Diana Johnson

The first African-American judge elected to the Brooklyn Surrogate Court—Diana Johnson—was the subject of graffiti found spray painted inside the Brooklyn Courthouse this morning, confirmed a spokesman for Brooklyn Borough President Marty Markowitz.

The graffiti, found inside an elevator in the courthouse, referenced Johnson and the n-word, according to two readers.

Al Sharpton, Johnson, Markowitz, and others are planning to hold press conference at Borough Hall in Brooklyn at 2 p.m.  read more »

It was a split decision yesterday for Brooklyn Democratic County Leader Vito Lopez, who backed one winning judicial candidate (Noach Dear) and one losing judicial candidate (Shawndya Simpson) in yesterday’s primaries.

It was a mixed result in another way, too: Dear was panned by the New York City Bar Association and the New York Times, Lopez’s other judicial candidate won more support from those same institutions.

So, how should we interpret yesterday’s results, in terms of the Brooklyn party organization?

Democratic consultant Scott Levenson, who has won his share of races in that borough, told me last night,

“It’s not just machine politics in Brooklyn. Thinking voters voted for an under-funded candidate with less name recognition [Diana Johnson] because she was more qualified and not the machine candidate. Other insurgent candidates will take notice.”

Another observer of the political scene, who prefers to go by the name Kilgore Trout, emailed me this morning to say,

“I think that this proves that Brooklyn is completely up for grabs by the non institutional players. Neither the Times nor the party hold enough sway to be deciding factors these days.”

Also: after the jump is a roundup of how a handful of brave politicos did in guessing last night’s election results.  read more »

Here's one of the petitions currently circulating throughout Brooklyn, where, as you can tell, a number of judicial races are taking place. A reader who passed it along said the candidate at the bottom of the petition, Diana Johnson, who is running for the Surrogate's Court, is now joined by another "insurgent" against the county-backed candidate in that race.

More analysis of that race once I actually get in touch with this reader who, for the moment, isn't answering their cell phone. (Must be on vacation.) 

 

 

 

 

 

This year's central battleground between Brooklyn regulars and insurgents, the fight over the Surrogate seat, appeared to have been won by the outsiders' candidate, Margarita Lopez Torres. But now the appellate division has reversed a lower court decision, and ordered the opening of about 1,000 more paper ballots that could swing the candidate backed by the Court Street insiders, Diana Johnson. It's one of the most important, and under-rated, public jobs in town, with a 14 year term and broad power over estate-law related matters, so the stakes are high. Expect some serious Daily News fulminations.  read more »

A couple more names of possible Brooklyn Democratic chiefs have surfaced from our Brooklyn correspondents.

Amazing how many people want what is, perhaps, the worst job in American politics.

Anyway, Assemblyman Vito Lopez is apparently telling people he has 18 of the required 21 votes sewn up. He's a North Brooklyn powerhouse, but possibly not exactly the face of reform some in the party are looking for.

Meanwhile, some of the African-American pols, displeased at the notion that neither a surrogate judge, district attorney, nor county leader in this very black borough will be black, are pushing on two fronts: they'd like to see Annette Robinson as county leader and Diana Johnson, who appears to have lost the race for one surrogate slot, annointed the other surrogate.  read more »

Just the sort of transparent and high-minded process that will restore the good name of the Brooklyn County Democratic Organization. (Wait. Did it ever have a good name?)