Congresswoman Carolyn Maloney

Congresswoman Carolyn Maloney (NY-12) is hosting a town hall on the 2020 census to discuss the impact of the current presidential administration’s policies this Sunday, Feb. 24, at the Williamsburg Hotel (96 Wythe Ave.) at 1 p.m. – 2:30 p.m. With Amazon HQ2 still fresh on the minds of her constituents and the news media, there’s a chance more topics might be brought up at the public meeting.

As the representative of  NY’s 12th Congressional District Maloney reps parts of Williamsburg, Greenpoint, Bushwick, Long Island City (where HQ2 would’ve been constructed), Astoria, the East Village, Midtown East and perhaps most-fittingly, the Upper East Side. The multi-millionaire and UES resident whose lagest donors include real estate developers and BlackRock Inc continues advocating for the failed Amazon bid in NYC.

Appearing on CNBC after the HQ2 deal died, Maloney bemoaned the loss of 25,000 high paying jobs stating, “Along with most of the constituents that I represent, I was terribly disappointed. If Amazon had come to New York, it would have made New York the high-tech capital of the East Coat, cementing permanent good jobs for generations to come. It’s a terrible loss for the city’s economy and jobs for its people.” Amazon also received pushback in the city council hearings on it’s resistance to labor unions and treatment of warehouse workers, which Maloney doesn’t mention in the interview.

The national debate on if cities should compete by bidding on contracts from mega-corporations has been sparked by the failed Amazon project in NYC, and the backroom nature of the deal brokered by Mayor Bill de Blasio and Governor Andrew “Amazon” Cuomo, where they offered upward of $3 billion in tax subsidies, was met with widespread condemnation by the NYC City Council and many Queens residents and activist groups.

“I applaud Mayor de Blasio and Governor Cuomo for having beat out 220 other localities, cities and states to win Amazon in the first place. I would hope that all of us would try to renegotiate, reach out to Amazon, and try to get them to reconsider,” Maloney said.

At the Congresswoman’s Williamsburg town hall on women’s issues last November when Amazon was still in consideration, Maloney responded to questions regarding her support for Amazon’s HQ2 in Queens saying that if her constituents felt it was a bad deal then it should be reconsidered.

The 2020 census remains an important topic as households with non-U.S. citizens are more likely not to participate with added citizenship questions, NPR reports:

The Trump administration is locked in a legal battle with dozens of states, cities and other groups that do not want the question to appear on forms for the constitutionally mandated head count of every person living in the U.S.

The Census Bureau has not asked all households about U.S. citizenship status in close to 70 years, although a sample of households have encountered a citizenship question on a smaller Census Bureau survey now known as the American Community Survey. For the 1950 head count, census workers asked where members of all households were born. If people were born outside the U.S., census workers asked whether they were naturalized citizens of the U.S.

Maloney won reelection is 2018 after defeating self-professed progressive Suraj Patel with 58 percent of the total votes in the Democratic primary election, with the strongest support coming from her Manhattan constituents.

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  1. Before the congresswoman does anything else, I suggest she stops obsessing about female identity obsession, which helped elect the ego maniac demagogue Trump with the help of Hillary’s identity obsessed, east coast liberal, never met a war, trade agreement or Wall Street banker I did not like elect me president because I am a woman campaign.

    It angered almost all men and a great many women. A majority of white women voted against her.

    If the Congresswoman wants to help a true group in need, have her come thru with her promise of a new kitchen for the Pete McGuinness senior center in Greenpoint, as low as $50k or even less with matching grants. She grabbed upon the issue to get elected and then disappeared.

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