Politics
Attorney General Nominee Defends Obama Immigration Changes
ERICA WERNER, Associated Press
ERIC TUCKER, Associated Press
WASHINGTON (AP) — Confronting skeptical Republicans, attorney general nominee Loretta Lynch pledged a new start with Congress and independence from President Barack Obama Wednesday, even as she defended the president’s unilateral protections for millions of immigrants in the country illegally.
“If confirmed as attorney general, I would be myself. I would be Loretta Lynch,” the nominee told her Senate confirmation hearing as Republicans showered criticism on the current occupant of the job, Eric Holder. They said Holder was contemptuous of Congress and too politically close to Obama, and repeatedly demanded assurances that Lynch would do things differently.
“You’re not Eric Holder, are you?” Texas Republican John Cornyn, one of the current attorney general’s most persistent critics, asked at one point.
“No, I’m not, Sir,” Lynch responded with a smile.
It was a moment that summed up a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing that was often more about Obama and Holder than about Lynch, who is now the top federal prosecutor for parts of New York City and Long Island. If confirmed, she would become the nation’s first black female attorney general.
Holder, Cornyn contended, “operated as a politician using the awesome power conferred by our laws on the attorney general.” Lynch asked the senator to take note of “the independence that I’ve always brought to every particular matter,” and she said that when merited she would say no to Obama.
On immigration, Lynch faced numerous questions from Republicans critical of the administration’s new policy granting work permits and temporary deportation relief to some 4 million people who are in the country illegally. The committee chairman, Republican Chuck Grassley of Iowa, called the effort “a dangerous abuse of executive authority.”
Lynch said she had no involvement in drafting the measures but called them “a reasonable way to marshal limited resources to deal with the problem” of illegal immigration. She said the Homeland Security Department was focusing on removals of “the most dangerous of the undocumented immigrants among us.”
Pressed by Sen. Jeff Sessions of Alabama, a leading immigration hard-liner, she said that citizenship was not a right for people in the country illegally but rather a privilege that must be earned. At the same time, when Sessions asked whether individuals in the country legally or those who are here unlawfully have more of a right to a job, Lynch replied, “The right and the obligation to work is one that’s shared by everyone in this country regardless of how they came here.”
The hearing was the first such proceeding since Republicans retook control of the Senate in January. Lynch is expected to win confirmation without difficulty in the end, in part because Republicans are so eager to be rid of Holder. He has been a lightning rod for conservatives over the past six years, clashing continually with lawmakers and becoming the first sitting attorney general to be held in contempt of Congress.
Lynch found occasions to differentiate herself from Holder but without contradicting him, as she answered senators’ largely cordial questions.
In one example, she stated without hesitation under questioning from Sen. Lindsey Graham that she considers the death penalty an effective punishment and has sometimes sought it in her district. That was a rhetorical shift from Holder, who has expressed personal reservations about the punishment, particularly in light of recent botched executions, but who has also sought it in past cases.
On another controversial topic, Lynch said that current National Security Agency intelligence-gathering programs are “constitutional and effective.” She said she hopes Congress will renew three expiring provisions in the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, which allows the FBI to obtain search warrants and communications intercepts in intelligence cases.
Lynch, a daughter of the segregated South, was accompanied at the hearing by about 30 family members and friends. Her mother, a retired English teacher and librarian, was unable to make the trip, but her father, who is a retired minister, sat behind her throughout the hearing along with her husband and several members of her college sorority, Delta Sigma Theta, wearing their trademark bright red.
Beyond his clashes with Congress, Holder has faced accusations from critics that he has aligned himself more with protesters alleging police violence than with members of law enforcement, a contention he and the Justice Department have strongly denied — but one that resonated in the aftermath of recent high-profile deaths of black men at the hands of white officers.
It’s an area Lynch is familiar with. She helped prosecute the New York City police officers who beat and sexually assaulted Haitian immigrant Abner Louima in 1997, and her office in New York is currently leading a civil rights investigation into the police chokehold death of Eric Garner in Staten Island last summer. Lynch has been U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of New since 2010, a role she also held from 1999 to 2001.
Lynch told senators that one of the most important issues facing the country is “the need to resolve the tensions that appear to be discussed and appear to be rising between law enforcement and the communities that we serve.” She said that the best way to deal with the problem is to get all parties to meet and talk, “helping them see that, in fact, we are all in this together.”
Copyright 2015 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
Activism
Post News Group to Host Second Town Hall on Racism, Hate Crimes
The mission of CRD is to protect the people of California from unlawful discrimination in employment, housing and public accommodations (businesses) and from hate violence and human trafficking in accordance with the Fair Employment and Housing Act (FEHA), Unruh Civil Rights Act, Disabled Persons Act, and Ralph Civil Rights Act. The employment anti-discrimination provisions of the FEHA apply to public and private employers, labor organizations and employment agencies. “Housing providers” includes public and private owners, real estate agents and brokers, banks, mortgage companies, and financial institutions.
By Oakland Post Staff
On Tuesday, Dec. 10, from 5-6:30 p.m. PT, Post News Group Global Features Journalist Carla Thomas will host a second Virtual Town Hall on Racism.
Guests will include community builders Trevor Parham of Oakstop and Shawn Granberry of Hip Hop TV.
“There’s been an uptick of blatant racist acts going on in the community and it’s important for communities to have a forum, an outlet, and to be educated on the California Vs. Hate initiative that has resources available for victims and witnesses,” said Thomas. People like Trevor Parham and Shawn Granberry have found a multitude of ways to strengthen, heal, and protect the community through their entrepreneurial networks, special events, and mentoring.”
While community leaders step up, the state has added extra support with the CA vs. Hate, initiative, a non-emergency hate incident and hate crime reporting system to support individuals and communities targeted for hate.
“We are committed to making California a safer and inclusive place for all,” said James Williams, Jr. of the California Civil Rights Department.
In partnership with organizations across the state, the network is designed to support and protect diverse and underserved communities.
“Through CA vs. Hate, we support individuals and communities targeted for hate, identify options for next steps after an act of hate, and connect people with culturally competent resources and care coordination services,” said Williams.
“It’s important to report these incidents in order for us to use the data to enhance prevention and response services,” said Williams.
Funded by the California State Legislature, the California Civil Rights Department (CRD) received funding and authorization from the State Legislature to establish the non-emergency, CA vs. Hate Resource Line and Network to support individuals and communities targeted for hate.
The mission of CRD is to protect the people of California from unlawful discrimination in employment, housing and public accommodations (businesses) and from hate violence and human trafficking in accordance with the Fair Employment and Housing Act (FEHA), Unruh Civil Rights Act, Disabled Persons Act, and Ralph Civil Rights Act. The employment anti-discrimination provisions of the FEHA apply to public and private employers, labor organizations and employment agencies. “Housing providers” includes public and private owners, real estate agents and brokers, banks, mortgage companies, and financial institutions.
CRD began in 1959 with the creation of the Fair Employment Practices Commission to implement California’s first state-wide protections against discrimination in the workplace. In 1980, the 1959 Fair Employment Practices Act, and the 1963 Rumford Fair Housing Act were combined and rebranded FEHA. The Fair Employment Practices Commission became a department-level agency named the Department of Fair Employment and Housing (DFEH) to enforce that law.
In July 2022, DFEH’s name changed to CRD to more accurately reflect the Department’s powers and duties, which include enforcement of laws prohibiting hate violence, human trafficking, discrimination in business establishments, and discrimination in government-funded programs and activities, among others.
For more information visit the PostNewsGroup.com and CAvsHATE.ORG.
Activism
Butler, Lee Celebrate Passage of Bill to Honor Congresswoman Shirley Chisholm with Congressional Gold Medal
“Shirley Chisholm lived an honorable life of service and was a trailblazer who opened doors for generations of Black women and opened the imagination of what leadership looked like for our entire nation,” said Butler. “Her extraordinary contributions to American history and progress deserve recognition, and today I am proud to stand with my colleagues in both chambers and on both sides of the aisle to have taken this step to celebrate her legacy, ensuring that future generation of leaders never forget her courage, sacrifice, and patriotism.
By U.S. Senator Laphonza Butler
Special to The Post
U.S. Senator Laphonza Butler (D-Calif.) and U.S. Representative Barbara Lee (D-Calif.-12) celebrated the passage of bipartisan legislation to honor the life and work of the late Congresswoman Shirley Chisholm, the first Black woman elected to Congress in 1968.
The Shirley Chisholm Congressional Gold Medal Act would instruct Congress to posthumously endow Chisholm with a Congressional Gold Medal – the highest award Congress can bestow – in commemoration of her accomplishments, activism, and legacy.
The Shirley Chisholm Congressional Gold Medal Act was led in the House by Congresswoman Lee, Congressman Byron Donalds, Leader Hakeem Jeffries, Congresswoman Maxine Waters, and Congresswoman Yvette Clarke. The Senate companion to the bill was introduced by Butler and Georgia Senator Raphael Warnock.
“Shirley Chisholm lived an honorable life of service and was a trailblazer who opened doors for generations of Black women and opened the imagination of what leadership looked like for our entire nation,” said Butler. “Her extraordinary contributions to American history and progress deserve recognition, and today I am proud to stand with my colleagues in both chambers and on both sides of the aisle to have taken this step to celebrate her legacy, ensuring that future generation of leaders never forget her courage, sacrifice, and patriotism.
The Congressional Gold Medal serves as the nation’s highest expression of gratitude for distinguished service and achievements, and I see no one more deserving than Shirley Chisholm,” said Lee. “It is critical for the next generation of leaders to see the first Black woman elected to Congress get the recognition that she deserves.
“Congresswoman Chisholm made history as the first Black woman elected to the United States Congress and the first Black woman to run for President of the United States. To Mrs. C, thank you for being unbought and unbossed, for paving the way, and for being a catalyst for change,” Lee said.
During her seven terms in the U.S. House of Representatives, “Fighting Shirley” introduced 50 pieces of legislation and was a champion for racial and gender equity, low-income communities, and the end of the Vietnam War.
In 1972, Chisholm became the first woman and Black candidate to seek the nomination for president of the United States from one of the two major political parties.
After a lifetime of service, Shirley Chisholm died at the age of 80 in Ormond Beach, Florida, on New Year’s Day 2005. Nov. 30, 2024, would have marked Chisholm’s 100th birthday. Chisholm’s motto, “Unbought and Unbossed,” embodies her unwavering advocacy for women and minorities, which defined her remarkable career and inspired future generations of leaders.
After passing the House and Senate with significant bipartisan support, the Shirley Chisholm Congressional Gold Medal Act will head to President Biden’s desk for a signature.
“Congresswoman Shirley Chisholm broke barriers for Black women, Black Americans, and anyone who refuses to be confined by injustice. As an educator, trailblazing public servant, and presidential candidate, she fought for an inclusive democracy that lives up to our nation’s highest ideals of equity and justice under law,” said Warnock. “I am proud to have passed this bill alongside Senator Butler to honor Chisholm’s legacy with a Congressional Gold Medal, and I will continue working to carry on her fight through my work in the Senate.”
“Shirley Chisholm was a pioneering figure in American politics, serving as a source of inspiration for millions throughout our country,” said Senator Susan Collins. “I am proud to join this effort to recognize her historic contributions to our nation.”
“Shirley Chisholm broke barriers as the first African American woman elected to Congress, paving the way for future generations of women leaders,” said Nevada Senator Cortez Masto. “I’m proud I helped pass this bill in the Senate to honor her legacy and continue the fight for representation and opportunity for everyone across the country.”
Business
Landlords Are Using AI to Raise Rents — And California Cities Are Leading the Pushback
Federal prosecutors say the practice amounts to “an unlawful information-sharing scheme” and some lawmakers throughout California are moving to curb it. San Diego’s City Council president is the latest to do so, proposing to prevent local apartment owners from using the pricing software, which he maintains is driving up housing costs.
By Wendy Fry, CalMatters
If you’ve hunted for apartments recently and felt like all the rents were equally high, you’re not crazy: Many landlords now use a single company’s software — which uses an algorithm based on proprietary lease information — to help set rent prices.
Federal prosecutors say the practice amounts to “an unlawful information-sharing scheme” and some lawmakers throughout California are moving to curb it. San Diego’s City Council president is the latest to do so, proposing to prevent local apartment owners from using the pricing software, which he maintains is driving up housing costs.
San Diego’s proposed ordinance, now being drafted by the city attorney, comes after San Francisco supervisors in July enacted a similar, first-in-the-nation ban on “the sale or use of algorithmic devices to set rents or manage occupancy levels” for residences. San Jose is considering a similar approach.
And California and seven other states have also joined the federal prosecutors’ antitrust suit, which targets the leading rent-pricing platform, Texas-based RealPage. The complaint alleges that “RealPage is an algorithmic intermediary that collects, combines, and exploits landlords’ competitively sensitive information. And in so doing, it enriches itself and compliant landlords at the expense of renters who pay inflated prices…”
But state lawmakers this year failed to advance legislation by Bakersfield Democratic Sen. Melissa Hurtado that would have banned the use of any pricing algorithms based on nonpublic data provided by competing companies. She said she plans to bring the bill back during the next legislative session because of what she described as ongoing harms from such algorithms.
“We’ve got to make sure the economy is fair and … that every individual who wants a shot at creating a business has a shot without being destroyed along the way, and that we’re also protecting consumers because it is hurting the pocketbooks of everybody in one way or another,” said Hurtado.
RealPage has been a major impetus for all of the actions. The company counts as its customers landlords with thousands of apartment units across California. Some officials accuse the company of thwarting competition that would otherwise drive rents down, exacerbating the state’s housing shortage and driving up rents in the process.
“Every day, millions of Californians worry about keeping a roof over their head and RealPage has directly made it more difficult to do so,” said California Attorney General Rob Bonta in a written statement.
A RealPage spokesperson, Jennifer Bowcock, told CalMatters that a lack of housing supply, not the company’s technology, is the real problem — and that its technology benefits residents, property managers, and others associated with the rental market. The spokesperson later wrote that a “misplaced focus on nonpublic information is a distraction… that will only make San Francisco and San Diego’s historical problems worse.”
As for the federal lawsuit, the company called the claims in it “devoid of merit” and said it plans to “vigorously defend ourselves against these accusations.”
“We are disappointed that, after multiple years of education and cooperation on the antitrust matters concerning RealPage, the (Justice Department) has chosen this moment to pursue a lawsuit that seeks to scapegoat pro-competitive technology that has been used responsibly for years,” the company’s statement read in part. “RealPage’s revenue management software is purposely built to be legally compliant, and we have a long history of working constructively with the (department) to show that.””
The company’s challenges will only grow if pricing software becomes another instance in which California lawmakers lead the nation. Following San Francisco’s ban, the Philadelphia City Council passed a ban on algorithmic rental price-fixing with a veto-proof vote last month. New Jersey has been considering its own ban.
Is It Price-fixing — or Coaching Landlords?
According to federal prosecutors, RealPage controls 80% of the market for commercial revenue management software. Its product is called YieldStar, and its successor is AI Revenue Management, which uses much of the same codebase as YieldStar, but has more precise forecasting. RealPage told CalMatters it serves only 10% of the rental markets in both San Francisco and San Diego, across its three revenue management software products.
Here’s how it works:
In order to use YieldStar and AIRM, landlords have historically provided RealPage with their own private data from their rental applications, rent prices, executed new leases, renewal offers and acceptances, and estimates of future occupancy, although a recent change allows landlords to choose to share only public data.
This information from all participating landlords in an area is then pooled and run through mathematical forecasting to generate pricing recommendations for the landlords and for their competitors.
San Diego City Council President Sean Elo-Rivera, explained it like this:
“In the simplest terms, what this platform is doing is providing what we think of as that dark, smoky room for big companies to get together and set prices,” he said. “The technology is being used as a way of keeping an arm’s length from one big company to the other. But that’s an illusion.”
In the company’s own words, from company documents included in the lawsuit, RealPage “ensures that (landlords) are driving every possible opportunity to increase price even in the most downward trending or unexpected conditions.” The company also said in the documents that it “helps curb (landlords’) instincts to respond to down-market conditions by either dramatically lowering price or by holding price.”
Providing rent guidance isn’t the only service RealPage has offered landlords. In 2020, a Markup and New York Times investigation found that RealPage, alongside other companies, used faulty computer algorithms to do automated background checks on tenants. As a result, tenants were associated with criminal charges they never faced, and denied homes.
Impact on Tenants
The attorneys general of eight states, including California, joined the Justice Department’s antitrust suit, filed in U.S. District Court for the Middle District of North Carolina.
The California Justice Department contends RealPage artificially inflated prices to keep them above a certain minimum level, said department spokesperson Elissa Perez. This was particularly harmful given the high cost of housing in the state, she added. “The illegally maintained profits that result from these price alignment schemes come out of the pockets of the people that can least afford it.”
Renters make up a larger share of households in California than in the rest of the country — 44% here compared to 35% nationwide. The Golden State also has a higher percentage of renters than any state other than New York, according to the latest U.S. Census data.
The recent ranks of California legislators, however, have included few renters: As of 2019, CalMatters could find only one state lawmaker who did not own a home — and found that more than a quarter of legislators at the time were landlords.
The State Has Invested in RealPage
Private equity giant Thoma Bravo acquired RealPage in January 2021 through two funds that have hundreds of millions of dollars in investments from California public pension funds, including the California Public Employees’ Retirement System, the California State Teachers’ Retirement System, the Regents of the University of California and the Los Angeles police and fire pension funds, according to Private Equity Stakeholder Project.
“They’re invested in things that are directly hurting their pensioners,” said K Agbebiyi, a senior housing campaign coordinator with the Private Equity Stakeholder Project, a nonprofit private equity watchdog that produced a report about corporate landlords’ impact on rental hikes in San Diego.
RealPage argues that landlords are free to reject the price recommendations generated by its software.
RealPage argues that landlords are free to reject the price recommendations generated by its software. But the U.S. Justice Department alleges that trying to do so requires a series of steps, including a conversation with a RealPage pricing adviser. The advisers try to “stop property managers from acting on emotions,” according to the department’s lawsuit.
If a property manager disagrees with the price the algorithm suggests and wants to decrease rent rather than increase it, a pricing advisor will “escalate the dispute to the manager’s superior,” prosecutors allege in the suit.
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