By Tara Kyle
DNAinfo Reporter/Producer
MANHATTAN — Amid a spate of high profile hate crimes, City Council Speaker Christine Quinn has been an outspoken defender of the LGBT community. But in the eyes of the Urban Justice Center, her overall human rights record barely merits a passing grade.
In the annual New York City Council Human Rights Watch Report Card, Quinn received only a C+ from the Human Rights Project at the Center because she has been more talk than action when it comes to the important issues, officials said. The Urban Justice Center is a Manhattan-based nonprofit organization that does advocacy and outreach to the city's "most vulnerable residents" including the LGBT community, the homeless, sex workers and other groups, according to their website.
"She has been a vocal advocate, and we commend her for that," said Ejim Dike, director of the Center's Human Rights Project. "But you can also take action. It's the taking of action piece we're concerned with."
In order to award the grades, the report tallied each Council members voting and sponsorship records on 43 bills introduced in the past year, across the categories of housing, worker's rights, health, criminal and juvenile justice and government accountability.
The report was particularly critical of Quinn's record on housing, a category in which she received a D rating.
Quinn celebrated an affordable housing victory last week with the opening of the new mixed-income Elliott-Chelsea building. But the report card faults Quinn for not scheduling hearings for legislation including a bill that would create an annual census of vacant properties in the five boroughs.
Only three Council members fared worse on the Urban Justice Center report; none of them represent Manhattan.
Political consultant Hank Scheinkopf defended Quinn, calling the report's findings "nonsense." Regarding the vacant properties census bill, which has the support of Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer and over half of the Council, Scheinkopf questioned what other cuts the city would have to make to pay for it.
"Every piece of legislation that gets filed has a cost. The city is struggling just to survive."Scheinkopf said. "On human rights, she's terrific,"
Among the 43 bills considered, two concern LGBT issues.
Quinn sponsored one, the Same Sex Marriage Information and Promotion law, which was enacted in August and requires city clerks to prominently post lists of U.S. and foreign jurisdictions that perform same sex marriages.
The other would create an LGBT youth services division within the City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene.
The bill, originally introduced during Quinn's first term as speaker (2006-2009), and reintroduced last March, has not yet been scheduled for a hearing. In her position as speaker, Quinn, who is not a cosponsor of the bill, is responsible for setting the council's agenda.
"This is a bill that would deal with a lot of everyday issues that LGBT youth face," Dike said.
Broadly, the report criticized Quinn for fast-tracking legislation supported by herself or Mayor Michael Bloomberg, while leaving other popular bills — such as the recently shelved paid sick time bill — to languish without a vote.
Scheinkopf, however, argued that the timetable expectations put on Quinn are unreasonable.
"If you had a hearing every moment of every day, it would be chaos," said Scheinkopf. "The Speaker's job is to get things done."
Speaker Quinn's office declined to comment.
