November 5, 2009

I've got a new piece up at City Journal on Tuesday's sensational Westchester County upset, in which GOP challenger Rob Astorino knocked off Andy Spano, the longtime Democratic incumbent county executive, by a convincing 58-42 percent margin. Taxes were a key issue, but so was the county's consent to what was billed as a landmark housing-reform settlement in which it agreed to arm-twist affluent towns into accepting low-income housing. Many Westchester residents were wary of the potential consequences -- and downright insulted when Spano suggested that to resist the lawsuit further would be to make the generally liberal-leaning county a "symbol of racism".

The federally brokered settlement is itself of interest far beyond Westchester, if only as the occasion of a truly remarkable rhetorical flourish from an Obama Administration official, HUD deputy secretary Ron Sims: "It's time to remove zip codes as a factor in the quality of life in America." It was also hailed at once in some quarters as a model for similar legal action against other suburban jurisdictions considered guilty of not being hospitable enough to low-income housing. The Westchester voter revolt, I argue in the piece, may serve as a signal to local officials elsewhere to fight, rather than roll over, when the social engineers and their lawyers come knocking.