Fordham Law alumnus Josh Gold ’06 (currently working as the policy director at Uber) was interviewed by New York Law Journal about Uber’s big win after a two year battle to operate outside the New York City area.
Q: Now that ride-hailing apps can operate outside of New York City, what’s next for the company?
Gold: One thing that New York has that other places don’t [there are now 42 or 43 state-level regulations all of which have some differences, he says]is the ability for counties and large cities to ban, or opt out of, having ride-hailing within their borders.
What I’ve encouraged county legislators and city mayors and council members to do, is make sure that we are being good citizens in those communities. That means having good relationships with local transit agencies. That means building partnerships with community leaders to make sure that economic opportunities are created throughout different communities in upstate New York. It means that we’re helping the existing transportation authorities. We have to look out for these opt-out counties. We’re going to do whatever we can to make sure that they don’t want to use that provision.
[Westchester County, for instance had been actively considering opting out of ride-hailing over concerns that there weren’t adequate safety checks on drivers. Last week, Westchester County Executive Rob Astorino announced a voluntary program where Uber and Lyft drivers would subject themselves to fingerprinting; drivers receive a decal if they pass the background checks. Both Uber and Lyft have fought against mandated fingerprint checks, and opted to end rides in Austin, [Texas,] after voters approved the screening process, former U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder Jr., now a Covington & Burling partner, advocated for Uber in urging state and local leaders not to adopt fingerprint requirements, saying checks had a disparate negative impact on some minority groups.]
Q: Uber employed several well-connected lobbyists in Albany to push for ride-hailing over the last couple of years. Will that continue as you lobby municipalities to ensure that they don’t opt out of ride hailing?
Gold: We have some community engagement folks through [lobbying firm]Mercury LLC, a public affairs and lobbying firm. [Mike McKeon, a partner at Mercury, served in former Gov. George Pataki’s administration and several Republican campaigns.] We have Craig Johnson [principal in public policy and regulation]from Dentons [who previously worked at Bloomberg Law and McKenna Long & Aldridge]; Cordo & Co., an Albany lobbying and law firm headed by John Cordo; and Patrick Jenkins, of the New York City and Albany lobbying firm of Patrick B. Jenkins & Associates. We are continuing to rely on both some outside folks as well as my internal team. We wanted to make sure we were doing whatever it took to push this bill through this year. That meant having the right people around us and we will continue to evaluate. The team was built strategically.