Footnote 3: Statement of Annabel Palma at the meeting of the NY City Council (Sept. 15, 2005, transcript at 41). Council Member Palma was a member of the Committee on General Welfare that had brought the bill to the floor of the Council. Committee Chairman Bill deBlasio emphasized that "localities have to stand up for their own visions" of "how we protect the rights of the individual," regardless of federal and state restrictiveness (transcript at 47). Council Member Gale Brewer, the chief sponsor of the Restoration Act, reiterated the comments of Palma and deBlasio, and the importance of making sure that civil rights protections "are stronger here than [under] the State or federal law" (transcript at 48-49). (Transcript on file with NY City Clerk's Office and NY Legislative Service.)
Footnote 4: The City Council in amending Administrative Code § 8-130 could have mandated that "some" provisions of the law be "construed liberally for the accomplishment of the uniquely broad and remedial purposes thereof" or that "new" provisions of the law be so construed. The Council instead made the "shall construe" language applicable to "[t]he provisions of this title" without limitation.
Footnote 5: Local Law No. 39 (1991) of City of NY.
Footnote 6: (Professor Craig Gurian, A Return to Eyes on the Prize: Litigating under the Restored New York City Human Rights Law, 33 Fordham Urb LJ 255, 288 [2006].) The article—described elsewhere as "an extensive analysis of the purposes of the Local Civil Rights Restoration Act, written by one of the Act's principal authors" (Ochei v Coler/Goldwater Mem. Hosp., 450 F Supp 2d 275, 283 n 1 [SD NY 2006])—summarizes some of the dramatic changes of the 1991 Amendments (see Gurian at 283-288).