In 2003, when Mayor Mike Bloomberg’s Charter Revision Commission proposed replacing New York City’s primary system with nonpartisan elections, I stood firmly on the front lines of opposition.
As a longtime union champion and then-president of the New York State AFL-CIO, the decision then was clear. Party organizations were strong, our legislative allies were aligned, and labor held significant influence within the primary process. Opposing a top-down referendum from a politically appointed mayoral commission was an easy call.
But politics, workforces and communities do not stand still. Over the past two decades, I’ve spoken with rank-and-file members, young workers, neighbors, and my own family and seen a profound shift in how New Yorkers view political participation.
The numbers reflect what we are seeing on the ground. Since 2003, unaffiliated voters in New York City have climbed 70%, surpassing 1.1 million people. One out of every three net voters added to the rolls chose not to join any political party. Nearly half of these independent voters are under 40. They represent the future, yet under our current system, they are shut out of the primary elections that determine who governs our city.
Young, working people no longer feel represented by traditional party apparatuses. While many choose to register as independents, others halfheartedly join a party out of family tradition or because they feel it is the only option they have to participate. The result is a small, hyper-engaged fraction of the electorate deciding our city’s leadership in low-turnout primaries.
When more than a million New Yorkers — including a large number of union members — are locked out of the most decisive round of voting, working families lose their voice.
My evolution comes down to a simple truth I’ve learned over a lifetime in organized labor: the more people who participate in an election, the better.
The effort by Unite NY the city is currently contesting is fundamentally different from 2003. It’s not some top-down maneuver by a politically appointed commission. It is a citizen-led effort powered by tens of thousands of New Yorkers who signed petitions to put this question on the ballot.
We’ve implemented major election reforms before — from public campaign financing to ranked choice voting. The rules governing citizen initiatives should work the same for everyday people as they do for politicians, not subject to nitpicky court challenges. When citizens bring a proposal forward, the voters themselves deserve the opportunity to weigh in at the ballot box.
Having started my career at the AFL-CIO as a political director, I know firsthand the power of a strong field operation. Unions have never been afraid of hard work — we know how to organize, ring doorbells, and speak directly to voters on their doorsteps. Open primaries don’t shrink labor’s influence or restrict political power; they open the field. When more voters and union members are eligible to participate, unions have a larger audience of working-class New Yorkers to engage and mobilize.
An open, top-three primary system paired with ranked choice voting gives every voter a seat at the table and lowers the temperature in our political discourse. It rewards candidates who build coalitions of working people rather than cater to one side.
New York is at its best when its democracy is accessible, dynamic, and inclusive. Moving to an open primary system is a commonsense step toward a more representative city government — one where every working New Yorker gets an equal say in the future of the city they build every day.
Hughes is the former president of the New York State AFL-CIO and former chairman of the Board of Directors of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York.