Written Testimony of “A Coalition of New York City

Comments of the Partnership for New York City to the New York City Charter Revision Commission

Thank you, Chair Benjamin and members of the committee, for the opportunity to comment on changes to the New York City Charter related to ranked choice voting. The Partnership for New York City represents the city’s business leaders and largest private sector employers. We work together with government, labor and the nonprofit sector to maintain the city’s position as the pre-eminent global center of commerce, innovation and economic opportunity.

The Partnership urges the Commission to include ranked choice voting for all city primaries and special elections in the ballot questions to be submitted to the voters in November 2019. The cost of administering elections and the public funding of candidates mean that all taxpayers, including the business community, have an interest in ensuring the city’s election system is fair and achieves the goal of electing officials who represent their constituents. The city spends a considerable amount of money supporting elections. In 2017, the year of the last mayoral election, the city spent $17.7 million in public payments to candidates and nearly $30 million to administer the election. More recently, the city provided $7.2 million in matching funds to 11 candidates for the Public Advocate special election.

Despite all of this funding, the outcome of city elections is not necessarily a true reflection of the will of the majority of the electorate. New York City often has very low voter turnout, particularly for primaries and local offices. For example, only 12% of active voters participated in the primaries in 2017. Local candidates often win without a majority – the successful candidate in the recent special election for Public Advocate won with approximately 35% of the vote. As a result, candidates may rely on a relatively narrow spectrum of the electorate to give them a plurality rather than striving to win the support of a broad constituency.

Ranked choice voting pushes a candidate to try to reach beyond their base in order to attract more voters. The result is elections where the winners more truly represent their districts. Election of office holders with a broad constituency is likely to inspire larger voter turnout. We are hopeful that this system will improve the civility of campaigns. Finally, ranked choice voting may also save the city money. At a minimum, it would avoid expensive run-off elections like the 2013 Democratic primary run-off for Public Advocate which cost more than $11 million.

Ranked choice voting has already been successfully implemented internationally (Australia, Ireland, New Zealand, Malta, Northern Ireland and Scotland), in the state of Maine and in other U.S. localities (e.g., San Francisco, Minneapolis and Santa Fe). We hope you will allow New York City voters to choose ranked choice voting in November. This is a good first step toward electoral reforms that are needed in New York.

May 20, 2019

New York City Charter Revision Commission 250 Broadway New York, NY 10007

Dear New York City Charter Revision Commissioners: I am the President of the National Association for the Civilian Oversight of Law Enforcement (NACOLE) and I write to submit testimony as part of the 2019 Charter Revision Commission’s May hearings. NACOLE is a nonprofit organization that brings together individuals and agencies working to establish or improve law enforcement oversight in the United States. NACOLE welcomes people and organizations committed to fair and professional law enforcement that is responsive to community needs. NACOLE represents approximately 70 civilian oversight agencies of all types across the United States and about 1,000 individuals who work in civilian oversight as staff, board members, and other capacities. In addition, while carrying out our mission to enhance fair and professional law enforcement that is responsive to community needs, NACOLE provides member support and resources to new and existing oversight agencies. As I testified at your March 7, 2019 hearing on police accountability, my philosophy around civilian oversight is that law enforcement agencies and community members have the same goal: peaceful and just communities. Where that falls short, civilian oversight is necessary. For civilian oversight to be successful, it must be within an agency that has independence, a sufficient budget, and appropriate access. The best practice to ensure independence and a sufficient budget is to peg the law enforcement oversight agency’s budget to the larger agency it is meant to monitor. In the wake of the police killing of Laquan McDonald in 2014, Chicago ensured its police oversight body receives this sustained, protected funding. Miami’s City Charter also requires a Civilian Investigative panel that receives no less than 1% of the city’s Police Department budget. New York City now has the opportunity to adopt this critical funding structure for its exceptional law enforcement oversight agencies.

P.O. Box 87227 ⬧ Tucson, Arizona 85754 ⬧ (317)721-8133 E-mail: [email protected] ⬧ Website: www.nacole.org

I write to urge the Commission to endorse the staff recommendation to extend budget protections to the City’s law enforcement oversight agencies. Through our national lens, I can tell you that the Board of Correction is one of few top oversight agencies in the country and are leaders in the growing movement for civilian oversight of correctional institutions. They are leaders in both thought and practice for strong and effective independent oversight. Independent budgets are necessary to solidify the independence of these agencies, strengthen their ability to meet their community and legislative mandates, and, ultimately, improve our communities and the police and corrections departments therein. I truly appreciated the opportunity to testify before you and hope that you find this additional testimony helpful. Should you have questions or wish to consult with NACOLE on this matter please feel free to contact me directly by phone or email at (617)254-8331 or [email protected].

Kind regards,

Brian Corr President Thank you for this opportunity to share our perspectives here.

My name is Chris Olmsted, and on April 1st I began working as an Investigator at the Civilian Complaint Review Board. I finished training this past Monday. I do not speak on behalf of the CCRB, in this or any other capacity. My views here are my own, and don’t necessarily reflect those of the CCRB. I come before you as a member of the public because I have an uncommon perspective, the view from my desk. I hope in sharing it to support the need for and benefits of advancing the proposal to make the CCRB’s budget proportional to that of the NYPD.

As a new hire, I am an Investigator – Level 1, assigned to an Investigative Squad. Investigators are designated as Level 1, Level 2, and Level 3, those with the experience and demonstrated investigative abilities to receive the most complex of cases. One level three investigator has been assigned as my mentor – let me use this platform to say, he’s doing a great job. Still, as I have been learning about my new role, I have been worried. Recently, my mentor had 24 cases. The level three at the desk next to mine had 20. To put that in perspective for you, I once heard an investigator fantasize about a case docket somewhere near 10. In the month I’ve worked at the CCRB, I’ve seen every member of my squad put in overtime. My level 2 and 3 colleagues are often in the office when I arrive, and they are often still there when I leave. I have heard Level 2s and 3s across the agency describe nights and Sundays in the office. In my experience, every two weeks, and often more frequently, Investigators catch an average of 3 cases per person. For further perspective, several level 3 investigators have told me this week that when they request body-worn-camera footage from the NYPD, they wait an average of three months to receive it. An investigator could catch 18 new cases while waiting on crucial evidence for one. The preliminary staff report does not include the CCRB’s request for direct access to body-worn- camera footage, but I cannot overstate the positive effect that access would have on their work. But I digress.

Since 2017 the NYPD has equipped thousands, perhaps tens of thousands of members of service with body-worn-cameras. That is an excellent step forward, but as far as I can tell, the resources available to the CCRB have yet to be adjusted to reflect the effects more body-worn-camera footage have on investigations; footage is key evidence, and I’m told it takes hours to review, let alone transcribe and analyze. The same can be said for the Right to Know Act, effective since October, 2018. The CCRB is responsible for investigating alleged violations of the act, but it appears from my desk that legislative consideration has yet to be given to what resources we need to do so.

This past month, my experience as an employee has convinced me as a taxpayer that the CCRB is worth the investment. The CCRB is asking for their budget to be set at 1% of the NYPD’s. In that light it is a small ask, but that change would more than triple their budget, providing better, faster investigations, benefitting civilians and officers alike. I submit that the people of New York City deserve to vote on this issue. It is a measure I would support, whether I worked there or not.

Thank you for your time and consideration.

Thriving Communities Coalition Proposal for Comprehensive Planning Requirements

1. Equity principles must be written into the Charter.

● What We Want: The charter should include a statement of the broad goals we as a City want our comprehensive planning process to strive for. We believe the following principles specifically should be included as goals of planning: ● Equitable distribution of resources and development. ● Elimination of disparities across race, geography, and socio-economic status. ● Equal access to opportunity for every New Yorker, regardless of where they live. ● Affirmatively further fair housing while preserving the right to stay in and access neighborhoods with quality housing, good-paying jobs, and cultural and social connections. ● The fulfillment of the human right to housing for all New Yorkers, regardless of income.

● How This Builds on the Current Charter: This would be something new. Today, the Charter doesn’t require a single comprehensive plan so there aren’t principles to guide it. The City needs to articulate a vision for what planning is supposed to achieve. That vision should guide the City’s assessments of need, its land use, policy, and budgeting strategies, and its measurements of progress.

● How This Builds on the Staff Report Recommendations: The Staff Report calls for a plan that will identify and address short-, intermediate-, and longer-term issues, and specific indicators for measuring progress consistently throughout planning documents and over time. For this to work, the charter must specify what those “issues” are, creating broad categories that indicators can be designed to assess. Whether they are called principles, goals or “issues,” the plan must have something to guide it forward, and we propose that something be a vision for equity and opportunity.

2. Needs Assessments. The City must conduct community-district level assessments of existing, unmet needs, and citywide projections of future needs/growth.

a. What We Want: The City’s comprehensive planning process must start with a community-level assessment of each area’s (1) opportunities, (2) unmet needs, and (3) existing displacement risk. This assessment should include both quantitative data – a common framework of information that will permit comparison among communities, and enable progress to be tracked over time – and qualitative data – narratives from community members on the ground who are most directly impacted by the City’s planning processes. The Charter should

1 require that the needs assessment examine community-level determinants of social, economic, and physical well-being across areas such as housing, jobs & industry, education, transportation, infrastructure, health, environment and sustainability. These factors would be analyzed to create an overall “equity index” (as described below) and develop equity scores for neighborhoods to help drive goal setting and project prioritization. The City must also create projections of future needs and growth to develop plans that account for our City’s present and future.

b. How This Builds on the Current Charter: i. Community-level assessments of current need conducted as part of the comprehensive planning process would build off of several requirements already in the Charter: 1. The Statement of Needs that each community board must already prepare each year as the first step in the creation of the Citywide Statement of Needs. 2. The Mayor’s annual reports on (1) the poverty rate and the City’s efforts to reduce it1 and (2) social indicators and equity.2 The latter report is required to analyze the social, economic and environmental health of the city, including any disparities among populations including racial groups and income groups, and use indices related to economic security and mobility, poverty, education, child welfare, housing affordability and quality, homelessness, health, and transportation, among other factors. The report must also contain a narrative discussion of differences and disparities “among the subdivisions of the city and of the changes over time in such conditions.” Finally, the report must examine disparities “which are significantly related to the jurisdiction of the agencies responsible for [certain city] services”3 including local parks, social services, housing code enforcement, and health services.4

1 New York City Charter Chapter 1: Mayor, Section 16(b): Report on Social Indicators and Equity. http://library.amlegal.com/nxt/gateway.dll/New%20York/charter/newyorkcitycharter/chapter1mayor?f =templates$fn=default.htm$3.0$vid=amlegal:newyork_ny$anc=JD_16 2 Example here: https://www1.nyc.gov/site/opportunity/reports/social-indicators-report.page. 3 New York City Charter Chapter 1: Mayor, Section 16(a): Report on Social Indicators and Equity. http://library.amlegal.com/nxt/gateway.dll/New%20York/charter/newyorkcitycharter/chapter1mayor?f =templates$fn=default.htm$3.0$vid=amlegal:newyork_ny$anc=JD_16. 4 New York City Charter Chapter 69: Community Districts and Coterminality of Services, Section 2704: Coterminality of Local Services. http://library.amlegal.com/nxt/gateway.dll/New%20York/charter/newyorkcitycharter/chapter69comm unitydistrictsandcoterminal?f=templates$fn=altmain-nf.htm$q=[field%20folio-destination- name:%272704%27]$x=Advanced#JD_2704.

2 3. The requirement that the Office of Long-Term Planning and Sustainability develop measurable sustainability indicators to assess the City’s progress toward achieving sustainability.5 ii. The projection of future needs would also build on existing requirements in the Charter: 1. Every four years, the Department of City Planning must create “a population projection for the city that covers a period of at least twenty-one years, with intermediate projections at no less than ten year intervals. Where feasible, such projections shall include geographic and demographic indicators.”6 2. The Office of Long-Term Planning and Sustainability is already required to “develop and coordinate the implementation of policies, programs and actions to meet the long-term needs of the city, with respect to its infrastructure, environment and overall sustainability citywide, including but not limited to the categories of housing, open space, brownfields, transportation, water quality and infrastructure, air quality, energy, and climate change; the resiliency of critical infrastructure, the built environment, coastal protection and communities; and regarding city agencies, businesses, institutions and the public.”7 iii. Our proposal would create a new role for community members within the process of identifying community needs. At present, the charter does not require a community engagement process to support the creation of community-board level Statements of Need, and there is no local role at all in the creation of the report on social indicators & equity, report on poverty, or sustainability report. Our proposal would help to streamline the needs assessment processes that are already required, while inviting community members to help identify what needs are most pressing. A more thorough and better-supported needs assessment conducted every 4 years as part of the comprehensive planning process could replace and alleviate the current annual requirement for Community District Needs Assessments.

5 New York City Charter Chapter 1: Mayor, Section 20(b): Office of Long-Term Planning and Sustainability. http://library.amlegal.com/nxt/gateway.dll/New%20York/charter/newyorkcitycharter/chapter1mayor?f =templates$fn=default.htm$3.0$vid=amlegal:newyork_ny$anc=JD_16. 6 New York City Charter Chapter 1: Mayor, Section 20(d): Office of Long-Term Planning and Sustainability. http://library.amlegal.com/nxt/gateway.dll/New%20York/charter/newyorkcitycharter/chapter1mayor?f =templates$fn=default.htm$3.0$vid=amlegal:newyork_ny$anc=JD_16. 7 New York City Charter Chapter 1: Mayor, Section 20(b): Office of Long-Term Planning and Sustainability. http://library.amlegal.com/nxt/gateway.dll/New%20York/charter/newyorkcitycharter/chapter1mayor?f =templates$fn=default.htm$3.0$vid=amlegal:newyork_ny$anc=JD_16.

3 iv. Finally, our proposal would newly require the City to assess residential displacement risk and access to opportunity, including jobs and education, when assessing each community’s needs. Today, there is no requirement that the City consider displacement risk or access to opportunity in developing sustainability indicators or performing any other assessment of need.

c. How This Builds on the Staff Report Recommendations: i. The Staff Report recommends that (1) community district and citywide statements of need be included in the planning cycle to inform and impact planning and budgeting, and (2) plans be required to address short-, intermediate- and longer-term issues. Such planning is possible only if the City first assesses current needs, and creates projections of future needs. ii. The Staff Report recommends that the charter require “specific indicators for measuring progress consistently throughout such [planning] documents and over time.” We propose that indicators be developed to align with the equity principles we have set forth, and that the indicators evaluate, among other factors, access to opportunity and displacement risk.

3. Growth targets and investment goals are set based on the local and citywide needs assessments and equity concerns, through a transparent process that includes meaningful public engagement.

a. What We Want: i. Meaningful public engagement: 1. We believe that ensuring a deep and meaningful role for community members will help to ensure that the plan is well- designed and that there is local buy-in for future growth and investment in communities. Residents can also help prioritize which initiatives feel most critical given the range of needs in their area. 2. We propose that the Comprehensive Planning process be led by a Citywide Steering Committee. 3. The Steering Committee would collaborate with City officials and agencies to: a. Develop the specific criteria used to assess community- level and citywide needs, opportunities, and risks, and b. Help generate community-district level goals for growth and investment that account for both current need, and future growth. 4. To broaden engagement in the process, we also propose Borough Committees, which would help to oversee and

4 coordinate efforts at the community district level, and work with the Borough President to identify cross-district priorities. 5. Both the Steering Committee and Borough Committees should be representative of New York City’s diversity, and include people of color, low-income renters, immigrants, youth, and others historically marginalized in planning processes. 6. The Citywide Steering Committee should also include community planners, affordable housing advocates, and other subject matter experts who can support the committee in discussions of technical information. ii. Growth Targets and Investment Goals: 1. Goals would be informed by an assessment of which communities have the capacity to absorb additional density (based on factors such as levels of service and displacement risk) and which have high levels of existing need that require investment in infrastructure and programming. Goals would be responsive to the equity index and shaped to help increase equity between neighborhoods. 2. The Steering Committee would help identify where potential future land use actions are appropriate and what additional investments in amenities, affordable housing, schools, open spaces, and other infrastructure might be needed to support new growth.

iii. Equity Index: The City would evaluate the relative needs of different communities and prioritize among the identified goals through the use of an equity index. The equity index would look at the existing conditions identified through the needs assessment process, and assign an “equity score” indicating each community’s level of need relative to others. These scores would then be used to prioritize investment in the communities with the greatest need. The Equity Index would add a new level of transparency to the City’s planning and investment decisions, helping everyday New Yorkers easily understand where the needs are greatest and how the City’s decisions are seeking to decrease inequities.

(NOTE: Our explanation of this proposal responds to the explicit question asked of us by Commission Staff at the May 17 meeting: are the Sustainability Indicators comprehensive enough? We believe the answer is no. Of the indicators across the 4 “Visions” of OneNYC, only 1 subcategory (Air quality - within VIsion 3: Our Sustainable City) address the distribution or disparity of any of the measures. In this instance, there are 2 sub-indicators, disparity of SO2 and pm 2.5 across neighborhoods,

5 but all the rest of the 69 indicators ONLY address citywide averages, masking inequality.)

b. How This Builds on the Current Charter: i. Steering Committee: Creation of the Citywide and Borough Steering Committees to help guide this process would be new additions to the Charter. ii. Growth Targets and Investment Goals: The City Strategic Policy Statements, mandated every four years, require the City to lay out goals related to the “most significant long-term issues faced by the city.” The Borough Strategic Policy Statements require the same at the Borough level. The Long-Term Sustainability Plan, required to be updated every four years, requires the City to identify “long-term planning and sustainability issues.” Comprehensive planning would strengthen these processes by explicitly requiring that the goals set forth in these plans clearly relate to identified local and citywide needs. Local goals would also be required at the community district level in addition to the borough and citywide goals that are already mandated. iii. Equity Index: The creation of an equity index to help prioritize among goals for growth and investment would be a new addition to the Charter, though it could build off of the indicators in the Sustainability Indicators Report and the mayor’s reports on poverty and social indicators and equity.

c. How This Builds on the Staff Report Recommendations: the Report recommends that the City “establish a clear and, to the extent feasible, uniform process for ensuring that the public and other stakeholders have an opportunity to meaningfully weigh in on what the plans address and how.” We believe that this recommendation is critical to the success of any proposal and the process we have proposed is the best way of accomplishing this goal. The Report further recommends that “some element of the this planning describe contemplated short-term, intermediate, and long-term changes to land use and development in communities, such as reasonably anticipated neighborhood rezonings.” Using an equity index that considers current neighborhood amenities, displacement risk, and other factors to guide growth would help to advance that goal.

4. The Charter must require a single, Comprehensive Plan that aligns budgeting, policy, programming, and land use decisions.

d. What We Want: The Charter should require that the needs assessments, equity index, and citywide and community district level planning goals are brought together to create one comprehensive plan that will guide budgeting, policy, programming, and land use decisions.

6 e. How This Builds on the Current Charter: i. The Charter already requires the creation of a Ten-Year Capital Plan. Our proposal would explicitly require that that Plan advance the goals identified through the comprehensive planning process. Community boards, borough presidents, and City agencies - all of which play a part in setting the City’s capital priorities - would be required to respond within the budgeting process to the identified needs and explain how their investment decisions advance equity among communities. 1. The Community Parks Initiative is a project-based example; through this initiative a needs assessment of the park system was conducted, a specific fund was allocated to address the gravest disparities, and funding has been prioritized specifically to address parks in communities with the greatest needs. 2. The process for agency decision-making would be similar to the internal equity review used by the Department of Health to advance equitable outcomes in the programs and policies they implement. ii. The Charter requires that every four years, the Mayor issue a Strategic Policy Statement that identifies the most significant long-term issues faced by the City, policy goals related to those issues, and proposed strategies for meeting the goals. We propose that the Charter be amended to require the Strategic Policy Statement to describe what policies and strategies will be used to advance the community-level planning targets and goals identified as part of the comprehensive planning process. iii. The Charter also requires the Office of Long-Term Planning and Sustainability to “develop and coordinate the implementation of policies, programs and actions to meet the long-term needs of the city ...”8 The Office must also create, and update every 4 years, a “comprehensive, long-term sustainability plan” that must include “an identification and analysis of long-term planning and sustainability issues associated with, but not limited to, housing, open space, brownfields, transportation, water quality and infrastructure, air quality, energy, and climate change; and goals associated with each category … and a list of policies, programs and actions that the city will seek to implement or undertake to achieve each goal …” Our proposal would require that all of the existing plans required by the Charter advance a single comprehensive plan that is guided by principles of equity and livability, of which sustainability is just one part. Though the existing sustainability plan is intended to coordinate

8 New York City Charter Chapter 1: Mayor, Section 20(b): Office of Long-Term Planning and Sustainability. http://library.amlegal.com/nxt/gateway.dll/New%20York/charter/newyorkcitycharter/chapter1mayor?f =templates$fn=default.htm$3.0$vid=amlegal:newyork_ny$anc=JD_16.

7 the efforts of other agencies - under the current administration, a requirement met by the OneNYC plan - the Charter does not require that the plans of City agencies, the Mayor’s initiatives, or budgeting decisions be clearly responsive to, and meaningfully implement, that guiding vision. Our proposal would require such implementation, ensuring that future actions across agencies are guided by one coordinated plan. iv. Our proposal that the City create a land use and infrastructure framework to guide future development is new. We believe that such a framework is essential in order to ensure that growth is distributed equitably rather than driven to the most-marginalized communities through piecemeal rezoning actions.

f. How This Builds on the Staff Report Recommendations: i. The Staff Report recommends that community district and citywide Statements of Need be included in the planning cycle to inform and impact planning and budgeting. ii. The Report further recommends that planning identify contemplated land use changes at the community level. iii. Finally, the Report recommends that the Charter require that Statements of Needs (Community District and Citywide), Strategic Policy Statements (Borough-Level and Citywide), Agency Plans, Land Use Plans (specifically the City Planning Commission Zoning & Planning Report, Community Development Plans (197-a Plans), the Comprehensive Waterfront Plan, and the Long-Term Sustainability Plan), Capital Spending plans (Ten-Year Capital Strategy and Four-Year Capital Program), and the Sustainability Indicators Report be made to “relate to and impact one another.” We propose that the clearest way to ensure this is to design a single comprehensive plan to which all existing plans must respond, and that they must each, in their own way, advance.

5. Support for robust local planning to meet Comp Plan targets, with routes for local plans to move as rezonings, & get incorporated into next round of comp planning.

a. What We Want:

i. After the creation of the initial Land Use & Infrastructure framework, each community district would be required to create a community land use plan. Each community land use plan would include proposed zoning changes, and proposed siting of infrastructure projects deemed necessary to meet each community’s current and future needs as well as meet the district’s responsibility to the whole. Community members would be deeply involved in the creation of local community plans, supported by

8 strengthened community boards and the independent planners hired to work with each CB. ii. Community land use plans that are found to be in compliance with the land use & infrastrastructure framework of the comprehensive plan will become part of the comprehensive plan, with any recommended land use actions (rezonings etc) implemented through ULURP. iii. At the next cycle of comprehensive planning, these existing community land use plans will be used in developing the assessment of community needs for the new land use & infrastructure framework, which future community land use plans must comply with and so on and so on through a dialogic process extending into the future. b. How This Builds on the Current Charter: Charter Section 197-a already outlines the process for the creation of Community Development Plans. The Charter should delineate that Community Development Plans are required in response to the planning targets and goals outlined for each Community District as part of the comprehensive planning process, and strengthen enforceability for those that are found to be in compliance with these goals. c. How This Builds on the Staff Report Recommendations: The Report recommends that the City “establish a clear and, to the extent feasible, uniform process for ensuring that the public and other stakeholders have an opportunity to meaningfully weigh-in on what the plans address and how,” including to contemplated changes in land use and development at the community level.

9 Of The City Of New York, Inc.

POSITIONS OF THE POLICE BENEVOLENT ASSOCIATION REGARDING THE CHARTER REVISION COMMISSION'S PRELIMINARY STAFF REPORT

I. INTRODUCTION

The Charter Revision Commission's April 2019 Preliminary Staff Report (''the Preliminary Report") notes that the Civilian Complaint Review Board ("CCRB") is responsible for receiving, investigating, hearing, making finding, and recommending actions concerning "complaints by members of the public against members of the police department that allege misconduct involving excessive use of force, abuse of authority, discourtesy, or use of offensive language, including, but not limited to, slurs relating to race, ethnicity, religion, gender, sexual orientation and disability."' The CCRB is but one element of the many layers of oversight imposed on New York City police officers, who are perhaps the most highly scrutinized employees in New York City.2 There can be little question that police officers are subject to significant scrutiny and, in light of that fact, and the absence of any demonstrated need for the modifications sought or public support for their adoption, the Charter Revision Commission (the "Commission") should decline to move forward on any of the below proposals. Nonetheless, the Police Benevolent Association of the City ofNew York ("PBA") submits this memorandum to share its positions regarding the proposals before the Commission for Charter amendments regarding the Civilian Complaint Review Board.

At the outset, it should be noted that political activists and others in the media have presented a false narrative that the CCRB suffers from a pro-police bias. The Commission must reject this false narrative because, in fact, the opposite is true. Indeed, the CCRB is infused with anti-police bias that is often only thinly veiled and, at times, broadcast publicly. Such anti-police bias was on full display recently when CCRB Chairman Fred Davie took to Twitter to publicly prejudge the board's most high profile case in decades, while the trial of the officer in question was ongoing, stating that "once all of the evidence is in, the Police Commissioner will have no choice" but to find him guilty and terminate him. Such bias is striking and entirely inappropriate but is nonetheless the reality of the environment in which accused police officers find themselves. With this in mind, the PBA has set forth its positions below, and urges the

1 Preliminary Report at 14.

2 In addition to oversight from the CCRB, police officers are subject to oversight from the Police Commissioner, Internal Affairs Bureau, the NYPD Inspector General, the Mayor's office, city and state prosecutors, the District Court for the Southern District of New York, the media, advocacy groups, the public, and the Independent Panel on the Disciplinary System of the New York City Police Department, among others.

1 Commission to remain cognizant of the uneven playing field police officers often face at the CCRB.

II. PBA POSITIONSS REGARDING STAFF RECOMMENDATIONS

A. Structure of the Board

The staff has recommended that the Commission further consider and solicit public feedback concerning whether to amend the structure of the CCRB so that ( 1) the Council has true CCRB appointees rather than designees subject to mayoral approval; (2) the CCRB chair is jointly selected by the Mayor and the Council; and (3) the Public Advocate is responsible for designating or appointing one or more CCRB members. All three of these proposals have the same overarching goal: the expansion of the Council's influence over the CCRB, which risks further politicizing the Board and which would come at the expense of the Police Commissioner, whose law enforcement designees have crucial first-hand knowledge of the challenges and obstacles facing New York City Police Officers. Such a goal is extremely problematic, given that the CCRB's foundational principle requires that inquiries be "conducted fairly and independently, and in a manner in which the public and the police department have confidence."3 It is for this reason that the Charter calls for an "independent civilian complaint review board... comprised solely of members of the public with the authority to investigate allegations of police misconduct. ..." 4 An expansion of the Council's influence over the CCRB would not only call into question the extent to which the board can remain independent and fulfill its mandate, but could also serve to further politicize the board itself, negatively impacting the level of confidence the public and the police department have in the CCRB.

As set forth below, the PBA opposes all three of the Report's proposals to remake the structure of the board. Not only would they serve to impermissibly expand the Council's influence over the CCRB, but they also largely ignore the important role the Police Commissioner playsin assuring police officers and the public that CCRB properly discharges its Charter mandate to conduct inquiries fairly and independently, and in a manner in which the public and the police department have confidence Indeed, the proposals could ultimately result in the diminishment of the Police Commissioner's role at the CCRB and the further marginalization of the important perspective his designees bring to CCRB operations.

1. "True" CCRB Appointees for the Council

The PBA opposes the proposal for "true" Council appointees to the CCRB Board because it does not include an equivalent grant of power to the Police Commissioner. The Report correctly notes that "[t]he Mayor does not have to accept a particular person designated by the Council or the Police Commissioner," and that ''the Mayor may reject (and has in the past rejected) proposed designees and may require the designation of someone else who would be

3 Charter§ 440(a).

4 Id.

2 mutually agreeable to the designator and the Mayor."5 The Report views this fact as problematic for the Council and therefore seeks to address it, but the Report is entirely silent as to the way in which it impacts the Police Commissioner. This proposal would therefore endow both the Mayor and the Council with the right to directly appoint CCRB board members and leave the Police Commissioner as the only stakeholder whose board member designees are subject to mayor approval. Such a change is not only fundamentally unfair but would also result in the creation of a two-tiered board: one tier consisting of members who can be directly appointed, and a separate, lower tier consisting of members who must receive the approval of the Mayor. It would be the Police Commissioner's designees - crucially, the only designees required by the Charter to have law enforcement experience6 - who would occupy this lower tier. Such an unequal system could result in a biased board and, at the very least, would send a message that the CCRB does not consider law enforcement professionals to be on equal footing with other board members. Such inequity would undoubtedly undermine the confidence that the public and the police department are expected to have in the CCRB.

2. "Joint" Selection of CCRB Chair

The PBA opposes the proposal for joint selection of the CCRB Chair as it is currently formulated because it omits any role for the Police Commissioner. Indeed, as with the foregoing proposal for "true" CCRB appointees for the Council, the proposal for joint selection by the Mayor and the Council entirely overlooks the role of the Police Commissioner. As the Report notes, three of the CCRB's board members are designated by the Police Commissioner, a fact that reflects the crucial role that the Police Commissioner plays in the CCRB's operations. If the Charter Commission believes that an important CCRB function that is currently vested in the Mayor should be more equitably shared, then it should be shared among all three of the main stakeholders that are represented on the Board: the Mayor, the Council, and the Police Commissioner. The current proposal envisions the power to appoint the CCRB Chair as a joint power vested in the Mayor and the Council, omitting the Police Commissioner from the process entirely. This omission serves only to minimize the Police Commissioner's role at the CCRB and further marginalize his important viewpoint.

3. Public Advocate Board Members

The PBA opposes the proposal for Public Advocate Board Members because Public Advocate influence at the CCRB would be inappropriate, because it would serve to diminish the influence of the Police Commissioner, and because the manner in which the change would be affected - and, accordingly, the consequences that will flow from it - are not entirely clear.

Giving the Public Advocate the authority to appoint or designate CCRB board members a right that would give the Public Advocate significant influence over all CCRB operations - is inappropriate for several reasons. First, the Public Advocate is a non-voting member of the

5 Report at 15.

6 Charter, § 440(b)(l).

3 Council, 7 an entity that already has the power to designate CCRB board members. Granting the Public Advocate the right to designate or appoint CCRB board members would thus serve no other purpose than to increase the Council's influence at the CCRB. Second, granting the Public Advocate this right would directly conflict with other provisions of the Charter that limit the Public Advocate's rights and duties. Specifically, with respect to the Public Advocates' duties and responsibilities, the Charter states:

In addition to other duties and responsibilities, the public advocate shall serve as the public advocate and shall (1) monitor the operation of the public information and service complaint programs of city agencies and make proposals to improve such programs; (2) review complaints of a recurring and multiborough or city-wide nature relating to services and programs, and make proposals to improve the city's response to such complaints; (3) receive individual complaints concerning city services and other administrative actions of city agencies; and ( 4) investigate and otherwise attempt to resolve such individual complaints except for those which (i) another city agency is required by law to adjudicate, (ii) may be resolved through a grievance mechanism established by collective bargaining agreement or contract, or (iii) involve allegations of conduct which may constitute a violation of criminal law or a conflict of interest. If the public advocate receives a complaint which is subject to a procedure described in items (i) or (ii) of this paragraph, the public advocate shall advise the complainant of the appropriate procedure for the resolution of such complaint. If the public advocate receives a complaint of the type described in item (iii) of this paragraph, the public advocate shall promptly refer the matter in accordance with subdivision k of this section.8

This provision clearly states that it is not within the Public Advocateis purview to address complaints that another city agency is required by law to adjudicate, and the proposal under consideration would essentially have the Public Advocate do just that. Pursuant to Section 440(c) of the Charter, the CCRB is empowered to "receive, investigate, hear, make findings and recommend action upon complaints by members of the public against members of the police department that allege misconduct involving excessive use of force, abuse of authority, discourtesy, or use of offensive language, including, but not limited to, slurs relating to race, ethnicity, religion, gender, sexual orientation and disability."9 Giving the Public Advocate a presence on the CCRB would essentially put that office in the position of investigating and

7 Charter,§ 22(a) ("The Council shall consist of the public advocate and fifty-one other members terms council members."); id 24(e) ("The public advocate shall have the right to participate in the discussion of the council but shall not have a vote.").

8 Charter§ 24(f).

9 Charter § 440(c )(1 ).

4 attempting to resolve such complaints, despite the fact that another city agency - the CCRB - is required by law to resolve them. Thus, any proposal to give the Public Advocate a presence on the CCRB board would violate Section 24(f) of the Charter and would expand the Public Advocate's duties beyond what they are intended to encompass.

Additionally, even if the Public Advocate were permitted to have a presence on the Board, such presence would unfairly diminish the influence of other stakeholders, most of all the Police Commissioner. As the Charter currently stands, the Police Commissioner has the power to designate only three board members, while the Mayor and Council are each empowered to designate five. Whether the Public Advocate is viewed - correctly - as an extension of the Council, or as an independent agency, giving that office the power to designate or appoint board members would unfairly dilute the influence of the Police Commissioner's members, a move that would further minimize the voice of law enforcement at the CCRB. 10

Finally, the proposal is vague in a number of importance respects. First, the specific number of board members that the Public Advocate will have the power to designate or appoint remains an open question, as the proposal, as drafted, refers to "one or more" CCRB members. As set forth above, the addition of even a single board member appointed by the Public Advocate could have a significant impact on the board, but the proposal as currently drafted leaves open the possibility that the Public Advocate could be given the authority to designate or appoint three Board members (thereby placing that office on equal footing with the office of the Police Commissioner); five Board members (thereby placing that office on equal footing with the Mayor and the Council); or more. Second, the proposal is silent regarding whether these new designees would increase the size of the Board or whether the other current stakeholders -the Mayor, the Council, and the Police Commissioner - would be required to reduce their representation as a result. Finally, the proposal is unclear as to whether the Public Advocate would have the power to appoint board members or designate them, subject to the approval of the Mayor. This distinction is an important one, particularly in light of the foregoing proposal to give the Council the power of "true" appointment and the absence of any proposal to grant the same right to the Police Commissioner. Indeed, taken together, the two proposals could result in a situation in which three stakeholders - the Mayor, the Council, and the Public Advocate - would have the power to appoint board members, leaving the Police Commissioner as the only stakeholder who does not. Such glaring inequity should not be permitted.

B. Deviation from Disciplinary Recommendations

The staff has recommended that the Commission further consider and solicit feedback concerning amending the Charter to require that the Police Commissioner provide variance memoranda to CCRB in all cases where the Police Commissioner intends to depart from CCRB recommended discipline or discipline recommended by DCT. The PBA strongly opposes this

10 In the event that the Commission determines that the Public Advocate should have the authority to designate CCRB Board members, it should also ensure that the existing ratio between designees of the Police Commissioner and designees of other stakeholders remains the same, either through the addition of Police Officer designees or the removal of Mayoral and Council designees.

5 proposal because requiring the Police Commissioner to answer to the CCRB is an impermissible usurpation of the Police Commissioner's authority over police discipline, which flies in the face not only of current Charter provisions and the legislative intent underlying them, but also of state statutory authority and decades of precedent.

Any suggested Charter revision that implicates the Police Commissioner's authority over police discipline - as the proposal under consideration undoubtedly does - must be considered in light of the legal framework that provides for and protects that authority. The Charter as currently drafted recognizes that, as chief executive officer of the police force, the New York City Police Commissioner is vested with "cognizance and control" over the discipline of uniformed officers.11 The legislative history of Intro 549-A ("Local Law l "), the bill that created the modem CCRB and was later embodied in Charter Section 440, confirms that "[t]he bill would not change the Police Commissioner's ultimate authority to discipline members of the police department." 12

But the Charter provision and its legislative history cannot be viewed in isolation. New York City Administrative Code§ 14-1 lS(a) also broadly empowers the Police Commissioner to "punish" members of the force for a wide range of infractions, including "any criminal offense, or neglect of duty, violation of rules, or neglect or disobedience of orders, or absence without leave, or any conduct injurious to the public peace or welfare, or immoral conduct or conduct unbecoming an officer, or any breach of discipline."13 The Commissioner is authorized to discipline officers "by reprimand, forfeiting and withholding pay for a specified time, suspension, without pay during such suspension, or by dismissal from the force. " 14 The Administrative Code also outlines procedures that must be followed in connection with imposing punishment and appealing the Commissioner's determinations. Police officers, for example, can only be disciplined "on written charges ... after such charges have been examined, heard and investigated by the commissioner or one ofhis or her deputies upon such reasonable notice to the member or members charged."15

The Court of Appeals has held that the foregoing provisions demonstrate a legislative intent to leave the disciplining of police officers to the discretion of the Police Commissioner. In Montella v. Bratton, 93 N.Y.2d 424, 429-30 (1999) the court noted the following:

11 NY City Charter § 434(a).

12 Report of the Committee on Public Safety, December 17, 1992, Local Law Bill Jacket, Local Law 1 (1993); see also Report of the Legal Division, Committee on Public Safety, 3, Local Law Bill Jacket, Local Law 1 (1993) ("The CCRB's authority, however, is explicitly subject to the authority of the Police Commissioner to discipline members of the NYPD pursuant to law.... ").

13 New York City Administrative Code§ 14-1 lS(a)

14 Id.

15 Administrative Code of City of NY§ 14-115 (b) (emphasis added); see also, Matter ofFoley v Bratton, 92 NY2d 781, 787.

6 Significantly, Administrative Code§ 14-116 ("Limitations of suits") authorizes an article 78 proceeding "to procure the restoration or reinstatement to the force or department of any member or officer thereof, if such proceeding be instituted within four months after the decision or order sought to be reviewed" (Administrative Code of City of NY§ 14-116 [b]). This limitation demonstrates legislative intent that the Police Commissioner's disciplinary determinations be accorded "substantial deference 'because he ... is accountable to the public for the integrity of the Department"' Trotta v Ward, 77 NY2d 827, 828 (quoting Matter o/Berenhaus v Ward, 70 NY2d 436,445).

These provisions in the Charter and Code make clear that the Legislature determined to "leave the disciplining of police officers, including the right to determine guilt or innocence of breach of disciplinary rules and the penalty to be imposed upon conviction, to the discretion of the Police Commissioner, subject, of course, to review by the courts pursuant to CPLR article 78" (Matter ofCity ofNew York v MacDonald, 201 AD2d 258,259, Iv denied 83 NY2d 759). We recognized as much in Matter ofScornavacca v Leary (38 NY2d 583,585), where we held that the New York City Police Commissioner's power to discipline members of the force is governed by the Administrative Code, not by section 75 of the Civil Service Law.16

Similarly, in Lynch v. Giuliani, 301 AD2d 351, 352, (App. Div. 2003), the court held that, "[i]n New York City, the police commissioner 'shall have cognizance and control of the ... discipline of the department' (NY City Charter 434(a)) and 'shall have power, in his or her discretion[,] ... to punish [an] offending party' (Administrative Code of City ofNY 14- l 15(a)). "17 Courts have consistently held similarly in other cases. 18

16 Montella at 429-430 (emphasis added).

17 Lynch at 352.

18 See, e.g., Matter ofRoberts v. NYC Office ofCollective Bargaining, 2013 NY Slip Op. 7870 (App. Div. 2013) (noting that "the legislature had vested disciplinary authority over police officers with the police commissioner."); City ofNYv. MacDonald, 201 A.D.2d 258 (App. Div. 1994) (noting that "a reading of the applicable statutes and section 434 of the New York City Charter discloses a legislative intent and public policy to leave the disciplining of police officers, including the right to determine guilt or innocence of breach of disciplinary rules and the penalty to be imposed upon conviction, to the discretion of the Police Commissioner, subject, of course, to review by the courts pursuant to article 78."); Matter ofDun can v. Kelly, 2005 NY Slip Op 5 l 558(U) (Sup. Ct. 2005) ("The Police Commissioner has broad authority to discipline members of the police force and to impose penalties").

7 In light of the foregoing, it is abundantly clear that the Police Commissioner is endowed with exclusive authority over matters of police discipline, including the right to determine the penalties to be imposed on offending officers. The reason for such authority is obvious: the Police Commissioner occupies a unique position and possesses unique knowledge about the demands of the job and the effectiveness and appropriateness of various forms of discipline. As the Montella court recognized, the Police Commissioner is "responsible to the public for the integrity of the Department," and, accordingly, his disciplinary determinations are entitled to deference. The Police Commissioner therefore cannot - and should not - be required to provide variance memoranda to CCRB in all cases where he intends to depart from CCRB-recommended discipline because it is the Commissioner, not the CCRB, whose discretion regarding disciplinary penalties must be adhered to. Importantly, even if the Council were so inclined to adopt the foregoing proposal - which, for the reasons set forth above it should not be - such an amendment would be unenforceable, given that it directly conflicts with state law as set forth in the Administrative Code, and would therefore be preempted. 19 Accordingly, this proposal should be rejected.

C. Disciplinary Matrix

The staff has recommended that the Commission further consider and solicit feedback concerning amending the Charter to require the Police Commissioner to establish a non-binding disciplinary matrix for all police disciplinary cases, including whether to require that the Police Commissioner be required to (1) solicit public comment on a draft of such matrix; (2) incorporate recommendations from the Public Advocate and OIG-NYPD, or provide rationale for not incorporating such recommendations; and (3) incorporate recommendations from CCRB, or provide a rationale for not incorporating such recommendations, regarding misconduct within CCRB's jurisdiction. The PBA strongly opposes this proposal because it plainly usurps the Police Commissioner's exclusive authority over police officer discipline and because use of discipline matrices is a new and developing concept and questions about the effectiveness of this system abound.

First, as set forth above, it is well-settled that the Police Commissioner alone is vested with authority over Department discipline. Any Charter revision - like the one at issue here - that infringes upon the Police Commissioner's exclusive authority would be in direct conflict with state law and Court of Appeals precedent and would ultimately be unenforceable. That is particularly true here, given that the proposal in question would require the Commissioner to solicit and/or incorporate recommendations from the public, Public Advocate, OIG-NYPD, and the CCRB. Moreover, Police Commissioner O'Neill has already announced his intention to study and consider adopting a disciplinary matrix, a fact that renders this proposal not only an impermissible usurpation of the Police Commissioner's authority, but redundant as well.20

19 See DJL RFest. Corp. v. City ofNY., 96 N.Y.2d 91, 95 (2001) ("local laws that conflict with state statutes are preempted.").

20 Press Release, New York Police Department, Commissioner O'Neill Announces Changes to NYPD Disciplinary System (February 1, 2019).

8 Additionally, the implementation of a discipline matrix in law enforcement departments is a fairly new and developing concept. Relatively few police departments in major U.S. cities currently employ discipline matrices, therefore the effectiveness of such systems is unknown. In fact, departments that have implemented a matrix have faced significant difficulties. For example, in 2014, the Baltimore Police Department decided that it would no longer rely on its discipline matrix after an outside auditor of the department's Internal Affairs Divisions found the matrix set "arbitrary standards [that] are a detriment to the agency and to individual officers."21 Even if the Council did have authority to do so - which it does not - given the uncertainty surrounding the effectiveness of a discipline matrix there is no basis for the Charter to be revised to require the Department to implement such a system.

D. Delegation of Subpoena Power

The staff has recommended that the Commission further consider and solicit feedback concerning amending the Charter to allow CCRB to delegate its subpoena power to its highest ranking staff. The PBA opposes this proposal because it eliminates an important safeguard against improper CCRB overreach.

As currently drafted, the Charter provides that "[t]he board, by majority vote of its members, may compel the attendance of witnesses and require the production of such records and other materials as are necessary for the investigation of complaints submitted pursuant to this section."22 The reason to require a majority vote of the board for such actions is as clear as it is logical: compelling the attendance of witnesses and requiring the production ofrecords and other materials is a serious undertaking that can impose a significant burden upon those who are so compelled. Preventing abuse of such a powerful tool is important, and one way of doing so is to limit the number ofpeople who can employ it and restrict the circumstances under which it can properly be carried out. Thus, by requiring a majority vote of the board for such actions, the Charter as currently drafted attempts to ensure that such investigative steps are carried out judiciously, fairly, and only when necessary.

Eliminating this requirement and allowing unnamed "highest-ranking staff' to be granted subpoena power will unquestionably open the door to abuse. This is particularly true in light of the fact that the CCRB has historically been unable or unwilling to consistently employ individuals who are fair-minded, independent, and well-qualified. For example, applicants for Investigator positions, have not been required to have any relevant work experience, despite the fact that these individuals are the ones who are tasked with reviewing the complaints of

21 Mark Puente, The Baltimore Sun, Baltimore police should revamp misconduct probes, audit says (Sept. 20, 2014). The auditor further found that the disciplinary matrix allows "inappropriate shortcuts and allows investigators, supervisors and commanders to avoid responsibility for making often difficult and unpopular decisions." Research suggests that Baltimore may have recently implemented a revised matrix. There is currently no evidence to support the effectiveness of this second attempt.

22 Charter§ 440(c)(3).

9 misconduct received by the CCRB.23 Even high ranking CCRB officials have not been immune to charges of unfairness, including former CCRB Director Mina Malik, who was found to have close ties to anti-police lawyers.24 Similarly, former CCRB Chair Richard Emery once referred to police officers as "pigs," and his law firm brought police abuse cases before the board, boasting that it had "successfully represented hundreds of clients in police misconduct cases."25 Moreover, even the most highly qualified CCRB staff members are subject to pressure and undue influence from activist groups and others, who have sought for years to exercise outsize influence over the board, and who, in many cases, have succeeded. 26

In light of the foregoing, this proposal, which would eliminate an important safeguard against abuse at the CCRB, must be rejected.

E. False Official Statements in CCRB Matters

The staff has recommended that the Commission further consider and solicit feedback concerning amending the Charter to allow CCRB to investigate and recommend discipline with respect to false official statement cases when they arise in connection with ongoing CCRB investigations or prosecutions. The PBA opposes this proposal because it represents yet another attempt to usurp the Police Commissioner's disciplinary authority, it inequitably seeks to punish police officers for false statements while ignoring the problem of false statements made by complainants, and it represents an inappropriate overreach that appears to be fueled, at least in part, by anti-police political activists.

First, as set forth above, it is well-settled that the Police Commissioner alone is vested with authority over Department discipline. This fact is confirmed by state law, Court of Appeals precedent, and even the legislative history of the very Charter provisions at issue. If the Council

23 See https://www.idealist.org/en/govemment-job/b5ebl598b5l243c3bda83c079dc35- investigator.level-i-nyc-civilian-complaint-review-board-new-york

24 See https://nypost.com/2016/02/25/cop-hating-ccrb-chief-must-go/

25 See https://nypost.com/2016/02/25/cop-hating-ccrb-chief-must-go/

26 The New York Civil Liberties Union ("NYCLU") and its Associate Legal Director Christopher Dunn appear to have outsize influence over the board that is so pervasive that Dunn has even directed the CCRB to change the color of the paint in its meeting room - a directive the CCRB undertook immediately. See CCRB Board Meeting Minutes, April 2014 (Dunn commenting that the "paint scheme... [sends an] unfortunate prison-like message.... "); CCRB Board Meeting Minutes, May 2014 (Dunn beginning public remarks by stating, ''thank you for repainting."). Other instances of bias have been just as striking and are equally concerning, including the hosting and advertisement of multiple events featuring - or even cosponsored by - activist groups. See, e.g. https://wwwl.nyc.gov/site/ccrb/2019-symposium.page (advertising "Trust and Transparency" Symposium featuring panelists from Communities United for Police Reform ("CPR") and NYCLU, among others); https://www l .nyc.gov/assets/ccrb/downloads/pdf/YouthSummit_Program _ final.pdf ( advertising "Youth Summit" co-sponsored by CPR and NYCLU, among others).

10 believes that there is a problem at the CCRB concerning false statements - or, indeed, if it believes there is any problem regarding police discipline - those issues must be addressed by the Police Commissioner. The Independent Panel recognized this fact, and, as the Report notes, the Independent Panel recommended that the Police Department "issue official guidance to [IABJ investigators and [Department Advocate's Office] attorneys concerning when officers who make false statements should be charged."27 The Panel did not recommend that the CCRB address this issue, nor could it, because, for all of the reasons heretofore addressed, authority over police discipline rests with the Police Commissioner.

Second, if the Charter Commission believes that false statements made at the CCRB represent a significant problem, this proposal does not fully address it, because it entirely ignores the issue of false statements made by complainants. The CCRB's own statistics suggest that false statements by complainants are a far more pervasive problem than false statements by police officers. In the first half of 2018, the most recent period for which CCRB data is publicly available, the CCRB substantiated only 2.2% of all complaints it received, and only 20% of all closed, fully investigated complaints. A full 48% of closed complaints were designated as unsubstantiated, while 16% were designated "exonerated," 8% were designated "unfounded," and 8% were designated "officer unidentified."28 Given these statistics, there can be little question that the filing of meritless or frivolous complaints is a significant problem for the CCRB, one that strongly suggests that false statements made by complainants are rampant. Despite this fact, the proposal under consideration does nothing to address this issue, instead focusing exclusively on police officers. This unequal treatment suggests anti-police bias, undermines any appearance of fairness, and negatively impacts the confidence of the public and the police department in the CCRB.

Finally, this proposal appears to be nothing more than an attempt at inappropriate overreach fueled by anti-police activists. The CCRB was established to investigate and address complaints within its FADO jurisdiction, and for decades has operated within those strictures. Nothing in the Charter's legislative history suggests any intent to expand that jurisdiction or, indeed, any need to. When the CCRB encounters suspected wrongdoing that is outside of its limited jurisdiction, it refers those matters to the appropriate entities, as it is, in fact, required to do under the Charter as currently drafted. Granting the CCRB increased authority to expand its own jurisdiction is, no doubt, a slippery slope, which could ultimately render the F ADO restriction meaningless. The Council should not follow such a path. Importantly, the Report does not suggest that there is any public support for such a course of action, noting instead that activist groups, "notably, Citizens Union, the New York Civil Liberties Union, and Communities United for Police Reform," have pushed for such a change. The Charter should not be amended on the whim of a small number of anti-police activists, particularly when no public support for change is evident. Accordingly, the PBA opposes the proposal.

27 Mary Jo White et. al., The Report ofthe Independent Panel on the Disciplinary System ofthe New York City Police Department, at 71 (Jan. 25, 2019).

28 CCRB 2018 Semi-Annual Report, Fig. 26 at p. 32.

11 III. CONCLUSION

The PBA recognizes that the revision of the New York City Charter is a unique and important undertaking. The actions and policies of the CCRB can have enormous impacts on the lives and careers ofNew York City police officers and more generally public safety. As such, any revisions to the Charter provisions governing that body must be approached carefully, and with a full understanding of the way in which it operates and the forces that affect it. The PBA trusts that the Commission will remain mindful not only of the unique and difficult environment in which New York City police officers operate, but also the uneven playing field and unequal treatment that many police officers may face at the CCRB.

Name: Craig Seeman Personal Background: Green Party State Committee, former chair, former 2001 NYC Council Candidate. I came in 2nd out of 5 candidates. Address: 70 Wyckoﬀ Ave. Loft 2G, Brooklyn NY 11237 Phone: 718-456-0072 Email: [email protected]

Speaking in favor of Ranked Choice Voting for General Elections

Ranked Choice Voting in the General Election would be a bold change because it empowers those in alternative parties end even the unaﬃliated voters and candidates.

Voters are more comfortable voting for alternatives 1) Voters tend to more comfortable voting for an alternative ﬁrst choice in these races because there’s no fear of vote splitting.

Unaffiliated candidates can take advantage of the improved ballot 2a) Under current NYC ballot access laws Candidates without affiliation have equal ballot access to the Democrats and Republicans (depending on enrollment). Dominant parties and unaffiliated have the same petition requirements although Dominant parties exercise them in primaries.

Candidates enrolled in a party may opt to run in the general without aﬃliation 2b) Not only can those without aﬃliation run and have impact but some Democrats and Republican may even chose to forego their primary to reach the broader electorate the General. It’s not quite non partisan elections but it certainly opens the opportunity.

Ranked Choice Voting creates an alternative to Fusion 3) While the NYC Charter can’t get rid of Fusion this presents a viable alternative. Rather than simply cross endorsing imagine a Conservative or Green candidate making their case and compelling a major party candidate to reach out to those constituency for a subsequent. Conversely, Conservative or Green candidate may even persuade enough voters to list them higher than the major party candidate. This is the root to a friendly election where candidates may need to cross formerly hostile barriers in which there’s a real market place of ideas.

Opens the system to unaﬃliated and alternative party candidates 4) It’s not quite the non partisan elections some want, it’s certainly multi partisan, empowering the unaﬃliated candidate and voter. We’ve had candidates on alternative parties win races. It makes the General Election important.

Page 1 of 8

Methods of RCV under Fusion 5a) In the ‘30s when the city used a proportional form of RCV, each candidate was listed only once with their party endorsement under the name.

Cross section of 1937 ballot for NYC Council printed in NY Times. Although the tallies results resulted in the proportional allocation of seats it’s an example of NYC’s Ranked Voting System in a General Election. While Fusion was readily available, fewer candidates were listed running on multiple lines then on non ranked races. Candidates were listed only once with all endorsing parties next to their name. More candidates opted to run unaﬃliated then in non ranked elections exemplifying how RCV in a General election opens the system to the growing number of unaﬃliated voters and candidates.

Listing by Party 5b) The other option would be list the each party with their endorsed candidate and allow the voter to rank their choice. There’s no need to aggregate votes since the voter is choosing their ranked transfer. Candidate X on WFP may transfer to Candidate Y on Green or Candidate X on Democratic (feel free to use ﬁctional party names to avoid a political bias). Voters are already used to voting by party when candidates appear on multiple lines.

Page 2 of 8 Changing software formulas for oﬃces increases the risk of software setup issues. 6) Changing software voting modalities between primary and general election opens the Board to another voting machine ﬁasco.

Changing voting methods between Primary and General Election - Confuses the voter 7) Changing voting methods between primary and general election exacerbates the very confusion the city seeks to avoid. This may well have the impact the city wishes to avoid in that a confused public refrains from voting or otherwise results in lost votes when they don’t understanding changing instructions from election to election in the same election cycle.

Backlash if it wasn’t used in a close general election. 8) The worst possible outcome would be the considerable public and media backlash when a General Election candidate wins without a majority in a closely contested race because the city refused to use a solution available to them in primaries. You have the option to list by candidate or by party, the ﬁrst has past precedent and the second is closer to the voter’s current experience with the simple addition of ranking.

______

Page 3 of 8 Regarding issues previously raised on Ranked Choice Voting. On the access to information in certain communities and their ability to make an informed selection of candidates.

The Internet information Gap has narrowed considerably. The internet is probably the most readily available source of information about candidates. Even those candidates of limited means use it as a key distribution point.

Pew Research reported this February shows that the gap has narrowed between race, ethnicity and income. Whether low income under $30K year, non white or those with only a high school education the access is over 80%.

Page 4 of 8 On the Understanding Ranked Choice Voting *Social Science Quarterly on Understanding of Ranked Choice Voting April this reported on a study of white vs non white understanding of voting systems showed virtually identical self reported ease of understanding showed difference of 3% or less in range from somewhat well to Extremely well. They concluded “,,,we find no apparent effects of race/ethnicity that are specific to self-reported understanding of RCV.”

Page 5 of 8 Impact on Voter Turnout. Kimball & Anthony Universe of Missouri October 2016 report on Voter Participation with Ranked Choice Voting found compared to primaries and runoﬀs, RCV was associated with a 10 point increase in voter turnout in November elections. One more reason why RCV must be included in the General Elections.

Page 6 of 8

Comparing number of candidates before and after RCV in Minneapolis. The number of city council candidates almost doubled, increasing from 25 candidates in 2005 to 47 in 2013. In 2005, no ward featured a campaign with more than two city council candidates. In 2013, ten of the thirteen wards produced more than two candidates running for a city council seat.

Page 7 of 8 Regarding socioeconomic impact: Overall, the Minneapolis evidence indicates that socioeconomic disparities in voter participation are similar in plurality and RCV elections.

Attached are following studies; 1) Social Science Quarterly “Self Reported Understanding of Ranked-Choice Voting 2) Kimball & Anthony U of Missouri “Voter Participation with Ranked Choice Voting in the United States. 3) FairVote Summary of the above study

Page 8 of 8 Self-Reported Understanding of Ranked-Choice Voting∗

Todd Donovan, Western Washington University Caroline Tolbert, University of Iowa Kellen Gracey, DeSales University

Objectives. Ranked-choice voting (RCV) is relatively complex compared to plurality voting. We test if some voters ﬁnd it more challenging. Methods. We conducted surveys in RCV cities and plurality cities to assess how voters reported understanding voting instructions, and how they reported understanding election systems. Results. Fewer voters reported instructions were easy to understand in RCV cities. Within RCV cities, we found little evidence of race/ethnic differences in reported understanding, but older voters reported less understanding of instructions in RCV cities and less understanding of RCV elections. Across all cities, Asians and women reported less understanding of elections generally, and education correlated with greater reported understanding. Conclusions. Our evidence is not consistent with concerns about a racial/ethnic bias speciﬁc to RCV, but suggests a need for additional voter education.

Complexity of Preferential Voting

Some cities in the United States have replaced simple plurality elections with ranked- choice voting (RCV). By providing opportunities for voters to cast multiple preferences, the act of voting may be more complex under RCV than compared to demands associated with the single vote required in a plurality system. If this complexity challenges some voters more than others, adoption of RCV may add to existing biases in political participation and representation. One concern with having voters rank preferences is that confusion may cause overvoting, undervoting, and uninformed ballot order effects (Orr, 2002). Some voters may cope with the demands of RCV by not ranking. Burnett and Kogan (2015) reported that voters’ failure to rank sufﬁcient candidates was associated with high rates of ballots being exhausted before the ﬁnal count. Neely and McDaniel (2015) report that overvotes were more common under San Francisco’s RCV elections in minority precincts, and attributed this to demands placed on minority voters. McDaniel (2016) also attributed demographic differences in aggregate turnout patterns to the complexity of RCV, and Neely and Cook (2008) also found racial differences in aggregate overvote patterns. In contrast, Kimball and Anthony (2016) reported RCV had little to do with ballot completion.

∗Direct correspondence to Todd Donovan, Department of Political Science, Western Washington Univer- sity, Bellingham, WA 98225 [email protected]. Data and code used for this article are available upon request. Appendices are online at http://faculty.wwu.edu/donovat/Appendix_rcv_ssq. This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited and is not used for commercial purposes. SOCIAL SCIENCE QUARTERLY C 2019 The Authors Social Science Quarterly published by Wiley Periodicals, Inc. on behalf of Southwestern Social Science Association DOI: 10.1111/ssqu.12651 2 Social Science Quarterly Where survey data have been available, studies document that voters appeared rather capable of navigating newly adopted preferential systems in New Mexico (Cole, Taebel, and Engstrom, 1990), New York (Kimball and Kropf, 2016), South Dakota (Engstrom and Barrilleaux, 1991), and Texas (Brischetto and Engstrom, 1997). Upwards of 90 percent of respondents reported they understood the system they voted in, with very similar levels of understanding reported by white voters and minority voters (Brischetto and Engstrom, 1997:978). High levels of reported understanding were found among voters participating in San Francisco’s 2004 RCV election, yet African Americans and Latinos were less likely to say they understood RCV (Neely, Blash, and Cook, 2005). However, the racial disparity in understanding RCV found in 2004 was not evident in San Francisco in 2005 (Neely, Cook, and Blash, 2006).

Demographic Differences in Understanding

One concern about replacing plurality systems with RCV is that RCV may accentuate racial/ethnic biases in voting (e.g., McDaniel, 2016). This would be problematic if voters who find preferential voting overly complex were not similarly disadvantaged by the plurality system that preferential voting was replacing. Related concerns are that disparities in understanding will affect turnout, and completed ballots, and that this may give disproportionate weight to votes cast by whites. One difficulty here in assessing how voters respond to RCV is that socioeconomic biases in political participation are widespread and well documented (e.g., Schlozman, Verba, and Brady, 2012). We might find biases in understanding associated with any system. Another challenge is that assumptions about biased understanding of RCV are generally inferred from precinct data, and/or from studies that rely on data from a single jurisdiction.

Research Design, Data, Methods

We examine reported understanding of voting instructions and reported understanding of electoral systems in jurisdictions that used RCV for local elections, and compare this to reported understanding of voting instructions and election systems in similar jurisdictions using plurality voting. We isolate exposure to electoral system with an immediate post- election survey of voters in four California jurisdictions that used RCV for contested local elections in November 2014, while simultaneously surveying voters in similar California jurisdictions using plurality local elections. Three RCV jurisdictions (Oakland, Berkeley, and San Leandro) had previously used RCV twice, and San Francisco used it since 2004. Case selection was constrained by the small number of RCV places that had contested races. Demographically similar plurality cases were identified from a limited number of California cities that also had contested races at the same time. Jurisdictions surveyed are listed in Online Appendix Table 1. See John, Smith, and Zack (2018) for additional applications of this design. This matching method allows us to minimize (but not eliminate) nonelectoral system differences across the cases being compared. A random digit dial survey targeting registered voters was contacted via land lines and cellphones, with interviews conducted in English and Spanish. Surveys of voters were conducted by the Eagleton Poll at Rutgers University. A series of questions screened self- reported voters from nonvoters (see the Online Appendix). The sample includes 2,189 Self-Reported Understanding of Ranked-Choice Voting 3 voters, with a subsample of 1,220 from places using RCV, and a subsample of 969 from plurality voting cities. Respondents confirmed their city of residence. The survey, and details on survey administration and response rates, is in the Online Appendix. Each city was sampled independently with subjects drawn from each city (not a pool of cities). The two subsamples are similar in terms of median age, percent with high school education, percent married, and percent white/nonwhite. Given these local races were held in conjunction with a statewide general election, voters also cast preferences in plurality-winner contests for statewide offices and for U.S. Congress. All voters were first asked how well they understood voting instructions (see the Online Appendix for survey). We asked: “When you voted in the election Tuesday, how easy was it to understand the voting instructions?” Second, people were asked about understanding their local electoral system, with the name of the system stated. Respondents in RCV cities were asked: “How well do you think you understand ranked-choice voting?” Respondents plurality cities were asked: “How well do you think you understand plurality voting?” After this, all respondents were informed that California recently adopted a top-two primary system, and were asked: “How well do you understand the top-two primary system?” Following this, all respondents were asked: “How well do you understand winner-take-all voting rules?” We do not expect that respondents had nuanced understandings of election systems when they were asked about them by name. Rather, we examine if there were election-system- specific race/ethnic differences in reported levels of understanding voting instructions, and in reported understanding of electoral systems. We assess if race/ethnic differences in reported understanding of instructions and elections were specific to RCV cities, or if such differences were found generally.

Hypotheses

This discussion suggests a primary hypothesis: people may find preferential voting instructions more difficult to understand than plurality voting instructions. In the cities using RCV examined here, the RCV ballots, and instructions on the ballot, required some attention from voters. RCV ballots had all candidates for an office listed in three separate, parallel columns. In addition to standard information about using a black or blue pen (not pencil), and on how to properly mark a choice, instructions on RCV ballots also informed voters they could rank up to three choices and to “vote across in each race.” The ballot instructed them to mark their first choice in Column 1, mark a second choice “different from your first choice” in Column 2, and to mark a third choice that “must be different from your first and second choices” in Column 3. Ballots in plurality cities were standard office-block style with instructions about how to mark a choice, and the statement “Vote for One” for each office. There may also be reasons to expect that understanding voting instructions, if not the act of voting itself, is more demanding for certain people, even with simple plurality voting. Sinclair and Alvarez (2004:19) hypothesize that errors in voting punch-card ballots were related to how well people were connected to the political system, and operationalized this with aggregated measures of race/ethnicity, education, and other demographics. This suggests a second hypothesis: variation in reported understanding of elections in general is explained by race/ethnicity and education. Specifically, members of minority groups, and those with less education, are expected to be less likely to report a firm understanding of voting instructions. 4 Social Science Quarterly TABLE 1 Voters’ Reported Ease of Understanding Voting Instructions (Percent)

By Electoral System All Plurality City RCV City

Very difﬁcult 2.6 2.2 3.0 Somewhat difﬁcult 7.3 4.7 9.4 Somewhat easy 23.7 20.2 26.6 Very easy 66.3 73.0 61.0 ␹ 2 = 38.8, p = 0.01 Number of cases 2,177 966 1,211 By Electoral System, and by Race/Ethnicity Plurality City RCV City Nonwhite White Nonwhite White

Very difﬁcult 2.7 1.7 2.9 3.0 Somewhat difﬁcult 6.6 3.1 11.1 8.3 Somewhat easy 25.6 25.6 25.9 27.0 Very easy 65.2 79.6 60.1 61.6 ␹ 2 = 25.9, p = 0.00 ␹ 2 = 2.5, p = 0.47 Number of cases 966 1,211

Neely and McDaniel (2015), furthermore, infer from aggregate patterns of RCV voting errors (overvotes) in San Francisco that there may be the potential for political inequality given that RCV may demand more of Latino/a, African-American, and elderly voters. Neeley and Cook (2008) also found RCV overvotes disproportionately in San Francisco precincts with more African-American voters. However, Kimball and Kropf (2005) and others (Bullock and Hood, 2002) have documented that overvoting is generally more common among African Americans in standard plurality election systems. This is attributed to the qualities of elections and voting equipment—not to qualities of African-American voters. Nonetheless, this suggests a third hypothesis: racial/ethnic and age differences in how people report understanding voting instructions would be particularly pronounced under RCV, with RCV instructions being understood less well by minority voters and the elderly. Next, we examine if voters’ reported understanding of voting instructions, and their reported understanding of electoral systems, were structured by race/ethnicity, age, and education. Further, we examine if residence in an RCV city was associated with heightened race/ethnic or age differences in how voters reported understanding voting instructions. We present bivariate results initially, and then report predicted probabilities of reporting high understanding estimated from multivariate ordered logistic regression models.

Results: Understanding of Voting Instructions

Our measure of understanding voting instructions was a question that asked: “When you voted in the election last Tuesday, how easy it was to understand the voting instructions?” The top panel of Table 1 illustrates that more people in plurality cities (73 percent) said it was “very easy” to understand voting instructions than in RCV cities (61 percent). However, Self-Reported Understanding of Ranked-Choice Voting 5 TABLE 2 Predicted Probability of Saying Voting Instructions Were “Very Easy” to Understand

All Respondents Plurality Cities RCV Cities

Plurality city 0.76 (0.02) RCV city 0.63 (0.02) White 0.76 (0.02) 0.79 (0.02) 0.61 (0.02) African American 0.73 (0.03) 0.67 (0.05)∗ 0.60 (0.04) Latinx 0.69 (0.03)∗ 0.69 (0.04)∗ 0.60 (0.05) Asian 0.67 (0.04)∗ 0.60 (0.06)∗ 0.60 (0.06) Age (75) 0.75 (0.02) 0.81 (0.02) 0.57 (0.02)∗ Education (highest) 0.78 (0.02) 0.83 (0.02)∗ 0.61 (0.03)

∗at p < 0.05 in multivariate models. Reference category for race/ethnicity is whites. Age and education set to mean values, gender set as female, interest in the local election set as interested. Post-estimation simulations from ordered logit models reported in Online Appendix Table 3. regardless of whether a respondent was voting in a city that used RCV or simple plurality, large majorities in both groups claimed their instructions were “somewhat easy” or “very easy” to understand, with slightly higher proportions saying this in plurality cities (93 percent) than in RCV cities (88 percent). The bivariate difference is statistically significant (␹ 2 = 38.8, p = 0.01). This difference remains significant in our multivariate estimates (see Table 2, and Online Appendix Table 3) that control for race/ethnicity, age, gender, education, and interest in the election. This does not establish that respondents in RCV places had more difficulty when they actually voted, but it is consistent with the idea that RCV may be more demanding. The bottom panel of Table 1 illustrates bivariate race/ethnic differences in reported understanding in plurality cities; this is not evident in RCV cities. Table 2 reports the post-estimation predicted probability a respondent said voting instructions were very easy to understand (with SEs in parentheses). Models used to generate predictions in Table 2 (Online Appendix Table 3) were estimated using ordered logistic regression, with SEs clustered by city. A binary variable distinguishes between people who voted in an RCV city or plurality city. We also estimate models for respondents voting in plurality and RCV jurisdictions, respectively. Models include dichotomous measures representing, respectively, African-American, Latinx, and Asian respondents, and those who identified as “other” or mixed race. Non-Hispanic whites are the reference category. Age, gender, education (measured in seven categories), and a dichotomous measure of the respondent’s report of how interesting the race are also included. The latter item serves as a proxy for voter interest in elections. The first column in Table 2 confirms that the difference in reporting that instructions were “very easy” to understand between plurality respondents (prob. = 0.76, SE = 0.02) and RCV respondents (0.63, SE = 0.02) remains in multivariate analysis. As for differences across racial and ethnic groups, Latinx (prob. = 0.69, SE = 03) and Asian respondents (0.67, SE = 0.04) were less likely than whites (0.76, SE = 0.02) to report instructions were very easy to understand across all respondents. However, results from respondents in RCV (Column 3, Table 2) are inconsistent with the idea that RCV voting instructions have demands that disproportionately affect people of color. There was no difference in the predicted probability of white (prob. = 0.61, SE = 0.02), black (0.60, SE = 0.04), Latinx (0.60, SE = 0.05), or Asian voters (0.60, SE = 0.06) reporting that voting instructions were very easy to understand. Female respondents (included in our reference group in Table 2), 6 Social Science Quarterly TABLE 3 Voters’ Reported Understanding Named Election Systems (Percent)

Winner-Take-All Top-Two Plurality∗ RCV∗

Not at all well 9.8 11.2 14.1 12.9 Somewhat well 30.6 40.1 22.9 32.9 Very well 29.9 28.6 44.8 32.1 Extremely well 29.6 20.1 18.1 22.0 Number of cases 2,084 2,129 871 1,213

∗Only asked of voters in jurisdictions using the electoral system. NOTE: Respondents were asked “how well do you think you understand” each system. and older respondents were signiﬁcantly less likely to say voting instructions were easy to understand in RCV places. Those who reported their local election was interesting were more likely to see RCV voting instructions as easy to understand (see Online Appendix Table 3). We also predict a signiﬁcantly higher probability of white respondents (0.79, SE 0.02) in plurality cities reporting their voting instructions were very easy to understand, compared to African-American (0.67, SE = 0.05), Latinx (0.69, SE = 0.04), and Asian respondents (0.60, SE = 0.06). Race/ethnic differences in reported understanding of instructions are evident among voters in these plurality cities, but not in cities using RCV.

Results: Reported Understanding of Different Electoral Systems

Our survey also included items that gauged voters’ reported understanding of various election systems. We use these to assess if there was a systematic difference between voters in RCV places and voters in plurality places in terms of how they responded to questions about understanding elections. Voters in plurality cities were asked how well they understood “plurality voting,” while voters in RCV cities were asked how well they understood “ranked-choice voting.” We also asked all respondents how well they understood “winner-take-all voting rules,” and the state’s “top-two primary.” The point was not to assess how well people navigated voting under these systems, but, first, to assess if self-reported understanding was generally lower among people we sampled in RCV places. If not, we can have more confidence that differences reported in the top panel of Table 1 were associated with RCV,rather than with the people we sampled in RCV cities being less likely to say they understood things about elections generally. Second, examining the patterns of responses to these items allows us to assess if racial/ethnic, education level, and age differences in how people report understanding elections is particular to RCV elections, or common to how they report understanding elections generally. Table 3 reports responses to these questions. Few voters said “not at all well” when describing how much they understood winner-take-all elections (9.8 percent), the top-two primary (11.2 percent), plurality voting (14.1 percent), and ranked-choice voting (12.9 percent). As for the issue of whether or not respondents from RCV jurisdictions may have been less prone to self-report they understood voting and elections generally, chi-square tests comparing responses in Table 3 across the subsamples demonstrate that there was no significant difference in how people in RCV versus plurality places reported understanding the top-two primary (chi-square p = 0.19) or winner-take-all voting (p = 0.64). This Self-Reported Understanding of Ranked-Choice Voting 7 TABLE 4 Voters’ Reported Understanding Named Election Systems (Percent)

Winner-Take-All Top-Two White Nonwhite White Nonwhite

Not at all well 8.9 11.0 11.1 11.2 Somewhat well 25.6 37.2 35.3 46.7 Very well 32.6 27.1 30.1 26.6 Extremely well 33.2 24.7 23.5 15.5 N = 2,084, ␹ 2 = 41.6 (p < 0.00) N = 2,129, ␹ 2 = 35.8 (p < 0.00) Plurality RCV White Nonwhite White Nonwhite

Not at all well 14.6 13.6 11.3 15.3 Somewhat well 19.8 26.5 32.2 34.1 Very well 44.6 45.0 33.3 30.3 Extremely well 21.1 14.8 23.1 20.3 N = 871, ␹ 2 = 9.1 (p < 0.03) N = 1213, ␹ 2 = 5.7 (p = 0.12)

By race/ethnicity. suggests that lower levels of reported understanding of voting instructions among people in RCV places (Table 1) may be something associated with the demands of RCV, rather than with people in RCV places having lower propensities of reporting they understand elections. That is, since people from RCV places were not less likely than people from plurality places to claim to understand various other elections, we can be more confident that modest differences between these places in reported levels of understanding voting instructions could be associated with the complexity of RCV. These results are consistent with our hypothesis about preferential voting being more demanding. But what of our other hypothesis? Does race/ethnicity or age structure differences in who reports understanding these elections, and are minorities more likely to say they do not understand RCV? In Table 4 we cross-tabulated responses for questions about electoral systems to compare responses from non-Hispanic whites to racial/ethnic minorities. When asked about three of the four electoral systems, nonwhite respondents were significantly less likely to report understanding it, and the results are unchanged (not reported here) regardless of how we categorize race/ethnicity. Again, we find no apparent effects of race/ethnicity that are specific to self-reported understanding of RCV. We used ordered logit models (Online Appendix Table 4) to estimate responses to the four questions about electoral systems. Those models generated the predicted probability a respondent said he or she understood these four election systems “very well.” These are reported in Table 5 (with SEs in parentheses). Regardless of the election asked about, education corresponded with greater reported understanding, and those who found their local election interesting were generally more likely to say they understood elections (see the Online Appendix). Conversely, Asian respondents (on all four items), women (on three of the four items, see the Online Appendix), and African Americans (on two) were less likely to say they understood a named election system. These patterns appear to reflect something general to self-reported understanding of elections, not something specific about RCV. There is, however, one demographic result that seems unique to RCV places. Age had no association with reported understanding of elections, apart from RCV. Older voters 8 Social Science Quarterly TABLE 5 Predicted Probability of Reporting Understanding Election System “Extremely Well”

Winner-Take-All Top-Two Primary Plurality RCV

White 0.28 (0.02) 0.19 (0.01) 0.19 (0.02) 0.22 (0.02) African American 0.24 (0.02) 0.14 (0.01)∗ 0.14 (0.02)∗ 0.19 (0.02) Latinx 0.22 (0.02)∗ 0.19 (0.02) 0.21 (0.04) 0.27 (0.04) Asian 0.15 (0.02)∗ 0.12 (0.02)∗ 0.13 (0.03)∗ 0.16 (0.03)∗ Age (75) 0.28 (0.02) 0.20 (0.01) 0.20 (0.03) 0.19 (0.02)∗ Education (highest) 0.34 (0.02)∗ 0.23 (0.01)∗ 0.25 (0.02)∗ 0.25 (0.02)∗ p < 0.05 in multivariate models. Reference category for race/ethnicity is whites. Age and education set to mean values, gender set as female, interest in the local election set as interested. Post-estimation simulations from ordered logit models reported in Online Appendix Table 4. in RCV cities were signiﬁcantly less likely to report understanding voting instructions very well, and RCV was the only election type that older voters were signiﬁcantly less likely to report understanding very well (Table 5).

Discussion

This article documents reasons to expect that preferential voting systems may be more confusing to voters than simple plurality, particularly for race/ethnic minorities. We build on previous literature by using survey (rather aggregate) data, survey data from several jurisdictions that adopted RCV, and comparable survey data from jurisdictions that did not use RCV. Our results suggest widespread self-reported understanding of voting instructions in these cities, with high proportions of voters reporting voting instructions were very easy to understand. We do find lower levels reporting this in cities using RCV elections. However, when people in RCV cities were asked how well they understood “ranked-choice voting” only 13 percent said “not at all”—a level similar to what voters reported when asked about other election systems. Previous studies found patterns that raised concerns about a potential racial/ethnic bias in who understands RCV.Our evidence is not consistent with this. We found no differences within RCV cities between whites and people of color in reports of understanding voting instructions. Furthermore, we found no differences in RCV cities in how whites, African Americans, and Latinx respondents reported understanding RCV. We did find women and Asians in RCV cities less likely to report they understood RCV elections, but we also found women and Asians less likely to report they understood a range of different elections (Online Appendix Table 2 contains discussion of a potential language bias problem in interviews of Asians). It is difficult, then, to conclude that results for women and Asians reflect something particular to understanding RCV voting instructions or RCV elections. However, we do find one sign of potential bias associated with RCV. Older people in RCV cities were less likely to report understanding voting instructions, and less likely to report understanding RCV elections. The adoption of new, relatively complex voting systems presents the risk of confusion that may lead to increased voting errors. Our results speak mainly to how voters recalled ballot instructions a day or so after voting, and should not be read as dismissing concerns that information demands associated with RCV may cause some people to fail to cast valid ballots, or express a full range of preferences. Scholars of elections must continue to Self-Reported Understanding of Ranked-Choice Voting 9 search for evidence of bias—particularly racial/ethnic bias—associated with such systems. Our models suggest reported understanding of voting instructions and election systems is, not surprisingly, associated with education. This suggests that voter education campaigns might play a role in increasing understanding of RCV and reducing potential voting errors. It must be recognized that our method of measuring reported understanding is limited by the inability to observe actual voted ballots and to link those to actual voters. It may very well be that some of our survey respondents cast invalid RCV ballots, but then reported having a good understanding of voting instructions and of RCV. If the propensity to commit a voting error (perhaps unknowingly), and subsequently offer a survey response that reported understanding that act of voting is concentrated among racial/ethnic minorities, we could underestimate the scale of possible racial/ethnic bias in understanding RCV. We await future research—potentially experimental—that might sort those forces.

REFERENCES

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An expansive new study by University of Missouri-St. Louis Professor, David Kimball, and Ph.D. candidate, Joseph Anthony, examines the impact of ranked choice voting (RCV) on voter turnout in 26 American cities across 79 elections. Kimball and Anthony’s study, which will soon be submitted for publication, shows that the adoption of RCV:  is associated with a 10 point increase in voter turnout compared to primary and runoff elections  is not associated with any change in turnout in the General Election  is not associated with any change in the number of residual votes  did not exacerbate inequities in voter turnout and residual votes in Minneapolis, Minnesota

In 2013, FairVote received a $300,000 grant from the Democracy Fund to coordinate a research project on the impact of ranked choice voting on the civility and substance of election campaigns in American cities. As part of the project, Professor David Kimball has researched the impact of ranked choice voting on voter turnout. Professor Kimball has participated as an expert in several court cases on election administration, voting rights, and redistricting. He is the co-author of three books: Helping America Vote, Lobbying and Policy Change, and Why Americans Split Their Tickets. He is co-editor of Controversies in Voting Behavior.

Kimball and Anthony find that, compared to the primary and runoff elections that RCV eliminated, the adoption of RCV in a November election was associated with a 10 point increase in voter turnout, even when controlling for other factors that boost turnout like competitive mayoral elections and even-year elections. Considering only turnout in November general elections, there was no statistically significant decline associated with the introduction of ranked choice voting. Electoral competition and the timing of the election (odd or even years) have a more significant impact on turnout in general elections than RCV. Kimball and Anthony provide a much fuller picture of RCV and voter turnout in the United States than previous studies. Their work includes seven cities that use RCV, including Minneapolis, St. Paul and San Francisco, as well as numerous other cities in the West, Midwest and Northeast. Kimball and Anthony compare changes in turnout in cities that adopted RCV against those cities that did not—both before and after adoption—which means we can be confident that the observed increase in voter turnout was systematically associated with RCV and not the vagaries of any one (or two) contests. Kimball and Anthony also assessed rates of residual votes (these include overvotes—when a voter selects too many candidates—and undervotes—when a voter makes no selection for an office). Kimball and Anthony show that, in the 26 cities studied, the adoption of RCV was not associated with any change in the number of residual votes. In assessing the turnout of different demographic groups, Kimball and Anthony turned to the experience of Minneapolis, Minnesota for a more fine-grained analysis. It is true that voter turnout in 2013, the second election in which Minneapolis used RCV, was higher in wards with high proportions of white and high-income people than in those with high concentrations of racial and ethnic minorities and low-income people. However, this is a trend all across the United States and, if RCV is to be blamed for turnout disparities, we must ask whether the disparities were worse in 2013 than before the introduction of RCV. In fact, the observed turnout disparities between high- and low- income wards were just as prevalent in 2005 (the last local election before RCV) as they were in 2013. While RCV did not ameliorate demographic inequities in turnout, it did not exacerbate them in Minneapolis. When we take a more expansive, representative look at RCV across the United States we see that RCV increases overall turnout when compared to primary and runoff elections. Other than that, RCV has little impact on electoral participation and the inequalities that too often accompany it. RCV does, however, give voters more choice, solves the problem of vote splitting and improves the tone of candidate campaigns.

For more on ranked choice voting visit www.fairvote.org or call (301) 270-4616.

Voter Participation with Ranked Choice Voting in the United States

David C. Kimball Joseph Anthony

Department of Political Science University of Missouri‐St. Louis St. Louis, MO 63121 [email protected]

October 2016

Abstract

As more jurisdictions in the United States consider adopting ranked choice voting (RCV) it is important to evaluate RCV alongside the plurality voting systems it typically replaces. This study examines the degree to which voters turn out and properly cast their votes, comparing ranked choice voting (RCV) to plurality voting in the United States. We use a difference‐in‐differences design, matching cities using RCV with demographically similar cities using plurality voting on the same date. We find that RCV helps reduce the substantial drop in voter participation that commonly occurs between primary and runoff elections. Otherwise RCV does not appear to have a strong impact on voter turnout and ballot completion. In a case study of Minneapolis we find similar levels of socioeconomic and racial disparities in voter participation in plurality and RCV elections.

The research reported here is supported by the Democracy Fund. The authors are solely responsible for the analysis and interpretation in this study. This study examines the degree to which voters turn out and participate in local

elections, comparing ranked choice voting (RCV) to plurality voting in the United States. An increasing number of American local jurisdictions are adopting preferential voting systems, and RCV is the most common of the substitutes for single seat elections in the United States.

RCV has now been adopted by at least ten cities in the United States, primarily for mayoral

or city council elections. By allowing voters to rank candidates for the same office, RCV

contrasts with the dominant plurality voting method used to elect government officials in

the United States.

As more American jurisdictions consider adopting RCV there are many claims about

the merits and demerits of RCV. To date, most of the published works on RCV are case studies that examine its performance in a small number of locations. In deciding whether

RCV should replace plurality voting it is important to evaluate RCV alongside the plurality system it typically replaces in the United States. Our study does that by comparing voter participation in RCV and plurality elections in American cities. Using a difference‐in‐ differences design we compare a matched sample of cities using RCV and plurality voting rules before and after the adoption of RCV. We find that RCV reduces the substantial drop in voter participation in local primary and runoff elections. Beyond that, however, RCV does not appear to have a strong impact on voter turnout and ballot completion in municipal elections. In a case study of Minneapolis elections before and after the adoption of RCV we find similar levels of socioeconomic and racial disparities in voter participation in plurality and RCV elections.

Voter Participation with Ranked Choice Voting

The vast majority of American elections are conducted under some version of plurality, or winner‐take‐all, rules. In elections for a single office, like mayor or a city council seat, voters can express a preference for just a single candidate, and that vote is not transferable to other candidates. However, over the past ten years several American cities have adopted ranked choice voting for single office elections. In contrast to plurality rules,

RCV asks voters to rank candidates in order of preference, enabling voters to express preferences for multiple candidates in the same contest. Under RCV, votes can be transferred to other candidates, for example, if a voter’s first choice is eliminated from contention.1

There are competing arguments about how RCV might influence voter participation.

Under the traditional calculus of voting, the decision to vote is influenced by the costs and benefits associated with voting, as well as the probability that one’s vote will determine the outcome (Downs 1957: chapter 14). The benefits refer to the policy or representational

benefits associated with a preferred candidate winning the election. The costs of voting

include the effort needed to become informed about the voting rules and the contests on

the ballot, as well as the effort needed to overcome administrative and other barriers to

registering and casting a ballot.

1 In most American cities with RCV rules voters indicate a preference for up to three candidates. A small number of cities allow voters to rank a larger number of candidates. With one exception, American cities using RCV transfer votes using the alternative vote method. That is, when a voter’s most preferred candidate is eliminated then the voter’s second choice vote is reallocated to one of the remaining candidates. The exception is Cambridge, Massachusetts, which uses a single transferrable vote system.

On the one hand, some argue that RVC will reinvigorate local elections by fostering

more deliberative campaigns. RCV is theorized to alter the dynamics of campaigns and

elections by: (1) encouraging collaboration and civility among competing candidates; (2)

allowing voters to provide a more complete report of their candidate preferences on the

ballot; (3) reducing voter concerns about “wasted votes” for weaker candidates; and (4) by

providing incentives for more candidates to run for office (Horowitz 1985; Reilly 2001;

Donovan, Tolbert, and Gracey 2016). Reducing or eliminating wasted vote concerns may

reduce some of the perceived costs associated with voting. If RCV indeed attracts more

candidates then the additional campaigns may mobilize more voters to overcome the

typical costs associated with voting. Some argue that RCV encourages more cooperation and bargaining among rival political elites than the zero‐sum context of plurality elections

(Horowitz 1985, 1991; Reilly 1997; 2001). Thus, for example, RCV may help bridge racial and ethnic divisions (Guinier 1994; Reilly 1997, 2002). If some voters have been discouraged from participating in the negative campaigns common to plurality elections, then RCV may increase voter participation.

Some previous research offers reasons to be optimistic about the impact of RCV on voter participation. A cross‐national study finds that voters in countries with a higher degree of preferential voting report more satisfaction with the fairness of election outcomes (Farrell and McAlister 2006). A recent study of RCV in the United States finds that voters in cities using RCV report less negative campaigning and more satisfaction with the local election than voters in cities using plurality voting (Donovan, Tolbert, and Gracey

2016). Candidates also note a more positive campaign experience in RCV cities (Donovan

2014). While there is no clear evidence that negative campaigning depresses turnout (Lau,

Sigelman, and Rovner 207), voters may be more willing to participate in elections when

they are more satisfied with the electoral system.

Furthermore, in a study of local jurisdictions in the United States, Bowler and

colleagues (2003) find that cumulative voting generates more vigorous voter outreach

efforts, and thus boosts voter turnout in local elections. While cumulative voting provides

candidates and campaigns a different mix of incentives for voter mobilization than RCV,

both systems are variants of preferential voting and thus one might expect RCV to produce

similar voter turnout improvements. Finally, exit polls in American communities using RCV

tend to reveal high levels of understanding and satisfaction with the voting system (e.g.,

Neely et al. 2005; 2006; Mauter 2014).

On the other hand, some argue that the task of ranking candidates in RCV elections

may be confusing for voters, particularly for American voters who have been socialized in

plurality voting. New voting rules will impose costs on voters to understand and properly

follow the new rules. Downs (1957) theorizes that voting costs disproportionately disenfranchise low‐income voters and others lacking in resources. There is evidence in

American elections that confusing voting equipment or ballot designs produce more voting errors, and the impact of poor design falls disproportionately on low income and minority voters (Herrnson et al. 2008; Kropf and Kimball 2012). Other recent election reforms in the

United States, such as expanded early voting, may have worsened socioeconomic biases in turnout (Berinsky 2005). Some critics similarly argue that the novel and complex nature of

RCV, including the way ballots are counted, may exacerbate socioeconomic disparities in

voter participation (Jacobs and Miller 2013, 2014). If voters have difficulty understanding

how RCV works, they may be discouraged from participating in RCV elections.

There is some evidence that voter participation in RCV elections may not be as high

as expected. One study finds a fair amount of “ballot exhaustion” in California elections

using RCV (Burnett and Kogan 2015). That is, if some voters do not mark the full array of

ranked preferences afforded by the ballot or if they only prefer relatively weak candidates,

then their votes may not factor into the final determination of the winner. In the elections

they analyze, the winning candidate typically did not receive a majority of all ballots cast in

the election. McDaniel (2016) estimates that turnout among some racial groups in San

Francisco declined after the adoption of RCV. In addition, age and education‐related

turnout disparities are more pronounced in San Francisco after the adoption of RCV

(McDaniel 2016). Similarly, overvotes are more common in minority precincts in RCV elections in San Francisco (Neely and McDaniel 2015).

Against these competing hypotheses, there are reasons to expect minimal effects of

RCV on voting participation. Turnout in local elections tends to be influenced by features that bear heavily on the cost/benefit calculus of voting, such as the election schedule, the level of competition in local campaigns, mobilization efforts, and other characteristics of the local political context (Anzia 2013; Oliver 2012; Hajnal 2010; Green and Gerber 2015).

In contrast, many election reforms do not fundamentally alter the costs and benefits of voting. Prior reforms touted as turnout boosters, such as the motor voter law (Hanmer

2012), the Help America Vote Act (Kropf and Kimball 2012), voting by mail (Kousser and

Mullin 2007), early voting (Burden et al. 2014), and term limits (Bowler and Donovan

2012) have had done little to increase voter participation in the United States (also see

Cain, Donovan, and Tolbert 2008). Berinsky (2005) classifies election reforms into two

groups: (1) those that stimulate new voters, and (2) those that retain existing voters. By

merely allowing voters to indicate a preference for more than one candidate RCV may not

alter the basic calculus of voting and thus may not stimulate many new voters.

Ultimately, the impact of RCV on voter participation is a researchable question.

However, much of the existing research examines RCV elections in isolated case studies. To assess the relative advantages and disadvantages of new voting rules, it is important to compare the performance of the new system to the old system it is replacing. The next

section describes the data and research design we use to examine the participation

question for RCV in the United States.

Data and Methods

In assessing the impact of RCV on voter participation this study uses a research

design similar to that employed by Bowler, Donovan, and Brockington (2003) in their study of cumulative voting. The basic approach is to compare a “treatment” group of cities that have adopted RCV to a “control” group of cities using plurality voting. The comparison cities in the control group are similar to the RCV cities in terms of population, region, income, poverty, and demographic diversity. We compare a similar set of RCV and matched plurality cities as Donovan et al. (2016, Table 1) and Kropf (2015, Table 1).

In addition, we use a “difference‐in‐differences” (DID) design to compare the RCV and plurality cities. This involves gathering data on voter participation in both sets of cities from elections held before and after RCV was adopted. The reason for this approach is that

the cities that have adopted RCV tend to have a strong reputation for progressive politics.

As such, the RCV cities may have civic cultures and prior policies that reduce barriers to

voting and promote widespread voter participation. Thus, it is possible that different rates

of participation existed in the matched RCV and plurality cities even before adoption of

RCV. The DID design assesses the impact of RCV by measuring how much the difference in

participation rates between the two groups of cities changes after the adoption of RCV. In

ordinary least squares regression analysis, the treatment effect is estimated by an

interaction between a treatment variable (indicating whether a city is in the treatment or

control group) and a time variable (indicating whether the time period is before or after

adoption of RCV). For a summary of the statistical treatment of DID methods, see

Wooldridge (2013, chapter 13) or Bailey (2016, chapter 8).

For both sets of cities, we examine the recent elections through the 2015 cycle as

well as the last election or two prior to the adoption of RCV. We leave out the cities that

held RCV elections in 2012 and other years that coincide with a presidential contest. Voter

participation in presidential years is strongly shaped by the presidential campaign and is

much higher than turnout in local elections in other years. Thus, we do not expect RCV to

have as much of an impact on turnout in those elections. Furthermore, since Cambridge,

Massachusetts adopted RCV in the 1940s, we have not included voter participation data for

Cambridge and its matching plurality cities before the adoption of RCV. We still examine

both sets of cities for the 2009, 2013, and 2015 elections. Similarly, Portland, Maine

adopted RCV in 2011 at the same time that it resumed electing a mayor. Prior to 2011,

Portland had not elected a mayor since the 1920s. Therefore, we do not include data for

Portland and its matching cities prior to 2011. We still examine both sets of cities for the

2011 and 2015 elections. Table 1 lists the cities and elections that are part of this study.

Our sample includes a total of 96 elections, including 19 elections using RCV.

[Table 1 about here]

We gathered data from each city and election listed in Table 1 to create several

measures of voter participation. Voter turnout is a common community‐wide measure of

participation. We measure voter turnout as the percentage of eligible voters who cast a ballot in the election. We collect data on the number of ballots cast from city and county election offices. We measure the number of eligible voters in each city based on estimates of the citizen voting age population (CVAP) reported in the Census Bureau’s American

Community Survey (ACS). The ACS releases five‐year average population estimates for

American municipalities. We use the most recently released estimate for the citizen voting

age population in 2013, 2014 and 2015. For earlier years we use the five‐year average

centered on the year the election was held.

We examine turnout in local primary, general, and runoff elections. In cities with a plurality system there are typically two elections held to choose local officials: (1) a primary election and a (2) runoff election. The top candidates who receive the most votes in the primary election (usually the top two) advance to the runoff election. The winner of

the runoff election then wins the office. In some cases, if a candidate wins at least 50

percent of the vote in the primary, then she wins the seat without the need for a runoff

election. Also, in some cities the primary occurs in the spring or summer and the runoff

takes place on the general election date in early November. In other cities the primary occurs in November and the runoff election takes place a month or so later. Turnout tends

to be higher in the November general election than in summer primaries or winter runoff

elections because the November election often shares the ballot with other statewide or

federal contests that tend to attract more voters.

In RCV systems, where voters rank candidates in order of preference, just one

election is held to select government officials. RCV is thus designed to combine the primary

(first choice selections) and runoff (re‐allocation of votes for losing candidates to the

voter’s second or third choice) in one election, which is why RCV is sometimes called

“instant runoff voting.” The RCV elections in our sample all take place in November. As a

result, we make separate comparisons of turnout in RCV elections to turnout in general

elections as well as in primary or runoff elections in plurality cities. Similarly, we compare

the drop in voter participation from the first round to the last round of vote tabulation in

RCV cities to the drop in votes between the first round (primary election) and the last

round (runoff election) in plurality cities.2 In our sample, 45 of the 77 city elections with

plurality rules held a separate primary or runoff in addition to the November general

election.

To assess potential confusion among voters we measure the residual vote rate

(Ansolabehere and Stewart 2005) in the top local contest on the ballot (usually a mayoral

race). The residual vote rate is the difference between the total ballots cast and the number

of valid votes recorded for the contest in question (as a percentage of total ballots cast).

Residual votes can occur by two mechanisms: (1) overvotes (when a voter selects too many candidates in a column), or (2) undervotes (when a voter makes no selection in a column).

2 Thanks to Robert Montjoy for a conversation about this comparison.

Overvotes are almost always an indication of voter error, while undervotes may be due

voter error or they may be intended by a voter who wants to skip a particular contest on

the ballot. The residual vote rate measure is not perfect since it combines both

mechanisms. Unfortunately, most jurisdictions, including most cities in this study, do not

report overvotes and undervotes separately. Nevertheless, previous studies indicate that

the residual vote rate is a valid measure of poorly designed ballots and voting equipment

(Ansolabehere and Stewart 2005; see Kropf and Kimball 2012 for a review). In presidential

elections, a residual vote rate substantially above 1% is usually a sign of some type of

problem with the ballot or voting machinery (Knack and Kropf 2003).

There is an additional decision in how to apply the residual vote measure to RCV

elections. In plurality elections, where the voter has just one vote, the residual vote

calculation is straightforward. In RCV elections, where the voter has multiple choices (and

hence multiple votes), there are several possible ways to compute the measure. Should it

be based on all of the votes available to the voter? It appears that the vast majority of

voters in RCV systems record a first or second choice, but many may purposefully abstain

from a third or fourth choice. It may not make sense to interpret those abstentions as a sign

of voter confusion. To allow for as close a comparison as possible to plurality elections, we

compute the residual vote rate in RCV elections just based on the first choice votes. In a

case study of voting in Minneapolis, we use some additional measures of voter confusion

and ballot completion that we describe below.

Turnout Results

A simple version of the difference‐in‐difference method can be illustrated with a

graph. Starting with the broader measure of participation, Figure 1 plots the mean turnout

rate for November elections in RCV and plurality cities before and after the adoption of

RCV. In the elections prior to RCV adoption, turnout in the RCV cities (40.1%) is almost eleven points higher than mean turnout in the plurality cities (29.3%). This supports our suspicion that the cities adopting RCV already had higher turnout rates before adoption. In elections after the adoption of RCV, the difference in mean voter turnout in RCV cities

(34.1%) and plurality cities (28.4%) is roughly 6 points. As the graph indicates, the difference in turnout between the two groups is smaller after the adoption of RCV, suggesting that RCV reduces general election turnout.

[Figure 1 about here]

A more rigorous implementation of the DID method uses regression analysis to control for other factors that influence voter turnout. We include controls for the timing of the election, the number of contests on the ballot, and the level of competition in the mayoral campaign. The basic hypothesis is that turnout is higher when there are more contests on the ballot and when the campaigns are more competitive. Elections in even‐ numbered years are expected to produce higher turnout because other state and federal contests are on the ballot in even‐numbered years. The competitive nature of the contest for mayor is measured with a dummy variable indicating whether the mayoral election is an open seat contest or the outcome is closer than a 60‐40 margin of victory for the winner.

[Table 2 about here]

The model results for turnout in general (November) elections are reported in Table

2. The estimates indicate that average voter turnout was roughly 9 percentage points

higher in RCV cities than in control cities before the adoption of RCV. The test of the impact

of RCV is the coefficient for the interaction term (RCV City * After Adoption). In this case,

the coefficient is negative but barely larger in magnitude than its standard error, suggesting

that RCV is not associated with a statistically significant change in voter turnout in

November elections. The other model estimates indicate that turnout is, on average, almost

9 points higher when there are more than three contests on the ballot. In this sample, the

additional contests are often statewide races or ballot measures which are bound to

include more intensive voter mobilization campaigns. Furthermore, turnout is almost 10

points higher in even‐numbered years, and a competitive mayoral contest boosts turnout

by roughly 5 points, on average.

For the second participation analysis we compare RCV turnout to primary or runoff

election turnout in plurality cities. We exclude 22 plurality elections where a primary or

runoff election was not held, leaving a sample of 64 elections. Figure 2 plots the mean

turnout rate for primary or runoff elections in RCV and plurality cities before and after the

adoption of RCV. The figure again shows that primary or runoff turnout was higher in RCV

cities than in plurality cities. In the elections prior to RCV adoption, turnout in the RCV

cities (22.3%) is approximately 7 points higher than mean turnout in the plurality cities

(14.8%). In elections after the adoption of RCV, the difference in mean voter turnout in RCV

cities (31.7%) and plurality cities (16.9%) is 14.6 points. The difference in turnout between

two sets of cities is larger after the adoption of RCV, suggesting that RCV increases turnout

when compared to plurality runoff or primary elections.

[Figure 2 about here]

The regression estimates comparing turnout in RCV cities to primary or runoff

turnout in plurality elections are reported in Table 3. As in Figure 2, the estimates indicate

that average voter turnout was roughly 5 percentage points higher in RCV cities than in control cities before the adoption of RCV. In this case the coefficient for the interaction term is positive and statistically significant. This suggests that the adoption of RCV is associated with an 8 percentage point increase in turnout over what was observed in primary or runoff plurality elections. The other model estimates indicate that turnout is also higher in even‐numbered years, when there are more than three contests on the ballot, and when there is a competitive mayoral contest.

These results are consistent with other studies which conclude that the scheduling of local elections has a major impact on voter turnout and political representation (Hajnal

2010; Anzia 2013). Local elections held in November (particularly in even‐numbered years to coincide with statewide and federal contests) generate higher voter turnout than local elections scheduled during off‐cycle periods (e.g., outside of November). Thus, the turnout

effect of RCV reported in Figure 2 and Table 3 may be due to the election schedule rather

than the RCV voting rules, per se.

[Table 3 about here]

Residual Vote Results

Turning to a measure of voter confusion, Figure 3 plots the mean residual vote rate

in RCV and plurality cities for the top local contest on the ballot before and after the

adoption of RCV.3 In elections prior to RCV adoption, the residual vote rate in the RCV cities

(7.5%) is slightly lower than the mean residual vote rate in the plurality cities (8.0%). In

elections after the adoption of RCV, the difference in the mean residual vote rate in RCV

cities (4.8%) and plurality cities (6.9%) is about 2 points. Thus, it appears that residual

votes declined after the adoption of RCV.

[Figure 3 about here]

The regression results in Table 4 indicate that the change in the difference between

group means is not statistically significant. Thus, the adoption of RCV does not appear to be

associated with a noticeable change in the residual vote rate for the top contest on the

ballot in these local elections. Meanwhile, a competitive mayoral contest does appear to reduce the residual vote rate by roughly 3.7 percentage points, on average. Residual vote rates also tend to be higher in local elections held in even‐numbered years, when state and federal contests likely draw attention away from the local election.

[Table 4 about here]

Vote Drop‐off

Our final comparison examines the drop‐off in votes between the first and last

rounds of votes in each system. In elections with multiple rounds of voting or tabulating a

fundamental question involves how many votes still count when candidates are eliminated

at each stage. Some have highlighted high rates of “ballot exhaustion” as a shortcoming of

3 There are three elections in our sample excluded from this analysis. Two elections from Lowell, Massachusetts are dropped because there were no mayoral contests in either election, and the city uses an at‐ large system for electing the city council. At‐large elections do not produce a comparable residual vote measure. We also exclude the Tulsa election of 2005 because there was no mayoral race in that election.

RCV voting rules. Thus, the votes for the winning candidate in the final round of tabulation

for an RCV election may not comprise a majority of all ballots cast in the election (Burnett

and Kogan 2015). However, a similar critique applies to the more familiar primary election

with plurality rules and later runoff election for the top primary finishers. In the elections

using the familiar plurality rules the number of votes cast in the primary or runoff elections

tend to be substantially smaller than the votes cast in the general election. A common claim

of RCV proponents is that replacing two elections (primary and runoff) with one RCV

election yields greater continuity in voter participation between the first and last rounds of

voting. Does ballot exhaustion in RCV elections undermine this claim?

For RCV elections, we compute voter drop‐off as the difference between the total

ballots cast in the election and the number of valid votes counted in the final round of RCV

tabulation (as percentage of total ballots cast). Thus, the votes that drop off in RCV elections include blank ballots, overvotes, and exhausted ballots. For plurality elections, we compute voter drop‐off as the difference between the total ballots cast in the general

election and the valid votes for the top local contest in the primary or runoff (again as a percentage of total ballots cast). Thus, the drop‐off includes people who vote in the general election but not in the primary or runoff election. We exclude 22 plurality elections where a primary or runoff election was not held. We exclude two additional plurality elections where a primary or runoff was only held for one council district, rather than for the entire city.4 This leaves a sample of 62 elections. Figure 4 plots the mean vote drop‐off in RCV and

plurality cities before and after the adoption of RCV. As the figure shows, the drop in voting

participation between primary and runoff elections is very substantial in cities using

4 These elections occurred in Des Moines (2013) and Worcester (2013).

plurality rules. On average, the drop‐off is equivalent to roughly half of the voters in the

general election. In the elections prior to RCV adoption, drop‐off in the RCV cities (50.3%) is only 3 points lower than mean drop‐off in the plurality cities (56.8%). In elections held

after the adoption of RCV, the difference in mean voter drop‐off in RCV cities (13.1%) and

plurality cities (45.8%) is 32.7 points. The difference in vote drop‐off between the two sets

of cities is much larger after the adoption of RCV, suggesting that RCV substantially reduces the drop in votes between the first and last rounds.

[Figure 4 about here]

The regression estimates comparing vote drop‐off in RCV cities to plurality cities are reported in Table 5. As in Figure 4, the estimates indicate that average vote drop‐off was roughly the same in RCV and plurality cities before the adoption of RCV. In this case the coefficient for the interaction term is negative and statistically significant. This suggests that the adoption of RCV is associated with a roughly 24 percentage point reduction in voter drop‐off compared to what is observed in plurality elections. The other model estimates indicate that a competitive mayoral contest also reduces vote drop‐off, by roughly 11 points. Thus, the evidence on vote drop‐off supports a particular claim made by

RCV proponents about continuity in voter participation. Again, this seems to be an advantage of holding one November election in place of two elections held on separate dates. Overall, with the exception of improved turnout compared to plurality primary and runoff elections, voter participation seems to be influenced more by the stimulus of a competitive local or statewide campaign rather than by the adoption of RCV rules.

[Table 5 about here]

Results from Minneapolis: Socioeconomic Bias in Voter Participation

While the evidence thus far indicates an improvement in overall rates of voter participation due to the adoption of RCV, some have expressed concerns that RCV fails to ameliorate socioeconomic biases in participation (Jacobs and Miller 2013, 2014; Neely and

McDaniel 2015; McDaniel 2016). For American voters who have grown accustomed to

plurality voting, properly casting an RCV ballot may take some learning and skill, which

may confer a participatory advantage on voters with more resources (i.e., wealth,

education, and civic skills). In a recent paper, Jacobs and Miller (2014) report on the 2013

Minneapolis election, noting higher rates of voter participation in white and high‐income

wards than in wards with high concentrations of racial and ethnic minorities and low‐ income voters. However, Jacobs and Miller do not provide evidence to indicate how the disparities in voter participation observed in 2013 compare to patterns in previous elections. Is the evidence from Minneapolis in 2013 worse than usual? Socioeconomic biases in voter participation are hardy perennials in American elections (Leighley and

Nagler 2013; Schlozman, Brady, and Verba 2012), particularly in local elections (Hajnal and

Lewis 2003; Oliver 2012; Anzia 2013). Thus, RCV elections need to be compared to similarly situated plurality elections. We try to provide one such comparison below for the case of Minneapolis.

[Figure 5 about here]

Jacobs and Miller present evidence showing that in the 2013 Minneapolis election

turnout was considerably higher in the three wealthiest wards (11, 12, and 13) than in the

three least affluent wards (2, 3, and 5). They measure turnout as a percentage of registered

voters in each ward. We use the same data from Minneapolis elections to replicate this

finding and generate the same turnout measures from the same wards in the 2005 election

(the last local election in Minneapolis using plurality voting). Both elections included

contests for mayor and city council.5 Our analysis includes the rest of the city’s 13 wards,

labeled “Middle income wards.” Voter turnout was slightly higher in 2013 (29%) than in

2005 (26%). As Figure 5 indicates, the same 14 percentage point gap in turnout between

low and high income wards in the 2013 RCV election was present in the 2005 plurality

election.6 The income disparity in voter turnout is not unique to RCV elections in

Minneapolis, but as Jacobs and Miller note, that disparity did not get smaller in the 2013

RCV election.

Jacobs and Miller also examine measures of voter confusion. One such measure is

the frequency of spoiled ballots (as a percentage of total ballots cast). The spoiled ballot rate is not specific to a particular contest on the ballot but reflects the overall voting experience. The good news about spoiled ballots is that they preserve the right to vote. If a

mistake is recognized by a voter or the voting equipment, the voter can return the ballot in

exchange for a new one. The ballot with the mistake is “spoiled” and is not counted. The

voter completes a new ballot, which is counted. Nevertheless, spoiled ballots can diagnose

voter difficulty in completing the ballot. In the 2013 election, Jacobs and Miller observe a

higher rate of spoiled ballots in low income wards than in high income wards. Figure 6

compares the spoiled ballot rate in high and low income wards in the 2005 and 2013

5 This is not an identical geographic comparison since Minneapolis ward boundaries changed somewhat between 2005 and 2013. Smaller geographic units, such as precincts, are preferable for inferences about the relationship between income, race, and voter participation, but precinct boundaries also tend to change when wards are redrawn. 6 The same pattern, not shown here, holds when comparing the wards with the highest share of white voters to wards with the smallest share of white voters.

Minneapolis elections. The citywide spoiled ballot rate increased from 1% in 2005 to 4% in

2013, and the rate increased in both low income and high income wards. Moreover, as

Figure 6 shows, the gap in the spoiled ballot rate between high and low income wards

increased only slightly in the 2013 RCV election.

[Figure 6 about here]

A somewhat similar pattern emerges when examining the mayoral contests. The

residual vote rate is higher in low income wards in both years, and the gap between the

two sets of wards increases slightly from 0.8 percentage points in the plurality election of

2005 to 1.7 points in the RCV election of 2013, a statistically insignificant increase. A

similar study of San Francisco found that residual votes did not increase after the adoption

of RCV (Neely and Cook). In 2013, the Minneapolis elections department began reporting

overvotes and undervotes for local elections. The overvote rate in the mayoral contest was

low (0.2% of ballots cast), and the rate was the same at all income levels. Therefore, the gap

in first choice residual votes between low and high income wards in 2013 is due to a

slightly higher undervote rate in low income wards. Voters can rank up to three candidates in RCV elections in Minneapolis. As Jacobs and Miller note, a bit more than 20% of voters did not record three candidate choices for mayor. When tabulating undervotes across all three choices for mayor in 2013 the undervote rate is somewhat higher in low income wards (24%) than high income wards (21%). However, the undervote rate is even higher

(26%) in middle income wards.7 Overall, the undervote and overvote data do not reveal

substantial income disparities in the 2013 Minneapolis mayoral election.

Finally, it is worth examining city council elections in Minneapolis, which also used

RCV in the 2013 election. Council seats for all 13 city wards were up for election in 2005

and 2013. Therefore, we can make a similar comparison between a plurality election

(2005) and an RCV election (2013). RCV seems to have encouraged more candidates to run

for city council in Minneapolis. The number of city council candidates almost doubled,

increasing from 25 candidates in 2005 to 47 in 2013. In 2005, no ward featured a campaign

with more than two city council candidates. In 2013, ten of the thirteen wards produced

more than two candidates running for a city council seat.8

Jacobs and Miller also present evidence showing that in the 2013 Minneapolis

election voter participation in the mayoral contest was higher in the wards with the highest

share of white voters (10, 11, 12, and 13) than in wards where the non‐white share of the

population is at least 50 percent (4, 5, 6 and 9). We use the same data to compare the residual vote rate in the city council races for the 2013 RCV election and the 2005 plurality election. We include the rest of the city’s 13 wards, labeled “Mixed wards.” Figure 7 compares the residual vote rate in the 2005 and 2013 Minneapolis city council elections by racial composition of the wards. The citywide residual vote rate for first choice city council voting increased from 4% in 2005 to 5.9% in 2013, but the increased is confined to racially mixed wards. As the figure shows, the 2005 plurality election produces the familiar pattern

7 The Minneapolis rates for overvotes, undervotes, and failure to rank three candidates are substantially lower than those reported for RCV elections in San Francisco (Neely and Cook 2008; Neely and McDaniel 2015). 8 The 2009 election (the first in Minneapolis using RCV) also produced a higher number of city council candidates.

of higher residual vote rates in minority wards and lower rates in white wards. However,

as Figure 7 shows, the residual vote rate actually declined in the minority wards in the

2013 RCV election. This is because the minority wards featured several candidates running

for city council seats in 2013. The residual vote rate in city council contests is substantially

lower in wards with more candidates running for a seat. Furthermore, in 2013 overvote

and undervote rates for city council contests appear to be unrelated to the income or racial

composition of Minneapolis wards. Overall, the Minneapolis evidence indicates that

socioeconomic disparities in voter participation are similar in plurality and RCV elections.

[Figure 7 about here]

Conclusion

Several American cities have adopted RCV rules for local elections, and other

jurisdictions may be considering RCV in the future. In assessing the impact of RCV voting

rules it is important to evaluate RCV alongside the plurality systems that RCV replaces. For

the most part, we find that RCV elections have minimal effects on rates of voter

participation. The main exception involves the comparison with primary and runoff

elections using plurality rules. By compressing the voting and winnowing of candidates

into one election scheduled in November, RCV elections increase voter participation when

compared to plurality primary and runoff elections held before or after the November

general election date. When comparing general elections to general elections, plurality and

RCV elections generate similar turnout rates. We also find similar rates of residual votes, a

measure of voter confusion, in plurality and RCV elections.

Our case study of Minneapolis also reveals comparable rates of participation and

voter confusion in plurality and RCV elections. The main exception is that we observe

higher rates of spoiled ballots in the RCV election than in the plurality election. We also

observe that the socioeconomic and racial disparities in voter participation are similar in

plurality and RCV elections in Minneapolis.

These findings are based on a rather small but growing sample of evidence. Some

caution is recommended in drawing conclusions from this evidence about the impact of

RCV on voter participation. Nevertheless, the research design can be used to continue

examining the effect of RCV adoption on voters. As more results from past elections in RCV

and comparison cities are included in the data, and as more cities continue to hold RCV

elections in the future, the evidence will grow and support more confident conclusions

about the response of voters to RCV rules in the United States. It will be important to

continue to monitor measures of voter participation in RCV and plurality elections in the

United States.

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Table 1 Cities and Elections for Voter Participation Comparisons

Elections Elections RCV City Matched Plurality Cities Before RCV After RCV Minneapolis, MN Boston, MA; Cincinnati, OH; 2005 2009, 2013 Tulsa, OK; Seattle, WA St. Paul, MN Cedar Rapids, IA; Des Moines, 2009 2013, 2015 IA; Madison, WI; Spokane, WA Cambridge, MA Ann Arbor, MI; Lowell, MA; 2009, 2013, Stamford, CT; Worcester, MA 2015 Berkeley, CA Alameda, CA 2002, 2006 2010, 2014 Oakland, CA; San Anaheim, CA; Santa Ana, CA; 2002, 2006 2010, 2014 Leandro, CA Santa Clara, CA; Stockton, CA; Richmond, CA San Francisco, CA San Jose, CA 2002 2006, 2010, 2014, 2015 Portland, ME Lewiston, ME; Dover, NH 2011, 2015

Table 2 Predictors of General Election Turnout in RCV and Plurality City Elections

Coefficient Independent Variable (Std. Error) RCV City 9.1* (3.2) After RCV Adoption 0.9 (2.0) RCV City * After Adoption -4.1 (3.8) Even-Numbered Year 9.6* (2.1) More than 3 Contests 8.9* (2.2) Contested Mayoral Contest 5.5* (2.0) Constant 16.7* (2.1) N 96 R2 .58 Root MSE 7.9

The dependent variable is voter turnout in city elections (ballots cast as a percentage of the citizen voting age population). Cell entries are ordinary least squares coefficients (standard errors in parentheses). *p < .1, two-tailed

Table 3 Predictors of Turnout in RCV Cities and Primary/Runoff Elections in Plurality Cities

Coefficient Independent Variable (Std. Error) RCV City 5.4 (3.4) After RCV Adoption 1.9 (2.5) RCV City * After Adoption 8.2* (3.8) Even-Numbered Year 4.8* (2.4) More than 3 Contests 8.8* (2.3) Contested Mayoral Contest 6.4* (2.1) Constant 6.8* (2.4) N 64 R2 .69 Root MSE 6.9

Table 4 Predictors of Residual Votes in Top Contest in RCV and Plurality City Elections

Coefficient Independent Variable (Std. Error) RCV City -2.7 (1.8) After RCV Adoption 0.2 (1.2) RCV City * After Adoption -0.0 (2.2) Even-Numbered Year 5.6* (1.2) Contested Mayoral Contest -3.7* (1.2) More than 3 Contests 1.1 (1.3) Constant 5.0* (1.3) N 93 R2 .40 Root MSE 4.6

The dependent variable is the residual vote rate (as a percentage of the number of ballots cast). For RCV elections, the residual vote measure is based on the first choice votes. Cell entries are ordinary least squares coefficients (standard errors in parentheses). *p < .1, two-tailed

Table 5 Predictors of Voter Drop-off between First and Last Rounds in RCV Cities and Primary/Runoff Elections in Plurality Cities

Coefficient Independent Variable (Std. Error) RCV City -10.6 (9.8) After RCV Adoption -8.7 (7.4) RCV City * After Adoption -24.4* (11.2) Even-Numbered Year 4.5 (7.1) More than 3 Contests -1.5 (6.8) Contested Mayoral Contest -11.3* (6.2) Constant 58.7* (6.9) N 62 R2 .48 Root MSE 19.9

The dependent variable is voter drop-off between the first and last round of voting in city elections (as a percentage of ballots cast). Cell entries are ordinary least squares coefficients (standard errors in parentheses). *p < .1, two-tailed

Figure 1 Mean Voter Turnout in RCV and Plurality City Elections: General Elections

10 Mean Voter Turnout (Percent) Turnout Voter Mean

0 Plurality RCV Plurality RCV Before Adoption After Adoption

Figure 2 Mean Voter Turnout in RCV and Plurality City Elections: Primary/Runoff Elections

10 Mean Voter Turnout (Percent) Turnout Voter Mean

0 Plurality RCV Plurality RCV Before Adoption After Adoption

Figure 3 Mean Residual Vote Rate in Top Contest in RCV and Plurality City Elections

2 Mean Residual Vote Rate (Percent) Rate Vote Residual Mean

0 Plurality RCV Plurality RCV Before Adoption After Adoption

Figure 4 Mean Voter Drop-off Between First and Last Rounds in RCV and Plurality City Elections: Primary/Runoff Elections

20 Mean Voter Drop-off (Percent) Drop-off Voter Mean

0 Plurality RCV Plurality RCV Before Adoption After Adoption

Figure 5 Voter Turnout by Ward Income: 2005 and 2013 Minneapolis Elections

41.7 40 38.1

31.4 30 28.5 27.7 24

Voter Turnout (Percent) 10

0 2005 2013 Income Level High income wards Middle income wards Low income wards

Figure 6 Ballot Spoilage by Ward Income: 2005 and 2013 Minneapolis Elections

5.2 5 4.3 4 3.5

2 1.8 1.2

Spoiled Ballots (Percent) 1 .7

0 2005 2013 Income Level High income wards Middle income wards Low income wards

Figure 7 Residual Vote for City Council (1st Choice) by Ward Race: 2005 and 2013 Minneapolis Elections

10 9.4

6 5.5

3.9 3.9 3.8 4 3.4

2 Residual Vote Rate (Percent) Rate Vote Residual

0 2005 2013 Racial Composition of Wards White wards Mixed wards Minority wards

Name: Craig Seeman Personal Background: Green Party State Committee, former chair, former 2001 NYC Council Candidate. Address: 70 Wyckoﬀ Ave. Loft 2G, Brooklyn NY 11237 Phone: 718-456-0072 Email: [email protected]

Speaking in support of Democracy Vouchers

The current NYC campaign ﬁnance matching funds programs based on an 8 to 1 match will results continue the pattern of lopsided funding in favor of those candidates supported by a higher income base.

In a City Wide race $250 is matchable as part if a $2000 maximum donation. The result is that a maximum individual donation is worth $4000

Even donating only the $250 matchable donation result in $2250. Compare that to a candidates whose donor base struggles with the $10 minimum match which results in only $90.

The disparity between candidates accruing $250 matchable donation and $10 matchable donations is 25 to 1. The disparity between candidates accruing the maximum allowable donation and the minimum matchable closes in on 45 to 1. Big donors are fare more inﬂuential than small donors perpetuating an extreme imbalance.

We can see how wide the disparity was in 2017 under the previous 6 to 1 match as per the Campaign Finance Board’s report somewhat ironically titled “Keeping Democracy Strong.” One might say more accurately “Keeping Well Funded Candidates Stronger."

… in the 2017 cycle, only 5 percent of all contributions to participating candidates for mayor were larger than $2,250.

Yet these contributions represent the majority of candidates’ fundraising — for the 2017 election, those 5 percent of contributions represented 59 percent of the total funds raised by participating mayoral candidates.

While Council candidates are somewhat less reliant on large-dollar contributions, they still play a substantial role; contributions larger than $1,250 accounted for only 2 percent of all contributions, but comprised 32 percent of the funds raised by participating Council candidates.

While commensurate with the change to an 8 to 1 match the maximum donations were lowered, increasing the match still disproportionally beneﬁts the larger donations as

Page 1 of 4 part of the multiplier.

The prohibitively large number of small donors needed to close that gap prevents those candidates with a lower income base from having the competitive resources needed to reach out to their base. In eﬀect, the current NYC system is ensuring a chasm in representation.

Candidates with less money tend to target with greater exclusion, only able to reach the narrowest number of prime voters. The results are that fewer newer and peripheral voters are reached ensuing a dwindling turnout. This is evident as turnout continues to remain low since the original implementation and periodic increase in in the NYC matching funds program. The low turnout may be the real indicator of a failing campaign ﬁnance system.

On Access to information and Democracy Vouchers In 2017 NYC Candidates raised over 27,000 cash contributions. Given the diﬀerences in size between NYC’s 4.6 to 5.1 million voters (depending on whether one counts active or inactive but still registered voters) to Seattle’s approximate 460,000. We can see much greater per capita participation in Seattle. In fact, Seattle’s 2017 20,000 plus voucher donors comes very close to NYC’s total cash donors even though, as part of the Democracy Voucher phase in, only At Large City Council seats and the City Attorney’s race were voucher eligible.

In Seattle in 2017 there were 4969 cash donations for At Large City Council and city attorney races (those were the eligible races) but 20,727 voucher donations. That’s quadruple the participation rate of cash donors. Participants in the Democracy Voucher program were generally more representative of the Seattle electorate. Low- and moderate-income residents comprise a substantially larger share of voucher users than cash donors. Voucher users are more likely than cash donors to come from the poorest neighborhoods in the city.

Page 2 of 4 Democracy Vouchers Expands Voting Participation Candidates representing such communities might then be able to target new and peripheral voters, raising their awareness of their voting choice options. I believe the issue in low income community is not an issue of general access given that that gap in the most commonly used source of political information, the internet has narrowed considerably between income brackets, but the lack of information they receive from candidacies that are ﬁnancially limited who may represent them.

Democracy Vouchers Expands Voting Participation because when you narrow the gap in campaign funding there won’t be the disparity in targeting that there is now.

Under funded candidates representing economically disadvantaged communities have to have more limited targets, which results in less outreach for New and “Peripheral” voters. If only “Primes” are reached, then those classiﬁed as non prime don’t get the mailings from the candidates.

As a result “Primes” are more likely to vote for the well funded candidates, widening the disparity of access to information. This is one “prime” reason we have ever decreasing turnout in NYC.

Democracy Vouchers evens out the disparity created in our current campaign ﬁnance system as candidates more dependent on voucher and voter support from economically disadvantaged communities have more evenly matched resources to other candidates and can target more competitively reaching out to potential voters, raising awareness of the campaigns and thereby increasing turnout in communities who previously would have been limited in their knowledge of their candidate options.

Page 3 of 4 Attached 1) University of Washington “Expanding Participation in Municipal Elections: Assessing the Impact of Seattle’s Democracy Voucher Program” 2) Brennan Center for Justice “Democracy Vouchers Broadened Seattle’s 2017 Donor Base

Page 4 of 4 Expanding Participation in Municipal Elections: Assessing the Impact of Seattle’s Democracy Voucher Program

Executive Summary In 2015, voters in Seattle approved the Democracy program than low-income, younger and non-white Voucher program to radically reshape the way residents. Individuals who were already politically municipal elections are funded. By providing vouchers engaged, as measured by previous voting behavior, to every registered voter in the city, the program were more likely to return their vouchers than aimed to broaden the donor pool and diversify registered voters who rarely voted in elections. These contributors in local elections. Seattle is the first city differential rates of return by race, income, age and in the United States to implement this type of public political engagement create opportunities for program financing program. improvements in 2019. Launched in the 2017 election, the Democracy The Democracy Voucher program is beginning to Voucher initiative successfully increased the number move the contributor pool in a more egalitarian, of residents participating in the campaign finance representative direction. Compared to cash system. In total, 20,727 residents in Seattle returned contributors in the 2017 election, participants in the their vouchers – more than twice the number that Democracy Voucher program were generally more made a cash contribution to a local political candidate. representative of the Seattle electorate. Low- and About four percent of Seattle residents participated in moderate-income residents comprise a substantially the program. larger share of voucher users than cash donors. While the Democracy Voucher initiative increased Voucher users are more likely than cash donors to participation in the campaign finance system, some come from the poorest neighborhoods in the city. groups of Seattle residents were more likely to Residents under 30 years old make up a larger share return their vouchers than others. Wealthy, white and of voucher users than cash donors. older residents were more likely to participate in the

Who Participated in the Democracy Voucher Program?

The Democracy Voucher program 20,727 substantially increased the number of 20,000 Seattle residents participating in the campaign finance system. The number of Seattle residents making a cash 15,000 contribution in the municipal elections rose from 8,234 in 2013 to 10,297 in 10,297 10,000 2017. Of these contributors in 2017, 8,234 Number of Donors 4,960 contributed to a candidate for 4,960 City Attorney or City Council. By 5,000 contrast, 20,727 people in Seattle returned their vouchers. [Figure 1] 0 Cash Donors to All Cash Donors to All Cash Donors to Voucher Users Races (2013) Races (2017) City Council or City (2017) Attorney Races (2017) Figure 1: Total Number of Cash Donors and Voucher Users While the absolute number of Seattle residents 6.15% participating in the local campaign finance system 6% increased, participants still represent only a small 5% fraction of the electorate. About 4 percent of eligible 4.01% 4% individuals returned their vouchers. 3.41% Participation in the Democracy Voucher program 3% varied substantially across demographic groups. Rate Return 2.25% 2% Older residents in Seattle were three times more likely to participate than younger residents. More 1% than 6 percent of Seattle residents over the age of 0% 18-29 30-44 45-59 60+ 60 returned their vouchers, but only 2 percent of Figure 2: Democracy Voucher Return Rate, by Age residents between the ages of 18-29 did so. [Figure 2]

Whites were almost twice as likely to return their 4.31% voucher as blacks. More than 4 percent of white 4% Seattle residents returned their voucher but only 2.4 percent of black residents participated. In fact, whites 3% 2.89% 2.71% were substantially more likely to return their voucher 2.46% 2.40% than every other racial and ethnic group in the city. 2% [Figure 3] Rate Return High-income residents in Seattle participated in the 1% Democracy Voucher program at a substantially higher 0% rate than low-income residents. More than 5 percent White Other Hispanic Asian Black of individuals with an annual income above $75,000 Figure 3: Democracy Voucher Return Rate, by Race participated in the Democracy Voucher program, but only about 2 percent of individuals with an annual 5.35% 5.09% income below $30,000 participated in the program. 5%

[Figure 4] 4.27% Finally, citizens who were already engaged in the 4% 3.09% political system by regularly voting in general elections 3% were much more likely to return their vouchers than

Return Rate Return 1.93% those who voted infrequently or not at all. Among 2% registered voters who voted in every election for which they were registered, more than 8 percent 1% returned their Democracy Vouchers. On the other 0% <$30,000 $30,000- $50,000- $75,000- >$100,000 hand, among registered voters who voted in fewer $50,000 $75,000 $100,000 than half of the elections for which they were eligible Figure 4: Democracy Voucher Return Rate, by Income to vote, only about 1 percent participated in the

Democracy Vouchers program. [Figure 5] 8.25% 8% While the Democracy Voucher program increased the number of people participating in the local campaign finance system, the rate of participation varied 6% widely across groups. Although the program pushed 3.94% participation in the local campaign finance system 4% Return Rate Return to an all-time high in Seattle, historically under- represented groups were less likely to participate in 2% the program. These findings create an opportunity 0.75% for community stakeholders to further engage under- 0% Voter Participation <50% Voter Participation Voter Participation 100% represented groups to increase their participation in 50%-99% the Democracy Voucher program. Figure 5: Democracy Voucher Return Rate, by Political Participation How Do Participants in the Democracy Voucher Program Differ from Cash Donors? The Democracy Voucher program aimed to percent of voucher users were 60 years old or older diversify the pool of campaign contributors in local compared to slightly more than 33 percent of cash elections. In previous election cycles, candidates donors. Young donors (under the age of 30) make up overwhelmingly relied on a small number of high- a larger share of donors in the voucher program than dollar donors concentrated in a handful of wealthy in the pool of cash donors. [Figure 6] neighborhoods. By providing vouchers to every Although the Democracy Voucher program aimed to registered voter in Seattle, the Democracy Voucher diversify the racial composition of the donor pool, program endeavored to create a pool of donors that white residents comprise a disproportionate share looked more like the pool of eligible voters. This of both voucher users and cash contributors. While section compares the profile of participants in the 79 percent of registered voters in Seattle are white, Democracy Voucher program (“voucher users”) with whites comprise 86 percent of participants in the the profile of cash contributors in the 2017 election Democracy Voucher program and 87 percent of (“cash donors”). cash contributors. In fact, the racial composition of Older residents in Seattle make up a larger share of voucher users is nearly identical to the composition participants in the Democracy Voucher program of cash donors. [Figure 7] than they do in the pool of cash donors. In fact, 36

Age: 18-29 Age: 30-44 Age: 45-59 Age: 60+

35.69% 35% 33.75% 33.01%

29.97% 30% 29.25% 28.57%

25% 22.76% 23.19% 22.81% 20.69% 20% Percentage 15% 11.86%

10% 8.46%

5% Participant Type 0% Registered Voters Figure 6: Demographic Composition of Voucher Users and Cash Donors, by Age Voucher Users Cash Donors (All) Race: Asian Race: Black Race: Hispanic Race: Other Race: White

86.07% 87.30%

80% 78.48%

60%

40% Percentage

20%

9.05% 6.02% 5.67% 4.38% 4.02% 3.68% 3.40% 2.35% 2.29% 3.05% 2.24% 2.01% 0% Figure 7: Demographic Composition of Voucher Users and Cash Donors, by Race The Democracy Voucher program relied less heavily percent live in the poorest quintile of neighborhoods. on wealthy Seattle residents than the pool of cash By contrast, 29 percent of cash donors come from contributors. It increased the representation of low- the wealthiest quintile of neighborhoods and only income residents in the campaign finance system, 11 percent come from the poorest neighborhoods. although high-income households continue to [Figure 9] make up a disproportionate share of contributors. Overall, voucher users were more representative of Individuals with an income of $100,000 or more the electorate than cash contributors. Participants make up 24 percent of cash donors, but they in the Democracy Vouchers program were more comprise only 16 percent of voucher users. On the likely to come from poor neighborhoods than cash other hand, only 4 percent of voucher users – and donors. The pool of voucher users also includes 2 percent of cash donors – have an income below a larger share of residents earning $30,000 or less, $30,000. [Figure 8] suggesting that the program has diversified the Voucher users were slightly more likely to come from socioeconomic composition of the donor pool. While poor neighborhoods – and slightly less likely to come the composition of the voucher users does not fully from wealthy ones – than cash donors. Overall, about match the composition of the electorate, it is – on the 22 percent of voucher users live in the wealthiest whole – more representative than the composition of quintile of neighborhoods in the city and nearly 13 cash donors.

Income: <$30,000 Income: $30,000-$50,000 Income: $50,000-$75,000 Income: $75,000-$100,000 Income: >100,000 35% 33.22% 33.12% 30.63% 30% 29.13%

25.94% 25% 24.29% 22.73% 20.36% 20.46% 20% 16.43% 15.12%

Percentage 15% 12.75%

10% 8.28%

5% 4.05% 2.48% 0% Participant Type Figure 8: Demographic Composition of Voucher Users and Cash Donors, by Income Registered Voters Voucher Users Cash Donors (All) Neighborhood Income: Neighborhood Income: Neighborhood Income: Neighborhood Income: Neighborhood Income: Top Bottom Quintile Second Quintile Middle Quintile Fourth Quintile Quintile 30% 28.11%

25% 23.94% 23.32% 23.37% 22.03% 21.13% 21.55% 20.52% 20.04% 19.86% 20% 19.51% 17.13% 15.76% 15% 12.86%

Percentage 10.87% 10%

0% Figure 9: Demographic Composition of Voucher Users and Cash Donors, by Neighborhood Income Did Voucher Participants Vote at Higher Rates in the 2017 Election? Seattle residents who used their vouchers were in the 2017 election compared to only 56 percent of substantially more likely to vote in the 2017 election. those who did not return their vouchers. [Figure 10] Nearly 90 percent of Seattle residents who used Voter Participation Voter Participation Voter Participation their vouchers voted in the 2017 election, but only <50% 50%-99% 100% 100% 94.82% 43 percent of those who did not use their vouchers 88.07% voted. 80% Even after accounting for previous political 67.84% engagement, these differences between voucher users 60% 56.48% and non-users persist. Among Seattle residents who 52.95% voted in fewer than half of the previous elections 40% for which they were eligible, voucher users were four Voted Percent times as likely to vote in the 2017 election. Overall, 20% 53 percent of these voucher users voted in the 2017 12.03% election compared to only 12 percent of those who 0% did not return their voucher. Among those who voted Did Not Return Returned Did Not Return Returned Did Not Return Returned in at least half of the elections for which they were Voucher Voucher Voucher Voucher Voucher Voucher Figure 10: Voter Participation Rate, by Previous Voter registered, about 88 percent of voucher users voted Participation and Voucher Status

Program Background In 2015, voters in Seattle overwhelmingly passed an and returning them to the candidate’s campaign or initiative to create the Democracy Voucher program. the Seattle Ethics and Election Commission. Upon Recognizing the disproportionate influence of a certifying each returned voucher, the Commission small number of wealthy donors in local elections, then transferred funds to the assigned campaign. advocates for the initiative hoped that a publicly- In 2017, candidates for City Council and City financed voucher program would increase the Attorney could participate in the Democracy Voucher number of contributors, create a more diverse donor program after agreeing to several public debates and pool and address concerns about the demographic adhering to spending and contribution limits. At-large representativeness of donors in local elections. City Council candidates qualified for the program by While several municipalities nationwide have public receiving 400 qualifying donations of $10. Candidates financing schemes to provide matching funds in for City Attorney qualified after receiving 150 local elections, Seattle is the first city to implement a qualifying donations of $10. In future elections, the universal voucher program. Democracy Voucher program will expand to include Every registered voter in Seattle was mailed four, candidates vying for mayor and each of Seattle’s seven $25 vouchers in January 2017. Voters redeemed their district-level City Council seats. vouchers by assigning them to qualified candidates

About the Authors About the Data Jennifer Heerwig ([email protected]) is assistant These analyses were derived from a dataset compiled by the authors. professor of Sociology at Stony Brook University. The authors merged data on Seattle voters and their vote history from Brian J. McCabe ([email protected]) is associate professor the Washington Secretary of State with campaign finance and voucher of Sociology at Georgetown University and an affiliated faculty member records from the Seattle Ethics and Elections Commission. Catalist at Georgetown’s McCourt School of Public Policy. He is currently a provided the demographic data on registered voters. Geographic Visiting Scholar in the Department of Sociology and the Evans School information came from the 2016 American Community Survey. of Policy and Governance at the University of Washington. Media inquiries or requests for additional information should be made via email to both authors.

Center for Studies in Demography and Ecology • csde.washington.edu • 206.616.7743 • [email protected] Democracy Vouchers Broadened Seattle's 2017 Donor Base The results are in from the country's first ever election publicly funded by vouchers--the 2017 Seattle municipal elections. Heerwig and McCabe find that the city's Democracy Voucher program has helped bring more donors who are not wealthy into the campaign finance system, but more work remains to achieve a fair and representative system.

The results are in from the country's first ever election publicly funded by vouchers--the 2017 Seattle municipal elections. Heerwig and McCabe find that the city's Democracy Voucher program has helped bring more donors who are not wealthy into the campaign finance system, but more work remains to achieve a fair and representative system.

Last November, Seattle conducted its first elections using the cityʼs new public financing program. We are now able to analyze how well the program worked.

The Democracy Voucher program, enacted by citizens as part of the “Honest Elections Seattle Initiative,” provided four, $25 vouchers to every registered voter in Seattle that voters could, in turn, assign to the candidate(s) of their choice. Only qualified candidates for City Council and City Attorney were eligible to receive vouchers in 2017; however, moving forward, all candidates for citywide office will be eligible to participate in the voucher program.

Advocates for the Democracy Voucher program expected the initiative to increase the number of Seattle residents participating in the campaign finance system and to diversify the donor pool by creating opportunities for under-represented communities to fund local elections. In previous campaigns, cash contributions overwhelmingly came from high-dollar donors in donor-rich neighborhoods.

Seattleʼs program is the nationʼs first attempt to use publicly-funded vouchers to finance municipal elections. Officials from cities around the country are watching to see how effective the program will be in creating more equitable, fair elections.

Our analysis of available data offers four key takeaways. For more details, read our policy brief.

. The Democracy Voucher program dramatically increased the number of Seattle residents participating in the campaign finance system.

In 2013 — the last election in which a mayoral and City Council races were contested — 8,234 Seattle residents made a cash contribution to a local candidate. In 2017, the number of cash contributors rose to 10,297.

However, 20,727 residents used their Democracy Vouchers — more than double the number of residents that contributed cash to a local campaign and four times the number that contributed cash in the 2017 City Council or City Attorney elections.

Although the number of voucher users only represents about 4 percent of eligible users, this is a very substantial increase over the number of cash donors in this and past local elections.

. Participation rates were substantially higher among white, middle- and high-income households, and older Seattle residents — a pattern that mirrors voter participation rates.

Among residents with an income over $75,000 a year, more than 5 percent used the vouchers to make a campaign contribution. However, among those with an income below $30,000 a year, the participation rate was only 2 percent.

Likewise, older residents were three times as likely to redeem their vouchers as younger residents. White Seattle residents were almost twice as likely as black residents to redeem their vouchers.

. Although redemption rates differed systematically across social groups, voucher users are significantly more economically diverse than cash contributors in the 2017 election.

Compared to cash contributors in the 2017 election, a larger share of voucher users came from the poorest neighborhoods in Seattle and a smaller share came from the wealthiest ones. In fact, only 22 percent of voucher users came from the wealthiest quintile of neighborhoods, but nearly 30 percent of cash contributors came from those communities.

Likewise, wealthy Seattle residents make up a smaller share of voucher program participants. Individuals with a household income above $100,000 comprise nearly one-quarter of cash donors, but they represent only 16 percent of voucher users.

. The Democracy Voucher program helped to move the campaign finance system in a more representative direction, but there is more work left to be done.

Although the pool of voucher users is more diverse than the pool of cash donors, it is still not fully representative of the electorate. For example, residents with an income below $30,000 make up 8 percent of registered voters, but only 4 percent of voucher users. Seventy-eight percent of registered voters are white, but 86 percent of voucher users are white.

Although Seattleʼs new public financing program shifted the donor pool in an egalitarian direction, there is more work to do to achieve a fair, representative system of campaign finance.

Jennifer Heerwig is assistant professor of Sociology at SUNY-Stony Brook and an affiliated faculty member at the Department of Political Science. She is currently a visiting scholar at the Russell Sage Foundation. Brian J. McCabe is associate professor of Sociology at Georgetown University and the author of No Place Like Home.

Purchasing Power: The Conversation

This post is part of the special series designed to provide well-informed commentary, fresh questions, and new answers about the facts of money in politics. Dive in to 'Purchasing Power: The Conversation' here.

The views expressed by blog contributors are the authorsʼ own and not necessarily the views of the Brennan Center. Hi, My name is Daniella Liebling. I gave this testimony at the first hearing in Queens on April 30, 2019.

I am here tonight as a New Yorker and a member of the Green Party to call for RCV to be instituted in all NYC elections. Not only for primaries and special elections, but most importantly for the General Elections.

The Green Party has been fighting for RCV for many years. We know all too well how broken and corrupt our electoral and political systems have become because time and time again, we have been the victims of an undemocratic system that routinely and intentionally keeps our voices out of debates and off of the media airwaves, while at the same time it allows wealthy and powerful doners and corporations to engaged in the legal bribery of our elected officials.

Polls show that more and more Americans strongly disapprove of our current electoral system and of the job our elected officials are doing. At the same time, voters agree with many of the issues that the Green Party has been fighting for. I can't list them here due to time, but for those who may not know, The Green Party is the party that first pioneered, wrote, and campaigned on the Green New Deal way back in 2010 when our candidate Howie Hawkins ran for Governor here in NY. We are also the only party the NEVER takes any corporate donations what so ever.

When I am campaigning out in the streets for my candidates, I often encounter voters who LOVE all the issues we stand for, but they say that they can't or won't vote for our candidates because they are worried about "splitting" the vote. So, voters want to support our candidates but because of our corrupt winner-take-all undemocratic system, they can't vote their conscience. That is not democracy!

I understand that some groups present tonight feel that it is too confusing or difficult for RCV to be implemented in the General Elections due to our current fusion system. We could not disagree more with that view. In order to truly level the playing field and make a major impact on our democracy, RCV must also be used in GENERAL ELECTIONS. If we limit the use of RCV to primaries and special elections, we will only be improving elections for Democrats and Republicans who already have all the power, money, and influence. Lets use use all the potential power that RCV has to actually cure our diseased electoral and political systems.

There are clear option for how candidates can be listed on the ballot in a General Election that is not confusing. For example, in the 1930s NYC actually HAD a Proportional Form of RCV. Each candidate was listed only once with their party endorsements under their name. Easy!

Another option for voters who are used to voting by party affiliation is that each party would be listed with their endorsed candidates and allow the voter to rank their choice. A voter selects candidate Y on party line A as their first choice, candidate X on party line B as their next choice, candidate Y on party line C as their third choice, and so on. Voters are already used to voting by party line when candidates appear on multiple lines.

If voter confusion is the concern, there is a much bigger problem with having voters change from RCV in a primary to a plurality vote in the General Election. In addition, changing soft wear modalities between a Primary and a General Election opens the BOE up to potential voting machine fiascos.

We thank the Commissioners who put this issue on the agenda and we thank all the groups who have been advocating for RCV. Please now do what must be done to make a seismic shift in our democracy, so that we can stop climate change and ensure a future for our children.

In Peace and Hope,

Daniella Liebling Brooklyn, NY

My name is David Marangio and I am writing in support of a Ranked Choice Voting measure to be put on the 2019 General Election Ballot to be implemented in 2021.

I used ranked choice voting for the first time 10 years ago, when it was introduced to a nonprofit organization I was a part of. However, I learned of the benefits of its implementation in municipal and state elections after viewing the expert testimony given to this panel in February. I also learned of its limitations and the concerns that have been raised about its merits.

Like the majority of people who have testified, both the experts on that evening and the general public in preceding borough-wide meetings, I think that this method of voting offers benefits over our current methodology that makes it worth enacting for the 2021 elections. I will touch on the likely effect it will have on how candidates will respond to the new “rules of the game”.I will also raise concerns about effective implementation in order to avoid observed consequences in other locales where RCV has been in place for some time. I conclude that while not a silver bullet, RCV offers compelling benefits to NYC’s voters that make it worth their consideration on the November ballot.

Plurality Voting is a Proven Loser

Plurality/First Past the Post (FPTP) voting and runoffs are expensive and result in winners who are not necessarily the preference of the majority of voters. Only this year a recall election to replace a scandal ridden mayor in Fall River, Massachusetts1 provided a irrefutable example of the limitations of First Past the Post, plurality voting:

We can do better. How we do it will make all the difference.

The key will be in implementation and ongoing stewardship of RCV, based on my reading on the issue and that is mostly what I will address along with the impact it could have on candidates.

I was asked by someone at the Brooklyn Borough hearing if RCV would impact candidates differently based on gender, race, ethnicity etc. I could not answer her on the spot but I promised I would include any relevant info in this document. The paper titled, “Does More Choice Lead to Reduced Racially Polarized Voting? Assessing the Impact of Ranked-Choice Voting in Mayoral Elections”2 is worthy of your time as it concludes that execution of RCV is critical:

“Rather than helping to smooth the path towards effective urban coalition politics, the results of this study raise the question of whether RCV may, in fact, add an additional barrier to the process of building and maintaining multiracial coalitions. The opportunities and barriers to building and maintaining multiracial coalitions are still present, and at best they are left unaffected by RCV. It will be up to political leaders, elites, and candidate campaigns to leverage the positive aspects of RCV, especially the incentives to build broad-based electoral coalitions in order to advance the possibilities for multiracial democracy.”

Representation2020 offers a relevant study as well. 3

1 Rios, S., 2019. Majority Of Fall River Voters Opt For Recall, But Mayor Still Wins Election [WWW Document]. WBUR Radio. URL https://www.wbur.org/news/2019/03/13/fall-river-mayor-wins-recall-election (accessed 5.24.2019). 2 McDaniel, J., 2018. Does More Choice Lead To Reduced Racially Polarized Voting? Assessing The Impact Of Ranked-Choice Voting In Mayoral Elections [WWW Document]. California Journal of Politics and Policy eScholarship. URL https://doi.org/10.5070/P2cjpp10241252 (accessed 5.27.2019). 3 The Impact of Ranked Choice Voting on Representation [WWW Document]. Representation2020. URL https://d3n8a8pro7vhmx.cloudfront.net/fairvote/pages/4541/attachments/original/1476462696/RCV-Representation-BayArea.pdf?14764 62696 (accessed 5.28.2019). Implement RCV now

In 2021, as you are all aware, we are looking at an unprecedented percentage of open seat races. In combination with the changes in campaign finance requirements for matching funds, this means many, likely most, of these seats should see primaries with three or more candidates. In citywide races that have a currently have a 40% threshold, RCV with a 50%+1 threshold would avoid a costly runoff. It would also facilitate the inclusion of all who cast a ballot by election day.

Also, with early voting in effect, do we really want to have runoffs anymore?

For me the biggest improvement will be not in the voter experience at the polling site but rather how candidate behavior will be incentivized to change in a way that I think is for the better.

With RCV in place we would see candidates reach out to voting blocs that would likely not have been part of their universe in a First Past the Post contest. This means the electorate that are part of the solid base of each candidates turnout model will now hear from other candidates who might put them in the persuasion bucket for their second choice selection. And the candidates will be more informed of that blocs’ issues.

I would anticipate that in the aggregate there will be a substantial increase in candidate engagement with voters based on news accounts of candidate’s campaigning tactics in RCV elections elsewhere in the country. The more engagement the eventual winning candidate has with totality of the constituency s/he will serve, the more responsive the elected official can be from day one.

Implement RCV widely

RCV should be implemented in all primaries and special elections held within the city. As soon as it is feasible and supported sufficiently across all parties, implement it for the general election as well. The more often voters see it, are educated about it through NYC’s and the candidates’ efforts, the more quickly they will be accustomed to it and use it. Others have testified on this, I can only add that almost any ballot will have a mix of RCV and FPTP races because there could be DA races or judicial contests that would not fall under the RCV legislation.

Voters are currently asked to vote 3 different ways - select one candidate out of many (most offices), select multiple candidates out of a field (judges) , and to vote yes or no on ballot measures. And the tabulation after the votes or algorithm applied is not something voters are confounded by or overly concerned with, well except for a few of us.Only in citywide races is a runoff held. Ever overhear a conversation at your local watering hole about how NYS selects its delegates for the electoral college?

The format of the question doesn’t seem to stymie voting, but lack of information about the consequences of the choice. That lack of info can be about the role of the office, about absolutely any info about the candidates, about sufficient info to distinguish among choices. The more widely RCV is initially implemented, the more likely every voter will have been given info from all interested parties (candidates/BOE/etc.) and the more likely RCV will be adopted in stride.

Implement RCV wisely

The ballot must be redesigned in order to accomodate RCV, and this is an excellent opportunity to use design smartly to make the ballot much more voter friendly. I have included a couple of resources that I was impressed with at the end of this doc. These may supplement the resources that FairVote has gathered. Its overdue; our current ballots are a disaster - we need to ensure the Governor signs the Voter Friendly Ballot Act that removes some, but not all, of the absurd requirements on the design and ensure that BoE employs a designer who specializes in user experience to lead the way to a better ballot.

Implement it equitably

While those who you have heard from regarding this issue have not spoken with one voice on all the details on implementing RCV, I would say that we share the attribute of being super engaged and comfortable with, if not downright giddy about, being able to rank candidates.

Most voters are not like me. Nor are most voters like you or the voting rights advocates, party chairpersons, and others you have heard from in this process.

But even considering someone who was weaned on electoral politics, former California Governor Jerry Brown found "this ranked-choice system very complexifying." If it’s more confusing, is it really more democratic?

Asking voters to rank up to five candidates is putting a cognitive load on the electorate that many will likely reject. Even the percentage of those ranking three candidates in McDaniel’s earlier 2015 study is not optimal, nor is it evenly dispersed “...consistently, precincts where more African-Americans reside are more likely to collect overvoted, voided ballots. And this often occurs where more Latino, elderly, foreign-born, and less wealthy folks live.”

Equitable implementation will do outreach using an array of methods, channels, and in all relevant languages. Use digital media. Use ethnic media. Use local media. Use outdoor display. Event based. Experiential. The full gamut.

Of some help in this could be the Mayor’s Executive Order 47 requiring City agencies to spend a significant portion of their advertising budgets in online and print media that reaches communities, such as ethnic and other minority communities, specific neighborhoods and boroughs, and residents who read in languages other than English.

The Mayor’s Director of Community and Ethnic Media has developed and will maintain a list of community and ethnic media outlets from which city agencies will select outlets for advertising. The list can be found at https://www1.nyc.gov/site/mome/industries/community-media.page.

Implement it competently

This cannot be solely executed by the BoE, which is hobbled on so many issues by bureaucratic self-interest, institutional torpor, and limited capacity.. Furthermore, it seems that the purpose of the testimony given to the commision and to the Council’s Gov Ops Committee in a recent meeting was to sow uncertainty and doubt about the possible execution issues of RCV, rather than provide guidance on how to adopt legislation that would accommodate the tabulation methodology that RCV would necessitate. It concerns me that there is no ally to be had on this at that agency.

Therefore, the enacting legislation should set up an entity that will oversee RCV’s rollout and early days. It should implement RCV for all municipal offices for the primary and special elections, with the rollout to the general election to follow as soon as related issues (most notably fusion parties/ballot requirements) have been resolved.

The entity tasked with the successful adoption of RCV make use of recent and emerging studies especially that make use of “difference in differences” methodology - to address:

● Whether 3 or 5 choices is most likely to produce desirable outcome ● Ballot design ● Conducts outreach in all languages that meet an equitable, manageable threshold

Thanks to all of you serving on the commission for your hard work on this and all matters under consideration. And thank you to the hard working staff that you have as well. Should you have any reason to contact me further, or simply for the record, My info is:

David Marangio 128 Marine Ave Brooklyn NY 11209 [email protected]

Additional Resources

Voting Methods and their Relative Strengths and Weaknesses

Dennis, G., 2018. How Is RCV Better Than Approval, Score Or Condorcet Voting Methods? - FairVote [WWW Document]. FairVote. URL

https://www.fairvote.org/how_is_rcv_better_than_approval_score_or_condorcet_voting_methods (accessed 5.24.2019).

Fortin, J., 2019. Mayor Of Fall River Is Ousted And Re-elected At The Same Time [WWW Document]. The New York Times. URL

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/13/us/jasiel-correia-mayor-fall-river.html (accessed 5.24.2019).

Jablonowski, M., 2018. Why The Campaign Industry Should Embrace Ranked-Choice Voting [WWW Document]. Campaigns & Elections. URL

https://www.campaignsandelections.com/campaign-insider/why-the-campaign-industry-should-embrace-ranked-choice-voting

(accessed 5.24.2019).

Neely, F., & McDaniel, J. (2015). Overvoting and the Equality of Voice under Instant-Runoff Voting in San Francisco. California Journal of

Politics and Policy, 7(4). http://dx.doi.org/10.5070/P2cjpp7428929 Retrieved from https://escholarship.org/uc/item/8tm3s6hz

Rice, L., n.d. Why Don’t We Vote In Runoff Elections? [WWW Document]. KUT Austin Radio. URL

https://www.kut.org/post/why-don-t-we-vote-runoff-elections (accessed 5.24.2019).

Ballot Design

Quesenbery, W., Chisnell, D., 2011. Voting In New York City: Why Is Ballot Design So Hard To Get Right? User Experience Magazine [WWW

Document]. User Experience . URL http://uxpamagazine.org/voting_in_nyc/ (accessed 5.24.2019).

Reynolds, A., Reilly, B., Ellis, A., 2005. Electoral System Design: The New International IDEA Handbook | International IDEA [WWW

Document]. The International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance. URL

https://www.idea.int/publications/catalogue/electoral-system-design-new-international-idea-handbook (accessed 5.24.2019).

The Politics of Voting

Watson, T., 2019. Fusion Voting Supporters Should Study Its History [WWW Document]. CSNY. URL

https://www.cityandstateny.com/articles/opinion/commentary/fusion-voting-history.html (accessed 5.24.2019).

Woodard, C., 2018. How Ranked-choice Voting Effort Became A Partisan Flash Point [WWW Document]. Press Herald. URL

https://www.pressherald.com/2018/04/08/how-ranked-choice-voting-effort-became-a-partisan-flash-point/ (accessed 5.24.2019).

May 24, 2019

By electronic submission to [email protected] 2019 New York City Charter Revision Commission 250 Broadway New York, NY 10007

Re: Comments on the Preliminary Staff Report—Ranked Choice Voting Dear Commission Chair Benjamin and Commissioners Albanese, Barrios-Paoli, Camilo, Caras, Cordero, Sr., Fiala, Gavin, Greene, Hirsh, Miller, Nori, Tisch, Vacca, and Weisbrod, and members of the Commission staff:

The Commission is uniquely empowered to review the city’s charter, identify areas for improvement, solicit feedback, engage with the public, study proposed changes, and recommend reforms to the voters directly. The scope of the Commission’s work is impressive, and we thank the commissioners and the staff for their diligence, thoughtfulness, and commitment to bold, reasoned action. Nowhere is this action more necessary than addressing the city’s outdated electoral systems. By adopting RCV, the Commission can address key deficiencies in the city’s elections and voting systems, increase representation, and build a more effective city government.

The Commission has been impaneled at the perfect time. With open races for mayor, comptroller, every borough presidency, and 70 percent of city council seats, the 2021 municipal elections will substantially change the composition of the city’s government. The promise of such a seachange brings with it the obligation to study and address known problems with the city’s election structures, and to pass and implement necessary reforms. By placing RCV on the November 2019 ballot, the Commission will provide a substantial runway to adopt best practices for implementation and ensure that the 2021 elections are more efficient and inclusive.

New York City’s bifurcated electoral system — which uses top-two runoffs for citywide primaries in which no candidate garners 40 percent, and plurality winners in all other cases— has led to low

turnout elections, unrepresentative outcomes, and has forced candidates and voters alike to prioritize strategic thinking over critical thinking about what issues and policies would benefit their communities. And while the city’s divergent mechanisms for deciding elections produce differing problems, RCV has the power to address both. Beyond simplicity and uniformity, applying RCV to all elections would efficiently increase voter choice and representation.

In these comments, we intend to delve in more detail into those problems and their causes, and evidence why RCV represents the most impactful improvement the Commission could recommend to voters on the November 2019 ballot.

The Problem: Runoffs By asking voters to return to the polls three weeks after the primary citywide runoffs are naturally inclined toward significantly lower turnout. The record is striking. As the preliminary staff report notes, the drop-off between the 2009 Democratic primaries and runoffs for comptroller and public advocate was 35 percent and 36 percent, respectively.1 In 2013, the gap in the public advocate race was 61 percent, meaning only 7 percent of eligible voters turned out.2 And while that figure may not be surprising, it should be catalyzing. Representative government can only flourish with robust, sustained civic participation.

In addition to low turnout, the costs associated with holding those runoffs are not insignificant. According to the staff report, the 2013 Democratic primary runoff cost more than $11 million, including election administration and public matching fund disbursement costs, and with inflation is nearly four times the annual budget of the office. Put even more contextually, the cost-per-voter in that contest reached more than $51.3

While those numbers are striking, what should be more galling about these elections is their utter inefficiency. By allowing voters to rank candidates in order of preference, RCV eliminates the need for a runoff election by functionally folding it into a single round of balloting. If no candidate garners a majority when first-choices are counted, the candidate with the fewest first-choices is eliminated, and voters who selected that candidate first have their vote instantly go to their second choice. There’s no need for the electorate to take more time off, find childcare, travel to their polling place, and fill out a second ballot—that process is folded into their single trip to the polls.4

1 2019 NYC Charter Revision Commission, Preliminary Staff Report (April 2019), pg. 8 [citing New York City Board of Elections data] 2 Common Cause New York, The Case for Ranked Choice Voting in City (November 2018), pg. 4 3 Id. at 5. 4 For this reason, we do not see the value in implementing a hybrid RCV/runoff system, especially if, as urged below, voters are allowed to rank at least five candidates in all city elections.

The Problem: Plurality While the city’s other elections eschew runoffs, they frequently deal with another issue: plurality elections often produce winners who do not have the support of most voters. New York City has never had a shortage of concerned citizens stepping forward to run for office. This richness of choice should empower voters and candidates alike to have a robust conversation about the needs of communities and policy solutions to address them. Instead, the city’s plurality elections creates an environment where voters are forced to think strategically and candidates are incentivized to focus on mobilizing a narrow base rather than unifying communities.

Research conducted by Common Cause New York is instructive.5 Since 2009, 66 percent of city primary elections have featured three or more candidates but in nearly 64 percent of those contests, candidates advanced with less than 50 percent of the vote. Put plainly, in roughly 42 percent of all primaries during that period, the winning candidate was one for whom most did not vote. In many cases, those candidates did not even come close to winning a majority. In just under 30 percent of primaries with three or more candidates during that span, the winner advanced with less than 40 percent of the vote. In nearly 8 percent of those races, the winner emerged with less than 30 percent.

While it’s easy to relegate such a record to the past, without the addition of RCV the city should brace for similar results going forward. As mentioned previously, the number of key open seats in 2021 will likely drive substantial candidate interest. A timely example is the recent special election for public advocate which attracted a field of 17 candidates. Jumaane Williams won the race with 33 percent. It is telling that even after winning the special election the Public Advocate has tenaciously advocated for ranked choice voting before the commission, and elsewhere. This is in part because candidates winning with broader support is good for voters and officeholders alike. Majority support reinforces accountability in governance. Under ranked choice voting, officials know they have to win the support of a broader constituency. Much of the reform’s potency comes from the way it reorients these incentives for candidates and officeholders toward the people themselves. RCV is, at its heart, a voter-focused reform, and the host of benefits it provides hinge largely on building more efficient, representative elections.

The Solution: Better Representation RCV offers better representation to voters in the process—where voters have more opportunity to express their true preferences without fear of accidentally helping candidates who they don’t support—and better representation in the outcomes—since successful candidates have to go beyond their base and build broader coalitions to govern. RCV also allows for more voices in our elections,

5 Common Cause New York, The Case for Ranked Choice Voting in City (November 2018), pg. 1

as candidates no longer have to fear the “spoiler effect”—when a candidate that is ideologically similar enters the race and splits the vote.

Voters in jurisdictions that have adopted RCV consistently reported high levels of comfort with and understanding of the system. In a 2014 study, 84 percent of surveyed voters in four California cities using RCV said they understood the system somewhat or very well.6 Voters in those cities also reported a sense that campaigns were more civil and less negative, and a majority agreed RCV should be used in local elections. In Maine, more than 74 percent of respondents to an exit poll conducted after the 2018 general election found ranking their choices to be very or somewhat easy, bridging a partisan divide on other issues.7

The Solution: Creating Accountability Affording voters the opportunity to rank candidates in order of preference is a relatively minor adjustment, but it’s a change that makes a difference, both philosophically and practically. The New York City Council’s report makes important points about the value of maximizing voter expression,8 and we urge the Commission to recommend allowing voters to rank at least five candidates. Ranking items by preference, inside or outside the voting context, is something we do all the time. Any voter who has completed a ballot with more than one candidate has had to weight their choices. RCV allows for more choice, and for voters to express their preferences in a more robust, efficient way.

When voters have the opportunity to better express their preferences, and candidates are incentivized to go beyond a narrow base to connect with the broader community, the officials who win elections need popular buy-in to maintain support. For officeholders, this backing becomes a clearer mandate to govern in exchange for more responsive governance.

These are benefits that accrue in each type of election. Bolstering accountability and representation is particularly important in general and special elections, when the candidates who win take office. With RCV, voters are better able to express their preferences among wide primary and special election fields, and the winner of those elections will emerge with broader support. There are a multiplicity of problems with city elections, but ranked choice voting is a bold, common-sense reform that has the power to address many of them. We strongly urge the commission to eliminate the need for low-turnout, high-cost runoff elections; ensure broader support for winning candidates; end the spoiler effect, increase voter choice, buy-in, and representation; and prepare for the 2021 elections by placing RCV on the November 2019 ballot.

6 FairVote, Socioeconomic and Demographic Perspectives on Ranked Choice Voting in the Bay Area, presenting results from a November 2014 Rutgers-Eagleton Institute of Politics poll, pgs. 5-6. 7 Exit poll cited in Bangor Daily News, “What exit polling reveals about Maine’s experience with ranked-choice voting,” November 13, 2018. 8 New York City Council, “Report to the 2019 New York City Charter Revision Commission” (January 2019), pg. 11.

Thank you for the opportunity to present these comments.

Respectfully submitted,

Grace Ramsey Director of Outreach RepresentUs

Jack Noland Policy Research Specialist RepresentUs 25-20 Broadway #2C Astoria, NY 11106

TO: New York City Charter Revision Commissioners FROM: Ranked Choice Voting Resource Center DATE: May 24, 2019 RE: Supplemental submission regarding ranked choice voting

On behalf of the Ranked Choice Voting Resource Center, thank you for the opportunity to provide additional comment as the Charter Revision Commission considers ranked choice voting (RCV) for New York City elections.

We appreciated the opportunity to appear before the Commission for the Elections Expert Panel on February 25, 2019, and to provide supplemental responses on March 15, 2019.

Our objective with this submission is to address additional points identified in the “Preliminary Staff Report April 2019” and address other administrative aspects. As with previous comments, we share this information as an educational nonprofit organization focused on developing and sharing best practices in election administration for this voting method.

Why Jurisdictions Adopt Ranked Choice Voting? Jurisdictions adopt RCV for a number of reasons. Use of the voting method may address just one of these aspects or have multiple purposes. Four key reasons are:

• Eliminate unnecessary primary and runoff elections. With RCV, a jurisdiction can get the benefit of two rounds of voting in a single, more representative, higher turnout election. In this context, RCV can save the jurisdiction significant money – the entire cost of a second election in many cases – while helping promote majority support and civil campaigning. This has been the motivation for the adoption of RCV in places like San Francisco (replacing runoffs) and Minneapolis (replacing primaries). • Avoid vote-splitting and weak plurality results. The “spoiler effect” has long been a point of contention in close political contests, where a third candidate appears to have drawn first choice votes away from one candidate in a closely contested race. RCV allows these voters’ full range of preferences to be reflected in the final outcome. Also, in races with numerous candidates, it is common for a winning candidate to receive significantly less than 50% of the vote. In such contests, the leading candidate may receive a weak plurality of the vote. • Military and overseas voters. Jurisdictions with runoff elections must administer the sending and receiving of ballots multiple times: once for the first election and then again for the second. International mail takes time, so the deployed military and overseas voters of these jurisdictions

rankedchoicevoting.org [email protected] @RCVResources

may not have time to receive, complete, and return a runoff ballot before the day of the election. This time crunch is why federal law requires 45 days between rounds of voting in federal elections. Still, many state and local runoff elections occur as little as one week after the first round, effectively disenfranchising overseas and military voters. With RCV ballots, a military and overseas voter can vote in the first round and then rank their back-up candidates. When a runoff occurs, the ranked ballot is counted for whichever candidate in the runoff the overseas voter ranked highest. To date, five states use RCV ballots to include overseas and military voters in runoff elections: Alabama, Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, and South Carolina. Illinois has created the option for local jurisdictions to use this solution as well, which has been adopted by Springfield, IL. • Increased civility in campaigns. In RCV elections, candidates may conduct a more civil campaign, encouraging them to debate the issues and appeal to a broader spectrum of voters. This generates inclusive leadership because the candidates must appeal to voters who might initially vote for someone else but may select that candidate as another ranking. A comprehensive Rutgers University poll of voters in seven cities with RCV found that voters report friendlier campaigns and that RCV had majority support in all the cities using it.

RCV Capabilities for ES&S Voting System The Ranked Choice Voting Resource Center (RCVRC) held an RCV Symposium in April 2018. ES&S presented about their capabilities at that time. Much of the information below is based upon this presentation, which can be viewed at https://youtu.be/s1ksKT3HXXE. A post-presentation Q&A document is also available at https://drive.google.com/open?id=1XVPdtTDtFRJooY_Lu1cFir6SMtdgMBHK.

We have worked with all voting system vendors to determine their voting system capabilities. While we are available to address questions or provide additional information, we would encourage the Commission to talk with representatives from ES&S about specific requirements for New York and New York City.

ES&S has supported multiple RCV elections, with the most recent being the State of Maine in November 2018. DS200s1 combined with Electionware election management software can provide an RCV ballot (see Exhibit A, page 3) and produce cast vote records from the system. These cast vote records are imported into an additional software module, Express Runoff, to tabulate results. Reports (see Exhibit B, page 3) are generated showing round by round tabulation in an Excel spreadsheet and are time stamped for transparency.

1 DS450 (high-speed tabulator), DS850 (high-speed tabulator), ExpressTouch, and ExpressVote have RCV capabilities like the DS200 when combined with Electionware election management software.

rankedchoicevoting.org [email protected] @RCVResources

Exhibit A

Exhibit B

rankedchoicevoting.org [email protected] @RCVResources

The ES&S system offers flexible ballot layouts: • Mixed ballot options – both RCV and non-RCV contests can be on the same ballot • Landscape or portrait layouts • Oval position options • Flexible grid design with the option of a grid or column design for RCV contests • 4 available ballot sizes (11”, 14”, 17”, and 19”), currently support 1 size per election

The configuration file created in this system allows the Express Runoff program to be adapted to run according to the rules of a specific jurisdiction, including batch elimination and skipped rankings.

Auditing and Additional Resources The RCVRC has developed the Universal RCV Tabulator as free, open-source software. Jurisdictions can use this tool: • to tabulate RCV results from the cast vote records of any voting system; and/or • as a cross-check or audit tool to verify the results generated by a vendor’s system.

Additional information about the Universal RCV Tabulator is available at https://www.rankedchoicevoting.org/universal_rcv_tabulator.

Usability Studies The RCVRC has also partnered with the Center for Civic Design to conduct usability studies and publish reports on best practices derived from voter input on RCV ballot design, voter education, and results presentation. Details of these studies, example RCV materials, and reports can be found at https://www.rankedchoicevoting.org/usability .

Some key findings for introducing ranked choice voting ballots and results are: • When introducing ranked choice voting, consider offering fewer rankings at first. A grid ballot with fewer columns make novice voters more confident. The general recommendation is to have between 5 to 8 rankings initially. Laws should allow flexibility in ballot layout to avoid forcing ballots with large grids when a contest has many candidates. • When introducing a new ranked choice ballot layout, focus on the changes in the layout and tips for marking the ballot accurately and efficiently. In both situations be sure to connect the mechanics of ballot marking with how the ballot will be counted, so voters can determine their own ranking strategies. • Good layout and clear instructions improve voter success in marking ballots, irrespective of the number of ranking choices.

Data and Analysis Post-election evaluations are good practice with any election. Data from recent elections in Santa Fe and Minneapolis illustrate voter understanding and proficiency in marking RCV ballots.

rankedchoicevoting.org [email protected] @RCVResources

• Santa Fe: In March 2018, Santa Fe voters used RCV for the first time to elect the city’s Mayor and in two City Council races. Exit polling determined that 84% of voters found the ballot easy to use, 62% of voters ranked all five mayoral candidates, and 94% of voters said they were satisfied with their voting experience. 70% of voters said they were very confident their vote was counted as they intended, compared with 55% in a similar November 2016 survey in New Mexico. As for actual ballot counting statistics, 96% of ballots cast counted in the final round of the Mayoral election. Just 1/3 of 1% of ballots had no cast vote in the contest with the other 3.7% of ballots running out of rankings from voters. Without RCV, Santa Fe would have held a runoff election between the top two vote getters. Based upon previous turnout numbers, turnout in that decisive election would have certainly dropped more than the 4% seen in final round of their RCV election. • Minneapolis has now used RCV in three election cycles. Looking at data from 2013 and 2017, only 1/5 of 1% of ballots had overvote errors in 2017. On a ballot that included 35 mayoral candidates in 2013, the error rate was the same. There was also a higher percentage of repeat candidate error, often because voters felt that this could help their candidate. These statistics help identify the areas where more voter education may be needed. When reviewing whether voters ranked all three choices in 2013 in the various races, we can see that the Mayor’s race, which had 35 candidates, scored the highest with 76.3% of voters ranking three candidates. In 2017, 72.5% of voters used all three ranks. In all other races with three candidates or more, the majority of the voters chose to rank more than one candidate. [Note: Voters in Minneapolis were limited to three rankings in these elections.] • Ease of Use: We have also learned through Minneapolis city government surveys of voters after each of the three RCV election cycles that an average of 92% of voters found RCV “easy to do” and strongly support the continued use of the voting method. Exit polling in Santa Fe’s first ranked choice voting election last year found that more than 84% of respondents felt that they understood RCV. There were similar findings during exit polling in Hendersonville and Cary, NC, in 2007, which indicated at least 86% of voters said their first time voting a ballot with RCV contests was “easy” to “very easy” to understand.

The RCVRC Team is ready to assist staff and the Commission in whatever way is helpful as you explore the possibilities and benefits of Ranked Choice Voting. Thank you again for the opportunity to comment. Please let us know how we may be of assistance. We are ready to serve.

Sincerely, Ranked Choice Voting Resource Center [email protected]

Gary Bartlett, Executive Director, (919) 705-3366, [email protected] Karen Brinson Bell, Deputy Director, (828) 674-9472, [email protected] Rosemary Blizzard, Communication/Education Director, (252) 521-0327, [email protected] George Gilbert, Election Administration Consultant, (336) 906-0047, [email protected] Chris Hughes, Policy Director and Attorney, (440) 773-1224, [email protected]

rankedchoicevoting.org [email protected] @RCVResources

46 Devonshire Street London W1G 7AN Email: [email protected] US Cell: (+1) 616 560 2652 UK Cell: (+ 00 4) 7703 652020 May 24 2019

New York City Charter Revision Committee

By Email

Dear Commissioners

Re: The New York City Board of Correction

I am currently a London-based independent consultant on jail and prison safety and effective oversight. I have over 18 years of inspection, investigative, and senior management experience in UK prisons. I have supervised over 200 investigations into prison suicides, homicides, drug- related, and natural cause deaths. I was the head of violence reduction for HM Prison Service (the UK agency which manages most prisons in England and Wales) and served as Secretary to two Parliamentary Committees on prison safety. In addition, I have worked in the United States as a Senior Advisor to the Prison Rape Elimination Act Resource Center (PREA) and as a Consultant to the New York City Board of Correction.

I write to urge the New York City Charter Revision to endorse its staff’s recommendation to fundamentally strengthen jail oversight by making the Board of Correction’s budget independent. This Charter revision would protect and adequately fund the oversight agency for the long-term and would create new independence, in line with international best practices. A strong and independent jail oversight agency must be a part of any vision for a new criminal justice system. In addition to its own intervention and reporting, it is via the Board of Correction that the public, policymakers, the press, and other stakeholders will receive the information and access they need to hold government accountable and prevent wrongdoing.

Based on my 18 years of experience in this field, both within the United States and in United Kingdom, I strongly believe that robust, adequately funded and sufficiently independent oversight is crucial to ensure safe and decent jail conditions. The UK has a ‘layered’ model of oversight, including six primary forms. The oldest oversight entity has been in existence since 1550. Best practices developed over the past 500 years led us to use the “healthy prison test” to measure every prison. The four ‘tests’ of a healthy prison are: safety (prisoners, even the most vulnerable, are held safely); respect (prisoners are treated with respect for their human dignity); purposeful activity (prisoners are able and expected to engage in activity that is likely to benefit them); resettlement (prisoners are prepared for their release into the community and helped to reduce the likelihood of reoffending).

As has been widely reported by the Board of Correction, popular media, federal litigation, and the accounts of people who have been incarcerated there, the New York City jails would likely score quite poorly on a healthy prison test. The City’s plan to close Rikers Island and open new borough jails offers a path forward from the current state of the jails however, in order to avoid recreating the current conditions, New York City will need strong and sustained public oversight of the new jails. For example, if and when there is a death in custody, the Board of Correction must be empowered and resourced to independently investigate, share its findings with the public, and push for improvements in jail policy or practice to learn from such tragedy and prevent future harm.

The Charter Revision Commission has an exceptional opportunity to align New York City jail oversight with international standards. I encourage you to revise the Charter to protect the Board’s budget.

I am grateful to the Commission for the opportunity to contribute to this crucial debate. Please do not hesitate to contact me by phone or email if I can be of any assistance.

Kind regards

Kate Eves

Independent Consultant Regarding City Planning;

1) Ensure lead City Agency staff review all externally produced DEIS’ for accuracy 2) Allow communities to weigh in on mitigation measures during EIS preparation, track all mitigation efforts citywide, ensure there is funding for all mitigation efforts and contract with independent organizations to monitor mitigation. 3) Track neighborhood outcomes after land use actions are approved for lessons learned. Analyze post-EIS as-of-right actions Actions that increase density, such as zoning lot mergers, transfer of development rights, and assemblages that were not evaluated in an EIS should be evaluated in a technical memorandum, which could be prepared by the Office of Community Planning. 4) Update the City Environmental Quality Review Technical Manual Guidelines to Ensure Accuracy a) Convene an expert panel to review and propose updates to metrics methodologies in the CEQR Technical Manual, subject updates to public review and comment, and update regularly. b) equire consideration of existing community-based plans in the public policy section of EIS’ and in EAS. c) Require assessment of cumulative impacts and citywide equity. d) Enforce NYC Sustainability goals. f) Add Social Resiliency as area of analysis g) Strengthen cumulative impact analyses. 5) Socioeconomic Conditions; expand indirect displacement evaluation to include all housing units, remove assumption that new housing units directly reduce potential for displacement., Evaluate how new development may accelerate ongoing trends of neighborhood change that contribute to displacement. 6) Update school capacity metrics. 7) Evaluate shadow and light impacts more broadly. 8) The CEQR Technical Manual should evaluate how proposed projects could impact the development of renewable energy systems for buildings in the study area. Use of renewable energy systems should be included an optimal sustainable development alternative analysis. 9) Revise the threshold for requiring detailed construction analysis. A detailed construction analysis should be required for all major buildings as defined by New York City Department of Buildings — buildings that will have 10 or more stories, will be 125 feet or taller, or have a footprint of 100,000 square feet or more43 — or plots of land up for review that are large enough to accommodate a major building. These criteria should apply regardless of the expected duration of the construction. 10) The EIS should be completed and evaluated prior to any ULURP being certified.

Regarding Community Boards; I would like to see elected members of Community Boards. I do not see any benefit, except for the Real Estate industry, in having appointed land use "experts" attached to each community board. What New York needs are interested people on those boards who can fathom the complicated land use process. Simplifying the land use process and insisting the EIS be completed prior to any ULURP certification would be beneficial.

Katherine O'Sullivan

New York, NY

646-584-6092 212-942-9071

Take the voter pledge not to support candidates for city office who take real estate money: http://www.humanscale.nyc/voter-pledge/

OPEN NEW YORK 2019 CHARTER REVISION COMMENTS

Last year, despite a generations-long housing crisis, New York City permitted fewer than 2.5 new homes for every 1,000 residents – a permitting rate below Baltimore or Indianapolis. Housing more New Yorkers must sit at the top of the Charter Review Commission’s agenda as it rethinks the city's land use governance. To that end, we have a few suggestions for how the city should rethink how it plans.

Comprehensive Planning New York City's parochial approach to planning is a major contributor to its chronic housing deficit. While mayors and their administrations often have a citywide perspective on urban planning that centers the crisis above overly local and privileged concerns like preserving current residents' parking, views, and general preference for low densities, the City Council can ultimately veto any and all rezoning decisions. As a result, a general attitude of narrow-sighted NIMBYism and deference to local council members reigns. As chief planner Marisa Lago hinted at a charter review hearing earlier this year, the de Blasio administration disproportionately proposes upzoning poorer neighborhoods because council members in wealthier ones refuse to accept growth in their own districts.

A mandatory comprehensive plan could be an opportunity to force council members to reckon with the citywide consequences of their local actions. A big-picture grappling with how much housing the city builds, how much it needs to build, and where it builds could be helpful in reframing the conversation around inclusive growth, particularly if it is paired with a binding requirement for “fair share” distribution of infrastructure and housing by neighborhood.

In order to be effective, though, a comprehensive plan must have real teeth and remedy the deficiencies of the current Uniform Land Use Review Procedure (ULURP) process. The comprehensive plan should be a level above the site-specific plans addressed by the Zoning Resolution and agency infrastructure plans. It should anticipate the city's housing needs based on expected job and population growth first, then allocate those needs by borough and community district based on their proximity to major job centers, current population density, and levels of demand. The revised charter should mandate that infrastructure capital plans, city-sponsored rezonings, landmarking decisions, and any other relevant agency actions be made in ways consistent with growth trajectories required to meet these needs, with provisions to accelerate approvals for projects in community districts that fall behind on their assessed needs.

A comprehensive plan should be designed in a way that avoids politicized council district-by-council district decisions made through ULURP. In his March 14 testimony before the commission, Council Member Antonio Reynoso said he did not want City Council involved in comprehensive planning, indicating that its input would only complicate the process and distract from citywide needs. If a plan cannot be adopted along these lines, it is likely more trouble than it is worth.

Finally, the comprehensive plan must not be allowed to impede the growth it is meant to facilitate. We are strongly opposed to any halting of rezonings until such a plan is completed, as it will likely take many years to draft.

ULURP The environmental impact reviews that occur as part of ULURP are overly focused on the negatives of growth, and take too narrow of an approach to the issues. Environmental review should require an affordability, gentrification, and racial impact analysis for upzonings and downzonings, reflecting research that shows that all housing units – market-rate and affordable ones – put downward pressure on rents and reduce displacement and homelessness. Strangely for an environmental review, the current process also does not note the positive ecological effects of concentrating population in walkable, transit-rich cities like New York with low carbon footprints, and reducing the demand for unsustainable sprawl outside of the city and region.

While ULURP should analyze the impacts of proposed new land use actions, any comprehensive plan should consider the aforementioned impacts of prior land use actions to make sure the city does not repeat the same mistakes it has made in the past.

In sum, we believe that the current charter review process is a good opportunity to focus planning on the city as a whole, and reevaluate it in light of the major affordability and climate crises of our time. While the current process is broken, the commission must be mindful that the problem is of too little new homes in New York, not too many. If changes to New York City's land use planning framework are made, we hope that they focus on the development of a coordinated approach to accommodate population growth without sprawl and displacement, and that procedures be changed in a way that streamlines, simplifies, and depoliticizes land use decisions and forces them to conform to a greater plan.

Signed: Lauren Catherine Thomas David Anderson M Rz Andrew Karas Rafael Solari Matthew Budman Thomas Hansen Stanislaw Ratkowski Jorge Romero Ben Wetzler Elisabeth Weaver Andrew Thompson Wilson Li Christopher Baratta Dennis Griffith Michael Kearney Caley Jack Steward Daniel B Smith Sarah E. Dunn Jacob Boysen Jackson Kernion Nathaniel Thompson Kyle Moore Nathan J. Mehl Chris Durrance Dylan Miles Stephen Foglia Chris Grenga Travis Feehan James L. May Alan Gerber Erik Nilsen Susannah Glickman Elizabeth Fitzpatrick Brendan Buckley David Moo Immanuel Gilen Vaughn Campbell Rachel Soszynski Josh Cohen Ryan Pollock Alex Shebanow John Pepen Alec Kubas-Meyer Breton Fischetti Evan Dean Max Livingston Michael Coenen Paul Caine Joshua M. Taylor Professor Michael Lewyn, Touro Law Center Samir Lavingia Christopher Hogg Daniel Crandall Tristan Siegel Bernard Gordon Shawn Convery Yefim Kelmanskiy Scott Howard Joshua Morrison Gillian A Flowers Martin Clark Paul Barrett Timothy Kelleher Laura Lyons Noah Davis James Cole Matthew Hendrickson Max Howald Eli Brockett Jacob Anbinder Christopher Goode Mike Cherepko Spencer Heckwolf Erez Mossek Casey Berkovitz Alex Kouzemtchenko Nicholas Iorio Benjamin Townsend Charles Alwakeel, AIA Matthew Santoyo Nathaniel Elkins Michael J Kaess Utku Ural Alex Rubin Douglas Hanau Thomas Smith William S. Thomas Daisuke Oh Jake Schmidt Dan Miller Benjamin Carlos Thypin Ken Ayub Stephen Jacob Smith Max N. Coyne-Green Ilya Schwartzburg Lawrence Velázquez Matthew Frank

Foxes Guard the Henhouse at Department of City Planning (DCP)

Lynn Ellsworth Chair, Human-Scale NYC Draft 3: May 20, 2019 [email protected]

Part 1 Communities Cannot Get a Fair Ruling when a Regulatory Agency is Captured by the Industry it is Supposed to Regulate. The Department of City Planning is a Case in Point

In 1976, sociologist Harvey Molotch wrote a famous essay describing an “Urban Growth Machine” made of a coalition of large property owners, developers, realtors, industry- dependent elites and politicians whose economic and political interests aligned to push for insatiable real estate development dubbed “growth.”1 Many years later, Rutgers economist Jason Barr studied high-rise development in Manhattan and described a “Skyscraper Industrial Complex” composed of real estate developers, real estate advisors and financiers, construction unions, architects, construction and engineering firms whose economic self-interests aligned to demand never-ending and unregulated high-rise construction.2 Most people would just think of this as constellation of interests as the “real estate industrial complex” and include within think-tanks (Furman, Van Allen, Center for an Urban Future), blogs (Yimby, Curbed) and newspapers (Crain’s, The Real Deal) when they are heavily dependent on real estate advertising or real estate philanthropic donations.

These forces have crystalized in New York City in the most powerful special interest lobby New York has ever known, the Real Estate Board of New York (REBNY) whose Board of Governors is dominated by spectacularly wealthy oligarchic families, some of which have become feudal dynasties with thousands of tenants paying rent to them. It is a situation not seen since the medieval period.3 REBNY’s financial and lobbying power is a matter of common knowledge among good government groups.4

1 https://www.jstor.org/stable/2777096?read- now=1&seq=21#page_scan_tab_contents 2 http://buildingtheskyline.org/ 3 https://www.bisnow.com/new-york/news/state-of-market/from-rockefeller-to- trump-a-history-lesson-about-nycs-oldest-real-estate-families-48606#0 4 https://www.politico.com/states/new-york/albany/story/2015/04/rebny- members-gave-a-tenth-of-all-ny-campaign-money-021345

1 Such unprecedented industry power is only a problem and a matter of public interest when an industry comes to control the government institutions that are supposed be regulating it on behalf of the broader public good. The Department of City Planning is a case in point. There, the Foxes clearly guard the henhouse. Communities can no longer get a fair hearing. Any critique of a rezoning or requeset to modify a development scheme coming from anyone outside the Real Estate Industrial Complex is patronizingly and arrogantly dismissed as “Nimbyism.”5 The situation is acute: hearings at the DCP have become a kind of Kangaroo Court in which Commissioners politely listen to communities, but then privately dismisses them as nuisances and later proceeds directly to vote along the lines indicated by the testimony of REBNY or its surrogates.

The fundamental problem is that a rigged game has been set up. DCP has been captured by the Real Estate Industrial Complex. To be specific, of the 13 members of the Commission who control the Department of City Planning:

- One is a real estate investor and substantial donor to the Mayor and runs a $75 million “opportunity fund” for Brooklyn (Douek) - One is a former lobbyist for the real estate industry (Cappelli) - Five are real estate developers of various types, ranging from an employee of Bluestone Group to CEOs of Development Corporations to the head of the Fifth Avenue Committee (de la Uz, Knuckles, Eaddy, Knight, and Marín) - The current Chair’s professional history is that of running the notorious corporate subsidy-granting Empire State Development Corporation (ESDC), a real estate development entity for the state. ESCD has seriously abused eminent domain to the detriment of black and low-income communities. One academic notes that the Empire State Development Corporation acts as “Robin Hood in reverse, taking from the poor to give to the rich” (Lago) - Only one has a degree in urban planning, but alas, runs a consulting firm advising city agencies and developers how to “optimize” their retail tenant mix so that it fits the owner’s “goals” (Ortiz). - At least two have serious conflicts of interest with the current rezoning project on the table at Gowanus (Bluestone and Fifth Avenue Committee). At least one had a clear conflict of interest with the East Harlem rezoning (Knuckles). - One has long been a cheerleader for the Hudson Yards project (Levin) and whose spouse is a partner at the law firm of David and Polk which advises developers such as Extell - the key player in the Hudson Yards project (as well advising many other major real estate players in NY.) - One is CEO of the real estate controlled BID, the Grand Central Partnership, whose board of directors reads like the Who’s Who of the Board of Governors of the Real Estate Board of New York and who has pushed for multiple upzonings in Midtown (Cerullo).

2 Detailed profiles of each Commissioner (with footnotes and citations) follow in the last section of this essay. But the conclusion is twofold. First, is it any wonder that these Commissioners, the majority of whom represent the real estate industrial complex, mistake upzoning, real estate profit-making and high-rise projects for actual urban planning? Second, we call on the City Charter Commission to adopt as major priority the task of correcting this situation in the Charter itself.

Part 2: How to Modify the City Charter to Minimize ‘Fox Guarding the Henhouse’ Appointments to City Agencies Dealing with Land Use

Editing the City Charter to repair the situation is a simple exercise. Here are some suggestions might just as easily apply to the Economic Development Corporation (which could use some actual economists on it) and the Landmarks Commission.

Chapter 8: Department of City Planning, Section 192 a)

A short paragraph should be inserted after the phrase “no member shall serve any other city office” such as:

No appointee to the City Planning Commission, Chair or otherwise, may have employment in or own shares in a real estate development company, a real estate investment fund, or consulting firm that advises real estate clients, nor may they hold a management position at development corporation or business improvement district, nor may they have had employment as a lobbyist for the real estate industry. No person employed at or having ownership in a firm that does regular and frequent business with the city may be appointed. Neither may appointees be people who are routinely employed as legal, financial, strategic planning, or public relations advisors to real estate industry clients. Nor may appointees be immediate family members to such persons in the abovementioned categories. A majority of those appointed must have degrees in urban planning.

Chapter 27: Board of Standards and Appeals, Section 659 b)

Insert the following phrase:

No appointee to the BSA, Chair or otherwise, may have employment as a real estate developer, real estate investor, professional lobbyist of any kind, or be senior staff of a development corporation or business improvement district. Nor may they have previous professional experience as a lobbyist for the real estate industry. No person employed at or having ownership in a firm doing regular and frequent business with the city in real estate development may be appointed. Neither may appointees be people employed as legal, financial, strategic planning, or public relations advisors to real estate industry clients. Nor may appointees be immediate family members of such persons in the

3 abovementioned categories. A majority of those appointed must have degrees in architecture or engineering.

Chapter 68: Conflicts of Interest

Insert the Following Phrase to Section 2604 A): a) no public servant shall have an interest in or be employed in a senior position in a firm, corporation, or nonprofit which such public servant knows is engaged in business dealings with the agency served by the public servant. [ Then delete the exception for community boards.]

Chapter 70: City Government in the Community

Section 2800. Insert the following phrase.

No voting member of a community board may be a paid professional lobbyist for any industry, or be members of the executive management group or founder of a union or political club, or be in an immediate family member of such individuals in the aforementioned categories.

Part 3:

Profiles of the Real Estate Industrial Complex at DCP

Mariso Lago, Chair of the DCP. One of her claims to competence for serving as Chair is her experience as CEO of the Empire State Development Corporation. Part of the stated mission of the Empire State Development Corporation (ESDC) is to support economies though “real estate development” across New York State.6 The current Chair is Howard Zemsky, a real estate developer who owns the Larkin Development Group. ESDC mostly organizes public subsidies for big developer-run projects (such as the Amazon project. It also issues public bonds to pay for them and awards contracts to developers. Current NYC “signature” and “large-scale” projects include the redevelopment of Penn Station and of the Javits Convention Center. ESDC specializes in creating interlocking boards of subsidiaries to carry out its work. It is famous for the abuse of eminent domain to impose its vision. It used those powers for the disastrous Atlantic Yards Project that demolished a swathe of Brooklyn as well as the Columbia Manhattanville Project that destroyed an immense stretch of West Harlem for Columbia University’s new glass-filled campus. One of ESDC’s subsidiaries was also responsible for building luxury housing in Brooklyn Bridge Park - even when it become clear that housing was not needed to subsidize the park. One of the ESDC’s subsidiaries still

6 See that mission statement online at: https://esd.ny.gov/about-us

4 manages a portfolio of 20,200 housing units in New York City. ESDC bonds were used to build a network of 32 adult prisons to accommodate people arrested under the Rockefeller drug laws.7 “Good Jobs First” a national good government group, accuses the ESDC of “awarding lavish subsidies with little accountability.”8 An Institute for Justice report by Dr. Dick Carpenter found that ESDC’s “eminent domain abuse disproportionately targets those who are less well off and less educated” and acts as “Robin Hood in reverse, taking from the poor to give to the rich.”9 The Brooklyn Bridge Park redevelopment was particularly ridden with conflicts of interests and scandal during Ms. Lago’s tenure at the Empire State Development Corporation10. The architect of one of the governor’s biggest deals at the ESDC was found guilty of bid rigging.11 E.J. McMahon, Director of the watchdog group ‘Empire Center’ has fretted over misplaced priorities at the ESDC with the comment: “What roads could you build, what bridges could you build with the money you are spending on factories [then handed over] for private corporations?” Gotham Gazette describes ECDC-supported entities as “scandal- plagued.”12 Ms. Lago has publicly supported a high-rise, glassy, Dubai-on-the-Hudson vision for New York City in a video interview with the real estate press , calling it a ‘win- win-win’13. She mentions that the only real strategy DCP has it to define areas to “take more density” and in the same interview she expresses to be one with REBNY’s desire to do away with the State FAR cap on height and bulk. She has no training in urban planning.

Kenneth Knuckles, Vice Chair of the Commission. He has been on the Commission since 2002 and has no training in urban planning. He was the longtime CEO of the Upper Manhattan Empowerment Zone Development Corporation (known as UMEZ) and only retired from there at the age of 70 in April of 2018. UMEX is a real estate development organization that does a few other small business support activities under the heading of “economic development.” Substantial funding for UMEZ comes from New York City, meaning UMEZ has an internal incentive not to bite the City hand that feeds it. Under Mr. Knuckles, UMEZ provided $87 million in loans to real estate development projects and was the key player setting up the controversial East River Plaza that benefited big developers (specifically, Ratner, Blumenfeld, and Canyon Capital Advisors). That plaza is a vertical mall for big box stores and features a bizarre $64

7 King, Ryan S.; Mauer, Marc; Huling, Tracy (February 2003). "Big Prisons, Small Towns: Prison Economics in Rural America" (PDF). The Sentencing Project. Archived from the original (pdf) on 2010- 07-10. 8 See this page at their website: https://www.goodjobsfirst.org/states/new-york 9 https://ij.org/report/empire-state-eminent-domain/ 10 https://ny.curbed.com/2016/6/3/11836206/brooklyn-bridge-park-pier-6- financial-dispute 11 https://www.wshu.org/post/critics-say-problems-cuomos-economic- development-programs-go-beyond-corruption#stream/0 12 http://www.gothamgazette.com/state/7732-state-backed-scandal-plagued- entities-seek-new-chapter 13 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w22JBLwXY3Q

5 million parking lot14 that as of 2012 was nearly empty, with less than 5% used of the spaces actually in use15. A senior accountant who worked at UMEZ wrote about his experience there on Glassdoor, saying “the only successes I saw while I was there were in funding large corporations to develop areas in Harlem.”16 Mr. Knuckles is quoted in Crain’s thus: “I would like to say we created the environment that was conducive to stores like Whole Foods [now owned by Amazon] coming to Harlem.”17 The role of Whole Foods in the “whitification” of Harlem was called out in 2016 in Michael Henry Adam’s moving opinion column in the Times, “The End of Black Harlem”18 in which Adams wrote: “Whole Foods might as well be Fortnum and Mason…To us our Harlem is being remade, upgraded, and transformed, just for them, for wealthier white people.”

Joseph Douek, Commissioner. He is Chair and CEO of an investment and hedge fund called Viceroy Equities which is “betting big on Brooklyn with a $75 million Opportunity Zone fund”. Recall that opportunity zone investors will pay zero capital gains taxes if their real estate investments are held for ten years. Opportunity zones are pure subsidies to real estate investors.19 He has no training in urban planning. Opportunity zones in Brooklyn overlap with proposed upzonings.

Alfred Cerullo, Commissioner. Mr. Cerullo is the President and CEO of the Grand Central Partnership, a big real estate Business Improvement District (BID). That BID was a key force in driving the recent upzoning for the Vanderbilt Corridor and Midtown East, as both upzonings directly benefited board members of the Partnership such as SL Green. Of course, the Board of Directors of the Grand Central Partnership also reads like a Who’s Who of the Real Estate Board of New York, with REBNY’s CEO John Banks literally serving as the official secretary of the BID. Mr. Cerullo is a Republican and former actor with a law degree, but no training in urban planning.

Richard Eaddy, Commissioner. Mr. Eaddy’s work prior to government service was with ET Partners, a real estate development and consulting firm. He had previously been Chief Financial Officer of the real estate company “L & M Equity Participants” the precursor of L& M Development partners, a firm which brags on its website that it has “over $7 billion in development, construction, and investment.” He was also development manager at the real estate company Olympia and York. His master’s degree

14 https://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/21/realestate/commercial/21plaza.html 15 https://nyc.streetsblog.org/2012/04/20/east-river-plaza-parking-still-really- really-empty-new-research-shows/ 16 https://www.indeed.com/cmp/Upper-Manhattan-Empowerment-Zone/reviews 17 https://www.crainsnewyork.com/article/20180420/REAL_ESTATE/180429985/k enneth-knuckles-stepping-down-as-head-of-upper-manhattan-empowerment-zone

18 https://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/29/opinion/sunday/the-end-of-black- harlem.html 19 https://therealdeal.com/2018/10/30/this-firm-is-launching-a-75m-opportunity- zone-fund-focused-on-brooklyn/

6 is in real estate development. He has no training in urban planning. It is safe to consider Mr. Eaddy to be a member of the real estate development community.

Allen Cappelli, Commissioner. A lawyer without training in urban planning who appears to be a professional board member, although according to the New York Times he was once a lobbyist for the real estate industry.20 He is a former member of the board of the MTA where he served for 8 years overlapping with John Banks, current president of the Real Estate Board of New York (Cappelli was appointed to the MTA in 2008, while Banks was already on it while Banks continued to be on the MTA with Cappelli until 2015). As a resident of Staten Island, Cappelli “was the only [MTA] member of the board to vote against increasing tolls and fares.”21 Note that the New York Times has called the MTA “one of the most unwieldy bureaucracies in the state” with an infamous amount of “bloat.”22 After leaving the MTA, De Blasio put him on the Civil Service Commission for three days a week of work at $412 a day.

Hope Knight, Commissioner is President and CEO of a private entity known as the “Greater Jamaica Development Corporation” whose mission is to “plan, promote, coordinate and advance responsible development” and is specifically responsible for glassy towers in the Jamaica neighborhood known as “The Crossing” and the “Hilton Garden Inn” and is now actively promoting to builders property lots containing 99,000 and 84,000 square feet respectively. The Chair of the Board of the corporation is Peter Kulka, CEO of KJL Management Corporation, a real estate property management company in Queens.”23 The Corporation’s job of cheerleading new development includes the breathless phrase on their website “Jamaica makes new development happen! $3.7 billion worth!”24 Ms. Knight’s prior work had been on the Upper Manhattan Empowerment Zones” from 2003-2015, (an entity described under the paragraph for Commissioner Knuckles.) Ms. Knight does not have a degree in urban planning but instead an MBA from University of Chicago and considerable prior experience in banking with Morgan Stanley.

Anna Hayes Levin, Commissioner. Her degree is in law, not urban planning. She served for many of the Empire State Development Corporations subsidiaries such as those for the redevelopment of Hudson Yards and the Javits Center. For example, she was “alternative director” of the Hudson Yards Development Corporation. She had been chair of the Land Use Committee of CB4 during the tumultuous and controversial approvals for the Hudson Yards project between 2001 and 2009. At the time, she was also on the Javits Community Advisory Committee and on the Penn Station Community Advisory Committee, all ESDC projects. Ms. Levin is married to a senior counsel and long-time partner at the law firm of Davis Polk, a firm which claims (in their words) to be

20 https://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/20/nyregion/20mta.html 21 https://www.silive.com/news/2015/06/transit_advocates_disappointed.html 22 https://www.wnyc.org/story/mta-board/ 23 https://start.cortera.com/company/research/k7n7jxn2r/kjl-property- management-corp/ 24

7 ‘’at the center of the real estate marketplace.” Their clients include major real estate players in NYC including SL Green, Slate, Naftali, Related, RXR, and Extell. 25 Their website specifically states that the firm advised Related on the Hudson Yards deal.

Orlando Marín, Commissioner. He is currently employed by the Bluestone Organization, which is “a private developer” and which describes itself on its website as “a real estate development company.” Bluestone’s website says it is developing projects with the ‘Fifth Avenue Committee” (a real estate development corporation whose Chair is also on the Commission). Mr. Marin also once worked at the Empire State Development Corporation. He has a BA in architecture and a diploma in ‘Real Estate’ as well as a Master’s in public administration. He lives in the Longwood area of the Bronx, an area that Crain’s describes as a place where investors “clamor to rezone.” Bluestone’s website describes its investments in areas where upzonings have been or are now on the agenda, including Bushwick, Jamaica, Gowanus, Crown Heights and Rockaway. Some of these are in partnership with developers such as the Fifth Avenue Committee, Hudson Properties, and Jonathan Rose.

Larisa Ortiz, Commissioner. Ms. Ortiz does have a degree in urban planning, but her principal job is working as a consultant (Larisa Ortiz Associates) to real estate developers and government agencies. She specializes in how to optimize their retail rents. Many of her clients are either large shopping center developers and New York City agencies and BIDs. She markets herself as (from her website) a “commercial district advisor.” Her firm’s mission includes to “develop market-based strategies for the redevelopment of urban places.” One of her clients is the New York City Economic Development Corporation where she advised them on the miserable “Fulton-Nassau Crossroads” program for retail in Lower Manhattan and the similarly controversial retail destruction of the Essex Street Market.

Michelle de la Uz is a Commissioner and Executive Director of the “Fifth Avenue Committee” which is unequivocally a real estate development firm, notwithstanding its status as a “community development corporation.” It’s website claims real estate assets of over $100 million and has buildings in the works that will cost more than $400 million. The committee does specialize in “affordable” housing, a term whose definition is obviously contested throughout the city and Uz does have a record of voting against rezonings that she thinks do not have deep enough levels of affordability, but she does not question the high rise or skyscraper character of De Blasio’s policies. She does not have a degree in urban planning. The Fifth Avenue Committee was instrumental in the demolition of the Brooklyn Public Library in Sunset Park. They received a no-bid contract to take on that particular development project. The village of Sunset Park hotly contested the arrangement, pointing out that the Fifth Avenue Committee had given heavily to De Blasio’s non-profit “Campaign For One New York.”26 Her organization in

25 https://www.davispolk.com/practices/corporate/real-estate 26 https://patch.com/new-york/sunset-park/sunset-park-library-redevelopment- opponents-cry-backroom-deal

8 2017 got $2.945 million in revenue from “government grants” and spends over $5 million for salaries, nearly all of its total revenue. Part of its revenue comes from $385,000 in rents from the buildings it owns. The Fifth Avenue Committee founded the “Gowanus Neighborhood Coalition for Justice” to advocate for certain groups during the planning for the Gowanus upzoning, a group that has pushed in favor of the rezoning.27 De la Uz wrote an op-ed in the Daily News in 2018 advocating for a spot rezoning for the community-contested project at 80 Flatbush Street in Brooklyn that favored a single developer, saying ‘we need to build bigger’ and says resistance to developers is just “a regressive reality that must change”28 echoing the unproven fantasy REBNY p.r. line that not building skyscrapers might “impact job growth.” She then fantasizes in the op-ed that the 80 Flatbush project was going to happen “without public subsidies” which indicates a weak grasp of reality. Last, her organization partnered with another developer, Hudson Properties, to advocate for building a child care center next to the spot on the Gowanus canal that emits coal tar fumes that are so toxic that even the Environmental Protection Agency is concerned.

Rad Rampershad, Commissioner. Mr. Rampershad is an architect, not an urban planner. He is resident of the low-rise, heavily downzoned neighborhood of Richmond Hill, Queens, where Gary Barnett the CEO of Extell also lives. He is a Senior Project Manager at the Gerald Caliendo architecture firm in Briarwood, Queens. His firm designed the glassy high rise “Four Points by Sheraton” in Long Island City and the similarly massive glass tower known as the “Z Hotel” in Hunters Point north of Long Island City. Architects like this are courtiers and dependents to the real estate industry.

David Burney, Commissioner. Mr. Burney does have a degree in urban planning and is director of the Urban Placemaking and Management program at Pratt Institute School of Architecture, all of which definitely makes him not a real estate developer and not a deep part part of the “Growth Machine.” He was Director of Design and Capital Improvement for NYCHA for 13 years under Bloomberg, a worrisome aspect of his professional life: as we all know there has not been adequate capital improvement in NYCHA for many, many years during the Bloomberg era. Mr. Burney was also one of the architects who did the massively over-scaled 29-storied Zeckendorf Towers in the Grammercy neighborhood while he was at the firm of Davis, Brody, & Associates.29

Carl Weisbrod, former Chair of the Commission. He is a senior advisor at HRA, a consulting firm that advises real estate developers and government agencies on big redevelopment schemes. Industry broadsheet The Real Deal credits Weisbrod for turning Times Square into the tourist zoo that it has become while he was in a “series of

27 See the audit and 990 forms for Fifth Avenue Committee that Propublica has kindly made available: https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/organizations/112475743 28 https://www.nydailynews.com/opinion/ny-oped-for-housing-answers-look-up- 20180809-story.html 29 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_J._Burney

9 government positions.”30 He was - for example - president of the Economic Development Corporation for some of that period, during which time he used “eminent domain aggressively to help the city take-over much of the land in the 42nd Street area.” While at HRA he led the rezoning of Hudson Square on behalf of the real estate division of Trinity Church. That rezoning is resulting in the subsequent demolition of many a historic property in that area. He is a lawyer, but has no degree in urban planning. He was for many years head of the Alliance for Downtown, a big real estate BID (developer Bill Rudin was one of the founders) that dominates much of the politics of Lower Manhattan. As head of City Planning, he pushed through De Blasio’s upzonings, over the opposition of 90% of the community boards in the city. In that position, he also green-lighted the massive Extell tower in the Two Bridges area of Manhattan, claiming that the developer’s requests amounted to a “minor modification” of the permit he granted, thus allowing the developer to avoid going through ULURP. The Manhattan Borough President has sued the city over Weisbrod’s decision. Weisbrod has since become Chair of the Trust for Governor’s Island which is overseeing a major plan to allow developers to have their way with the island. Cityland describes Weisbrod at the time of his appointment as having a “continuity of a pro-growth outlook” (with “growth” referring to real estate development.)31 When he was appointed to City Planning, Cityland also noted that “his commitments to curtail the limbo of the pre-certification process, loosen the shrink-wrapping nature of some building envelope control will be welcome news for developers.” Cityland concluded with obvious satisfaction that he would get those things done for the developer community.

30 https://therealdeal.com/new-research/topics/people/carl-weisbrod/ 31 https://www.citylandnyc.org/joe-rose-former-city-planning-chairman-on- weisbrod-citylaw-breakfast-discussion/

10 To: 2019 NYC Charter Review Commissioners

Appeal for A Vision Statement on the Climate Crisis and Environmental Restoration on the November 2019 Ballot for Charter Revisions

Since last November, I have submitted written input to the Commission three times(1) as well as presented orally at the May 2nd hearing at Brooklyn Borough Hall. In the process, the articulation of my message has gotten clearer and more focused. This appeal – my fourth written submission – includes input from my Brooklyn neighbors.

The staff report and recommendations do not mention the biggest “elephant in the room” – the massive environmental degradation and global climate crisis we live in. In support of all the work that has been done by your Commission, I am urging you to recommend a Vision Statement on the Climate Crisis and Environmental Restoration on the Nov. 2019 ballot. Seriously, please listen.

In November 2019, we will vote on NYC Charter revisions that will be in place until 2050. This is an unique opportunity to recognize the existential challenges to life on the planet and in our City, posed by massive environmental degradation and global climate crisis. I urge you to incorporate, in the Charter revisions on the 11/2019 ballot, a Vision Statement that recognizes our collective responsibility to address the climate crisis AND restore our City's relationship with Nature. Such a Vision Statement would acknowledge our collective commitment in a just transition to a livable City of global significance, with regenerative economies and a healthy, equitable, diverse society.

It is our historic responsibility to all who live in our City in the next 30-60 years to enshrine in the Charter a special place for Nature as our partner and friend in her underlying support of our quality of life and the municipal services we enjoy. In doing so, we would be following the tradition of the Charter of the Forest, which was complement to the Magna Carta upon which much of U.S. law is based.

Scientists tell us that there are about 12 years before our planet's climate would very likely cross an irreversible threshold. Indeed, in some locations and for some of the earth's inhabitants, life has already

Appeal 5/24/2019 to 2019 Charter Review Commission Page 1 of 3 Marion Yuen ([email protected]; 917-609-5402) crossed an irreversible threshold. In May 2019, an international scientific body reported that “Nature is declining globally at rates unprecedented in human history, with one million species threatened with extinction.” The scientific findings suggest that the deteriorating health of ecosystems poses as much danger to life on Earth as climate change does: “We are eroding the very foundations of our economies, livelihoods, food security, health and quality of life worldwide.” (2)

Therefore, I urge the 2019 Charter Review Commission to see the totality of its work, not just land use matters, in the context of environmental degradation and the global climate crisis. During the Commission's public participation process, themes of climate change, sustainability and resilience came from diverse testimonies. Yet, the environment and the climate crisis are not addressed in the current staff report and recommendations.

It is true that the current mayoral administration has issued the OneNYC 2050 report. Further, the recently passed Climate Mobilization Act and the City Council's Intro. 1399 to create a Department of Sustainability and Climate Change are wonderful beginnings to write necessary environmental responsibility into law. At the same time, the City Council can introduce legislation to change and/or implement the Charter, with each bill addressing certain matters or aspects. That is why the Council has appointed the Charter Review Commission to take a wholistic, high-altitude view of the Charter to ensure that it serves our City for at least the next 30 years.

Why a Vision Statement in the City Charter?

A changing climate is part of nature. However, human actions have pushed our planet's climate out of balance at a run-away pace. Legislation could slow down the pace of change a bit. It is very important to get that environmental degradation and global climate crisis have direct, secondary, indirect, rippling and circular effects. They form the context in which we live in 2019 and for the next 30, 50, and 100 years.

As we approach the irreversible threshold, we will find that more and more aspects of our lives are affected by the rapid changes – including public health, increasing inequity, and conflict. So, it is impossible to pre-define which and how lives and municipal services would be impacted or disrupted.

Appeal 5/24/2019 to 2019 Charter Review Commission Page 2 of 3 Marion Yuen ([email protected]; 917-609-5402) But here is the good news. In this great City, we have a lot of creativity and talent. We already have many tools and techniques that can put us on a trajectory back to the future, to the environment when Native Americans and other species lived on this land in harmony with Nature – a trajectory that does not require the tearing down of NYC's iconic buildings or the much needed housing. This future would allow us to deploy 21st-century technology that helps us benefit from Nature's gifts and renewable resources.

A Charter Vision Statement – recognizing our collective responsibility to address the climate crisis AND restore our City's relationship with Nature – would provide high-level guidance to the body politic in the allocation and management of resources, creation and renovation of physical, governmental and civic infrastructure, shaping and development of education, addressing socio-economic and racial inequities, and many other forms of relationships. It would articulate our City's ethic in a just transition to a livable, healthy, diverse and vibrant society where equity and democracy are genuinely meaningful.

We can and must work with Nature to tap into her regenerative systems and her power. Humans cannot do it alone. Why fight Nature? Nature will be our friend and partner if we let her.

Sincerely, Marion Yuen

Footnotes: 1 Previous written submissions in Nov. & Dec. 2018, and May 2019.

2 https://www.ipbes.net/news/Media-Release-Global-Assessment

Appeal 5/24/2019 to 2019 Charter Review Commission Page 3 of 3 Marion Yuen ([email protected]; 917-609-5402) 199 Water Street New York, NY 10038 (212) 577-3300 www.legal -aid.org

Blaine (Fin) V. Fogg President

Janet E. Sabel Attorney -in-Chief Chief Executive Officer

Tina Luongo Attorney -in-Charge May 24, 2019 Criminal Practice

Mary Lynne Werlwas Director Charter Revision Commission 2019 Prisoners’ Rights Project Gail Benjamin, Chair 250 Broadway New York, NY 10007

Re: Comments to Preliminary Staff Report April 2019

Dear Chair Benjamin and Commissioners:

The Legal Aid Society submits these comments to the Preliminary Staff Report of the 2019 Charter Revision Commission.

Guaranteed Budget For the Board of Correction

We support a charter revision to promote the independence and efficacy of the Board of Correction (“the Board”), the civilian entity charged with oversight of the City jails. Specifically, the charter should provide the Board with a guaranteed budget tied directly to the budget of the Department of Correction (“DOC”).

New York City operates one of the largest jails in the world, and for 60 years has relied upon the Board of Correction to establish and enforce minimum standards of decency and humanity for people incarcerated there. See Charter 626 (setting forth duties and powers of the Board). The Board’s standards address life-critical areas such as provision of mental health treatment, access to medical care during emergencies, solitary confinement and permitting contact with family and the outside world. See, e.g., 40 R.C.N.Y. passim. Staff and incarcerated people depend on the Board to investigate grievances. Families experiencing incarceration rely upon the Board to secure their right to visit loved ones in City custody. The Board further has unique access to information from the Department of Correction (“DOC”) to investigate deaths, report on correctional performance and recommend correctional planning.

The Board’s structural independence from DOC and City Hall is essential to fulfillment of its mandate under the charter. As an oversight agency, at times it may be called upon to address politically unpopular facts or hold executive officials to task, and needs to do so without threat of financial retribution through budget shenanigans. The Preliminary Report identified the inherent vulnerability in this dynamic:

Page 2

…[G]overnment officials are still only human and, as the 1989 Charter Revision Commission observed, they may be inclined to retaliate against rivals for reasons other than sound budgeting policy. Staff believes that the risk of being retaliated against is acute for officers and agencies in public oversight roles, generally , and particularly acute for those oversight bodies that find themselves on the short end of David-and-Goliath relationships with the entities they are meant to check. Staff also suspects that the list of officers and agencies that meet this description will be relatively limited, including, for example, independently elected officials (the Public Advocate, the Comptroller, and the Borough Presidents), the Conflicts of Interest Board, the Department of Investigation, the Board of Correction, and CCRB. (Report at 71) (emphasis added).

To mitigate these tensions, we recommend that the Board have guaranteed funding tied to a percentage of the DOC budget. New York City is turning a page in its correctional history with decarceration and the closure of Rikers Island, providing agencies and other stakeholders with new opportunities to improve correctional practices. Ensuring that the correctional oversight agency has the resources to perform its duties and more vigorously enforce its standards is paramount during this transition.

Conflicts of Interest for the Corporation Counsel

As the Preliminary Report describes, the Corporation Counsel, as the counsel for the Mayor, elected officials, and every City agency, necessarily encounters conflicts of interest in its representation. In our decades of experience representing individuals incarcerated in the City jails in litigation implicating both the Board and DOC, such conflict arise routinely between these entities. The Preliminary Report identifies the typical outcome:

Although the Charter states that the Corporation Counsel is the “attorney and counsel for the city and every agency,” in instances of conflicts of interest between the Mayor and other City officials or entities, the Corporation Counsel typically, if not invariably, chooses to represent the Mayor, with the opposing City official or entity being left to secure outside counsel. At the Commission’s March 18, 2019 Public Meeting, a representative of the Law Department discussed the agency’s conflict of interest decision-making process. The Law Department representative stated that the Department defines a “conflict of interest” not as merely a disagreement between entities but as a situation in which “a position being taken by one entity . . . could undermine the duties, powers, or authority of another entity . . . . It could be an actual . . . or a potential [conflict].” The representative noted that once the Law Department identifies a conflict, it independently decides which position is legally correct and represents the entity taking that position. However, in response to further questioning, the Department conceded that in the event of a conflict of interest between the Mayor and the Council, the Law Department has historically sided with the Mayor, who appoints the Corporation Counsel. (Report at 28-29) (footnotes omitted). Page 3

We support that recommendations in the Preliminary Report that would inject more transparency into the process by which these conflicts are identified and resolved. (Report at 29). The Corporation Counsel’s standards for identifying when a conflict exists, and how it determines representation in those cases, should be set forth in rules that guide the decision-making regardless of the direction of political winds.

We thank the Commission and all the Commissioners for their attention to these issues.

Very truly yours,

/S/

Tina Luongo Attorney-in-Chief Criminal Division

Mary Lynne Werlwas Director

Kayla Simpson Staff Attorney Prisoners’ Rights Project

LYNDON B. JOHNSON SCHOOL OF PUBLIC AFFAIRS THE UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS AT AUSTIN ______P. O. Box Y • Austin, Texas 78713-8925 • (512) 471-3200 • FAX (512) 471-1835

Michele Deitch • (512) 296-7212 • [email protected]

May 23, 2019

New York City Charter Revision Commission BY EMAIL

Re: Board of Correction

Dear Commissioners:

I write in strong support of the proposal to adequately and independently fund the New York City Board of Correction, one of the nation’s leading jail oversight bodies.

I am a senior lecturer at the Lyndon B. Johnson School of Public Affairs and the School of Law at the University of Texas at Austin. For more than 30 years, I have studied and worked on issues related to the independent oversight of correctional institutions around the county. I co-chair the American Bar Association's Subcommittee on Correctional Oversight and helped draft the ABA's Standards on the Treatment of Prisoners. I have authored numerous articles about correctional oversight, including a 50-state inventory of prison oversight models. I have also served as a federal court-appointed monitor of conditions in the Texas prison system.

Every public agency must have effective systems of accountability. The public and its elected representatives must have assurances that tax monies are being well-spent; agency managers must have access to good sources of information about agency operations; and consumers of services must have a basis for knowing whether the services they receive are appropriate and meaningful.

The need for transparency and accountability is even more urgent in the nation’s jails and prisons, given they are closed environments with total control over human beings. These institutions primarily confine the most powerless and vulnerable, including poor people who are disproportionally African-American and Latino, as well as people with mental illness. If harm is to be prevented in these dark places, we must know what is happening inside. Indeed, the need for independent oversight of correctional facilities is so critical that the American Bar Association passed a resolution calling on every state and local jurisdiction in the country to develop effective independent monitoring bodies for their prisons and jails.1

1 American Bar Association, Report on Key Requirements for the Effective Monitoring of Correctional and Detention Facilities (2008), https://www.americanbar.org/content/dam/aba/publishing/criminal_justice_section_newsletter/cr imjust_policy_am0 8104b.authcheckdam.pdf.

Letter from Michele Deitch Page 2 of 2

When designed and funded correctly, an oversight body can provide an early warning system about patterns of complaints against certain prison employees, address concerns about inadequate health care or protocols for dealing with mentally ill inmates, highlight programs that are ineffective, point to areas for improved staff training, and identify policies that need to be adjusted. Strong independent oversight will likely result in safer jails for people in custody and employees alike, more effective rehabilitation programs, a healthier jail culture that supports positive outcomes, and taxpayer savings from fewer lawsuits and lessened recidivism.

The New York City Board of Correction is, in many ways, a model for correctional oversight. The agency has almost all of the fundamental criteria for effectiveness that I advocate for around the country: it is independent of the correctional agency; it conducts regular, routine inspections; it has unfettered and confidential access to facilities; it reports its findings and recommendations publicly; it takes a holistic approach to evaluating the treatment of prisoners; it conducts individual investigations and ongoing systemic monitoring; and the Department of Correction is required to cooperate fully. However, the Board of Correction lacks a critical piece for effectiveness: an adequate budget that is controlled by the agency itself (rather than by the Department of Correction or the political powers that manage it).

An adequate budget controlled by the agency is necessary to ensure the Board of Correction’s independence and effectiveness. This principle is so fundamental that the ABA’s resolution on oversight included this element among the key requirements it sets forth for an effective correctional oversight body.2

I urge the Charter Revision Commission to adopt its staff’s recommendation to adequately and independently fund the Board of Correction. New York City should tie the Board’s budget to that of the Department of Correction in order to ensure proportional and sustained correctional oversight funding.

Without strong, appropriately funded independent oversight, New York City will not have a jail system worthy of its values. The rest of the country is watching closely as New York City develops and implements its new vision for a criminal justice system that includes a plan to close Rikers Island; to be meaningful, that vision must also include a strong oversight agency that is independently funded.

Sincerely,

Michele Deitch Senior Lecturer

2 Id.

Throughout its history, Citizens Union has supported periodic comprehensive review of the New York City Charter absent a political agenda via the appointment of an independent Charter Revision Commission. Charter Revision Commissions ensure that city government is operating effectively, efficiently and in the public’s best interest. This process and the recommendations that come out of it must strengthen the integrity and transparency of government institutions so that public confidence is greater, and New Yorkers are able to better participate in governmental decision-making.

We make the following recommendations to the 2019 Charter Revision Commission in response to the Preliminary Staff Report published in April 2019.

ELECTIONS AND REDISTRICTING

Citizens Union urges the Commission to recommend ranked choice voting (RCV) for New York City elections. Ranked choice voting allows voters to rank their preferences for candidates, rather than only voting for one candidate. New York City election law provides that, unless a candidate running in a citywide primary receives 40% of the vote, a runoff election is required. Runoff elections are held at a great financial expense to New Yorkers; the 2013 runoff election for the office of Public Advocate is estimated to have cost New Yorkers $13 million, more than the entire four-year budget of the office of Public Advocate. In addition, in a city marked by terrible voter turnout in even high profile elections, runoff elections have abysmal voter participation, leading to a tiny percentage of eligible voters selecting citywide candidates. The voters who turn out in runoff elections tend to be older, richer and whiter and not representative of New York City as a whole. In other cities where instant runoff voting has been implemented it has led to both increased voter turnout and participation. Finally instant runoff voting has led to more diverse candidates – by gender and race – in cities where it has been implemented. The diversity of the New York City Council has improved over years, but with a mere 11 female Councilmembers out of 51, it is not at all reflective of the city it serves. New York needs instant runoff voting and we strongly urge you to develop a ballot proposal to bring it to the voters this fall.

There are many forms that Ranked Choice Voting can take. Citizens Union makes the following recommendations to the Commission.

 Citizens Union recommends that the Commission support and propose RCV for all primary and general election races in New York City. The benefits of RCV are consistent for all elections, and it is easier to have one consistent form of voting on the ballot rather than two.

 Citizens Union recommends that the Commission support and propose a RCV system where all candidates remain in play and the lowest vote-getter’s votes are distributed, then the next lowest and so on, until one candidate gets a majority.

 Citizens Union recommends that the Commission support and propose a RCV system where the number of candidates that can be ranked is tied to the physical limit of the machines.

 Citizens Union recommends that the Commission support and propose a RCV system with a 50% threshold for victory, as it makes sense to adhere to a majority vote decision.

CIVILIAN COMPLAINT REVIEW BOARD

Since 2008, Citizens Union has been exploring the issue of police accountability with particular emphasis on establishing clarity and consistency across the police oversight system, and strengthening the Civilian Complaint Review Board (CCRB) to bolster independent oversight of the police.

Citizens Union strongly urges the Commission put forward a proposal that requires the Police Commissioner to provide to the CCRB and respondent the rationale when diverging from CCRB disciplinary recommendations. A 2012 memo of understanding (MOU) between the CCRB and NYPD requires that the Police Commissioner notify the CCRB in writing with “a detailed explanation of the reasons for deviating from CCRB’s recommendation including but not limited to each factor the Police Commissioner considered in making his determination.” Citizens Union was involved in the negotiation of this MOU and believes this requirement would provide an appropriate and meaningful expansion of the CCRB’s independent oversight of the NYPD.

To ensure appropriate disciplinary responses to misconduct, Citizens Union also recommends expanding the responsibilities and disciplinary options of the Police Commissioner to allow for more narrowly tailored punishment and better compliance with CCRB recommendations.

Finally, to safeguard the independence and integrity of CCRB investigations and to standardize the effects of participation in an investigation for complainants, witnesses, and officers we recommend a “zero tolerance” policy for false official statements and granting the CCRB authority to prosecute officers who lie under oath during the course of its investigations.

CONFLICTS OF INTEREST BOARD

Citizens Union believes the current appointment structure of the Conflicts of Interest Board (COIB) should be maintained, with mayoral appointment and advice and consent by the City

Council.1 As we have observed the functioning of the COIB over the past several years, we have found the Board has operated effectively and independently, and are hesitant to change what is working well. In addition, we note that virtually the entire activity of the COIB relates to Executive Branch employees. The Board does not have the same City-shaping role as, say, the City Planning Commission and the Board of Standards and Appeals, both of which we believe should have multiple appointing authorities.

CORPORATION COUNSEL

Citizens Union opposes establishing a set term for the Corporation Counsel. We are concerned that this would be a move toward politicizing the office and the Law Department. The Corporation Counsel should be able to serve as other commissioners, so as to develop a continuity of leadership within the department and relationships among city entities and agencies.

We recognize the Commission also is considering having the Corporation Counsel be subject to the advice and consent of the City Council. While Citizens Union has no position on that issue, we note that providing such advice and consent would give the Council a role analogous to the one it has regarding the Commissioner of the Department of Investigation, who also serves with no term limit.

PUBLIC ADVOCATE

Citizens Union recommends the Charter empower the Public Advocate to request and receive documents from city agencies. This should be achieved in the Charter by mandating that agencies provide documents to the Public Advocate when requested, rather than requiring the public advocate go through the relevant council committee. Exceptions to this currently in the Charter, namely those documents for which a claim of privilege may properly be raised or are being used by the Department of Investigations for use in an investigation, should be maintained as provided in Chapter 2, Section 24(j) of the Charter. Citizens Union does not recommend granting the Public Advocate subpoena power, as there are already many investigative agencies in New York City.

In addition, we recommend the Public Advocate be given access to data from the 311 call center. The 311 call center is the nation’s largest municipal call center and the most centralized site of communications between residents and city government. The system is intended to field complaints and inquiries, and act as a communication network among city agencies. As the citywide ombudsperson – the only elected official tasked with addressing individuals’ complaints on a global scale – it is essential to have access to information gathered by 311. From nowhere else can the Public Advocate assess the scope and scale of city service problems

1 Citizens Union has reconsidered its position set forth in its 2010 charter report, reiterated in earlier testimony to this Commission.

3 so completely. 311 has an Agency Relations department, which works to exchange information about trends with city agencies, and there should be an explicit link between this work and the public advocate’s.

BOROUGH PRESIDENTS

In addition to Citizens Union’s recommendation below that the Borough Presidents receive a budget pegged to the City Council, we support granting each Borough President an appointment to the Board of Standards and Appeals (BSA). A Borough President's appointee would only vote on matters affecting that borough. The BSA, like the City Planning Commission (on which each Borough President already has an appointment), addresses important city policy matters, albeit generally on a smaller scale than does the Planning Commission. It is therefore appropriate to give the Borough President a voice in deciding matters in the BSA's purview. We recognize that the Board has geographic diversity among the boroughs, but that's not the same as a Borough President being able to pick someone of her/his choice to serve on the BSA. Citizens Union also supports the staff's effort to provide for more meaningful engagement of city agencies in borough service cabinets. A provision should be added to the charter requiring attendance by the designated agencies at each cabinet meeting.

CITY BUDGET

Citizens Union recommends that the Public Advocate, Borough Presidents, Conflict of Interest Board and Civilian Complaint Review Board receive budget protection. These offices and agencies are designed to be independent of the budget-setters: the Mayor and City Council. Indeed, these offices and entities act as a check and counterweight regarding aspects of city government. It is important that all these offices and agencies not fear that acting as they believe is warranted would cause the Mayor or Council to retaliate by limiting their budgets. Nor should they be subject to the Mayor and Council otherwise seeking to limit their effectiveness. The 1989 Charter Commission was aware of this issue in establishing the Independent Budget Office. The same reasoning would apply to the Public Advocate, Borough Presidents, COIB and CCRB.

We note that the Commission staff has distinguished between providing these entities with an independent or a guaranteed budget. We prefer that the budgets be guaranteed, pegged to an agency that is not designed to serve as a counterweight. For example, the COIB budget can be pegged to a the City's Law Department budget. The budgets of the Public Advocate and Borough Presidents can be pegged to the City Council's budget. And, the CCRB's budget can be pegged to the budget of the Police Department.

Improving the form and function of city government is no small challenge, but it is one which Citizens Union believes is critical for the continued progress of our city. It is this challenge that frames Citizens Union’s set of recommendations.

May 23, 2019

By electronic submission to [email protected]

2019 New York City Charter Revision Commission 250 Broadway New York, NY 10007

Re: Comment on the Preliminary Staff Report—Ranked Choice Voting

Dear Commission Chair Benjamin and Commissioners Albanese, Barrios-Paoli, Camilo, Caras, Cordero, Sr., Fiala, Gavin, Greene, Hirsh, Miller, Nori, Tisch, Vacca, and Weisbrod, and members of the Commission staff:

RepresentUs is a grassroots organization with more than 110 chapters nationwide that unites conservatives, progressives, and everyone in between to end political corruption. Our chapter in New York City has long been active in advocating for democracy reform at the city and state levels, and several of our members have recently had the opportunity to testify before the Charter Revision Commission ("the Commission"). We applaud the Commission for requesting public comments on the Preliminary Staff Report (“the report”), and we submit this letter to illustrate to the Commission that ranked choice voting (“RCV”) not only fully complies with all relevant federal law, but indeed furthers the principles of political expression and voter equality enshrined in the U.S. Constitution. We thus urge the Commission to grant the voters of New York City the opportunity to consider RCV by placing it on the November 2019 ballot.

Summary Systems that facilitate representative democracy are in high demand. New Yorkers are eager to have their voices heard, and to have their elections produce accurate and truly representative outcomes. RCV is a powerful means of realizing these goals, and simply put, federal law serves as no barrier to its adoption and implementation. In fact, every single court—both state and federal—that has ever reviewed a preferential voting system such as RCV has found the system to be fully compliant with all relevant federal laws, including the First Amendment, the Fourteenth Amendment, and the federal Voting Rights Act. Put another way, according to every court that has ever considered the question, no

1 federal law prevents the adoption or implementation of an RCV system.1 This conclusion is shared by judges across the ideological spectrum, regardless of whether they were appointed, or elected, by Republicans or Democrats. And critically, state and federal courts have identified many of the same governmental interests served by RCV that are explicitly mentioned in the report,2 from diversifying the pool of candidates who run for office to saving taxpayer money by eliminating costly runoff elections,3 strongly suggesting that a New York City RCV system could withstand legal challenges based on federal law.

RCV Promotes First Amendment Political Expression According to Federal District Court Judge Lance Walker, who was nominated by President Donald Trump and confirmed by a Republican-controlled U.S. Senate, RCV “actually encourages First Amendment expression, without discriminating against any given voter.”4 Whereas a first-past-the-post system incentivizes voters to forego voting for their favorite candidate out of fear that such strategic voting may ultimately help elect their least favorite candidate, and can elect candidates who are “strongly disfavored by a majority of the electorate,”5 RCV empowers voters to allocate their first-choice vote to the candidate they actually prefer, without being concerned that doing so will unintentionally benefit the candidate they prefer the least.

RCV also promotes more accurate voter expression by providing voters with additional opportunities to express their preferences at the ballot, and by providing ideologically diverse candidates with strong incentives to run for office.6 As the Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts wrote in upholding a citywide preferential voting system, such systems “attempt to reflect [equality] with more exquisite accuracy,” and to “more accurately…reflect voter sentiment.”7

1 Baber v. Dunlap, 349 F.Supp.3d 68, 78-79 (D. Me. 2018). 2 For example, the Minnesota Supreme Court cited “[r]educing the costs and inconvenience to voters, candidates, and taxpayers by holding only one election, increasing voter turnout, encouraging less divisive campaigns, and fostering greater minority representation in multiple-seat elections” as “legitimate interests for the city to foster” in adopting their preferential voting system. Minnesota Voters Alliance v. City of Minneapolis, 766 N.W.2d 683 (Minn. 2009). See also McSweeney v. City of Cambridge, 665 N.E.2d 11 (Mass. 1996); Dudum v. Arntz, 640 F.3d 1098 (9th Cir. 2011); Baber v. Dunlap, 349 F.Supp.3d 68 (D. Me. 2018). 3 Preliminary Staff Report, 2019 Charter Revision Commission, available at https://static1.squarespace.com/static/5bfc4cecfcf7fde7d3719c06/t/5cbe86c2e4966bc917c 36e0f/1555990215645/PreliminaryStaffReport2019.pdf. 4 Baber, 349 F.Supp.3d at 78 (emphasis added). See also Baber v. Dunlap, NO. 1:18-CV-465- LEW (D. Me. Dec. 13, 2018) (“[n]o right is more precious in a free country than that of having a voice in the election of those who make the laws under which, as good citizens, we must live”) (quoting Wesberry v. Sanders, 367 U.S. 1, 17 (1964)). 5 Dudum, 640 F.3d at 1100. 6 See Baber, NO. 1:18-CV-465-LEW at 15. 7 McSweeney, 665 at 15.

RCV Gives Equal Weight to Every Vote, and Provides Equal Access to the Ballot The U.S. Supreme Court's seminal decision in Reynolds v. Sims established that the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment guarantees the opportunity for equal participation by all voters in elections.8 While it has been argued that, under an RCV system, voters who failed to mark the runoff candidates on their ballots were not given an equal vote or were denied the opportunity to vote on said candidates, such claims have been soundly rejected by reviewing courts.

In 2011, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit dismissed the claim that a preferential voting system violated the Equal Protection Clause because it did not consider every vote at every stage of an election. In an opinion by Judge Marsha Berzon, a nominee of President Bill Clinton, the Court held that such votes are counted, “they are just counted for losing candidates in the tally of total votes.”9

This conclusion was shared by Judge Walker, who held that voters with so-called “exhausted ballots” had the same opportunity to weigh in on the eventual runoff candidates as those voters who had marked the runoff candidates on their ballots. Indeed, exhausted ballots showed “evidence of voter clarity and conviction,”10 as these voters expressed that they “did not want to vote for either” of the candidates who reached the runoff phase, regardless of “whether they believed they would be the runoff candidates.”11 As a result, no voter’s choice ultimately “received less weight” over the course of the election.12

A similar argument was rejected by the Minnesota Supreme Court in 2009. Finding that “there is no unequal weighting in the [preferential voting] system” and distinguishing the “one person, one vote” concerns in both Reynolds v. Sims and Bush v. Gore (as relating to the unequal rules used for counting votes),13 the Court concluded that each ballot in a preferential voting system “counts only as a single vote,”14 and “in each round every voter’s vote carries the same value.”15

8 See Reynolds v. Sims, 377 U.S. 533, 566 (1964) (To this end, “[d]iluting the weight of votes...impairs basic constitutional rights under the Fourteenth Amendment just as much as invidious discriminations based upon factors such as race or economic status”). See also Bush v. Gore, 531 U.S. 98, 104-05 (2000) (“The right to vote is protected in more than the initial allocation of the franchise. Equal protection applies as well to the manner of its exercise. Having once granted the right to vote on equal terms, the State may not, by later arbitrary and disparate treatment, value one person's vote over that of another”). 9 Dudum, 640 F.3d at 1112 (emphasis added). 10 Baber, NO. 1:18-CV-465-LEW at 15. 11 Id. at 14. 12 Id. at 11. 13 Minnesota Voters All., 766 N.W.2d at 698. 14 Id. 15 Id. at 693.

Finally, the Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts reached a similar conclusion in its 1996 decision, finding that “[exhausted ballots] too are read and counted; they just do not count toward the election of any of the...successful candidates”; and as a result, “it is no more accurate to say that these ballots are not counted than to say that the ballots designating a losing candidate in a two-person, winner-take-all race are not counted.”16

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit also concluded that preferential voting permits every voter to wield the full power of their vote. In rejecting the claim that the preferential voting system at issue amounted to “vote denial,” the Court distinguished the system from cases where “otherwise eligible voters were not allowed to vote in a determinative election.”17 Instead, because “voters who participate in the restricted [RCV] system are not excluded from any election or opportunity to vote” nor “denied an opportunity to cast a ballot at the same time and with the same degree of choice among candidates available to other voters,” there is no “differential treatment of voters.”18 The Minnesota Supreme Court reached a similar conclusion in finding that “[e]very voter has the same opportunity to rank candidates when she casts her ballot.”19 Thus by requiring only a single ballot, and by producing a more representative outcome, RCV simply provides a more efficient means of identifying the candidate that most voters prefer.

RCV Ensures Equal Voting Rights for Every Voter The Voting Rights Act (“VRA”) permits any U.S. citizen to bring suit to prevent “any State or political subdivision” from imposing an electoral practice that “results in a denial or abridgement of the right of any citizen of the United States to vote on account of race or color…”20

In his 2018 decision, Judge Walker of the U.S. District Court for the District of Maine squarely rejected the notion that RCV violates the VRA. Judge Walker found that Maine’s RCV legislation had no discriminatory intent, that its implementation did not prevent any votes from being counted, tabulated, or reported, and that there was no effort by any party “invested with state-delegated authority to deny Plaintiffs their right to vote or refuse to tabulate their vote.”21 Instead, each voter’s input was weighed equally, and was not improperly “disadvantaged (or ‘diluted’) because of the voter’s membership in a demographic group or another arbitrary factor.”22 As a result, the Court found that the VRA did not apply to—let alone invalidate—the RCV system.

16 Id. at 698. 17 Dudum, 640 F.3d at 1108 (emphasis added). 18 Id. at 1109. 19 Minnesota Voters All., 766 N.W.2d at 693 (emphasis added). 20 52 U.S.C. § 10301(a). 21 Baber, 349 F.Supp.3d at 78 n.10. 22 Baber, NO. 1:18-CV-465-LEW at 10.

4 RCV is a powerful process for identifying, and amplifying, the true preferences of the city’s electorate, thus helping to ensure that elected officials are truly representative of their communities. New York City voters, and their representatives, will be well-served by its adoption, and can rest assured that federal law serves as no barrier to its successful implementation and use. For these reasons, we urge the Commission to place RCV on the November 2019 ballot.

Thank you again for the opportunity to present these comments.

Respectfully submitted,

Scott Greytak Senior Counsel RepresentUs [email protected]

Kathryn Randolph Law Clerk RepresentUs [email protected]

CHAIR MAS Comments to the New York City Charter Revision Committee 2019 regarding the CHRISTY MACLEAR Preliminary Staff Report

PRESIDENT ELIZABETH GOLDSTEIN May 24, 2019

BOARD OF DIRECTORS The Municipal Art Society of New York (MAS) has been providing input on the City’s Charter GABRIEL CALATRAVA revisions since our founding in 1893. With this unique historical perspective, we have SANTIAGO CALATRAVA LISA SMITH CASHIN observed an increasing number of neighborhoods experiencing long‐term, negative impacts VIN CIPOLLA of unsound and inequitable land use policy. Many New Yorkers believe that they do not have ELIZABETH DILLER a true voice in decisions regarding the allocation of funds, changes to zoning regulations, and MICHAEL P. DONOVAN overall development in their neighborhoods. FREDERICK ISEMAN AMIT KHURANA As we engage in the first major Charter overhaul since 1989, we see an incredible opportunity JILL N. LERNER to effect meaningful changes to remedy these issues. MAS is encouraged that many of these CHRIS MCCARTIN RICHARD OLCOTT reforms have been identified in the Preliminary Staff Report as potential Charter revisions BARBARA KOZ PALEY under consideration by the Commission. CHARLES A. PLATT CARL L. REISNER MAS provides the following comments and recommendations regarding the positions taken DAVID F. SOLOMON in the Preliminary Staff Report that we urge the Commission to consider. YEOHLEE TENG

DIRECTORS EMERITI Public Advocate KENT L. BARWICK We believe that the Commission should expand the power of the Public Advocate beyond DAVID M. CHILDS the role defined in the Charter today. The Public Advocate should be obligated to annually JOAN K. DAVIDSON review policies covered under the City’s Fair Share criteria and examine citywide planning PHILIP K. HOWARD concerns such as public school capacity, inclusionary housing, the siting of public facilities JANET C. ROSS WHITNEY NORTH SEYMOUR, JR. such as homeless shelters and jails, major infrastructure investments, and actions that JERRY I. SPEYER could result in residential and commercial displacement. STEPHEN C. SWID HELEN S. TUCKER MAS also supports providing the Public Advocate with subpoena power, elevating the office to the same level of oversight as the Comptroller who currently has the power to check and balance the Mayor on fiscal issues. The Public Advocate should have similar powers for service issues, as envisioned by the 1989 Charter Commission. MAS firmly believes that incorporating the voice of the Public Advocate, as a citywide elected position, into these processes by way of subpoena power will allow the Public Advocate to better serve as an ombudsperson for all New Yorkers.

Borough Presidents As a planning and preservation advocacy organization, we value the role that Borough Presidents play in land use and policy decisions. MAS therefore recommends that the Commission amend the Charter to require that agencies provide Borough Presidents’ offices with documents and records relating to matters in their jurisdiction. This is especially important for projects subject to ULURP where Borough Presidents’ input, though currently advisory, often carries significant weight in decisions made by the Department of City Planning and the City Council.

Land Use MAS has long believed a pre‐certification process is needed to bring about meaningful public discourse in the ULURP process. All too often by the time a project has been certified, there is the sense that it is a veritable “done deal,” and that meaningful public input is not considered. Therefore, we strongly recommend that the Commission establish a pre‐certification engagement process to provide more time and an earlier opportunity for Community Boards and

Borough Presidents to weigh in on land use applications subject to ULURP. We recommend a minimum 60‐day process, which must include a public meeting to be hosted by the affected Community Board and Borough President. Along with improving the ULURP process, we would be remiss if we did not mention that we strongly advocate for strengthening the City Environmental Quality Review process as well, especially mitigation requirements for projects that result in significant adverse environmental impacts.

Planning Planning, comprehensive or otherwise, has proven to be one of the more challenging issues considered under Charter revisions. From 1936 until 1975, the City Charter required a master plan. The requirement was repealed because no master plan had ever been fully implemented. Subsequently, it was replaced by a nebulous provision for “plans for the development, growth, and improvement of the city and of its boroughs and community districts.” In addition, the Preliminary Staff Report identifies no fewer than 12 plans it considers part of a “strategic” or “comprehensive” plan for the city. These include Borough Strategic Policy Statements, Ten‐Year Capital Strategy Plans, and 197‐a Community Development Plans.

Since 1975, significant change has occurred in New York City through amendments to the City’s Zoning Resolution. Some contend the Zoning Resolution is in itself the embodiment of comprehensive planning. MAS firmly disagrees. Comprehensive planning addresses issues such as infrastructure, schools, open space, transit, historic preservation, resiliency, and sustainability. On the other hand, the Zoning Resolution is limited to issues related to building density, bulk, and height.

A clearly defined comprehensive planning process that represents a shared vision for the entire city should be undertaken every 10 years. It should include citywide policy recommendations with coherent, borough‐based plans for achieving those goals and targets. Furthermore, it needs to consider issues on a community, county, city and regional level in coordination with the Capital Budget. In this capacity, the Capital Budget should be looked at as a planning tool, especially with regard to ensuring that adequate infrastructure investments are in place to accommodate future development, which is a critical element to any long‐term city planning process. In this way, we believe comprehensive planning would take a balanced approach to limited citywide resources and unique neighborhood challenges.

Given the Preliminary Staff Report’s own admission that the “scattered approach the Charter currently takes” with regard to various planning requirements has exacerbated the “disillusionment and confusion” about comprehensive planning, it is clear the Commission needs to address this issue.

Conclusion Thirty years since the last major revision, the time is now ripe for a major overhaul of the City Charter. Through our recommendations, MAS seeks expanded roles for the Public Advocate and Borough Presidents, true comprehensive planning, and an improved ULURP process.

CAROL O’CLEIREACAIN, Ph.D.

315 WEST 106TH STREET • NEW YORK • NEW YORK 10025 Tel 212 866 7663 [email protected] Fax 212 866 6526 6526

May 24, 2019

I am writing in the hope that some of my experiences with local government fiscal crises might prove useful as the Charter Revision Commission considers the Staff recommendation (p.66) regarding an earlier due date for the revenue estimate and a failsafe for a binding revenue estimate. I have some concerns, which are below.

First, the risks in estimating revenues are not evenly balanced: when receipts come in above the estimate, great. When they don’t come in -- and that does happen -- it can be a mighty struggle just to get by. I know it too well and lived it. From 1990-1993, I served as Mayor Dinkins’ Finance Commissioner and then Budget Director. This was, then, the worst recession since the Great Depression. (And no one believes business cycles and recessions have become obsolete.) I experienced declining revenues -- they fell sharply and relentlessly -- short, not only of forecast, but of the collections of the prior year. Budget revisions were ongoing, and the City struggled to predict honestly GAAP balance at the beginning of the year, to maintain balance as the year progressed and to close the year within the strictures required by State law. The City budgets under the strictest/tightest of rules. Under normal circumstances it is hard enough to bring such a large budget to balance within $100 million, but during a recession it requires the maximum of flexibility. Part of such flexibility is conservative revenue estimation, based on the latest available knowledge of receipts. Revenues do not flow in regularly -- they bunch by payment dates and by the pattern of transfers from the State, which collects many of the largest ones, so when you see receipts falling short, you need to adjust rapidly. Further, during my tenure, the State’s budget was never enacted timely and the Executive Budget rarely had a realistic picture of the state aid number or state tax actions (some often raided the City’s tax base). These numbers did not firm up until later in May. It is only relatively recently that the State has regularly met the April 1st deadline, a practice which may not endure. So, why would you want the Charter to lock in a budget revenue number any earlier than you need to or with less complete information than having more time offers?

Second, my experience of other fiscally troubled cities and some states is that consensus forecasting, or the use of outside (3rd party) estimates is generally resorted to when the budget has had no credibility or transparency. That is not the case of New York City. OMB’s forecast is public, with extensive documentation in both the preliminary and executive budgets, which are also commented on, very transparently, by two Comptrollers, the Control Board, the IBO & the Council. All the staff are highly professional. This is not Detroit, where for years no one trusted the City’s unrealistic numbers and where, post-bankruptcy, when I was Deputy Mayor for Economic Policy, the State imposed what it considered ongoing oversight through a forced consensus structure. While I have never seen any assessment of the IBO’s forecast accuracy, my own experience (pre-NYC government) of alternative forecasting of NYC major taxes is that estimates tend to fall within the margin of statistical error, which means there is no better or worse number -- these are judgment calls. And that judgment should rest, ultimately, with the one whose head will roll if it is so wrong that the budget does not balance. That is the Budget Director’s job and what OMB is there for.

2 NYPIRG NEW YORK PUBLIC INTER ES T RESEARCH GROUP

June 12, 2019

2019 New York City Charter Revision Commission 250 Broadway NY,NY 10007

Dear Commission Chair Gail Benjamin and Commissioners,

NYPIRG has testified at the public hearings held by your Commission throughout the public comment process. As the Charter Revision Commission gets ready to finalize the proposals that will be voted on by the public, NYPIRG wishes to submit a summary of our positions on the various issues addressed in the Commission's Staff Report for your convenience. NYPIRG has also recently submitted lengthier written testimony at the public hearing held on May 14th on Staten Island, which provides more detail on the below issues. We urge the Commission to take into consideration the below subjects.

• Ranked Choice Voting o Implement Ranked Choice Voting in primary elections for municipal offices in order to increase voter turnout, support more diverse candidates for office, and solve problems associated with runoff elections. • Special Elections o Adjust the timeline for special elections to unify State and City timelines and increase election administration efficiency and allow the BOE to properly prepare and avoid technical issues. • Redistricting o Enhance the independence of the redistricting process by redistributing appointment power from elected officials to the Campaign Finance Board. o Enshrine community input as a core tenet of this process through mandatory public hearings and/or meetings. • Conflicts of Interest Board o Strengthen the independence of the Conflicts of Interest Board by redistributing appointment powers so that no office has majority appointment power. • Post-Employment Lobbying o Strengthen the City's post-employment lobbying ban to match the State's two year ban to reduce the outsized influence of former government-employee lobbyists. • Corporation Council o Increase transparency for Corporation Council's internal process for determining conflicts of interest. (continued 011 the following page)

9 Murray Street, Lower Level • New York, NY 10007 • (212) 349-6460 • Fax (212) 349-1366 Regional Offices in: Capital District & Hudson Valley, Long Island & New York City, Western & Centra1 New York NEW YORK PUBLIC INTEREST RESEARCH GROUP FUND • NYPIRG .ORG • Public Advocate o Strengthen the Public Advocate's position by granting their office subpoena power so they can effectively conduct investigations for the public good. The Comptroller has subpoena power and the Public Advocate should too. o Provide the office with a guaranteed budget so its power doesn't ebb and flow at the mercy of the City Council and the Mayor.

The Commission has an opportunity to produce proposals to change the New York City Charter that can make our city more just and democratic for all New Yorkers. Any of the above proposals would dramatically improve our city. Please consider the above index as you weigh final ballot proposal text.

Please let us know if you have any questions by contacting NYPIRG Civic Engagement Coordinator Tousif Ahsan, [email protected], or 212-349-6460 extension 1172.

Thank you,

Blair Homer, Tousi f Ahsan, Executive Director Civic Engagement Coordinator Charter Revision Commission 2019

250 Broadway, 26th Floor New York, NY l 0007

June 10, 2019

Dear Commissioners,

As you weigh the numerous potential issue areas to address through the Charter Revision process, we, a coalition ofNew York City elected officials, are championing a top five candidate Ranked Choice Voting system for all city offices in primary and special elections in place for the 2021 election cycle, and we urge you to select Ranked Choice Voting as one of the ballot proposals that the Public will vote upon later this year.

With the City constantly striving to revise and improve its democratic systems - Ranked Choice Voting is an important approach to consider. If implemented, Ranked Choice Voting would not only create a more efficient and representative electoral system, but also would equalize the voting process for frequently disenfranchised communities, save the city money by eliminating the occasional but costly runoff election, and produce consensus candidates.

As New Yorkers who have run for office, we understand the importance of making sure voters feel confident about their choices come Election Day. While New York has recently made important steps to improve elections by implementing early voting and consolidating election days, we must act further to ensure all New Yorkers have fair access to representative voting.

With our support for Ranked Choice Voting, we join a broad, grassroots coalition of individuals, activist groups, and prominent officials acting in the best interest of their constituents. As you've seen at the borough hearings, our grassroots support demonstrates the popularity of Ranked Choice Voting amongst voters frustrated with having to choose the "lesser of two evils," rather than who they truly support.

Our primary elections are broken: entire communities are ignored, v9ters are reluctant to vote for their true preference, and winners emerge with very little of the actual vote. With 2021 looming, when 70% of Council Members, all Borough Presidents, and the Comptroller and Mayor will be tenn-limited out, the time to act is now. In 2017, over 61 % of multi-candidate primaries were won with less than 50% of the vote, which led to a lack of support for the ultimate choices in the general election. The "winner takes all" system in our city reduces the amount of choice we have in detennining our representatives, disenfranchises entire communities, and encourages negative campaigning. When Maine became the first state to use Ranked Choice Voting for both statewide and federal elections in 2018, many questioned how the process would work on such a large scale. Despite doubts, voters overwhelmingly supported the freedom allotted to them in the new system. Until 2018, the majority of Maine's past governors had been elected with less than 40% of the vote. Once the state began using Ranked Choice Voting, voters were able to choose their preferred candidate instead ofjust opting for who they believed could win. In addition, candidates diversified their platforms in order to reach all of their potential constituents, rather than targeting 'just enough" voters to win.

Likewise, the majority of California representatives were elected with a plurality, primary, or runoff system, leaving many voters unheard in the general election decision-making. The implementation of Ranked Choice Voting in Oakland, Berkeley and San Francisco allowed for more voters to have a say in the final electoral outcome. In addition to increasing the amount of consensus candidates, there was an increase in diversity amongst the candidate pool, as multiple female candidates and candidates of color were able to run without voters fearing a spoiler effect.

Being a public servant in New York City comes with an immense amount of responsibility, and we cannot shy away from being a trailblazer for reform that the rest of our country can follow. Now more than ever, electoral reform is integral to ensure that every New Yorker's voice is heard, and Ranked Choice Voting is the best way to improve our city's unique electoral climate. As a Commissioner, you have the opportunity to make New York City the model for a more fair and functional democracy. We, the undersigned, ask that you take it.

Thank you,

pfan

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Liz Krueger Julia Salazar Harvey Epstein NYS Senator NYS Senator NYS Assembly Member wJ;6...?."1~ luty~~ ~&----3;__ Walter Mosley Linda Rosenthal Jo Anne Simon NYS Assembly Member NYS Assembly Member NYS Assembly Member .()..J.,t.:tJ~ David Weprin NYS Assembly Member of governmental secrecy undermines public trust and should not be permitted by City agencies.

C. Require detailed units of appropriation in NYPD budget so that New Yorkers understand what the NYPD's budget of over $5 Billion is spent on.

To advance democracy, transparency and safety for all communities, we urge you to adopt the charter revisions we outline above in this letter.

Thank you for your time and consideration.

Sincerely,

Communities United for Police Reform FIERCE Alliance for Education Justice Gathering for Justice/Justice League NYC Arab American Association of NY Girls for Gender Equity Arc of Justice Global Action Project Audre Larde Project Immigrant Defense Project The Black Institute Jews for Racial & Economic Justice Bronx Defenders Justice Committee Brooklyn Movement Center Katal Center for Health, Equity & Justice Brooklyn NAACP Legal Aid Society The Brotherhood/Sister Sol Make the Road New York CAAAV Organizing Asian Communities Malcolm X Grassroots Movement Center for Constitutional Rights MomsRising Center for Law and Social Justice at Medgar National Panhellenic Council of NYC Evers College New York City Anti-Violence Project Center for Popular Democracy New York Civil Liberties Union Citizen Action of New York North Star Fund Color of Change Picture The Homeless Crystal House Policing and Social Justice Project at Brooklyn Drug Policy Alliance College DRUM- Desis Rising Up & Moving Public Science Project Equality for Flatbush Rockaway Youth Task Force Faith In New York Youth Represent

3 PRACTICAL CONSIDERATIONS FOR IMPLEMENTING RANKED CHOICE VOTING IN NEW YORK CITY Q: Would the New York City Board of Elections have to buy new equipment to run a Ranked Choice Voting election? A: No. New York City votes using DS200 model optical scanners from Election Systems & Software, which are used in Minneapolis and more than half the jurisdictions in Maine in their Ranked Choice Voting elections. Source: Ranked Choice Voting Resource Center; Testimony of Grace Wachlarowicz, Assistant City Clerk Director of Elections & Voter Services, Minneapolis.

Q: Will New York City's DS200 machines need an upgrade to handle a Ranked Choice Voting election? A: Yes. The machines will need new firmware (a form of software that is permanently installed, like the source code, rather than changeable, like a software program). Source: Douglas Kellner, Commissioner, New York State Board of Elections.

Q: Would the New York State Board of Elections have to approve the firmware change before the upgrade could be used for Ranked Choice Voting elections? A: Yes. But because it is simply approving the changed source code, according to a state board commissioner, the approval process would not be lengthy or difficult. Source: Douglas Kellner, Commissioner, New York State Board of Elections.

Q: How long would it take for the New York State Board of Elections to approve the change in source code? A: Most likely 3 months, but it could be as long as 6 months. This would have no impact on a 2021 implementation date. Source: Douglas Kellner, Commissioner, New York State Board of Elections.

Q: What does the New York City Board of Elections need to do to get approval for the change? A: Nothing. Election Systems & Software, the equipment vendor, would apply and handle all the details. They would have a significant incentive to address the approval process. Source: Comments of Michael Ryan, Executive Director, NYC Board of Elections, June 11, 2019 meeting.

Q: How much would it cost to implement Ranked Choice Voting for New York City? A: The Fiscal Policy Institute has stated that "the costs are minimal and far outweighed by the savings. In New York City, a preliminary rough estimate would suggest that the costs of implementation might be in the range of $100,000 to $500,000." In contrast, the 2013 run-off election cost the taxpayers $11 million. Fiscal Policy Institute by David Dyssegaard Kallick & Jonas Shaende, Ranked Choice Voting: Saving Money While Improving Elections, June 28, 2018. COMNIIIIIES 111:m~ 1 ■ a 1 1;1 POLICE REFORM

June 11, 2019

Dear Charter Revision Commission:

The 2019 Charter Revision process represents a significant opportunity for New Yorkers to vote on changes to the City Charter that can advance governmental transparency and safety for all New Yorkers, including increased police accountability and transparency.

Together, the forty-one organizations signed onto this letter represent tens of thousands of city residents committed to enhancing public safety for all communities, but especially the most vulnerable. Our proposed revisions to the Charter - which have been previously submitted as testimony to the Commission by various organizations over the past year -- will help protect and improve the lives of New Yorkers of color who most often experience abusive and discriminatory policing, including young people, immigrants, people who are homeless, NYCHA residents, LGBTQ, gender nonconforming, women, and others.

As we discuss below, the charter revisions we support would advance two key goals: 1) increase police accountability when officers harm New Yorkers, and 2) create real fiscal transparency of the City's policing and public oversight of the city's purchasing, procurement and use of surveillance technologies used to police New Yorkers.

1) Increase police accountability for killings, brutality, sexual violence, gender-based violence and other police misconduct - and the systemic culture of related misconduct that obstructs investigations and promotes cover-ups - when officers harm members of the public.

A. Expand Civilian Complaint Board (CCRB) authority to prosecute on "other related misconduct" in police misconduct cases that CCRB has jurisdiction to investigate - particularly misconduct that can impede or obstruct investigations and/or contribute to cover-ups.

It is unacceptable that when CCRB substantiates and prosecutes a complaint against an officer alleged to have used a chokehold, like Daniel Pantaleo who killed Eric Garner, CCRB is not authorized to also investigate other related misconduct that officers like Daniel Pantaleo may have engaged in related to the same incident (e.g. failure to provide aid, lying in official reports, etc.). Instead, other possible misconduct that fall outside of CCRB current jurisdiction must be referred to the NYPD's Internal Affairs Bureau ( IAB) - which is rarely acted on. Examples of other related misconduct that CCRB should be authorized to investigate and prosecute when they are part of a FAD01 investigation that is being conducted include: lying in official reports; false statements; failure to provide aid/intervene;

1 "FADO" refers to the areas that CCRB is currently empowered to investigate and prosecute, limited to: force, abuse of authority, discourtesy, and offensive language.

520 8111 Avenue, Suite 1800 I New York, NY 10018 I www.changethenypd.org I W-@changethenypd failure to follow body-worn camera/other protocols; failure to document stops and consent searches; leaking sealed information; intimidation of witnesses and complainants, and more. Maintaining the narrow parameters for misconduct that CCRB can investigate in FADO cases contributes to a cover-up culture at the NYPD that facilitates continued police misconduct without accountability or discipline of officers.

B. Provide CCRB with explicit authority to investigate, and if warranted, prosecute complaints against school safety agents, and other "peace officers". School safety agent · complaints are currently sent to the NYPD's Internal Affairs Bureau, providing no transparency or faith in disciplinary action when school safety agents harm children and young people in NYC schools.

C. Require public disclosure and transparency when the Commissioner deviates on CCRB findings and discipline recommendations. The reason for deviation should be made public (as was intended when CCRB's Administrative Prosecution Unit was created in 2012).

D. Enable CCRB to determine discipline in cases that they prosecute (via their Administrative Prosecution Unit).

2) Create fiscal transparency of the City's policing -- and ensure opportunities for public oversight of surveillance-related technologies purchased by the NVPD and other City agencies.

A. Amend the Charter procurement process so that it requires public transparency, equity impact statements, public input, and opportunity for the City Council to veto and prevent purchase or renewals of surveillance technologies. There is currently no systemic transparency or public oversight of City purchases of surveillance technologies. We have shared proposed language to amend Chapter 13 of the Charter - much of it modeled after legislation that has been passed In other municipalities, including Seattle, San Francisco, and Oakland. If procurement in the Charter is not changed this year to enable oversight of surveillance technologies, we will be enabling a dangerous context of unaccountable policing and increasing surveillance to grow that will be incredibly hard to roll back in the future. In recent years, it's been discovered that the NYPD (and possibly other City agencies) have been investing secretly and unaccountably in various surveillance technologies. It is critical that New Yorkers be provided the opportunity to vote this November to allow the public to decide what types of surveillance technologies City agencies should be permitted or prevented from acquiring and using on New Yorkers.

B. Require NYPD reporting of private sources of income and expenses paid by those sources and other sources of income not currently subject to Council oversight. The NYPD's budget is supplemented every year by funding from private sources that is not subject to public oversight - and the NYPD has refused in the past to disclose details of that income and items paid. For example, the first body worn camera pilot program was paid for by the Police Foundation - and the NYPD refused to make public the evaluation findings. This type

2 COMMIIITIES (11:1 1 ~~~1 ■ i ):I Improving Government & Increasing Police Transparency POLICE Items the 2019 City Charter Revision Commission Should Adopt REFORM for New Yorkers to Vote on in 2019 Elections (updated 6/10/2019)

The following are key items Communities United for Police Reform (CPR) has been advocating for as part of the 2019 City Charter Revision Process. The 2019 Charter Revision process represents a unique opportunity for New Yorkers to vote on changes to the City Charter that can better advance governmental transparency and safety for all New Yorkers, including increased police accountability and transparency.

Proposed changes to New York City Charter

1) Increase police accountability for killines, brutality. sexual violence, eender-based violence and other police misconduct - and the systemic culture of related misconduct that obstructs investigations and promotes cover-ups - when officers harm members of the public.

A. Expand CCRB authority to prosecute on "other related misconduct" in cases that CCRB is investigating- instead of referring those findings to the NYPD's Internal Affairs Bureau (IAB). Examples of other related misconduct that CCRB should investigate and prosecute when they are part of a FADO investigation include: lying in offical reports; false statements; failure to provide aid/intervene; failure to follow BWC/other protocols; failure to document stops and consent searches; leaking sealed information; intimidation of witnesses and complainants, etc.

B. Provide CCRB with explicit authority to investigate, and if warranted. prosecute complaints agajnst school safety agents. and other "peace officers". School safety agent complaints are currently sent to the NYPD's Internal Affairs Bureau, providing no transparency or faith in disciplinary action when school safety agents harm children and young people in NYC schools.

C. Reguire public disclosure and transparency when the Commissioner deviates on CCRB findings and discipline recommendations. The reason for deviation should be made public (as was intended when CCRB's Administrative Prosecution Unit was created in 2012).

D. Enable Cjvilian Complaint Review Board (CCRB) to determine discipline in cases that they prosecute (via their Administrative Prosecution Unit).

2) Create fiscal transparency of the City's nolicio& ·• and ensure opportunities for public oversiaht of surveillance-related technoloaies purchased by the NYPD and other City agencies.

A. Amend Charter procurement process so that it requires public transparency, equity impact statements, public input, and opportunity for the City Council to veto and prevent purchase or renewals of surveillance technologies.

B. Require NYPD reporting of private sources of income and expenses paid by those sources (& other sources of income not currently subject to Council oversight).

C. Reguire detailed units of appropriation in NYPD budget so that New Yorkers understand what the NYPD's budget of over $5 Billion is spent on.

520 8111 Avenue, Suite 1800 I New York, NY 10018 I www.changethenypd.org I Y@changethenypd Thriving Communities Coalition Comprehensive Planning Summary

1. Equity Principles should be written into the charter to enshrine a values-based approach to planning and land-use decision making:

o Equitable distribution of resources and development o Elimination of disparities across race, geography, and socio-economic status o Equal access to opportunity for every New Yorker, regardless of where they live o Affirmatively further fair housing while preserving the right to stay in and access neighborhoods with quality housing, good-paying jobs, and cultural and social connections. o The fulfillment of the human right to housing for all New Yorkers, regardless of income.

2. The creation of a robust needs assessment to be used in decision making should be called for in the Charter to:

o Develop a cross-sectoral assessment of neighborhoods including areas like climate risk, infrastructure, open space, housing, jobs, education needs, etc. o Enable more robust community-based qualitative data gathering and examine community-level determinants of social, economic, and physical well-being o Feed into an equity index that would assess displacement risk, access to opportunity, and identify areas of the city that have the capacity to absorb growth, those that need more investment into existing communities, neighborhoods with the greatest risk of climate impacts, etc.

3. A charge to establish targets across areas such as population, jobs, housing, etc. and investment goals that are guided by equity principles (#1) and needs (#2) to:

o Align citywide and local needs through improved community-level goal setting and ensure goals are reflective of both geographic differences and NYC's diversity (seniors, youth, people of color, low-income, etc.) o Create a framework to guide decision making in the best interest of the city o Curtail the ad hoc, transactional nature of planning and pursue a more thoughtful approach to developing the City. o Create an equity index to evaluate the needs of different communities and prioritize among the identified goals by assigning an equity score indicating a community's need relative to another. o Add transparency to the City's planning and investment decisions

4. The Charter must require existing and new planning-related processes to align with one another to develop a singular framework for comprehensive planning that: o Would be used to guide budgeting, policy, programming, and land use decisions o Enable interagency cooperation to meet community priorities equitably o Streamline the planning cycle and reduce redundancy in the process, saving resources and improving the quality of community involvement o Coordinate short, medium, and long-term needs across sectors

5. Support for robust local planning to meet established targets by:

o Strengthening the 197a community planning process with new resources and language to streamline approval process so long as they align with citywide targets

How the Process Would Work

A. Equity principles are written into charter and future planning decisions have to include a report on how they abide by them. (#1)

B. Needs assessment would be initiated after the 2020 Census data is complete and available and would be carried out by an established City agency or commission (e.g. DCP Population Division or Civic Engagement Commission). (#2)

C. Equity index would be created working with policy and community groups, along with a public engagement process to i~entify the nuances to include in each score (e.g. Transit access scores would be based on proximity, ADA accessibility, quality of service, etc.). (#3)

D. A-C would be used to establish city-wide targets and create parameters for communities to create local goals. (#3)

E. Existing planning processes undertaken by various City agencies (e.g. HPD housing plan, OneNYC, etc.) would utilize A-Din developing their plans and would include that information in public engagement before adopting final plans. (#4)

F. City agencies would incorporate Equity Index and principles into decision-making, driving a portion of resources to address communities with a low equity score (e.g. Community Parks Initiative), with report to enable electeds and the public to hold them accountable. Flexibility would be built in to enable agencies to take on required projects (e.g. consent orders from the state) or handle emergencies. (#4)

G. Community boards would be more likely to get 197a plans approved or resources for their priorities if those speak directly to issues established for their community from A-F. Developments would be prioritized depending on how closely they follow what has been established in A-F. (#5) FAQs About Comprehensive Planning

The Charter already requires about 10 different plans. How would creating a single "comprehensive plan" improve on what's already required? Won't this just add to the confusion?

• Growth targets and investment goals created for the whole city, through one process. qt one time. Today, many communities do not have a "seat at the table" because there is no single table where decisions about growth and investment are made. Instead, efforts like neighborhood rezonings are undertaken piecemeal, pushing growth to communities with less political capital and leaving high-opportunity, wealthy communities largely untouched. These power dynamics are unlikely to change as long as development plans are made neighbo~hood by neighborhood, one at a time. Comprehensive planning would create shared fates across the City by requiring one process within which conversations about growth and investments would unfold, and longer-term decisions made. None of this is required through any of the City's current processes. • Equity principles would be included in the charter as an element of the Comp Plan, outlining a coherent vision of what the City is supposed to achieve with all of its various initiatives. Today, with no clear goals, it's hard to debate whether the City's plans are "working" or not. Working toward what? Equity principles would set out broad goals that the Comp Plan, and a// of the City's plans, would advance. • A robust needs assessment process would assess each area's ( 1) access to opportunity, (2) existing residential displacement risk, and (3} unmet needs. Neither ( 1) nor (2) is required in the charter today, even though other types of needs assessments (such as the Community District Needs Assessments) do happen. Our proposal would require the City to use data-driven methods to assess these specific factors, invite community members to help identify the greatest priorities, look at both current and projected future need, and make land use, budgetary, and policy decisions that are clearly responsive to the identified needs. This is just common sense - but it's largely not required today. • An equity index would help to highlight the areas of greatest need, improving transparency and helping lawmakers. agencies, and members of the public quickly understand where resources are most needed, where displacement risk is highest, and whether the City's current strategies are working to advance equity principles. • Require the plans to "speak to" each other. Today, the Charter requires several different types of assessments and plans, but in many cases, the assessments are not required to inform the plans, and the plans are not required to inform planning, programming, or budgetary decisions. Our proposal would require alignment among these different documents, including explicit alignment with the Comprehensive Plan.

Thriving Communities Coalition 1 ------A encIez submit ""'"I" -=_~1 1 • .,.., ':· :., Community BoJrd~ prep 9 t •.J MJyor crNte:; C1tyw1dc .,. 1 ~t.iterncnts of cmnmurnty needs ct1 epmlrnerf, 3 d -·' Stutement of Need:; • .'' s I '3 ementso nee ..... f,. ,. • 1 ::~.. 1· 1 1 1 1 2 There is nothing that requires agencies to act to address the Citywide Statement of Needs. - ,., R Buruugh Pres1tJents Mayor creates s1rateg1c No roI f' f nr \,rnr1num 1v onrrI ~ m . --d t f ·- create strJtegIc policy J>Ol1cy st.Jtement w/help 1 en I yrng po 1icy ~nori 1ie:. slatcmenls from OCR I There is nothing lhat requires the Strategic Polley Statement to be responsive to the Citywide Statement of Needs, sustainability report, report on social Indicators & equity, or report on poverty_ A Agencies report

Muyo1's or·,ce d,Nelops Office ,epurts abou! b ~ 1 1 1 r ~ In 1dent1f~ing rneasuruble City':; performance v,rt ~ r.ustamab1ilty r.hallcnge~ sustamab1ltty 1nd1c;:ilors 5us1Jtnubiltty 1nd1cu!ors ~ - Sustalnabltlty Indicators & report exist independent from agency decislonmaking processes & w/o local input

Charter set::; forth Milyor's office must report on sociul Report must go to CB::; l,1J,cr rn11~1 lay cut pla11~ to c.ert,wi rnr11cer, r~rort indicators & equity incl d1sp,mties 60 days before 1hey ID nddrc:~~-:pant,c~ r. Cf'C . mu:: nuurcs: ,n p,amunq mus! ild , j re:;s, Counc, I by gmup & I

cm, add to !hese oren::; related 10 City service:;. need not inform them. ,m 1, m,w ""' bud p Report on social Indicators & equity provides valuable info, but agencies aren't required to use it to plan/budget.

~ ~ M.iyor must :mnu;i ly MJ)'Or mu: t repcrt effor1s to ~~t~ m l(!ent,f ing ~ report on the poverty reduce po, etty l CPC m ust I II =d ~ ~ by «JcP m 1ilte, d1s.ig•Jrl!yatecl by address in plaamng po',cy, hu: t 1;:i enge:; 1elMe to poverty hm i en I Cr.t7. born h ,i;, ni>, i, orhno(1 ~ Report on poverty also provides valuable Info. but agencies aren't required to use It to plan/budget.

Would comprehensive planning solve the affordability crisis?

On its own, no. But it would address affordability in several ways: • Needs assessments would highlight displacement risk and access to opportunity. These regularly-conducted assessments would help surface issues and inform future plans to better address affordability. • A single process resulting in a citywide growth framework would help drive more development to higher-opportunity, wealthier communities. Through Mandatory lnclusionary Housing, growth in hot markets could help to create more affordable housing - at no cost to the City. • Unregulated market-rate growth would be directed away from areas with high displacement risk, helping to preserve affordable units - "naturally occurring" and otherwise - that already exist.

Thriving Communities Coalition 2 I'm concerned that this plan would sit on a shelf and not change anything the City or developers do. How can we address this?

• A required Comp Plan guided by equity principles and a needs assessment process would give advocates important accountability tools and a framework off of which to build a more robust process. There is no question that advocates would have to continue to push to ensure that whatever was in the Charter - likely somewhat vague language, as is the case with most things required in the Charter - would be meaningfully implemented. But the requirements in the Charter would give advocates a leg to stand on, which they don't hove today. • Our proposed Land Use and Infrastructure Framework would help inform future land use decisions. o Proposed land use actions would be required to disclose the extent to which they did, or did not align with the Framework, and justify any proposed deviations. This would help create pressure to align with the Framework, which would be positioned as the "default" plan - incentivizing applicants to propose actions that are in compliance with the plan. o The creation of a citywide framework would make it more difficult for local councilmembers to block growth in wealthy communities, while making it clear to low-income communities that a// parts of the City were receiving their fair share of growth.

What would incentivize developers and the City to take action in accordance with the Comp Plan? Wouldn't they just ignore it like 197-a plans? • Our proposed process would set growth and investment targets for every community, and any City-led or private development plans would have to be in alignment with those targets. Non-aligned proposals would be flagged as such and face disapproval. • Likewise, community-created plans found to be in e:ompliance with the comprehensive plan would be able to advance through ULURP. where unaligned plans would face disapproval.

The City used to require comprehensive planning in the charter - then they took it out because it WCJS never carried out. Knowing this history, why would we put it back in?

The single botched example at a plan should not have been used as an excuse to remove the requirement from the Charter. The challenges that the Lindsay-era plan

Thriving Communities Coalition 3 encountered were one-part a product of the time and another part a product of real estate opposition and poorly executed public engagement. None of these failures addresses the issue of whether comprehensive planning is needed ln NYC. The removal from the Charter speaks more to the inefficacy of the original language (no consequences for failure to complete) than it does to the merits of the concept.

This seems too complicated! Can't we just align the existing plans through a future local law instead of tackling all this now?

• The Commission was convened in great part to deal with the City's land use issues. and not addressing them is likely to be seen by many as an abdication of that important responsibility. (It certainly will be seen that way by the members of the Thriving Communities Coalition!} • Most major cities except NYC have comprehensive planning. This isn't a radical idea. and its time has come. • The many existing plans are not currently required to align with each other or work toward shared goals. A comprehensive planning mandate in the Charter could require this, and center equity as a goal of all planning. • The extensive, multi-year process carried out by the Coalition for Community-Based Planning, led by the Municipal Arts Society that culminated in a white paper and draft legislation in 2010 undertook a legal analysis of its recommendations. It concluded that Charter Revision was a necessary step to accomplish the goal. A comprehensive plan must be more than alignment because aligning existing plans alone does not provide for meaningful public input or oversight. The Charter must address a meaningful plan. • Yes, experts have debated the finer points of comprehensive planning and a lot would still need to be figured out. But kicking the can down the road typically doesn't make difficult challenges any easier. We hove already collectively begun to vision what exactly comprehensive planning should look like, and a requirement in the Charter would create a mandate for us to continue this progress. Don't give up on this now!

Thriving Communities Coalition 4 REJlNY· RiAL EiTATl SOARD OF NEW lOR~

May 23, 2019

To the Members of the 2019 Charter Revision Commission:

The Real Estate Board of New York (REBNY) is the City's leading real estate trade association representing commercial, residential, and institutional property owners, builders, managers, investors, brokers, salespeople, and other organizations and individuals active in New York City real estate. REBNY strongly supports policies that expand the local economy, grow and improve the City's housing stock, and create greater opportunities for middle class New Yorkers. We appreciate the commission's time to hear feedback on the April 2019 initial staff report. As previously stated by REBNY, revisions to the City Charter should serve as a vehicle for instituting broad best practices for governance, prioritizing actions that allow for continued population growth while providing predictability and transparency in decision making.

It is important to note as part of this discussion that there are real concerns regarding affordabi Iity, disinvestment and disenfranchisement of neighborhoods. It is appropriate to pay attention to the city's Uniform Land Use Review Procedure (ULURP) process as an opportunity for transparency and accountability.

New York City' s success depends upon increasing our supply of housing, a strong infrastructure, and a skilled workforce. It is critical to the city's ability to meet housing demand to both maintain its as-of-right zoning framework and an efficient, engaged public review process. Any changes that reduce predictability would needlessly put housing production at risk. the current process has provided 20% of the city's completed housing units between 2010-2018 and an additional 28% occurred as-of-right in neighborhoods that went through ULURP for a rezoning.

We agree that there should be universal terms that it is appropriate to engage community boards and elected offices prior to the start of certification to solicit feedback. However, subjecting all discretionary projects to a pre-engagement process may create undue burdens to city resources, create more uncertainty leading into the process and potentially forestall the construction of necessary housing. What would benefit from a pre-engagement process are city actions affecting a significant portion of a district. HPD, EDC, and DCP have all undertaken in this administration community planning efforts to varying degrees of scope, time, and engagement. Instituting best practices such as language access and ensuring a cross section of participants are important components of a successful planning process.

Regarding an automatic extension of the review period for Community Boards, we would again reiterate that community boards should meet monthly year-round. Delays because of customary summer recess have a cost in jobs and housing production. If automatic extensions are contemplated they should be the minimum necessary.

Regarding the planning function of the charter, the recommendation by staff to establish a planning cycle and to regularize input and output schedules for the existing universe of co dependent plans, studies, and recommendations within the City of New York's Charter is a laudable, achievable recommendation. How success is measured is also important - in a city this

THE REAL ESTATE BOARD OF NEW YORK I 570 LEXINGTON AVENUE. NEW YORK, NY 10022 I 212-616-5200 I REBNY COM diverse in people, culture, building, geography, and interest, no one group should get to dictate terms.

Instituting time limits to guard against planning fatigue, stale data and over regulation is important to both the effort to coordinate and sync existing planning mechanisms and the addition of pre-certification engagement. Caution should be exercised in overly prescriptive, multi-year planning processes and regulation. The Obama White House Housing Development Tool Kit and the Furman Center have all pointed out that overregulation leads to higher costs in existing housing and to less construction, further exacerbating the affordability crisis.

Thank you for the opportunity to submit additional comments to the Commission.

Sincerely,

John H. Banks

THE REAL ESTATE BOARD OF NEW YORK f 570 LEXINGTON AVENUE, NEW YORK, NY 10022 212·616-5200 I REBNY.COM