CPD IN THE NEWS

Hundreds of labor and immigrant advocates marched through east midtown early Monday in a demonstration against corporations which they say are profiting from President Trump's agenda—one of a series of May Day protests scheduled to take place throughout the city (and beyond) on Monday. 

The specific targets of this action, according to organizers from Make The Road New York, are the Wall Street banks that help finance private prisons and immigrant detention centers. To that end, organizers said twelve protesters were arrested for peaceful civil disobedience while blocking the entrances outside of JPMorgan Chase, which is one of the companies named in Make The Road's and the Center for Popular Democracy's Backers Of Hate campaign.

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A former top Federal Reserve staffer joined with activists on Monday to lay out the mechanics of a plan to overhaul the structure of the U.S. central bank.

Dartmouth College’s Andrew Levin, who was a top adviser to former Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke, Jordan Haedtler of the left-leaning Center for Popular Democracy’s Fed Up campaign and the Economic Policy Institute’s Valerie Wilson say in a paper that their proposals amount to an important modernization of the Fed.

“The Fed’s structure is simply outdated, and that makes it harder for its decisions to serve the public,” Ms. Wilson said in a press call. “We are well aware we can’t create a dramatic shake-up” of the Fed, she said, explaining what she and her colleagues are calling for is “pragmatic and nonpartisan.”

The linchpin of the overhaul is bringing the 12 quasi-private regional Fed banks fully into government. The paper’s authors also repeated calls for bankers to be removed from regional Fed bank boards of directors, while proposing nonrenewable terms for top central bank officials and greater government oversight over Fed actions.

The paper Monday fleshed out the specifics of how the overhaul would happen, building on ideas first made public in April. “We had a ‘why,’ and now we have a ‘how,’” Mr. Levin told reporters.

Mr. Levin and Fed Up have seen successes in their campaign to overhaul the central bank. Earlier this year, congressional Democrats and the campaign of Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton endorsed their push to remove bankers from the boards overseeing the 12 regional Fed banks. Fed Up’s effort to promote diversity in a central bank that is still dominated largely by white males, not withstanding the current leadership of Chairwoman Janet Yellen, also has gained traction among Democrats.

The regional Fed banks are unique among major central banks for being owned by local banks. Some fear this structure gives financial institutions undue sway over policy decisions. Fed bank presidents have countered this isn’t the case.

Regional Fed officials have acknowledged that more diversity within the central bank system would be welcome, but they have been reluctant to tinker with the current structure. The paper also proposes auditing the Fed’s monetary-policy-making functions, and that has been something officials have fought hard against, believing it will lead to bad economic outcomes.

The authors say regional Fed banks can easily be made public by canceling the shares of the member banks and refunding the capital these banks were required to keep with the Fed.

The money to do this can be created by the Fed, and the paper says the fact that the central bank no longer would have to pay dividends to the banks would help it return more of its profit to the government. Over the next decade, that could mean the Fed might return as much as $3 billion more in excess profit, helping reducing the government’s budget deficit.

A number of regional Fed bank leaders have pushed back at being made fully public. In May, New York Fed President William Dudley said “the current arrangements are actually working quite well, both in terms of preserving the Federal Reserve’s independence with respect to the conduct of monetary policy and actually leading to pretty, you know, successful outcomes.”

The paper’s authors said making the Fed fully public also would allow it to remove bankers and other financial-sector members from the boards that oversee each regional Fed bank. The authors said directors should be nominated by either a member of Congress or a state governor, subject to approval by the Fed boards.

None of these directors should be from the financial sector, to prevent the conflict of interest created by a member of a regulated financial institution overseeing the operations of their own regulator.

This, too, has drawn pushback from some on the Fed. Philadelphia Fed leader Patrick Harker said in July that “the banker from a small town in Pennsylvania provides incredibly important insight,” and he wants people like that on his board.

New bank leaders should be selected by an open process in which candidates are named publicly, with a formal mechanism for public input. All Fed officials also should serve single staggered seven-year terms, which the paper says would help insulate central bankers from political interference. The selection process of regional Fed bank leaders has long been a secretive affair. Meanwhile, the leaders of the Dallas, Minneapolis and Philadelphia Fed banks, who all took their posts since 2015, have had connections to Goldman Sachs, which has drawn criticism from the Fed Up campaign. Mr. Dudley at the New York Fed was once that firm’s chief economist.

The authors also would like to subject Fed monetary policy decisions to Government Accountability Office audits. To ensure this oversight doesn’t interfere with Fed decision-making, the paper calls for the audits to be done annually and not at the request of a member of Congress, and the GAO shouldn’t be able to comment on any given interest-rate decision.

The paper calls for the Fed to release a quarterly monetary policy report that describes officials’ views on policy, the economy’s performance relative to the Fed’s official price and job mandates, forecasts and a description of risks, and a description of any models driving policy-making.

Any changes to the Fed are ultimately up to elected officials. In February, Ms. Yellen told legislators “the structure could be something different and it’s up to Congress to decide that—I certainly respect that.”

By Michael S. Derby

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New York Observer - June 16, 2014, by Will Bredderman - Four days before the legislative session in Albany ends for the summer, Bronx State Senator Gustavo Rivera and Brooklyn Assemblyman Karim Camara have proposed sweeping legislation granting full citizenship rights to undocumented immigrants living in New York state–legislation which even they admit will not get passed this session.

The bill that Mr. Rivera and Mr. Camara have sponsored will grant the right to vote in state and local elections, college financial aid, access to Medicare, drivers’ licenses, medical and chiropractic licenses and full civil rights protections to the three million-odd foreign nationals currently living in New York State without proper paperwork. The immigrants would be required to show proof of identity, proof they have lived in the state for three years, proof they have paid state taxes for three years, proof they have and will continue to obey state laws and a willingness to do jury duty.

“This is a bold idea. And we do not expect anything to pass quickly. But this sets things in motion,” Mr. Rivera, comparing the legislation to the push to legalize same-sex marriage, said at a press conference in Battery Park.

“The defeat of Cantor has made it clear we have to act quickly to protect the rights and privileges of all people living in this state,” Mr. Rivera said.

The bill would only pertain to the undocumented immigrants’ interactions in New York State, and would do nothing to alter federal recognition of citizenship, federal border security, or federal deportation policies.

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WNYC - November 20, 2013, by John Hockenberry - Fifty years ago, in a case called Gideon v. Wainwright, the Supreme Court mandated that those accused of a crime must be provided a lawyer, regardless of their ability to pay. With that decision the public defense system was born. 

While Gideon has changed the equation for many indigent defendants, the law doesn't apply to all cases—just those in criminal court. Immigrants facing detention or deportation have no right to a court-appointed attorney and are left to advocate for themselves. In New York, at least 60 percent of detained immigrants lack access to counsel during their immigration proceedings. 

But the New York Immigrant Family Unity Project is looking change that.

With funding from the New York City Council and Cardozo Law School in Manhattan, the Project—the first of its kind in the country—provides indigent immigrants representation in detention and deportation proceedings, regardless of whether they can pay. 

The Project is the result of a task force of attorneys, activists and experts, chaired by Judge Robert Katzman, chief judge of the U.S. Second Circuit Court of Appeals.

According to the task force, immigrants facing deportation in New York courts that have the help of an attorney are 500 percent more likely to win their case than those who lack counsel. Judge Katzmann says he hopes the Immigrant Family Unity Project will allow more immigrants access to justice, while helping immigrant families to stay together.

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