Polanco Pushes for Public Advocate (includes NY1 video Interview) – NY1, September 14, 2017 http://www.ny1.com/nyc/all-boroughs/inside-city-hall/2017/09/14/polanco-pushes-for-public- advocate.html Polanco Unveils First Ad – “Fair Shot” (60-second video ad) http://us16.campaign-archive2.com/?u=200ee57629c1c0d742be4f436&id=718bd68768 Polanco Unveils 1st Ad – “Fair Shot” – Bronx Chronicle, September 18, 2017 http://thebronxchronicle.com/2017/09/18/polanco-unveils-1st-ad-fair-shot/ J.C. Polanco releases first video ad of his campaign for NYC Public Advocate 60-second spot introduces Public Advocate candidate to voters, highlights priorities J.C. Polanco, the Republican and Reform Party candidate for New York City Public Advocate, today unveiled his first TV ad entitled “Fair Shot.” In the powerful new spot, Polanco, describes growing up in a tough Bronx neighborhood and how fatherly guidance emphasizing personal responsibility and education enabled Polanco to reach great heights in his education, career and life. The second half of the ad highlights key priorities for Polanco – supporting school choice and charter schools; demanding subway improvements and accountability; protecting abused children; and fighting plans to put jails in residential neighborhoods. “I’m running for New York City Public Advocate because we need someone who will fight for the people, not the special interests,” Polanco says in the ad. “I never forgot where I came from, and I’ll never forget the people like me who just want a fair shot, and someone who will fight for them.” Polanco is running against incumbent Democrat, Letitia James. Max & Murphy Podcast: Public Advocate Candidate JC Polanco (Podcast interview) – Gotham Gazette, September 19, 2017 http://www.gothamgazette.com/city/7201-max-murphy-podcast-public-advocate-candidate-jc-polanco JC Polanco, a Republican running for Public Advocate, joined Max & Murphy to discuss his candidacy, explaining a variety of policy proposals and his overall mission to reform the position itself to give it more power, funding, and teeth. Polanco is attempting to run a campaign on issues and policy, like his proposals to allow some NYCHA residents the opportunity to buy their apartments and expand charter schools, but he is also criticizing incumbent Letitia James, a Democrat seeking reelection, for not being a tough enough voice in holding Mayor de Blasio and the City Council accountable. Discussing his attempts to unseat James in a very Democratic city where it is challenging to get people to even pay attention to the race for public advocate, Polanco explained that "this is not uphill, this is Mount Everest," and again acknoweldged how hard it is to raise money, in part because he is "not your average, run of the mill Republican" and has not been a supporter of Donald Trump. Listen to the full conversation and let us know what you think -- we're on Twitter @TweetBenMax and @jarrettmurphy. You can hear the episode through the embedded audio below or download it wherever you get your podcasts. Republican Seeking City’s No. 2 Slot Has Big Ideas, Faces Uphill Battle – City Limits, September 18, 2017 https://citylimits.org/2017/09/18/republican-seeking-citys-no-2-slot-has-big-ideas-faces-uphill-battle/ In his bid to unseat Democrat and incumbent Public Advocate Letitia James, Bronx Republican J.C. Polanco faces a huge fundraising disparity, a large party-registration disadvantage and little in the way of promising electoral history in seeking a post the GOP has never come close to winning. But while he lacks political resources, he does not want for ideas. Polanco characterizes his views as “moderate,” although some are fairly conservative by local standards. “There’s a monopoly of ideas from the far left in the city today,” he says. He believes the public advocate should have control over the child-welfare and homeless-services systems. He wants the state to introduce early voting and voter IDs. He supports expanding charter schools and does not want to close Rikers Island in favor of neighborhood jails (“The last thing I want our kids to see on the way to school is a jail.”). He wants the city to offer more detailed records on who’s lobbying whom and why, supports creation of a confidential database of the severely mentally ill, and thinks NYCHA should privatize public housing by giving residents the chance to buy their own apartments. “You need a public advocate who thinks outside the box,” he says. An attorney and former teacher who served as president of the city’s Board of Elections and is now the regional director for the minority conference in the state Assembly, Polanco publicly opposed his party’s 2016 presidential nominee. He has $9,000 in his campaign war chest against the $325,000 in James’s arsenal; she won election in 2013 with 83 percent of the vote. The office of public advocate was first elected in 1993, when Democrat Mark Green won with 60 percent of the vote. Since them, the Democratic candidate has never won less than 74 percent of the ballots. In a conversation with Gotham Gazette’s Ben Max and City Limits’s Jarrett Murphy, Polanco discuss the challenge, his vision for the job (he thinks Green’s approach to the post is the one he’d most closely emulate) and how he fits in with the national Republican party. Public Advocate Candidate Outlines Election Reform Agenda – Gotham Gazette, August 25, 2017 http://www.gothamgazette.com/city/7154-public-advocate-candidate-outlines-election-reform-agenda With candidates vying for votes ahead of New York City’s September primary and November general elections, many in and around campaigns know that the state’s antiquated election laws will, in part, ensure that a small percentage of potential voters will cast ballots among limited choices. One candidate, Juan Carlos Polanco, known as J.C., is currently the presumptive Republican nominee for Public Advocate and has released an extensive package of proposed reforms to New York voting laws. As a former member of the New York City Board of Elections (BOE), Polanco has had personal experience with the system that certifies candidates and runs elections. In a document provided to Gotham Gazette and subsequent phone conversation, Polanco outlined plans he believes will update, improve, and secure elections in New York through a combination of legislative changes, ballot referendums, and even changes to the state constitution. “We have to really take a look at our election system and we have to modernize it,” said Polanco, who is eyeing a likely general election matchup with incumbent Letitia James, a Democrat. Polanco is putting forward 10 proposals, some of which – like expanding the BOE’s reporting in the twice-yearly Mayor’s Management Report (MMR), which details performance of city agencies based on delivery of services – would be relatively easy shifts, and others – like instituting nonpartisan elections and starting a statewide voter identification program – would be fundamental reexaminations of voting in New York that would be very difficult to enact. Among the former group, in addition to the MMR initiative, Polanco calls for forwarding of voter death and new address data to the BOE from city and state agencies, a new procedure for a nationwide search of the board’s executive director, and an increased budget for the agency to help it run the expanded programs. The latter group are likely to be much more controversial; chief among them a proposal from Polanco for a statewide “free and fair voter identification program,” which the candidate framed as a compromise for including early voting and and no-fault absentee voting. Polanco explained that free identifications would be arranged by the BOE using its central voter registration database and then be distributed through municipalities for free to voters who did not otherwise have a valid ID. He could not provide a cost estimate, and when asked why such a program was necessary when research has shown that voter fraud is almost nonexistent, he said there were two schools of thought on voter fraud. “One is the [President Donald Trump] school, that 3 million people voted illegally in the election. Absolutely not. That’s an extreme view. Then we have the other extreme that no voter fraud happens. And that’s ridiculous,” Polanco said. He insisted that voters who turned up without IDs would not be disenfranchised, as they could fill out affidavit ballots – currently used by voters who arrive at polls to find they’re not on the rolls – that would be counted later if valid. Another proposed change for voters would be the early voting provisions, which would have to be approved in the unsympathetic Republican-controlled state Senate. The plan would allow New York City residents to vote one week before the election, and to vote absentee without having to prove inability to vote in person, which is currently required for absentee ballots. Polanco wants to change not only how New Yorkers vote but who they can vote for, by providing free legal counsel to candidates participating in the Campaign Finance Board’s public matching funds program who raise less than $10,000, and easing restrictions on ballot access for candidates. “Candidates are getting kicked off the ballot after spending all summer campaigning and collecting petitions, and they’re getting kicked off for the most ridiculous reasons,” said Polanco, citing issues like having a slightly incorrect petition number listed on a cover sheet. Indeed, various candidates have been kept off or taken off the ballot for multiple city races this cycle, including one of two final candidates for the Republican mayoral nomination. Unlike other populous cities like Los Angeles and Chicago, New York has a partisan election system where only voters registered to a particular party may vote in that party’s closed primary; that arrangement generally means that viable candidates tend to be selected only by the city’s registered partisans with one of the two major parties.