Wall Street (photo: Ed Reed/Mayoral Photography Office)
For the framers of our Constitution, the desire to free themselves from corruption by foreign powers was central to their debates at the hot summer in Philadelphia that gave structure to what became the oldest surviving democracy. But the threat of foreign influence, and corruption--the struggle for self-determination, self-representation, and freedom from outside influence--continues.
That struggle is epitomized by unlimited campaign spending by corporations and wealthy individuals through super PACs and dark money groups. Since 1976, the Supreme Court has approached campaign finance reform with growing skepticism, slowly loosening restrictions on political spending to the point that just about anything goes.
New York now has the chance to turn this tide, and usher in a new era of freedom nationwide, with a bill that could blast a hole in Citizens United v. FEC.
The New York Democracy Preservation Act, championed by State Senator Michael Gianaris and Assemblymember Latrice Walker, is making its way through the New York Legislature. The bill, which just passed the State Senate, takes aim at one of campaign finance’s heaviest hitters: the multinational corporation. Corporations with partial foreign ownership have thrown millions of dollars into races on the federal, state, and local levels to lift restrictions on their activities and grow their bottom line, always at the expense of everyday Americans denied the ability to impact our democracy.
The 2016 election gave us a perfect example of this attempted bribery in New York. Airbnb, partially owned by a Russian oligarch’s venture fund, spent at least $1.2 million in New York’s 2016 legislative races while fighting a bill to end the advertising of illegal units on home-sharing sites.
The Democracy Preservation Act isn’t just a landmark bill in the fight for campaign finance reform — it’s also common sense. Federal law explicitly prohibits all election-related contributions, expenditures, donations, and disbursements made directly or indirectly by foreign nationals. Such restrictions are enshrined in the Constitution in the form of the Foreign Emoluments Clause. Unless, of course, the foreign national owns stock in a major corporation.
How does this work with the Supreme Court’s disastrous decision in Citizens United v. FEC? In the decision, the majority held that big corporations spending unlimited sums of money in our elections deserved First Amendment protection. The logic of Citizens United might seem to apply to foreign money, too. However, a case just two years later in 2012 made clear that Citizens United doesn’t preclude limits on foreign spending, making this legislation possible. It would make a big dent — over 98% of S&P 500 companies would fall in its ambit. In fact, it points to a fatal logical flaw in Citizens United, which simply failed to address the inevitable role of corporations with foreign owners spending in elections.
The measures laid out in the bill aren’t entirely unique. Similar legislation, pioneered by the nonprofit advocacy group Free Speech For People, is on the books for municipal elections in Seattle, Washington. In the lead-up to Seattle’s 2019 City Council elections, omnipresent tech giant Amazon spent $1.5 million to elect business-friendly candidates. Their efforts were mostly unsuccessful, and in January 2020, the Seattle City Council voted unanimously to bar multinational corporations like Amazon from spending money to influence city elections.
Countering the corrupting influence of corporations and billionaires, both foreign and domestic, on our elections is no easy task, but it is vital to the future of our democracy. By passing the Democracy Preservation Act, New York can embody the best parts of our framing generation — the anticorruption spirit — and put an end to the fundamental threat of money from foreign-influenced corporations in our elections. Because democracy should be by and for the people it represents, and no one else.
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Zephyr Teachout is an Associate Law Professor at Fordham Law School. On Twitter @ZephyrTeachout.
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Note: this article has been updated to reflect Airbnb disputed the $11 million figure reported by the Daily News - that number has been adjusted to "at least $1.2 million" to reflect one Airbnb PAC's spending.
(photo: Mike Groll/Office of Governor Andrew M. Cuomo)
A state with the nation’s most ambitious climate justice goals and a White House and Congress promising historic investment in green infrastructure should be a match made in heaven. If we act quickly and pass the New York Build Public Renewables Act, we can make the most of this historic opportunity to rebuild our energy system and economy, and ensure the historic targets we set in 2019 on eradicating carbon emissions and environmental racism become reality.
The New York Build Public Renewables Act, or “NYBPRA,” (bill S6453/A1466a), introduced by State Senator Kevin Parker and Assemblymember Robert Carroll, will enable our nation-leading public power provider, New York Power Authority, to lead a mass buildout of 100% renewable energy.
According to a recent report from a University of Pennsylvania research group, this will create up to 51,000 jobs; build enough renewable energy to power the majority of the state; add as much as $93 billion to the state’s economy; and put billions in green stimulus towards fighting environmental racism in frontline communities like the “Asthma Alley” shared by Queens and The Bronx. This is all achievable without raising taxes a single cent.
The NYBPRA is a revenue-neutral bill that jumpstarts renewable energy construction and adds over $90 million to the economy. Since its creation by New York Governor Franklin Delano Roosevelt, NYPA has gone from New Deal prototype to the nation’s leading public power provider, supplying over 25% of New York State with 80% renewable energy. And it is funded by issuing its own bonds, which are highly-rated by all three major rating agencies.
And unlike for-profit options like NRG, which even in 2021 feel as comfortable as ever pushing fracked gas projects on Asthma Alley, despite fierce opposition from the community and its representatives, NYPA’s long history as a top public institution has proven it a more accountable, transparent, and cost-effective option for all involved.
Though ambitious, this plan is not risky. NYPA is the rare institution to be as lauded by Green New Deal activists as by S&P Global. The fact is, the risk of not passing it is far greater. In 2021, New Yorkers know the climate crisis isn’t some abstract fear—it’s heightened COVID deaths, heatwaves, hurricanes, and the huge racial disparities in who they harm most.
NYBPRA will put New York in prime position to use every last federal dollar from the American Jobs Plan, the Department of Energy’s $8.25 billion electrical transmission loan, and anything else our federal counterparts can offer as cost-effectively, transparently, and equitably as possible.
It will let Congress know that when the American Jobs Plan comes to our state, we’ll execute it with the same leadership and success that makes “New York” a name known all across the globe. That when it comes to Building Back Better, New York will build back best.
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Michael Gianaris is New York State Senate Deputy Majority Leader and represents parts of Queens. On Twitter @SenGianaris.
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Mayor de Blasio at a school offering vaccines (photo: Ed Reed/Mayoral Photography Office)
Mayor Bill de Blasio announced on Wednesday that New York City would launch covid vaccination sites at select schools across the city for 12 to 17-year-olds. The program is to start at four schools in the Bronx on Friday, June 4, and move to additional locations in the five boroughs, trying to vaccinate large numbers of kids by the end of school this month. The mayor should be commended for this initiative, along with City Council Member Mark Levine, chair of the Health Committee, who had been advocating for this effort.
The converging developments involving the return to full in-person learning this fall for the school system, and the expansion of COVID-19 vaccine eligibility to adolescents, were strong arguments to use the schools as vaccine sites. But the outreach power of the schools is enormous, and several million adults in the city, the vast majority of them Black and Hispanic, remain unvaccinated.
There are hundreds of junior high schools and high schools available -- with all their security, their gyms, cafeterias, and auditoriums for space, their freezers in their kitchens for storing vaccines, and their widespread proximity to the people in their neighborhoods, who drop their kids or work at schools or simply walk by them all the time -- that could be perfect locations for continued mass outreach. That is why city government should plan to vaccinate adults as well as kids at the schools and ramp this effort up as quickly as possible in order to help overcome some of the gaps in vaccination that we’ve seen.
New York City’s overall vaccination effort is keeping pace with the nation. According to the city Department of Health vaccine tracking system, by last week about 61% of adults aged 18 and up have received at least one dose of the vaccine. The Center for Disease Control vaccine tracker reported as of May 26 that 62% of American adults had received at least one dose of the vaccine.
Here is the city’s breakdown as of May 28 (with data updated through May 27):
The city’s table shows more than 2.5 million adults still have not received one dose of the vaccine. Data in the city’s table also show that 7% of persons aged 0-17 have received the vaccine. Mayor de Blasio stated in his announcement this week that about 118,000 12 to 17-year-olds have already been vaccinated, about 23% of the city’s population of persons in this age group. That means about 400,000 12 to 17-year-olds are still unvaccinated, nearly all of whom will be in school in September.
Although the city’s overall vaccination rate is showing similar progress to the nation, it hides massive racial and ethnic disparities. This table, from the city’s data set just cited, shows how striking these disparities are:
Only 34% of Black adults have received one dose of the vaccine. That rate is 45% for Latino adults, 52% for white adults, and 76% for Asian adults. The city Health Department offers a caution on the data: some vaccination reports don’t identify a racial or ethnic background, and DOH records show about 11% of the vaccinated adults don’t have their race or ethnicity identified. It means that the actual vaccination rates for the different groups are somewhat higher, but the overall concern doesn’t change. Using the percentages of the city’s population broken down into different ethnic groups from 2019 Census estimates, and comparing those to the percentages vaccinated, I estimate that nearly 2 million of the roughly 3 million unvaccinated adults and adolescents are Black or Hispanic.
The city begins a summer school program on July 6 that includes all grades. Not every school will open. Junior high school and high school sites will be clustered. For instance, one junior high school will open and receive students from nearby junior high schools for the program in addition to their own. The programs run through mid-August. The city could add vaccine distribution at the summer school sites and continue them through August and the beginning of the school year while expanding the effort to as many schools as possible.
The Biden administration said it plans to ship vaccines to pediatricians. A Kaiser Family Foundation vaccine monitoring survey indicates about 40% of parents of adolescents aged 12-17 either have already had their children vaccinated or plan to do so soon. This survey suggests that a majority of adolescents will not be vaccinated in the very near future.
Again, the outreach power of the schools is enormous. Every school has records of the addresses and phone numbers of the families whose children are enrolled. The parents and other family members of the kids can be invited to get vaccinated at the school, and parent associations can be enlisted to encourage parents to use the schools for vaccinations.
The schools should also be available to the general public. The schools have the records of the kids who dropped out, and of the kids who just graduated. Many high school students are “overage” and many kids don’t graduate until they are 19 or 20 years old, and the lowest percentages of unvaccinated adults are the youngest adults, aged 18-24. Sixty-six percent of New York City public school students are Black or Hispanic. The schools should stay open into the early evenings to address one of the most significant hurdles remaining to get the population vaccinated — the work schedules of people who can’t get time off or need time after the workday is over.
Vaccination progress will continue as the summer rolls on; thankfully the vaccines are widely available at pharmacies and many other sites. But with 3 million New Yorkers unvaccinated, developing the potential of the schools to reach the broad population of the city still unvaccinated is a self-evident proposition.
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Jim Brennan was a member of the New York State Assembly for 32 years, where he chaired four committees. On Twitter @JimBrennanNY.
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