What Governing New York’s Gorgeous Mosaic Tells Us About the U.S. Senate

New York City Hall, 1884. Photo courtesy of the Irma and Paul Milstein Division of United States History at the New York Public Library.

David N. Dinkins, the first Black mayor of New York City, was sworn in on New Year’s Day 1990. From the City Hall steps, he told the crowd, “I see New York as a gorgeous mosaic of race and religious faith, of national origin and sexual orientation, of individuals whose families arrived yesterday and generations ago, coming through Ellis Island or Kennedy Airport or [...] the Port Authority.” Inaugurating Mayor Dinkins was one of two historic steps the city took that day toward crafting a government better representative of this “gorgeous mosaic.” The second step was somewhat involuntary, but it’s incredibly pertinent to current conversations on the structure of American democracy: New Yorkers abolished their city’s Board of Estimate.

At the beginning of the 20th century, the recently formed Board of Estimate was restructured to be composed of eight members: the mayor, City Council president, comptroller, and five borough presidents. For decades, the Board was even more powerful than the Council, with various exclusive fiscal and legislative responsibilities.

Then, in 1989, the U.S. Supreme Court voted unanimously in New York City Board of Estimate v. Morris that the Board was unconstitutional. Delivering the Court’s opinion, Justice Byron White highlighted that the boroughs possessed “equal representation on the board” despite their “widely disparate populations.” Brooklyn, for one, had a population over six times that of Staten Island, leaving its residents with far less of a voice. The Court decided that such representation was “inconsistent with the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment” and the “one person, one vote” doctrine it guarantees. New Yorkers were forced to adopt a new City Charter that would make their government more equally representative.

In examining the Supreme Court’s reasoning, it becomes vividly apparent why the Board of Estimate was ruled unconstitutional. As Richard Emery, the lawyer who initiated the challenge against the Board, alleged, the Board’s unfair system of representation led to the “very disproportionate” distribution of city resources. This may seem undemocratic and even barbaric, but it shouldn’t seem unfamiliar. Why? The U.S. Senate exhibits distinct similarities to which we have become numb. Simply put, Brooklyn was to the Board of Estimate then what California is to the Senate now: blue, racially diverse, and relatively populous. Conversely, Staten Island was analogous to the Board’s Wyoming: red, relatively white, and sparsely populated. As was the case with the Board, a constituency’s representation in the Senate is constant regardless of its population.

Strikingly, the Board wasn’t the only New York City government body ruled unconstitutional for violating the “one person, one vote” doctrine. Emery was inspired to challenge the Board by Andrews v. Koch, a similar case against the Council in which he filed an amicus brief. Back then, two at-large council members from each borough served alongside 33 members representing smaller districts. In 1981, Federal District Court Judge Edward R. Neaher ruled the system unconstitutional. Both the Board of Estimate and the City Council at-large membership system were clear-cut examples of individual residents of more populous boroughs holding comparatively less representative power in government. The ultimate decisions in the two cases illustrate that the Senate, a core part of our “representative” democracy, is not truly representative.

One glaring difference between these two New York City government bodies and the Senate is the level of government on which they operate. The Fourteenth Amendment’s Equal Protection Clause, the foundation of the “one person, one vote” doctrine, was written only to control state and local government actions. Through the reverse incorporation doctrine, however, the Fourteenth Amendment’s Equal Protection can sometimes bind the federal government through the Fifth Amendment’s Due Process Clause. In 1975, the Court recognized that its “approach to Fifth Amendment equal protection claims has always been precisely the same as to equal protection claims under the Fourteenth Amendment.” Therefore, one could argue that “one person, one vote” doctrine applies to the federal government as well.

Despite the theoretical justification deeming the Senate unfair, for now, the Senate is legally set in stone. The Constitution’s Article I, Section 3 and Seventeenth Amendment require that the Senate be composed of two senators from each state. Nevertheless, if we were to modify the Senate, New York also proved that a government can embrace the idea of equal representation after a long history of rejecting it. “As [Mayor Dinkins] took office,” The New York Times noted the following day, the “new City Charter took effect.” It implemented “the most fundamental changes in the city’s government since the turn of the century by abolishing the Board of Estimate and redistributing its powers among the City Council and other elected officials.” The Council was also expanded from 35 members to 51, all of whom represent nearly the same number of constituents, to allow for greater diversity. Today, the Council is more diverse and progressive than ever before and, for the first time, majority female. As journalist David Freedlander remarked in a 2018 New York Magazine article, which also relates the Board to the Senate, “Progress is still slow, but at least large majorities can move the political needle in a way they couldn’t through most of New York City’s history” — and many would say recent Senate history, too.

When considering the Senate, Americans nationwide should take note of the history of the New York City government. The Board of Estimate and the City Council’s at-large membership system display the problematic, and in those cases unconstitutional, practice of having equal government representation of constituencies unequal in population. Yet New Yorkers turned their government around and made it more of, by, and for all the people equally — the way it should be.

The United States, too, is a “gorgeous mosaic,” in the words of Mayor Dinkins. ​​Not all tiles are the same size, though, which is an idea the Senate must incorporate to uphold the foundations of our representative democracy.

Jack Lobel is a staff writer at CPR and a first year at Columbia College studying Political Science. He is a native New Yorker who spends his free time eating Kosher deli and mobilizing voters. You can find Jack on Twitter @JackPLobel.