Most of them claim to be hesitant to support the bill out of concern about the legal principle involved, although it seems more likely than not that the bill could stand up to legal challenges.

Lappin asked at least two witnesses whether the Council has overridden a ballot referendum in the past (term limits were approved in two referendums in the 1990s) and once asked about the history of term-limits legislation in the Council.

Vallone and Gerson repeatedly expressed regret that they cannot put the issue on a general-election ballot because the deadline to do so for this November has passed. Without that option, they focused on the question of whether there is an inherent conflict of interest in the Council voting on legislation that will benefit most if its members. (The city Conflicts of Interest board ruled this week that Council members could vote on the legislation).

Despite the questions, it still seems likely that these members will eventually support the legislation. Gerson put his "conflict of interest" question to the pro-legislation former speaker of Council, Peter Vallone Sr. and mentioned that he's been fretting about the cost of a referendum.

Interestingly, the clearest-cut and least technical challenges to the administration's proposal came from Republican Councilman James Oddo.

When the administration asserted that a special election was undemocratic and would allow certain parties to have disproportionate influence—a nervy assertion, given the mayor's propensity to spend tens of millions of dollars in the cause of his own campaigns—Oddo pressed corporation counsel Michael Cardozo specify what parties have disproportionate influence, and how.

"What do they bring to the table that allows them to have a disproportionate voice?" he demanded. "Who are they?"

Cardozo never answered directly.

It seemed at times as if Oddo was alone in seeking to ask tough questions, rather than simply putting possible future objections on the record before casting an aye vote.

“I don’t think people want to watch a show of a woman involved in putting innocent people in jail,” said Sam Zherka, perhaps optimistically. Zherka, owner of the libertarian-leaning Westchester Guardian and the Flatiron's V.I.P. Club, helped organize the protest. 

The anti-Pirro poster boy and leader of the group is Jeffrey Deskovic, who was wrongfully convicted of rape and murder three years before Pirro became the Westchester D.A. She denied numerous appeals, and in 2006, Deskovic was exonerated, after spending 16 years in prison.

“She kept the ball rolling against me,” Mr. Deskovic said of Pirro.

Now, he would like the WB network to suffer for putting Pirro back in the limelight with Judge Jeanine Pirro, a syndicated afternoon show that sounds a lot like Judge Judy.

Most of the other protesters were Westchester civil rights activists familiar with Deskovic, who is now an activist and reporter for Zherka’s newspaper, but others had more general complaints.

“It was a little bit of everything,” said Teodoro Chavez, explaining why he took the train down from Westchester with his friend Richard Guzman. They were concerned with prosecutors in general (two people Pirro put in jail, Richard Deguglielmo and Anthony DiSimone, have since been cleared upon findings of prosecutorial misconduct) and Pirro in particular. 

“Prosecutors are overzealous,” said a New York City man named Steven who raised his poster over his face when I raised the camera. “They’re horrors!”

Judge Jeanine Pirro is the latest act in Pirro's post-Westchester career. In 2005 she launched, then aborted a bid for Hillary Clinton’s Senate seat. A year later she lost the attorney general's race to Andrew Cuomo. She is currently under investigation for wire-tapping her husband, and in February she broke her tooth during a guest spot on Fox News.

“Pirro had a future,” said Chris Guerrero, a messenger walking by the protest. “I don’t know what the heck is wrong with her now.”

Speaking to a crowd of more than 100 at the New School last night—standing room only—Critchley, a professor of philosophy, decided to present an argument that Obama's beliefs are not, in fact, rooted in the work of 18th-century French philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau. (There are people who believe otherwise, apparently.)

Obama, these Rousseau-ists say--according to Critchley--has a “sentimental, sometimes teary-eyed belief in the Constitution.”

Critchley finds this idea simplistic.

Obama's genius, the professor said, stems from detachment, not sincerity. His “inert, listless character generates in us a desire to love him.”

But not too fervently. The love for Obama, says Critchley, is a staid one, unique to liberals, who usually practice irony rather than enthusiasm.

Critchley drew a line between the "strangely restrained ecstasy" of the crowd at Obama's acceptance speech in Denver, and the "zealot’s ecstasy" that Sarah Palin inspired a week later.

“The more one reads,” said Critchley of Obama, “the more one gets a sense of opacity.”

When the question-and-answer session came around, it was clear not everyone agreed.

What about Obama’s charisma, one audience member asked.

After a pause, Critchley said, “There is a relationship between charisma and libido.”

He added that he couldn't put his “finger on it.”

Another attendee accused Critchley of overanalyzing campaign literature. (He was mainly working from The Audacity of Hope and Obama’s 2004 and 2008 convention speeches.)

Then he accused Critchley of having the intellect of “David Brooks, Maureen Dowd and Dr. Phil.” (Combined?)

“Next,” said an older woman sitting near the front. Others sighed or muttered.

“Dr. Phil,” Critchley said, “I take as a compliment.”

The audience laughed, the interlocutor surrendered his microphone, and a minute later, according to witnesses, he left.

“He looked like an undergraduate,” said one New School graduate student.

For the moment, New York City is among the few places where a supply of drinking water to a major population center is not filtered. But drilling for natural gas could change that.

For the first time, because of rising energy costs, drilling in upstate New York's vast Marcellus Shale reserves is economically feasible, and for months now, landowners and energy companies have been scrambling to secure leases and begin exploration.

So Gennaro, chair of the City Council's Environmental Protection Committee, wants the state to know what it's getting into. He's seeking a one-year moratorium on fracking while the state updates its environmental review practices.

The problem is that fracking, which requires shooting huge amounts of water mixed with sand and chemicals into the ground, creates enormous amounts of waste water, which has to be treated. Companies are not currently required to disclose the chemicals they are using.

Albany maintains that it will not allow gas companies to endanger New York City's water supply.

But Gennaro—who studied geology and environmental science before becoming a policy analyst for the Council— along with many environmental advocates, believes that drilling the Marcellus Shale, a large portion of which lies in the Catskills, will inevitably taint the water—where about 90 percent of the city's drinking supply comes from.

At the City Hall hearing, State Department of Environmental Conservation Commissioner Pete Grannis denied that there was any "emergency" to be addressed and promised not to grant permits for projects posing a threat to the city's watershed. Gennaro and several other Council members, including Speaker Christine Quinn, questioned him at length about the reviewing process.

"We'll do our job," Grannis said.

Fracking could enrich landowners upstate but it mainly poses risks for the city. If Albany fails to protect the city's water supply, Councilman John Mallone Peter Vallone Jr. asked Grannis rhetorically, "who pays for the filtration system?"

While Gennaro and advocates from as far as Colorado emphasized the inherent environmental danger of fracking, others opposed fracking with an appeal to civic pride. Quinn boasted that the city won a water-tasting contest at the State Fair last month, and one advocate argued that New York City's water should be specially protected—"like the Grand Canyon."

The city's Department of Environmental Protection—which did not attend the hearing—requests a one-mile buffer around the watershed but does not oppose fracking altogether. Even if it did, according to Gennaro, "state government could squash DEP like a bug."

Held at the downtown bar M1-5, the event's theme was "Unity '08," a reference, apparently, to bringing Democrats together (and not to the group that wanted Michael Bloomberg to run for president).

As the guests trickled in, DFNYC finance director Lewis Cohen decorated the bar with "Obama '08" signs.

"I have no doubt we will endorse," he told me.

"I think people are looking at the total candidate," said City Councilman Tony Avella, also a long-shot mayoral candidate. "He [Obama] stands for change, and we need change in the city.

"It has gotten really bad," he added. "Good legislation languishes in the Council forever."

The theme of Obama for change in City Hall ran throughout the evening.

"I've been for Obama for a year and a half," said Norman Siegel, an attorney making his third bid for public advocate, as Tom Petty played in the background. "I love his intellect, his vision, his idealism. But I disagree with his policies on Pfizer, capital punishment, and the Second Amendment. I'd love to sit down with him and discuss issues like civil liberties--but it's a no-brainier, you vote for Barack Obama."

City Councilman Eric Gioia, a well-funded candidate for public advocate, was less critical. "Every Democrat should do their part to support Barack Obama," he said. "When I think about '08, I think about my little girl, the air she breathes, her school, and her safety. We can't handle another four years of 'Bush-Lite.'"

Onstage, DFNYC spokeswoman Tracy Denton introduced Jim Dean, chair of Democracy for America and brother of Howard.

"Yeah, we're gonna have to work our butts off to get Obama elected for president," he told the audience.

In the crowd I also spotted Luke Henry, a DFNYC-backed challenger to Sheldon Silver; State Senator John Sabini, who will shortly be starting as head of the state's Racing and Wagering Board; State Senate candidate Don Barber; Chris Owen, son of Major Owen; State Senate candidate Jimmy Dahroug; and a representative from Steve Harrison's campaign for the Congressional seat Vito Fossella is retiring from.

When it was Mark Green's turn onstage he turned to the audience and said, "Raise your hand if you organized for Hillary in the primary contest." About about 30 people--roughly two-thirds of the crowd--raised their hands.

"Raise your hand if you organized for Obama in the primary contest," he demanded, as about 20 people raised their hands, and someone hissed loudly. "Now," Green went on. "Who is not yet convinced to go all out for Barack Obama?"

The room was quiet.

"Gender matters, interest groups matter, but agenda matters more than anything," he said. "If you are not supportive of [DFNYC endorsing Obama], you are betraying Hillary Clinton and you are betraying all our history."

Steve Kornacki debunks the idea that massive media coverage of Barack Obama's trip overseas indicates a raging liberal bias.

These early endorsements follow announcements of support for de Blasio from UNITE-HERE and The NY Hotel Trades Council. Combined with the campaign's announcement yesterday of having raised "nearly $1 million dollars" ("$177,454 this filing period and $621,891 this cycle"), de Blasio is looking a bit like a foregone thing. (It's unclear at this point exactly who else is running.

The endorsements were announced on the City Hall steps, with about 25 or so supporters standing behind the congresswomen and de Blasio, squinting into the sun and holding "For Brooklyn '09'" signs.

Velazquez spoke first, then Clarke. They both expressed excitement about his campaign and reiterated the base of the de Blasio platform: education, affordable housing, living-wage jobs, and small-business development. Clarke mentioned specifically his ability to "push up" against the administration.

"I'm here to say, Bill de Blasio all the way," she said.

De Blasio took the podium after Clarke and said he is "very emotional about this." He gave a nod to the women around him, including his wife, who he wrapped his arm around and said before kissing her, "It's not going to be one of those Al and Tipper [Gore] kisses that goes on too long."

He went on to describe his relationship with both congresswomen, particularly Clarke (formerly his colleague in the City Council), who he endorsed in her successful 2006 Congressional primary, and talked about what his goals would be as borough president.

"I think I can make a tremendous impact on Brooklyn," he said, adding that his concern would be to "shape development for the people of the borough."

He mentioned Brooklyn's vulnerability to gentrification and the drive for a "green and sustainable borough."

Answering a question afterwards about last week's news that Charlie Rangel is occupying four rent-stabilized apartments in Harlem, de Blasio said,

"He is a person of tremendous honor. He has served us very well. I don't doubt for a second he believed he was doing everything within the law."

“The congestion pricing plan proposed by Mayor Bloomberg failed to gain approval in the State Legislature in the spring,” said Kellner, who was a vocal proponent of congestion pricing. "Neither the plan’s supporters nor its critics seem to have a firm idea of what to do next.”

Before introducing the panelists, he explained that they had invited a representative from the M.T.A. (“Just so it didn’t seem like we were M.T.A.-bashing"), but the authority “chose not to participate.”

The evening's guests included labor lawyer Theodore Kheel (later introduced as “a great hero from the last century in mass transit”), Gene Russianoff of the NYPIRG Straphangers Campaign and Jeffrey Zupan from the Regional Plan Association. They sat onstage in front of an audience of about 40, passing two semi-effective microphones back and forth.

“I personally supported congestion pricing as well as the millionaires' tax,” Kellner said, “because I believe New York is really facing a traffic and mass transit crisis requiring decisive action.”

He then passed both microphones to Kheel, who is 93 years old, and whose past in New York’s transit agencies is legendary. Kheel also made headlines recently when he proposed using revenue from congestion pricing to make mass transit totally free.

On the politics of congestion pricing, Kheel said, “The promotion, I thought, was in the wrong order. If you start out with free transit, you start out with something people would welcome.”

Russianoff said, “The M.T.A. is in the middle of a gigantic financial crisis. I don’t believe they’re crying wolf, I believe they have tremendous problems.”

He went on to say that only once before, in 1980 and '81, were there fare hikes during consecutive years (as there likely will be in 2007 and 2008) and that the M.T.A. is the fifth largest borrower in the U.S.

Jeffery Zupan took the microphone and said with some amusement, “The M.T.A. is in deep doo-doo right now and it’s only going to get worse."

After the panel, Zupan told me he thought Bloomberg was brave to have raised the issue of congestion pricing. "People thought it was politically impossible,” Zupan commented.

He thinks the problem was in the timing.

“It was kept pretty secret, so it dropped, with PlaNYC, like a bombshell, because they didn’t share thinking."

I caught Kellner on his way out and asked him about Bloomberg's legacy.

“The two things he’s going to be known for as mayor are going to be more tickets and garbage trucks,” Kellner said. Later, he added that he would also be remembered for "things falling out of the sky.”

Incumbent Marty Connor favors raising taxes on the wealthy (a "relatively small" hike, he wrote), while his challenger, Dan Squadron, wants to look to the federal government to guarantee school funds in exchange for tax cuts for the middle class. Squadron, if he wins, would likely have access to Washington because of his former boss, Chuck Schumer.

Both are opposed to a blanket property tax cap, and Connor supports a "circuit breaker" that would allow some residents to qualify for a property tax refund. Squadron hasn't ruled out a circuit breaker.

Here's what Connor e-mailed a couple of days ago:

Squadron, who I spoke to when he made an unannounced appearance yesterday at a rally that Connor also attended, told me:

Councilman and city comptroller candidate David Yassky, comptroller and likely mayoral candidate Bill Thompson, State Senators Marty Connor and Velmanette Montgomery, Assemblywoman Joan Millman, and Randy Mastro, a deputy mayor under Rudy Giuliani, were among the rally participants. They all gave the current administration an earful for creating what they portray as a serious impediment to the goal of creating a financial hub in Brooklyn.

“This is a classic case of bureaucracy doing what makes sense for the bureaucrats but what does not make sense for the city of New York,” said Yassky, who is often allied with the mayor.

“We’re not going to let you just move forward, ignore the wishes of the community and act as if you can unilaterally reopen and expand this prison. It’s not going to happen. Department of Corrections: back off. It’s a very bad idea,” added Thompson, who has become more vocally critical of Bloomberg.

Calling the jail a “dinosaur,” Connor talked about the flourishing downtown Brooklyn neighborhood. “People live here now. It has the fabric of a real community. A jail doesn’t fit – it makes no sense.”

Mastro’s law firm, Gibson Dunn & Crutcher, has agreed to do pro bono work for Stop BHOD, a community group trying to stop the project. Mastro pledged to take the city to court if there isn't more effort to solicit community input or conduct an environmental impact review of the planned expansion.