City Councilman David Greenfield is asking the Manhattan Democratic Party to boot a City Council candidate running on his opposition to “greedy Jewish landlords” off the party rolls.
Thomas Lopez-Pierre (pictured), who is challenging Councilman Mark Levine (pictured) for a West Harlem seat, has drawn attention for a series of anti-Semitic comments and racial slurs.
Greenfield (D-Brooklyn) said election law allows Democratic officials to remove a member for “disloyalty” to the party, and the uptown candidate’s rhetoric should qualify.
There’s no question that Lopez-Pierre’s campaign is based on good, old-fashioned, virulent anti-Semitism…
“There’s no question that Lopez-Pierre’s campaign is based on good, old-fashioned, virulent anti-Semitism,” he said. “It is incumbent on our party leadership to oust him immediately and to make clear to all New Yorkers that Lopez-Pierre’s values are not Democratic values. Quite frankly, if Lopez-Pierre wants to run for City Council he should do so by petitioning his way onto the Ku Klux Klan party. His views are very much in line with David Duke’s.”
The wannabe Harlem pol also ran for the Council seat in 2013, a race in which he used the n-word to refer to a fund-raiser backing his opponent. Additionally, Lopez-Pierre sparked a bizarre incident where an assemblywoman accused him of touching her buttocks, and he lashed out at her as a “political slut.”
“Are we talking about the same David Greenfield who’s a Councilman who chairs the land use committee — basically Mr. Real Estate? If so, I look forward to working with him when I’m elected,” Lopez-Pierre said when asked about the expulsion push. “If I was chair of the land use committee, and I was Jewish, and New York City real estate is basically owned in whole by basically the Jewish community, I would be raising money attacking that Lopez-Pierre guy.”
Manhattan Democratic Party chair Keith Wright condemned Lopez-Pierre and said he’d look at the request but didn’t know if it was possible.
“I have considered removing a whole lot of people from the party — I just never knew quite how to do it,” he said. “There’s no question that Mr. Lopez-Pierre’s comments have been vile and repugnant. I just don’t know what the mechanism would be like in terms of removing him … I don’t know what’s protected by free speech. That’s something for lawyers to look at.”
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