New York Congressional District 11

Obesity is the New HIV

Posted by David Montalvo

Fighting ObesityJamie Oliver is doing it. Michelle Obama is doing it. And now Yvette Clarke is doing it.

They are fighting against America’s staggering childhood obesity rate.

It’s the latest priority on Clarke’s appropriations request for next year, and it is one that rivals her usual priorities to Jewish and Caribbean communities.

But the good news comes with mixed feelings. One group that didn’t make the list after receiving strong support last year is at-risk gay and lesbian youth.

In her previous request for appropriations that would be used for spending this year, Rep. Yvette Clarke sought $2 million for a project by the Gay Men’s Health Crisis to launch an HIV prevention campaign for at-risk youth.

The project “is a valuable use of taxpayer funds because over 850 clients in the 11th Congressional District will have access to services,” said Clarke in her request.

Indeed, the issue was so pressing that the money she requested for the program was the highest in its category (Commerce, Justice, and Science), and for any individual request made in the Energy and Water, Financial, and Homeland Security categories.

Of the 30 individual requests for 2010, the HIV prevention campaign ranked number seven fiscally – behind a cyber security infrastructure project and funding for the NYPD.

But in her 2011 fiscal year appropriations request, the at-risk gay and lesbian youth were missing – even as other projects, particularly those serving Jewish and Caribbean communities, both large populations in NY-11, stayed put.

What appears to have replaced youth at risk for HIV are those at risk for obesity.

Girls Incorporated ($500,000), GrowNYC ($230,000), St. John’s Bread and Life Program ($300,000), the City Parks Foundation ($150,000), and the Sports and Arts in School Foundation ($300,000) are all called obesity-fighting programs in Clarke’s appropriations request – and they’re all new to this year’s list.

According to Clarke, each program is “a valuable use of taxpayer funds” because:

  • Girls Incorporated will help “meet the goals of the new national childhood obesity initiative;”
  • GrowNYC will create “jobs for teens” and “reduce the health costs associated with diabetes, obesity and heart disease;”
  • St. John’s program “addresses the obesity epidemic;”
  • City Parks Foundation will serve “communities plagued by high rates of obesity;”
  • Sports and Arts will focus on the “high rates of childhood obesity” because it’s one of the “greatest threats to young people.”

Obesity can be life-threatening and addressing it is important. But so is HIV.

While it is uncertain whether Gay Men’s Health Crisis or other HIV prevention programs requested funds for 2011, one thing is clear: Clarke understands the ongoing need for funding of those campaigns.

Such programs, she said last year, “provide life saving services crucial in the fight to reverse the alarming rate of infection among youth in New York City.”

According to the New York City Department of Health, more than 100,000 New Yorkers are living with HIV and thousands don’t know they’re infected, making New York City the epicenter of the HIV/AIDS epidemic in the U.S.

And though $2 million was requested for Gay Men’s Health Crisis, it ultimately received a smaller amount, $1.5 million, according to an appropriations-received report.

The fight against the “alarming rate” of HIV, therefore, is far from over – but one wouldn’t know that from Clarke’s latest appropriations request.

Health Care Reform Passes: "Lunch Ladies" Defeated

Posted by David Montalvo

219 House Democrats passed a landmark health care reform bill late Sunday evening – as Jamie Oliver travelled to the most obese city in America to promote healthier eating habits on his new show “Food Revolution” on ABC – that is meant to benefit tens of thousands of uninsured residents in New York Congressional District 11 in Brooklyn.

The interactive graph above shows how the bill will affect the district, by the numbers.

“This bill gives Americans more choices and brings down health care costs for everyone,” said Rep. Yvette Clarke, who voted for the bill.

Indeed, the bill may also benefit 367,000 of her constituents with health insurance through improvements in their coverage, and more than 11,000 small business in her district are targeted to receive tax credits to afford health insurance, she said.

(Read my previous post for an analysis of why Rep. Clarke voted for health care reform.)

The timing for Food Revolution’s preview perhaps couldn’t have been more impeccable.

Jamie Oliver, the British chef who helped transform the public lunch program in the U.K. through the show’s British version, was faced in West Virginia by a tough, punchy “lunch lady” who refused to change from her ways of serving frozen pizza, processed foods and just-add-water mashed potatoes.

The idea of preparing and serving fresh food everyday to kids seemed not only impossible to her, but perhaps worse, she didn’t think the kids would like it – so why even try to feed them better, more nutritious food?

Change is never easy. The year-long kicking and scratching between Democrats and Republicans over health care reform is evident of that, if nothing else. But President Obama and Congress, like Jamie Oliver, have decided to take on the Republican “lunch ladies” in the interest of a better, healthier America.

The reconciled health care reform bill, which includes the backing of Pro-Life Caucus Democrats, still needs approval by a simple majority in the Senate before landing on President Obama’s desk.

“Tonight after nearly 100 years of talk and frustration,” said Obama around 12:42 a.m. on Monday, “we proved that this government of the people and by the people is still for the people.”

Though no House lunch ladies voted for the bill – including all Republicans and some Democrats – it’s still unclear if they’ll become fans of “Food Revolution.”

Clarke Unexpectedly Breaks from Party Line on Jobs Bill – Votes 'NO'

Posted by David Montalvo

boy-pulling-girls-hair

The message is as clear as the one little boys send to little girls they love – they pull on their pigtails and make them cry.

Yvette Clarke, who sits on the House Small Business Committee, voted Thursday against a $15 billion jobs measure, a bill that gives tax breaks to businesses that hire from the deep pool of unemployed workers.

Though the bill passed with a handful of Democrats voting against it – they said the measure stopped short of spurring job creation and focused too much on business – Clarke’s decision to vote against it was rather unexpected.

The obvious reason would be that anyone who sits on a small business committee would see a measure that supports businesses with tax breaks and credits as favorable.

Indeed, one California Democrat who voted against the measure insisted that “we should stop calling it a jobs bill, and instead acknowledge this is about business tax cuts,” reported The New York Times.

But a more ponytail-tugging message is that, as recently as Wednesday, Clarke testified before the House Budget Committee to get money into the hands of small businesses.

She told the committee that the economic recession “has hit these businesses especially hard, forcing many to shed jobs or scale back operations. The credit crisis has made it more difficult for all small businesses to secure financing; limiting growth opportunities and jeopardizing short term business stability.”

Her message was clear then (small busineses need money now), but her vote Thursday on the jobs bill muddied it up (businesses need money, but not this way).

In her Brooklyn district, Clarke has one of the highest unemployment rates in New York City and New York state, of at least 11 percent in January (New York state averaged was 9.4 percent), according to the New York State Department of Labor. And she consistently peddles out messages about supporting the vast small businesses in her district.

Still, along with a House Democrat in Brooklyn that neighbors her district, she voted the jobs bill down – even as all other New York City representatives voted for the measure (except for Joseph Crowley, a Bronx Democrat who has similar unemployment levels as Clarke but did not vote on the bill).

Clarke has not (yet) explained her reasoning for pulling the pigtails on a jobs bill that would seem to benefit her district.

UPDATED: MARCH 6, 2010

Unlike many of her colleagues in the House, Clarke seems unworried about voting against a jobs bill in an election year at a time when Democrats are trying to show flustered Americans that Congress can get things done. If in her gut she feels the jobs bill is not actually a jobs-creating bill, she can afford to do the “right thing” and vote against it.

And that’s exactly what she did – though through the gut of the Congressional Black Caucus as the caucus whip.

All but one of the caucus’ officers voted against the bill (Rep. G. K. Butterfield of North Carolina, the caucus secretary, voted for the bill’s adoption) – the caucus’s official position.

“While tax cuts for some businesses may be needed, our priority must be to pass legislation that directly creates jobs. The Congressional Black Caucus is committed to finding a path forward that meets the dire needs of unemployed Americans, especially the chronically unemployed,” said the caucus’ chairwoman, Rep. Barbara Lee (D-CA).

Therefore, as the whip, Clarke had to make sure CBC members voted according to its position – including her own vote. While she stayed true to CBC, a majority of its members clearly did not.

At least on this jobs bill, for Clarke, CBC trumps DNC. But what remains unclear is which one trumps her district and when does her district trump either CBC or DNC, or both.

Election Year Checklist: Flatbush? Check. Park Slope?… Check?

Posted by David Montalvo

As the health care summit gets underway in an effort to overhaul the health care industry, Rep. Yvette Clarke voted Wednesday to pass a House bill that tightens the flexible business practices of health insurance companies, said an official.

“For too long, health insurance companies have not played by the rules.  Now they must be held accountable,” said Rep. Clarke in a statement.

In New York’s 11th Congressional District, where Clarke, a Democrat, is serving her second term, the growth of uninsured residents was above 15 percent in the middle of the Great Recession, according to the official New York City Web site. This value was higher in the more affluent part of the district in Park Slope-Downtown neighborhood at 19 percent – career professionals who are losing their jobs in the weak job market are also losing their private insurance, outpacing those in lower-income neighborhoods like Flatbush where a higher percentage of people are on Medicaid, a government-funded health program for low-income individuals.

“Middle-class families are facing higher premiums, a lower quality of coverage and limited choices – all while the insurance companies are jacking up prices and turning record profits.  Healthcare is a fundamental human right, rather than a commodity,” Clarke added.

Recently, however, some of her middle-class constituents in Park Slope – around the corner from Flatbush where there’s a strong concentration of Haitians, a group Clarke is strongly supporting on immigration measures in Washington – can’t seem to figure out what’s being done for them.

“I can’t think of a single thing this woman has done for the community, the state or the country. She seems like a nice enough person, but perhaps she is in over her head?” responded a Park Slope resident to a survey posted on the neighborhood’s Web site bulletin board Brooklynian.

The bill will enforce anti-trust laws on health insurers like other industries that are legally responsible for price fixing, dividing up territories among themselves and sabotaging their competitors in order to gain a monopoly in the marketplace.

But while Clarke’s vote on the bill is not surprising, given her liberal record, it appears to be a smart decision to appeal, at least, to Park Slope, Cobble Hill and other affluent regions of her district in an election year.

“I wasn’t nuts about the process of her election (and didn’t vote for her in the primary last time), but every time I’ve looked into her stance on a particular bill I’ve agreed with it, so I’ll vote for her,” said another one of her Park Slope constituents.