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Andrew Yang Cares


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Andrew Yang & Ron Kim meeting with home-care workers (photo: @rontkim)


This past weekend, I hosted a town hall discussion between Andrew Yang and home-care workers at the Flushing Workers Center. The home-care workers set the stage for a substantive discussion about ending the exploitative 24-hour work-shift, and helping the workers recover back wages from their employer. At the end of the discussion, they would press Yang, a Democrat running for Mayor who I have endorsed, to sign their home care workers’ pledge.

It was a tense, hour-long discussion. The workers shared heartbreaking testimonials of the physical, emotional, and psychological trauma they suffered from working 24-hour shifts over the years. Their scars, some visible, others more hidden, were deeply troubling to Andrew and his staff members.

For context: The 24-hour work-shift is a grueling around-the-clock work shift that endangers the lives of caretakers as well as patients. It is a cruelty that is unheard of in any other industry or even in the home-care industries of many other states. 

More often than not, home-care workers on the 24-hour shift are forced by their agencies to work beyond 13 hours, cutting into the five hours of uninterrupted sleep and three hours of uninterrupted eating times they are mandated under Department of Labor regulations. As much as state regulations need to be amended to end the 24-hour shift and enhance worker protections and rights, even under the current legal regime, the law unambiguously states that should the agency fail to provide the sleeping and eating time requisites for their employees, the agency must be held liable to compensate the workers for all 24 hours of their labor. 

However, these mandates are often ignored or not enforced due to the unfortunate superseding prioritization of industry stability over workers’ rights; thus the home-care agencies that have exploited their workers and neglected to pay their wages are not only committing a grave moral wrong, but are also in direct contravention of state law.

The Chinese Planning Council (CPC) home-care workers pushed back against these abuses and sued their agency for back wages to fully cover their 24-hour shifts. In 2019, case law made it unambiguously clear that the home care agency — the provider — must be held accountable for all 24 hours’ worth of wages. (See Andryeyeva, et al. v New York Health Care, Inc., et al. and Moreno, et al. v Future Care Health Services, Inc., et al.) 

For the record, New York is the only state to have 24-hour shifts for home-care workers. This is due in part to Governor Andrew Cuomo’s obstinate commitment to profit over lives. My colleagues in the Legislature and I are working to end this inhumane practice completely by the end of this session.

Andrew Yang sat and listened to the stories from the home-care workers, and was initially hesitant to sign their pledge. But after seeing the physical impairments of the workers—who themselves need around-the-clock care—he signed the pledge, becoming the first New York City mayoral candidate to do so.

It is rare for a politician to come from a place of vulnerability, listen, and be moved. It is even more rare to show this vulnerability over a live-stream, without preconditions or guardrails from a campaign, leaving their candidate open to public scrutiny.  

Andrew demonstrated that the podium is reserved for the brave.

So far, he is the only mayoral candidate to see the obvious truth: that these home-care workers are being exploited. And because he is independent of establishment institutions, he is unafraid to take ethical stances when it is not politically expedient.

This should be a watershed moment for all of us—lawmakers, labor unions, activists, and nonprofit providers—to reflect on our shortcomings.

How did we allow ourselves to become aligned with exploitative institutions that brand themselves "socially just" and “progressive” without real scrutiny? Have we become so deferential that we assume any entity with “nonprofit” status is beyond reproach?

Andrew showed moral clarity even when some of my progressive colleagues have turned a blind eye towards these abuses. That hypocrisy leaves us open for criticism and exposes our stances as ones of convenience rather than consistency. Our values must hold strong regardless of who we need to hold accountable or who we call in to achieve them.  

Home-care agencies like CPC have gaslit their workers in public and in the courts, and given morally and legally baseless excuses for not paying their back wages. Despite the courts weighing in on this, the employers choose to impose forced arbitration in order to litigate against their home-care workers.

Is this industry and system as a whole morally corrupt and dysfunctional? Yes. The Cuomo nursing home scandal elucidated the depths of immoral self-dealing and untenable working conditions. I am now laser-focused on cleaning up this industry failure from the top down.

What is taking place is wrong, there is no other way to slice it. These workers have been suffering for over ten years. With Andrew Yang on board, I’m more hopeful than ever we can get this right. He stood for and acted on his convictions — that is what I want for our next mayor.

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Ron Kim is a member of the State Assembly representing parts of Queens and has endorsed Andrew Yang in this year’s mayoral race. On Twitter @rontkim.

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More Cops in the City Won’t Solve What's a National Gun Violence Spike


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The mayor at a policing press conference (Mayor's Office)


People joke that New Yorkers think our city is the center of the universe, but judging by the recent media coverage, you’d think the rest of the country fell off the map. As we respond to the heartbreaking surge in shootings, many are quick to link the trend to civil rights protections like bail reform or the repeal of the controversial police secrecy statute 50-a. But the truth is that this isn’t a New York City problem, it’s a national crisis, with homicides up in nearly every city.

Of course, New Yorkers are right to worry more about crimes in our own communities, but as we grasp for explanations, we have to remember that more than local issues are to blame. New York’s homicide rate was up nearly 40% last year, but it was up 33% for all major cities.

Yet none of this has stopped NYPD leaders, police unions, and others from weaponizing the crime spike in a cynical effort to push back on recent historic civil rights protections. Every time a high-profile crime occurs, they blame “the do-nothing pols,” without ever really showing how politicians have supposedly undermined safety. And if New York’s leaders were somehow culpable for our city’s crime surge, just how did they manage to do the same nationwide? The argument makes no sense.

Instead, police boosters keep doubling down on this big lie: that we have to choose between safety and equity. That we have to allow them to act with impunity or somehow society will fall apart. But the truth is that we’ve seen this playbook before, far too many times, and we know where it leads.

If police use this moment to roll back civil rights, New Yorkers will suffer. One of the laws that the police unions hate most was the repeal of section 50-a. This long-standing statute was reinterpreted by the de Blasio administration to block public access to police disciplinary files. The unions fought the move to repeal 50-a tooth and nail, including going to court to block it, and they lost.

Now, as a result, the public has access to years of abuse allegations against officers, detailing the ways New Yorkers’ rights were violated and bodies brutalized. Is this making New York less safe? Not unless you’re an abusive cop.

Next, they complain about the years-long campaign to reform bail abuse in New York. Prior to last year’s reforms, New Yorkers were routinely held for months, even years, simply because they couldn’t afford to pay bail. Under our bail laws, poverty was a death sentence for New Yorkers like Kalief Browder and Layleen Polanco. But New York quickly rolled back some of the bail laws last year, and thousands of New Yorkers are still being held on bail, even now, in the middle of a pandemic. 

It would be bad enough if it were only the NYPD and police unions spreading this fiction, but many leading candidates for mayor have joined them. In the aftermath of a tragic shooting in Times Square, which wounded a small child, Eric Adams and Andrew Yang railed against police reforms and promised the return of deadly and abusive plainclothes police units. Neither candidate could explain how such officers would have prevented this horrific attack, and both almost exclusively avoided the tragic history of what plainclothes police have done in the past.

Plainclothes units were disbanded after last summer’s protests against police violence, but it was only the most recent time. The same squad had been disbanded two decades prior (and later reassembled) after officers shot Amadou Diallo 41 times.

While it’s clear that plainclothes officers are more prone to complaints of violence and excessive force, it’s not clear how they help supposedly lower crime. In the past, officers spent most of their time on discredited tactics like stop and frisk, subjecting Black and Latino New Yorkers to constant harassment. 

We’re all desperate to return to the pre-pandemic city we love, but telling the public policing fairy tales won’t get us there. The sad, somber truth is that as long as we face massive unemployment and insecurity, desolate streets, and closed-down classrooms, no police policy will help. We just can’t arrest our way out of a pandemic.

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Albert Fox Cahn is the founder and executive director of the Surveillance Technology Oversight Project (S.T.O.P.) and a fellow at Yale Law School’s Information Society Project and the Engelberg Center for Innovation Law & Policy at New York University School of Law. On Twitter @FoxCahn.

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We Deserve Equal Pay for Equal Work and Students Deserve Good Care: An Open Letter from School Nurses


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Nurses help (photo: Michael Appleton/Mayoral Photography Office)


Dear Mayor de Blasio and other city budget decision-makers,

The federal government recently provided funds for our school system to recover from the pandemic as part of the American Rescue Plan’s Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief (ESSER). In addition, New York State has fully funded the Foundation Aid formula for the first time since 2007. A public health crisis brought our city to a grinding halt in early 2020, and the decade-old school nurse crisis has reached a zenith of daily shortages, anger over working conditions, and pay inequity. New York City has enough money to care for the health of our students in schools. School nurses must be included in the next city budget, for fiscal year 2022, due by July 1. 

The health and welfare of children in schools has not been a priority for this administration. There is a crisis in our schools due to a severe shortage of Permanent Full Time Nurses. With over 400 vacancies citywide, our children are at risk. 

These are the facts that you and other decision-makers have chosen to ignore. First, it is difficult to attract nurses at a lower salary that is uncompetitive with the industry’s prevailing wage for nurses. School nurses are essential, yet the average pay for a Department of Health/Mental Health (DOHMH) Public Health School Nurse is approximately $62,000 per year. Registered Nurses in New York City are paid on average $84,000. Retention for school nurses is therefore poor: approximately 50% leave the job in 3-6 months.

Further, Department of Education (DOE) nurses are paid more (and work fewer hours) but there is a three-year wait list to get one of those coveted spots. This pay disparity between DOE and DOHMH School Nurses negatively impacts the work environment. We demand equal pay for equal work. In addition, DOHMH nurses perform the same professional job and role in the school for a lower salary and fewer benefits. DOHMH nurses are also first responders for city emergencies. 

During the Pandemic, Travel Nurses were hired from around the country and paid higher rates, put up in hotels, and paid a daily meal stipend – amounting to about double the rate that our local nurses get but for doing less work. As you know, these traveling nurses are leaving New York City at the end of this school year, which is the main reason we stand to have 400 vacancies with no plan to solve the problem before the 2021-2022 school year.  

In addition, School Nurses are engaged in direct and preventative care with an emphasis on family involvement. In New York City Schools, there are greater than 200,000 children with asthma, greater than 2,000 diabetic children, greater than 40,000 children with severe allergies requiring EPI pens, and countless others with both physical and emotional disabilities. Without proper care, children suffer. This spring alone, we lost a child to asthma in Harlem who should have had access to his school nurse. Multiple children died by suicide in New York City, and we nurses know that the health of our students must be prioritized as our schools fully reopen. 

You have chosen to outsource nurses to save money, but contract nurses do not have access to online health records (ASHR) or develop relationships within their school communities. Taxpayers don’t even benefit from the savings, because of unintended consequences such as lawsuits, like the one involving families with diabetic children and the American Diabetes Association. 

Perhaps what’s most dangerous is the fact that dozens of schools go unstaffed each school day, leading to scheduling changes. School nurses are frequently expected to leave their schools unattended and travel to other schools to administer medications and treatments. If a school nurse cannot get there, the Principal often calls 911 if a child needs care. And if no nurse can be staffed for the day, the Principal contacts the parent of a child with a medical need before school to keep the student at home for the day. 

Finally, conditions in medical rooms need improvement. Many medical rooms do not have air conditioning and proper ventilation. This can have a number of negative outcomes, including compromising children with asthma when they are being treated by the nurse. 

People take notice when there are emergencies and fatalities, but by then it’s too late. We need to take action now, we have the funds from the state and federal governments, and we must prioritize the health of the children in our schools. The only right choice is to hire permanent, full-time nurses for our schools.

Respectfully,
School Nurses

P.S. We will be rallying to make this call of our elected leaders on the steps of 52 Chambers Street on Wednesday, May 26, at 5 p.m. if you care to join us.

This open letter is signed by retired DOHMH Nurse Supervisor Mary Lawson, two other retired nurses and nurse supervisors, and 25 working nurses from DOE and DOHMH and all five boroughs. Most signers have preferred to remain anonymous due to their employment situations and fear of adverse career impacts from coming forward.

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The Latino Vote and the Bronx Borough President Race


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Ruben Diaz Jr. (photo via Bronx Borough President's office)


Term limits mean a slew of hotly-contested races every eight years in New York City. This year, not only is the mayor’s race in this category, but the race to succeed outgoing Bronx Borough President Ruben Diaz, Jr. is too, yet it is one that is unfortunately attracting little attention.

The Bronx borough president race has five candidates on the ballot: Fernando Cabrera, Nathalia Fernandez, Vanessa Gibson, Sammy Ravelo, and Luis Sepulveda. Four of these five candidates are currently in elected office, come to the race with some name recognition in their respective districts, and are funded adequately with public matching money.

Historically, the Bronx Borough President position has been significant for Latinos. As the only Latino-majority borough in the City of New York, the Bronx has elected four Latinos to represent its borough in the last 50 years. The first Latino elected to the position was the iconic Herman Badillo, who won the position in 1965. Badillo’s victory was a pivotal moment in New York City Latino political history, and came at a time at which the Latino population in the borough (mostly Puerto Rican) was growing. This growth eventually led to an increase in Latino political representation; one that, at least in the Bronx, was paved by the likes of Badillo.

Badillo went on to run for mayor a number of times, but fell short of making history by being the first Latino to occupy Gracie Mansion.

Twenty years later, Fernando Ferrer became the second Latino to occupy the seat of Bronx borough president. During his 14 years of service, the “Bronx is burning” image of the borough began to dissipate. New development and new businesses replaced abandoned buildings, and with them came more jobs. Ferrer then tried to take his vision citywide, running for mayor in 2001 and 2005. He won the Democratic primary in 2005 but lost to Michael Bloomberg in the general election. Since then, Latinos have not had another prominent and recognized Latino candidate for mayor.

Adolfo Carrion succeeded Ferrer and like him made a bid for Gracie Mansion, but fell well short. In a special election to replace Carrion, who had accepted a position in the Obama White House, Ruben Diaz, Jr. won and has been the borough president since. Diaz, Jr. was at one point a candidate for the mayoralty and was considered in the top tier until he dropped out of the race.

All four of the Latino borough presidents in the Bronx, by virtue of the (largely symbolic) influence of their borough-wide posts, positioned themselves for the mayoralty and have been, until Dianne Morales' current candidacy, the only credible and viable Latino candidates for the mayoralty.

Having several viable Latino candidates on the ballot, all from different sections of the Bronx, may splinter the Latino vote, paving the way for a possible victory by Vanessa Gibson and the first non-Latino Bronx borough president in 35 years. The current voter rolls give us an indication that this may be a distinct possibility. Among the entire Democratic electorate, Latinos make up the largest share among all ethnic categories in the Bronx, with 285,586 voters. Black voters are second with 191,944. 

My theory has some quantifiable backing in the poll commissioned by StudentsFirstNY and undertaken by the reputable Benenson Strategy Group. The poll shows Gibson with a lead and the Latino candidates receiving between 9% and 12% of the vote-share among those polled.

Of the four Latinos in this year’s borough president race, City Council Member Fernando Cabrera has raised the most money and has received more public matching money than any other candidate. While he comes into the race with significant legislative experience, his conservative social values have been a cause of concern for many in the borough.

Nathalia Fernandez is the only Latina in the race and placed second in the aforementioned April poll. She has the least amount of money left in her coffers, so she may run into some difficulty getting her message across to a borough-wide electorate. Sepulveda and Ravelo round out the rest of the field.

Though this is an expansive, borough-wide race, media exposure and voter attention will largely be focused on the mayoral race. These next few weeks are therefore a critical time for the candidates to get their names and message before the Bronx electorate.

Will Latinos splinter their votes? If so, will the Bronx, the only Latino-majority borough in the city, elect its first non-Latino borough president in 35 years? We’ll know soon.

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Eli Valentin is an adjunct lecturer at Union Theological Seminary, a frequent guest political analyst at Univision NY and author of the forthcoming, Reinhold Niebuhr: A Political Life. On Twitter @EliValentinNY.

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How District Attorneys Must Step Up to Support Survivors


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A rally for survivors (photo: Ed Reed/Mayoral Photography Office)


The Manhattan District Attorney’s Office doesn’t currently have prosecutors dedicated to combatting sex crimes. Yes, you read that right. Assistant District Attorneys responsible to victims of sexual violence simultaneously work in the Trial Bureaus and on sex crimes. This means that staff are overloaded, victims are not being put first, and the system churns rather than addresses the root causes of the violence. 

As a survivor of sexual violence and as a prosecutor whose career has been focused on just processes and just outcomes, together we have thought a lot about how to best reform a sex crimes unit. In order to center survivors and fight the public health crisis that is sexual violence and gender-based crimes, a modern sex crimes unit must start by reorganizing its staffing and priorities in order to rebuild its reputation.

Here are some key steps to take in reform:

Be unequivocal about special access
Recent reporting showed how Linda Fairstein used her privileged access on behalf of New York elites to influence the outcome of sex crimes cases. This behavior and the DA’s responsiveness further stacks the deck against survivors and denies accountability. We must foster an environment in which more survivors feel they can safely disclose abuse and there is not even the perception of conflict or favoritism. This starts with refusing to take campaign donations from any lawyer who appears before the DA’s office. Leadership must be unequivocal about special access.

Focus and expand the staff
Dedicate staff to the Sex Crimes Unit who can develop deep expertise. And, have the team report directly to the DA. Staffing will include a significant number of non-attorneys, such as social workers, medical professionals, investigators, and others to help utilize the trauma-informed processes to foster an environment in which more survivors feel they can safely disclose abuse. Believing survivors means supporting them in many ways. This also means including ADAs and staff who themselves are survivors of sexual assault. Lived experience, empathy, and cultural humility are assets in this fight. 

Mend strained relationships
We know that sexual assault is the most underreported violent crime in the country. We must build trust by centering the survivor. Staff the Sex Crimes Unit 24/7 so that survivors can always find support. Build back trust from the survivor and allied communities by stepping up to always be there. Create a meaningful staff partnership with the NYPD so that if victims contact them first, DA staff are involved at the very beginning of an investigation. Survivors should never be denied justice because of a tug of war between branches of law enforcement.

Reduce siloes
Throughout my career, I (Alvin) have done “connect-the-dots” investigations that look at systems of unlawful conduct: i.e. the hostile work environment at The Weinstein Company; New York Dioceses of the Catholic Church’s role in facilitating and covering up sexual abuse (which led to a recent lawsuit accusing the Roman Catholic Diocese of Buffalo and three bishops connected to it of engaging in a years-long cover-up of sexual abuse by priests). This holistic approach is a sharp departure from the status quo. Staff need expertise not only in investigating individual sex assaults, but also investigating complicit entities.

DAs must look at the account of one survivor as part of a bigger picture with the possibility of serial misconduct, complicity by other individuals or an entity, cover-up activity like lying or obstruction, and laundering of funds to facilitate sex offenses. The office must rigorously track complaint data to look for trends, use of banking and financial services information to track money flows, and use of required business records to establish false filing cases. White-collar crimes can no longer be seperate from sex crimes because siloed offices hurt survivors. This approach will also help identify powerful groups who sought to protect their reputations by ignoring warning signs or even hiding violent criminal activity perpetrated on people they were supposed to protect. 

Prosecutors’ offices are about power — how it is exercised and on whose behalf it is wielded. Our experiences with the criminal legal system, while very different , have shown us both that there are two systems of justice — one for the wealthy and powerful and one for everyone else. It is time for this to end.

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Alvin Bragg is a candidate for Manhattan District Attorney and former Chief Deputy Attorney General in New York State. Marissa Hoechstetter is an advocate and sexual assault survivor. On Twitter @AlvinBraggNYC & @MHoechstetter.

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To Build a More Inclusive New York, We Need to Reform County Parties


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New Yorkers (photo: John McCarten/City Council)


As Governor Andrew Cuomo continues to face a barrage of scandals, from sexual harassment accusations to his catastrophic mishandling of the state’s nursing homes during the darkest days of the pandemic, many New Yorkers rightly wonder how the governor and his confidantes have managed to amass so much power in the first place. It’s long been a “best-kept secret” in New York politics that the Democratic establishment, including Governor Cuomo, controls our city’s and state’s politics with an iron fist.

There is an important and overlooked piece of this puzzle that renders politicians like the governor essentially untouchable: the county-level Democratic parties. Until we reform the county party system and put power back into the hands of the people, a small group of elected officials, like Governor Cuomo, will continue to hold too much power, insulated from the constituents they claim to serve, and acting only in their own interest. 

Fortunately, there are clear reforms we can make to the county party system to democratize the Democratic Party and build an open, progressive, and accountable party. 

First, county parties must allow for real engagement from rank-and-file Democrats, instead of consolidating power to serve a narrow range of entrenched interests. That means genuinely opening meetings to rank-and-file members — and soliciting and valuing their input, something that is all too rare and actively discouraged by party leaders these days.  

In December, for example, the Brooklyn Democratic Party held its organizational meeting. A large and diverse coalition of members sought to pass rules to open up the process and encourage participation. Instead, what followed was a 25-hour meeting over two days, where people were silenced on Zoom, points of order weren’t allowed, and hundreds of people were disenfranchised. Bizarre irregularities also arose in vote tallies for several proposed rule changes. 

That sure doesn’t sound democratic, but that’s exactly how the county party wants it to be. The very same Brooklyn Democratic Party used the pandemic as an excuse to not hold meetings at all.

Second, we also need to reshape the County Committee structure to ensure the party is accountable to members. The County Committee is an elected body that decides county party business, including voting for party leadership, passing a party budget, and voting on other resolutions. In my work with New Kings Democrats (NKD), we recruited progressive candidates to run for County Committee, and created Rep Your Block to make it easier to do so. The party establishment fiercely opposed these efforts, even sending people door-to-door to canvas for proxy votes while claiming to be from NKD — and actually taking their votes for the party-aligned candidates. 

That proxy voting system effectively allows party bosses to hold hundreds of votes in their pockets, ostensibly from community members, and use them to quash unwanted, but necessary, reforms. We need to overhaul and replace the proxy voting system to give community members just as much of a say as party leadership. 

Third, we need to minimize the ability of party leadership at all levels to put its finger on the scale and unfairly influence elections. Recently, State Democratic Committee Chairman Jay Jacobs issued a scathing statement criticizing candidates who dared mount a progressive primary challenge against Rep. Carolyn Maloney. Instead of lambasting grassroots activists and unleashing bad-faith attacks against anyone who rightly asks questions of incumbent candidates, the Democratic Party should welcome debate and disagreement. The same is true of county parties, which exist to protect incumbents and entrenched interests, at the expense of democratic values.

While these sound like minor changes to a complicated system, they are necessary steps toward our goal: To create a Democratic Party that represents its members and encourages their participation. They may not change our politics overnight, but they will loosen the stranglehold a small group of powerful politicians has on our political system. 

We need to transform our county parties from being transactional vestiges that benefit those at the top, to responsive, accountable organizations that fight for the people. New Yorkers want politicians that represent their interests and their communities. We can start by reforming our county parties and giving the grassroots a chance to grow. 

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Brandon West is a candidate for City Council District 39 in Brooklyn. On Twitter @brandonwestnyc.

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The Other Civil Rights Revolution of 2020 That We Must Now See Through


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Pride (NYC Mayor's Office)


While millions of Americans marched for Black Lives and racial justice in our streets during a year of racial reckoning that was 2020, a quieter civil rights revolution was taking shape in our courtrooms, culminating in a Supreme Court decision last June that shifted the tectonic plates of the fight for LGBTQIA+ rights. With a new President who has been a leader in this fight and transgender students becoming the latest target in the GOP’s culture war, now is the time to ensure the full promise of this decision touches the lives of the LGBTQIA+ community, starting with where they live.

I write this as a public servant deeply committed to LGBTQIA+ rights and as the former Housing Secretary under President Obama, when I was the first sitting Cabinet member ever to endorse marriage equality. I believe the next frontier in the fight for gay rights must begin with housing those who are most vulnerable: LGBTQIA+ youth, seniors, immigrants, the formerly incarcerated, and people of color.

Since the towering civil rights laws were written in the 1960s, a fundamental question has run through the legal underpinning of the gay rights movement: does discrimination on the basis of sex, which underlies the movement for gender equality and is clearly prohibited by these laws, also apply to discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity? Without a clear answer to this question, LGBTQIA+ Americans had been largely orphaned from the protection of our justice system.

But then last June, the Supreme Court ruled in Bostock v. Clayton County that “it is impossible to discriminate against a person for being homosexual or transgender without discriminating against that individual based on sex.” Before you counter that this earth-shifting statement came from a Supreme Court that still included Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg, understand that these words were written by Justice Gorsuch, a Trump appointee, for a 6-3 majority. With this potentially durable victory at the highest court in the land, we must press forward to advance the cause of LGBTQIA+ rights, and the agenda begins at home.

The new federal administration has taken the most critical first step to enshrine the promise of the June Supreme Court decision by extending its reasoning to the Fair Housing Act of 1968, which was passed just weeks after the assasination of Martin Luther King, Jr. Bostock v. Clayton County interprets the language of the 1964 Civil Rights Act and applies it to workplace discrimination. But because the Fair Housing Act prohibits discrimination in housing, both public and private, on the basis of sex, the logic of the decision’s conclusion will be applied to the later law as well. Now the federal, state and local government must make this promise real by enforcing the law.

Here in New York City, the results of the recently completed National Transgender Discrimination Survey make clear that many of these city residents continue to struggle on the housing front. Among the city residents who completed the survey, 8% reported being evicted, 19% denied a home or apartment, and 18% becoming homeless as a result of their gender identity or expression. 

The next critical step the Biden-Harris Administration should take is ensuring HUD’s Equal Access Rule remains the law of the land. Created by two Obama housing secretaries, myself and Julian Castro, the rule requires equal access to HUD programs without regard to a person’s actual or perceived sexual orientation, gender identity, or marital status. Lasy July, Trump Housing Secretary Ben Carson issued a proposed rule that would replace it, using the specter of transgender people accessing homeless shelters and other services based on their gender idendity, rather than the gender they were assigned at birth, to demonize transgender people and curtail LGBTQIA+ rights. Since the proposed rule was not finalized in the closing days of the Trump Administration as expected, the Biden-Harris Administration should take immediate steps to withdraw the proposed rule and reestablish the original Equal Access Rule.

Finally, our federal, state, and local governments should work together to extend the promise of the Fair Housing Act and Equal Access Rule into lasting change by ensuring the most vulnerable LGBTQIA+ people can find decent, safe, affordable housing. After all, ending discrimination is not enough if the historic damage of intertwined inequality isn’t attacked head on. LGBTQIA+ youth are more likely to end up homeless than any other demographic, and aging transgender and queer people are the most susceptible to housing discrimination. Other at-risk groups include the formerly incarcerated, immigrants, and people of color, and COVID-19 has only magnified the systemic inequities that face them in New York City and across the country. 

In New York City, we should be proud of examples like True Colors, the first permanent supportive housing for lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender youth with a history of homelessness. Now we must build on them. With President Biden’s American Rescue Plan providing more than $20 billion in emergency rental assistance and the American Jobs Act proposing more than $200 billion for housing, we have a chance to translate victory in the courts into real change in the lives of our neighbors. By partnering with new HUD Secretary Marcia Fudge, who is committed to putting equity first, New York City can become a beacon for the rest of the nation. Housing is a basic human right. It’s time we make that promise real for our LGBTQIA+ community.

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Shaun Donovan is a candidate for New York City mayor. He served in President Obama’s cabinet for eight years, first as Housing Secretary and later as Budget Director, and as Housing Commissioner for Mayor Bloomberg. On Twitter @ShaunDonovanNYC.

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How the Next City Council Can Prepare Communities for the Next Pandemic


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Emergency department (photo: Michael Appleton/Mayoral Photography Office )


As New York finally begins to lift health restrictions related to the novel coronavirus, the next generation of leaders need to take the necessary steps to ensure that when, not if, another pandemic comes to our communities we are better prepared. Unfortunately, this time around too many communities of color, like in Southeast Queens, lacked the necessary resources and infrastructure to effectively handle this crisis; we cannot let that happen again.

Fortunately there are already several policies within the city’s toolbox that would not only put the right resources where they are needed, but also make sure communities have a say in how residents are able to access the health care they need. With a new class of City Council members coming into office next year, there will be an opportunity to put forth new ideas, with new energy, to address the city’s health needs.

Southeast Queens, where I have lived for over 20 years, was one of the hardest hit communities by COVID-19. In March of 2020, when the first wave of the virus hit, our communities quickly had some of the largest percentages of people who were testing positive, and both Jamaica Hospital Center and Queens Hospital Center were overwhelmed with patients diagnosed with the coronavirus, and death rates surpassed the awful citywide average.  

This was a disaster that was years in the making. Between 2008 and 2012 four hospitals in Queens closed: Mary Immaculate in Jamaica, Parkway in Forest Hills, St. John’s in Elmhurst, and Peninsula Parkway in Far Rockaway. It was also incredible to hear about cuts proposed by the state this year, during the middle of the pandemic, to Elmhurst Hospital and St. John’s Episcopal Hospital. 

The closures and funding cuts were put forth as necessary cost-saving initiatives; but clearly communities lose when health care facilities close. Anyone who lives in Southeast Queens knows the lack of community-based general medical practitioners that residents can access for their everyday health needs, and elected officials need to take the lead in fixing this problem. 

To alleviate some of the financial burdens our city’s public Health + Hospitals system currently endures, the City Council can shift back Emergency Medical Services (EMS) revenue from the New York City Fire Department (FDNY) to New York City Health + Hospitals. In 1996 then-Mayor Rudy Giuliani signed Local Law 20 merging EMS into FDNY, which moved the funds out of the hospital system. In Fiscal Year 2021 EMS revenue was a little over $339 million. Think about where the ambulances are going: not back to the fire houses, but the hospitals where the people they are trying to save need to be.

It does not make fiscal or practical sense for EMS to be funded through FDNY, and this is money that can be better served by the hospitals that the ambulance workers already coordinate with most. This new revenue into the system would allow more flexibility within it, helping to prevent any other hospitals from being closed in the future. 

In order to ensure the community has a voice in any new health policies that are enacted, the new class of City Council members should convene task forces in their offices that bring together everyone in health care — labor leaders, community boards, health care professionals, elected officials, and community advocates — to specifically identify and address districts needs. Having an organized front will help ensure there is one voice coming out of each community so decision-makers in Albany, City Hall, and the relevant agencies know where they stand and the policies they want to see implemented.

Also, each community board can be allocated funds to develop its own health-care plan through the 197-A process, where city agencies would be mandated to implement the recommendations through their regulatory processes. This approach guarantees the policies we request will come to fruition so residents in the district can receive the medical care they deserve.

The next city government needs to take on health care directly and assertively. We’ve seen why. If we come together, we can improve health-care access for those living here today and for the future residents of New York.

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Al-Hassan Kanu is a candidate for Council District 27 which includes the communities of Jamaica, Hollis, St. Albans, Queens Village, and Springfield Gardens in Queens. On Twitter @kanuforcouncil.

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If All Politics Is Local — How Do We Get People to Vote Local?


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Student voter registration (photo: Michael Appleton/Mayoral Photography Office))


As New York City heads into the final stretch of the 2021 local primary elections, candidates will be working overtime for votes. If history serves as a guide, turnout will be low. While so much effort goes into registering people to vote and getting them to the polls, we should focus more on indirect measures that can have larger impacts. This includes shifting the local election cycle timing and teaching about civic engagement in our public schools. 

Only about 15% of eligible voters in New York City turn out to elect local leaders. For special elections, it is generally much lower. In the two elections held in The Bronx this year, it was around 4% in City Council District (CD) 15 and 10% in CD 11. In comparison, the turnout for registered voters in New York City was 55% in the 2020 presidential election.

The difference in voter turnout for a federal/state level election year versus a local only-level election year is not unique to New York City. Nationwide, pairing higher-profile elections with less-followed local races amplifies down-ballot voting by at least a factor or two. Notably, when Baltimore shifted its local and presidential elections to coincide in 2016, local voter turnout increased from 13% to 60%. New local ranked-choice voting (RCV) in New York City for primaries and special elections isn’t expected to significantly impact these outcomes on its own.

Low voter turnout has many negative consequences. One is basic math – the fewer people that vote in an election, the less likely it is that those elected will reflect the interests of the average constituent. To put this in perspective for New York City, many City Council races are decided by a differential of approximately 1,000 votes. This translates to around 1% of a district’s population determining the council member. For Mayor de Blasio, the turnout was higher, but still low – with about 1 out of every 7 registered voters in New York City voting for him for a second term.

Under these low voter turnout circumstances, another particular issue is that high-net worth individuals can amplify their influence on the local electoral process. This reduces the impact of the small-dollar public matching funds program, developed precisely to limit that kind of outcome. 

With several special elections, larger primary candidate fields (thanks to the public matching system and perhaps also due to RCV), and expanded early voting, substantially more taxpayer money will be spent this year than usual. If voter turnout remains generally low this year, another adverse outcome is that this extra spending will not achieve the goal of incorporating the voices of more New Yorkers in the electoral process.

Combining elections at different levels of government in a single year and on the same election dates would not only substantially improve local civic engagement, but also offer cost savings. For a reference point, estimates predict reductions of $2.3 million every two years for holding a joint federal and state level primary in New York City. 

While changing New York City election timing to even years to coincide with federal and state-level positions would be a huge step in the right direction, it is not the only missing piece of the voter turnout equation. Most voters lack a fundamental understanding of their local government, including how it operates, who is running it and running to serve in it, and how its actions affect their lives. RCV amplifies these education-related needs, so that voters study all of their primary and special election choices to be able to rank up to five candidates per race. At the same time, RCV is also expected to help encourage more candidate outreach to a wider swath of voters.

Though harder to quantify than other voter turnout efforts, the lack of basic civic education has real-world significance. In a December 2020 poll of Democratic Party voters in New York City, all of the issues they prioritized locally, to some degree, are impacted by New York City’s elected officials. Other metrics also help tell the story – as the city government’s 59 elected officials make choices that affect its 8.4 million residents, including about 325,000 city government employees, while overseeing a budget of more than $90 billion.   

A classic example of local government confusion is the age-old question ‘Who runs the subways?’ Pre-pandemic, over 6 million people daily used the subways, with several million more on the buses. However, in a 2016 poll, 47% of respondents believed that the mayor was responsible for the transit system. Hint: That’s not correct. 

The City has attempted to address education gaps in its public schools by introducing the Civics for All curriculum in 2018, which includes civic engagement-related material covering federal, state and local government. These materials allow educators to expand upon narrow, almost exclusively federally-focused civic education requirements in public schools. 

On the downside, Civics for All is rather limited – with no requirements that schools institute the program. Funding to widely implement the program is also lacking. Mandating these civic education classes, with the accompanying financial support to do so effectively, would be a meaningful change in New York City. 

New York City should also look toward prioritizing and expanding its participatory budgeting efforts, which allow youth ages 14+ to participate. This offers a real-world opportunity to create equity and civic engagement both pre-voting age and beyond the standard local election cycle. An analysis showed that when a New York City Council District adopted participatory budgeting, it spent more on schools, public housing, and streetscape improvements than it would have done otherwise.  

When all the votes have been counted and the large sums of money have been spent on the 2021 New York City elections, we are likely to be left with the same persistently low voter turnout problems. We need to seriously address civic education and the timing of our elections if we’re going to notably change these outcomes. We know the way -- we just need to demand that elected officials have the will.  

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Nancy Holt, PhD leads Science for New York (Sci4NY), an effort that aims to bring local scientists and decision-makers together through project-based interaction. On Twitter @Sci4NY.

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Hindsight 2020: Why New York’s Trusted Community Groups Are So Important to the Census Count


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New Yorkers get counted (photo: Michael Appleton/Mayoral Photography Office)


The national census headcount happens every 10 years and is the most democratic process we undertake, also making it the largest competition that states can participate in. The population estimates, which are derived from the count, are used to distribute the 435 seats in the House of Representatives amongst all 50 states. The data collected on who we are isn’t only used for apportionment, it’s the best data that federal, state, and local governments, businesses, and universities will have about who New Yorkers are—and affects all other data collected for the next 10 years. This count is vital to New York’s COVID- 19 recovery, decisions about where to build schools or expand businesses, and a wide range of other plans that we have for the future. 

The decennial count is always a heavy lift for the Census Bureau, states, and communities. This time around, there was a lot of reason to fear that New York would not have a fair chance of earning its equitable share of representation in the House of Representatives or the billions of dollars in federal aid that gets allocated based on census data. From the Trump administration’s attempts to require an intimidating question about citizenship, to suppression of the count by ending the door-knocking and response time early, to the global pandemic that severely delayed the start of the Census Bureau’s in-person follow-up, 2020 was by far the most controversial census count in memory. It is a victory that New York didn’t see a further drop in representation in Congress. 

Although New York was projected to lose up to two seats in the House of Representatives, we lost just one, and came incredibly close to not losing a single seat. We were only 89 people short of retaining our 27th seat in the House. The count shows that the total state population was 4.2% higher than in 2010—indicating that the state is growing—but other states have grown faster. When it comes to the census, everyone counts, and these results make it painfully clear. Advocates across the state worked tireless in the years leading up to the count to reinforce this message. 

Community-based groups always play an important role as trusted voices promoting full participation in the census, particularly in communities that may be hesitant about filling out government forms. In preparation for this work a broad coalition of groups came together under the banner of New York Counts 2020, led by the New York Immigration Coalition and with participation from a broad range of racial, ethnic, immigrant, LGBTQ+, religious, health, education, labor, housing, social services, civic, and business groups working in partnership with Complete Count Committees and state and local government officials.

In the runup to the 2020 census, the Fiscal Policy Institute joined the New York Counts 2020 coalition, calling on the governor and state legislature to support community-based organizations to help the state achieve an accurate count. FPI provided an analysis showing how much was needed: $40 million statewide, with a breakdown of what was needed in each county.

Even before the covid pandemic, we knew that this would be a much more difficult climate to get people to respond to the ten-question survey. The unforeseeable delays brought on by the pandemic made everything about the census more complicated. Community groups began education campaigns years in advance of the census to overcome these obstacles. The fact that 20.2 million New Yorkers were counted is a testament to the tireless work that unpaid volunteers and paid Census Bureau workers put in across the state. 

New York State could have been better prepared for the decennial count even before the lockdown orders that forced doorknockers and volunteers to stay home.

In the fiscal year 2021 (April 2020-March 2021) budget New York State invested $30 million to support all 62 counties, cities, and community-based organizations in their census outreach efforts. That’s less than the $40 million the Fiscal Policy Institute analysis suggested was needed, but, through significant investments from the New York City government and some investments in individual counties eventually put the total close to what FPI proposed. 

A big shortcoming was the time it took for the funding to get to the groups doing the work. There is often a long road between the time state funding decisions are made and the time the money gets disbursed, but the census outreach funding was far beyond the norm.

Governor Cuomo convened a Complete Count Commission that began its planning for the state’s census outreach in January 2019, the same month its final report was due. This delay impacted every subsequent stage of the state’s census outreach. Ultimately, some of the state funding for cities, counties, and community-based organizations was distributed in July 2020, four months after the start of the count, at the bitter end of the count when many groups were wrapping up their efforts. Because of the last-minute scramble many we know that not all of the funding that was allocated was actually spent. Imagine how many more people could have been counted if there was a timely investment in the organizations across the state who helped count New Yorkers.  

In the end, 89 people is so close that it’s impossible to say whether the state could have saved another House seat if, for example, community groups had been funded and supported earlier or more fully. We don’t want as many seats as we can get, but we do want our fair share. 

Still, losing only one seat is relatively good news, and a tribute to the tremendous work of community-based groups both before and after they were funded to do outreach. Most models predicted New York would lose two House seats. The final census outcome shows how important it is for states to invest in census outreach at the grassroots level, and that it needs to happen sooner rather than later.

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Shamier Settle is a policy analyst at the Fiscal Policy Institute. On Twitter @FiscalPolicy00.

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An Emergency Correction to City Voter Disenfranchisement


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Voting issues (photo: Michael Appleton/Mayoral Photography Office)


Jim Crow remains alive and all too well in Georgia, Florida, and, yes, New York City, where the most diverse field to seek the mayor’s office is preparing for June’s primary. 

You know about news from Georgia, where Republicans -- citing false claims about fraud in the 2020 election -- have pushed through a law that, among other things, transfers some of the power to run Georgia elections from the secretary of state and local counties to a state board that conservatives will dominate. The law includes a ban on providing food and water to people waiting in line to vote.

You also likely know the challenges placed on Florida voters. In the run up to the 2020 elections, state Republicans stunted the state’s amendment granting voting rights to people with felony records. Republicans inserted a poll tax requirement that made those with felony records pay all fines and fees from their sentence before they could vote. 

However, you likely don’t know the challenges New York City voters have. In New York, a decidedly liberal city, people in pre-trial detention are free to vote. However, as the June 22 primary nears, featuring hundreds of candidates representing the city’s diversity for dozens of local offices, the New York Department of Correction is not meeting its obligations to voting access. The majority of people have not received voter registration information, there are no posters or signs with voter information, and people have not received voter registration education. The failure to take these steps increases the barriers to voting among this population.

The New York City Charter requires DOC to implement a program to assist individuals with voting. Because eligible people in New York City jails are required to vote by absentee ballot, they must rely on DOC staff to exercise their rights. More importantly, a loophole further disenfranchises some in city jails. The last day to postmark an application for a ballot this year is June 15 and the last day to postmark a ballot is June 22. This means eligible voters admitted into custody after June 15 and held through June 22 won't be able to vote.

Mayor Bill de Blasio, Deputy Mayor Phillip Thompson, Board of Correction Executive Director Margaret Egan, new Department of Correction Commissioner Vincent Schiraldi, and the Board of Elections must listen to the Legal Aid Society and ensure voters in New York City jails have prompt and secure ballot access without hindrance. To accomplish this, they must do the following:

Provide a report on what steps have been taken to implement the voting policy in New York City jails announced last year at the September Board of Correction meeting.

Show that the BOC works with the DOC and the Board of Elections to get "emergency" poll sites set up in every jail, and allow every eligible incarcerated person to register and vote by affidavit during early voting (June 12-20) or on primary election day (June 22).

Prove the BOC requests from the DOC and the Board of Elections to report the number of eligible voters in DOC custody, the number of registration forms received, the number of registration forms they considered valid, the number of absentee ballot applications received and accepted as valid, and the number of absentee ballots received and accepted as valid. 

There is a lot of confusion and misinformation surrounding access to voting. Ensuring appropriate accommodations for all voters — south and north of the Mason-Dixon Line, in jail or free — is the crucial first step in protecting a fundamental right to our democracy.

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Ashish Prashar is the Global CMO at R/GA and a justice reform activist. He sits on the board of Exodus Transitional Community, Getting Out and Staying Out, Just Leadership, Leap Confronting Conflict and the Responsible Business Initiative for Justice. On Twitter @Ash_Prashar.

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