I’m running for NY State Senate! My goal is to help flip the Senate from red to blue, which would make it possible to pass a lot of truly progressive legislation. Please support me — my opponent is a very well funded incumbent who spreads a lot of pork around the district, so it’s an uphill battle to defeat him. Check out this video about me and why I’m running.
New York could be leading the country in making health care truly universal. The New York Health Act is a strong, well-crafted single-payer health care bill that has easily passed the Assembly three times. The Assembly has also passed the Climate and Community Protection Act, which approaches GHG reduction and environmental justice as going hand in hand. Bills like this, not to mention more rudimentary “blue state” staples like early voting or codifying women’s reproductive rights, never even get a hearing in the State Senate, thanks to a “power-sharing” arrangement between the Republicans and the Independent Democratic Conference (IDC). (Power-sharing is their word; influence peddling is more like it — the IDC gives the GOP majority status, and the GOP gives the IDC cash bonuses and tons of earmarks, but precious little power.) The Senator in my district is a founding member of the IDC. I have heard enough of him claiming credit for the occasional progressive legislation that does pass (marriage equality, raising the minimum wage), when these bills and many more would have passed long ago if his cohort would just get out of the way and let Democrats control the Senate agenda.
I am a first-time candidate, running with a lot of grassroots support. I have been part of the CNY Solidarity Coalition, an Indivisible group, and trueblueny53.org an anti-IDC group here in the 53rd Senate District. There is also a strong, statewide grassroots movement to unseat the IDC. In my day job, I coordinate campus sustainability education at Syracuse University, working with faculty, students, and staff to identify inefficiencies and then engaging the knowledge and imagination of people from many backgrounds and perspectives to find win-win solutions. I’ve served on the board of our waste management agency and on the Board of Zoning Appeals and Mayor Miner’s transition team for sustainability. I’m a mother, an educator, and a problem-solver, and I hope you will join me in fighting back against cynical manipulation of our democracy.
