Politics

High court blocks census citizenship question

WAVE NEWSPAPERS — In a ruling by Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr., who was joined by the court’s liberals, the court said the Trump administration did not adequately explain its reason for adding the question. The ruling included a direct rebuke to Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross, who last year decided to add a citizenship question to all forms for the first time since 1950.

Published

5 years ago

July 15, 2019

Wave Wire Services

By Wave Wire Services

LOS ANGELES — Southland elected officials and immigration-rights activists hailed a U.S. Supreme Court ruling June 27 that blocked a citizenship question on the 2020 Census.

“This ruling is a victory for an accurate, comprehensive and complete census count,” Rep. Lucille Roybal-Allard, D-Los Angeles, said.

“[President Donald] Trump is eager to silence the voices of vulnerable populations in our communities. That’s why he wanted a census citizenship question that will dramatically undercount these populations.

“An accurate and complete 2020 Census is essential to ensuring our communities receive the federal funds we need for countless critical programs, including Medicare and Medicaid, school lunches, highway funding, housing assistance and more,” she said. “While the court’s ruling is a victory for our nation, our House Democratic majority will stay vigilant, and fight any further efforts to sabotage a fair and accurate 2020 Census.”

In a ruling by Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr., who was joined by the court’s liberals, the court said the Trump administration did not adequately explain its reason for adding the question. The ruling included a direct rebuke to Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross, who last year decided to add a citizenship question to all forms for the first time since 1950.

“Altogether, the evidence tells a story that does not match the.explanation the secretary gave for his decision,” Roberts said.

The court sent the matter back to a lower court for review.

In January, U.S. District Judge Jesse Furman in New York blocked the citizenship question and issued a 277-page opinion describing how Ross had failed to follow the advice of census experts or explain his reasons for making a change that could lead to a severe undercount. Judges in San Francisco and Maryland handed down similar rulings.

The Supreme Court agreed to hear the administration’s appeal in the case of Department of Commerce vs. New York on a fast-track basis because the government said it needed to begin printing census forms this summer.

On Twitter, Trump blasted the ruling.

“Seems totally ridiculous that our government, and indeed country, cannot ask a basic question of citizenship in a very expensive, detailed and important census, in this case for 2020,” he wrote. “I have asked the lawyers if they can delay the census, no matter how long, until the United States Supreme Court is given additional information from which it can make a final and decisive decision on this very critical matter.

“Can anyone really believe that as a great country we are not able to ask whether or not someone is a citizen. Only in America!”

Los Angeles City Attorney Mike Feuer said that although the Trump administration has the ability to provide in court a more robust reason adding the question, he said he doesn’t think it will convince the court to overturn the ruling.

“This Supreme Court led by its chief justice said … this was, essentially, a contrived rationale, and so it’s been sent back for another rationale,” Feuer said. “But here’s the thing: There is no other rationale. There is nothing else going on here but an attempt to marginalize Latinos throughout the United States to make sure their voices don’t count. That’s what this has been about since the inception of this question.”

Several Los Angeles-area leaders gathered at Grand Park in downtown to hail the ruling.

“Los Angeles County will continue to collaborate with our tribal, city leaders … and especially our school districts and many others to ensure everybody is counted,” County Supervisor Hilda Solis said.

Solis was joined by members of CHIRLA, the NALEO Educational Fund and the Advancement Project California in praising the decision.

“In light of [the] Supreme Court ruling, we all will stay determined and committed to a robust (census) outreach,” Solis said. “This ruling, as you know, will impact the lives of our most vulnerable.”

Solis said undocumented residents without full citizenship have been fearful of answering the question because it would require them to disclose their immigration status. The court’s decision comes just a few days after Trump pulled back the reins on another immigration sweep in major cities.

Without an accurate census, it may be difficult to receive federal funding for programs that can serve the entirety of the need-based population, Solis said.

An undercount in the state could also lead to a loss of representation in Congress.

Los Angeles Unified School District Superintendent Austin Beutner called the court’s ruling “the right thing for public education.”

“The census is used to determine the amount of funding Los Angeles Unified receives from federal programs,” he said. “Los Angeles Unified received $328 million in Title I funding and nearly $40 million for other federal education and health programs for the 2017-18 school year. If the question is eventually included, it could lead to a loss of as much as $20 million every year in Title I funding, which would pay for about 200 additional teachers in schools serving students with the highest needs.

“The citizenship question is not some abstract, legal issue. It has real consequences in our schools,” he said.

Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti was effusive.

“This is a hopeful day for our democracy. The census is the largest civic exercise in our country — an opportunity to show that everyone belongs here and everybody counts,” he said in a statement. “Instead, the administration tried to change who we are and write millions of people out of America’s story. Fortunately, the Supreme Court stopped this cynical ploy in its tracks, removing a major roadblock to participation in next year’s tally.”

Garcetti said he will work “to ensure that hard-to-count populations — immigrant households, communities of color, low-income residents, and our most vulnerable neighbors — and all Angelenos are counted in the 2020 Census.”

This article originally appeared in the Wave Newspapers.

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Activism

Post News Group to Host Second Town Hall on Racism, Hate Crimes

The mission of CRD is to protect the people of California from unlawful discrimination in employment, housing and public accommodations (businesses) and from hate violence and human trafficking in accordance with the Fair Employment and Housing Act (FEHA), Unruh Civil Rights Act, Disabled Persons Act, and Ralph Civil Rights Act. The employment anti-discrimination provisions of the FEHA apply to public and private employers, labor organizations and employment agencies. “Housing providers” includes public and private owners, real estate agents and brokers, banks, mortgage companies, and financial institutions.

Published

3 days ago

December 10, 2024

Oakland Post

By Oakland Post Staff

On Tuesday, Dec. 10, from 5-6:30 p.m. PT, Post News Group Global Features Journalist Carla Thomas will host a second Virtual Town Hall on Racism.

Guests will include community builders Trevor Parham of Oakstop and Shawn Granberry of Hip Hop TV.

“There’s been an uptick of blatant racist acts going on in the community and it’s important for communities to have a forum, an outlet, and to be educated on the California Vs. Hate initiative that has resources available for victims and witnesses,” said Thomas. People like Trevor Parham and Shawn Granberry have found a multitude of ways to strengthen, heal, and protect the community through their entrepreneurial networks, special events, and mentoring.”

While community leaders step up, the state has added extra support with the CA vs. Hate, initiative, a non-emergency hate incident and hate crime reporting system to support individuals and communities targeted for hate.

“We are committed to making California a safer and inclusive place for all,” said James Williams, Jr. of the California Civil Rights Department.

In partnership with organizations across the state, the network is designed to support and protect diverse and underserved communities.

“Through CA vs. Hate, we support individuals and communities targeted for hate, identify options for next steps after an act of hate, and connect people with culturally competent resources and care coordination services,” said Williams.

“It’s important to report these incidents in order for us to use the data to enhance prevention and response services,” said Williams.

Funded by the California State Legislature, the California Civil Rights Department (CRD) received funding and authorization from the State Legislature to establish the non-emergency, CA vs. Hate Resource Line and Network to support individuals and communities targeted for hate.

CRD began in 1959 with the creation of the Fair Employment Practices Commission to implement California’s first state-wide protections against discrimination in the workplace. In 1980, the 1959 Fair Employment Practices Act, and the 1963 Rumford Fair Housing Act were combined and rebranded FEHA. The Fair Employment Practices Commission became a department-level agency named the Department of Fair Employment and Housing (DFEH) to enforce that law.

In July 2022, DFEH’s name changed to CRD to more accurately reflect the Department’s powers and duties, which include enforcement of laws prohibiting hate violence, human trafficking, discrimination in business establishments, and discrimination in government-funded programs and activities, among others.

For more information visit the PostNewsGroup.com and CAvsHATE.ORG.

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Activism

Butler, Lee Celebrate Passage of Bill to Honor Congresswoman Shirley Chisholm with Congressional Gold Medal

“Shirley Chisholm lived an honorable life of service and was a trailblazer who opened doors for generations of Black women and opened the imagination of what leadership looked like for our entire nation,” said Butler. “Her extraordinary contributions to American history and progress deserve recognition, and today I am proud to stand with my colleagues in both chambers and on both sides of the aisle to have taken this step to celebrate her legacy, ensuring that future generation of leaders never forget her courage, sacrifice, and patriotism.

Published

3 days ago

December 10, 2024

Oakland Post

By U.S. Senator Laphonza Butler
Special to The Post

U.S. Senator Laphonza Butler (D-Calif.) and U.S. Representative Barbara Lee (D-Calif.-12) celebrated the passage of bipartisan legislation to honor the life and work of the late Congresswoman Shirley Chisholm, the first Black woman elected to Congress in 1968.

The Shirley Chisholm Congressional Gold Medal Act would instruct Congress to posthumously endow Chisholm with a Congressional Gold Medal – the highest award Congress can bestow – in commemoration of her accomplishments, activism, and legacy.

The Shirley Chisholm Congressional Gold Medal Act was led in the House by Congresswoman Lee, Congressman Byron Donalds, Leader Hakeem Jeffries, Congresswoman Maxine Waters, and Congresswoman Yvette Clarke. The Senate companion to the bill was introduced by Butler and Georgia Senator Raphael Warnock.

The Congressional Gold Medal serves as the nation’s highest expression of gratitude for distinguished service and achievements, and I see no one more deserving than Shirley Chisholm,” said Lee. “It is critical for the next generation of leaders to see the first Black woman elected to Congress get the recognition that she deserves.

“Congresswoman Chisholm made history as the first Black woman elected to the United States Congress and the first Black woman to run for President of the United States. To Mrs. C, thank you for being unbought and unbossed, for paving the way, and for being a catalyst for change,” Lee said.

During her seven terms in the U.S. House of Representatives, “Fighting Shirley” introduced 50 pieces of legislation and was a champion for racial and gender equity, low-income communities, and the end of the Vietnam War.

In 1972, Chisholm became the first woman and Black candidate to seek the nomination for president of the United States from one of the two major political parties.

After a lifetime of service, Shirley Chisholm died at the age of 80 in Ormond Beach, Florida, on New Year’s Day 2005. Nov. 30, 2024, would have marked Chisholm’s 100th birthday. Chisholm’s motto, “Unbought and Unbossed,” embodies her unwavering advocacy for women and minorities, which defined her remarkable career and inspired future generations of leaders.

After passing the House and Senate with significant bipartisan support, the Shirley Chisholm Congressional Gold Medal Act will head to President Biden’s desk for a signature.

“Congresswoman Shirley Chisholm broke barriers for Black women, Black Americans, and anyone who refuses to be confined by injustice. As an educator, trailblazing public servant, and presidential candidate, she fought for an inclusive democracy that lives up to our nation’s highest ideals of equity and justice under law,” said Warnock. “I am proud to have passed this bill alongside Senator Butler to honor Chisholm’s legacy with a Congressional Gold Medal, and I will continue working to carry on her fight through my work in the Senate.”

“Shirley Chisholm was a pioneering figure in American politics, serving as a source of inspiration for millions throughout our country,” said Senator Susan Collins. “I am proud to join this effort to recognize her historic contributions to our nation.”

“Shirley Chisholm broke barriers as the first African American woman elected to Congress, paving the way for future generations of women leaders,” said Nevada Senator Cortez Masto. “I’m proud I helped pass this bill in the Senate to honor her legacy and continue the fight for representation and opportunity for everyone across the country.”

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Business

Landlords Are Using AI to Raise Rents — And California Cities Are Leading the Pushback

Federal prosecutors say the practice amounts to “an unlawful information-sharing scheme” and some lawmakers throughout California are moving to curb it. San Diego’s City Council president is the latest to do so, proposing to prevent local apartment owners from using the pricing software, which he maintains is driving up housing costs.

Published

3 days ago

December 10, 2024

Oakland Post

Gopixa for iStock.

By Wendy Fry, CalMatters

If you’ve hunted for apartments recently and felt like all the rents were equally high, you’re not crazy: Many landlords now use a single company’s software — which uses an algorithm based on proprietary lease information — to help set rent prices.

San Diego’s proposed ordinance, now being drafted by the city attorney, comes after San Francisco supervisors in July enacted a similar, first-in-the-nation ban on “the sale or use of algorithmic devices to set rents or manage occupancy levels” for residences. San Jose is considering a similar approach.

And California and seven other states have also joined the federal prosecutors’ antitrust suit, which targets the leading rent-pricing platform, Texas-based RealPage. The complaint alleges that “RealPage is an algorithmic intermediary that collects, combines, and exploits landlords’ competitively sensitive information. And in so doing, it enriches itself and compliant landlords at the expense of renters who pay inflated prices…”

But state lawmakers this year failed to advance legislation by Bakersfield Democratic Sen. Melissa Hurtado that would have banned the use of any pricing algorithms based on nonpublic data provided by competing companies. She said she plans to bring the bill back during the next legislative session because of what she described as ongoing harms from such algorithms.

“We’ve got to make sure the economy is fair and … that every individual who wants a shot at creating a business has a shot without being destroyed along the way, and that we’re also protecting consumers because it is hurting the pocketbooks of everybody in one way or another,” said Hurtado.

RealPage has been a major impetus for all of the actions. The company counts as its customers landlords with thousands of apartment units across California. Some officials accuse the company of thwarting competition that would otherwise drive rents down, exacerbating the state’s housing shortage and driving up rents in the process.

“Every day, millions of Californians worry about keeping a roof over their head and RealPage has directly made it more difficult to do so,” said California Attorney General Rob Bonta in a written statement.

A RealPage spokesperson, Jennifer Bowcock, told CalMatters that a lack of housing supply, not the company’s technology, is the real problem — and that its technology benefits residents, property managers, and others associated with the rental market. The spokesperson later wrote that a “misplaced focus on nonpublic information is a distraction… that will only make San Francisco and San Diego’s historical problems worse.”

As for the federal lawsuit, the company called the claims in it “devoid of merit” and said it plans to “vigorously defend ourselves against these accusations.”

“We are disappointed that, after multiple years of education and cooperation on the antitrust matters concerning RealPage, the (Justice Department) has chosen this moment to pursue a lawsuit that seeks to scapegoat pro-competitive technology that has been used responsibly for years,” the company’s statement read in part. “RealPage’s revenue management software is purposely built to be legally compliant, and we have a long history of working constructively with the (department) to show that.””

The company’s challenges will only grow if pricing software becomes another instance in which California lawmakers lead the nation. Following San Francisco’s ban, the Philadelphia City Council passed a ban on algorithmic rental price-fixing with a veto-proof vote last month. New Jersey has been considering its own ban.

Is It Price-fixing — or Coaching Landlords?

According to federal prosecutors, RealPage controls 80% of the market for commercial revenue management software. Its product is called YieldStar, and its successor is AI Revenue Management, which uses much of the same codebase as YieldStar, but has more precise forecasting. RealPage told CalMatters it serves only 10% of the rental markets in both San Francisco and San Diego, across its three revenue management software products.

Here’s how it works:

In order to use YieldStar and AIRM, landlords have historically provided RealPage with their own private data from their rental applications, rent prices, executed new leases, renewal offers and acceptances, and estimates of future occupancy, although a recent change allows landlords to choose to share only public data.

This information from all participating landlords in an area is then pooled and run through mathematical forecasting to generate pricing recommendations for the landlords and for their competitors.

San Diego City Council President Sean Elo-Rivera, explained it like this:

“In the simplest terms, what this platform is doing is providing what we think of as that dark, smoky room for big companies to get together and set prices,” he said. “The technology is being used as a way of keeping an arm’s length from one big company to the other. But that’s an illusion.”

In the company’s own words, from company documents included in the lawsuit, RealPage “ensures that (landlords) are driving every possible opportunity to increase price even in the most downward trending or unexpected conditions.” The company also said in the documents that it “helps curb (landlords’) instincts to respond to down-market conditions by either dramatically lowering price or by holding price.”

Providing rent guidance isn’t the only service RealPage has offered landlords. In 2020, a Markup and New York Times investigation found that RealPage, alongside other companies, used faulty computer algorithms to do automated background checks on tenants. As a result, tenants were associated with criminal charges they never faced, and denied homes.

Impact on Tenants

The attorneys general of eight states, including California, joined the Justice Department’s antitrust suit, filed in U.S. District Court for the Middle District of North Carolina.

The California Justice Department contends RealPage artificially inflated prices to keep them above a certain minimum level, said department spokesperson Elissa Perez. This was particularly harmful given the high cost of housing in the state, she added. “The illegally maintained profits that result from these price alignment schemes come out of the pockets of the people that can least afford it.”

Renters make up a larger share of households in California than in the rest of the country — 44% here compared to 35% nationwide. The Golden State also has a higher percentage of renters than any state other than New York, according to the latest U.S. Census data.

The recent ranks of California legislators, however, have included few renters: As of 2019, CalMatters could find only one state lawmaker who did not own a home — and found that more than a quarter of legislators at the time were landlords.

The State Has Invested in RealPage

Private equity giant Thoma Bravo acquired RealPage in January 2021 through two funds that have hundreds of millions of dollars in investments from California public pension funds, including the California Public Employees’ Retirement System, the California State Teachers’ Retirement System, the Regents of the University of California and the Los Angeles police and fire pension funds, according to Private Equity Stakeholder Project.

“They’re invested in things that are directly hurting their pensioners,” said K Agbebiyi, a senior housing campaign coordinator with the Private Equity Stakeholder Project, a nonprofit private equity watchdog that produced a report about corporate landlords’ impact on rental hikes in San Diego.

RealPage argues that landlords are free to reject the price recommendations generated by its software.

RealPage argues that landlords are free to reject the price recommendations generated by its software. But the U.S. Justice Department alleges that trying to do so requires a series of steps, including a conversation with a RealPage pricing adviser. The advisers try to “stop property managers from acting on emotions,” according to the department’s lawsuit.

If a property manager disagrees with the price the algorithm suggests and wants to decrease rent rather than increase it, a pricing advisor will “escalate the dispute to the manager’s superior,” prosecutors allege in the suit.