David Billings III, chairman of the New York City Council Against Poverty, who has expressed opposition to any ban on Sabbath voting for elections to boards of the city’s 26 anti-poverty agencies, declined direct comment today to the Jewish Telegraphic Agency on passage yesterday in the State Assembly of a bill banning such Sabbath elections. However, Billings, in an apparent retreat from his earlier opposition, told the JTA that the Council Against Poverty was committed to “obeying the laws of the land,” and also “representing all the poor.”
Billings had opposed the Sabbath voting ban on grounds that Saturday is the best day for getting out a big vote in the Black and other minority communities. Today he said that, as far as voting on the Sabbath was concerned, it was desirable to “try to open up avenues” and to “make arrangements” so that no community group was discriminated against in the anti-poverty elections. He added “we are concerned about people controlling their own destinies.”
After an acrimonious debate, the Assembly backed the bill by a vote of 127 to 9. The bill now goes to the Senate Judiciary Committee, which is expected to report it out favorably to the State Senate after what is expected to be another sharp debate. Orthodox Jews, who comprise most of the 250,000 poor Jews in New York City, have complained that the scheduling of the elections for the community corporation boards of Saturdays for most of the city’s 26 anti-poverty agencies, has disenfranchised poor Jews.
The elections are usually held in April and backers of the measure are fighting for approval by both chambers and signature by Gov. Rockefeller in time to prevent elections next month on Saturday.
Billings recently was publicly rebuked by Mayor John V. Lindsay for comments on a city radio station interview on the Jewish role in the Forest Hills low-income housing project dispute. In the Feb. 29 Interview, he called the largely Jewish opposition to the Forest Hills project “an influential group religiously,” but insisted two days later his remarks were not directed against the Jewish community.
Eight Jewish organizations that earlier this week had called upon the State Legislature to pass a bill prohibiting elections on Saturday or Sunday hailed Assembly passage of the measure and urged “immediate Senate action” on it. In a statement, the eight organizations declared that the Assembly action “represents a victory for all those who believe that no group of New York citizens may be disenfranchised because of their race, religion or ethnic origin….”
The organizations include New York regional and metropolitan chapters and branches of the American Jewish Committee, American Jewish Congress, Anti-Defamation League of B’nai B’rith, Federation of Jewish Philanthropies, Jewish Community Relations Council, Jewish Labor Committee, National Jewish Commission on Law and Public Affairs and the New York Board of Rabbis.
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
