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What A Court Ruling Against The Voting Rights Act Could Mean For NYC


 voter-supression-no

NEW YORK — A case brought before the U.S. Supreme Court by a small Alabama county could reshape future election law in New York City, and strip minority groups of federal protections against voter discrimination.

The case, Shelby County v. Holder, involves the landmark Voting Rights Act of 1965 — in particular Section 5, which was created to reverse systemic discrimination against blacks by requiring that all changes to voting laws be reviewed by the Department of Justice. The country’s highest court heard oral arguments in the case last week, and some observers believe Section 5 could be struck down by a majority of the justices in the months ahead.

In addition to a number of Southern states including Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, South Carolina, and Texas, the law also applies to three New York City counties: Manhattan, Brooklyn and the Bronx. As a result, most of the city’s election-related legislation is more or less guided by the Voting Rights Act.

Some of the law's defenders argue that the city's diversity — where its 8.2 million residents speak a myriad of languages and have varying levels of education — makes the statute all the more necessary and relevant.

“If the U.S. Supreme Court were to overturn it, the residents of these communities could be subject to discriminatory voting practices, such as race-based gerrymandering, without the protection of Department of Justice or federal court preclearance,” wrote Democratic U.S. Rep. Hakeem Jeffries, who represents a congressional district protected under the Voting Rights Act, in an e-mail Tuesday. “That outcome is unacceptable.”

While this year's local races are unlikely to be affected by where the Supreme Court lands on the case, the striking of Section 5 would dramatically alter how city officials handle elections in future years. Whereas the provision in question attempts to guarantee fair redistricting and ballot access for minorities, voters would have to rely on lawsuits and lawmakers to ensure the same without federal guidelines.

New York's Mayor Michael Bloomberg and City Council Speaker Christine Quinn aren't ready to get rid of those federal guidelines.

On this year’s Martin Luther King, Jr., Day, Bloomberg and Quinn filed an amicus brief filed in support of Section 5. They wrote that the city has obtained preclearance from the U.S. Department of Justice more than 2,000 times over the last 41 years since the three New York City counties became subject to Voting Rights Act.

"This King Day, we are reminded that all too often there are a handful of those who would rather ignore these rights by re-installing barriers, often on the basis of race, economics or political affiliation,” they wrote in the amicus brief. “We can’t allow the voting rights of our citizens to be eroded by such ignorance.”

The brief cites approved changes to voting practices including both the changing of polling sites for certain communities and the inclusion of new languages on election materials. For instance, the city plans to debut long-delayed Bengali ballots in 2013 in order to comply with the Act's language assistance requirement. The Act guarantees that minority groups that have more than 10,000 potential voters with less-than-average literacy levels must be guaranteed ballot access.

It's a far cry from the very case that pushed Manhattan, Brooklyn and the Bronx under Section 5 in the first place. New York was one of many jurisdictions to use literacy tests in the 1960s. It wasn't until the U.S. Congress passed a provision in the Voting Rights Act to protect English-illiterate voters their right to a ballot.

It had a direct effect on the voting power of New York’s Puerto Ricans, who were previously limited by the literacy test. The lack of a test, however, angered a group of registered voters in New York City, who mobilized against the new law by arguing that it violated the Tenth Amendment. In 1966's Katzenbach v. Morgan, the Supreme Court overrode the states' right argument. Instead, the court under Chief Justice Earl Warren defended Congress' ability to protect voting rights beyond what the Court itself may have already recognized.

The Supreme Court under Chief Justice John Roberts faces a similar argument this year — that the federal government's requirement for preclearance is too onerous of a burden for local and state government. Shelby County's arguments have previously failed in the district courts and yet have made it to the country’s highest court, which heard arguments that left some local leaders worried about last week’s hearing of arguments.

While asking questions of the Solicitor General Donald Verrilli last week, Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia posited that continued Congressional support for the Voting Rights Act may be a “perpetuation of racial entitlement,” arguing that the federal government may have fallen complacent to such entitlements through the political process.

Voices from around the country immediately decried Scalia’s presumed argument.

“It was insensitive,” said City Councilwoman Letitia James of Brooklyn, in an interview with the Gotham Gazette on Tuesday. “It belies the facts.”

James said that the Voting Rights Act, especially Section 5, is responsible for ensuring fair and easy access to voting as recent as November’s general election. It was the Act, she said, that prevented maneuvering towards what some courts found to be excessive requirements for voter identification and protected language minorities’ right to vote.

Besides ensuring minorities’ access to the polls, James argued that the Act also helps to ensure that minorities are fairly represented in different levels of government by way of redistricting rules.

“It’s critically important that districts be apportioned to ensure minority representation in government,” she said. “Period.”

Minority groups around the city have made the case over the years for better representation in government, including during last year’s Congressional primaries. Residents and political advocates tried to secure a new Latino-majority Congressional district that would have included parts of Manhattan, the Bronx and Queens.

More recently, advocates in Queens argued for the creation of an Asian-majority city council district. The Asian-American Legal Defense and Education Fund was one of many organizations that joined with a coalition of groups to debate the merits of an empowered Asian voting bloc in Queens.

Jerry Vattamala, a staff attorney with AALDEF, said that the Voting Rights Act has been extremely beneficial to people of color — even to those who don’t live in the counties protected by Section 5. Its protection of minority voting rights, he said, were integral to the city electoral venture.

“At every stage of redistricting,” Vattamala said, referring to the process of redrawing district lines after every decennial census. “Section 5 was relevant.”

It even goes beyond maps. The statue was equally relevant in 1994, he added, when a proposed local law was nixed by the federal government after the city failed to provide candidate names in Chinese. And, in 2001, the DOJ found that the city’s Board of Elections didn’t give enough prior notice to the Chinese-speaking community about a poll site’s closure in Manhattan’s Chinatown, forcing it to open doors to voters.

Guidelines, as well as precedent, were formed as a result of incidents like those, Vattamala said, and aren’t limited to Manhattan, Brooklyn or the Bronx. The city has tried to use Section 5, he said, as a preventative measure to discriminatory policy that all five boroughs can benefit from.

Opponents of the Voting Rights Act’s provision against racial discrimination argue that the law is outdated and no longer appropriate in a diverse, modern-day America.

“For the federal government to intervene in state and local elections, there had better be a mighty good reason,” wrote Ben Boychuck of the Manhattan Institute in a column on Feb. 28. “In 1965 the reason was clear: the nine states of the Old Confederacy and parts of seven others had raised unconstitutional legal obstacles against black Americans registering and voting.”

Shelby County’s attorneys argue that certain provisions in the Voting Rights Act of 1965 are not only unnecessary but unconstitutional.

Not everyone agrees.

“Mr. Speaker, in America, certainly we have come a long way, but we still have a long, long way to go,” Rep. Jeffries said on the House floor on Feb. 25, invoking one of the most racially controversial episodes in America’s race relations. “Jim Crow may be dead, but he has still got some nieces and nephews who are alive and well.”

It’s too early to predict how the Supreme Court will decide the case. That hasn’t, however, put a stop to speculation. After Scalia’s comment on racial entitlements, pundits were quick to assume that the Voting Rights Act would soon be on its way out.

President and General Counsel of LatinoJustice Juan Cartagena said that there are a variety of options before the court. The justices could find middle ground or even send the case back down to a lower court, Cartagena said. Still, as a jurisdiction tied to Section 5, New York City will have to adapt if the anti-discrimination measures are stricken down — including through lawsuits involving other parts of the Voting Rights Act.

Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy alluded to as much during his questions to Shelby County counsel Bert Rein. The justice asked Rein if lawsuits brought about through Section 2 of the law are cost-effective and timely as opposed to Section 5’s preventative measures. Rein argued that Section 2 lawsuits don’t have the stigma for states that preclearance and prior restraint have.

Cartagena disagreed. “It would place the onus on organizations like ours to bring about expensive lawsuits,” he said, referring to the ability to bring about lawsuits based on Section 2 of the law. “The cost of preclearance is a lot less than lawsuits.”

While the public debate continues, and while the Supreme Court ponders its decision, jurisdictions haven’t stopped working on election law.

Cartagena said that this year’s shifting of the 51 city council districts could very well be the last time that the city requires preclearance from the federal government, given that the Supreme Court usually comes out with before the end of the term in late summer.

While New York waits for the DOJ to review the new district maps, a district court has already weighed in on a request from a New England state to review its compliance with the Voting Rights Act.

AALDEF’s Vattamala said the outcome of that case supports the law’s relevancy. “The statute itself has a mechanism to make sure it’s never outdated,” he said in reference to “bail-outs,” by which jurisdictions subject to the law can opt out if they can prove that they haven’t implemented any voting discrimination practices in the previous 10 years.

New Hampshire did just that on March 1 after a district court’s three-judge panel ruled that 10 of the state’s communities no longer have to request preclearance of its election laws.

Vattamala said New York City could do the same, if not for its record over the years. “New York has a long way to go,” he said.

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Image courtesy flickr, used under Creative Commons license. 

Districting Commission Still Draws Criticism With Latest Proposed Council Lines


 

Randall's Island

This version includes important updates to clarify the differing views of a neighborhood in Queens with a growing Asian population — Editor. 

NEW YORK — For the many civic groups observing the decennial redrawing of City Council district lines, it has been an imperfect and sometimes frustrating endeavor.

Alleged back-room political deals. Incumbents who seem to have an oversized voice in the process. Murky decision-making by a supposedly independent commission.

Now, after three rounds of sometimes raucous public hearings, the redistricting process is near its bitter end.

The 15-member District Commission, tasked with redrawing the lines to reflect demographic changes in the city, released what is likely to be the final version of the district lines on Monday. They are expected to vote on them today.

If the Council approves the lines — and it is unlikely that they will reject them given the election calendar — they will become finalized for the next decade, angering minority and neighborhood advocacy organizations who realized that a bevy of their proposals would not be incorporated into the commission’s map.

For James Hong, a spokesman for the Asian American Community Coalition on Redistricting and Democracy, it was an expected yet agonizing outcome.

“Overall, the changes made to the map neither reflect the current population size nor the growth of the Asian-American community in the past 10 years,” Hong said.

ACCORD, a coalition of 14 Asian civic groups, grew increasingly agitated at each public hearing as it became clear the commission was going to divide a neighborhood with a growing Asian population from Councilman Dan Halloran's district. That neighborhood, referred to as being a larger part of Bayside by ACCORD and by others as Oakland Gardens, has its own separate zip code. 

The coalition argued, ultimately fruitlessly, that the southern portion of Bayside/Oakland Gardens should be naturally added to Halloran’s district. The councilman alleged that ACCORD was merely seeking to create an “Asian district” at the expense of everyone else. The southern boundary from the December plan was largely maintained in the new plan, satisfying Halloran. 

“We do not have proposals to create an Irish district, an Italian district, a Greek district, a district of green eyed people or a district of left handed people,” Halloran said at the Queens public hearing.

ACCORD sharply disagreed, penning a letter to the commission that contended their proposal would still make Halloran’s district less than 30 percent Asian. Tension between Halloran and Asian civic groups remains high over a tough, racially-charged 2009 general election that Halloran won against an Asian-American, Kevin Kim. That race cast a long shadow over the last Queens public hearing.

Jerry Vattamala, an attorney for the Asian American Legal Defense and Education Fund, said that AALDEF — which advanced their own redistricting proposal known as the Unity Map — was “evaluating all of our options," including  a possible lawsuit against the commission for an alleged violation of the City Charter over how the Asian population across New York City fared in the redistricting process.

“It really is a violation of the charter,” Vattamala said. “Asian-Americans are a protected group. According to the prioritized list, these groups, including Asian-Americans, must be ensured fair and effective representation.”

Bensonhurst, Brooklyn, a sprawling neighborhood with a burgeoning Asian population, is divided among four council districts, a perpetual concern for Asian civic groups. The commission’s latest map did little to create the sort of districts those groups desired.

In a Feb. 4 memorandum from Carl Hum, the commission’s executive director, to members of the commission, the reasoning behind how all districts were drawn in the city was made public.

The memorandum emphasizes that the commission followed closely the criteria laid out in the City Charter. Population size — ensuring no district is 10 percent larger or smaller than the average district size — and ensuring that racial and voting minority groups are fairly represented are two of the most important criteria in the charter. Not mentioned, but emphasized by Hum in public comments, is incumbency protection, which Hum argued was a legitimate factor to consider when redrawing district lines.

Praised by good government group Citizens Union (a sister organization of the Gotham Gazette), Hum's memorandum helped to deflect charges that the bipartisan commission, which includes former elected officials Tom Ognibene and Frank Padavan, lacked transparency.

But other civic leaders continued to be unimpressed by the proposed new lines.

Former Brooklyn District Leader Lincoln Restler accused the commission of “packing” Hasidic Jews in northern Bedford-Stuyvesant, a current part of Councilwoman Letitia James’ district, into southern Williamsburg, thus benefitting Councilman Stephen Levin, an ally of the Hasidic Jewish community and the former chief of staff to one of their fiercest allies in Albany, Assemblyman Vito Lopez.

“More than a year ago, individuals in consultation with Councilman Levin and Vito Lopez shared with me their plans to remake this district and cut out as much of brownstone Brooklyn as possible while packing in the Hasidic community,” Restler said. “This has been precisely the outcome more than 12 months later of a sham redistricting process designed to strengthen the incumbent council member at all costs.”

Restler, mulling a run against Levin, will see his election prospects plummet under the current proposal, though advocates of the alteration argued at the Brooklyn public hearing that the commission was rightfully uniting a community of common interest, which is another key criteria outlined in the City Charter. Levin himself argued this at the hearing, though James said that Jewish leaders in her district expressed concerns about losing a legislative representative.

The aforementioned Lopez factored into the redistricting process when it was reported last year that an ally in the Council requested his residence be drawn into term-limited Councilwoman Diana Reyna’s district to better facilitate a rumored run for that Council seat. Council Speaker Christine Quinn, who political insiders have said plays a large but unseen role in the redistricting process, was angered when the alteration was brought to her attention — and made public — and asked the commission to withdraw the council lines many believed were final, setting off a third round of public hearings in January.

One vocal critic of the districting process, Manhattan and Bronx Councilwoman Melissa Mark-Viverito, had criticized the commission for removing a section of East Harlem and Randall’s Island from her district. Both were restored in the latest proposed map, though Mark-Viverito found more of her district, currently Manhattan-based, drawn north into the Bronx. The district added enough Bronx residents to make the district slightly more of a Bronx district than a Manhattan one.

One of the Districting Commission's most detailed discussions of its decision-making, in the memorandum released on Monday, was reserved for Mark-Viverito's district.

While the commission said adding Bronx residents was done to reflect the “extreme” population growth in that county, Common Cause New York Executive Director Susan Lerner said she believed “political purposes” were behind the redrawing of Mark-Viverito’s district.

“We don’t see the justification of this district with 200,000 more people in Manhattan,” Lerner said. “It’s a pure gerrymander so the Bronx picks up an additional seat. It’s pure power politics.”

Mark-Viverito did not respond to requests for comment.

___

Image of Randall's Island by InSapphoWeTrust, used under Creative Commons license.

The Surprisingly Lively Special Election In Queens


far-rockaway

NEW YORK — Organize Now. Rebuild Now. Better Service.

These are not commandments from an overbearing mother; these are party lines in a surprisingly competitive and lively nonpartisan special election being held tomorrow to fill a Queens City Council seat.

What makes the race even more odd for being so sought after is that whomever wins the race will have to jump back on the campaign trail soon after delivering a victory speech. The next citywide elections are just around the corner, with the primary set (at least for now) for September. The Queens seat was vacated when James Sanders Jr., successfully moved up to the state Senate after defeating indicted incumbent Shirley Huntley.

A Liberian, a Jamaican, two Haitians, a disgraced former councilman and an Orthodox Jew are among the eight candidates battling for the Council seat.

The winner of the special election in the 31st district will also be faced with representing some of the neighborhoods hardest-hit by Hurricane Sandy, including Far Rockaway, where thousands were left without power and train service was knocked out for weeks.

The district, tucked into Queens' far-flung southeast corner, ropes in the neighborhoods of Rosedale, Laurelton, Springfield Gardens and an eastern chunk of the Rockaway Peninsula.

Local leaders expect that demographics will weigh heavily in the decision of who gets elected.

Bishop Charles Norris, the founder of a large church in Jamaica, Queens, is a political power broker of sorts in the area and a former resident of Far Rockaway.

He has made it absolutely clear that the old New York anomaly of a white elected official representing a majority black area is unacceptable to him and others. He said he fears that the majority black district will be deprived of social and economic services at the expensive of a vocal, and more politically-active, minority. “I would hope that the other people in that race would see the light and do the math. If all of them stay in the race, none of them are going to win,” he said.

THE LONG-SHOT

It was already a difficult year for the district when in late 2012 police say a driver drunkenly swerved off Brookville Boulevard, a single lane roadway near John F. Kennedy Airport, and plunged into marshland on Dec. 30, killing a pregnant woman who was a passenger in the vehicle.

That accident is what motivated Marie Adam-Ovide, the district manager of Queens Community Board 8 and a Haitian-born 41-year-old resident of Laurelton, to run for the seat. “How come no one ever thought there needed to be railing or protective barrier on that boulevard?” she asked. “A woman ended up dead. I realized then that Brookville Boulevard was something, among many things, that needed looking into.”

Adam-Ovide, a relative long-shot in the race who has spent most of the nearly $7,000 that she has raised in private funds, according to the website of the city's Campaign Finance Board.

There is a disparity, she explained, between neighborhoods like Jamaica Estates and Fresh Meadows and the minority areas of the district, which she said don’t receive the services and attention that they deserve. She lamented the trash lining large thoroughfare like Merrick Boulevard. In contrast, Community Board 8’s Union Turnpike last year received a thorough cleaning up from the DOE Fund, thanks to funding from the local councilman, James Gennaro.

The gregarious Sanders received mixed reviews from the candidates running to replace him. Adam-Ovide implied he neglected her community when he decided to run for State Senate, “concentrating instead on where he gets bigger bang for his buck.”

LIBERIAN-BORN

Saywalah Kesselly, the oldest candidate in the race at 52, was more direct, labeling Sanders “a dismal failure.” Kesselly, like Adam-Ovide, is not originally from the United States. Unlike Adam-Ovide, he hails from Liberia, and is running on a platform of bringing a “holistic” approach to local schools.

After Sandy, education may be the biggest stated priority among the candidates. P.S. 156 in Laurelton has been targeted for “truncation” by the Dept. of Education, meaning the DOE will be phasing out the middle school grades — six through eight — while keeping the others.

“I want to bring holistic learning centers here with extended days, weekend hours and after school programs that will help our young people,” said Kesselly who, with $12,330 raised, is near the bottom of the pack. “We have a high unemployment rate that needs to change. We need job training and business development. There are young people here who are drug dealers and if we redirect them, they will be the best businessmen and women in the country.”

Kesselly, a past member of various nonprofits, is the executive director of the African Center for Community Empowerment, a nonprofit founded in Far Rockaway to solve problems that have plagued the neighborhood like gun violence. Insisting, like many candidates do, that he is a “not a politician,” he said he would consider not running in the primary if he lost the special election.

THE PROTEGE

Donovan Richards, Sanders’ most recent chief of staff, is unlikely to step aside for anyone. Only 29, Richards entered politics when a friend of his was murdered in South Jamaica, Queens. At an anti-gun violence rally a week after his friend’s funeral, he met Sanders and, soon after, Richards became his protégé. In 2008, Richards ran an uphill race against incumbent Assemblywoman Michele Titus and lost.

Richards is in a stronger position for the Council race, counting the backing of the Working Families Party, the United Federation of Teachers and 1199 SEIU, which independently spent several thousand dollars in support of his campaign, according to filings. He is also the top fundraiser in the pack with almost $60,000 from private contributions.

Diving into the Sandy relief efforts in Far Rockaway, Richards said he noticed a difference between the aid and attention granted to the eastern, minority-heavy section of the peninsula and the white western portion, like Breezy Point.

“I slept in shelters with my constituents and on the ground on rocks and I can tell you there was no presence of FEMA, the Red Cross or LIPA for the first fifteen days after the storm,” he said. “I saw how people were left to fend on their own. I take nothing away from what’s happened to people in Breezy Point, the whole peninsula was hit hard, but resources should have been more equitable.”

Richards argued he is the best person to replace Sanders because he knows how to navigate the City Council bureaucracy. Lacking a learning curve, he will be able to immediately, he said, work with government agencies and relief groups to ensure the Rockaways fully recovers.

A SEASONED CAMPAIGNER

If Richards, with his raft of high profile endorsements, is the favorite, his biggest threat may be the man who ran and lost against Sanders in 2009: Jacques Leandre.

The 42-year-old native of Haiti is a charismatic presence in the community, an attorney who founded the aforementioned youth football program in Rosedale. According to campaign finance records, as of Feb. 17, Leandre has been able to raise about $32,000 in private funds — a far cry from Richards’ total of nearly $60,000.

But Leandre has the experience of a campaign under his belt and the community name recognition to make him a top contender for the seat.

“I think the most pressing issues for the district are education and elderly services, or lack thereof,” Leandre said, explaining his platform. “We also need to rebuild the Rockaways. For me, the task is moving the community forward and bringing some innovative vision and ingenuity to the job. I want to expand on the work that’s been done not only by him [Sanders] but by predecessors as well.”

Leandre’s candidacy might have been given a boost last week when he appeared on many local television stations as the impassioned attorney defending a 19-year-old black man who had been beaten by police in Flushing, Queens on Jan. 8. Police charged the man, Robert Jackson, with marijuana possession and resisting an arrest, among other charges, but civil rights leaders have alleged the police used unnecessary and brutal force.

Leandre also garnered headlines for challenging the petitions of six candidates in the race. All of the challenges failed and candidates who were sued banded together to blast Leandre.

THE SPOKESWOMAN

Selvena Brooks, a public relations specialist, was among the candidates who came together against Leandre, accusing him of “a cynical, anti-democratic exercise, and a waste of the court’s time and taxpayers’ money.”

Brooks, the former spokeswoman for Senate Democrats, is running on the Rebuild Now! party line. Brooks has called for a rebuilding of education that would restore cuts to vocation and technical training programs, investment in new infrastructure projects and a coordinated relief effort for Sandy-ravaged areas, including opposition to property tax hikes on afflicted homeowners.

“We would have liked to have seen more done in the community for recovery efforts,” the 29-year-old Brooks said. “We’ve been here in trenches working with local clergy and ensuring people in the Rockaways get the help that they need. There are many are still hurting. People are living in hotels across the city; it’s unacceptable to live in your own city and not get the services you need.”

THE ORTHODOX JEW

Pesach Osina, who did not respond to repeated requests for comment, is a former staffer of energetic Rockaways Assemblyman Phil Goldfeder who also happens to be Orthodox Jewish.

A native of Brooklyn, Osina has lived in Far Rockaway since 1999, according to his campaign biography. The neighborhood is home to a growing Orthodox Jewish enclave that is a revival of communities that had dwindled in the 1970s not far from the black and Hispanic sections of Far Rockaway.

Allies of Osina contend that his candidacy is desperately needed because funding for community programs and social services has been virtually denied to their institutions. Writing in 5 Towns Jewish Times newspaper, Osina’s campaign treasurer, Eli Shapiro, argued that their community programs received less than one percent of the money allocated to the district over the past five years.

A PTA VETERAN

Michael Duncan, a native of Jamaica (the country), served as Sanders’ chief of staff in the 2000’s but angered Sanders when he decided to challenge him in 2009. Duncan, like Leandre, was expecting Sanders to be term-limited, but a controversial and overwhelming vote by the City Council allowed elected officials to seek third terms.

A veteran of PTA boards and Rosedale resident, the 49-year-old Duncan said he led the successful fight against the arrival of a so-called “hot sheets” motel in Springfield Gardens. Residents feared it would attract prostitution and other illicit activity and now the property is being turned into a strip mall.

“I’ve had four more years to build more bridges and more relationships in the district,” Duncan said of his 2009 loss. “Based on my service to the people in this community, I’m the person to represent this district.”

THE CHRONIC CAMPAIGNER

The only former elected official in the race did not respond to requests for comment. Allan Jennings represented a Jamaica and Ozone Park-based district last decade and was a notorious presence in the City Council, having been censured for sexually harassing staffers. He has run for numerous offices sense. Jennings’ campaign committee is not registered in the district. He has raised a grand total of $25 for the race.

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Image of Far Rockaway, Queens, by Kate Gardiner, used under Creative Commons license.

 



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