MANHATTAN DA | Liz Crotty on June 22

Liz Crotty for DA, June 22

The Democratic Primary in New York is on June 22. This primary will determine who will be on the Democratic line in November.

One of the positions up for a vote is Manhattan District Attorney. The incumbent, Cy Vance, has announced he is not going to run again. He has his hands full finishing up some high-profile cases.

This post is an endorsement of a candidate for the Manhattan DA nomination, Liz Crotty.

I am posting this endorsement for two reasons. 

First, I attended the endorsement meeting of my local club and I was not given an opportunity to vote. I still don’t understand how that happened. But it means I am a free agent here, which is a good thing, because I strongly support Liz Crotty.

Second, I have known Liz for many years and I think highly of her. She grew up in Stuyvesant Town, an egalitarian complex on the east side of Manhattan near Baruch College, where I used to be an assistant professor of finance. She is the centrist in this primary and I wish we had more candidates who were prepared to take that stance.

I got to know New York City pretty well in the mid-1970s through the mid-2000s as a finance professor, then the CEO of an urban-policy think tank, and then chief economist for three New York City Comptrollers. Liz Crotty grew up during that period in New York City, and she knows how big an impact crime and civil unrest had on the city during that period. Liz says she experienced the scare of having to run into a Safe Haven Program store. She had to escape predatory men. Someone she knew was the victim of a stabbing.

She graduated from Fordham Law School, and in 2000, she began her six-year career at the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office when Robert Morgenthau was Manhattan DA, until 2009.

I am a fan of the Morgenthaus, father Henry and son Robert. My Dad was hired by Henry Morgenthau, Jr. via a competitive civil service exam he took in 1933. Thousands of candidates took the test, and Morgenthau hired just three hundred for the Farm Credit Administration. Morgenthau was put in charge of that agency instead of being in the cabinet as Secretary of Agriculture, because the farm lobby objected to having someone Jewish like Morgenthau heading the agency. Instead, in 1934 FDR appointed Henry Morgenthau Jr. to the position of Secretary of the Treasury (there were also objections to that appointment, but FDR by then was on a roll and paid less attention to complaints about his appointments). I am writing the biography of Henry Morgenthau’s predecessor as Secretary of the Treasury, Will Woodin.

In her six-year stint as an Assistant District Attorney, Liz served first in the Trial Division. She worked on more than three thousand cases altogether. Her Trial Division cases involved street crimes, attempted murder, kidnapping, assault, burglary, robbery, and drug sales, as well as complex crimes like forgery, grand larceny, identity theft, and money laundering. Liz was known for investigating and resolving matters—whether by trial or plea, before both judges and juries.

After serving more than four years in Trial (Bureau 70), Liz moved into the Investigation Division, expanding her legal skills. For two years in the Investigation Division, Liz worked on complex white-collar cases on the local, national, and international levels.

After leaving the Manhattan DA’s Office, Liz worked in civil law on complex international investigations and litigations, involving aviation litigation, wrongful death, negligence, and product liability.

Liz started her own criminal-law firm twelve years ago. She and her partner built a law firm that, represents people throughout New York City and around the world, to help them receive justice. Liz represents people on crimes ranging from grand larceny, fraud, assault to rape, DWI, and weapons possession. A zealous advocate who fights aggressively for her clients, Liz is also well reasoned, approachable and personable.

She can see ways to make the District Attorney’s Office perform better. However, she understands the only way to improve the office is with a practical plan. Her plan starts with ensuring the office is prioritizing every New Yorker’s hope for public safety, because each neighborhood and community needs to feel that the District Attorney’s Office is tackling their concerns. That means it must be responsive to every community in Manhattan, as well as working with the police to ensure they are protecting us with dignity and honor.

Liz is admitted to New York State Courts and the Federal Southern and Eastern Districts of the New York. She currently serves as a board member for the Manhattan District Attorney’s Association, a not-for-profit alumni organization of the Manhattan DA’s Office. In addition, she serves on the New York City Bar Association’s Judiciary Committee, evaluating judicial candidates for election. Most recently, she was a judicial delegate to the NYC Supreme Court judicial convention.

She is a trained Mediator, having completed the Mediation Training at the NY Peace Institute. In addition, she volunteers with the CFI Project, which assists recent immigrant arrivals requesting political asylum and prepares them for their credible fear interview. Liz is also a volunteer on the pro-bono panel in New York’s Southern District.

On June 22, or possibly before, I plan to vote for Liz Crotty for DA.

WOODIN | FDR's First Treasury Secretary Calms the Bank Panic

Will Woodin (2nd from right) examines a sheet of
greenbacks. He had $2 billion in banknotes printed
and then had Pathé News film them being shipped.

March 9, 2021—On this date in 1933, which was the Thursday after President Franklin D. Roosevelt's Inauguration, the Emergency Banking Relief Act was passed and signed. It may be some kind of legislative record. Congress was called into session with a few days' notice. The bill (EBRA or just EBA) was passed in the House in the first part of the day, in the Senate in the second part. It was then signed by the president.

It didn't go entirely smoothly. Copies of the bill didn't get to all the Members of Congress and it had to be read out in the House. Big pieces were yet to be added to what became the Glass-Steagall Act of 1933, including the deposit insurance (FDIC) portion promoted by Rep. Henry B. Steagall and supported by many (not all) of the banks and the fencing off of insured banks from investment bankers, which was Senator Carter Glass's biggest interest.

When they arrived the previous weekend, Roosevelt and his first Treasury Secretary, William H. Woodin, got to work, supported by the "brain trust" led by Professor Raymond Moley and by some senior people from the outgoing staff of the Treasury and the Federal Reserve System. Woodin and Moley were staying at the Mayflower Hotel, but they worked well into the night trying to nail down the procedures for opening up the banks after they were closed by the national "bank holiday." Banks were closed in all 48 states. 

Roosevelt left Secretary Woodin to handle the legislation and the details of reopening the banks. Roosevelt worked on his first Fireside Chat, which was delivered on the radio   on March 12, 1933. Announcing Woodin's plan to a fearful nation, he said:

The new law allows the twelve Federal Reserve Banks to issue additional currency on good assets and thus the banks that reopen will be able to meet every legitimate call. The new currency is being sent out by the Bureau of Engraving and Printing to every part of the country.

Woodin, as a corporate CEO for 15 years, handled the printing of $2 billion in banknotes like he would any deadline for one of his railcar factories. He was there and he worked late to make sure that all the shifts were cranking out the greenbacks. Woodin made sure that Pathé News was there to record the money coming off the presses and the trucks loading up and zooming off to the different clearinghouse banks.

People got back in line at the banks, this time to redeposit the money they had taken out. By the end of March, two-thirds of the money that had been taken out of the nation’s banks had been redeposited.