Candidate Answers to JOLDC: Tiffany Cabán for City Council District 22

Candidate Name: Tiffany Cabán

Office Seeking Election for: City Council District 22

Explain, based on life experiences and accomplishments, why you believe you are best qualified to represent your district

Every single lived experience I have contributes to my qualifications for this position. My experiences as a queer Latina from a low income community are important. Our identities intersect with systems that were not made to serve certain communities. They intersect with structural discrimination. Those experiences with inequitable systems shape my ability to identify the roots of problems and ideate policy solutions that actually address those problems. My lived experience also underlies the urgency I bring to this work. A sense of urgency is necessary, yet all too often missing from our elected officials. My roots in my community and love for the people in it contribute to my qualifications. I see my own happiness and success inextricably tied to my neighbors. My time as a trial attorney. I developed skills of persuasion, problem solving, working under immense pressure, managing teams, bringing folks with different jobs and roles in the system to the same conclusion (Judges, juries, prosecutors, clients). I have represented over a thousand people, gone to trial on cases ranging from turnstile jumps to homicides, and applied what I learned to an array of different experiences outside the court. I learned to have the decked stacked against me and fight within a system designed to have me lose more than I win, but still get back at it each and every day with hunger. My work as a public defender honed my skills in providing holistic support and sets me up well to do the hyper local work of a Councilmember. Most folks think the bulk of my work was in the courtroom, but just as much time was spent addressing the most basic everyday needs of my clients. That could mean shopping for clothes for my clients to wear at trial, setting up childcare in our office to be able to have client meetings, connecting to housing support, providing metrocards, helping families navigate putting money in their loved ones commissary. Anything that allowed my client increased stability and created more opportunities for them to assist in their legal defense was my job. On the job, I learned that our best shot at winning the big fight in the courtroom started with everything that happens outside of it. My organizing background, my skill in coalition-building and my demonstrated commitment to co-governance are all suited to this moment. My political imagination – as we showed in the Queens DA race, our campaign will be about making the impossible, possible. And my ability to run the inside/outside game. Without being an elected official, I have helped amplify and shape policy, narratives, whipped votes of electeds at New York’s city and state levels, and helped organizers run more target-effective campaigns. I march with my community, I work every day to make sure folks have what they need to get through the pandemic, and I fight for my neighbors so that we can live in a better world.

Please identify any openly LGBTQ candidate for public office you have previously or presently endorsed?

I endorsed Jackie Fielder, an indigenous and queer woman, for California State Senate. I’m also proud of the broad coalition and slates of diverse candidates, especially in a ranked choice voting world, including the Road to Justice slate with Crystal Hudson, the WFP slate with Aleda Gagarin, 21 in 21 including Lynn Schulman.

If applicable, what legislation directly affecting the LGBTQ community have you introduced or co-sponsored? (indicate accordingly)

I strongly supported, lobbied, and whipped votes on a package of legislation from Julia Salazar and Richard Gottfried to repeal walking while trans, stop violence in the sex trades, and provide expungements and record relief to survivors of human trafficking. HALT Solitary also impacts the LGBTQIA+ community; I have long supported abolishing solitary punishment.

What LGBTQ organizations have you been involved with, either on a volunteer basis or professionally?

Love Wins Food Pantry, BASL, NYGFL, NYCGBL, LGBT Bar Association

Do you consider yourself a member of the LGBTQ community?

Yes. I am a queer woman.

Have you marched in Pride? Which marches and for approximately how many years?

Yes, many times. Manhattan Pride and Queens Pride for years with various groups and as a candidate. I have marched with the Legal Aid Society, with queer sports leagues like BASL and NYGFL, as well as with leaders and activists from across the country.

Have you employed openly LGBTQ individuals previously? Do you employ any currently?

Yes. On both my previous campaign and current campaign, including in senior leadership positions.

What press conferences, demonstrations, rallies and protests in support of LGBT issues, pro-choice legislation, criminal justice issues and the Resist Trump Movement have you attended?

These issues are at the center of my work. I continually show up at conferences demonstrations rallies and protests – recently with the Movement for Black Lives, sex work, RAPP, clemency, walking while trans, and against Cy Vance and his office practices. I have demonstrated against Trump, supported pro-choice health care access legislation including Medicare for All, protested policies that lead to more incarceration e.g. bail rollbacks or opposition to open discovery, and ran a campaign centered on these issues in 2019 for Queens DA. It is so important to me to show up in all of these different ways; in addition, I try to do my part by providing policy and messaging briefings for elected allies and organizations working on these issues.

Have you ever been arrested? If so please explain why and outcome of arrest.

No.

Do you commit to visiting constituents who are incarcerated in state prisons and city jails?

Yes. Rikers is a part of CD-22. The people who are incarcerated there are my constituents. I will visit and be with them, and their families, as I did when I was a public defender, and I will fight to make sure their voices are heard and the cage they are in is shut down without building new ones. I purposefully chose my apartment, where I live now, because of its proximity to Rikers Island so that I could see my clients more easily and more frequently.

Will you affirmatively seek to hire formerly incarcerated individuals?

Yes. I will proactively seek to hire people who are formerly incarcerated.

Describe your legislative and policy vision for combatting systemic racism

There is no area where we do not need to combat systemic racism. Racism is endemic, a poison that infects every aspect of American life, from healthcare, environmental issues, and housing to job opportunities, policing, and prisons. The most direct way to ensure access to employment and housing is not tinged by racial bias is via the establishment of housing and jobs guarantees. Additionally, I will work with agencies, organizations, and electeds to ensure that bad actors who discriminate in hiring or providing housing are held accountable and victims made whole. I would also work to establish commissions on reparations and reconciliation, and a Racism Response Fund, like the one proposed by Monica Bell, that could allow people who experience racism to have a mechanism in place to seek redress including compensation, without perpetuating the violent and systemic racism intrinsic to the criminal legal process. Murders by law enforcement are a guaranteed outcome of the existence of law enforcement that can use deadly force, and police kill Black people on a weekly basis in America. As City Council Member, I will fight with everything I have to defund and disband the NYPD and fully fund public safety. We will create a public health infrastructure and response system that and invest that money in community resources. I will commit to being a vehicle for the people and if the people have a say in our city’s budget, I believe they will invest in public health and our collective future instead of more cops or cages. This is a racist system that does not keep all communities safe. I would center calls of grassroots coalitions, push to defund billions from the NYPD, and spend that money on housing, healthcare, jobs, education programs, services, community-led safety programs, violence prevention and credible messenger initiatives, a 911 emergency responder corps composed of health experts, and evidence-based harm reduction programs including overdose prevention sites. Environmental and climate justice, to me, is the battle to ensure our planet is sustainable for everyone, regardless of race or socioeconomic status. Environmental justice is racial justice. Environmental justice is social justice. Communities that have been the most impacted by environmental racism need to be the first that benefit from a new green economy. We should be prioritizing those communities when creating opportunities for technical training and good paying jobs. Not only to repair the harms done, but to achieve our fundamental goal – a planet we can continue to live on and steward for future generations. Unless we take care of and prioritize the most impacted communities, that will not happen – our planet is only as strong as the way we treat our most vulnerable. And the healthcare system is full of racist outcomes. We should be investing in preventative services and addressing the racial disparities in healthcare access and outcomes instead of new ways and places to incarcerate people. Nurses and doctors should not be replaced with, or have their workplace infiltrated by, hospital resource officers, or whatever iteration of policing-instead-of-services comes with these expansions of incarceration into hospitals. It is untenable that healthcare services including Medicaid were cut by hundreds of millions of dollars during a pandemic – shutting down hospitals – while we saw our neighbors fill refrigerated trucks and statistics showed New Yorkers who visited a hospital in March had about a 1 in 4 chance of dying. We need to stop funding weapons of war, more police, more cages, and instruments of violence, and spend that money on guaranteeing quality healthcare, PPE for frontline workers, local clinics in every neighborhood that can provide quality care. And we should be funding the kinds of social preventative services – education, housing, and stable remote-capable jobs – that limit the need for hospital beds in the first place.

Will you not seek, and refuse, the endorsement of Bill de Blasio?

I will not seek and will not accept an endorsement from Mayor de Blasio.

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 and sponsor a bill to rename the former Queensboro Bridge?

Yes. Absolutely. There are too many heroes in our city - Black Lives Matter, LGBTQIA+ advocates, people like Kalief Browder, Yang Song, Layleen Polanco, Eric Garner - who deserve recognition before failed leaders like Ed Koch.

What is your position on removing the Christopher Columbus statue in Columbus Circle and if so, what should replace it?

It must be removed. It should be replaced with a monument to the work that we are doing as a city illustrating our efforts to confront and address our racist, colonialist past. I’m not an artist; I do not know what kind of statement could capture that, but I believe we can work with groups like BLM and the Two Spirit Indigenous Peoples Association and hire local artists to craft the kind of monument our city deserves – one that recognizes our painful past and encourages us to a better future, one by, for, and of the people who live here, die here, and work so hard to make our city the heart of the world.

Will you refuse contributions from real estate developers and all law enforcement unions or associations?

Yes.

Do you support reducing the budget of the NYPD and if so, by how much?

Yes. I’d start with a $3 billion floor. We have to fully fund a robust public health and safety infrastructure with the goal being that we will ultimately disband the NYPD. We’ve seen BLM-LA call for a 96% reduction to the LAPD budget. We’ve seen Chicago’s Black Abolitionist Network call for a 75% reduction to the Chicago police budget. New York has the 33rd largest military budget in the world. The NYPD is like any police department – it is an agency with a history rooted in slavery, it solves only a small fraction of crime, and it responds to crimes of poverty, mental illness, sex work and substance use with tactics that end up killing or incarcerating disproportionately Black and brown people. I am a prison-industrial complex abolitionist – I will work toward a world where we fully defund and ultimately disband the NYPD. In the short term, Austin showed you can cut a police budget by a third in one session. I think we can do at least that much in NYC – I would push for fully funding public safety through community-based investments, community-led safety, violence prevention scaled citywide, and non-police 911 healthcare responders. That may take up more than half of the NYPD budget, it may take up all of it – the key is not focusing on what we’re reducing but rather what we are building instead. Yes, it necessarily cuts the NYPD budget. But these investments will simultaneously create much more public safety.

How would you have voted on the FY21 City Budget?

I would have voted “no,” because the FY21 budget does not seriously address community concerns about diverting funds from the NYPD to housing, education, and community-based supportive services.

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.

I am in favor of removing police from all of these areas and additional areas such as domestic/gender based/interpersonal violence response, evictions, credentialing the press corps, youth violence response and prevention, substance use-related calls, sex work (which must be fully decriminalized), community policing programs, and broken-windows offenses.

Should the NYPD Vice Squad be eliminated?

Yes. It is responsible for far too much state sanctioned trauma, violence, and sexual violence It is reprehensible.

Should Dermot Shea be fired immediately?

Yes, he should have been fired a long time ago.

Should the NYPD Commissioner require confirmation by the City Council?

Yes

How would you recommend police officers be penalized for refusing to wear masks in public while on duty, in defiance of city and state rules?

I don’t support carceral solutions. Police officers who do not wear masks should be subject to workplace discipline and liability for injury they cause. They should not be able to work in public if they are found not wearing a mask, or trusted to patrol.

What reforms would you make to the Civilian Complaint Review Board? Would you support state legislation to make CCRB disciplinary determinations binding?

I would support binding disciplinary determinations and the power to appoint judges that preside over these hearings could be granted to the City Council. Councilmembers have been more directly responsive to organizers and constituents than the Mayor has been historically. We need to create a system that includes more community input and gives people power over this process. I would also support an elected review board that does not include consultation of law enforcement and represents genuine civilian control would be an improvement, but unfortunately even this is not enough. I believe that there are better battles to fight in order to achieve police accountability. Abolition Can’t Wait has great proposals for police accountability, including loss of pension and personal civil liability for misconduct. This will require ongoing negotiation and changes to state law to ensure people can hold officers accountable through public trials where they were impacted. I’d prefer and support an elected review board with more teeth including binding disciplinary determinations over the current model, but do not think that is sufficient to hold police accountable – we need more.

What is your position on the plan to close Rikers and create four borough-based jails?

I oppose the borough-based jail plan, and Rikers should be closed much faster than the Council’s plan proposed. I support the No New Jails movement. Rikers is in my district and there are people all across our district who have been directly affected by our criminal legal system. The fight to invest in communities instead of cages will be part of the foundation for my work during the campaign and as a City Councilmember, if we win. The money and land that currently incarcerates thousands of people on Rikers should be used to help directly impacted communities. I support proposals like the Renewable Rikers plan, which could remove dirty energy peaker plants that make communities sick. No surprise that these are the same communities that are overpoliced and overcriminalized.

Will you advocate for the Governor to review sentences of incarcerated individuals over the age 55 who have served in excess of 15 years to determine if they warrant release?

Yes, and I am a proud supporter of RAPP.

It’s common knowledge that New York City’s 311 system is not adequately responsive to the public’s concerns. How would you alter the 311 system to combat these problems?

311 should be working with local organizations and non-profit tech equity advocates to develop changes. The system should not rely on the NYPD, which simply does not care about 311 complaints. We need comprehensive alternative response systems set up that respond to the needs people present.

Do you support decriminalizing sex work? Will you pledge to oppose the Nordic model?

Yes and yes. Sex work is work. I have been doing this work alongside sex workers, and centered sex workers’ calls during debates in Queens camapign. I was proud that when Senators Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders endorsed our movement, these calls were amplified to the national attention. We must fully decriminalize sex work – including customers and spaces that give sex workers safety. The Nordic model is criminalization by another name. We must never criminalize relations between consenting adults. And we must understand that sex work, for many, is survival work – we have to make that work safe while addressing the systemic inequities that marginalize sex work communities in terms of barriers to access to housing, healthcare and job opportunities. Decriminalizing sex work is about the best public health and public safety outcomes, and about making sure every person has the opporutnity for a dignified and destigmatized experience.

Do you oppose school screening, which exacerbates segregation? Which screens in your school district(s) will you advocate to abolish?

I support eliminating standardized tests and admission screens including at the middle school level. They are a mechanism of racism and structural wealth-based inequality, and they have no relevance in evaluating schools, students, and teachers. They are used to force teachers to teach to the test, rather than to the needs of a modern society.

Describe what reforms you would make to the control of the NYC public school system.

I oppose Mayoral control of New York City schools, I am in favor of a system of municipal control. Particularly as the DOE absorbs additional functions previously handled by ACS, we must rethink our system of school governance to ensure the presence of proper guardrails that protect against unilateral executive influence. Additionally, while some Community Education Councils have championed diversity, others have utilized their position to preserve segregationist lines. A system of municipal control allowing for greater legislative intervention on the city-level (without needing approval from Albany) coupled with revised election procedures that are both accessible and empower non-citizen parents will ensure we are both responsive to the administrative failings that led to the creation of the present system and ensure that every student, no matter their district, has equal access to educational opportunity and resources.

Do you support public funding of abortion?

Yes. Abortion care is healthcare.

Do you support the creation of safe consumption sites? Would you support the use of NYC DOHMH authority to establish SCSs without NYSDOH authorization?

Yes. I support their creation and I would support using DOHMH authority with or without NYSDOH. I have long supported this issue, and centered the calls for creation of safe consumption services during my campaign for Queens District Attorney. Safe consumption sites are a fundamental component of a genuine public health response to the opioid pandemic. Evidence shows they work – they eliminate on-site overdose deaths, and reduce county-wide overdose deaths by 30%. Safe consumption services are a moral imperative. A federal judge in Pennsylvania recently found they are not prohibited under federal law. It is well past time we work with community partners to create overdose prevention sites and mobile response units with health experts to prevent overdose deaths. Community health centers and integrated service facilities including safe consumption services, legal services, health care, housing support, education and job support, domestic and sexual violence support, and additional programming should be a fundamental component of every neighborhood.

Do you smoke or otherwise consume weed?

Yes I use cannabis, as do many people in our campaign, in our city, in our country.

Have you ever supported any of the members of the IDC? If so, who? What did you do to help defeat the IDC in 2018?

I have never supported the IDC. I joined the No-IDC campaign, marched and worked with WFP and other organizations to defeat the IDC coalition. I was proud to have the endorsement of No-IDC in my campaign for Queens DA.

What will you do to support nightlife in NYC?

Nightlife is NYC life. I will work alongside the small businesses, employees and artists that make our communities vibrant. I will pass legislation that works to ensure artists and nightlife employees have good-paying jobs and protections, I will work with local businesses to pass legislation that allows them to survive and thrive, and I will empower communities and agencies responsible for nightlife to prevent economic devastation in the case of future system shocks while providing relief to people and businesses impacted by the pandemic.

Do you commit to speak with restaurant and nightlife industry representatives before taking a position on any policies that affect their businesses?

Yes. A lot of nightlife workers are gig workers and freelancers. We have to ensure they get relief and protection so that our city that never sleeps can continue our way of life. That work has to start now – I have had regular meetings with small business owners, employees and artists in our community, I supported Councilmember Van Bramer’s arts and culture bill that was just passed, and I would want to build on that kind of effort. We have to coherently and cohesively address the gaps in our economy so that every worker, including people who enliven our experiences through art and entertainment, in our economy gets benefits, protections and a good salary.

Will you work to place restaurant, bar and club owners on community boards? Will you commit to not appointing or reappointing community board members who are hostile to food and beverage estalishments?

Yes.

Now that the cabaret law was repealed do you support amending the zoning resolution to allow patrons to dance at more venues and eliminate the restrictions against dancing?

Yes

Did you oppose the de Blasio/Cuomo proposal (and giveaways) for bringing Amazon’s HQ2 to Long Island City?

Yes. I was a member in the No Amazon coalition that fought the HQ2 project in our neighboring district that had serious implications right here in D22, especially on housing displacement. We have to stop these races to the bottom. Corporations should fight for our workers, not receive giveaways from the government to rip them off. The only way we will address the many issues of our time is with an energized and active labor movement.

What role do you believe the local member should play in the approval of development proposals before the Council?

I don’t support member deference. While local Members are often in a position to know their communities, we’ve seen that process abused and community members ignored. Our City is becoming increasingly interconnected. We need to build communities that allow folks to be able to live and thrive in our city. Developments should center the needs of working class folks and people impacted by systems of oppression. We have to develop solutions that help everyone, because every development impacts all of us.

Do you support legislation to prohibit discrimination against formerly incarcerated people in housing?

Yes. We need to provide comprehensive housing support to people who are formerly incarcerated, and guarantee housing for every person. Lack of housing is a fundamental part of why people end up entangled in the incarceration system on reentry. Discrimination against people who are formerly incarcerated is a major part of that.

Do you oppose the removal of the nearly 300 homeless individuals from the Lucerne hotel due to pressure from some local residents?

Yes. We need to fill every vacant room in the city. If someone does not have a home, we need to ensure that they are provided safe shelter during a pandemic so that everyone can abide stay-at-home orders. We cannot treat human beings like a problem to be shuffled. We need to ensure the dignity of every person in NYC.

What proposals will you advocate for to protect immigrants and further New York as a Sanctuary City?

We have to end city cooperation with ICE. So many of our immigrant neighbors are essential workers but immigrants have been excluded from pandemic relief. We must protect our residents from family separation and brutal tactics perpetuated by the federal government against immigrants. We should provide residents with the right to vote in our elections, stop sharing data with ICE and refuse any cooperation while proactively opposing any effort to infringe on the human rights of people in our city. And we have to support proposals that increase workplace safety and ensure accountability for dangerous worksites. We’ve seen people die on construction worksites as corporations take advantage of their immigration status to cut corners. We need increased access to legal services, and to hold corporations that steal wages accountable. We can also protect immigrants by fully funding healthcare, clinics and hospitals – the primary point of care for many folks.

Do you support a single-payer universal health care system? Please elaborate on what policy and legislative steps the City can take to expand access and affordability.

Healthcare is a basic human right. Every resident of New York, regardless of employment or immigration status, should be guaranteed a New York City insurance plan. We can guarantee that coverage through diverting funds from policing and prisons, and by advocating for a wealth tax or speculation tax in Albany. And doing so would ultimately be cheaper than the patchwork we have now, which leaves hundreds of thousands uninsured.

Who did you support for office in the following primaries or special elections: A) Mayor in 2013 B) Public Advocate in 2013 and 2019, C) President in 2016 and 2020 C) Governor and Attorney General in 2018?

A) Bill de Blasio B) Tish James, Jumaane Williams C) Bernie Sanders D) Cynthia Nixon, Zephyr Teachout

Top 3 issues you aim to address locally and legislatively

My top priorities are all rooted in a participatory co-governance model that center community involvement and input: End the carceral system in New York City by defunding the NYPD, permanently closing Rikers Island, and halting the construction of new jails. Take on the prison-industrial complex top to bottom. Establish a care economy and education system whereby the most vulnerable amongst us have the resources to thrive; the workforce providing that care has dignity, adequate pay, and workplace protections; and our kids have an equal opportunity at integrated and quality education. Implement a Green New Deal for New York City focused on environmental and racial justice by creating green, union jobs, increasing public green spaces, making infrastructure more clean and resilient, and investing in sustainable, affordable housing – particularly in communities most impacted by generations of state-based oppression.

Mayor de Blasio has indicated his intent to call a third Charter Revision Commission, what additional reforms would you support to 1) the budget process, 2) the land use process, and 3) the powers and duties of municipal offices?

We need a community-based, participatory budget, land use and municipal processes. City Council and the Public Advocate should be empowered to be genuine counterweights to the Mayor. Therefore, it is critical that among many other amendments, we reform the Mayor’s impoundment authority which is subject to abuse, allow the Council to determine whether modifications to land use applications are in scope, and strengthen the Council’s authority to establish policy parameters for the use of public funds and land.

Please explain your vision for the present powers of the office you are seeking and how you intend to exercise them?

Thirty years after the birth of the new Council, it is still coming into its powers as the effective counterweight to the Mayoralty, responsible for approval of land use actions and the municipal budget. Yet the tools crafted by the 1989 Commission have proven ill-suited for a truly equal role in both of these arenas. The Council, however, remains the only entity capable of shifting not only administration but public policy, though it is both strengthened and moderated by its multi-member constituency in contrast to the non-mayoral citywide elected officials, whose functions are often more technical or aspirational. Despite this potential, the body has become complacent in its functions and the sea change that will accompany the election of the new membership must be accompanied by a commitment to test the very limits of its powers in service of New Yorkers too often left beyond by technocratic and calcified systems. Council members do not lack for creative ideas to exercise its authority over the operation and funding of the city but collectively must reset the institutional relationship with the executive and with risk-taking to ensure that every New Yorker has a stable and healthy home, access to a high-road job, and lives in a community where they feel engagement and belonging. The right City Council in New York could do much more than push a bad Mayor - it can set the tone for every City Council across the country.

Do you commit to working with Jim Owles during your campaign and while in office? What role can the club and the progressive LGBT community play in holding you accountable?

Yes, absolutely. I was proud to work with Jim Owles during our campaign for Queens District Attorney. Accountability is everything – I am running to bring this movement into power. If I am not doing right by the movement, I expect to be held accountable. As a queer woman, it is so important to me that my community is proactive in ensuring I am doing the work right.

If you receive the endorsement, do you agree to identify the club on all literature and electronic materials where you list endorsements?

Yes. Proudly.

What additional information would you like Jim Owles to consider when we are making our endorsement decisions?

I am running for City Council because our current City Council is failing our communities. Demonstrators marching against police violence were met with more police violence: batons, rubber bullets, and pepper spray. I watched police meet our pain, trauma, and righteous anger with weapons of war. Our City Council responded to the protests and calls to defund the NYPD by doing almost nothing to its $6 billion budget – billions of dollars wasted on equipping police with violent tools of oppression, instead of uplifting and investing in communities with tools of support that create real safety. Our campaign aims to propose solutions scaled to the size of the problem of mass incarceration and mass police killings of disproportionately Black people. We need a Green New Deal for New York City and a care-based economy that provides good-paying union jobs, and we need to desegregate and fully fund our public schools. We are using every resource available to us and executing multiple strategies including call time, emails, social media, virtual “house parties,” peer to peer fundraising, and more. We are building off of the fundraising infrastructure from my campaign for Queen DA, where we had thousands of donors and raised close to $1 million. Politically, we will need to harness the momentum and activate the coalition we built during the 2019 Queens District Attorney campaign. That means an alliance of labor allies, impacted groups, and advocacy organizations laser-focused on transforming New York City. However, this campaign is about so much more than achieving a “win number” or specific goal. This campaign is an organizing opportunity. We can and will prioritize creating more on ramps to civic engagement and political empowerment for our neighbors. Lastly, it is important to note that I received over 70% of the vote in CD22 in a six-way race for District Attorney. Given the name recognition and residents’ familiarity with me and my story, I have an opportunity to canvass more directly on issues rather than introductions. I will be able to treat each voter contact, even at the first touch, as an opportunity for deep, meaningful conversation about their needs, concerns, and recommendations. I would be proud to join Jim Owles because it is, and always has been at the forefront of movement politics in New York City. You’ve led the way to fundamental transformational change for not just the LGBTQIA+ community, but for every person in this city. You have institutional wisdom and specific tactical knowledge on how to make change, and we need that now more than ever. It would be an honor to join in coalition and march together with my community – with you – again as we fight for a New York City that works for all the working people who built it.