THE $15 QUESTION: Higher minimum helps workers and business
Chicago Tribune - June 5, 2014, by Connie Razza - The Great Recession is over! So say the corporations and the...
Chicago Tribune - June 5, 2014, by Connie Razza - The Great Recession is over! So say the corporations and the wealthiest among us. For the rest of us, the so-called recovery doesn’t feel like much of one at all.
Corporate profits and stock prices have rebounded, but wages have not. Middle-class and low-income workers are still struggling to keep up with the cost of living. Corporate recovery has been fueled by the proliferation of jobs paying low wages.
How can we fix this? Raise the minimum wage.
That’s why Aldermen Proco “Joe” Moreno, Roderick Sawyer and John Arena have introduced an ordinance to raise the minimum wage for Chicago workers to $15 an hour, following a March advisory referendum in a small number of precincts that showed about 86 percent of Chicago voters support such a proposal.
If adopted, the $15 wage would initially apply only to workers at businesses with $50 million or more in annual receipts, and their subsidiaries and franchisees, while workers at smaller businesses would see the wage phased in over a multi-year period.
A new study by the Center for Popular Democracy, where I serve as director of strategic research, shows that the ordinance will increase income for 40 percent of all Chicago workers.
But what about job loss? Big business will say the higher wage will hurt the economy and force layoffs.
Not so.
Our study shows that an additional $1.1 billion would be passed to workers as take-home pay. Almost all of that money will travel through the local economy, generating an additional $616 million in new economic activity and creating 5,350 new jobs.
And there is precedent for these findings elsewhere: The payroll company Paychex and research firm IHS did a survey that found that Washington, the state with the highest minimum wage, also has the highest annual job growth.
Raising the wage isn’t just the right thing to do; it’s the smart thing to do. And although it may seem counterintuitive, the higher wage will help businesses grow. How?
Because too much inequality threatens economic growth and stability by limiting consumers’ ability to buy goods and participate in the marketplace. In other words, who will buy a new car if no one can afford to pay rent?
Unfortunately, the so-called recovery we’re in has been fueled largely by low-wage jobs replacing previously existing higher-wage jobs, further fueling inequality. In 2012, the Brookings Institute named Chicago the eighth most unequal city in the country.
Latinos and African-Americans make up disproportionate portions of the low-wage workforce, exacerbating racial and geographic disparities in the economy. Our study shows that a higher minimum wage will address these disparities by helping low-wage workers to participate more fully in the city’s economy as consumers, and help facilitate economic recovery in the neighborhoods where these workers live.
The current Illinois minimum wage is $8.25 an hour, a dollar higher than the federal minimum wage. Neither of these wage levels has kept pace with inflation or the cost of living, and both fall well below in purchasing power compared to the minimum wage in previous decades.
While the state and the federal government continue to ponder action, Chicago can’t afford to wait. The city is well positioned to take action, and join other cities, such as Seattle, San Francisco, and Washington, that are showing national leadership for urban America while Congress continues to stall.
More families than ever are relying on low-wage jobs to make ends meet. Let’s give them a fighting chance. Let’s make the economy work for all of us, not just the wealthy and the corporations.
Connie M. Razza is the director of strategic research at the Center for Popular Democracy, which gets funding from private philanthropy, community groups and labor organizations.
Source
Attorney general reaches agreement with companies to stop on-call scheduling
Attorney general reaches agreement with companies to stop on-call scheduling
Several major retailers across the state and in Western New York have agreed to end on-call shift scheduling. The...
Several major retailers across the state and in Western New York have agreed to end on-call shift scheduling.
The announcement came from Attorney General Eric Schneiderman, who has worked with attorneys from several states to secure the agreement. The six major retailers agreeing to stop the practice include Aeropostale, Carter’s, David’s Tea, Disney, PacSun and Zumiez.
On-call scheduling requires employees to call their employers an hour before their shift starts to find out if they will be assigned to work that day. If the workers are not scheduled, Schneiderman says they are not compensated for their time, despite being required to keep their schedule open.
“On-call shifts are not a business necessity and should be a thing of the past,” said Schneiderman in a press release. “People should not have to keep the day open, arrange for child care, and give up other opportunities without being compensated for their time.”
The agreement comes after the attorney general sent out a letter earlier this year, detailing the challenges employees face with the on-call scheduling system.
The letter read in part, “Without the security of a definite work schedule, workers who must be ‘on call’ have difficulty making reliable childcare and elder care arrangements, encounter obstacles in pursuing an education, and in general experience higher incidences of adverse health effects, overall stress, and strain on family life than workers who enjoy the stability of knowing their schedules reasonably in advance.”
The AG’s office also requested documents relating to the companies’ use of on-call shifts.
In addition to ending the use of on-call shifts, Carter’s, Disney, David’s Tea and Zumiez’s have agreed to provide their employees with their work schedule one week in advance.
The AG’s office says the companies were able to find alternative methods for staffing stores during an unexpected employee absence or during a slow time for businesses.
“This latest announcement shows the sweeping positive impact that Attorney General Schneiderman's actions have had on the lives of people working in retail,” said Carrie Gleason, director of the Fair Workweek Initiative at the Center for Popular Democracy. “Today, we are seeing retailers across America take steps to curb unnecessary and unfair on-call scheduling.”
In 2015, as a result of an inquiry by Schneiderman into on-call scheduling, stores including Abercrombie & Fitch, Gap, J.Crew, Urban Outfitters and Pier 1 Imports all agreed to end the practice of assigning on-call shifts.
Source
Yellen to Meet Group Seeking Low Rates, Greater Openness
Bloomberg News - November 11, 2014, by Christopher Condon - Federal Reserve Chair ...
Bloomberg News - November 11, 2014, by Christopher Condon - Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen will meet Nov. 14 with a coalition of community groups, labor unions and faith leaders seeking to influence monetary policy and the way some Fed officials are appointed.
The group has called for the Fed to place greater weight on lowering unemployment. They also want more public say in the appointment of district Fed leaders, just as regional Fed presidents in Dallas and Philadelphia plan to retire next year.
“The most important thing is to keep interest rates low,” said Shawn Sebastian, a policy advocate at the Brooklyn-based Center for Popular Democracy, one of the organizers. “The hawks in the Fed are pushing hard to raise rates soon, but most people in the public realize we are not three months away from a recovery.”
The meeting comes as the Fed moves closer to a decision on when to raise interest rates for the first time since 2006.
Unemployment fell to 5.8 percent in October, and most Federal Open Market Committee officials expect the U.S. central bank will lift its benchmark rate at some point next year, after leaving it near zero since December 2008.
The organizers look to add to pressure on the central bank to be more transparent. The Fed has come in for criticism from Congress, where Republicans have proposed legislation limiting its discretion on monetary policy and banking supervision. Congress has already curbed the Fed’s emergency lending powers.
The FOMC, the Fed’s main policy-setting panel, has 12 voting seats. Eight of those are reserved for the bank’s board of governors and the president of the New YorkFed. The heads of the other 11 regional banks rotate through four remaining spots.
Regional Feds
The governors are appointed by the U.S. president and confirmed by the Senate. Regional bank heads are picked by their respective boards, which are typically dominated by business executives. The group meeting with Yellen say there should be more public input when Philadelphia’s Charles Plosser and Dallas’s Richard Fisherstep down in 2015.
“The Dallas Fed needs to create a transparent and inclusive process for selecting” a new president, Danny Cendejas, an organizer at the Texas Organizing Project, said in a statement. “Members of the public have the right to know who is making this crucial decision and what criteria they are using.”
The group sent an open letter to Yellen, and to the Philadelphia and Dallas boards, demanding more transparency and public engagement.
Marilyn Wimp, a spokeswoman for the Philadelphia Fed, said in an e-mail the bank had received the letter. She declined to comment further. James Hoard, spokesman for the Dallas Fed, didn’t immediately respond to a message seeking comment.
Plosser and Fisher have been among Fed officials favoring raising rates sooner to prevent inflation and financial-instability pressures from building.
Source
The Dyett Hunger Strikers’ Fight For Green Technology and a Better Bronzeville
After weeks of a hunger strike by 12 residents fighting for the predominately African-American Bronzeville’s Walter...
All this in an effort to make Chicago Public School (CPS) officials heed their plea: to end the privatization of education and to make Walter Dyett High school into a Green Technology community high school.
The hunger strikers are saying what needs to be said: that Black and brown children must be valued, their families must be valued, and their schools must nourish their inherit value.
The demands of the hunger strikers are easy to understand. They don’t merely want a re-opened school, as was finally agreed to by Mayor Rahm Emanuel and CPS last week after 18 days of hunger strike. They want a Green Technology community high school with parent engagement in decision-making from the beginning. Their plan for the new school was vetted by multiple education experts at the University of Chicago. The comprehensive plan presented by the community and the hunger strikers to CPS was “excellent and should be chosen,” said Jeannie Oakes, president of American Educational Research Association, AERA.
Why Walter Dyett High School was set up for closure by the CPS to begin with is difficult to understand. The school received awards in 2008 and 2011. First, for the largest increase of students going to college out of all Chicago’s public schools, and then the ESPN “Rise Up” award for small schools making great improvements, but in need of some help. The school won a $4 million athletic facilities renovation.
So what happened? In a part of town activists say is a target for gentrification, the school was closed before students even got a chance to enjoy the new facilities. The strikers called it “racism” and “systemic disinvestment.” “Our schools weren’t failing,” they said. “They were failed.” And Walter Dyett High School was set to become yet another victim in the closing of over 50 neighborhood Chicago public schools in favor of privately owned and managed charter schools, with poor records of achievement, no accountability and inadequate oversight. But due to the sacrifice of the hunger strikers risking their health, that plan was overturned last week.
However, the Bronzeville hunger strikers know what a growing chorus of national education experts recognize: while just keeping schools open is not enough, sustainable “community schools” can help transform neighborhoods. As it is now, Bronzeville is a food and job desert, but Green Technology addresses both problems. There are already 5000 community schools in the US that through civic partnerships address the majority of challenges in a neighborhood by providing wrap-around healthcare, social and psychological services, in addition to the standard educational offerings. Community schools focus on restorative justice practices and a curriculum based in the community and evaluated by teachers, so students can learn more. Community schools are making marked gains in student outcomes both academically and socially.
Take Cincinnati. The city turned around their public schools’ statistics when they bet on the effectiveness of community schools over charter schools. The results are staggering. In 2003, before introducing the model, only 51 percent of all students graduated. In 2014, when 34 out 55 schools were community schools, 82 percent of all students were graduating. Community schools combat racial inequality, as well: in Cincinnati, the black/white achievement gap dropped 10 percent in those same 11 years. Similar results are seen in New York, Baltimore, Kentucky, Ohio, Minnesota, and other places where community schools have been prioritized.
These are the kind of schools that Bronzeville deserves.
It is under this history of political disinvestment that Bronzeville community leaders arrived to last month’s protests: community members risking their health to fight for their children’s access to something as basic as a good public school. While school officials took the right first step by moving to keep Dyett open, they must heed the deeper call of the people of Bronzeville and invest in a community school that will better the future of the children in Chicago.
Source: In These Times
Philly passes Fair Workweek law, raises minimum wage
According to figures provided by the Washington, D.C.-based Center for Popular Democracy, 58 percent of Hispanic...
According to figures provided by the Washington, D.C.-based Center for Popular Democracy, 58 percent of Hispanic workers, and 55 percent of black workers “have no say” in their work schedules. In addition, 41 percent of “early career adults” receive their schedules “one week or less in advance."
Read the full article here.
La lucha tras DAPA
Corte Suprema puso en peligro más de cinco millones de vidas el mes pasado al no emitir un fallo con respecto a un...
Corte Suprema puso en peligro más de cinco millones de vidas el mes pasado al no emitir un fallo con respecto a un programa que podría haber ayudado a muchos inmigrantes a salir de la clandestinidad. El programa, llamado Acción Diferida para Padres de Estadounidenses y Residentes Permanentes Legales (Deferred Action for Parents of Americans and Lawful Permanent Residents o DAPA), evitaría que se deporte a inmigrantes indocumentados si sus hijos son residentes legales del país.
El presidente Obama anunció el Decreto Ejecutivo sobre DAPA en noviembre de 2014. La medida se produjo dos años después de un programa complementario, Consideración de Acción Diferida para los Llegados en la Infancia (Consideration of Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals o DACA), que permitió que quienes llegaron a Estados Unidos de niños legalmente soliciten vivir y trabajar en el país. Juntas, estas dos medidas significaron un avance hacia la solución de los graves problemas del sistema de inmigración de nuestro país, que victimiza y castiga a millones de personas que trabajan, pagan impuestos y contribuyen al futuro de nuestro país todos los días.
Las fuerzas antiinmigrantes no tardaron mucho en combatirlas. Al cabo de horas, algunos estados comenzaron a tomar medidas legales contra el programa. En total, 26 estados presentaron demandas para bloquear la implementación de DAPA. La Corte del Quinto Distrito exigió un mandato judicial para prevenir que se implementara DAPA en todo el país. La apelación pasó a los ocho miembros de la Corte Suprema, que en un empate de 4-4 dejaron vigente el fallo de la corte de menor instancia.
El gobierno del presidente Obama le ha pedido a la Corte Suprema que vuelva a oír el caso cuando cuente con nueve jueces. Esta medida del gobierno tiene sentido y la alentamos. Sin embargo, en pocas ocasiones la Corte cumple con dichas solicitudes, y si lo hace, lo más probable es que tome por lo menos un año que se llene el escaño y que se vuelva a oír el caso.
Ya que el programa federal está en limbo indefinido, defensores de la inmigración han hecho propuestas innovadoras para sortear el fallo en su contra. Peter Markowitz, profesor de la Facultad Benjamin Cardozo de Derecho, escribió una columna en el New York Times que propone que el presidente Obama use la facultad de indulto a su partida para otorgar amnistía a millones de inmigrantes afectados por el fallo.
Markowitz argumenta que tal medida también ayudaría a realzar el legado del presidente Obama. A pesar de los decretos ejecutivos, este ha deportado a 2.5 millones de inmigrantes, más que ningún otro presidente.
El Center for Popular Democracy ha apoyado el llamado a Obama para que imponga una moratoria en deportaciones, lo que promueven Not1More y muchos otros. Con el llamado de #noDAPA y #noDeportations, los activistas plantean que Obama debe comenzar a desmantelar las estructuras que produjeron un récord de deportaciones, a fin de mejorar su legado y crear un sistema más humano para el próximo presidente.
También es importante aprovechar campañas locales que han logrado ayudar a los inmigrantes. Incluso mientras nos lamentamos, grupos como Center for Popular Democracy y Make the Road New York están tomando medidas para asegurar que los inmigrantes se sientan seguros y apoyados. Continuamos diseminando información sobre el carnet de identidad municipal de Nueva York y, en el caso de quienes enfrentan la deportación, hay un programa de la ciudad que ofrece acceso a asesoría legal gratuita. CPD ayudó a facilitar ambos proyectos y también seguimos oponiéndonos a los centros de detención en
Nueva York y otros estados que mantienen encarcelados a inmigrantes injustamente durante varios meses, sin que se cumpla el proceso debido.
El fallo también reforzará los esfuerzos que ya están en marcha para que familias inmigrantes se inscriban para votar, la única manera de elegir a candidatos que reconocen el valor de la inmigración en este país. Ya ha aumentado el número de inscripciones electorales este año en comunidades latinas, debido a la retórica extraordinariamente xenofóbica de Donald Trump, el candidato republicano a la presidencia. Diversos grupos están ayudando a acelerar esta campaña en todo el país y a dar voz y voto a quienes se verían más afectados si un candidato antiinmigrante llegara a la Casa Blanca.
El fallo de la Corte Suprema es un paso hacia atrás, pero no es el fin del camino. Al trabajar juntos, nos aseguraremos de que se trate con dignidad y justicia a las familias inmigrantes que hacen que nuestro país sea un lugar mejor, y nos aseguraremos de que sus hijos reciban el legado de un futuro mejor.
By Adam Gold
Source
Housing advocates accuse Wells Fargo of damaging communities through foreclosures
89.3KPCC - March 13, 2013 - Wells Fargo writes the most mortgages in California. According to a ...
89.3KPCC - March 13, 2013 - Wells Fargo writes the most mortgages in California. According to a new report released Tuesday from a consortium of grassroots activists and housing advocates, 11,616 of those loans are currently in foreclosure, out of roughly 65,000 homes in foreclosure in the state.
The report accuses Wells Fargo of damaging both California communities and the state’s overall economy. It was produced by the Alliance of Californians for Community Empowerment, the Center for Popular Democracy, and the Home Defenders League.
Ross Rhodes of the Alliance of Californians for Community Development said on a conference call Tuesday that Wells Fargo was singled out because the bank is "responsible for handling more delinquent loans than any other servicer."
He added that Wells Fargo is failing to live up to the terms of last year's mortgage settlement between the states and the country's biggest banks. Rhodes said that Wells is lagging behind both Bank of America and Chase in efforts to keep people in their homes.
In a statement, Wells Fargo said that its foreclosure rate in California is lower than its rate in the nation as a whole and that the report "appears to be an attempt to question Wells Fargo’s longstanding track record as a fair and responsible lender and servicer."
The bank emerged from the financial crisis relatively unscathed. But in recent years it has been called to task for past lending practices. It was was fined $175 million by the Justice Department in 2012 for steering minorities into costly subprime loans before the housing crisis.
The bank was also fined $148 million by the Securities and Exchange Commission for violations perpetrated by Wachovia Securities (Wells took control of Wachovia in 2008, at the height of crisis, when major U.S. banks were failing).
The report also argues that Wells Fargo’s foreclosures in the state are disproportionately affecting African American and Latino neighborhoods and could wind up costing the state $20 million in lost tax revenue.
The authors say that the solution is “principal reduction” — adjusting mortgages to reflect the reduced market value of homes in foreclosure.
Numerous economists support the idea of principal reduction, but the notion has been resisted at the federal level, most notably by Edward DeMarco, acting director of the Federal Housing Finance Agency, which has overseen mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac since they were taken into receivership during the financial crisis.
DeMarco has supported principal forbearance, a method that would not reduce the amount of mortgages held by Fannie and Freddie but rather restructure them so that homeowners could see more affordable payments.
The report's consortium of advocates doesn't favor forbearance, arguing that it can't address the core issue of borrowers drowing in debt.
But as tempting as principal reduction might be in theory, in practice is doesn't always lead to the homeowner staying in the home.
Economist Stuart Gabriel is Director of the Ziman Center for Real Estate at UCLA. He said that principal reduction isn't a "cure all."
"For borrowers that are deeply underwater, a modest amount of principal reduction is going to make no difference the ultimate outcome, which would be default and foreclosure," Gabriel said.
In its statement, Wells Fargo called its principal reduction efforts since 2009 "aggressive." But the advocacy groups said that Wells Fargo is one of the most difficult banks to work with, and that it engages in "dual tracking" — undertaking loan modifications at the same time it moves forward with the foreclosure process.
The report also recommends that Wells Fargo disclose more data about its foreclosures, and specifically about the impact that foreclosures are having on minority neighborhoods in California.
Gabriel said that more transparency about lending practices and the racial and geographical makeup of loan portfolios is always a good thing because additional information improves markets.
Source
OPPOSING A MINIMUM WAGE HIKE COULD COST THE GOP THE SENATE
Labor Day has started the sprint to the November election. And with more than 40 percent of U.S. workers struggling on...
Labor Day has started the sprint to the November election. And with more than 40 percent of U.S. workers struggling on less than $15 an hour, our economy’s tilt toward low-paying jobs has become a top economic issue this year.
Now, as GOP leaders fret that Donald Trump may drag down Republican incumbents, turning more U.S. Senate races into toss-ups, the Republican majority’s stonewalling of any action to raise the federal minimum wage could cost the party control of Congress.
New polling shows that close to 70 percent of voters in key swing states want an increase in the federal minimum wage—and that 60 percent or more support a $15 minimum wage in six of the seven states polled.
Try Newsweek for only $1.25 per week
Even more, the polling shows that candidates’ positions on raising pay could play a pivotal role in this year’s electoral battles for control of the U.S. Senate. The results show that the incumbent Republican U.S. senators locked in close races could lose critical support—and even their seats—over opposition to raising wages for working people.
In Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and New Hampshire, Democratic challengers Katie McGinty, Russ Feingold and Governor Maggie Hassan strengthened their leads over incumbent Republican Senators Pat Toomey, Ron Johnson and Kelly Ayotte when voters were made aware of the senators’ opposition to raising the minimum wage.
And in Arizona, Missouri and North Carolina, Democratic challengers Representative Ann Kirkpatrick, Jason Kander and Deborah Ross pulled ahead of Senators John McCain, Roy Blunt and Richard Burr, flipping those contests on their heads, when voters learned of the senators’ track records opposing raises.
For example, in Arizona—where John McCain has just emerged from his toughest re-election primary ever—a 43-43 tie turns into a 44-38 lead for Kirkpatrick once voters hear about McCain’s opposition to raising pay.
The polling comes as the National Employment Law Project Action Fund, the Center for Popular Democracy Action, the Working Families Organization and other grassroots groups in seven states begin to mobilize voters.
The coalition plans to engage in canvassing, hold candidate forums and wage debate protests, among other actions, to educate and energize voters around candidates’ positions on the raising the minimum wage.
While Donald Trump, who has been all over the map on the minimum wage, has announced he now supports an increase to $10, most Republicans in Congress remain opposed.
Leading Republican pollster Frank Luntz’s firm LuntzGlobal has warned minimum wage opponents, “If you’re fighting against the minimum wage increase, you’re fighting an uphill battle, because most Americans, even most Republicans, are OK with raising the minimum wage.”
Farm workers pick vegetables on a farm in Rancho Santa Fe, California, on August 31. Paul Sonn writes that Republican U.S. senators locked in close races could lose their seats over opposition to raising wages.
While Congress has refused to act, over the past three and a half years, more than 50 states, cities and counties, as well as individual companies, have stepped forward to approve minimum wage increases, delivering raises to 17 million workers.
And 10 million of those workers are in states or cities that have approved phased-in $15 minimum wages, raising pay for more than one in three workers in California and New York and beginning to reverse decades of growing pay inequality.
Historically, raising the minimum wage enjoyed the same bipartisan backing in Congress that it does with voters. But over the past 20 years, increasing polarization in Washington and the growing role of money in politics have led many Republicans to abandon their support.
As a result, the federal minimum wage today remains frozen at just $7.25 an hour. And taxpayers are being forced to pick up the tab, as low-wage workers in the seven states just polled must rely on $150 billion per year in public assistance to make up for their inadequate paychecks.
Candidates’ positions on the minimum wage have made a difference in close U.S. senate races before. Ten years ago, in Missouri and Montana, Democrats Claire McCaskill and Jon Tester successfully used their support for a higher minimum wage to highlight the difference between them and their opponents, Republican Senators Jim Talent and Conrad Burns, who both opposed raising the wage.
McCaskill and Tester rode the issue to an Election Day victory, helping to break a logjam in Congress and delivering the first federal minimum wage increase in 10 years in 2007.
With the public demanding action to boost pay, the Republican majority and individual candidates this fall face a clear choice: stop standing in the way of a long overdue federal minimum wage increase—or risk their political future.
By Paul K. Sonn
Source
Jackson Hole Journal: Rate Rise Friends, Foes Encircle Fed Event
Also getting under way at the lodge is a protest conference organized by the Center for Popular Democracy, a liberal...
Also getting under way at the lodge is a protest conference organized by the Center for Popular Democracy, a liberal group that has been cajoling the Fed to hold off on raising interest rates. Their headline speaker will be Joseph Stiglitz, a Nobel Prize-winning economist and once a mentor to Fed Chair Janet Yellen, who is not attending the Fed event.
Policy makers such as Fed Vice Chairman Stanley Fischer won’t be able to avoid seeing their activists, roaming around the lodge in green t-shirts, reading “Whose recovery?” and “Let our wages grow.”
The group, which this year includes representatives from the Black Lives Matter movement, have reserved conference space directly below the room where the Kansas City Fed’s sessions take place.
Left out is the American Principles Project, a conservative organization that has heavily criticized the Fed’s monetary policy as excessively accommodative. They believe interest rates should have been lifted long ago.
The group tried to reserve space at the Jackson Lake Lodge but were refused, according to Steve Lonegan, their director of monetary affairs. So they’ll get their alternative conference started this evening in Teton Village, a more than 30-mile (48-kilometer) drive away. Scheduled speakers include Representative Scott Garrett, a New Jersey Republican who has sponsored legislation to make the Fed more accountable to Congress.
Better Access
Standing at an information table covered with gold-coin chocolates on Wednesday in Jackson Hole Airport, Lonegan complained that his group was refused space at the lodge while the other protesters enjoyed much closer access to the Fed attendees, including the media.
Kansas City Fed Spokesman Bill Medley said the bank had “no say over who else books space here.”
Elizabeth Biebl, a spokeswoman for lodge operator Vail Resorts Hospitality and Real Estate, said in an e-mail there are space limitations and the Center for Popular Democracy was accommodated at the Jackson Lake Lodge because it requested smaller numbers than American Principles Project.
“Groups interested in booking with us are not subject to the approval of other groups who already have bookings,” she wrote.
Source: Bloomberg
Prosecutors and Race Bias: Why the DOJ Needs to Act
Prosecutors are supposed to hold people accountable when they hurt other people—that’s part of the job. Yet for years...
Prosecutors are supposed to hold people accountable when they hurt other people—that’s part of the job. Yet for years prosecutors across the country have opted out of that responsibility when the perpetrator is a police officer.
Last year, police killed African Americans at a rate more than twice that of white people, according to the Guardian’s database, and African-American men between the ages of 15 and 34 at a rate five times that of white men in that age range. Our morgues were busy due to killings by police in 2015 -- 1,145 deaths among all races, according to the database.But our district attorneys’ offices were not nearly as busy: in 2015, they initiated just 18 prosecutions of police officers who killed civilians.
If local prosecutors won’t act, the federal government should find out why.
Chicago prosecutor Anita Alvarez waited almost a year before indicting the officer who killed Laquan McDonald, a young African-American man. She faced relentless pressure from organizers and communities in Chicago and brought charges only after a judge ordered the city to release the videotape of the killing that directly contradicted the officers’ versions of the shooting.
And the Chicago officer who killed Reika Boyd was acquitted after a botched prosecution by one of Alvarez’s attorneys who kept his job.
In Cleveland, Tamir Rice, a 12-year-old African-American youth, was shot and killed within two seconds of officers arriving on the scene. Prosecutor Tim McGinty oversaw a grand jury “investigation” that involved leaked “expert” reports justifying the shooting, presentation of evidence that Tamir kept a toy gun longer than he should have, and accusations that Tamir’s family protested the killing of their son because of money.
In the Bronx, New York City paid $3.9 million to the family of Ramarley Graham who was shot and killed by police while in his own home, but criminal charges against the officer were dismissed, and the officer is still on the job — with a raise.
The behavior of these prosecutors led many to believe that race bias played a role in their actions. Alvarez and McGinty were voted out of office, reflecting the community reaction against two elected prosecutors; but this does not resolve issues of potential race bias by prosecutors remaining in those offices or in offices of other local prosecutors around the country.
Judges, prosecutors, and former presidential advisors have acknowledged that race bias, deliberate or unintentional, has played a role in the incarceration of African Americans in unfairly disproportionate numbers. We know prosecutors can be drivers of racialized mass incarceration because they hold so much power in our current system of plea bargain justice.
The reality that African Americans are incarcerated at nearly six times the rate of white people is at least in part a result of the discretionary decisions of prosecutors.
Under the circumstances, shouldn’t we ask if any kind of race bias led local prosecutors to defend police who kill instead of objectively investigating them? Given the other evidence of race bias in the system, doesn’t the miniscule number of prosecutions in killings that disproportionately affect the African-American community suggests a disturbing answer?
Until now, prosecutors have been exempt from virtually any scrutiny. It is time for that exemption to expire, and the Department of Justice has the authority and responsibility to act. The Safe Streets Act of 1968 and the Violent Crime Control Act of 1994 authorize the attorney general to conduct investigations and file civil litigation to eliminate “a pattern or practice of discrimination on the ground of race, color, religion, national origin, or sex, in connection with any law enforcement agency that receives financial assistance from DOJ’s Office of Justice Programs and the Office of Community Oriented Policing Services.”
Law enforcement is defined as “all activities pertaining to crime prevention or reduction and enforcement of the criminal law.” Prosecutors, like police departments, receive millions of dollars in federal funding through Justice Assistance Grants and should be subject to the same scrutiny as the police.
Looking for the influence of race bias is not an accusation of racism. The Manhattan District Attorney’s Office investigated the possible role of race bias in its own work without any intervention by the Justice Department. District Attorney Cyrus Vance was not accusing his staff of racism. He was willing to look for any impact race bias might have on carrying out justice. The Vera Institute examined the office’s work, from charging decisions to plea offers, and discovered evidence of racial bias that could not be explained by other factors.
Does this show that Manhattan DAs are racist? No, it points to an equally serious problem — racial bias exists systemically in ways prosecutors have not or will not recognize.
The impact of unconscious bias can be reduced and even eliminated by training to recognize it and using best practices to eliminate its influence. But if you don’t look for it, you won’t find it. And we need to remember that for those injured, killed, or incarcerated—and for their families, who are forced to bear the financial and emotional costs of incarceration—the difference between conscious and unconscious bias means nothing.
The killing of Michael Brown brought no indictment, but investigating the Ferguson police revealed some of the ugliest racist attitudes in America, leading to a Department of Justice lawsuit against the department.
How did it get that bad in Ferguson? For one thing, police knew the DAs wouldn’t hold them accountable for their behavior. We need prosecutors to do their jobs when police officers are the defendants. If they are reluctant to do it, a visit from the feds may help change their thinking.
The Department of Justice must step in and use its authority and power to ensure justice.
By Marbre Stahly-Butts and Jeffery Robinson
Source
8 days ago
8 days ago