Photo credit: Marla Maritzer

New York City Comptroller William C. Thompson, Jr. joined New York Congressman Edolphus Towns, Former Bronx Borough President Fernando Ferrer, and New York City Council Member Letitia James to urge the U.S. Department of Justice to find that last year’s term limits change inked by Mayor Bloomberg adversely affects minority voters and runs counter to the Voting Rights Act at a City Hall news conference on March 16, 2009. Pictured (l to r) are: New York Congressman Edolphus Towns and New York City Comptroller William C. Thompson, Jr.

New York City Comptroller William C. Thompson, Jr., New York Congressman Edolphus “Ed” Towns, former Bronx Borough President Fernando Ferrer and New York City Council Member Letitia James today called on the U.S. Department of Justice to find that last year’s term limits change inked by Mayor Bloomberg adversely affects minority voters and runs counter to the Voting Rights Act.

“The term limits change railroaded through by Mayor Bloomberg dramatically diminishes the opportunities of minority voters in this city to elect the candidate of their choice,” Thompson said. “The minority communities of New York City are deeply concerned about the retrogressive effect that this law will have on minority voting opportunities. All of us here today – and many others across this city – urge the Attorney General to object to the implementation of this discriminatory new law.”

The U.S. Department of Justice is expected to decide by Tuesday whether Local Law 51 - signed by the Mayor into law in November – unduly impacts minority voters in New York City.

Under Section 5 of the U.S. Voting Rights Act, a covered jurisdiction must demonstrate that any change affecting voting “neither has the purpose nor will have the effect” of abridging the right to vote on account of race, color, or membership in a language minority group. A change affecting voting is considered to have a discriminatory effect under Section 5 “if it will lead to a retrogression in the position of members of a racial or language minority group… with respect to their opportunity to exercise the electoral franchise effectively.”

An objection “shall be interposed” where “the evidence as to the purpose or effect of the change is conflicting and the Attorney General is unable to determine that the change is free of discriminatory purpose or effect.”

A number of elected officials and renowned advocacy groups have written the Department of Justice to urge it to protect minority voting rights, including: Congressmembers Edolphus “Ed” Towns (Chair of the Congressional Government Oversight and Reform Committee), Nydia Velazquez (Chair of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus), and Gregory W. Meeks; Asian American Legal Defense and Education Fund; Center for Law and Social Justice at Medgar Evers College; National Institute for Latino Policy; and present and past minority candidates for elected office in the Bronx, Brooklyn, Queens, and Manhattan.

“Extending voter-imposed term limits from two to three terms, if implemented, would have the effect of significantly diminishing the opportunity for many well-qualified minority candidates to be elected,” said Towns, a member of the Congressional Black Caucus. “This new law would permit many heretofore term-limited white incumbents, including the Mayor, to run for re-election, when they would otherwise have had to vacate their offices, giving rise to open-seat races that present opportunities for minority candidates.”

Former Bronx Borough President Fernando Ferrer said: “Contrary to the claims made by proponents of the term limit extension that it will expand choice, it will and already has limited choice. Witness the apparent exit of previously declared candidates from various contests. Overwhelming money and incumbency is already doing that and demands a thorough Justice Department review and reversal.”

Added New York City Council Member Letitia James: “The prospect of a term limits change would violate both the spirit and the letter of the federal Voting Rights Act. Open seats have traditionally given minority candidates greater opportunities to win office, and represent their constituencies. I believe the Justice Department must recognize that the term limits overhaul already has had a chilling effect on minority opportunities to elect candidates of their choice, and must object to this change.”
 
Experts, including Allan Lichtman, on whom the Bloomberg administration relied for past Charter changes, have told the Justice Department that this term-limits extension will have a retrogressive effect on minority voting opportunities this year and going forward. As these experts have explained, minority representation on the New York City Council, as well as in borough-wide and citywide offices, has slowly but steadily increased since the early 1990s, as a result of changing neighborhood demographics and open seats; therefore, the greater and more frequent the number of open-seat contests, the more frequently minorities have translated, and will have the opportunity to translate, favorable demographics into increased political representation.

It was this combination of improved demographics and the absence of incumbents in open-seat races that helped reshape the composition of the City Council, whose districts were redrawn prior to the 1991 election cycle, leading to a dramatic increase in minority representation. In 1989, New Yorkers voted to amend the City Charter to increase the number of Council districts from 35 to 51; this took effect in 1991.

Then, with the advent of the voter-imposed two-term limit in 1993, minority representation on the City Council increased by more than 16 percent, all in open-seat races (half created by term limits). And in 2001, the first and only local election cycle affected by term limits, four municipal offices (City Comptroller, Queens Borough President and two City Council seats) turned over from white incumbents to minorities, and all four were in open-seat races created by term limits.

Under the two-term limit, numerous minority-preferred candidates,  including several city council candidates, a candidate for Brooklyn borough president, and a candidate for mayor, all running in majority-minority communities, appeared well-positioned to be elected in open-seat contests in the 2009 election cycle, but with this extension of term limits, they all now have to run against twice-previously-elected white incumbents.

“Term limits have created opportunities for minority voters to elect their candidates of choice to municipal office,” said Randy Mastro, Former Deputy Mayor and attorney who has led the legal challenge to the term limits law. “As a direct result of the term limits change, the opportunity for minorities to elect these same minority preferred candidates will be significantly reduced.”

The term limits change, experts and advocates say, affects a number of the races, including: City Council District 1 in Lower Manhattan, where 61 percent of the voting age population is minority; City Council District 11 in the Bronx, where 55 percent of the voting age population is minority; City Council District 25 in Queens, where the minority voting age population is 80 percent; the mayor’s race; and, the Borough President’s race in Brooklyn, where most of the voting age population is also minority.

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