Former Bronx City Councilmember Andy King’s attempt to get back into politics hit a major roadblock Wednesday, after an appeal by the city’s Board of Elections (BOE) to knock him off the ballot was successful.
The ruling by an appellate court reversed a decision last week by a New York Supreme Court judge to allow King — a Democrat who held the District 12 northeast Bronx seat before his 2020 expulsion from the council — to seek his old seat this year, despite his removal from the ballot by the BOE last month.
Members of the council face term limits after serving two consecutive terms, leaving many to believe that since King, 61, had already served two successive terms, he could not seek a third one.
But Judge Lucy Billings, in her May 4 ruling, asserted that King’s expulsion in 2020 prevented him from serving out all four years of his second term. Additionally, Billings noted the action taken by the City Council against King, in the form of an expulsion, doesn’t carry the same weight as a removal from office.
The Supreme Court’s Appellate Division disagreed.
The appellate court felt that the BOE properly interpreted the act of removal from office “to include a council member who is expelled by vote of the council.” The appellate decision said that the Supreme Court should have denied King’s petition.
“Given that there is no process formally referred to as ‘removal’ of a council member, and no senior official has the ability to dismiss a member from office, King’s interpretation would effectively read his term out of the charter,” the appellate court’s decision reads. “Therefore, Supreme Court should have denied the petition to validate.”
Per the decision by the appellate court, the earliest King can run for office is 2025. The Bronx Times reached out to King for comment and is awaiting a response.
King was the first sitting councilmember to be expelled from the City Council by his colleagues — in a 48-2 vote — on the…
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