Jersey City May Require Paid Sick Leave
The New York Times - September 3, 2013, by Katie Zernike - Calling it a matter of “basic human dignity,” the mayor of Jersey City wants to require all but the smallest businesses to provide...
The New York Times - September 3, 2013, by Katie Zernike - Calling it a matter of “basic human dignity,” the mayor of Jersey City wants to require all but the smallest businesses to provide their employees paid sick days.
The bill would make the city, which is New Jersey’s second largest, the first in the state and one of the few nationwide to require paid sick leave. It is modeled on similar laws enacted in several cities over the last several years.
But it would go further than most, requiring any business with 10 or more employees to provide up to five paid sick days each year. Companies with fewer employees would have to provide five unpaid sick days.
In contrast, a bill passed by the New York City Council this year — after a veto by Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg — will require employers with 20 or more employees to provide paid sick leave when it takes effect next year; the following year, it will extend to workplaces with 15 or more employees. The city exempted manufacturers, as does a state law in Connecticut that requires employers with 50 or more workers to provide paid sick leave.
The policy proposed by Mayor Steven Fulop in Jersey City would not include that exemption. As in other cities, workers would earn a day of sick time for each 30 days worked.
Mr. Fulop, who worked in his parents’ deli in Newark when he was growing up, said he had fashioned his proposal so as not to hurt the businesses, like bodegas or start-ups, that struggle most.
“But once you get to a point that you have a stable work force, with 10 or more people,” he said, “it’s a reasonable thing to say they shouldn’t be at risk for losing their jobs or penalized if unfortunately they get sick or a loved one does.”
As financial firms have moved across the Hudson River, Jersey City has become more affluent; Mr. Fulop, 36, first moved there to work for Goldman Sachs. But he said the policy was aimed particularly at helping lower-wage workers.
“It’s an opportunity to make sure that employers who move here are conscious of this basic dignity for working families,” Mr. Fulop said.
The mayor, who was sworn in on July 1, will propose the bill to the City Council next week; its chances are considered good, given that the majority of the members are aligned with him.
A coalition of community and union groups is pushing the bill as a matter of good public health: food service workers who can stay home are less likely to spread germs, as are sick children whose parents can stay home with them, thanks to the bill.
“We think that people understand that it’s important for workers not to have to choose between taking care of their loved ones and a day’s pay,” said Kevin Brown, a vice president of a local service workers union.
In other cities that have debated paid sick leave, opponents have argued that it is too expensive, particularly for small businesses. While Portland, Ore.; Washington; and San Francisco have all passed paid sick-leave policies, about a half-dozen states have passed laws prohibiting municipalities from doing so. But studies have shown that most employers ultimately support the policy, and report that it has not made them less profitable.
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The White House announced that it would nominate Randy Quarles to a vacant seat on the Federal Reserve’s Board of Governors
The White House announced that it would nominate Randy Quarles to a vacant seat on the Federal Reserve’s Board of Governors
Quarles would take the lead on rolling back any banking regulation under the Trump administration as vice chairman for supervision, a post created by the 2010 Dodd-Frank Act …
...
Quarles would take the lead on rolling back any banking regulation under the Trump administration as vice chairman for supervision, a post created by the 2010 Dodd-Frank Act …
Read the full article here.
Wal-Mart Pay Raises Still Don’t Amount to Living Wage
02.19.2016
NEW YORK CITY — Wal-Mart’s wage hike to a minimum $10 per hour kicks in tomorrow, February 20, but the higher wages fall well short of a...
02.19.2016
NEW YORK CITY — Wal-Mart’s wage hike to a minimum $10 per hour kicks in tomorrow, February 20, but the higher wages fall well short of a living wage. Last year, Wal-Mart earned more than $16 billion in net income and announced plans to spend $10.3 billion on a stock buyback to increase value for wealthy shareholders. Center for Popular Democracy, a national pro-worker coalition, estimates that paying $15 an hour to its 1.2 million full-time employees would cost the company an extra $3.4 billion per year, a third of what it will spend under its share repurchase plan.
The Center for Popular Democracy has fought for a higher minimum wage for Wal-Mart workers along with the United Food and Commercial Workers Union (UFCW), Our Walmart, and a worker-led movement.
JoEllen Chernow, Director of CPD’s Minimum Wage campaign, released the following statement:
“Wal-Mart has announced pay raises in an attempt to reform its image as an employer that doesn’t pay workers enough to take care of their families. But it’s not raising them enough – and, the truth is, Wal-Mart can afford higher wages.
The company has a $10 billion stock buyback program and earned more than $16 billion in net income last year. That will put an additional $5.6 billion directly into the pockets of the Walton family - a family that already controls more wealth than the bottom 42 percent of Americans combined. As the company’s fortunes continue to rise, they must let their workers share more of their success. Wal-Mart workers simply deserve better.”
www.populardemocracy.org
The Center for Popular Democracy promotes equity, opportunity, and a dynamic democracy in partnership with innovative base-building organizations, organizing networks and alliances, and progressive unions across the country. CPD builds the strength and capacity of democratic organizations to envision and advance a pro-worker, pro-immigrant, racial justice agenda.
Contact:
Asya Pikovsky, apikovsky@populardemocracy.org, 207-522-2442
Anita Jain, ajain@populardemocracy.org, 347-636-9761
New York Immigrant Family Unity Project - The Report
The New York Immigrant Family Unity Project:
Good for Families, Good for Employers, and Good for All New Yorkers
Each year, thousands of New Yorkers — parents, siblings, employers,...
Each year, thousands of New Yorkers — parents, siblings, employers, workers and students — face detention and the possibility of deportation without the assistance of legal counsel. These New Yorkers are isolated from their loved ones and confront the possibility of long-term and, in some cases, permanent separation from their communities.
This analysis demonstrates that New York State can dramatically reduce the emotional and economic cost of the detention and deportation system by providing high-quality legal counsel for detained immigrants who are facing deportation through the New York Immigrant Family Unity Project (NYIFUP). For an annual investment of $7.4 million – or 78-cents per personal income taxpayer per year – NYIFUP would help ensure that deportation proceedings reflect our fundamental values, providing a measure of fairness for immigrant New Yorkers.
Download the report here.
Executive SummaryEach year, thousands of New Yorkers— parents, siblings, employers, workers and students — face detention and the possibility of deportation without the assistance of legal counsel. These New Yorkers are isolated from their loved ones and confront the possibility of long-term and, in some cases, permanent separation from their communities.
This system of detention and deportation calls our collective commitment to due process into question. Immigration proceedings share many of the same features as criminal proceedings, with immigrant New Yorkers risking their liberty and extended separation from their families and communities. Yet, unlike criminal proceedings, immigration proceedings lack basic safeguards to guarantee fairness. Most strikingly, because New Yorkers have no guaranteed access to counsel in immigration proceedings, thousands face trained government attorneys in these high-stakes proceedings every year without the benefit of legal assistance. This leads to detentions that continue for months or years longer than necessary and deportations of New Yorkers who have viable legal claims to remain in the communities they call home.
But these are not the only costs. Current policies and practices are also costly in economic terms, resulting in significant annual outlays. Needlessly long detentions and avoidable deportations burden Empire State employers, New York State government, immigrant families and, ultimately, New Yorkers as a whole.
This analysis demonstrates that New York State can dramatically reduce these costs by providing highquality legal counsel for detained immigrants who are facing deportation through the New York Immigrant Family Unity Project (NYIFUP). For an annual investment of $7.4 million – or 78-cents per personal income taxpayer per year – NYIFUP would help ensure that deportation proceedings reflect our fundamental values, providing a measure of fairness for immigrant New Yorkers.
The program would generate nearly $1.9 million in annual savings to New York State by reducing spending on public health insurance programs and foster care services and capturing tax revenues that would otherwise be lost. In addition, NYIFUP would produce $4 million in savings for Empire State employers each year, by preventing turnover-related costs stemming from detentions and deportations. Taken together, these savings offset the majority of the investment needed to establish the program.
-New York State employers pay an estimated $9.1 million in turnover-related costs annually as they are forced to replace detained or deported employees. NYIFUP would save employers $4 million in such costs each year.-The detention or deportation of a parent makes it difficult for some students to complete school, limiting their long-term earning potential, increasing reliance on public health insurance programs and decreasing tax revenues. Over 10 years of the NYIFUP program, this would translate into $3.1 million in annualized costs to the state each year. NYIFUP would save New York over $1.3 million in such costs each year.-Detentions and deportations cost New York’s State Child Health Insurance Program (SCHIP) about $685,000 each year. NYIFUP would save the state over $310,000 per year in such costs.-The state pays over $562,000 a year to provide foster care for the children of detained or deported New Yorkers. NYIFUP would reduce these costs by over $263,000 each year.
Few investments have the potential to yield such far-reaching returns. We urge New York State to seize the opportunity to create a first-in-the-nation, statewide system of universal representation for individuals who are detained and facing deportation. Doing so will produce $5.9 million in savings each year to New York State and employers, ensure that the system lives up to our most closely-held ideals and help to keep Empire State families whole.
Black Unemployment Rate 2015: In Better Economy, African-Americans See Minimal Gains
International Business Times - March 8, 2014, by Aaron Morrison - Cyril Darensbourg has been unemployed for 10 years. As...
International Business Times - March 8, 2014, by Aaron Morrison - Cyril Darensbourg has been unemployed for 10 years. As shocking as he knows that sounds to those who don’t know him personally, the 48-year-old native of New Orleans had enjoyed a 15-year career managing restaurants in Chicago and New York, after taking a chance on a dream and ending his third year of studying electrical engineering in Louisiana. Years of job-application submissions and temporary work here and there has persisted for far too long. Darensbourg is one of close to 2 million African-Americans in the U.S. who are currently unemployed and looking for work.
Across the American economy, the dominant story during the past several months has been a sustained recovery that resuscitated a dormant job market and the accompanying unemployment rate that has plunged below pre-Great Recession levels. But if better days are here for many workers, this feeling is shared to a lesser degree by African-Americans, whose unemployment rate is still considered high and has long been double the rate for whites. Among black working-age people, however, the unemployment rate since February 2014 has dropped more quickly than among nonblack workers.
On the surface, that improvement should signal a triumph, but it is accompanied by an asterisk, given the fact that nonblack workers’ unemployment rates fell much earlier and faster during the recovery. Government data indicates recent job creation has been less beneficial to African-American workers when compared with whites, Asians and Hispanics: Basically, blacks had more ground to make up and their labor-force representation is skewed toward lower-wage industries in which there are higher turnover rates, one study found.
These clear-cut differences mean that for people such as Darensbourg, who have been out of work for periods of several months or several years, other factors exaggerate the length of their unemployment. Many African-Americans find it hard to dismiss completely the role that race plays in their difficulty finding work, even with federal laws making discrimination illegal. Studies have found that even when black applicants possess qualifications that are on par with white applicants, variables as simple as their names or as complex as the breadth of their professional networks can many times hold them back.
“I’ve never felt secure, in my entire adult life working,” said Darensbourg, who is now married with two kids and living with his family in a New York apartment. After the 9/11 terrorist attacks in 2001 eliminated his management-level job at a restaurant located within the no-traffic zone, he was forced to look for work in other restaurants, which he said wouldn’t pay him at his previous annual salary of nearly six figures.
“I’ve been in disbelief,” said Darensbourg, a 6-foot-5-inch, 220-pound man who is often told his presence is at worst intimidating and at best unforgettable. During an interview for a job he was certain he would get, he recalled feeling his younger, white, female interviewer was put off by his size and confidence. “Over time, I didn’t know what to do,” he said of the experience.
“People in my situation are giving up. They are just adapting their lives to where they are. I’m not thinking about trying to buy a home or going on vacation. I don’t know how retirement is going to work,” Darensbourg said.
Unemployment Among Blacks Still High
In February, the unemployment rate for African-Americans was 10.4 percent, while the comparable rates for whites, Hispanics and Asians were 4.7 percent, 6.6 percent and 4.0 percent, in that order, according to data released by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics Friday. The national unemployment rate was 5.5 percent last month. Last year, 23.7 percent of those who are black and unemployed had attended some college, 15.4 percent had bachelor’s degrees and 4.5 percent had advanced degrees.
A 2014 study by the Young Invincibles, a nonpartisan education and economic opportunity advocacy group, found an African-American college graduate has the same job prospects as a white high-school dropout or a white person with a prison record. The study attributed the gap to racial discrimination.
The experience of joblessness for African-Americans can have a lasting effect on their economic mobility, according to the Center for Popular Democracy, a liberal think tank in New York that released a report on black unemployment this week. It was prepared with the technical assistance of the nonpartisan Economic Policy Institute in Washington. On an hourly basis during the past 15 years, black workers’ wages have fallen by 44 cents, while Hispanic and white workers’ wages have risen by 48 cents and 45 cents, respectively, according to the report. Black wealth has also shrunk, while Hispanic and white wealth has stabilized.
Since March 2010, black employment climbed by about 2.3 million jobs, a 15.0 percent increase, and the black employment-population ratio rose to 54.8 percent from 52.0 percent, according to government data. Over the same period, white employment climbed by about 3.8 million jobs, a 3.4 percent increase, and the employment-population ratio rose to 60.1 percent from 59.5 percent. Because whites had less ground to make up, the increase for blacks, while statistically significant, still wasn’t large enough to suggest that they reaped more than a modest share of the gains in the economic recovery.
Most jobs that came back during the recovery, close to 45 percent, were lower-wage jobs, such as those in the retail and service industries, according to the Center for Popular Democracy’s report. Those industries employ 1.85 million more workers today than they did at the beginning of the recession. The data indicate African-American representation is skewed toward the lower-wage end, rather than toward either the mid-wage range or higher-wage end, where fewer jobs came back.
The center said the U.S. Federal Reserve’s recovery initiative to stimulate job creation through its monetary policies has been most beneficial to workers in higher-wage industries and to workers in regions of the U.S. where those jobs exist, such as on Wall Street. Even with the apparently gloomy outlook, economists say things are improving for black job seekers. “The economic recovery is finally beginning to take hold,” said Valerie Wilson, the director of the Economic Policy Institute’s Program on Race, Ethnicity and the Economy. “The rate of growth that we’re seeing now, this has only been happening for a year.”
Economists have stressed the Fed’s focus should be on genuine full employment. That’s been President Barack Obama’s argument for addressing joblessness among all Americans. But critics have said this approach ignores structural reasons -- lower educational attainment and higher rates of criminal convictions -- for African-American joblessness that is more prone to fluctuation than whites. “Assuming that monetary policy continues to function in a way that allows the recovery to proceed, the prospects for finding a job should improve for African-Americans,” Wilson said.
Education Can Make A Difference (Usually)
African-Americans who have achieved higher-education degrees -- a key investment leading to the middle class -- still find themselves more likely to face long-term unemployment than their white, Hispanic and Asian counterparts. According to the Center for Popular Democracy’s study, the only proven solution to this problem are those Fed programs that ideally stimulate job creation for workers of all experience and skill levels. But that still has not been robust enough to help the broadest swath of African-American workers.
Tamica Thompson said she could use preferential hiring consideration, although she didn’t believe she needed it before her long-term unemployment set in. Thompson’s difficulty in finding a job puzzles her. A 30-year-old born to Jamaican immigrants in New York, Thompson joined the U.S. Army in 2002, right after she graduated from high school. She was stationed in South Korea, and left active duty four years later to earn a bachelor’s degree in health-service management from Berkeley College in New York. She later obtained a master’s degree in public administration from Pace University in New York.
But even with those credentials and her military experience, Thompson has struggled to find a job that values her skill set. When she did interview for a promising job at a nonprofit development corporation -- for which the hiring manager told her she was the sole applicant -- she later discovered the position was given to someone else. She also worried that the formatting of her paper resume, which received a harsh critique from a job-placement counselor, was a factor in the length of her unemployment.
“I was unemployed for a good eight months until I found myself here,” Thompson said, referring to a stipend-supported internship for Operation: GoodJobs, a work-placement program run by the Goodwill Industries for Greater New York and Northern New Jersey, an initiative that helps military veterans and their families find jobs and training opportunities. The irony of her current situation is not lost on Thompson, who works to help other veterans find jobs while she scrapes by on the stipend. “Because I was not working, I was getting behind on my rent. I couldn’t do even the simple things anymore. Money was so limited for me. That caused me to be depressed, sad and angry. It’s a little better now, but I’m still struggling,” she said.
Race And Class Are Factors In Unemployment
Despite federal laws protecting women and racial minorities from discrimination by employers, several studies point to racial prejudices and favoritism as big contributors to how blacks fare in the job market. A 2004 study by the American Economic Review found job seekers with resumes that had so-called white-sounding names received 50 percent more callbacks for interviews. Names such as Jamal or Lakisha or others that are perceived as black-sounding names, received fewer callbacks. That racial gap is uniform across occupation, industry and employer size, researchers found.
Another study, conducted by the business school at Rutgers University in New Jersey, found that favoritism, or the race of the hiring manager, was a contributing factor to racial disparity in the workplace as well. The prevalence of a mind-set in the U.S. that the rich worked hard for everything they have and poor haven’t toiled enough certainly doesn’t help matters, said Sam Brooke, an attorney with the Southern Poverty Law Center, a nonprofit organization based in Montgomery, Alabama, that tracks racial disparity and hatred. “There’s a deep, fierce resistance to setting aside that idea,” Brooke said. “That’s an incredibly valuable part of the story that we tell about America. If you view it just through that lens, it’s hard to see how we’ll overcome” the disparities, he said.
The Civil Rights Act of 1991 made changes to a law passed in the 1960s that protected workers from intentional employment discrimination based on race, sex, religion and national origin. It also provided monetary damages in cases of proved discrimination. But few cases are won in U.S. courts, and a comparatively small proportion are resolved by settlements, according to federal data.
Darensbourg, the unemployed former restaurant manager, hasn’t considered a lawsuit against a prospective employer, even when he suspected that there was something more to its rejection of him than his qualifications. “I’m pushing my kids to do way better than I did in school,” he said. “I can’t pay for them to go to school. I don’t know how that would happen unless they got a scholarship. I tell my daughter that she is not just competing with the kids at her school; she’s competing with the whole world. I try to have them see stuff that my parents didn’t show me.”
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Why Black Lives Matter wants Hillary Clinton to reinstate Glass-Steagall
Why Black Lives Matter wants Hillary Clinton to reinstate Glass-Steagall
Hillary Clinton's support from financial institutions has always been her Achilles heel but running counter to this criticism is her pledge to end systemic racism. The two are actually closely...
Hillary Clinton's support from financial institutions has always been her Achilles heel but running counter to this criticism is her pledge to end systemic racism. The two are actually closely related and if she is to make good on her promises on racial justice, she will have to test those close connections to Wall Street by directly pushing for a reinstatement of Glass-Steagall and closing the carried interest tax loophole.
The Movement for Black Lives' policy platform calls for a reinstatement of Glass-Steagall, the 1933 law that separated commercial and investment banking. The law has lately become a core focus of economic progressives.
Groups involved with the Movement for Black Lives see it as a key way to advance economic racial justice. Hillary Clinton has hesitated to publicly talk about the policy – in no small part because Bill Clinton was the one who repealed the law under his administration. The absence of an impermeable boundary between commercial and investing functions both instigated and then accelerated the 2008 financial crisis, forcing millions to lose their homes and jobs.
Communities of color were hit hard and recovered more slowly. Mortgage lenders like Wells Fargo systemically targeted black and brown borrowers for subprime loans, putting many at risk of foreclosure. In the years after the recession, many of these lenders settled multi-billion-dollar discrimination lawsuits years after the damage had been done.
Also, a 2015 American Civil Liberties Union study showed that black families continued to lose wealth years after the recession – even as white families began to climb out. The average black household lost 40 percent of its non-home equity wealth.
"Hillary Clinton has hesitated to publicly talk about Glass Steagall – in no small part because Bill Clinton was the one who repealed the law under his administration."
Home ownership is one of the most stable and reliable ways to acquire wealth in America, and the massive loss of homes among black and brown communities during the 2008 crisis will take decades to recover from. A new Glass-Steagall would help prevent banks from getting bigger and riskier, stopping them from coming back to black and brown neighborhoods and destroying even more wealth.
The carried interest tax loophole is another example. Eliminating this loophole, which lets private equity firms and hedge funds avoid taxes on part of their income, could raise $180 billion. It might sound like a drop in the bucket in the context of a national budget, but when you look closer, it is money that could make a huge difference.
It is also money that could have drastic implications for cities and states around the country that claim they don't have enough funding. The City of Chicago is facing a massive school funding crisis of more than a billion dollars. The hedge fund-cozy Mayor Rahm Emanuel and Governor Bruce Rauner routinely go to the school district for more concessions to make up the gap.
In the meantime, billionaire hedge-funders use the carried interest loophole to get out of paying taxes that translates into much needed revenue. The details of closing the loophole should be worked out by economists, but one thing is clear: if we keep a loophole that costs us billions of dollars while closing schools in black and brown neighborhoods, we are making a strong statement about the level of racial injustice we are willing to accept.
If Hillary Clinton wins the election, she will enter office at one of the most racially charged moments in American history. It is also a moment of some of the greatest income inequality in history – a reality even starker for black and brown communities. If we truly want to achieve racial justice, we should look at policies that prevent a repeat of the 2008 crisis. Closing the carried interest loophole and reinstating a modern Glass-Steagall are the tip of the iceberg. It is up to us to push Clinton for more.
Commentary by Maurice Weeks, who leads the housing & Wall Street accountability campaign at Center for Popular Democracy. Follow him on Twitter @mo87mo87.
By Maurice Weeks
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Harvard's Endowment Is Profiting From Puerto Rico's Debt As The Island's Schools Face Crippling Cuts
Harvard's Endowment Is Profiting From Puerto Rico's Debt As The Island's Schools Face Crippling Cuts
Bearing a large banner reading “Harvard Divest from Baupost,” hundreds of activists marched at Harvard Yard on Wednesday. Members of the Harvard Student Labor Action Movement participated in the...
Bearing a large banner reading “Harvard Divest from Baupost,” hundreds of activists marched at Harvard Yard on Wednesday. Members of the Harvard Student Labor Action Movement participated in the protest, along with union groups, community organizers affiliated with the Center for Popular Democracy, and anti-hedge fund activists with the coalition Hedge Clippers.
Read the full article here.
Former Toys R Us workers to get $20 million in hardship fund
Former Toys R Us workers to get $20 million in hardship fund
Since late summer, Toys R Us workers have been pressuring pension funds to in turn push a group of hedge firms that owned the retailer’s secured debt in a bid to get the remaining money they say...
Since late summer, Toys R Us workers have been pressuring pension funds to in turn push a group of hedge firms that owned the retailer’s secured debt in a bid to get the remaining money they say is owed to them...The groups that organized the Toys R Us workers — Organization United for Respect, along with Private Equity Stakeholder Project and the Center for Popular Democracy — say that the hardship fund is being structured to allow the other firms to contribute, paving the way for Solus, Vornado and others to contribute. KKR and Bain said the fund was established in response to the “extraordinary set of circumstances” that led to Toys R Us being shuttered.
Read the full article here.
Lessons From the Death of Seattle’s ‘Amazon’ Tax
In an act of novel cross-city solidarity, more than 50 members of the progressive political network Local Progress signed an open letter to Seattle expressing “strong support” for the tax, while...
In an act of novel cross-city solidarity, more than 50 members of the progressive political network Local Progress signed an open letter to Seattle expressing “strong support” for the tax, while local officials in the Bay Area and Silicon Valley began murmuring about passing their own big-business taxes. A handful of national leaders—including Senator Bernie Sanders and Representative Pramila Jayapal—even weighed in.
Read the full article here.
Council Moves to Enhance Voter Registration Through City Agencies
Gotham Gazette - November 24, 2014, by Samar Khurshid - At a hearing Monday, the New York City Council's Committee on Governmental Operations approved the latest drafts of two bills that enhance...
Gotham Gazette - November 24, 2014, by Samar Khurshid - At a hearing Monday, the New York City Council's Committee on Governmental Operations approved the latest drafts of two bills that enhance the responsibility of city agencies to conduct voter registration and a resolution calling for the State Legislature to pass similar legislation.
These measures are an attempt by the Council to improve the compliance of City agencies with Local Law 29, also known as the Pro-Voter Law, which was passed in 2000. The law requires 19 city agencies to handle voter registration applications for customers.
The new legislation is headed to the full Council for a vote on Tuesday and then, if passed as expected, to the desk of Mayor Bill de Blasio. The bills expand the mandate of the Pro-Voter law to seven additional agencies and create a standard for enforcing the law, including required semi-annual reports from participating agencies. Implementation of the existing law has proven to be a problem, with city agencies failing to uphold their responsibilities to offer registration forms to New Yorkers doing other business with the City.
The accompanying resolution calls upon the State Legislature to augment existing agency-assisted registration laws to include codes on registration forms that would help track agency performance and registration statistics.
Council Member Ben Kallos, chair of what he called the "good government committee," introduced Intro 493 A which expands scope of the Pro-Voter law and sets a deadline of December 1, 2015 for agencies to integrate their forms with voter registration.
The second bill, Intro 356 A, which establishes reporting requirements for the agencies, and the accompanying resolution, were introduced by Council Member Jumaane Williams.
"The last election was abysmal," Williams said of voter turnout in response to questions from Gotham Gazette. Stating that the city and state are falling behind in civic participation, he said, "This should be an issue that all parties - Republicans, Democrats, third parties - every party should be working to increase participation."
The push for increased voter registration began in July with Mayor de Blasio's Directive 1, which ordered agencies under the Pro-Voter law mandate to create plans for implementing the law. Then, in October, the City Council introduced the two new bills in response to a report released by a coalition of good government groups which showed the City's lax compliance with Local Law 29.
According to the report, 84 percent of clients at 14 of these agencies were not provided registration applications when they should have been. Additionally, only 2 out of 5 applicants with limited English proficiency were given translated applications, and agents were not trained in the application process.The report was compiled by the Pro-Voter Law Coalition, comprised of the Center for Popular Democracy (CPD), the Brennan Center for Justice at the NYU School of Law, Citizens Union of the City of New York, and the New York Public Interest Research Group (NYPIRG). Their investigation was aided by the Asian American Legal Defense and Education Fund.
The report's importance is highlighted by the fact that over 30 percent of New Yorkers who were interviewed at the agencies were not registered to vote.
The de Blasio administration initially rejected the two bills over privacy concerns and on the grounds that they came too close on the heels of Directive 1 and wishing to see agencies given more time to comply. Taking those concerns into consideration, changes were made to Williams' bill on reporting mandates. Williams disagreed with the administration but eventually came around to ensure changes were made in the proposal which will protect applicants' information while still allowing the Board of Elections to track registration data from agencies.
"I'm expecting (the) resolution to have a serious impact in Albany," said Council Member Kallos to Gotham Gazette. "Whether it's the Assembly or the Senate, we can all agree that government works better when we measure what its doing and this will take a step towards that."
Representatives of the good government groups that authored the report also testified at the hearing. Steven Carbo, director of Voting Rights and Democracy Initiatives at CPD praised the proposals, asserting, "Likely hundreds of thousands, if not millions of eligible voters were never given the opportunity to register to vote over the years, perpetuating regrettably low rates of voter registration in New York particularly among lower income, of color and immigrant citizens," he said.
Peggy Farber, legislative counsel for Citizens Union, called the proposals "meaningful steps to improve the pro-voter law, to codify the important work of the administration."
On Tuesday, the bills and the resolution will head to the full Council for a vote at the Stated Meeting, where they are very likely to pass.
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6 days ago
6 days ago