Manhattan City Council hopeful Ben Kallos rolled out the endorsement of the city’s National Organization for Women chapter Wednesday, following reports that his primary rival, state Assemblyman Micah Kellner, faced sexual harassment allegations in the past.
NOW-NYC President Sonia Ossorio called Kallos “a leader of integrity and ethics, someone we believe women voters can trust,” and someone who “does not accept that we can just live with a culture of sexual harassment.”
In 2009, a female Assembly worker told a supervisor Kellner sent her sexually suggestive online messages. The surfacing of the allegations this week led Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver to announce his longtime top counsel, Bill Collins, never informed him of the accusations (or investigated them) and would step down from his job.
Kellner has apologized for what he called the “flirtatious” chat messages, saying “it was wrong and I was stupid.”
But Kallos — who staged his presser in front of his rival’s East Side office — called Kellner “only the latest elected official who has abused his power and made a mockery of his elected position.”
The city — which saw Brooklyn Assemblyman Vito Lopez exit the chamber while denying extensive allegations of harassing a series of young women staffers — is “sick and tired of this,” Kallos said. “I’m not okay with a culture that permits this to go on and says it’s no big deal.”
Ossorio said the news of Kellner’s past indiscretions “closed the deal” on NOW’s decision to back Kallos.
“It’s officially a circus now,” Ossorio said of the entire campaign season in a follow-up interview with the Daily News.
“We have two assemblymen who have sexually harassed their employees,” said Ossorio. “We have Eliot Spitzer, [who] increased penalties for johns, and he thinks he’s above the law. They’re all reckless, regardless of the degree of their behavior.”
“They all have terrible judgment. And we deserve better.”
But Kallos, a lawyer and first-time candidate, wouldn’t go so far as to lump Kellner in with former Gov. Spitzer and ex-Rep. Anthony Weiner, who are both seeking political comebacks after sex-related scandals.
“Across the board there are abuses of power,” Kallos hedged. “Comparing who’s worse in the spectrum is not a game we should be playing.”
The Kellner campaign had no comment on the presser.
