http://www.nytimes.com/2006/01/05/nyregion/metrocampaigns/05quinn.html

The New York Times

January 5, 2006

With Tributes, Hugs for Supporters and a Few Tears, Quinn Takes the Reins of the Council

By WINNIE HU

Her future assured after months of backroom dealings, Councilwoman Christine C. Quinn reveled yesterday in lavish public tributes from her colleagues as she was officially elected the new speaker of the City Council.

Ms. Quinn, 39, received a standing ovation as she entered the ornate legislative chamber on the second floor of City Hall shortly after noon. Wearing a wide smile as she made her way through the crowd, she hugged and kissed Council members, lobbyists and the Democratic party leaders who provided crucial support in assuring her election.

Ms. Quinn is the first woman - and the first openly gay member - to become speaker since the position was created by the 1989 revisions to the City Charter. She succeeds Gifford Miller, who was forced to leave the Council last month because of term limits. Mr. Miller, who ran unsuccessfully for mayor last year, was traveling in Mexico yesterday.

Once the opening fanfare was out of the way, Councilman Joel Rivera of the Bronx stood up to nominate Ms. Quinn for speaker, commending her as a beloved colleague, tireless advocate of community causes and trailblazer for women.

Two other members seconded Ms. Quinn's nomination, and then she was ushered in as speaker with a chorus of yeas. The sole note of discord was voiced by Councilman Charles Barron, of Brooklyn, who abstained after declaring that the selection process for the speaker - though not Ms. Quinn herself, as he was quick to make clear - "stinks."

"Council members, I want to challenge you to be independent," Mr. Barron said. "Be free from giving your vote to a county leader, a union, a business leader, or any other outside force trying to control you."

Ms. Quinn emerged as the likely speaker earlier this week after Democratic leaders in Queens, the Bronx and Brooklyn, agreed to support her over her closest rival, Councilman Bill de Blasio of Brooklyn. Yesterday, those leaders sat prominently in the front row, and at one point, Ms. Quinn went over to hug them.

In her acceptance speech, she sketched out a wide-ranging legislative agenda that would seek to improve the city's middle schools and public hospitals, address the shortage of low-cost housing, and remove illegal guns from the city's streets - something that Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg has also made a priority in his second term.

"To accomplish these goals, the City Council must become an incubator of big ideas, the creator of innovative policies that help people across the economic spectrum, and across the city," she said.

Ms. Quinn also pledged to work closely with Mr. Bloomberg, adding that she hoped "we can agree more often than we disagree."

Ms. Quinn, brushing away tears, ended by saying that she was proud of a city where diversity was seen as a strength, not a weakness. She recounted how her father, Lawrence Quinn, had watched as a television news reporter described Ms. Quinn as the first woman speaker, and first openly gay one.

"Without missing a beat, my father stuck out his chest and proudly yelled at the TV, 'You forgot Irish, you bum!' " Ms. Quinn said.

Even the Republican minority leader, Councilman James S. Oddo of Staten Island, had nothing but nice words for his counterpart across the aisle. He said that he saw Ms. Quinn as a friend rather than an adversary.

"We have learned to disagree without being disagreeable," Mr. Oddo said of the Council. "Anger is one thing, enmity is another. And the only time enmity is acceptable in this house is when it's directed at the Department of Buildings."

Copyright 2006The New York Times Company

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