“Whatever the government does, it has to have a rational basis, connected to a legitimate government interest. And, I don’t know what the legitimate government interest is in getting rid of the horse carriage industry.” – Norman Siegel, attorney for the New York Carriage Trade.
I’ve been waiting some time to see Norman Siegel, one of the country’s most prominent civil rights attorneys and the lawyer for the New York Carriage Trade, step forward and articulate what is by far the strongest argument for the survival of the New York Carriage Trade: the mayor’s proposals are neither rational nor legitimate.
I support the carriage trade, but I am not on their team.
We differ in many significant ways. I am hundreds of miles away from the drivers, and while I talk to them often and see them occasionally, I am not one of them. I resent it when people tell me what to do or think, I am reluctant to tell anybody else what to do or thing.
But I hope they go to court, and do it soon. The mayor may just get them there. It is never easy to file lawsuits, and hard to win them. But the mayor seems to be helping out, providing the specific grounds for a strong case. Norman Siegel may well be the angel they have been waiting for.
I think the mayor has given the carriage trade its greatest gift yet by trying to ram a noxious cripple-the-carriage-trade deal down the throats of the City Council. The mayor has overdone his heavy hand, he has forced this collection of tribal and diverse and quarrelsome people to begin the grasp the awful truth that hovers over this tortuous and deeply disturbing controversy.
I talked with a well-known New York attorney this morning who has handled a number of cases related to regulation and government. He asked that he not be identified.
“This is a gross violation of government authority,” he said, “the mayor has outlined no public interest in persecuting a legal and regulated industry in this way. They should have had him in court six months ago, and don’t let anybody fool you – he will run for his life before he will tell any lawyer under oath how all of this happened. Remember, he’s already running for President.”
The city has the right to regulate the carriage trade under the law, but the regulations must be rational. They must, as Siegel told reporters last night, demonstrate a legitimate and clear government interest. The carriage trade has put up with this irrational assault on their freedom and sustenance for years now.
This week, it is becoming clear to everyone that it’s time to stop and fight, as it has perhaps been for a good while. They will never negotiate a rational settlement or understanding with this mayor, and these animal rights organizations.
This is what the courts are for in part. To protect the rights of citizens to equal justice under the law and due process.
I have always thought the carriage trade and the Teamsters believed that somehow, they could maneuver, politic, lobby or hide until their profoundly irrational and possibly corrupt mayor goes away or is somehow defeated, many of the drivers are from Ireland, they believe in fairies. And to be fair, it looked for a time as if that approach had succeeded.
Maybe they thought the fairies would sweep away the animal rights people, and the most powerful politician in the city, all of whom have vowed to destroy them. I think the fairies have done them another favor, awakened them to stopping this travesty once and for all.
I think this week they are now seeing the inescapable truth, as I am, as everyone is.
Benjamin Franklin said that justice will never be served until those who are unaffected are as outraged as those who are. I am outraged by the relentless and cruel attack on the carriage trade and the carriage horses, even though I live hundreds of miles away and am not affected by the outcome.
Many others are outraged as well.
From the beginning it has been crystal clear to almost everyone that the mayor and city government has no legitimate or rational interest in banning the carriage horses and destroying a legitimate, profitable, immensely popular and law-abiding business that has existed in the city for more than 150 years.
Absent clear and compelling evidence of extreme abuse and neglect of the horses – there is none – it is none of the mayor’s business how the carriage trade and the horses interact with one another. It is not for the city to impose repressive rules and regulations for no reason and put people out of work and horses in danger.
The mayor is lying when he says the horses are unsafe, or are slowing or clogging traffic on the streets. There are plenty of cars to do that, and he has no interest in banning or restricting any of them. And unlike the horses, cars and trucks do kill people in New York City, every single day.
The city and it’s citizens are in no way being harmed by the existence of this industry. The horse draw many tourists, generate millions of dollars in business and taxes. The carriage trade has by a staggering margin the best safety record of any public conveyance in the city. At least a dozen of most respected veterinarians in the country have traveled to New York and pronounced the horses healthy and content and well and lovingly cared for.
As of this writing, no carriage driver is charged with abuse, the carriage trade has broken no law, violated no regulations, harmed no citizens.
The carriage trade is perhaps the most regulated business in the history of New York City. Five different agencies oversee the horses care. None of them have lodged a single complaint against the industry in recent memory. There are thousands of complaints lodged annually against the restaurant industry, where people eat food, or against landlords, where people live.
What then, is the rational basis or legitimate government interest in the mayor’s fanatic pursuit of the horses, beyond the fact the mayor was paid to support the banning of them?
The mayor has never owned a dog or cat, never ridden in a horse carriage, can’t remember when he was even last in Central Park. There is no record in all of his long and very active public career of a single mention of the carriage horses or any other animal or animal rights issue.
He runs for mayor in 2010 and NYClass, the group spearheading the horse ban (and run by a real estate developer and supporter of the mayor), spends a million dollars to defeat the mayor’s primary opponent, then gives the mayor hundreds of thousands of additional dollars, violating city campaign finance laws along the way. His campaign is no longer struggling.
The mayor then stuns even his most loyal supporters by saying banning the horses is his “number one” priority in a city with some of the world’s most intractable and complex urban problems. Two thirds of the city’s residents oppose his idea to ban the horses, so does every newspaper in the city, labor unions, business groups and every respected equine or animal veterinary group in the country.
The mayor doesn’t care, he says that doesn’t matter.
The mayor insists it is inhumane and immoral for horses to pull carriages in New York, or even exist in New York City.
The mayor’s ban proposal is rejected so soundly the city council won’t even vote on it.
A few months later, the mayor abruptly approaches the city council and begins aggressively negotiating what he says is a deal to move the horses to Central Park (at a cost of roughly $25 million dollars, says the New York Times). The Teamsters Union is enchanted by the idea of a taxpayer-funded stables in the park – who wouldn’t be?, but runs in horror when they read the fine print. It soon becomes clear that the mayor is asking the carriage trade to negotiate itself out of existence, he is negotiating to ban them in a new and different way, and at taxpayer’s expense.
It seems to many people that what is called for is a Grand Jury, not a City Council hearing.
If the trade is inhumane and immoral, of course, then why should it be moved at public expensive and considerable conflict to the city’s most prized jewel of a park so that they can be inhumane and immoral there?
Since there is no public health or safety or other rational interest that the mayor has ever articulated, why then, should city taxpayers spent at least $25 million to honor what is apparent to everyone is a campaign promise at best, a bribe at worst?
The founder of the Central Park Conservancy, who began and oversaw the great renovation of the park decades ago, said last night this was a horrible idea and misuse of precious park land. She said it should never happen and will never happen.
The carriage trade people do not like public fights or complex and expensive legal battles. Neither would I. They just want to work in the park with their horses as they and their grandparents have for generations. Many came to America to escape this kind of arbitrary persecution and are shocked to be the target of it here.
They simply want to run their business and lead their individualist and instinctive lives. They buy houses, pay taxes, send their kids to college.
It is way past time for the lawyers, and for the courts. Government exists to protect the freedom and property of citizens, not to remove them for arbitrary, even dishonest, reasons. Their choice is to be pecked to death or confront this injustice squarely and ask for help.
Many citizens and animal lovers all over the country are not directly affected but are outraged, this is a dreadful precedent for almost all of us in many important ways. It should be confronted directly and forcefully, it can’t be handled or danced around, the mayor will succeed with a thousand cuts what he can’t do with a single blow.
The mayor is both fanatical and irrational for whatever reasons, he has given the carriage trade the gift of making that perfectly clear. There is help for the carriage trade if they need it.
No one in the whole spectrum of New York City politics and culture is defending this grotesque and troubling campaign – not the drivers, not the unions, not the tourists or city residents, not the newspapers or business associations, not the city residents, not the people who run Central Park, not the people who love to see the horses, not the advocates who represent the taxpayers, not the vast majority of animal lovers, not even his fellow fanatics in the animal rights movement.
So what is the rationale? What is the legitimate interest of government here?
The carriage trade has hired Siegel and Ron Kuby, experienced and savvy lawyers, they have both spoken out clearly against this latest effort to disembowel and legal and much-loved industry in a city being overpowered by greedy and money and cars and condos.
I think the trade will one day be grateful to Mayor deBlasio for this new round of transparently insincere abuse of power, I believe he may have awakened them, set them on the path that will truly guarantee their survival and protect their rights, which are, after all, our rights and the rights of the horses as well.