioner....
(former Police Commissioner of New York City) - Rudy CrewRudy CrewRudolph F. "Rudy" Crew is professor of Clinical Education at the University of Southern California's Rossier School of Education. He is a former Superintendent of Miami-Dade County Public Schools...
(former Chancellor of Public Schools) - Bernard KerikBernard KerikBernard Bailey "Bernie" Kerik is a former New York City Police Commissioner, Secretary of Homeland Security nominee, and now a federal felon. Kerik was New York City Police Commissioner from 2000 to 2001, under Mayor Rudy Giuliani. In December 2004, President George W. Bush nominated Kerik as...
(former Police Commissioner of New York City) - Howard SafirHoward SafirHoward Safir was New York City Fire Commissioner from 1994 to 1996 and New York City Police Commissioner from 1996 to 2000.Safir was appointed New York City's 29th Fire Commissioner of the City of New York by Mayor Rudolph W...
(former Police Commissioner of New York City) - Peter Vallone (former Speaker of New York City Council)
- Thomas Von EssenThomas Von EssenThomas Von Essen was appointed the 30th FDNY Commissioner of the City of New York by Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani on April 15, 1996 and served in that position until the end of the Giuliani Administration on December 31, 2001, nearly four months after the September 11, 2001 attacks.In 2002 he was...
(former Fire Commissioner of New York City)