Royce Esters and the National Association for Equal Justice in America have latched onto a timely and troublesome issue: The widespread practice in which people are being denied jobs because they have subpar credit ratings. NAEJA has joined Tennessee Rep. Steve Cohen in fighting to end this practice. Cohen represents Tennessee’s 9th District and his district covers three-quarters of the city of Memphis. A Democrat, Cohen is one of only two non-Blacks representing majority Black districts in Congress.

In July, Cohen introduced H.R. 3149, a bill to amend the Fair Credit Reporting Act to prohibit the use of consumer credit checks against prospective and current employees for the purpose of making adverse employment decisions. His bill, which has 41 co-sponsors, is now in the House Committee on Financial Services. Compton-based NAEJA is helping Cohen generate a national discussion of this issue. “Cohen’s bill eliminating employers’ wholesale access to the credit files of prospective employees is long overdue,” Esters said. “Now, as the crumbling national economy has begun to harm credit ratings of otherwise model citizens, inequity inherent in credit ratings has become all the more glaring.

“Work is a right, not a privilege,” Esters added. “Denial of the right to work and to provide for one’s self and one’s family must be regarded as a human rights violation of the highest order.” Amen.

THEY’RE NOT WORTHY! — The California School Boards Association declined to select a legislator for its 2009 Legislator of the Year Award, a prestigious honor it has bestowed upon a state lawmaker for as many years as anyone can remember. The CSBA’s Legislative Committee reached that decision after consideration of the $12.5 billion in cuts to education enacted by the Legislature this year, and additional delays in the allocation of billions of dollars of school funds. The organization felt the Legislature failed to stand up for California’s students and schools when they needed it most.

“Sure, there are some legislators who have done good things for education, and others that we admire for their efforts,” said Frank Pugh, CSBA’s president-elect, “but, for crying out loud, schools have been cut by $2,100 per student. We’d be nuts to present this award to anybody in a year when the cuts are going to have detrimental effects on an entire generation of students. We just have to draw the line somewhere.”

THEY’RE STILL NOT WORTHY! — A terrible thing is about to happen to 450,000 California recipients of the In-Home Supportive Services (IHSS) Program: These aged and disabled people are about to be forced to fend for themselves. The state Legislature is trying desperately to act upon urgency legislation to temporarily stop mandated changes to the IHSS program enacted as part of the FY 2009-10 State Budget Act which became effective Nov. 1. These changes include screening caregivers, completing criminal background checks and fingerprinting IHSS providers, conducting unannounced home visits of high-risk cases and in-person verification of provider identification by county social workers.

These changes impact 185,000 aged and disabled IHSS recipients in Los Angeles County, alone, and Los Angeles County officials as well as all the other counties in the state — were unable to meet the new requirements for these IHSS recipients by the Nov. 1 deadline because the state had yet to provide complete instructions on how to do it and sufficient funding with which to do it! While the Legislature is trying to stop its new requirements from kicking in, the Board of Supervisors is trying to figure out what it’s going to do if its big brothers and sisters up North don’t stop it. Can this state get any more #@%*ed up!?

DATEBOOK — Recycling Black Dollars’ 21st annual Positive Sides Awards Dinner and fundraiser will be held Thursday night at the Crowne Plaza Hotel LAX. The reception starts at 6 p.m., with the dinner and awards program beginning at 7 p.m. … The GLAAACC will hold a Recovery Act Awareness Forum on Nov. 18, from 8:30 to 10:30 a.m. in its Community Conference Room at 5120 W. Goldleaf Circle, Room 10AG. Officials will be present to tell small business owners everything they need to know about accessing the IRS and SBA federal Recovery Act and Recovery Zone Facility Bond programs. Reservations and information: (323) 292-1297.

THIS AND THAT — The founder and executive director of the 13-year-old Simmons Coleman Manor, Barbara Coleman, has sued the city and county of Los Angeles for breach of contract, promissory estoppel, breach of the covenant of good faith and fair dealing and unjust enrichment because those government entities have refused to provide residents for her emergency housing shelter. In a time of rampant homelessness in the region, Coleman’s 20-bed capacity Simmons Coleman Manor stands empty over on Halldale Avenue because the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority (LAHSA), a joint powers city-county agency, refuses to put any homeless people in it. City officials told me LAHSA never had a contract with Coleman because her fees for the use of her facility are too high. Coleman told me she did not set the fees — LAHSA did. Stay tuned.

Councilwoman Janice Hahn — whom pollsters say is the frontrunner among Democratic candidates for next year’s primary race for lieutenant governor — secured last week about 5,000 square feet of vacant city-owned land for the development of a pocket park at the intersection of 115th and Arvella streets in Watts. The park will be named in honor of Arvella Grigsby, a community leader in Watts for more than 40 years, and will be developed with $25,000 in beautification grant funds awarded to the Watts Neighborhood Council.

School board member Marguerite LaMotte has asked the three South Los Angeles-area members of Congress to explore federal funding options for the construction of a fly-over rail crossing at the Farmdale Avenue stop of the Expo Rail Line to protect Dorsey High School students and community residents from the dangers presented by the proposed at-grade crossing. In her request, sent to Reps. Diane Watson, Maxine Waters and Laura Richardson, LaMotte wrote: “The current plan bifurcates a predominately single-family, predominately African-American community and grossly impedes egress and access in emergency situations.”

State Sen. Rod Wright was named Legislator of the Year at the annual Statewide Environmental Conference sponsored last month by the Industrial Environmental Association of San Diego, the California Manufacturers and Technology Association and the Chemical Industry Council of California. Wright  was honored for his “unique ability and political courage to balance the interests of the environment with the very real needs of the business community and California’s hard-working families,” said Jack Stewart, one of the conference presidents.

If anyone witnessed or have any knowledge about an elderly White woman slapping Andrea D. Johnson, a Black airport worker, in the face with her shoes near the LAX metal detectors after she was told she had to wait in line like everyone else and after making a racist comment, please contact me. This incident reportedly occurred about 6 a.m. on Oct. 22 at LAX. The old White woman was reportedly arrested, but neither the LAX cops nor the LAPD seem to know anything about it. Where are you, Andrea? I gotta have this!

AND FINALLY — The people of the city of Los Angeles would like to thank Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa for not selecting Cmdr. Michel Moore as the next chief of the LAPD. We appreciate it.