NYC Reporters Sharing the Burden On Paid Sick Leave Deal With Bill de Blasio

A lot has been said about Christine Quinn's dominating the political discourse now that she has compromised and taken a lead on passing the sick pay leave bill, especially after Mike Bloomberg vowed to veto it. 

There is also no doubt that no one lost more from this deal than it's main advocate: Bill de Blasio. As Chris Bragg writes: "Now, he has to make a very complicated argument to voters—that the deal didn't go far enough—even as both advocates and opponents have largely been co-opted into supporting the final agreement. Who in the media is going to pay attention to his attacks against Ms. Quinn on the issue now? And what other clear points of policy difference are there between Mr. de Blasio and Ms. Quinn that could animate the progressive base Mr. de Blasio is counting on? And with 32BJ likely going into Ms. Quinn's camp, his chances of landing the key Working Families Party endorsement are looking slimmer."

However, Mr. de Blasio is not alone this weekend. Unfortuantely the New York City political reporters are equal in sharing the sacrifice of the deal, argues Chris Bragg in Crains The Insider Blog. "With the most divisive policy issue in the Democratic primary off the table, the race just got less interesting for ink-stained scribes," he writes. "Barring some sort of major scandal, Ms. Quinn has cemented her place as the clear frontrunner."

As a matter of fact, realistically, I wouldn't close the deal at this point. de Blasio still has a lot of ground to make up. Quinn has a ceiling she has not managed to crack as of now. But in terms of political point scoring, there's no doubt that Mr. de Blasio has dealt a real blow, and will have to press forward an agenda that would create some daylight between him and Quinn who share the same base of voters.