Forum Post: DNC 2016 should be held somewhere else - not NYC

There are reasons why New York should be disqualified from hosting the Democratic National Convention in 2016. New York has rested on its laurels as a center of egalitarian democratic ideals. Laurels earned when Franklin Roosevelt was in office. A review of New York political ideology for the last 2 decades shows a political landscape moving away from the order Roosevelt established.

A perpetual avalanche of Wall Street scandals have thwarted tighter regulation for securities and commodities trading. Wall St has opposed restoration of Glass-Steagall. Wall St seems to operate as an independent sovereign district, or at least has been allowed to despite Elliot Spitzer’s notable efforts to prosecute white-collar crime.

New York City has more millionaires living there than any other US city, yet New York City is not among the Forbes Top 10 Livable US Cities. New York City is ranked 7th in Business Week’s America’s 50 Best Cities. New York City is not in Areavibe.com’s Best Places to Live 2012. In 2011 over 700,000 millionaires lived in New York City, according to Business Insider. The population of New York City is 8 million. With one out of twelve New York City residents being a millionaire why isn’t the quality of life in New York City among the highest in the United States? People in New York City think it is. The math suggests that trickle down economics doesn’t materialize the way Reaganomics theorized. The millionaire’s money is not being used to raise the standard of living in New York City.

New York City hosted the Republican National Convention in 2004. How was it possible for the bluest of blue cities in a blue state to host the convention for the Republican Party after 9/11 terrorist attacks killed nearly 3,000 victims in 1 day? New York City is not the seat of democratic liberalism it claims to be. The record of incompetence of the Bush Administration should have been sufficient ground for impeachment. New York City, then still in ruins, supported Bush’s election to a second term. New York City also enabled Michael Bloomberg to sidestep two-term term limits to run for a third term as Mayor of New York City. So much for the rule of law in New York City during the past decade.

Any New York political leader could initiate a new investigation on the 9-11 attacks in light of new evidence that contradicts the 9-11 Commission Report. None of the Mayors, members of the Congressional delegation, or governors have taken action. How democratic is that?

Reports on school segregation in United States ranks New York as having the most segregated public schools in the nation. How democratic is that?

New York City occupies a special place in the American consciousness as the tumultuous seat of our financial markets and the buzzing capital of our culture. Most importantly, it’s the city that exemplifies American pluralism, the “melting pot” that attracts new immigrants looking for work and college graduates drawn from their hometowns by the promise of excitement and diversity. So, when it turns out that the melting pot has the most segregated schools in the country, as a new study reports, it suggests that something has gone very wrong in our approach to education.

New York’s appeal hangs on its diversity and its image as a city where everyone can try, get, and be anything. But the new UCLA’s Civil Rights Project report shows that the city’s vaunted cosmopolitanism masks sharp divisions within its schools.

Public housing in New York City is a disaster. New York City Housing Authority (NYCHA) has been a blight on public housing instead of being competent administrators. The average completion time for building repairs was 398 days. The backlog had 400,000 repair requests to complete. A worse public housing situation cannot be imagined. This is what a Republican ideologically leaning city government would be expected to do. The Mayor for the past 3 terms was Michael Bloomberg.

Michael Bloomberg had been a lifelong Democrat until the opportunity to run for the Mayor of New York on the Republican Party ticket. Multi-billionaire Michael Bloomberg, without any public administrative or political credentials, spent $70 million of his own money on his campaign and beat Democratic rival, the Public Advocate, Mark Green. How Democratic is that? Bloomberg transformed into a tyrant in successive elections. New Yorkers kept electing him over qualified Democratic contenders while Bloomberg out spent his Democratic rivals by using $70 - $100 million of his own money. Did New Yorkers believe Bloomberg was a Democrat in Republican clothing? Bloomberg could have run on the Democratic ticket at any time after his first election if he was still a Democrat at heart. New Yorkers can’t tell a Democrat from an oligarch flashing millions of dollars during the political campaign, even when running for reelection. New York City doesn’t have Democratic credibility after12 years of Bloomberg.

New York City estimates there are 500,000 undocumented immigrants in the city. This would raise a state of alarm in 45 of the United States. Apparently, New Yorkers do not recognize their own peril from having a large undocumented immigrant population.

New legislation is proposed where undocumented immigrants could become NY State citizens without being US Citizens. Undocumented immigrants in New York could become “state citizens” with a slew of benefits from driver’s licenses to voting rights under a bill that was introduced recently. Advocates are set to announce the measure that would allow immigrants who aren’t U.S. citizens to become New York State citizens if they can prove they’ve lived and paid taxes in the state for three years and pledge to uphold New York laws — regardless of whether they’re in the country legally. How democratic is that? Anyone who grew up in the United States would be astonished that such an idea would be even considered by any legislative forum in the United States. It would seem some politicians could be elected in New York State without understanding the oath sworn to support the Constitution of the United States, and the constitution of the State of New York. How would it be possible to be a citizen of New York and not a citizen of the United States?

“Obviously this is not something that’s going to pass immediately, but nothing as broad as this or as bold as this passes immediately,” said Sen. Gustavo Rivera (D-Bronx), the sponsor in the state Senate. This is a Democratic State Senator that doesn’t understand the US Constitution. Article Six, Clause 2 of the U.S. Constitution establishes the U.S. Constitution, federal statutes, and U.S. treaties as "the supreme law of the land". It provides that these are the highest form of law in the U.S. legal system, and mandates that all state judges must follow federal law when a conflict arises between federal law and either the state constitution or state law of any state.

The State Senator would work to pass legislation that provides a sanctuary within New York State for undocumented immigrants who have entered the United States illegally. Consume hours of debate among peers to rewrite New York State laws, possibly cause a future Constitutional crisis without considering the legal alternative and benefits of legal deportation. The undocumented immigrant status in New York exists because New York authorities allowed it to happen, did not enforce laws on hiring undocumented workers until it had become an unmanageable embarrassment. How democratic is that?

The Mayor and City Council are bound by the same obligation to support the US Constitution and Federal laws. The City Council move toward providing New York City IDs for undocumented immigrants seems unconstitutional since the undocumented immigrants are here illegally. This is something immigration authorities should enforce: legal deportation.

New York City’s civil rights record is tarnished by NYPD stop and frisk controversy. The nation's largest police department illegally and systematically singled out large numbers of blacks and Hispanics under its controversial stop-and-frisk policy, a federal judge ruled in 2013 while appointing an independent monitor to oversee major changes, including body cameras on some officers.

Mayor Michael Bloomberg said he would appeal the ruling, which was a stinging rebuke to a policy he and the New York Police Department have defended as a life-saving, crime-fighting tool that helped lead the city to historic crime lows. The legal outcome could affect how and whether other cities employ the tactic.

"The city's highest officials have turned a blind eye to the evidence that officers are conducting stops in a racially discriminatory manner," U.S. District Judge Shira Scheindlin wrote in her ruling. "In their zeal to defend a policy that they believe to be effective, they have willfully ignored overwhelming proof that the policy of targeting `the right people' is racially discriminatory."

Stop-and-frisk has been around for decades in some form, but recorded stops increased dramatically under the Bloomberg administration to an all-time high in 2011 of 684,330, mostly of black and Hispanic men. The lawsuit was filed in 2004 by four men, all minorities, and became a class-action case. How democratic is that?

What might be harder to measure is the impact NYPD and the Mayor’s leadership advocating preemption of civil rights for minority men in favor of stop-and-frisk has infected the general public perception of minority men and general respect for civil rights. The infection has spread beyond stop-and-frisk to antagonism against exercise of First Amendment Rights resulting in more class action law suits against New York City. A climate was created where individual civil rights are under attack.

Is there any city that has done more to support equality, affordable housing, full employment, quality public education, uphold Democratic and Constitutional principles?