Garbage (photo: Michael Appleton/Mayoral Photography Office)
In a recent TikTok video, a woman opens a giant cardboard box and pulls out layers and layers of bubble wrap, only to reveal four more tiny cardboard boxes, each of which contain a single napkin ring. The caption reads, “Am I on PUNK’D? Ashton… Sweetie… you can come out now…”
Videos regularly circulate on social media that demonstrate these kinds of egregious examples of excess packaging from online retailers. To make matters worse, these types of materials are often either not recyclable or aren’t accepted in most curbside recycling programs. While some companies have been taking steps to create more sustainable packaging, this viral shaming hasn’t been enough to enact meaningful change.
Policymakers in Albany have sought to make companies accountable for the packaging waste they create by forcing them to cover the cost of recycling the materials they ship out. But as the legislative session ended and officials returned to their home districts, bills from State Senator Todd Kaminsky and Assemblymember Steven Englebrigh that would do just that failed to work their way through the Legislature, and that was after a similar policy had already been stripped from this year’s final State Budget.
These bills would have brought New York in line with states like Maine, Colorado, and Oregon that already have policies like this called Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR). Those states have seen positive results: local governments can afford to provide recycling services to residents and companies are encouraged to cut back on the amount of packaging they introduce into the waste cycle in the first place.
On the national level, the EPA recently announced $375 million in funding from the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law to be dedicated towards grant programs for public service announcements, education, and other initiatives that will support a circular economy. This funding will further incentivize the adoption of responsible recycling practices across the nation — a blueprint on how government should tackle our most pressing challenges. The urgency for advancing recycling practices is being heeded by states across the country and our partners in the federal government; New York should not hesitate to follow suit.
Many may be thinking: how will this work? After all, this is a drastic — and needed — change to a practice that touches the lives of almost every single New Yorker. How will this be enforced efficiently, especially for companies like Amazon that ship out millions of packages on a daily basis? In short, through direct or indirect reimbursements, companies will pay the state for carrying out the recycling process; the government will also incentivize the use of environmentally-sound packages by offering a lower fee to those who use or decide to implement sustainable packaging.
Here at Recycle Track Systems, we provide haulers, corporations, and professional sports organizations with actionable metrics and education to improve their diversion programs for recycling and organics (or food waste). We’ve found the large companies we work with, similar to the many who would be impacted by policies around Extended Producer Responsibility, have not been resistant to refining their waste management practices; most simply need some direction and the tools to execute on their plan.
This leads me to believe in the companies who do business here, and that they will be receptive to this piece of legislation that benefits the state, environment, and even their operations in the short and long term.
At the same time, it has become abundantly clear that we haven’t been able to rely on industry as a whole to adopt a more sustainable approach to packaging — nor do we have the time to wait for such an epiphany. The climate crisis is arguably the biggest challenge facing New York, the United States, and the world; it is incumbent upon us to adopt an all-hands-on-deck approach to meet this challenge.
Although EPR legislation didn’t make it over the finish line in Albany, it rests on the shoulders of our elected leaders to continue to push for this legislation so they can work alongside packagers to lead New York towards a cleaner, more sustainable, and prosperous future.
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Gregory Lettieri is CEO of Recycle Track Systems.
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Belmont and beyond, on Long Island (photo: Kevin P. Coughlin/Governor's Office)
To housing advocates, the solution to the New York City region’s affordability crisis is frustratingly simple enough: build, build, build, and build some more. To them, the suburbs and the single-family homeowners therein serve as selfishly guarded relics from an era long ago that aren’t doing their fair share.
But painting the long vexing issue of housing affordability with such a supply-side broad brush ignores a fundamental tenet of sound urban planning – balance, and the need to accommodate growth that is both environmentally and economically sustainable for local governments to properly manage in the years ahead.
Working towards this goal is especially important in areas that have key infrastructural limitations – a reality often ignored in a discussion regularly focused only on social justice or economic issues.
As the frenzied housing market within the New York City metropolitan region proves to be more resilient than expected when faced with threats of a looming recession and 30-year fixed mortgage rates that are north of 6%, housing advocates have more aggressively urged suburban localities to loosen local land use restrictions to allow for more residential units.
The issue that often goes unmentioned in the discussion is that many suburban localities have struggled with the environmental ramifications of the growth that was allowed in the freewheeling years following the post-war housing boom. These lasting echoes of growth that planners had warned about in the 1970s have been felt in the decades since, whether in the form of harmful algal blooms along the coasts or through the diminishing air quality that sprawl has wrought.
During the post-war years, tens of thousands of tract homes were built across the New York metropolitan area, rapidly consuming farmland and open spaces with little regard for the social, economic, and environmental challenges that would arise. The rate of growth was so frantic that forward-thinking planners who worked in local governments spent their careers preserving what open spaces were left.
On Long Island in particular, the breadth of the impacts of such growth have become more concerning as we begin to fully understand the lasting legacies of rapid suburban expansion.
Long Island’s drinking water supply, sourced from underground aquifers, remains under constant threat from both known and emerging contaminants, thanks to wide swaths of housing and industrial developments that lack proper wastewater treatment from public sewers. Worse, thanks to the hydrodynamics within these groundwater stores, we are now just seeing the environmental ramifications of development patterns that occurred during the 1980s, with more impacts from later developments yet to emerge.
Recently, I argued in Newsday that blaming local land use regulations for today’s market conditions denies the fact that zoning can serve as a powerful mechanism many local governments have used to curb the worst of sprawl by balancing necessary growth, protecting the environment, and preserving quality of life. Zoning is a tool for policymakers to wield – and a drastic relaxation of key land use regulations without a broader cohesive strategy that is regional in scope will do more harm than good - potentially resulting in the over-proliferation of sprawling higher-density development patterns.
In turn, such unchecked development can amplify the challenges of economic stagnation and environmental decline that New York’s suburbs already face.
And as the ongoing housing crunch continues to build, localities will be pressured to further loosen land use restrictions. For many first-time homebuyers, prices have long been out of reach, which in turn threatens the attractiveness of these communities for private investment and the viability of local talent pools.
There are no easy solutions, but a sensible discussion on housing cannot be had without factoring in the very real constraints to growth that suburbs face – and the present need of suburban communities to reinvent themselves for the 21st century.
Moving forward, it’s important to remember that boosting suburban housing inventory is merely one piece of the complicated housing picture, and does little to quell the unique factors that make the New York area such an expensive place to live or address the environmental ills that sprawl continues to bring.
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Richard Murdocco teaches within Stony Brook University’s public policy graduate program and School of Atmospheric and Marine Sciences, and writes on land use and development issues at www.TheFoggiestIdea.org. On Twitter @TheFoggiestIdea and @RichMurdocco.
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Children get support from NYC Kids RISE (photo: Michael Appleton/Mayor's Office)
Across the five boroughs this graduation season, students are closing out the school year and beginning a new chapter in their educational journeys. But we’re not just talking about the students eager to throw their caps in the air. For the first time in our city’s history, the vast majority of New York City public school kindergarteners are stepping up to first grade with NYC Scholarship Accounts that have an initial financial investment through NYC Kids RISE and the City of New York.
The inaugural, citywide class of the Save for College Program may not be graduating until 2034, but their toolbox now includes a financial asset for college and career training, opportunities to gain more over time, and reinforced expectations of success from across the city’s neighborhoods and institutions along the way.
Higher education is a critical component of increasing economic mobility and reducing inequality, but for too many, the prospects of higher education have remained out of reach. For others who do pursue higher education, their decision comes at a high price. Today, 45 million Americans have $1.7 trillion in student debt. This reality can deter young people from accessing higher education, exacerbating a widening wealth gap in New York City and across the country, with communities of color shouldering most of the burden.
There are so many different factors that impact a child’s chance of future success, and many of these factors come into play outside a student’s school. We also know that neighborhoods differ dramatically in investment and the ingredients that promote economic mobility and income growth. And research suggests that social capital -- the strength of social networks and community involvement -- plays as important a role as financial capital.
As the White House and Congress continue to debate solutions to address the student debt crises and college affordability, New York City isn’t waiting. The Save for College Program was created to not only provide public school students with a financial asset for their higher education, but to tap into and support the set of individuals, organizations, businesses, and institutions that make up the neighborhood ecosystems and social infrastructure around a child’s life.
Consider how Sunnyside Community Services -- a community-based organization serving students and families in western Queens -- took some of our youngest students in pilot communities on college trips, reinforcing the idea that you have to “see it to be it.” Or how Make the Road NY’s Parent Committee organized parent-to-parent education sessions so that families could hear and understand the rewards structure from a trusted source. How Seamless got its diners from across the five boroughs to “Donate the Change” directly into students’ NYC Scholarship Accounts, or how tenant leaders in Queens organized their community to raise $1,000 for each participating student that lives in Astoria Houses. Consider how the School Team led by the Parent Coordinator at PS 212 has already worked with over 85% of families in her school to help families activate and view their account for the very first time -- a critical step in helping families plan for a child’s future. In our latest example, just this month Flushing Bank is contributing $15,000 to the NYC Scholarship Accounts of 140 kindergarteners in their local community.
Through the Save for College Program, we’ve not only created a means to invest in our students from their earliest days in school, but we’ve created a way to invest in the financial and social resiliency of New York City neighborhoods, through a platform that recognizes and supports other stakeholders and their critical and connected roles as part of an ecosystem.
Last month, Mayor Eric Adams joined NYC Kids RISE and local elected officials in the Bronx to celebrate that 97% of the city’s public school kindergarteners now have an NYC Scholarship Account and each year this number will grow. Whether you recognize your role or not, every New Yorker is already playing a part in the systems that either support or impede a student’s chance of success.
You now have an opportunity to support students in and across your community, and to get involved in building out this platform to its full potential. If you’re a parent of a kindergartener, you can activate your child’s account and learn more about the reward structure. If you’re part of a community-based organization, consider integrating the Save for College Program into your services, and if you’re part of a business or corporation, your employer can organize or contribute to a community scholarship. The opportunities to plug in are truly endless, and we can’t wait for you to join us.
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Sideya Sherman is Commissioner of the NYC Mayor’s Office of Equity. Debra-Ellen Glickstein is the Founding Executive Director of nonprofit NYC Kids RISE. On Twitter @NYCKidsRISE.
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Pride (photo: Michael Appleton/Mayoral Photography Office)
This June in New York City unfolded with a welcome, if not obviously connected, set of events: Pride Month, and the new Housing Blueprint from the administration of Mayor Eric Adams. As two transgender advocates who worked together last year on an LGBTQ+ housing plan, we see a number of ideas that our community has championed reflected in the new Housing Blueprint – a plan that will directly benefit LGBTQ+ New Yorkers.
First, it’s important to note the disparities that LGBTQ+ people in New York face when it comes to housing and poverty. As a recent report from the New York State Department of Health shows, LGBTQ+ adults are more likely than non-LGBTQ+ populations to experience low educational attainment, incomes below $25,000, unemployment, and disability. All of these factors contribute to a greater need for safe and affordable housing for members of our communities. As our housing report highlighted, LGBTQ+ community enclaves, the very neighborhoods that make New York City the LGBTQ+ haven that it is, are dependent on the availability of affordable housing.
A cornerstone of the LGBTQ+ housing plan, and the administration’s blueprint, is the dire need to eliminate bureaucratic barriers that both limit the city’s ability to create affordable housing and get people placed once that housing is built. When convening LGBTQ+ homeless community members last year to devise our housing plan, we heard heart-rending testimonies about decreasing availability of affordable units and how difficult it has been for homeless LGBTQ+ New Yorkers (disproportionately Black, Indigenous, and people of color, and transgender, gender non-conforming, or non-binary) to get from shelter to housing placement.
The blueprint includes a number of regulatory changes that would help create more affordable homes: easing burdens on legalizing basement apartments and smaller-sized apartment units and ridding ourselves of archaic parking space requirements that reduce the number of affordable units that can be included in new development. The blueprint also commits to tracking and reducing the amount of time it takes to place New Yorkers into affordable homes. For a community in desperate need of affordable housing, these are changes LGBTQ+ New Yorkers need to see.
We noted before that LGBTQ+ enclaves can only exist where housing is affordable. Our community, disproportionately low-income as it is, finds affordable housing stock and builds strength and safety in numbers. This has been the trend for over a hundred years in New York City, and it still exists in neighborhoods like Bed-Stuy, Jackson Heights, and communities in the South Bronx. But affordability in these neighborhoods is in peril.
The new blueprint’s emphasis on equitable zoning changes to distribute affordability means LGBTQ+ people can maintain footholds where they’re living now, but also find other safe neighborhoods to move to and build the kind of critical mass that has always been key to LGBTQ+ communities.
As advocates and people who talk to community members about politics and government, we also know how disinvested and jaded many LGBTQ+ people can be about government processes, especially as it relates to housing. We, the authors, have long promoted, individually and collectively, political education work. So, it is profoundly heartening to see an emphasis in the administration’s blueprint on tenant democracy – along with new capital commitments to affordable housing and incoming support for NYCHA developments. All of this – tenant democracy informing how to spend money and improve communities – means that low-income LGBTQ+ people in public housing will have real power to improve their lives.
The first Prides were celebrations of new political possibility. We see so much in this Housing Blueprint that’s aligned with our own visions of LGBTQ+ community housing needs that we’re taking a page from our forebears and, coming out of June’s Pride month, celebrating new tools that empower our communities, and keep New York City as the LGBTQ+ mecca it has historically been.
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Andy Bowen is Founder of Bowen Public Affairs Consulting. Sean Coleman is Founder and Executive Director of Destination Tomorrow, the Bronx LGBTQ+ Center. On Twitter @AndyMBowen & @RamblinRantic.
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Gov. Hochul at a Pride parade (photo: Don Pollard/Office of Governor Kathy Hochul)
As we celebrate Pride Month, the New York State Department of Health (DOH) has just released a sobering report revealing the startling health disparities faced by LGBTQI+ New Yorkers. We need continued action to advance equity in our health-care system.
Yet the DOH plans to proceed with a Medicaid pharmacy benefit carve-out that’s a legacy of the Cuomo era and would disrupt health care for millions of Medicaid recipients, many of whom are LGBTQI+. It also could lead to the closure of the community clinics that serve them—all in the name of generating dubious savings.
Proceeding with the Medicaid pharmacy carve-out would make it more difficult for LGBTQI+ New Yorkers to access the life-saving care they need. New York State’s own data recognizes long-standing inequalities in health care delivery and health outcomes, particularly among Latino and other communities of color, as well as low-income communities.
The new DOH report shows that LGBTQI+ New Yorkers are more likely to face frequent mental distress, depression, and other complex health issues—but less likely to have access to health care.
DOH HIV surveillance data further demonstrates that LGBTQI+ New Yorkers, communities of color, and low-income communities continue to bear the brunt of the HIV epidemic, despite advances in effective HIV treatment and prevention: They have higher infection rates, are less likely to be engaged in treatment to become virally suppressed, and those who are at high risk for HIV have lower rates of PrEP uptake.
One effective way to tackle these troubling health outcomes has been Medicaid Special Needs Health Plans (SNPs). SNPs help people living with HIV and AIDS access life-extending medications, and they reduce hospital use associated with unmanaged HIV.
A large portion of SNP participants are communities of color and people of LGBTQI+ experience—in particular, transgender and gender-nonconforming (TGNC) New Yorkers. SNPs work closely with their members, pharmacies, and culturally competent providers, and they have expert pharmacists trained in LGBTQI+ health care.
Currently, Medicaid beneficiaries receive their pharmacy benefit through their SNP. The carve-out would irreparably disrupt their access to pharmacy support by removing it from SNPs and instead pooling all Medicaid beneficiaries in the State under a single Pharmacy Benefit Manager (PBM).
Approximately 6 million New Yorkers would lose access to specialized pharmacists, including those with expertise in HIV, mental health, and gender-affirming care. The pharmacy carve-out contradicts Governor Hochul’s and the DOH’s actions to address HIV and health care disparities, which are outlined in the New York State AIDS Institute Director’s call to action.
The Governor has the power to repeal the carve-out, and we call on her to do so immediately.
We only have to look to California to see how catastrophic following through on this short-sighted policy would be. After a similar pharmacy carve-out was implemented in California earlier this year, thousands of Medicaid beneficiaries went weeks without their medications. Providers faced authorization delays, making it harder to treat complex conditions. Call centers were overwhelmed.
Magellan Health, the company California made its pharmacy benefit manager, lacked experience in LGBTQI+ health issues, leading to long wait times and delays in accessing care. Concerningly, Magellan would also handle New York’s pharmacy benefits if the carve-out is implemented here next year.
The state argues that this model will save money. However, studies indicate it will actually cost taxpayers billions in the long run. California’s experience clearly demonstrates that the carve-out will cause treatment delays that will cost New York more money, not to mention higher emergency room and inpatient costs.
For the LGBTQI+ community, accessing care is already difficult enough. LGBTQI+ people routinely face discrimination and harassment in medical settings. TGNC people often have to educate their health-care providers about transgender health issues, due to a lack of provider training.
The pharmacy carve-out would worsen New York’s health disparities for LGBTQI+ communities and communities of color. It’s easy to see why so many New Yorkers aren’t engaged in care. If we force people to confront another obstacle in our state’s health care system, who knows how many will drop out of care for good?
New York State needs to expand access to care for LGBTQI+ people, including gender-affirming care, HIV treatment, and mental health care. The pharmacy carve-out takes us in the wrong direction: It will cost the state more money and needlessly place millions of lives at risk.
Let’s not create more barriers for those already facing grave health disparities, and instead make it easier for all New Yorkers to live their healthiest, most authentic lives. We ask Governor Hochul to take action today and repeal the Medicaid pharmacy benefit carve-out.
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Kishani C. Moreno, MA, is Interim Chief Executive Officer and Chief Operating Officer at GMHC. On Twitter @GMHC.
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Rethinking economic development (photo: Edwin J. Torres/Mayor's Office)
The COVID-19 pandemic has profoundly altered state economies. At this point, it’s clear that some of the changes will last, with significant implications for how governments should think about the future. State economic development agencies are tasked with building that future and they need new approaches to address these changes.
In January 2021, with the assistance of staff from the New York Empire State Development Corporation, we began a process of reviewing research literature and reports and interviewing experts across the country to develop a new approach to state economic development in the post-pandemic environment.
The result is a report, issued June 16 and titled Strategies for Building Inclusive and Progressive State Economies in the Post-COVID Era, that discusses how existing state policy tools can be adapted, reoriented, and improved to build a more equitable and prosperous society.
Our report emphasizes there are three key imperatives that must inform a new approach to economic development.
Confronting Systemic Inequality
The most important lesson of COVID-19 is that we must do more to confront the enormous systemic inequities that continue to plague our society. According to the CDC, Black and Hispanic Americans were roughly three times as likely to be hospitalized and twice as likely to die from covid as white Americans.
At the same time, the economic impact of COVID-19 fell particularly hard on people of color and lower-income communities, in part because they are over-represented in the most impacted industries, such as food and hospitality.
No longer can government policy, including the billions spent on economic development, be detached from a central focus on bridging inequities and addressing structural barriers to success. An estimate from the Economic Policy Institute found that rising inequality has slowed U.S. economic growth in aggregate demand by two to four percentage points in recent years as the share of income has shifted from lower income, lower-saving households to higher income, higher-saving households. Addressing structural inequality is not only a moral imperative – it is an economic imperative.
Embracing New Models of Work
Covid changed how many people work and live and those changes are proving to be long lasting, not transitory. State government must help lay the groundwork for new “spoke and hub” models of work that involve better transit-based, sustainable infrastructure.
In the past, jobs that required high levels of interaction with peers were mainly located in dense urban centers and some of their employees traded off higher housing costs and smaller spaces for shorter commutes. An infrastructure of in-person services – from restaurants and bars to shoe repair and dry-cleaning shops – grew up around the businesses. Service firm employees often struggled to find affordable housing within reasonable distance of their jobs.
In the post-covid world, many people who can do their jobs all or in part remotely will choose to live further away from the urban core. For example, the commuting hub around New York City will expand substantially – perhaps by up to 100 miles, encompassing all of Long Island, the Hudson River Valley nearly up to Albany, and much of the way to Binghamton.
Leveraging Increased Federal Spending
Policy levers on the federal and state level that were previously politically untenable or considered too costly – ranging from eviction moratoria to economic stimulus – have been utilized.
The influx of federal funding, including from the $2.2 trillion Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act (CARES Act) passed in March 2020, the $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan Act passed in March 2021, and the $1.2 trillion infrastructure bill passed in November 2021, will have long-term implications. These new funding streams, if used strategically and effectively, have the potential to make a lasting impact on state economies.
Based on these themes, our report offers a clear thesis for change over the next five years focused on five key areas and objectives:
1. Economic Development Policy: Reorient states’ economic development tools to focus on strategic, data-driven investments.
2. Workforce Development: Align workforce development investments with business needs and future job opportunities.
3. Affordable Communities: Reimagine cities and new commuter hubs as affordable, sustainable communities where people can live and work.
4. New Business Development: Support business expansion and leverage universities to drive new R&D ecosystems.
5. 21st Century Digital Infrastructure: Lead on digital infrastructure to lay the foundation for economic growth in the 21st century.
The post-covid world poses new challenges for state economies. Without further action, remote work is likely to exacerbate already unacceptable economic inequalities. Existing neighborhoods, communities, and transportation networks may be a poor fit for the new economic environment. State economic development agencies will be expected to respond, and if they do so by using the tools of the past, they are unlikely to achieve the results needed in this unexpected future.
The good news is that there has been a wealth of research and an explosion of data that economic development agencies can use to improve and target their practices.
State economic policy has the tools to focus on projects that produce not only more but better jobs for disadvantaged communities, to leverage data that enables the promotion of efficient workforce and infrastructure development policy, and to emphasize building a more equitable and flexible labor force and economy. It can, and must, shift from an emphasis on individual firms and projects to a strategy that emphasizes the development of human capital and infrastructure.
Our hope is that our report can serve as a blueprint for states at a moment when we have the potential to produce the most progressive economic change since the great depression.
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Sherry Glied is Dean of New York University's Robert F. Wagner Graduate School of Public Service. Carol Kellermann was president of Citizens Budget Commission from 2008 through 2018.
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Gov. Hochul signs gun control legislation (photo: Don Pollard/Governor's Office)
The U.S. Supreme Court, in the June 23 decision in New York State Rifle and Pistol Association et al v. Bruen, Superintendent of the New York State Police et al, invalidated New York’s historic “concealed carry” law, sometimes called the “Sullivan Law” after its lead sponsor, State Senator Timothy Sullivan.
1911: Rising public concern with gun violence
It is helpful to recall why the Sullivan Law was passed in the first place.
That 1911 law provided that: ”Any person over the age of sixteen years, who shall have in his possession in any city, village or town of this state, any pistol, revolver, or other firearm of a size which may be concealed upon the person, without a written license therefor, issued by a police magistrate or any such city or village, or by a justice of the peace of such town, or in such manner as shall be prescribed by ordinance in such city, village or town, shall be guilty of a misdemeanor” (NY Laws of 1911, Ch.. 195).
Rising public concern with gun violence in the early 20th century led to the law. In August 1910, New York City Mayor William J. Gaynor, waiting to board a passenger ship in Hoboken, NJ, was shot by an aggrieved New York City dock worker who had been fired from his job. Gaynor was grievously wounded but survived.
In January 1911, famous novelist David Graham Phillips was shot dead near Gramercy Park by a deranged man who believed Phillips used one of the man’s family members as a character in one of his novels. The shooter then killed himself.
The Gaynor and Phillips shootings sparked public outrage. But it was a rising tide of shootings using concealed weapons in New York City streets that led to legislative action.
Senator Sullivan explained that “gun toters” fell into three categories. The first was professional criminals. The second was deranged people. His proposed law would help in those areas.
But he was most concerned with a third category, “young fellows who carry guns around in their pockets all the time not because they are murderers or criminals but because the other fellows do it and they want to be able to protect themselves. [T]hose boys aren’t all bad but…just carrying their guns around makes them itch to use them.”
Opponents of the bill objected that law-abiding citizens needed firearms to defend themselves and their homes. You cannot force a criminal to get a license to use a gun, others asserted. Guns would flow into New York from other states with lax gun restrictions, rendering it hard to enforce.
Other critics said the law could be used disproportionately against newly-arrived immigrants and other minority groups. Still other skeptics warned that the law might enable unscrupulous police officers to frame suspects by planting guns on them at the time of arrest.
But press and public opinion strongly favored the measure. The city coroner’s office issued reports highlighting deaths from handguns. “A rigid law making it difficult to buy revolvers would be the means of saving hundreds of lives,” said the office’s January 1911 report. New York County District Attorney Charles Whitman told reporters that “carrying a weapon is an invitation to a crime. Reduce the weapons carried and you reduce the crimes of violence.” Civic and commercial groups endorsed Sullivan’s proposal.
Democrats held a majority in the State Legislature. Sullivan was a Democrat and the New York City Tammany Hall Democratic Party organization backed his proposal. But legislators from both parties, sensing the public demand for action, jumped on board. The bill garnered 46 of 51 votes in the Senate and 148 out of 150 in the Assembly. Democratic governor John A. Dix quickly signed it into law. It took effect on August 31, 1911.
New York amended the law in 1913 to clarify the licensing standard: magistrates could “issue to [a] person a license to have and carry concealed a pistol or revolver without regard to employment or place of possessing such weapon” only if that person proved “good moral character” and “proper cause” (NY Laws of 1913, Ch. 608).
The procedures have been revised since then but, as the Supreme Court’s opinion in Rifle and Pistol Association v. Bruen notes, “today’s licensing scheme largely tracks that of the early 1900s.”
After More Than a Century, the Law Falls
The Sullivan Law has been challenged in state and federal courts several times but, until now, has been deemed constitutional.
In the new Supreme Court decision overturning the law, Justice Clarence Thomas notes that “No New York State statute defines ‘proper cause.’” He offers a lengthy discussion of historical precedents and previous court decisions. He notes that “at the end of this long journey through the Anglo-American history of public carry, we conclude that respondents have not met their burden to identify an American tradition justifying the State’s proper-cause requirement. The Second Amendment guaranteed to ‘all Americans’ the right to bear commonly used arms in public subject to certain reasonable, well-defined restrictions.”
The opinion concludes that “New York’s proper-cause requirement violates the Fourteenth Amendment in that it prevents law-abiding citizens with ordinary self-defense needs from exercising their right to keep and bear arms.”
This is a 6-3 decision, with the dissenters citing their own view of historical precedent and statistics about people killed by handguns every year.
The decision is a reminder that courts play a powerful role in our society. “We are under a constitution but the constitution is what the judges say it is,” Charles Evans Hughes, Chief Justice 1930-1941 remarked early in his career. That may be an overstatement but it indicates the courts’ strong authority.
What happens next?
The Supreme Court decision reversed a state Court of Appeals opinion that had supported the law. The decision ends with these words: “We therefore reverse the judgment of the Court of Appeals and remand the case for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.”
It is not certain what that Court will do; “…further proceedings consistent with this opinion” seems like a fairly broad concept.
But attention has already shifted to the Legislature and Governor Kathy Hochul. Ironically, the decision comes shortly after the Legislature enacted other gun control measures. Now, as in 1911, the Legislature is led by New York City Democrats (and a Senate majority leader from the suburbs) and the governor hails from upstate (John Dix was from Glens Falls, Kathy Hochul is from Buffalo).
As Justice Stephen Breyer noted in his dissent in the new Supreme Court decision:
What kinds of firearm regulations should a State adopt? Different States might choose to answer that question differently. They may face different challenges because of their different geographic and demographic compositions. A State like New York, which must account for the roughly 8.5 million people living in the 303 square miles of New York City, might choose to adopt different (and stricter) firearms regulations than States like Montana or Wyoming, which do not contain any city remotely comparable in terms of population or density….For a variety of reasons, States may also be willing to tolerate different degrees of risk and therefore choose to balance the competing benefits and dangers of firearms differently.
Governor Hochul has already announced a special session of the Legislature for this week to deal with the issue. History may in a sense repeat itself as New York, 111 years after its first concealed carry law, again takes the lead in searching for a solution that addresses public safety concerns and also recognizes and abides by constitutional protections and guarantees as outlined by the court.
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Bruce W. Dearstyne is a historian in Albany, NY. SUNY Press recently published the second edition of his book The Spirit of New York: Defining Events in the Empire State's History and his new book The Crucible of Public Policy: New York Courts in the Progressive Era.
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Public space (photo: John McCarten/City Council)
Summer is in full swing and street fairs, parades, and block parties are enlivening public space across New York City. But these vital signs of city life exist alongside indicators of the challenges we are facing: trash blocking sidewalks, lack of staff to keep crucial community spaces activated, and the threat of traffic violence.
The activity on our streets, parks, and stoops helps define what makes New York special. These spaces would not thrive without committed neighborhood volunteers who fill in the gaps in management and operation on open streets, business corridors, and local parks as well as our waterfronts, plazas, and natural areas. This over-reliance on neighborhood partners is emblematic of a lack of a coordinated framework to adequately fund and manage our critical shared spaces.
There is currently no holistic management or investment in New York’s public space. Every Open Street, block party, or neighborhood safety initiative is the product of intense volunteer effort, organization, and coordination. Too often, city government agencies and departments are working in isolation instead of focusing on collaborative problem-solving. This has to change.
New York City needs leadership to ensure public spaces throughout the five boroughs can thrive regardless of available resources. We need public spaces that reflect the complexity of the communities that use them and can do the important work of bringing the city together.
Our organizations are pushing for innovative approaches to these issues. We believe the city must make a commitment and investment to equitably planning and managing our public spaces. We have joined forces to advocate for solutions in the shared public spaces that span interests and geographies — from commerce to culture, safety to sustainability, mobility to making space for play at the local, borough, and city-wide scale.
Our group envisions a public realm that celebrates and enriches city life. Well-managed public space is critical to keeping people safe, connected, and healthy. It reinforces the vitality of our communities and supports local businesses. Leadership can close these gaps and make this a reality in every neighborhood.
The innovation needed here isn’t just more bureaucracy, it is about how well the government is organized to address nuanced challenges that have real-world impacts on how people experience and work with our city’s public spaces.
Effective governance looks like expedited permitting for users in the public realm from street vendors to block associations. Designing spaces so that people can be comfortable in all seasons starts with a plan to plant trees for shade and ensure access to sun during the colder months. Partnership is sharing the responsibility for the success of Open Streets so that areas need not be anchored by a business improvement district to function. Cooperation is coordinating city services across departments to better support BIDs planning, managing, and programing public space.
We call for structural leadership through the appointment and empowerment of a central, accountable Director of the Public Realm to plan for citywide needs. We call for management leadership through the creation of a new Office of Public Space Management designed to more equitably manage our streets, permits, and day-to-day operational needs for our most in-demand corridors. We call for design leadership to uplift the quality of public spaces and their interface with private developments that maximize the expertise of architects, landscape architects, and planners.
The new city budget fell short of the opportunity to fully invest in our city’s shared spaces, meaning the gap between what is possible and what is funded exists department to department and neighborhood to neighborhood. This gap is further expanded by missed opportunities to advance mutually beneficial goals across agencies and address longstanding infrastructure needs in historically underinvested neighborhoods. Cuts to agencies are already being felt and seen across the city. Failure to fully fund the Streets Plan leaves too many gaps in our citywide system and pushes the responsibility to invest to a future administration and City Council. This choice to partially fund only prolongs the impacts and increases the costs.
Now that this year’s budget fight is over, we must advance and implement visionary policies that equip the city to coordinate, set goals, and actualize the benefits from a shared management framework. Ideas like the five-point plan by City Council Member Shekar Krishnan and the bills introduced by Council Member Carlina Rivera to create an office of pedestrians and require a citywide plan for greenways between the Department of Parks and Recreation and the Department of Transportation are important opportunities.
The City Council is responding to pressing challenges on the ground but would benefit from expansion to cover more of the public realm’s critical systems and address opportunities for increased coordination and implementation. We are also encouraged by Mayor Eric Adams’ announcement of the creation of an interagency task force to ensure healthy commercial corridors in the Blueprint for Economic Recovery and the New New York Blue Ribbon Panel.
We need leaders who increase collaboration across departments by setting and advancing meaningful goals for equity, livability, and performance. We need a dynamic investment strategy that can increase accountability, bring new infrastructure to underserved neighborhoods, and respond to opportunities to prototype and scale innovations within the public realm.
The city we want now, as well as the city we are building for, is built upon the success of our streets and public spaces. Leadership helps us bridge the short-term opportunities to the longer-term strategies to keep New York City competitive, livable, and resilient. A holistic vision must combine funding, policy, and coordination to create a thriving and vibrant New York City.
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Elizabeth Goldstein is the President of the Municipal Art Society of New York. Benjamin Prosky is Executive Director of the American Institute of Architects New York Chapter (AIANY). Jackson Chabot is the Director of Public Space Advocacy at Open Plans. On Twitter @AIA_NewYork, @OpenPlans & @MASNYC.
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Health care (photo: Ed Reed/Mayoral Photography Office)
The Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade is an affront to the key principles of United States citizenry by failing to protect the life, liberty, autonomy, and health of those who can become pregnant. The recent cascade of total bans or severe restrictions on abortion is not based on science, but ideological biases, and is clearing a legislative path to a draconian future in reproductive freedom and health.
The ramifications of this decision on health and society, not just women, will be devastating. A recent study projected that a total ban on abortion in the U.S. would increase maternal death by 21% in the second year following such a ban, with Black women the most affected with 33% more deaths. Maternal mortality and morbidity is already a crisis in the U.S. – higher than most developed countries – and disproportionately affecting Black mothers due to institutional racism and socio-economic inequities. When mothers die or are unable to care for their families, all of society pays the price.
New York City and State are valiant safe havens protecting the reproductive rights and health of all Americans. On June 13, Governor Kathy Hochul signed a six-part legislative package to immediately protect the rights of patients and empower reproductive health-care providers; and Friday she announced the Abortion Access Always public education campaign supporting safe, legal abortions for all. In May, she announced a $35 million investment, the largest in the nation, to support abortion providers serving more patients including low-income people. Such services are guaranteed to all New York residents.
At the same time a national ban on abortion and curtailing of reproductive health should be expected if Republicans control Congress and the White House, as promised by House Minority Leader Rep. Kevin McCarthy on Friday with the posit of a national ban on abortion after 15 weeks.
This erosion of health rights is a dire outcome that we as a state and a nation must not allow.
As a public health professional and pediatrician who has worked in vastly under-resourced maternal clinics in the U.S. and all over the world, I have seen first-hand the personal anguish and loss facing those for whom preventive health services and family planning are not available. In the wake of this court decision, I now contemplate how detrimental the impact will be for so many, especially those without the financial or family resources to access comprehensive reproductive health care, including abortion services if they choose it.
What protections are there from illness and death when a woman has a troubled or ectopic pregnancy? What effect is there on her mental health and ability to work and care for a family, when carrying an unwanted pregnancy to term?
Perhaps even more dystopian, when politicians are permitted to rule on conception, what is to stop them from banning birth control, IVF treatment, pre-conception planning, and other services that help women and families make proactive decisions to prevent or enable pregnancy based on their own needs and free will?
As the dissent stated, “Taking away the right to abortion, as the majority does today, destroys all those individual plans and expectations. In so doing, it diminishes women’s opportunities to participate fully and equally in the Nation’s political, social and economic life.”
Studies cited in a “friend of the court” document accompanying the dissent show that access to abortion has reduced teen motherhood, and increased the probability that women attend college and enter professional occupations. Research has long demonstrated that children’s ability to thrive is linked to maternal well-being, education, and economic status.
In the wake of this ruling, those of us in the public health arena must act to fiercely protect the public health and rights of those who are now put at risk.
We must open and proliferate clinics offering comprehensive reproductive health care, online education, and physical and mental health hotline access. We must redouble our work in preparing public health professionals to widen, not narrow, these options. And we must educate voters on how their legislators and judges can protect the right to public health that is now unthinkably in peril.
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Dr. Ayman El-Mohandes, MBBCh, MD, MPH, FAAP, is Dean of CUNY Graduate School of Public Health and Health Policy.
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Puerto Rican Day Parade (photo: Benjamin Kanter/Mayoral Photo Office)
Though the governor and lieutenant governor races are getting the most buzz this state election cycle, a number of state legislative races—both Assembly and State Senate— are also surprisingly competitive.
Five of those competitive races happen to be in Latino-majority or Latino-plurality Assembly districts of New York City: two in the Bronx, two in Queens, and one in Brooklyn.
These are the five to watch as the Assembly primaries are decided on Tuesday, June 28:
The Bronx
Jose Rivera has represented the 78th Assembly district in the Bronx since 2000, when he won a seat previously occupied by Roberto Ramirez. Prior to winning this seat in 2000, Rivera served on the New York City Council, and before that, a five-year stint in the New York State Assembly. (Disclaimer: I have informally advised Rivera on his campaigns.)
Rivera represents the last of a generation of pioneering Latino politicians that are in elected office. He rose to power in 1982 after defeating the incumbent Sean Walsh. This was a time of rapid demographic change in the Bronx as Puerto Ricans spread to areas beyond the South Bronx. Rivera took on the powers-that-be of the time, mostly Irish and Italian, and after years of organizing, won his seat exactly 40 years ago.
Now, Rivera has a fight on his hands as he seeks to fend off challenges from George Alvarez and Emmanuel Martinez.
Alvarez has the support of Congressman Adriano Espaillat and this endorsement has led to that of two others — Bronx City Council Members Oswald Feliz and Pierina Sanchez. By strategically endorsing Alvarez, it is clear that Espaillat is attempting to solidify his hold in the West Bronx, opting to depart from the unwritten rule of incumbents supporting other incumbents.
Martinez, who served as chairperson of Community Board 7 in the Bronx and was also elected a Democratic State Committee member, has received the support of the Moving NY Forward PAC, which is largely funded by a wealthy hedge-funder who, according to the Albany Times Union, is the “co-founder of a secretive Wall Street firm.”
The Alvarez and Martinez challenges are the toughest Rivera has faced in years. Yet Rivera has a solid and loyal base, is a formidable campaigner, and is known to frequent events with his ever-present camera on hand. Labor unions and the Bronx Democratic Party are solidly behind him, and Mayor Eric Adams has now endorsed Rivera too.
Moving northeast in the Bronx, the 82nd Assembly district is also home to an intense primary race. Assemblymember Michael Benedetto faces a strong challenge from Jonathan Soto.
Benedetto has served in office since 2004. The demographics of the 82nd district have changed significantly over the last two decades, and that district now has a Latino plurality. Among the Democratic electorate, Latinos make up 45% of all voters and their turnout has been consistent over the years. Evidence of this demographic change is Marjorie Velazquez’s City Council victory last year. The 82nd Assembly district represents 54% of Velazquez’s district, and Velazquez won her race handily, including in the 82nd Assembly district portion of the district.
In this district, however, Latino votes alone will not push Soto to the victory line. Black and white voters are a significant chunk of the electorate, and to win a candidate will need to form a multi-racial coalition.
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s PAC, the Working Families Party, and other progressive groups are backing Soto. He is also receiving support from the Move NY Forward PAC mentioned above. Soto is charismatic, whip-smart, and presents Benedetto’s biggest challenge yet.
Queens
In Queens, two Assembly districts are ones to watch in terms of the Latino vote—the 30th and the 35th.
As a result of Assemblymember Brian Barnwell’s decision not to seek re-election, the 30th Assembly district is an open seat and pits Steven Raga, a former Barnwell aide and a Filipino, against Ramon Cando, a Latino of Ecuadorian descent.
The district’s demographic makeup in many ways represents the diversity that is Queens. Of the potential Democratic electorate there, 29% is Latino, 24% Asian, and 22% white. Several voter data experts (including the renowned Jerry Skurnik), deem another quarter of Democratic voters in that district as “other” since modeled demographic data cannot precisely match their ethnicities. Interestingly enough, when factoring in voting participation, the ethnic makeup of the voters remains the same; no particular ethnic group dominates when it comes to turnout.
The Queens Democratic Party apparatus and a number of labor groups are supporting Raga, but for some reason Barnwell, his former boss, is not. Cando is supported by Rep. Tom Suozzi, City Council Member Robert Holden, and Hiram Monserrate’s Democratic club. While Raga has received critical establishment support, Cando’s seeming support among Latinos and white voters appears to make him formidable.
Cando has presented himself as a more moderate “common sense” Democrat, eschewing the “defund” movement to divest police funding for community investments that Raga has espoused. Election day will demonstrate whether message trumps establishment support in this district.
In the 35th Assembly district, Monserrate is taking on the incumbent, Jeff Aubrey, in a rematch of 2020. Aubrey won that race but Monserrate is presenting a formidable challenge in what is a Latino plurality district. Latinos are 43% of the Democratic electorate, compared to 21% of the electorate that is Black and 9% that is Asian.
While Monserrate will always have to contend with his controversial and criminal past, his support among many Latinos in the district remains solid, and his Democratic club is a formidable force, having helped to elect other candidates in East Elmhurst and Corona.
Aubrey has the support of the Queens Democratic organization, in addition to numerous elected officials in surrounding districts, many who are mobilizing behind him and, sometimes more so, in opposition to Monserrate. Aubrey also has been able to maintain the support of a large number of African American voters who have been in the Elmhurst neighborhood for many years.
Brooklyn
Brooklyn is also experiencing primary rumbles of particular significant to the Latino vote, in this case in the 54th Assembly district. Progressive Samy Nemir Olivares is challenging Assemblymember Erik Dilan, son of former State Senator Martin Dilan, who lost to a progressive challenger himself in the 2018 primary when he was defeated by now-Senator Julia Salazar.
The two Latina congressional representatives in New York, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Nydia Velazquez, are backing Nemir Olivares, as is Senator Salazar, the Working Families Party, the Democratic Socialists of America-New York City, and other progressive individuals and groups. By beating Tommy Torres for the district leader position, Nemir Olivares has already shown an ability to take on the Brooklyn machine and win.
This race is a particularly interesting one as a new test of the progressive-moderate split under the latest larger political context. Perhaps the race can show glimpses of where some Latino voters stand on the ideological spectrum, particularly in an area of the city where progressives have been on the rise but not necessarily because of the Latino vote. When Salazar defeated Martin Dilan in 2018, he won the most votes in the 54th Assembly district portion of the Senate district. Will the last vestiges of the Dilan dynasty fall? We’re about to find out.
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Eli Valentin is a political analyst and author of the forthcoming book, Reinhold Niebuhr: A Political Life. On Twitter @EliValentinNY.
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