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New York and the Fight Over the 2010 Census


Gotham Gazette image by Ya-Hsuan Huang

The contretemps over Judd Gregg's aborted nomination to be commerce secretary reveal once again the fault lines over the 2010 census between Republicans and Democrats. Gregg's difference with the administration over economic policy attracted much of the attention, but the census also reportedly played a major role in the whole affair.

The Census Bureau is in the Commerce Department, and the nomination of Gregg, a Republican senator from New Hampshire, prompted an outcry from black and Latino groups who feared a census under Gregg's direction -- in the Senate, he had voted against fully funding the 2000 census --would result in an undercount of minorities and immigrants. In response, the Obama administration guaranteed that it would watch over the census from the White House. That in turn sparked complaints from the GOP and right-wing bloggers about political interference by the Obama administration in census 2010.

Gregg has returned to the Senate, but the controversy over next year's national headcount remains. None of this is surprising or new, since how the 2010 census is conducted will greatly affect the division of power and the allocation of money in New York State and the city, as well as elsewhere in the United States. Framed as neutral counts of the "whole population," the U.S. census, as all censuses, concerns the allocation of political power and money. The 2010 count will:

  • Lead to no change or a loss of one or two congressional seats in New York State.

  • Affect the distribution of the State Senate and Assembly seats.

  • Affect allocations of federal and state funds.

Who gets counted depends on how the counting is done. That has been the source of controversy for decades.

How Many New Yorkers?

The city has claimed an undercount in every census since 1950. Things turned particularly ugly in 1980. A suspicious fire in the census office responsible for counting Bedford-Stuyvesant occurred the weekend before Washington was to send a team to investigate a massive undercount in the area. This and other problems led to a lawsuit demanding an adjustment for the 1980 count.

To resolve the issue, the Census Bureau agreed to add a survey, revisiting some households in person, to make it possible to adjust the 1990 census. Adjusted counts were prepared, and the Census Bureau staff and director recommended using them, but Commerce Secretary Robert Mossbacher, who went on to run George H.W. Bush's reelection campaign in 1992, rejected the plan.

Information also existed to adjust the 2000 Census, but thanks to the work of Kenneth Prewitt, then director of the Census Bureau, and the funding that Judd Gregg and others tried to block, the 2000 census stood without adjustments, a decision with which most professional demographers agreed. The release of the 2000 census made it plain that the 1990 Reagan-Bush census was seriously flawed. especially with respect to populous states with big cities and large minority and immigrant populations.

The Issues in 2010

The census count, however, continues to be mired in controversies. These include:

  • The very definition of what constitutes a household. Census enumerators simply overlooked many households in New York City in 1990, leading to the severe undercount. Now census staff suggests that, if there is any question about how many units are in a given structure, they will consult with the property owner. While that may sound reasonable, landlords who have illegally divided their property may not answer truthfully. This would lead to a lower count for New York City, especially among poor people and minorities. The bureau makes many such rules and they have serious ramifications.

  • The use of statistical sampling to increase the accuracy of the count for those unwilling to come forward. This was resolved in 1999 by the Supreme Court at least in regards to congressional apportionment. The court ruled the sampling could not be used in determining congressional seats.

  • Methods used by the census to fill in results for people who enumerators know live at a specific address but who either cannot be reached or choose not to answer all of the questions. For decades, the census has used the characteristics of nearby households to fill in results -- methods known as imputation and allocation. Following the 2000 census, Utah wanted to stop the bureau from using this technique in an effort to get itself an extra congressional seat at the expense of North Carolina, but the courts agreed census could continue the practice.

  • The counting of military abroad (which is done) and counting other Americans abroad, including Mormon missionaries (which is not), another issue brought forth by Utah but not changed by the court.

  • The counting of prisoners at prison instead of at their place of residence when arrested. Here the National Academy of Sciences panel on the census and the Second Circuit Court of Appeals has strongly questioned the bureau's current practice of counting prisoners as living in the prison. This is a major issue in New York State, where most of the prisoners come from the five boroughs but, for the purpose of the census, are counted as residents of the upstate counties where they are incarcerated. This boosts the amount of aid the upstate communities receive and also increases their official populations, giving them additional legislative seats. If the census changed or modified its method of counting prisoners, it could have a big effect on the allocation of New York State Senate and Assembly seats.

  • The counting of immigrants. Many people do not want immigrants or at least illegal immigrants included in the census. The courts years ago said that such residents are part of the population. Nonetheless the issue is continually raised, especially in the context of redistricting.

  • Counting of students in their dorms, which also has been resolved in favor of the students, but like the counting of immigrants is always raised by affected politicians, who may not be comfortable with students in their districts.

Simply put, a professionally run Census Bureau with a commitment to count the "whole population" using modern methods and techniques will be a boon to New York City (see the results from 2000). On the other hand if there is little or no commitment to a complete count (see the recent blog posting of Bruce Chapman, bureau director during the 1980 controversies and now president of the pro-Creationist Discovery Institute), New York City will be undercounted again. It is his original blog post that stirred up the right-wing blogs and politicians to accuse the administration of interfering with the census. If this attack upon the census is successful, New York City might be miscounted and appear to lose population.

That this would happen during the Obama administration seem unlikely. Nonetheless, the census is at very high risk according to the Government Accounting Office, and with the count only 13 months away, it is well past time to confirm a census director. The choice of many is Kenneth Prewitt, who ran the successful 2000 Census and appears to be willing to step into that role again. New Yorkers should hope that he does.

Andrew A. Beveridge has taught sociology at Queens College since 1981, done demographic analyses for the New York Times since 1993, and been in charge of Gotham Gazette's demographics topic page since 2000. The opinions expressed are his alone.

Asian Americans: A Growing Force in City Politics


Photo by Tom Good through Wikipedia Commons
New York City Councilmember John Liu (at the podium) at a press conference on term limits last October on the steps of City Hall.

John Liu, a Taiwan-born former business consultant who moved to the U.S. at the age of 5, made history in New York politics in 2001 as the first Asian American elected to the City Council. This year he will write a new page by becoming the first Asian American to run for a citywide office as he campaigns to become the city's next public advocate.

An increasing number of Asians, many, like Liu, from Taiwan or born to immigrant parents from Taiwan, are competing for office in the city, particularly in Flushing, as their counterparts from Hong Kong are doing the same in Manhattan's Chinatown. While representing a possible new force in the city's already diverse political life, their emergence reveals generational splits and other divisions within New York's growing Asian communities.

Liu's Next Campaign

Although Liu has not officially declared his candidacy for public advocate, the political director and treasurer of his campaign, Mei Ru, has confirmed his bid, and a fundraiser was held on Jan. 7. Chinese and English-language newspapers see him as a front-runner in the hotly contested race. Brooklyn Councilmember Bill de Blasio and civil rights attorney Norman Siegel have already announced their candidacies for the post, and Queens Councilmember Eric Gioia also is expected to enter the race.

According to the blog PolitickerNY.com, Liu's campaign aides have confirmed that he has hired Bill Lynch Associates, a public relations firm headed by former deputy mayor Bill Lynch, as his general consultant. He also has reportedly sought help from two well-known political marketing specialists, Jimmy Siegel and Celinda Lake. Among those running for the public advocate, Liu topped the campaign fundraising chart with more than $3 million.

Flushing Makes History

Liu represents City Council District 20, which covers parts of northeast Queens, including Flushing, Queensboro Hill, Kissena Park, Harding Heights, Auburndale and some of Whitestone. His district is home to the city's largest Asian community. Some New Yorkers jokingly refer to the area as "Flu Shing Province of China" because of its large Chinese population, and Chinese signs and businesses can be seen in every street corner. Many Koreans live in the area as well.

Among the Chinese-speaking population in New York, Flushing is the "Mandarin-speaking" Chinatown because the residents are primarily Mandarin speakers from Taiwan and central and northern China. Manhattan's Chinatown is Cantonese-speaking since most people there are from Hong Kong or Canton (now Guangdong) Province.

Liu, a Democrat, did not make history on his first try. He ran for City Council in 1997 and lost to six-term incumbent Julia Harrison, who earned notoriety for comments many perceived as anti-Asian.

Nor was Liu the first Asian American to run for New York City Council. Pauline Chu, a former president of Community School Board 25, ran against Harrison in the 1991 Democratic primary and lost. Harrison then defeated Chun Soo Pyun, a former president of the Korean Businessmen's Association, by a large margin in the general election.

Ethel Chen, a retired librarian and onetime head of the Asian American Democratic Association in Queens, had a string of unsuccessful runs for office, as did Meilin Tan, a Republican. Both remain well-known figures in the Flushing community, and other candidates seek their support.

In 2001, Harrison had to vacate the seat because of term limits, and that time, Liu got enough support from within and beyond the Asian American community to win. He was re-elected in 2003 and 2005.

State Assembly Race

Photo by China Daily

Liu's victory in 2001 provided a much needed boost in confidence for New York's Asian American community. Three years later, Jimmy Meng, a former president of the Flushing Chinese Business Association, became the second Asian American to win an important local election, capturing Flushing's seat in the New York State Assembly.

Meng had lost to Barry Grodenchik in 2002. Two years later, though, the situation was reversed, and Meng won the Democratic nomination, defeating Grodenchik. He then went on to gain a landslide 70 percent of the vote in the general election, defeating Meilin Tan.

However, Meng's campaign created some controversy. Simon Ting, an aide to Meng, later was indicted on charges that he faked voter registration documents. Meng did not run for re-election in 2006, citing health problems.

The contest to replace him revealed sharp schisms in the Flushing Asian community. In 2006, the race pitted his daughter, Grace Meng, against Ellen Young, a Taiwanese immigrant who served as a district aide to John Liu.

The intense race ended when Meng dropped out of the race after Young charged she did not live in the district as required by law. Young won the primary and general election, becoming the first Asian American woman elected to the New York state legislature.

But the rivalry between Young and Meng -- and between the Meng family and Liu -- did not end. Last year, they had a rematch in the Democratic primary that was widely viewed as a power struggle between Liu's camp and his rivals. The feud also focused attention on generational differences among Asian politicians.

Meng, a lawyer and chairwoman of the Queens Chinese Women's Association, garnered support from Harrison and Terence Park, who both ran against Liu before. Meng also claimed that her American-born background gave her an edge over Young.

"I'm someone who was born and raised here. I'm comfortable with the culture. I'm comfortable with the language," Meng said during the campaign. Meng's camp assailed Young for not having a college degree (she finished junior college in Taiwan) and, they said, of not being able to reach beyond the Chinese community. Young's immigrant background, once seen as an asset, had become a liability. Meng won by a double-digit margin.

Chinatown's Dilemma

While Queen's has now elected three Asian politicians, with more almost certainly on the way, the primarily Cantonese-speaking Manhattan Chinatown has not been able to send any Asian Americans to City Council or the state legislature -- even though it has been the center for New York Chinese American life since the first large wave of Cantonese immigrants settled here in the late 1800s.

Chinatown sits in District 1, one of the most ethnically and economically diverse districts in the city, covering SoHo, TriBeCa, Greenwich Village, Battery Park City, the Financial District, Little Italy and the Lower East Side.

After the district's creation in 1991, Kathryn Freed, a lawyer, defeated Asian American candidates in consecutive elections to serve as the area's council member. In 2001, Freed had to step down due to term limits. Alan Gerson, also a lawyer, won the Democratic primary, defeating six opponents including three Asian Americans: housing advocate Margaret Chin; Rocky Chin, a public-interest attorney; and Kwang Hui, a labor activist.

At the beginning of the 2001 campaign, many political observers expected District 1 would choose an Asian American council member. Many attribute the failure to do so to the fact that Chinatown is primarily a place of work, business and entertainment for Asian New Yorkers, not the neighborhood where they live. In addition, many Chinatown residents are undocumented and so cannot vote. Meanwhile, Asian American voters seem to have difficulties presenting a united front I the area.

Chinatown has, however, elected Chinese judges to the Civil Court. The Second Municipal Court District, which covers roughly the same area as City Council District 1, elected Doris Ling-Cohan to the Civil Court in 1995. In 2006, Margaret Chan, an immigrant from Hong Kong, was elected to the same court.

2009 will see more efforts to elect a Chinese American to represent District 1 in City Council, although Gerson is believed likely to seek re-election. Margaret Chin, who just announced her fourth bid for the City Council, left her position as the deputy executive director of Asian Americans for Equality to focus on her campaign. An immigrant from Hong Kong who came to the U.S. at the age of 9, Chin has been an advocate for affordable housing, access to social services and government assistance for low-income immigrant families.

Jan Lee, a third-generation Chinatown resident and business owner, also has expressed interest in the race to run but has not made a final decision on whether to run.

Filling Liu's Seat

With Liu seeking to move on, several established community leaders and a new generation of political leaders in Flushing hope to fill his City Council seat.

Yen S. Chou, president of the Chinese American Parent-Student Council and a member of District 26 Community Education Council, is among them. An educator who has devoted her career to helping immigrant families, Chou was elected to Community School Board 26 before the Bloomberg administration restructured the Department of Education. Also a native of Taiwan, she has attracted support from many community leaders and organizations.

Meanwhile, other political families could challenge the Mengs. James Wu, Ethel Chen's son, has been an active member of the Democratic Club of Queens. A Democratic district leader in Queens, he has registered his City Council bid with the City's Board of Elections.

Oliver Tan, the son of Meilin Tan, teamed up with his mother, and was elected a Republican district leader in 2007, a position his mother has held since 1992. Oliver Tan also served as the manager for Peter Koo's failed State Assembly campaign in 2008. Tan would face formidable odd in the Democratic district, but is expected to rise in Queen's Republican circles.

Taiwan Connection

The Flushing politicians share a connection to Taiwan, but there are generational differences between them.

Pauline Chu, Jimmy Meng, Ethel Chen and Meilin Tan represent the first generation of New York Asian American politicians. All four were born in China but moved to Taiwan as young children and were educated there. They are part of a massive tide of immigrants from Taiwan who started to form a community in Flushing in the 1970s. Now Flushing is home to the largest Mandarin-speaking community in New York, including many newcomers from China who arrived after the 1990s.

John Liu represents what scholars refer to as the "1.5 generation" -- those born abroad but who moved to the United States before their teens and so share characteristics of both first and second generations.

Grace Meng represents the 22nd District in the New York State Assembly

The second generation, by definition, was born in the United States to immigrant parents from Taiwan. These include Grace Meng, James Wu and Oliver Tan. They inherited their parents' resources and are eager to develop their own paths.

Grace Meng is by far the most successful of these politicians. Her work as a coordinator for her father's campaign and her increased involvement in the community after her loss in 2006 paid off. Meanwhile, her campaign strategy to present her as the open-minded candidate who can reach beyond the Chinese community has proved to be effective. Her victory is an indicator that the new generation's time might be just around the corner.

The Senate's Demographic Shift


Image courtesy of Andrew Beveridge
Map 1: The shift in the State Senate also means a shift of power to New York City and some of its suburbs.Click here, or on the image above, to view a larger version of the map.

For New York State, the 2008 "change" election represents the final consolidation of power of a new demographic majority, as control in the State Senate shifts from upstate Republicans to downstate New York City-centric Democrats. The massive efforts to gerrymander the State Senate after the 2000 Census, including the arbitrary addition of a downstate seat to leave upstate and Long Island intact and maintain Republican control, only lasted for three elections: 2002, 2004 and 2006.

Of course three dissident Democratic senators from New York City could vote to keep a Republican as Senate leader, but given the great differences in the Democratic and Republican constituencies, this would make it difficult for them to address issues important to their New York City constituents. So, with the power all but certain to be in Democratic hands, one can expect that, barring a reversal in 2010, the Senate redistricting that will follow the 2010 Census will entrench the party's control for many, many years.

Certainly, that is what the Republicans did. They held the majority in the Senate for 70 years (since 1939), except for a brief hiatus from 1965 to 1967 in the wake of Lyndon Johnson's landslide victory over Barry Goldwater in the 1964 presidential election.

Mapping the Districts

If the margins in the Assembly, where Democrats held 102 out of 150 seats before the election, are any guide, the Republicans should not expect to achieve a majority anytime soon after the 2010 Census is used to redistrict for the 2012 election. Even in a jurisdiction where one party holds a wildly lopsided majority -- as the Democrats do in New York City -- parties can still draw district lines to maximize the number of seats they hold. The disparity between Republican Senate and Assembly seats in the five boroughs makes this clear. Until the 2008 election, Assembly Democrats had arranged things to keep the Republican to only two Assembly members in the city. On the Senate side, though, Republicans managed to draw the lines so the party got four districts.

One would expect that after redistricting no more than one Republican Senator would remain. Indeed, this year while two of the senators, Andrew Lanza and Martin Golden, had easy victories this month, longtime Republican Sen. Serphin Maltese lost his bid for re-election. The fourth Republican, Frank Padavan, holds such a narrow lead over his Democratic challenger that the votes still are being recounted.

The GOP losses would probably extend beyond the city. The number of upstate senators would likely decrease by one or two due to changes in the allocation of seats upstate versus downstate. The senators representing those new downstate districts would in all likelihood be Democrats. This would lead to massive redrawing of lines upstate, downstate and on Long Island, which would be done to the benefit of the Democrats. Given all this, it is possible that after redistricting, the New York State Senate would have 38 Democrats and only 24 Republicans.

Upstate, Downstate

When one examines the underlying geography and demography of the new power base in the Senate, the change becomes even starker. This power shift will have major consequences for a variety of issues.

The first map shows the location of the Republican and Democratic districts and the two seats that switched to Democrat hands for the state as a whole, while the second map examines New York City and its environs. As is obvious from the first map, the change from Democratic to Republican control constitutes a massive shift of power from upstate and Long Island to New York City and Westchester.

Map 2: Many of the districts that have gone from the Repulicans to the Democrats are in New York City or on Long Island. Click for larger image.

The underlying demography makes it plain that the GOP senators and the Democratic senators represent very different constituencies. Twenty-three of the 32 Democratic Senators are from the city. Another two seats overlap the city and Westchester, and two more are in Westchester, while Long Island now has two Democratic seats. There are only five Democratic seats upstate: two in and near Buffalo, one in Albany County, one near but not including Syracuse and one quite far north, including St. Lawrence County.

As to the Republican seats, three are in the city, including one on Staten Island, one in Brooklyn and (for now at least) one in Queens. The GOP has seven of the nine seats on Long Island but 20 seats -- a full two thirds (20 of 30) of all Republican districts -- are upstate.

Characteristics of State Senate Districts Democratic Districts Republican Districts
GENERAL
 
 
Urban
96.9%
77.2%
Non-Hispanic White
42.8%
83.0%
Non-Hispanic Black
23.1%
5.7%
Non-Hispanic Asian
7.2%
3.5%
Hispanic
23.5%
6.0%
Foreign born
29.6%
10.3%
Average household income (1999)
$60,880
$63,026
FAMILY AND HOUSEHOLD
Married Couple
39.0%
55.1%
Female Headed
18.2%
10.8%
Non Family
38.0%
30.1%
Never Married 15+
28.8%
21.2%
Now Married
35.4%
44.4%
Same Sex Unmarried Partner Households
0.8%
0.5%
Opposite Sex Unmarried Partner Households
4.6%
4.8%
EDUCATION
 
 
No high school diploima
25.5%
16.0%
At Least Bachelor's Degree
27.9%
26.8%
Advanced Degree
12.2%
11.3%
K-12 in Public School
83.7%
88.3%
HOUSING
 
 
Rental
62.9%
29.1%
Owner Occuped
37.1%
70.9%

Party Differences

The demographics of upstate are radically different than downstate, including New York City. Given that, residents of the Republican districts have different interests and concerns than those of the Democratic districts. As of the 2000 Census, the Democratic districts were more urban (96.9 percent versus 77.2 percent) than the GOP districts. While 83 percent of the inhabitants of Republican districts are non-Hispanic white, for the Democratic districts the figure is 42.8 percent. As the table shows, Democratic districts are much more black, Hispanic and Asian than the GOP districts.

While 55.1 percent of the households in the GOP districts are married-couple households, for Democratic districts the figure is only 39 percent. Almost twice as many households in Democratic districts than in Republican ones are same-sex couples, though such households still constitute a tiny minority. Democratic districts are also more likely to have both college educated people and residents who did not complete high school than Republican districts. Only 37 percent of the housing in Democratic districts is owner occupied, compared to over 70 percent in GOP districts. The proportion of foreign-born people in Democratic districts is 29.6 percent, and only 10.3 percent in Republican districts. Furthermore, the immigrants in those Democratic districts are much more likely to be from the Caribbean or from South or Central Africa than those in GOP districts.

Such demographic characteristics translate directly into interests in New York State policy. People in Democratic districts would be much more concerned with matters concerning rental housing, such as rent stabilization -- explaining why so many tenant advocates have seen a Democratic Senate as key to the success of their cause -- while those in GOP districts would be more attentive to various methods to reduce real-estate taxes. Since funding of schools is the number one use of state funds, the new Democratic majority may send more money for education to the city and downstate, or the cuts, when they come, would more likely affect upstate.

The efforts to build prisons upstate and to put many SUNY branches upstate may also be under pressure from the new majority. Policies that lead to filling upstate prisons may not be seen in such a positive light.

In short, every policy that has in the past benefitted upstate residents at the expense of those in the city and nearby could be mitigated or even reversed. The power of the GOP to hold legislation hostage to the majority in the Senate will be gone. Now all of the “Three Men in a Room,” will be Democrats, probably from New York City, and the power of the Democrats in both houses of the legislature could well increase, as soon as they resolve their struggle over the leadership of the Senate. Their constituents, it seems, should expect gains from their newfound power.

 



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