Candidate Answers to JOLDC: Pierina Ana Sanchez for City Council District 14
Candidate Name: Pierina Ana Sanchez
Office Seeking Election for: New York City Council District 14
Campaign Website: https://pierinasanchez.nyc
Campaign Social Media Handles: @Pierinasancheznyc (Instagram); @pisancheznyc (Twitter); Pierina Sanchez NYC (Facebook)
1. Do you consider yourself a member of the LGBTQ community?
No, I am an ally.
2. If you answered “yes” to the first question, do you believe members of hate groups should be permitted to join the City Council LGBTQIA+ caucus? Do you believe the Republican party is a hate group? If you answered yes to both questions, do you support ejecting Republicans from the caucus?
N/A
3. What work have you done on behalf of the LGBTQ community? This can include endorsing LGBTQ candidates, drafting or advocating for legislation directly benefiting the LGBTQ community, working with LGBTQ organizations, allocating funds to LGBTQ organizations, marching in Pride parades, attending rallies/protests/press conferences in support of LGBTQ issues, and/or employing openly LGBTQ individuals.
I am immensely proud of my office’s work to date working to serve the LGBTQIA community both within my district and across the city. Securing funding for an organization as important to the Bronx LGBTQIA community as Destination Tomorrow for the first time, and working together with Public Advocate Jumaane Williams to introduce legislation that will expand rapid STI testing across the city are achievements I consider among my most important achievements in office thus far.
Other legislation I have co-sponsored includes a bill to introduce an appeals process for incarcerated LGTQIA individuals that make specific housing requests based on their LGBTQIA identity, and add protections for those individuals when they are deemed at risk of victimization. Additionally, a bill to establish a commission for LGBTQIA+ older adults, legislation to appoint a drag laureate to act as an ambassador to local businesses and LGBTQ+ spaces, and a resolution to add a Transgender Day of Remembrance and Transgender Day of Visibility to the city calendar.
Prior to taking office, I served as the Vice President of the Board of Trinity Lutheran Church of Manhattan, home to Trinity Place Shelter, which provides housing for trans youth of color. I also make a monthly donation to support the work there. We are an affirming congregation that welcomes all and I help with our advocacy work. I have also been active in supporting LGBTQIA youth organizations in my community like Princess Janea Place in the Bronx, amplifying their fundraisers and messages, and raising awareness of their work. Additionally, I also work to support LGBTQIA organizations with which my partner collaborates like Hetrick-Martin Institute in New York and New Jersey. I am also proud to have a diverse group of queer volunteers participating in my campaign including lesbians of color, non-binary folx, and gay men from many different backgrounds.
Furthermore, although these are state issues, I joined partners in advocating for the repeal of the Walking While Trans law (Loitering for the Purpose of Prostitution law) and similar policies that authorize and enable the unjust profiling, arrest, harassment and violence against trans women by police. I also support the decriminalization of sex work which disproportionately criminalizes transgender womxn of color. We must continue to affirm that Black Trans and Gender Expansive Lives Matter.
4. Has Mayor Eric Adams met the needs of the LGBTQ community? Please include “yes” or “no” in your answer, and explain your answer.
While I was glad to see Mayor Adams allocate funding for LGBTQIA services last June, I still believe there is more the Mayor’s office can do to serve as an ally for LGBTQIA New Yorkers. I would like to see Mayor Adams invest more in the top priorities of LGTBQIA advocates, chief among them, reactivating the Unity Project, reinstituting the office of LGBTQ affairs, full funding for comprehensive sex education and supportive gender sexuality alliances in all schools, and increasing enforcement of new protocols aimed at preventing instances of LGTBQIA-harassment in our neighborhoods.
5. Would you demand that the Mayor re-institute its office of LGBTQ affairs, with its leader being a member of the LGBTQ community chosen in consultation with the City Council LGBTQIA+ Caucus?
Yes.
6. Have you made requests to the Office of the Mayor to demand inclusion of LGBTQ community in city administration and on city boards? Can you give examples?
No, I have not, but welcome information the club may have about existing efforts that I could sign onto, and if none, I would be willing to lead a letter.
7. Do you support reparations for slavery?
The severe racial wealth gap we see in this city, and across our country today is rooted in the founding of this nation and has been perpetuated at every stage of American history. Thus, every facet of U.S. society owes its wealth to those whose ancestors’ forced labor built this country. I believe the racial wealth gap must be addressed through forms of reparations including direct wealth creation through homeownership programs and an economic democracy lens to economic development.
8. Do you oppose all efforts to weaken bail reform?
Yes.
9. Do you support closing Rikers Island? Do you support the administration’s plan to open borough-based jails?
Yes, I strongly support the long-overdue closure of Rikers Island, though I believe this transition must come with further prison and criminal justice reform in order to make our carceral system truly just. We are still a long way from that.
I do support the plan to build borough based jails. However, while I believe we need some capacity to hold those who pose an immediate threat to the life and safety of others, the new-borough based jails system should be reconsidered with a lens toward a maximum healing and rehabilitation approach. As we close Rikers, we need to “compensate” for the decreased carceral capacity, not by building more jails, but by decriminalizing poverty, homelessness, and substance use, and investing in structures like transitional housing with supportive services, thereby dramatically reducing the need for jails. That is why I am a proud co-sponsor on Int. 806, in relation to the establishment of a comprehensive jail population review program that will help identify opportunities for early case resolution and pretrial release with appropriate conditions.
10. Do you support legislation outlawing solitary confinement in all jails and prisons, including city jails, and do you support Intro 549 (regarding solitary confinement)?
Yes and yes. I am a proud co-sponsor of Intro 549.
11. Will you publicly call on the governor to use her clemency power for the many incarcerated New Yorkers who can safely return home? Will you tweet out your support for this or issue a public statement? Would you be willing to be critical of a governor who does not exercise their power to grant clemencies and commutations to those worthy of release? Have you ever spoken out in such a way?
Yes, yes, and yes. Our criminal justice system should be one that prioritizes rehabilitation and the reincorporation of formerly incarcerated individuals back into society. Decarceration is an important pillar of public safety, and it should be our priority to keep New Yorkers who do not present a threat to themselves or society at large out of prisons, and in programs that allow them to safely reintegrate and secure economic stability.
12. If elected, will you include in your office’s newsletter instructions for your constituents on how their loved ones can apply for clemency?
Yes!
13. Do you commit to visiting constituents who are incarcerated in state prisons and city jails? When did you do so last?
Yes. I was born and raised in a mass incarcerated community, and have visited family, neighbors and friends at Rikers, VCBC and in upstate facilities throughout my life. Though I have not yet visited as an elected official during my pregnancy and in the infant stage, I will certainly continue to visit these institutions. It is incredibly important to me to let our incarcerated constituents know that their elected officials care about their well-being, and will fight to advocate on their behalf while they are separated from their families and their loved ones.
14. Do you believe in the decriminalization of sex work? If so, do you support full decriminalization, including decriminalizing purchase and facilitation? Will you commit to opposing the Nordic model, which continues criminalizing purchase and facilitation while decriminalizing sale?
Yes! I am well aware of the fallacies of the Nordic model and therefore yes, commit to opposing this solution.
15. What proposals will you advocate for to protect immigrants and further New York as a “Sanctuary City”?
The current exclusion of some immigrants from benefiting from City-funded legal representation must be reversed, and CCHR should investigate individuals who threaten or call ICE as form of national origin/alienage discrimination. We must also uncover and eliminate all but court-required City law enforcement participation in joint local/state/fed police task forces.
I am also collaborating on legislation that would expand access to FHEP vouchers to immigrant New Yorkers – providing a crucial resource for these families in securing reliable housing, providing needed stability for finding reliable work and building financial security.
16. Did you support legislation, which passed, to allow non-citizen New Yorkers to vote? Do you support the appeal of the case in which the law was held unconstitutional?
Yes and yes. Our immigrant neighbors are an essential part of the fabric of this city. They earn their living here, pay taxes here, and send their children to schools here. They invest in and rely on the health and stability of our City and institutions and thus deserve a say in its stewards. And yet, there are over one million residents in NYC who are legally barred from voting in municipal elections because of anti-immigrant policy. Indeed, the exclusion of immigrants is rooted in disenfranchisement as a form of marginalization to exclude immigrants, Black communities, women, and others from participating in U.S. democracy. Although NYC allowed noncitizen voting in local school board elections between 1968 and 2003, and other municipalities in the U.S. have adopted noncitizen voting, NYC government continues to disenfranchise its immigrant residents. This is particularly important for District 14 in the Bronx since we have some of the highest percentages of noncitizens of any NYC city council districts. There is no law that prevents my District 14 neighbors and noncitizens across the city with lawful presence from voting in local elections. Protecting the rights of these New Yorkers to vote would make this city more democratic and would live up to the city’s promise to be a leader in providing a voice and opportunity to immigrants. For these reasons I support enfranchising noncitizen immigrants in municipal elections and believe in fully defending all NYC residents’ right to vote.
17. Do you support the establishment of supervised drug consumption spaces in your district?
Yes. This country’s war on drugs has proven to be both stunningly ineffective and unspeakably cruel. This is why I support policies that promote the health and dignity of individuals and communities impacted by drug use and center harm reduction as the principal strategy. This includes expanding on the initial NYC pilot for safe injection sites to a citywide safe injection site program through increased public funding, allocated equitably across the City according to a fair share analysis, similar to how all services should be distributed.
18. Do you support ending qualified immunity for police and other law enforcement individuals?
Yes. A fair and equitable social justice system relies on our ability to hold law enforcement accountable.
19. Are you in favor of removing police from any of the following? a) Schools; b) Mental health response calls; c) Homeless outreach and social services; or d) Traffic enforcement.
Yes to all. The NYPD has no place in our schools. Rather than have police in schools, we should enhance our offerings for student mental well-being, provide additional training to teachers and provide more guidance counselors. Our work needs to uplift student mental health and provide frameworks that are oriented towards justice. Likewise, police are neither trained nor properly equipped to respond to mental health emergencies or homeless outreach + social services, especially salient to me, as Kawaski Trawick was murdered by police inside his supportive housing home within my district in 2019, and his family’s fight for accountability is ongoing 4 years later. There is no reason armed personnel should be the resource our government uses to address traffic enforcement.
20. Should law enforcement "Vice Squads" be eliminated?
Yes. According to the NYCLU, Vice Squads have overextended their power to “exploit, sexually harass, and otherwise terrorize sex workers [...] massage workers, and survivors of trafficking.” The NYCLU analysis goes on to state that “nearly all of those victimized by Vice are LGBTQ+, people of color, and noncitizens.” Enough is enough.
21. Should the Gangs Database be abolished and do you / will you co-sponsor Intro 360 on the subject?
Yes, and I am a proud co-sponsor of Intro 360.
22. Do you support the Progressive Caucus’s requirement that members support cutting funding to NYPD in favor of alternative safety infrastructure?
Yes. I am an active member of the Progressive Caucus and support our work to reimagine our city’s approach to public health and safety.
23. What concretely have you done to improve access to reproductive healthcare? If elected, what more will you do? Be specific.
In office, I have co-sponsored an adopted resolution calling on the United States Senate to pass and the President to sign the Women’s Health Protection Act, a resolution (currently in committee) to compel the New York State Legislature to pass, and the Governor to sign, S.9077/A.10372, which would provide judicial protections to abortion providers in New York, and enacted legislation to create public education and outreach campaigns on maternal mortality and morbidity, safe access to reproductive health care, and facilities that deceptively advertise or are otherwise misleading when offering reproductive health services. I have additionally supported legislation to require the provision of sexual and reproductive health services by the Department of Health and Mental Hygiene, and an enacted bill to increase education/awareness on city standards for respectful care at birth, health care proxy forms and patients’ rights.
24. Do you approve of Mayor Adams’ approach to sweeping homeless encampments?
These encampment sweeps were an affront to our City's most vulnerable. By demolishing encampments and destroying the possessions of residents, Mayor Adams sent a clear message that the administration does not see these residents as human, or deserving of dignity and respect.
The Mayor’s office must open and expand new supportive housing and reverse proposed cuts to the Department of Homeless Services, and incorporate important provisions to aid homeless New Yorkers from the Council's budget response into the upcoming budget. This includes $113M for safe haven shelters, stabilization beds, drop-in centers, as well as additional investments in mental health services and permanent affordable and supportive housing. This also means ensuring shelters are accessible and safe for anyone in need of temporary housing.
25. Do you commit to speaking with restaurant and nightlife industry representatives before taking a position on any policies that affect their businesses?
Absolutely. Input from constituents in my district, especially when they are invested stakeholders, is a core element of my evaluatory process for all legislation I consider.
26. Do you commit to speaking personally with liquor license applicants and license holders before opposing any bid for a liquor license? Likewise for an applicant seeking your support?
Council Members do not directly approve or disapprove liquor licenses, but I will always meet with anyone who requests my support and consider the petition.
27. In view of the fact that Ed Koch has been documented to have caused the deaths of hundreds of thousands of people with AIDS, and was blatantly racist, would you support a city bill to rename the former Queensboro Bridge? Do you authorize the use of your name for such a purpose?
Yes and yes.
28. Do you commit to removing the Christopher Columbus statue in Columbus Circle?
Yes.
29. Who did you support for Mayor in the 2021 Democratic primary? Did you make an endorsement in the general election?
I did not make an endorsement in the 2021 primary or general election.
30. Are you currently a member of the Progressive Caucus? If you are not currently an incumbent, will you join if elected?
Yes, I am a proud member of the Progressive Caucus.
31. Do you believe the Progressive Caucus should have qualifications to ensure that its members are actually progressive? Please explain.
I believe the caucus as a whole should retain the right to remove members from the caucus should their voting record or actions fail to reflect the values and beliefs of the caucus.
32. If you are a sitting Councilmember, name three votes you took in the City Council that differed from the position of the Speaker.
SLR 0008-2022: Provided for the pension benefits for first grade police officers of the city of New York who have served for 25 or 30 years.
Res 0327-2022: Removed funding from a key organization in my district.
M 0096-2022: Appointment to the NYC Local Conditional Release Commission.
33. The rules of the City Council often make it difficult to get a hearing and/or vote on bills of which the Speaker does not approve. Would you support, and introduce if necessary, legislation that could force the City Council to print, introduce, hold hearings on, and hold votes on legislation.
The City Council is required to hold hearings on any bills that reach a threshold of 27 co-sponsors, and I would welcome opportunities to further democratize the Council’s internal processes.
34. Will you refuse money from individuals or Political Action Committees representing the real estate industry or law enforcement unions/associations?
Yes. This has been my policy since day one of my first campaign and will continue to be for as long as I am in office.
35. Will you refuse and refund any contributions from executives at corporations who donated funds to any of Donald Trump’s campaigns?
I have taken the WFP campaign pledge to refuse donations from donors with a wide range of affiliations including ties to police/police unions, and commercial housing interests. I remain committed to this promise for as long as I am a representative of District 14.
36. With the continued boycott of Equinox fitness on the basis of owner Steve Ross’ support of Donald Trump and institution of “Don’t Say Gay” policies in his residential buildings, do you commit to opposing his application for a casino?
I will push the State Gaming Commission to thoroughly vet potential licensees before making a decision of this magnitude and push my colleagues to oppose any land use approvals required for this casino application.
37. If you receive the Jim Owles endorsement, do you agree to identify the club on all literature and electronic materials where you list endorsements?
Yes, and proudly so!