This week: Brooklyn Democratic Leadership Fight Continues in Court; SCOTUS Clears SAVE Database for States; What Independent Committees Need to Know Before Election Day; Attorney General’s Preclearance Activity; Census: Race & Ethnicity Data Are Essential Health Data; Proposed Rule to Change Decennial Census Comment Period Extended to November 2; Around the Nation (From Redistricting Network)
LITIGATION
Brooklyn Democratic Leadership Fight Continues In State Court
Brooklyn Democratic Party: Julio Pena III et al v. Rodneyse Bichotte Hermelyn et al
The fight over the Kings County Democratic leadership continues in court, with two factions claiming legal right to control the party apparatus.
On October 2nd, a Kings County Supreme Court judge ruled that Rodneyse Bichotte Hermelyn’s term as chair of the Kings County Democrat’s executive committee ended, resulting with Congresswoman Nydia Velázquez as the sole legal officer with party-wide executive authority. In one of her first actions, Velázquez fired the party’s long-time law firm, Abrams Fensterman, including attorney Anthony Genovesi who had been representing Bichotte Hermelyn.
However, on October 4th, despite the lower court ruling, Bichotte Hermelyn and her allies held a late-night Zoom meeting where outgoing leadership voted to install Assembly Member Nikki Lucas as the new Executive Committee Chair.
Reformers, led by Julio Peña III, condemned the meeting, pointing to the fact that it directly violated the court’s ruling. As reported by Politico NY, Pena’s attorney Mark Hanna stated that the meeting represented a “knowing and deliberate violation of a valid, specific, and unambiguous order.”
On October 6rd, proposed intervenors, Bichotte Heremelyn and her allies, submitted a memo of law in opposition to Peña Order to Show Cause. The requested the court to grant them leave to intervene as respondents, vacate the TRO, dismiss the petition for failure to state a claim and failure to join necessary parties, and allow the executive committee to convene and organize as directed by the county committee’s resolution.
The proposed intervenors argue that the TRO is void because it was entered without notice to or participation of the individual executive committee members whose meeting it blocks. They further argue that the individual executive committee members were not properly joined, and that the Appellate Division ruled that the existing committee exercises full legal authority to conduct meetings and carry out functions.
The court is also scheduled to hold a hearing specifically addressing the legality of the October 4th meeting and the potential violation of the court’s restraining order on October 19th.
On October 2nd, Genovesi filed an appeal to the State Court of Appeals on behalf of the previous county committee leadership arguing that the lower courts disrupted the party’s rules by not giving the party’s rule effect but rather substituting a different rule. Further, they argue that the rule distinguishes from elected state committee members from non-voting officers, not winners from losers of the June primary. Also, they argue that the lower court improperly used Election Law § 2-106 to define an executive committee term even though the executive committee is not a creature of statute, and there is conflict between the First and Second Departments thus warranting appeal to a higher court.
Velázquez’s lawyers, Jason A. Otaño and his co-counsel, sent a letter to the Court of Appeals arguing that Genovesi did not have the authority to file a leave for appeal and attempted to withdraw the pending leave to appeal. On October 8th, Genovesi asserted that he was the rightful attorney for the committee after being reappointed by Lucas. Genovesi argued that Otaño did not have the authority to represent the previous leadership because when the executive committee met and elected Lucas, she had the authority over the organization’s affairs, thus when she formally terminated Velázquez’s lawyers on October 5,th their under legal authority was also terminated.
Velázquez’s lawyers are temporarily paused from interfering with or trying to withdraw the party’s appeal until the court’s scheduling hearing on October 13th to determine who actually represents the Brooklyn Democrats, however the judge declined to grant a TRO just generally. This is because the judge felt it would be “presumptuous” for a lower court to dictate who is allowed to appear before the Court of Appeals on an appeal in a separate proceeding, and Nikki Lucas did not meet the probable success on the merits standard.
U.S. Supreme Court
SAVE Database: Department of Homeland Security v. League of Women Voters
Since 1986, the Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements data systems (SAVE database) has allowed federal, state, and local government agencies to verify the citizenship and immigration status of noncitizens applying for public benefits. In March 2025, President Trump signed an Executive Order directing DHS to put new systems in place to allow state and local authorities to verify the citizenship status of registered voters and individuals registering to vote.
Since then, many states uploaded their voter lists to the expanded version of the Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements data systems (SAVE database), sharing that voter information with the federal government, including birth dates and social security numbers. These voter records were run through the SAVE before it was blocked by a federal judge in Washington, D.C. in June 2026.
On September 25th, the U.S. Supreme Court issues a 6-3 emergency ruling with a conservative majority clearing the way for the administration to use the revamped SAVE database for voter rolls. The decision explicitly gives states the green light to conduct individualized inquiries into voters right up until Election Day. However, it is a voluntary tool, thus 27 states like Texas are actively using it, while states like New York, have opted out.
Justice Jackson dissented warning that the court’s ruling jeopardizes the rights of lawful voters, while groups like the League of Women Voters warn that the database relies on outdate, error-prone records that disproportionately misidentify naturalized citizens, and Congress has not authorized the federal government to create a “master database of U.S. Citizens,”
ELECTIONS
What N.Y.’s Independent Expenditure Committees Need to Know As Election Day Approaches
By Joseph T. Burns
With Election Day 2026 rapidly approaching, the following is a list of important reminders for New York State independent expenditure committees:
- Independent expenditure (IE) committees face additional reporting requirements beyond what the Election Law requires of other committees.
- In the 30 days before the General Election, IE committees are required to make disclosures with the State Board of Elections (SBOE) within 24 hours of receiving contributions of $1,000 or more and making expenditures greater than $5,000.
- Throughout the year, IE committees are also required to make weekly disclosures with the SBOE due to certain contributions received, expenditures made, and/or liabilities incurred.
- Advertisements made by IE committees must include the “Paid for by” attribution.
- Additionally, advertisements made by IE committees must, in most cases, include an additional statement stating that the advertisement was not authorized or requested by a candidate or a candidate’s committee or agent.
- IE committees have an obligation to file copies of their campaign materials with the SBOE.
- Candidates, candidate committees, party committees, and constituted committees are prohibited from making contributions to IE committees supporting or benefiting the candidate or candidates as well as party or constituted committees supporting the candidate or candidates.
- Political Action Committees (PACs) may not contribute to IEs where the IE and the PAC have “common operational control.”
- IEs are prohibited from contributing to candidate committees, constituted committees, party committees, and political committees.
- Know what does not constitute an independent expenditure. For instance, the Election Law specifically states that a candidate debate or forum does not constitute an independent expenditure.
- While corporations, LLCs, and PLLCs generally have strict limits on what they may contribute, there are no limits on what these entities may contribute to IE committees.
Joseph T. Burns is a partner in the Holtzman Vogel law firm’s New York office.
https://www.holtzmanvogel.com/professionals/joseph-t-burns
N.Y. VOTING RIGHTS ACT
N.Y. Attorney General’s Office Preclearance
1903 Westchester County Board of Elections- poll site locations- under review
1601 New York City Board of Elections-language assistance- under review
All submissions can be viewed at: https://nyvra-portal.ag.ny.gov/
CENSUS
Race and Ethnicity Are Essential Health Data
by Amelia Kermis and Meeta Anand
In early 2020, Chicago released a breakdown of its COVID-19 deaths by race. Despite Black people accounting for 30% of the city’s population, they represented 72% of Chicago’s COVID deaths. Then-Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot called the gap a “public health red alarm” and activated a Racial Equity Rapid Response team to combat the racial disparities in COVID-19 deaths by concentrating screening and outreach efforts to reach those most at risk. Without census data, Chicago would have had a count of deaths but no way to know who was dying at a higher rate.
On September 10, 2026, the U.S. Department of Commerce proposed a rule that would take away Chicago’s ability to know who was dying at a higher rate and coordinate its response to those at highest risk, among other things. The rule – 91 FR 57524, docket USBC-2026-0628 – states that “no questions about race, ethnicity, or sexual orientation shall appear on the short form of the decennial census questionnaire or any questionnaire used for the enumeration of the population.” The only demographic questions left would be biological sex, date of birth, and household relationships.
The proposal comes four months after the Census Bureau quietly reversed its plan to adopt updated federal race and ethnicity standards (Statistical Policy Directive No. 15) on the 2027 American Community Survey (ACS), despite its own research showing the new questions produce better race and ethnicity data. Together, the two decisions would leave the country with outdated race data from the ACS and none from the decennial census.
Race is a social determinant of health
The rule’s summary says the count should not be “distorted in any way by questions about immaterial personal characteristics, such as race.” Public health doesn’t treat race as biology. Instead, it treats race as a social determinant of health because it shapes where people live, what they’re exposed to, and the health care they receive. Social determinants of health are the conditions in which a people are born, grow, live, work, and age, along with their access to power, money, and resources, all of which can influence their health.
For public health programs to succeed, they must be tailored to the people they serve. General data may show that a health problem is widespread but won’t indicate who is most at risk. To do that, public health experts need to compare rates by demographics such as race, which requires the total population as the denominator.
Amelia Kermis: What hepatitis B screening in Philadelphia taught me
My first exposure to the importance of race at the total-population level came during my public health training in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. I worked as part of a student-led initiative, Hepatitis B United Philadelphia, to lower rates of liver cancer due to hepatitis B by providing free screenings and vaccinations. We knew that rates of undiagnosed chronic hepatitis B were highest in Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders, so we focused on that community in Philadelphia. Our messaging wasn’t in accessible languages, and we focused our activities based on community-based organization interest rather than on the community’s needs.
Race and ethnicity data changed our approach. Of those screened from 2007 to 2010, infection rates ranged from 4% of Koreans to 23.5% of Chinese immigrants, which led us to shift our focus to Chinese residents. Rather than developing education content in multiple languages, we developed tailored messages in various Chinese dialects. We partnered with community leaders to find times and locations to host our events. This meant, for example, that we scheduled screenings around Chinese restaurant workers’ shifts and after Sunday church services.
However, our work didn’t end there; to decide on further screenings, research vaccination rates, and report outcomes, we needed population data on specific AAPI groups within Philadelphia. Our only source of accurate, disaggregated data on these communities was the decennial census (rather than the annual ACS, which is a census estimate based on samples). The decennial census, with its race and ethnicity questions, provides the most detailed and complete picture of our communities.
When programs aren’t tailored, health inequities stay
The National Institute of Child Health and Human Development launched the nationwide Back to Sleep campaign in 1994 with one message for all parents regardless of race. Ten years later, sudden infant death syndrome, or SIDS rates had “declined by about 50 percent,” but “the SIDS rate for African Americans is twice that of whites.” The campaign had helped everyone but left the racial gap in place. Reaching those families meant taking the message to specific communities, and knowing where Black families with infants lived required census data by race and age. Three decades later, the gap is wider, and only race data shows it. Black infants die of sudden unexpected causes at roughly three times the rate of white infants. A national count without race would show a modest rise and hide which families are losing babies.
HIV prevention shows the same pattern. Among adults who should be taking pre-exposure prophylaxis, or PrEP, 5.9% of Black adults and 10.9% of Hispanic adults are using it, compared with 42.1% of white adults. Without the ability to track race data, a prevention tool like PrEP can look like it’s working while those at highest risk go without it.
Why the ACS can’t fill the complete-count gap
The annual ACS can provide an idea of a community’s residents. It cannot replace the complete census count because it’s a sample of residents that is used to estimate the larger population, and it’s calibrated to the census. The National Center for Health Statistics uses those same estimates as denominators for birth and death rates by race, and a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention surveillance system weights its data by race and ethnicity to county population estimates that are based on decennial counts.
Take race out of the 2030 Census, and these important public health data drift further from an actual count each year, with small groups drifting fastest. The Census Bureau itself cites this risk in the Preliminary Regulatory Impact Analysis (PRIA) attached to the proposed rule: “To produce and release these data [fertility/mortality rates, cancer rates, poverty rates, unemployment rates, labor force participation], the decennial census counts of the population by race and ethnicity are relied upon, as there are no other comparably accurate, comprehensive, and reliable sources of this information. Omitting race and ethnicity from the 2030 Census questionnaire would require the development of estimates from a base population derived from outdated and/or less accurate data and would deteriorate the accuracy of the estimation method itself.”
The proposed rule points to the ACS as a fallback, noting that the bureau “is not proposing any restrictions on its ability to ask demographic questions” there. But this spring the bureau declined to update those questions, and without decennial race counts, the ACS loses the population totals it’s calibrated to. The rule also says, “data from administrative records can fill information gaps,” but administrative records are weak for public health use cases. Census Bureau researchers found that “minorities, especially Hispanics, are more likely to have non-matching Hispanic origin and race responses” in administrative and third-party records, and that “minority groups and individuals ages 0-17 are more likely to have missing race or Hispanic origin data.” When someone other than the person in question reports their race, inaccuracies occur; a Census Bureau study found that observers identified single-race American Indians and Pacific Islanders correctly only 62% of the time, and multiracial people 8% to 36% of the time.
Removing race from the 2030 Census removes the denominators health departments need to publish rate data.
Two things public health practitioners can do before November 2
Comment and name your use case. A comment describing a concrete impact is harder to dismiss than a form letter. Say which rates you publish by race and ethnicity; which grant, needs assessment, or surveillance system depends on them; and what happens to that work without the denominator. Agencies are required to consider significant comments, and those comments become part of the record if the rule is challenged in court. In 2019, the Supreme Court blocked the citizenship question from the 2020 Census because the Census Bureau’s stated reasons didn’t hold up against the record. A comment with a concrete use case is evidence in the record that can change a rule. A form letter shows how many people care.
Bring your institution. Ask your health department, your hospital’s community health needs assessment team, your school of public health, or any other group you are affiliated with to file its own comment.
Submissions are due to Regulations.gov by November 2, 2026.
Amelia Kermis, who holds a master’s degree in public health, is a former branch chief at the U.S. Census Bureau and a doctoral student at George Washington University’s Milken Institute School of Public Health. Meeta Anand is senior director of census and data equity at the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights.
This note was originally published on The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights website. See https://civilrights.org/blog/race-ethnicity-health-data/
Comment Period Extended
Census Bureau Extends Comment Period on Census 2030 Questionnaire Overhaul to November 2
The U.S. Census Bureau’s Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NPRM) for the 2030 Decennial Census (Docket No. 260903-0005) is open for public comment through October 13, 2026.
To date, 21,797 comments have been posted to the federal governmen’t tracking website at https://www.regulations.gov/docket/USBC-2026-0628
Key Aspects of the Proposed Rule
Residence Rules: Changes the definition of “usual residence” to count only U.S. citizens and lawful permanent residents, while excluding non-citizens and temporary status holders. It also consolidates residence categories and mandates tax and federal agency data matching.
Demographics: Removes race, ethnicity, and sexual orientation questions from short-form/enumeration questionnaires.
The Leadership Conference’s Position: Census advocates strongly oppose the changes, joined coalition efforts, and requested an extension to the public comment period, arguing that every person living in the country must be accurately counted.
How to Comment on the Proposed Rule
Online Submission: Submit formal comments directly via the Federal Register Regulations Portal under Docket No. 260903-0005 (or RIN 0607-AA75 / Regulations.gov ID USBC-2026-0628).
Coalitions and advocacy groups have published toolkits and comment guides to help structure feedback:
Review resources and comme90p;//nt templates via “Hands Off Our Census” at www.handsoffourcens.us
OnLine comments can be uploaded here: https://www.regulations.gov/commenton/USBC-2026-0628-0001
By Mail: Written comments can also be mailed to the U.S. Census Bureau at:
U.S. Census Bureau
4600 Silver Hill Road (Designation: ADDEMO/FRN)
Washington, DC 20746
AROUND THE NATION
From The Redistrict Network (@RedistrictNet)
October 4: New York Attorney General Letitia James and City Council Speaker Julie Menin said Thursday they will formally oppose the Trump administration’s proposed overhaul of the 2030 Census and are preparing for another legal fight if the changes move forward. — @RedistrictNet [from X]
October 5: In Garcia v. Hobbs and Trevino v. Hobbs: The U.S. Supreme Court grants the petitions for writs of certiorari.
The judgments are vacated, and the Washington legislative map cases are remanded to the Ninth Circuit for further consideration in light of Louisiana v. Callais. — @RedistrictNet [from X]
October 7: A majority of Marylanders polled say they oppose Democrats’ plans to make it easier to gerrymander congressional districts, according to a new poll by UMBC. — @RedistrictNet [from X]
October 7: Plaintiffs in Cubanos Pa’lante v. Florida House have appealed their case challenging Florida’s electoral maps to the US Supreme Court. — @RedistrictNet [from X]
October 9: A three-judge federal panel dismissed the NAACP’s challenge to Tennessee’s new congressional map splitting Memphis three ways.
The court found plaintiffs didn’t plausibly show race, not politics, drove the 9-0 map. It’s the second challenge to the map the court has turned away. — @RedistrictNet [from X]
October 9: Democratic Governor Wes Moore traveled to Montgomery County on Thursday to promote the statewide ballot question on congressional redistricting. — @RedistrictNet [from X]
INSTITUTE RESOURCES
The New York Elections, Census and Redistricting Institute has archived many resources for the public to view on our Digital Commons Page.
Our Redistricting Resources page contains resources on the John R. Lewis Voting Rights Act. You can access the page here: https://digitalcommons.nyls.edu/redistricting_resources/
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The N.Y. Elections, Census & Redistricting Institute is supported by grants from the New York Community Trust, New York Census Equity Fund, the Mellon Foundation, and the New York City Council. This report was prepared by Jeff Wice, Esha Shah, & Jason Fierman of @RedistrictNet.