Hiram Monserrate (aka Monster Rat) is a bad, bad man, but even a bad man should be allowed to run for public office and hopefully be rejected by the voters. A law barring him from even running is unfair and unjust.
The former Queens councilman and state senator assaulted his then-girlfriend in 2008, and four years later, he went to prison for fraud. He’s repeatedly disgraced the city and his constituents. No neighborhood in its right mind would elect this slug to any position of public responsibility.
But, since Monserrate has paid his debt to society, it ought to be his right to run and the right of voters who support him to bubble in the oval next to his name — just as it was the right of Donald Trump to run for the highest office in the land in 2016, and again in 2020 and 2024, despite the most checkered record in the history of presidential candidates.
A city law passed in 2021 sought to deny Monserrate that chance, an arrogant move by incumbent elected officials to define what qualifies others to run for office.
Yes, the same City Council where the vast majority of members are enthusiastic supporters of wiping the slate clean for individuals convicted of a wide range of crimes, letting many people to keep their criminal histories from their would-be employers, sought to outright foreclose Monserrate from the right to hold public office. That’s hypocritical, it’s wrong and it ought to be definitively deemed inconsistent with higher law.
In 2023, a state trial court gave Monserrate the right to run — after six residents of the Council district Monserrate wanted to serve, represented by election lawyer Jerry Goldfeder, argued that the law disenfranchised them as voters. Justice Machelle Sweeting wrote that the law couldn’t apply to Monserrate that year since it wasn’t written in a way to specifically apply to previous convictions. It was being retroactively applied, and that wasn’t kosher.
That should’ve been the last word. Unfortunately, it wasn’t.
Again this year, Monserrate sought to stand for election to represent Queens’ District 21 in the City Council. Again this year, opponents weren’t content to defeat him at the ballot box; they tried to use the rotten statute to disqualify him outright. Playing along with the dirty game, the Board of Elections wrongly ruled in favor of a claim from Monster Rat’s opponents that his petitions were invalid due to the shoddy city law. And a trial court this time ruled that the law could indeed kick Monserrate off the ballot.
Enough. Next week, the Manhattan appellate court will hear the case. It must definitively, beyond any shadow of a doubt, establish that it’s contrary to the state Constitution for the city to set restrictive new conditions on who can hold office.
In a free society, the power to choose or reject candidates should rest with the people. Not with legislators who want to make a cheap political point. Not with rival candidates twisting that law to keep a competitor off the ballot.
Hiram Monserrate has a right to run, and the citizens of New York have an obligation to vote against him — in the Democratic primary and then, if necessary, in the general election. That’s the American and democratic way.
