NYC Common Sense released the following statement regarding the first public hearing of the Commission on Government Efficiency (COGE):
“Rejecting open primaries out of hand is a deliberate effort to disenfranchise more than one million New Yorkers who are already shut out of the elections that determine who represents them. Already under consideration by the previous Charter Revision Commission, dismissing it without debate would be anti-democratic and the antithesis of efficient.
“New Yorkers should also be clear-eyed about what ‘COGE’ really is — a thinly veiled nod to the Trump administration’s DOGE, which eliminated nearly 300,000 federal jobs and inflicted real hardship on dedicated civil servants and their families. City workers deserve assurances that they are not in the crosshairs.”