From the "Is There Life After ----?" File: Former NY City Council Speaker Christine Quinn

Former Speaker Christine Quinn back on the steps of City Hall on Tuesday, looking relaxed and apparently sounding so too. "Life is good," she said.

"The former City Council speaker and failed Democratic mayoral candidate said she has passed the last several months enjoying time with her wife, Kim Catullo, and resting at the New Jersey shore."

-- from "Christine Quinn: 'Life is good',"
by AM New York's Emily Ngo

by Ken

Probably there was a day when, pretty much en masse, her phone number was lost by erstwhile gladhanders throughout the five boroughs of NYC. And when she makes calls now to anyone but friends and relatives, she's probably not shocked when they aren't returned lickety-split. Nevertheless, all in all, there may be compensations to suddenly stepping -- or being pushed --- out of the limelight.

Since the City Council speakership is a relatively recent position, there isn't much in the way of history or precedents for its exes. And now with the advent of term limits, the process has been almost comically speeded up, so that the fall from power may not be that much more precipitous that the rise to it.

Not that the job carries immense power. Mostly it's exercising the option to make the mayor's life either easier or harder. But there's enough power -- what with stuff like heavy influence over committee assignments and chairmanships (which inevitably includes influence over the flow of money) as well as the legislative agenda that: (a) people covet the job, even knowing it can't be a long-term deal, and (b) other people covet access to the holder of the job.

Plus, at least in theory, there's the city-wide visibility to thrust the speaker into the thick of contention for higher office, meaning of course the mayoralty. Again, there isn't much precedent to fall back on, but there aren't a lot of other jobs toward which the Council speakership seems a likely stepping stone. And indeed, for a good part of the administration of "Mayor Mike" Bloomberg, Speaker Quinn's name topped most lists of possible successors in the event that Mayor Mike was ever pried out of City Hall. For the mayor that meant an impossibly difficult balancing act between remaining safely within the orbit of the mayor's benevolence and yet establishing herself as Not Mayor Mike.

In the end, as we know, that all didn't work out so well. And while this may just be me, I'm imagining that after the frenzy of those last few years, it must have come as more a relief than anything to escape back to the real world. I don't recall even heareing her name mentioned before yesterday, and for her, dramatic as the fall from the heights may have been, this may not be such a bad thing.

Where has Quinn been? According to AM New York's Emily Ngo, she said "she has passed the last several months enjoying time with her wife, Kim Catullo, and resting at the New Jersey shore." Mind you, I didn't see her brief public appearance yesterday, and I'm probably reading a certain amount into what I read about it, but it struck me that Quinn seemed, well, relaxed, which certainly wouldn't describe most of her time as speaker, in particular the last couple of years.

AM New York
Christine Quinn: 'Life is good'

By EMILY NGO August 19, 2014

Christine Quinn returned to the political spotlight Tuesday for the first time since her last City Council meeting in December, saying, "Life is good."

She led a news conference on the steps of City Hall about the newly formed Women's Equality Party and later said she was doing so at Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo's request.

The former City Council speaker and failed Democratic mayoral candidate said she has passed the last several months enjoying time with her wife, Kim Catullo, and resting at the New Jersey shore.

"It feels great to be back. I got to see a bunch of friends I haven't seen in a while," Quinn said. "It's great to be here with such an important issue and to support such great candidates."
City Councilman Mark Weprin (D-Hollis Hills) greeted her mid-news conference with a "Welcome home!"

Quinn said she has stayed busy serving some nonprofit organizations boards, joking that she loves "torturing those poor executive directors. I think they all regret having ever asked me to be on the board. ... Life is good."

Prompted by reporters, she weighed in on recent local political news. She called successor, City Council Speaker Melissa Mark-Viverito, "brave" for going public with her HPV concerns and added that Mark-Viverito is compelling more women to get screened.

Quinn said she reimbursed taxpayers for political and personal use of her city-issued car and driver when she was in office. She would not say whether she believes Mayor Bill de Blasio should do so. De Blasio has faced criticism for sticking the city with his subway and out-of-town travel bills when he travels for business or with an NYPD-mandated escort.

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