The New York we deserve

This platform is a bold vision for a future where every New Yorker has access to housing, healthcare, safety, and dignity.

Our campaign is committed to co-governance, coalition building, and community accountability. As such, this platform will continue to evolve with input from community members and grassroots organizations.

Housing

Healthcare

Housing

In the richest city in the world, housing should be guaranteed. The housing crisis we’re experiencing is suffocating our city and driving out the working class families who built New York City. What’s worse, this crisis is manufactured: generations of housing policy that put profit over people have failed our city and starved our working class of what should be a fundamental right.

Across Bushwick and East New York, speculative investors have gotten rich by displacing thousands of our neighbors. Deed theft, toxic home flipping, and unaffordable luxury developments cause rents to spike and create constant displacement pressure. If we don’t get serious about preventing displacement, the nearly $1B in upcoming investment in Broadway Junction may take that displacement to a whole new level.

We can solve this problem but we have to rise to meet the occasion: we need to stand up to the real estate lobby, build truly affordable homes, fight back against displacement, create pathways to homeownership, and safeguard the rights of tenants and homeowners.

Create a Social Housing Development Authority to build social housing: Social housing is publicly owned, permanently affordable housing that is managed democratically by tenants, cooperatives, or community land trusts. Because social housing is owned and maintained by the state, it can never be resold for profit and thus is treated like a public good, rather than a commodity. Creating a Social Housing Development Authority with the power to finance mass development would allow the state to take direct action to address New York’s housing crisis. A Social Housing Development Authority would have the power to build, buy, and maintain housing across the state, while also capping rents at a percentage of household income. We have to stop waiting for the private market to solve our housing crisis – it’s time for our state government to take action to provide housing directly to New Yorkers.

Fully fund the Housing Access Voucher Program (HAVP): HAVP is a stop-gap measure to provide those experiencing or at risk of homelessness with vouchers to pay for housing through the private market. HAVP works very similarly to Section 8: beneficiaries spend 30% of their income on rent and use HAVP vouchers to cover the difference. Although New York’s 2024 budget included about $50 million for this program, experts and advocates are clear that the program needs closer to $250 million to be effective. We cannot respond to a crisis with half-measures. New York State needs to fully fund the HAVP to provide the immediate support that New Yorkers need for housing security.

Fully fund the New York City Housing Authority: The New York City Housing Authority (NYCHA) is the largest public housing authority in North America and the biggest landlord in New York City, yet it lacks the funding needed to maintain its buildings. NYCHA houses almost 400,000 residents (4% of the City’s population), providing an absolutely crucial service that must be supported. However, despite its importance to our city, NYCHA is forced to engage in a constant struggle for funding that leaves the organization decades behind on building maintenance and unable to respond to tenant needs. This has devastating consequences on the lives of working class New Yorkers who are forced to live in substandard housing conditions. Throughout the city, NYCHA tenants live with rampant pest infestations and without basic utilities. Not only is this unacceptable, it is the simple result of our policy choices. When we refuse to fully fund NYCHA we choose to allow inhumane living conditions to persist for hundreds of thousands of working class New Yorkers. We must fully fund NYCHA to allow the organization to invest seriously in building repairs, housing preservation, and tenant services.

Implement a residential vacancy tax: The basic premise of our housing crisis is that there is not enough supply of deeply affordable housing to meet the level of need in our city. One of the reasons this is true is that speculative investors purchase residential buildings but then keep units off the market, waiting for an upswing in prices that would allow them to charge higher rents. Landlords intentionally reduce the supply of available housing in order to charge higher prices later and profit off of a crisis that is devastating working class New Yorkers. New York should disincentivize this behavior by implementing a residential vacancy tax, which would charge an annual fee to landlords for keeping livable apartments off the market without cause. This tax would not prohibit landlords from doing as they please with their property; however, it would disincentivize price gouging and would generate revenue which could support the development of social housing.
Adopt tenant opportunity to purchase (TOPA): TOPA is a proposed piece of legislation that would give tenants the right to make the first offer on their building when their landlord decides to sell. It does not require landlords to accept the tenants’ offer; however, it creates an opportunity for tenants to bargain with their landlord and increases the chances that tenants will be able to stay in their homes – and even develop a path to homeownership. With TOPA, tenant associations can work together to finance a purchase and convert their homes into permanently affordable limited equity cooperatives. TOPA laws have successfully created pathways to homeownership in Washington, D.C., San Francisco, Minneapolis, and more. New York should follow suit by adopting TOPA as a way to help tenants stay in their homes, promote permanent affordability, and create pathways to homeownership.

Pass the community opportunity to purchase act (COPA): Similar to the tenant opportunity to purchase act, COPA is a piece of legislation that would give community land trusts and other qualified non-profits the right to make a first offer on multi-family buildings that are put up for sale in their communities. By providing community land trusts and other qualified non-profits the right of first offer, COPA helps to reduce real estate speculation and expand the supply of community-controlled, affordable housing.

Tax home flipping: Home flipping is when someone purchases a home, makes renovations, and then sells it for a profit within a year of making the purchase. Although this may sound like a positive contribution to a neighborhood, home flipping has severe negative consequences for the surrounding community. Typically, home flipping is done in communities where houses are undervalued (often Black and brown neighborhoods early on in gentrification). By purchasing homes that have been undervalued and then re-listing those homes at above-market prices, developers simultaneously reduce the stock of affordable housing and increase home prices in the neighborhood, making it harder for community members to afford homes in their own neighborhood. Home flipping is on the rise in New York City, especially in East New York, where detached homes are common and property values have been deflated for generations. New York should adopt a tax on home flipping to disincentivise the predatory behavior and generate additional funding that can be used to build social housing.

Promote community ownership through community land trusts: Community land trusts are nonprofit development organizations governed by community members to provide permanently affordable housing, homeownership opportunities, and other community assets, as envisioned by communities themselves. CLTs are becoming increasingly popular in New York because they are an effective way to create cooperative, community-controlled, permanently affordable housing; however, CLTs do not have the funding or support needed to scale. New York State should significantly increase funding for the Community Controlled Affordable Housing Program to provide CLTs with the acquisition and operations funding they need to scale access to permanently affordable housing and homeownership.
Educate tenants and individual property owners about their rights: Too often in New York, tenants tolerate substandard and even illegal living conditions because they are unaware of their rights. Even when tenants do take legal action against a landlord, those landlords wield significantly more financial and legal resources. We can safeguard tenant rights simply by investing in education and supporting legal service providers and tenant organizers. Individual property owners face a similar challenge. When developers want to buy somebody out or develop an adjacent property, they often use enormous financial and legal resources to intimidate, harass, and take advantage of homeowners. This problem is especially prolific in neighborhoods like Bushwick and East New York, with aging homeowners and rising property costs. Again, educating homeowners on their rights and legal recourses can go a long way towards ending predatory development practices.

Enforce penalties on discrimination against voucher holders: It is illegal in New York for landlords and real estate brokers to refuse to rent to tenants who are using voucher programs (e.g., Section 8, CityFHEPS, or Cash Assistance); however, tenants know that this discrimination is painfully common. Landlords frequently refuse to rent to tenants on public assistance, forcing those tenants to settle for whatever they are able to find and creating a power dynamic in which tenants are afraid to push back against their landlords for fear of unlawful eviction. We must do more to support tenants experiencing discrimination and enforce penalties on landlords who violate these protections. Similarly, we must ensure that insurers are not perpetuating this discrimination by refusing coverage to buildings occupied by rent subsidized tenants.

Adopt a statewide right to counsel: Going through an eviction is financially and emotionally destructive. In addition to being forced from one’s home, anybody who has been to housing court knows that navigating that system is at best overwhelming and, at worst, demoralizing. Making matters worse, tenants going through eviction often cannot afford a lawyer and yet are pitted against landlords with expert legal teams. This is inherently unfair and leads to unnecessarily high rates of eviction and homelessness. One way to lessen the burden of eviction is to ensure that tenants have the legal support they deserve. This is the thinking behind the right to counsel, which guarantees tenants access to legal counsel once an eviction begins. New York City was the first city in the nation to adopt a right to counsel and has saved countless tenants from homelessness as a result. New York State should follow New York City’s lead by expanding the right to counsel statewide.

Healthcare

Our healthcare system has some deeply troubling disparities: from one neighborhood to another, life expectancy in New York City varies by over 17 years; maternal mortality rates are 5x higher for Black women than white women; access to health insurance is limited in Black and brown communities, especially those with limited English. Access to healthcare is a matter of life and death—and it’s also a matter of financial security. Medical debt is the largest cause of bankruptcy in the U.S. and over half of New York households have medical debt.

Access to preventative healthcare in Bushwick and East New York is precious. Bushwick has some of the lowest rates of health coverage in the city, and East New York has limited options for community care beyond the East New York Health Hub. As a result, our community has high rates of maternal mortality and preventable hospitalizations. Assembly District 54 also does not have a major hospital. Instead, we’re served by neighboring hospitals Woodhull, Wyckoff, Jamaica, and Brookdale. We need to advocate for the institutions that serve our community and expand access to preventative care throughout the community.

Healthcare is a human right and access to care should not be contingent on anything. We have the resources to ensure that every New Yorker can access quality care—and to make sure that that care does not force people into bankruptcy. We can build a health system that works for every New Yorker by expanding access to care, investing in healthcare providers, protecting reproductive rights, and closing gaps in health outcomes.

Pass the New York Health Act: The New York Health Act would establish a single-payer healthcare system in New York State. This system would resemble Medicare, which has provided single-payer healthcare to people above 65, regardless of income, since 1965. Adopting a universal health policy in New York would enshrine the right to healthcare as a basic right and offer coverage to every New Yorker, regardless of income, employment, or immigration status. This would single handedly close the coverage gap and provide financial efficiencies to our healthcare system. Estimates suggest that under the New York Health Act, 90% of New Yorkers would pay less than they currently do for healthcare. It would eliminate premiums, copayments, and deductibles, replacing all three with a progressive tax that distributes costs fairly across our society. It is painfully clear that we cannot wait for the federal government to act on healthcare; we must pass the New York Health Act to ensure that access to healthcare is not contingent on anything. It’s time we treat healthcare as a basic human right.

Expand coverage at every opportunity: While we work to pass the New York Health Act, we must ensure that as many New Yorkers have healthcare coverage as possible. Expanding health coverage increases access to preventative care, which facilitates early diagnoses, improves public health and also saves money, as preventative care is far less expensive than urgent care. This cost savings is often understated: medical debt is the largest cause of bankruptcy in this country and over half of New York households have medical debt. However, despite the enormous importance of health insurance, coverage rates in New York vary widely and are especially low in immigrant communities and those with limited English proficiency: the coverage rate among Latine New Yorkers is a third of the rate of white New Yorkers. New York State should take every opportunity to expand eligibility of public insurance and should invest in a targeted and data-driven approach to improving coverage rates across the state.

Defend against Medicaid cuts: Medicaid accounts for over a quarter of non-elderly healthcare coverage in New York State. Medicaid is a cornerstone of our health coverage and has an increasingly critical role, as coverage rates continue to rise. We must refuse any proposed cuts to Medicaid and, instead, we must look to expand Medicaid funding and coverage, at every opportunity.
Expand funding for safety net hospitals: A safety net hospital is a state designation for hospitals that provide critical community healthcare to underserved communities. Safety net hospitals include public hospitals, private hospitals that serve primarily Medicaid patients, and any hospital that is the sole care provider in its community. Across Bushwick and East New York, we are served primarily by safety net hospitals (including Woodhull, Wyckoff, Jamaica, Brookdale, and more). These institutions are critical to our healthcare system because they provide access to quality care for those who might not otherwise have access. Supporting safety net hospitals is about ensuring that every New Yorker has access to care, no matter their ability to pay. Unfortunately, safety net hospitals struggle with chronic underfunding that makes it exceedingly difficult for safety net hospitals to afford the infrastructure, services, and programs that their patients deserve. In addition to underinvestment, safety net hospitals are subject to inadequate Medicaid reimbursement rates, which cover only 61 cents on each dollar of care provided. This is unfair and unsustainable. We need to commit to long-term support for safety net hospitals that includes an increase in Medicaid reimbursement and guaranteed, long-term resourcing.

Advocate for frontline care providers: Healthcare providers play an absolutely pivotal role in our society. From doulas to nursing home caregivers, we rely on providers in a way that cannot be overstated. Despite their tremendous social, emotional, and economic importance, however, healthcare workers often do not receive the support, advocacy, and protections that they deserve. This is especially true in direct care sectors such as homecare, where workers are primarily low-income women of color – many of whom are immigrants, some of whom are undocumented. Across the state, homecare workers are frequently subject to low pay, unpredictable hours, and frequent labor law violations. Homecare workers are just one of many examples that speak to the importance of engaging with providers and their unions to ensure that quality of life standards are being met. Across the healthcare industry, the outcomes we see will only be as high as the investments we make in care providers.
Fund the Abortion Access Fund: We often take for granted that New Yorkers have access to abortion care because state law protects the right to an abortion through the 24th week of pregnancy; however, providing the legal right to an abortion is not the same as guaranteeing access to one. Until we pass the New York Health Act, there will continue to be people across the state who fall through the cracks of private insurance coverage and need help paying for abortion care. We must continue to fill gaps in coverage by funding the Abortion Access Fund, which operates a volunteer-managed, multilingual helpline that helps New Yorkers and people traveling to New York State, access abortion care through financial assistance, case management, and connections to other resources. A well-funded Abortion Access Fund also allows New York to remain a safe haven to those living in states that have criminalized abortions – a role New York State has played since it first legalized abortion in 1970. In today’s world, safe havens are more necessary than ever.

Expand private insurance coverage of abortion care: New York State currently requires that all New York-based private health plans fully cover abortion care. However, many New Yorkers are covered by health plans that fall outside of New York’s regulatory jurisdiction (e.g., plans written out-of-state and national plans that cover individuals in multiple states). Thus, requiring New York-based health plans to cover abortion does not fully extend coverage to New Yorkers. Until we pass the New York Health Act, New York State must work to fill this gap in abortion coverage by exploring additional rules to require private insurance companies serving New Yorkers to cover abortion procedures.

Prohibit public agencies from cooperating with out-of-state lawsuits: Since 2022, New York State has enacted legal protections for abortion providers who are sued by out-of-state entities for providing abortion care (for example, for providing an abortion to a resident of another state, in which abortion is illegal). New York provides both legal protections to abortion providers and also allows them to counter-sue for interference with a protected right. This is an important step in protecting abortion providers; however, New York can go further by prohibiting public agencies from cooperating with out-of-state investigations.

Include doulas in Medicaid coverage: A doula is a professional birth coach who provides guidance and support before, during, and after childbirth. Doulas have been shown to decrease the risk of adverse health outcomes during childbirth, especially for women who are already at high risk of complications due to socioeconomic or clinical circumstances. Across New York, maternal mortality is one of the areas in which health outcomes are most unequal by race. Black women in our state die during childbirth at more than five times the rate of white women. Increasing access to doulas for pregnant women would undeniably reduce this inequality. That is why, for several years now, New York City’s Citywide Doula Initiative has successfully provided doula care in parts of Brooklyn, including Bushwick and East New York. That program has been a huge success; however, it is a trial program and is not guaranteed forever. New York State should make this access permanent by including doula coverage in Medicaid.

Require age-appropriate sex and consent education: Currently, schools in New York State are required to teach students about HIV/AIDS; however, they are not required to provide any form of sex education. Instead, local school districts are left to decide for themselves what types of sex education to provide, if any at all. The result is that only 65% of New York school districts provide sex education (NYC public schools have provided sex education since 2011). This failure of our education system has devastating consequences on public health. New York State has above-average rates of teen pregnancy, teen abortion, and STI transmission. Our state could significantly reduce the health, emotional, and financial burden of these challenges, simply by providing young adults with age-appropriate sex education. New York should require that all schools offer sex education, and the state should work with local leaders to ensure that curricula account for the concerns of local parents, teachers, and students.
Study, demand, and enforce equal access: Equitable access to care should be a top priority of our health system. Everyone who may become pregnant deserves access to Plan B and abortion care; all communities deserve access to HIV prevention and treatment; all New Yorkers deserve gender-affirming care that provides them with the services they need, regardless of demographics or ability to pay. Unfortunately, health outcomes in New York are far from equitable. The life expectancy in Brownsville is 11 years shorter than it is in the Upper East Side. The maternal mortality rate in New York is more than five times higher for Black women than for white women. We must do better at ensuring that our healthcare system is fair. We need to create a statewide task force to identify racial and socio-economic discrepancies in health outcomes, and we must treat the output of that task force as a mandate to act.

Facilitate cross-agency collaboration to assess and reduce health disparities: Health outcomes are extremely complicated. A person’s health is not only dictated by access to quality healthcare, it is impacted by a broad range of factors, such as access to parks, sanitation, grocery stores, education, community centers, and more. In order to seriously address disparities in health outcomes, we need a multifaceted approach. We need to collaborate across government agencies to identify the set of holistic investments that have the highest potential to reduce disparities in health outcomes.

Immigration

The way we talk about immigration matters. People with power have always used immigration as a wedge issue to try and divide the working class. By emphasizing scarcity, they try to turn working class communities on one another by pretending that we don’t have enough to provide for everyone. Thankfully, New Yorkers know better.

We are better off socially and economically when our society is accessible to everyone. We do have the resources to care for one another—and we have to reject this idea that working class communities should fight for scraps. Our strength and our power comes from our diversity. We have to do everything possible to protect our neighbors from unlawful deportations, expand access to equal opportunity, and expand social services and labor protections to new residents.

Prevent state & local agencies from cooperating with ICE: New York residents are entitled to a broad range of social services, regardless of immigration status. However, when local authorities are allowed to collect and share immigration information with ICE, or when ICE agents are allowed to frequent social service centers, it forces undocumented communities into the shadows by deterring them from participating in public systems of education, health, safety, and more. Immigrant New Yorkers – documented and undocumented – deserve to live without the constant fear of ICE confrontation. New York State must pass the New York for All Act, which would prohibit all state & local agencies from sharing immigration information with ICE and prohibit ICE officials from entering non-public areas of state and local property without a warrant.

Expand the right to counsel for New Yorkers facing deportation: The right to a defense attorney is a cornerstone of the American legal system: anyone arrested for a crime in this country is entitled to an attorney to represent them in court. The logic behind this is that the legal system is challenging to interact with, and an unfair trial has huge consequences for the accused. This right applies to all criminal trials; however, it does not apply to civil trials such as deportation. This is a big problem because, as you might expect, access to an attorney makes an enormous difference in deportation trial outcomes. According to the New York Immigration Coalition, 78% of immigrants with lawyers win their deportation cases, compared to only 15% of those without lawyers. Unjust and unnecessary deportations are inherently devastating to New York families and communities – and the ability to pay for a lawyer should never determine deportation outcomes. We must ensure that every New Yorker facing deportation has access to a fair trial by expanding the right to counsel to include deportation trials.

Prevent ICE agents from concealing their identities: New York State should immediately pass the MELT act to prohibit federal authorities from wearing masks or concealing their identities during immigration raids in the state. Allowing masked and unidentifiable agents to enforce our laws is a clear breach of accountability and blurs the line between law enforcement and domestic terrorism. The sad reality is that increased federal funding for ICE is going to make immigration raids more common across the country and we need to prepare for that by leaning into the forms of reporting and oversight that allow agents to be held accountable.
Extend social spending to undocumented residents (and make the excluded workers fund permanent in the meantime): When the federal government provides funding to states for social services, those funds often come with strict eligibility criteria that dictate who the state is allowed to give that money to. As a result, undocumented residents are, by law, excluded from a wide range of programs such as Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (Food Stamps), unemployment insurance, nonemergency Medicaid, Supplemental Security Income, and Temporary Assistance for Needy Families. This is a problem because undocumented New York residents are among the most in need of these social programs. Undocumented New Yorkers work at rates similar to the overall population; however, the median household income of an undocumented family is almost 30% lower than the overall average, making access to social support absolutely critical. The federal government must remove eligibility requirements to allow undocumented residents to access social spending. Until these restrictive eligibility requirements are dropped for all state-run social programs funded by the federal government, New York State must do what it can to eliminate documentation requirements as a condition for participation in more autonomously state-run programs, such as unemployment insurance. Even more nearterm, New York should make the excluded workers fund permanent so that low-income New Yorkers receive the services they need, regardless of immigration status.

Fund local refugee & immigrant support organizations: Across New York State, nonprofit organizations play an important role in engaging immigrant communities (both documented and undocumented) with social services and supports. Immigration nonprofits provide newly arrived New Yorkers with English language and civics education, job training, legal aid, social work, and more. This work is crucially important and is often more effectively delivered by nonprofits than by the government itself, as (1) immigrant communities do not always trust state agencies enough to engage or ask for support, and (2) nonprofits are often easier to interact with, especially for those with a language barrier or without an understanding of local government. Given the importance of this work and the unique role that nonprofits play in providing it, New York State should increase unrestricted public funding to support and sustain these organizations in the long-term.

Strengthen and enforce labor protections: Federal and state labor laws create a somewhat confusing mix of policies pertaining to undocumented workers. On the one hand, it is a federal crime to hire undocumented workers and the financial penalty of doing so is steep. On the other hand, undocumented workers are protected by the same anti-discrimination statutes that protect documented workers, as well as additional protections that forbid employers from underpaying or exploiting workers on account of their immigration status. These protections are critical to ensuring the fair treatment of workers; however, the risks that undocumented workers take by reporting workplace misconduct mean that these protections often go unenforced, leaving undocumented immigrants vulnerable to abusive practices, such as wage theft (over two million New Yorkers are impacted by wage theft each year, and undocumented workers are 3x as likely to be targeted). New York State needs to strengthen its enforcement of key labor protections that disproportionately impact undocumented workers – and it must do so in a way that protects the identities and immigration status of workers, so that enforcement does not further disenfranchise undocumented workers.

Public safety

Public safety is one of the top concerns of New Yorkers––and for good reason. Even the best systems of housing, education, and job creation mean nothing if people don’t have the ability to live their lives without fear of violence.

Bushwick and East New York have long histories of community-driven efforts to improve public safety. That work continues and needs to be supported by our state government. By investing in summer and after school programs, funding violence interruption, improving visibility on Broadway and Fulton, we can make short-term progress towards increased safety, even while we work towards more long-term solutions.

Our approach to public safety has to be rooted in community investment and prevention. We have to do more than just respond to crime, we have to address the social and economic cycles that cause crime in the first place (e.g., poverty and inequality). This is an enormous assignment and it will not happen quickly; however, we must do our part to build a future in which all New Yorkers can have their needs met and can live without fear. We keep us safe.

Bolster our social safety net: When we talk about addressing the core causes of crime, we have to talk about meeting people’s basic needs. It is clear that crime rates are higher in communities where people experience greater levels of poverty, instability, homelessness, addiction, and unemployment. Most crimes are committed out of necessity, not passion – and when we abandon people to live in desperate conditions we can only expect desperate acts as a result. We cannot think about crime as though it happens in a vacuum; instead, we have to talk about crime as a symptom of much deeper social and economic conditions. The safest society is one in which everyone has their basic needs met – and we have the resources to better meet people’s needs. New York can disrupt cycles of crime and violence by bolstering its social safety net to better provide for the needs of every New Yorker.

Prioritize socioemotional development: Socioemotional development is the process through which kids learn how to express and manage their emotions. This development happens primarily at home and in school. Positive socioemotional development gives young people the tools they need to de-escalate and resolve conflict without violence. For example, research shows that rates of intimate partner violence could be decreased by as much as 60% through education alone. There are multiple ways to invest in socioemotional development through our school system. State funding can help schools to add school counselors, train de-escalation, adopt restorative justice practices, and more. New York needs to take each of these options seriously and invest in the socioemotional development of its young people as a way to reduce violence.

Teach consent and healthy relationships: Our society is experiencing a crisis of intimate partner violence (IPV) that is deeply rooted, intersectional, and devastating. Sometimes used interchangeably with domestic violence or dating violence, IPV is physical, sexual, or psychological abuse by a casual or serious intimate partner. NYC has some of the highest rates of IPV in the country, and over a third of New York State residents report having experienced some form of intimate-partner violence. IPV impacts people of all genders but is especially prevalent in queer and BIPOC communities, where interconnected forms of oppression have long perpetrated violence. And yet, despite the ferocity of this crisis, we spend remarkably little time talking about the root causes of IPV and how we can create systemic change. For example, New York does not currently have any state-level requirement that schools provide sex or consent education, despite long standing evidence that school-based education programs can reduce violence by as much as 60%. Without a state-level requirement that schools provide sex or consent education, school districts are left to decide for themselves what types of sex education to provide, if any at all. The result is that only a quarter of New York school districts teach students about sexual assault or rape. This failure is unacceptable. We have the power to disrupt cycles of violence; however, we need our state government to step up and provide young people with the tools they need to keep each other safe. New York must require schools to provide young people with age-appropriate sex and consent education.

Expand after school and summer youth programming: After school and summer youth programming are critically important investments in public safety. Youth programming provides safe and structured spaces for young people to hang out, reducing unstructured time, risky behaviors, and youth crime rates. Youth programming benefits all students and families but is especially important for working families, who rely on programming as a form of childcare. Programs also provide students with critical academic support (help with homework during the school year and academic enrichment during the summer) and have been shown to improve school attendance, grades, college enrollment, and lifetime earnings. Youth programs New York State should provide dedicated funding to providers across the state to increase access to after school and summer youth programming – especially in working class communities.
Support community violence intervention programs: Community violence intervention (CVI) programs reduce violence by supporting communities at the highest risk of gun violence. The goal is to support both victims and perpetrators of violence in order to resolve conflict and prevent cycles of retaliation. CVI programs work in partnership with hospitals, community leaders, and police precincts to dispatch both social workers and “violence interrupters” who are trained in de-escalation and intervention. These programs work to provide those at risk of violence with things like housing, education, and employment, to address the lack of social and economic opportunities that are often root causes of violence. CVI programs are highly effective, with some programs reducing neighborhood gun violence by as much as a third. As gun violence continues to plague our city, New York should invest in community violence intervention programs as a proven way to save lives.

Dispatch social workers as first responders: We ask a lot of our police departments. As first responders, police are asked to handle issues ranging from homelessness to mental health; traffic safety to violent crime. While some of these issues do require armed officers to report to the scene of a crime, a significant share of 911 calls should be responded to by social workers, rather than law enforcement officers. When someone calls 911 for assistance dealing with an unarmed crisis of mental health, homelessness, and drug abuse, we should be dispatching trained social workers to support, provide resources, and de-escalate as needed. This is exactly the logic behind New York City’s Behavioral Health Assistance Response Division (B-HEARD), which dispatches FDNY paramedics and NYC Health + Hospitals mental health professionals in response to select 911 mental health calls. B-HEARD began as a pilot in Harlem in 2021 and has been so successful that the program has expanded to over 30 police precincts in four boroughs (including the 75th Precinct in East New York). As NYC continues to expand this program and demonstrate success, New York State should require all local governments to include social workers as first responders and provide the support and oversight necessary to help disseminate best practices.
Require meaningful civilian oversight: Civilian oversight is one of the most important tools of police accountability because it ties accountability directly to the communities that police are meant to serve. That said, our civilian oversight structures often lack the tools and resources to truly hold officers accountable. In New York City, the Civilian Complaint Review Board (CCRB) investigates, mediates, and adjudicates civilian complaints of police misconduct; however, it does not have the power to discipline officers directly. Instead, it makes a disciplinary recommendation to the Police Commissioner, who almost always downgrades CCRB recommendations for disciplinary action (from 2000 to 2020, NYPD Commissioners overruled 75% of recommendations). NYC’s CCRB is just one example of a flawed oversight system – many police departments across the state have no mechanism for civilian accountability at all. New York State should help local governments to adopt meaningful civilian oversight structures by providing the financial, investigative, and technical assistance that local governments need to ensure that oversight structures are representative, effective, and free of bias. Similarly, New York State should form a civilian oversight board to oversee State police forces, which could also serve as a board of appeals for local bodies.

Limit qualified immunity: Qualified immunity is a judicial doctrine that shields government officials (primarily law enforcement and corrections officers) from liability, even when they break the law. Qualified immunity makes it extremely challenging to hold officers accountable for civil rights violations (like excessive use of force or misconduct), because cases are likely to be tossed out of court, even when the court agrees that the officer violated the law. Eliminating qualified immunity would mean that cases are decided on their merits, rather than allowing government officials to act with impunity. This is why, in 2020, Colorado became the first state to eliminate qualified immunity altogether. Since then, a handful of states and cities have followed suit, including New York City, which limited the use of qualified immunity for unreasonable searches and seizures (including claims of excessive use of force) in 2021. New York State should build on this progress by limiting or eliminating qualified immunity at the state level, so that New Yorkers whose rights have been violated can have their due process.

Demilitarize police forces: The 1033 Federal Excess Property Program transfers excess military equipment from the Department of Defense to state and local police forces across the country (at the request of the police department). This program has facilitated the transfer of assault rifles, armored vehicles, cargo planes, helicopters, “bomb robots”, military trucks, and Humvees to local police departments across New York State. Allowing local police departments to participate in this program is dangerous and unwarranted. Police departments are tasked with maintaining peace, not preparing for armed conflict – and normalizing the use of military equipment on civilians has dangerous and often deadly consequences. New York State should refuse to use military equipment against New Yorkers and should ban local police departments from participating in the 1033 program.

Eliminate confession coercion: Coerced confessions represent a major failure of the New York police and legal system. Over ten percent of overturned wrongful convictions in the U.S. involve a false confession – and false confessions are most often the product of police coercion. The Reid Technique is an interrogation technique used by police in New York and across the U.S. It entails aggressive, confrontational, confusing, and intentionally misleading tactics used to intimidate suspects into providing a confession. In 2018, in a first step towards limiting confession coercion, New York State required that custodial interviews be recorded in cases of serious, violent crimes. This is a positive step but is insufficient. Loopholes in the current law allow non-recorded confessions to be deemed admissible for a wide variety of factors. In order to prevent wrongful convictions by eliminating confession coercion, New York must require that all admissible confessions be filmed so that the court can ensure that coercive tactics were not used.

Incarceration

New York State has a long and troubled history of over incarceration. New York has the 16th highest incarceration rate in the world and imprisons Black and Latine residents at 8x and 3x the rate of white residents, respectively. In addition, New York disregards the human rights of people in its custody: incarcerated New Yorkers are subjected to forced labor and denied basic rights, such as the right to a speedy trial and legal restrictions on the use of solitary confinement.

Our approach to incarceration has not made us safer. Instead, it has fractured communities of color, undermined the validity of our justice system, and cost us inordinate sums. New York State spends $115,000 per year to imprison a single inmate and New York City spends over $550,000. That’s money that should be used to prevent crime in the first place.

New Yorkers deserve a justice system that is measured, trustworthy, and humane. We should do everything we can to decarcerating those who don’t pose a threat to society, respect the rights of incarcerated New Yorkers, reform our approach to sentencing, and support those reentering society.

Defend bail reform: Under a traditional cash bail system, when someone is charged with a crime, they have to pay a refundable bail payment to the court as collateral to ensure that they come back for their hearing. If they cannot afford to pay, they are held in custody until their trial. In effect, cash bail means that those without access to savings at the time of their arrest are held in jail because of their inability to pay. Even beyond the obvious moral issues here, this system creates an economic burden to society: jails must hold a greater number of incarcerated folks awaiting trial and those locked up are prevented from working, sustaining their families, and contributing to their communities. This is why New York passed a law in 2019 that eliminated cash bail for most misdemeanor and lower-level felony cases; however, despite data showing that those revisions did not cause a spike in crime rates, the state then passed several revisions that allow judges to make exceptions for low-level offenses. Our sentencing policy needs to be driven by evidence, not fear mongering. New York must defend what remains of the 2019 bail reforms and push for continued rollback of cash bail.

Use parole as a tool of decarceration: The purpose of parole is to release people from prison who have served their minimum sentence and no longer pose a threat to public safety. Parole allows individuals to serve the remainder of their sentences while engaging in community, contributing to society, holding employment, and providing for their families. Unfortunately, those who pose little-to-no threat to public safety are frequently denied parole, resulting in expensive, prolonged, and unnecessary incarceration. Each year, roughly 100,000 people who have completed their minimum sentences appear before a parole board. On average, however, less than half of those individuals are granted parole. The vast majority are sent back to prison because of the gravity of their original crime. This is counterintuitive: when the gravity of the original crime is used to justify a parole denial, it neglects to consider that individual’s growth or their current level of threat to public safety. It also neglects to take into account the fact that people tend to age out of criminalized behavior. Other states have been successful in encouraging the use of parole to safely decarcerate by: (1) increasing the transparency of parole board appointments and decisions, (2) publishing detailed data on parole decisions, (3) requiring that parole be granted to those deemed low risk, (4) ensuring a fully staffed board, specifically appointing members with experience in community-based services, and (5) adopting policies of elder parole. New York must adapt the criteria for parole eligibility to better leverage parole as a tool for decarceration and public safety.

Invest in making community supervision effective: In order for probation and parole to be effective tools of decarceration, it is not enough to expand the number of people offered community supervision – the next, much larger task is to provide those individuals with the tools and support they need in order to stay out of prison. Currently, probation and parole account for 60% of all individuals in New York State’s criminal legal system – and over 40% of all new prison admissions in New York come from probation and parole violations. Taken together, these facts tell us two things: first, that community supervision accounts for the majority of our criminal legal system, and second, that community supervision is largely failing to help individuals get back on their feet. There are many reasons for the limited effectiveness of New York’s community supervision system; however, three key drivers are: (1) we underinvest in the personnel needed to provide case management to supervised individuals: probation and parole officers do not have the bandwidth they need to provide the level of attention each case necessitates, (2) the supervision conditions that we enforce are overly restrictive, causing unnecessary arrests for noncriminal parole violations, and (3) we do an inadequate job of providing supervised individuals with access to housing, employment, stability, and security. We must do everything possible to ensure that community supervision provides people with what they need to succeed, rather than setting them up to fail: this means decreasing caseloads, loosening violation guidelines, and increasing access to social services.

Decriminalize and decarcerate sex workers: Currently, New York tries to prevent prostitution by criminalizing both sex workers and those who buy sex. This is a familiar approach; however, the reality is that criminalizing sex work marginalizes sex workers by making it impossible to seek social services or law enforcement without risking arrest. This marginalization exacerbates violence because it creates a cone of silence around those experiencing or witnessing abuse. That is why multiple New York City District Attorneys have decided publicly to dismiss prostitution cases, responding instead by bringing in social services. Other communities—including entire countries, such as New Zealand—have instead taken then approach of decriminalizing consentual adult sex work, which increases public safety by extending labor rights, protections, and social services to sex workers. Decriminalization can also help the state to fight human trafficking by encouraging those involved in sex work to report abuse when they see it. New York State should decriminalize consensual adult sex work and expunge criminal records for related offenses, while retaining criminal penalties for sex trafficking and increasing efforts to root out abuse.
Study and expand diversion programs: The easiest way to stop contributing to over-incarceration is to help more people avoid sentencing in the first place. That’s where diversion programs come into play. Diversion programs give police, prosecutors, and judges alternatives to incarceration that hold people accountable without requiring jail or prison time. The earlier the diversion, the more impactful. For example, Law Enforcement Assisted Diversion (LEAD) is a promising police diversion program started in Seattle, whereby officers who encounter low-level offenses refer perpetrators to case management rather than making an arrest. The case manager can respond to both immediate and long-term needs (e.g., access to housing, healthcare, workforce development), and the perpetrator gets the support they need, rather than a criminal record. More common diversion programs are run through prosecutors and judges. These programs don’t avoid arrests but they do avoid incarceration, enforcing restorative, community-based accountability instead. Diversion programs have enormous potential to contribute to public safety without leading to over-incarceration. While many diversion programs have been proven to be effective, many more need additional data to validate their impact. New York State should study diversion programs and provide guidelines, incentives, and requirements that scale effective strategies.

Try children as children, adults as adults: When a young person is charged with a crime in New York State, it makes an enormous difference whether that young person is tried as a juvenile or as an adult. If they are tried as a juvenile, their case is heard in family court, where they are more likely to be diverted from incarceration and receive social services to prevent future arrests. If they are tried as an adult, they are sent to criminal court, where convictions are more serious and come with a criminal record. Like most states, New York’s age of criminal responsibility is 18 years, which means that anyone who is charged with a crime at 18 years or older is automatically sent to criminal court. Unlike other states, however, New York has particularly harsh exceptions to this rule. For some felony convictions, children in New York as young as 13 years old can be sent to criminal court (a specific portion of criminal court called the Youth Part). Anyone who commits a serious and violent crime needs to be held accountable for their actions. However, accountability can take many forms and children as young as 13 years old should be, at the very least, treated like children. This is a globally accepted premise that our state is woefully behind on. In 2019, the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child issued a recommendation that children under the age of 14 be exempt from all criminal responsibility – that recommendation was ratified by every UN member state except the U.S. As we look to decarcerate our society, young people should be an obvious priority. New York State must intervene to protect our youth from overly harsh sentencing by eliminating the Youth Part and instead trying all minors in family court.

Disallow “bump-up” rules: Bump-up rules are statutes that allow certain misdemeanor offenses to be bumped up to felony charges if the accused has been charged with a similar infraction within the past ten years. Bump-up rules are attached to specific misdemeanors and are enforced at the discretion of prosecutors. This is counterintuitive and inappropriate: we should not allow prosecutors to decide on a case-by-case basis whether to use felony charges in response to misdemeanor crimes. We need to repeal bump-up rules to ensure that misdemeanor charges always carry misdemeanor penalties.

Create a sentencing reform commission: Criminal sentencing in New York State is informed by state-level sentencing guidelines. Those guidelines provide mandatory minimums and maximums for state crimes committed, with severity that ranges depending on the context and criminal history of the offender. New York State’s sentencing guidelines are incredibly impactful and affect the lives of all New Yorkers. Many components of our sentencing guidelines are decades old, and have been neither reviewed nor affirmed since they were written. New York should create a sentencing reform commission that meets periodically to make recommendations on guidelines that are due for revision (for example, many guidelines reflect outdated research and approaches to preventing crime).
Enforce the right to a speedy trial: New York State law establishes the right to a speedy trial. This means that, if you are arrested for a crime in New York State, your accuser (often the state itself) must be ready for trial within 6 months for a felony and within 90 days for a misdemeanor. The purpose of this law is to limit the amount of time that people can be detained before their trial, which is critically important, as people are supposed to be presumed innocent. In practice, however, the right to a speedy trial carves out exceptions that are allowed to delay an individual’s pre-trial detention. As a result, individuals often spend years behind bars, just waiting for trial. Think about what this means: at any moment you could be wrongly arrested for a crime, spend years behind bars awaiting trial, and then be found innocent - only to have missed years of school, work, time with your family, and more. This is unacceptable - and it’s not as rare as you might think. New York State must do more to uphold the right to a speedy trial by increasing court capacity and closing loopholes that lead to extended pretrial detainment.

Abolish exploitative prison labor: Work opportunities for incarcerated individuals provide a range of benefits: it provides the opportunity to earn money, to learn vocational skills, and to establish a meaningful routine behind bars. That said, the way that New York State currently provides work opportunities in state prisons is deeply flawed and inhumane. The New York State Department of Corrections currently provides work opportunities through an entity called Corcraft. Corcraft is a publicly-owned manufacturer that uses exclusively incarcerated labor and then sells its products (soap, hand sanitizer, license plates, furniture, etc.) to state and local government agencies. Each year, Corcraft generates ~$50M in sales, all of which is returned to the Department of Corrections. This may sound like a logical system; however, there are serious problems with this approach to prison labor. First, Corcraft has the ability to force inmates to work against their will and, second, Corcraft pays inmates an average of 65 cents per hour. This is absolutely unacceptable. This system creates a system of misaligned incentives, whereby cost savings for the state are dependent on large prison populations and exploitative practices. There is a lot of potential good that can come from providing work opportunities to incarcerated folks; however, New York State must reform its approach by eliminating forced labor and paying workers fairly.

Allow incarcerated New Yorkers to vote: New York State has a long history of stripping citizens of the right to vote upon conviction of a crime. Before 2021, a felony conviction in this state meant permanent loss of the right to vote. The state passed legislation restoring the right to vote upon completion of a felony sentence, which represents a significant step forward; however, it still falls short. In a free and fair democracy, your ability to vote is not a privilege, it is one of your most fundamental rights. Denying the right to vote as a form of punishment is not only undemocratic, but it also contributes to a legacy of racialized disenfranchisement – of limiting the right to vote as a form of political oppression. New York State has the potential to be a global example of free and fair democracy in action; however, doing so requires that we treat the right to vote as an unalienable right that not even conviction of a crime can jeopardize.

Enforce limits on solitary confinement: The United Nations defines any period of over 15 days of solitary confinement as torture. Solitary confinement is internationally understood to cause long-term psychological consequences, with wildly exacerbated effects on young and elderly people, as well as those with mental and physical disabilities. This reality led New York to pass the HALT Solitary Confinement Act in 2021, which placed limits on the allowed use of solitary confinement for the first time in New York’s history. Unfortunately, despite the known consequences of extended isolation, corrections facilities across the state have failed or refused to implement changes required by state law. In addition, state officials cite the Department of Corrections’ antiquated recordkeeping systems as an impediment to oversight over compliance with the law. We cannot allow meaningful reforms to go unimplemented. New York State must increase monitoring, reporting, and ultimately implementation of the HALT Act across the board. In addition to ensuring enforcement of the HALT Act, New York State should closely study NYC’s complete ban on solitary confinement (passed in 2024) to assess the benefits and feasibility of extending this ban statewide.

Increase oversight over jail conditions: When the government takes someone into its custody through incarceration, it is obligated to provide that person with humane living conditions. In New York State, the Commission of Correction is responsible for overseeing all state and local correctional facilities in the state of New York (this includes hundreds of facilities, mostly county jails and local police lockups). Unfortunately, despite this clear accountability, jails across the state are caught up in lawsuits over horrific conditions. Rikers Island is perhaps the most obvious example; however, it is far from the only one. We cannot allow correctional facilities to hold New Yorkers in inhumane conditions – it is both unconstitutional and immoral. The New York State Legislature needs to hold the Commission of Correction accountable and increase its oversight capacity to ensure that all correctional facilities in the state meet legal and humane requirements.
Invest in reentry programs: Recidivism is the cycle of re-incarceration folks face when they are released from custody. Statically, almost half of all New Yorkers who are released from prison will return – and many will do so within their first few years out. This is a structural problem. Recidivism plagues our communities and our justice system by eroding families and contributing to cycles of poverty. We must address recidivism in our state by investing deeply in reentry programs and infrastructure that have been shown to help people stay out of custody (e.g., supportive housing, workforce training, substance abuse and mental health counseling).

Adopt a statewide Fair Chance Act: Reintegrating into society after incarceration is extremely difficult. The difficulty of finding stable employment is one of the primary obstacles that make it difficult for people to get back on their feet and avoid reincarceration. One way that governments have tried to lessen this burden is by adopting what’s known as Fair Chance legislation. These laws are intended to prevent discrimination against formerly incarcerated individuals by temporarily shielding criminal convictions that are unrelated to the job and that do not threaten the safety of the company or existing employees. Under Fair Chance legislation, employers make conditional job offers based on candidates’ noncriminal information. Only after a conditional offer has been made can an employer evaluate applicants’ criminal history. Fair Chance legislation has already been adopted for public employees, contractors, and freelancers hired by NYC and the federal government. New York State should follow suit and adopt a statewide fair chance act to reduce recidivism and support formerly incarcerated New Yorkers in getting back on their feet.

Education

Public education is one of the most important investments we can make in our future. A free and fair system of public education plays a critical role in preparing the next generation of New Yorkers to navigate the world, support their families, and become future leaders. Public education also has a unique ability to address many of the challenges we face as a society. Issues like food insecurity, financial wellbeing, and even public health and safety.

Despite the importance of public education and the remarkable dedication of our public educators, there is an enormous amount more that New York State can do to ensure that our schools, our teachers, and our students have what they need to thrive.

Meet the needs of families: New York spends more per-pupil than any other state in the country; however, that does not produce commensurate educational outcomes. When you talk to teachers about this challenge, they are clear that one of the biggest barriers students face is the extent to which their needs are met. It doesn’t matter how much we spend on education, students that are experiencing homelessness or hunger or violence at home simply do not have what they need to perform in the classroom. Thus, we cannot look at education in isolation; instead, our approach to education needs to emphasize the importance of meeting the needs of families in New York. We need to ensure that families have access to food, housing, and safety, and stability.

Expand the child tax credit: In addition to state-level investments in housing, food access, and safety, one way that the state can ensure that families have what they need is to expand the state’s child tax credit, which is a refundable credit for full-year New York State residents who have at least one qualifying child. By expanding this tax credit, we can put more money in the hands of New York families, helping to ensure that young people have the resources they need to perform in school.

Expand school meal programs: When students experience hunger they struggle to focus in class and are more likely to have lower attendance, higher attrition, and other learning difficulties. School meals are an effective way of making sure that students do not struggle with hunger; however, not all students in our state have access to free meals. New York should provide all students with free breakfasts and lunches. Making meals accessible to all students reduces disparities, promotes student health, supports student achievement, eliminates stigma, and saves families money.
Attract and retain high-quality educators: Public educators are what make New York’s public school systems as strong as they are. Although New York public school teachers are paid the highest in the nation, we need to continue to make sure that educators have everything they need to do their job. This means working collaboratively with teacher unions to encourage best practices while also maintaining competitive pay and prioritizing just working conditions.

Add school counselors: School counselors in New York public schools play a critical role in supporting our students and teachers; however, they are often overworked. In NYC schools, some guidance counselors are asked to manage caseloads of over 400 students, making it nearly impossible to adequately manage students’ educational and emotional needs. Furthermore, when sufficient school counseling is not available, schools are more likely to turn to punitive disciplinary measures to manage misbehaving students. These methods are at times necessary but are also shown to be disproportionately used on students of color, with compounding impacts that can undermine a student’s future. New York State should provide the funding to bolster school counseling departments with the staff and training needed to meet students’ needs, inside and outside of the classroom.

Fully fund CUNY & SUNY: The City University of New York (CUNY) and State University of New York (SUNY) systems are major engines of economic mobility in New York. CUNY and SUNY provide access to affordable higher education for thousands of New Yorkers and are consistently spotlighted for their track record of producing class mobility in our state. We must provide the CUNY and SUNY systems with the resources they need to sustain this impact and reach even more New Yorkers without raising tuition.

No unfunded mandates: An unfunded mandate is when state law requires something from local entities (counties, school boards, etc.) but does not provide funding to fulfill the requirement. Unfunded mandates are particularly common in education, where the State Legislature, the Governor, and the Board of Regents all have a say in educational standards, although the vast majority of funding is raised locally. In order to legitimize educational requirements and reduce the burdens placed on local school boards, New York State should commit to funding educational mandates.
Expand after school and summer youth programming: After school and summer youth programming is critical for students and families. Programs provide students with academic support (help with homework during the school year and academic enrichment during the summer) and have been shown to improve school attendance, grades, college enrollment, and lifetime earnings. Youth programs also provide social benefits, as they provide safe and structured spaces for young people to hang out, reducing unstructured time, risky behaviors, and youth crime rates. Youth programs benefit all students and families but are especially important for working families, who rely on programming as a form of childcare. New York State should provide dedicated funding to providers across the state to increase access to after school and summer youth programming – especially in working class communities.

Fund and refine the Foundation Aid formula: New York State allocates funding to school districts using a student-based formula called the Foundation Aid formula. After school districts raise local funding (primarily through property taxes), the Foundation Formula takes into account various demographics (for example, rates of poverty and English language learners) to equalize per-pupil funding across the state. When this system was fully funded for the first time in 2024, it marked a major milestone in the path towards education equity; however, there is more to be done. We must commit to always funding Foundation Aid spending and refine that formula to ensure that all school districts have the resources they need to provide their students with the same quality education. This means standardizing the means of poverty calculation, increasing the weight of poverty in funding calculation, and eliminating loopholes that perpetuate inequalities between school districts.

Offset PTA donations: Parent Teacher Associations (PTAs) are an important outlet for parents to participate in their local schools. PTAs allow parents to provide input into how their schools operate and allow parents to donate money to support various educational opportunities for their children. This sort of involvement helps to make sure that schools reflect the priorities of the families they serve and have the resources to provide for students. However, when PTAs donate money to schools, that money is not currently accounted for in the Foundation Aid formula (which equalizes per-student spending across the state), meaning that it creates inequality in school funding by allowing wealthy communities to spend far more per-student than poorer communities. We need to account for PTA donations in the Foundation Aid formula in order to allow PTAs to continue to operate, while also protecting the educational equity that the formula was intended to enforce.

Ban legacy admissions: Legacy admissions are when colleges and universities give special preference to the children of alumni. Legacy admissions exacerbate inequality by making it easier for applicants from already privileged backgrounds – often wealthy, white applicants – while adding unnecessary hurdles for first generation and applicants and those without privileged networks. Legacy admissions are contrary to the goals of both meritocracy and diversity. Because of these critiques, states across the country (including Maryland, California, Virginia, Illinois, Colorado, and more) have moved to ban legacy admissions. New York should follow suit by banning legacy admissions in both public and private colleges.
Teach comprehensive, age-appropriate sex and consent education: Currently, schools in New York State are required to teach students about HIV/AIDS; however, they are not required to provide any form of sex or consent education. Instead, local school districts are left to decide for themselves what types of sex education to provide, if any at all. The result is that only 65% of New York school districts provide sex education and far fewer provide consent education. NYC public schools have provided sex education since 2011 but still do not comprehensively teach students about consent or healthy relationships (except for a few targeted programs). This failure of our education system has devastating consequences on both public health and public safety. In terms of public health, New York State has above-average rates of teen pregnancy, teen abortion, and STI transmission. Our state could significantly reduce the health, emotional, and financial burden of these challenges, simply by providing young adults with the knowledge and tools of a basic sex education. In terms of public safety, roughly a third of New Yorkers report having experienced some form of intimate-partner violence. Even more striking, almost half of female homicide victims in New York are killed by their intimate partner. These statistics illustrate the severity and immediacy of the crises we are experiencing – and although education alone won’t solve the problem, research suggests that education can reduce rates of intimate partner violence by as much as 60%. Comprehensive, age-appropriate education in sex, consent, and healthy relationships is absolutely and immediately needed to help New York State improve public health and safety.

Teach financial literacy: Financial independence requires a baseline understanding of financial tools and systems. All students in New York should be taught about household budgeting, healthy spending, saving and investing, avoiding bad debt, and accessing financial assistance (e.g., help paying for college or buying a home). These topics represent a base level of financial literacy, important for all New Yorkers; however, high school students are not currently required to take courses in financial literacy in order to graduate. By not teaching financial literacy in schools, New Yorkers are left to learn financial literacy at home, which exacerbates wealth inequality by making financial education contingent on having a network with both knowledge and time to spare. In order to ensure that every New Yorker has the tools to be financially independent, we should require high schools to teach comprehensive financial literacy.

Adopt restorative justice practices: School-based restorative justice programs provide young people with community-based approaches to harm reduction and conflict resolution, whereby students respond to problems with facilitated group conversations, as opposed to retaliation, escalation, or (when avoidable) disciplinary action. The purpose of restorative justice practices is twofold: first and foremost, it teaches students to resolve conflict through dialogue. Restorative justice practices promote socioemotional development, encouraging students to value individual responsibility, community participation, relationship building, and de-escalation. A second benefit of restorative justice practices is that they provide an alternative to traditional disciplinary actions, such as suspensions. Although suspensions may sometimes be necessary, overusing suspensions as a punishment is disruptive to a student’s learning and can often exacerbate negative behaviors. We also know that suspensions are often used unfairly, with Black and brown students far more likely to receive disciplinary action than their white peers. By focusing on healing and accountability, restorative justice practices have been shown to reduce suspension rates while increasing student attendance and belonging. Hundreds of schools across New York City and State have already adopted restorative justice practices; however, there is not enough support to help programs expand and succeed. New York State should provide funding to help interested schools adopt restorative justice programs, and should play a role in elevating best practices to make these programs successful.

Environment

Climate change is no longer a threat, it is now a reality that New Yorkers face every day. Bushwick and East New York are considered high risk for heat-related deaths and are increasingly susceptible to costly and dangerous floods. As the climate crisis worsens, it is communities like ours that will bear the brunt of rising temperatures and worsening storms.

With the New York State's Climate Act (and NYC’s Climate Mobilization Act), we have taken the first steps towards addressing climate change; however, there is an enormous amount more to do to reduce emissions, transition to a green economy, and fund remediation. We have the power to create the city we want to live in: one with clean rivers, green infrastructure, and environmental justice.

Guarantee funding for CLCPA initiatives: In 2019, New York passed The New York Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act (CLCPA) – a landmark agreement that set New York State on the path to climate neutrality. CLCPA requires New York to reduce emissions by 40% (from 1990 levels) by 2030 and 85% by 2050. CLCPA promotes environmental justice by requiring at least 35% of initiatives to serve historically underserved communities and mandating that offset programs be located within 25 miles of the pollution source being offset. To accomplish these goals, CLCPA created a Climate Action Council to draft a set of specific emission reduction strategies. The Climate Action Council released its first set of recommendations at the end of 2022, which includes more than $35 billion for 120 large-scale projects across the state. These projects reduce building emissions, scale up solar, provide green transportation options, and more. The goals, structure, and strategies of the CLCPA are hard-won victories that set us in the right direction; however, the long work of achieving those goals is still in front of us and will require unwavering commitment, oversight, and investment from our state. We must hold ourselves accountable to the proposed investments, regulation, and legislation outlined by the Climate Action Council, to make sure that New York State hits its climate goals.

Expedite remediation of state and federal Superfund sites: A Superfund site is a state or federally designated area that is considered hazardous due to pollution. When a site is designated a Superfund site, it becomes a priority for remediation and the government steps in to force those responsible for polluting to help cover the costs. New York City has four Superfund sites, three of which are in or adjacent to Bushwick. One site, Wolff-Alport, is located on the East side of Bushwick, while two additional sites are just to the North (one of those sites, the Newton Creek, is the site of one of the largest oil spills in U.S. history, where 17-30 million gallons of oil spilled into Brooklyn’s groundwater). While significant progress has been made cleaning up the one Superfund site not in our community (the Gowanus Canal), little-to-no progress has been seen on the other three, despite some having been designated over a decade ago. When it comes to the health of our communities, we cannot accept unnecessary delays. We need our representatives to intervene at every opportunity to compel good-faith cooperation in the remediation process, and expedite cleanup.
Make all infrastructure green infrastructure: Access to safe, accessible, and sustainable infrastructure is one of the most foundational things our governments provide. Unfortunately, there are neighborhoods across the state where infrastructure has been systematically neglected. This hinders economic growth, creates safety risks for residents, and compounds environmental problems like flooding and pollution. You don’t have to look far to see evidence of this neglect: across Bushwick and East New York, for example, you can see it in our roads, inaccessible subway stations, entire blocks without lighting, and annual flooding. As we make much needed upgrades to infrastructure, it is critical that we prioritize sustainability. This means incorporating modular, forward-looking, and innovative technologies that increase the environmental resiliency of our infrastructure. Failing to do so merely kicks the can down the road, increasing lifetime costs (as infrastructure will need more frequent upgrades), compounding the effects of climate change, and exacerbating inequities. New York State must work closely with local and federal agencies to fund sustainable upgrades to infrastructure across the state, intentionally prioritizing communities whose infrastructure has been systematically neglected.

Upgrade stormwater management systems: Storm preparedness is an increasingly important aspect of New York’s infrastructure. As climate change intensifies, New York State and City will experience more frequent and more serious storms. With every storm, our inadequate stormwater management systems result in flooding, which can be deadly, expensive, and polluting. Almost 60% of New York City uses a combined sewer system, where the same pipes that carry raw sewage to our treatment plants also collect rainwater from the city’s streets. Our combined sewer system has enough capacity to handle light rains; however, during heavy rains, the sewer system overflows, and a mix of sewage, rainwater, and street pollution are dumped directly into the rivers. Each year, over 20 billion gallons of this sewage-garbage mix is dumped into the city’s waterways. There are two primary ways to prevent this form of pollution: one option is to upgrade New York City’s sewer systems to increase capacity and, where appropriate, separate stormwater and sewage pipes. This is expensive and disruptive, but necessary in some areas to increase storm capacity. Another, more immediate option is to invest in green infrastructure (greenspace, porous surfaces, rain gardens, green roofs, street trees, detention tanks, and more), to collect stormwater and prevent sewer overflow. New York should explore both targeted sewer upgrades and increases to green infrastructure (both directly in public spaces and indirectly through private incentives).

Take sanitation seriously: It’s no secret that New York City has a trash problem – and the problem is more than just aesthetic, it’s an environmental one. The garbage that litters our streets causes pest infestations, clogs storm drains, contributes to flooding, and gets washed directly into our rivers during heavy rains. In addition, sanitation issues are disproportionately felt in low-income communities and communities of color. It’s not enough to treat sanitation as a problem of convenience, we must demand that our governments address waste management as a central component of environmental justice. The solution needs to be multifaceted: we need to help minimize waste (through recycling and composting education and infrastructure), while also improving our approach to waste collection and processing. New York City is starting to trial and scale effective strategies such as containerization, pneumatic tubes, and sanitation strike teams; however, this problem warrants state attention, as it is a challenge for cities and towns across the state. New York State can help localities improve waste management by elevating best practices and helping to implement effective strategies.

Increase access to parks and greenspace: Access to parks is critical for environmental resilience. Greenspace creates natural barriers that lower temperatures and absorb both rainwater and air pollutants. In addition, access to parks has clear effects on a person’s social, physical, and mental health. Parks and greenspace create space for community-building, encourage exercise, reduce stress levels, and increase general mindfulness, mood, and attitude. Unfortunately, New Yorker’s access to park spaces are largely dictated by race and income. Estimates suggest that predominantly Black and brown neighborhoods in New York City have 33% less park space than predominantly white neighborhoods. Similarly, low-income neighborhoods have roughly 21% less park space than high-income neighborhoods. As New York City’s population grows and the impacts of climate change compound, the importance of public parks and greenspace will only increase. In order to provide for all citizens and live up to the promise of environmental justice, New York must commit to equalizing access to parks and greenspace.

Economic justice

We deserve to live in a city where every New Yorker has access to financial stability. This city has 60+ billionaires and 350,000+ millionaires and yet, in Bushwick and East New York almost 30% of people live in poverty and almost 70% of people live without access to emergency savings. Skyrocketing costs, disappearing manufacturing space, and cuts to local programming make it nearly impossible for working class families in our community to get what they deserve.

This is not normal and it does not have to be this way. It’s time we demand the public investments we need to build a thriving working class—one where everyone has the opportunity to succeed. We are not asking for charity, we are demanding an economy that works for all of us.

Fund free bus service: In 2023, New York State provided funding to the MTA to create a fare-free bus pilot program. One bus in each borough (the B60 in Brooklyn) ran free for a year. As a result of the program, both ridership and safety increased, specifically benefiting low income and working class New Yorkers. In terms of ridership, MTA reported a 30-40% increase across the five fare-free bus lines. Almost half of new riders earned less than $28,000 per year and 40% of new riders used the free buses to get to work or school. In terms of safety, MTA reported a 40% decrease in verbal and physical assaults against bus operators on fare-free routes. The results of this pilot are clear: expanding bus service expands economic opportunity. Free buses allow working class New Yorkers to get to school or go to work safely and affordably. These findings are not surprising to New Yorkers. Citywide, one in five New Yorkers struggle to afford public transit – when you control for Black and Hispanic New Yorkers that number jumps to one in three. New York should honor the results of this pilot program and make all buses free to create economic opportunity and extend a lifeline to New Yorkers struggling to get by.

Establish universal child care: Access to affordable childcare is absolutely critical for working-class economic growth. Without it, parents are forced to take years out of the workforce, foregoing wages and often slowing career progression. Providing universal child care would put an enormous amount of money back in the hands of New York families, would foster economic growth, and would reduce gender inequity (caused because mothers are more likely to stay home with a child when childcare is unavailable). In addition, beyond the economic benefits of childcare, there are also immense social benefits for children. Early child care provides children with early learning opportunities, socialization, and increased school readiness. Despite its broad benefits, childcare is largely unaffordable to New York families. In New York City, the average cost of care for a single child is between $15k and $20k per year. This is simply unaffordable – especially for single-parent and low-income parents, who have the greatest need for childcare. This is why countries across the globe provide free and subsidized child care. Learning from these examples, New York should dedicate public funding to provide universal affordable childcare to every New York family.

Fund basic income trial programs: Over the past six years, there have been over 150 universal basic income trials in the United States – dozens of which are currently active, including a few right here in New York City. These programs provide recurring cash payments to individuals or households, with no strings attached. The theory is simple: the simplest and most effective way to create an income floor and promote dignity for all is to provide people in need with direct payments. Although guaranteed income trials do not dictate how funds can be used, they do track spending in order to evaluate program uses and outcomes. Some trials serve people based on geography, others seek out those in particular need (such as new parents in-or-near poverty). Across the board, these trial programs show similar outcomes: participants experience greater levels of financial security, greater health and well-being, more consistent and rewarding employment, and greater economic mobility. Given the consistent successes of these trials to date, New York State should allocate funding to support even longer-term programs for cities and towns that want to opt into basic income programs.
Support small businesses: Small businesses are core to New York’s culture and economy. Companies with less than 25 employees make up over 90% of New York businesses and account for almost a quarter of all employment. Small businesses also represent successful entrepreneurship, which is a core part of what makes New York’s economy accessible. In addition, small businesses often become community gathering places and civic centers. As we saw during the pandemic, they can be a big part of what allows a community to come together in times of need. However, it is increasingly difficult for small businesses to survive in our city – especially in communities like Bushwick and Cypress Hills, where rising rents make it hard for businesses to keep the doors open, and gentrification brings new competition from national retailers. These challenges were exacerbated by the pandemic in ways that we have yet to account for: across Brooklyn, the share of businesses with less than five employees dropped by half between 2019 and 2023. New York State must step in to provide additional support to small business owners. This means funding entrepreneurship programs through CUNY and SUNY, increasing small business tax credits, evaluating commercial rent control, expanding access to business credit, empowering merchant’s associations, and more.

Invest in equitable workforce planning and development: Workforce planning is a continual process in which the state sets long-term priorities for economic development and then invests in the workforce development needed to meet those priorities. Example investments include New York’s prioritization of green energy jobs (in part aligned to the Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act) and the Green CHIPS program, which incentivised the growth of New York’s semiconductor industry upstate. It is extremely important to have a long-term vision for economic development in our city – and that vision must prioritize the needs of working class New Yorkers. When it doesn’t, it leads to the loss of blue collar jobs, the privatization of critical services, and ultimately the displacement of long-term residents. New York must ensure that its approach to workforce development is centering –and meeting– the needs of working class families.

Invest in vocational training for high-paying careers: Vocational training programs provide students with the technical skills needed for specific careers in areas like healthcare, technology, skilled trades, and manufacturing. Vocational programs provide students with hands-on experience and credentialing that qualifies them for jobs without a four-year college degree. Vocational programs are extremely important because they make high-paying careers available to New Yorkers without having to go into debt to afford a four-year degree. As a part of its investments in workforce planning, the state should be working with vocational employers to help CUNY and SUNY reach additional New Yorkers with the vocational training to access high-paying careers.

Provide transitional education for green energy jobs: As we modernize our economy and create sustainable and high-paying jobs in green energy, an unintentional but unavoidable consequence will be the loss of jobs in fossil fuel industries. We need to look out for New Yorkers at risk of losing their jobs by providing high-quality job transition programs to help workers transition from fossil fuels to green energy. These trainings should be open to all; however, by subsidizing tuition for those transitioning from the fossil fuel industry we can help make sure this transition is equitable.
Support labor unions: Labor unions play an important role in our society and our economy. Unions work to improve working conditions for their members by bringing resources, expertise, and transparency to workplace negotiations through collective bargaining. Like all of us, employees are strongest when they stand together, and labor unions allow them to do just that. It is crucially important that New York State empower workers by supporting their unions. The State should rely on unionized labor wherever possible, should crack down on illegal and manipulative union busting practices, and work with unions directly to ensure that workers always have a seat at the table.

Require paid time off: Neither the federal government nor New York State require companies to offer employees paid vacation time (with the exception of domestic workers, who are legally entitled to just 3 paid vacation days per year). Paid time off should be thought of as one of an employee’s basic rights, just like bereavement, sick leave, and parental leave. New York State should require employers to provide all full-time workers with some form of paid vacation time.

Ban non-compete clauses: Non-compete clauses prohibit an employee from working for a competitor of their employer for a period of time after they leave their job. These clauses can be extremely harmful for workers because they force employees to stick with their employers, even if they have better options available elsewhere. Non-competes are disproportionately harmful for low-income workers (who are less able to negotiate their contracts) and highly specialized employees (whose skillsets are only marketable to a limited set of employees). It is because of the harm to workers that New York State passed legislation in 2023 to ban non-compete agreements across the board. That legislation was vetoed by Governor Hochul; however, she expressed a willingness to find a compromise. In 2024, the Federal Trade Commission’s (FTC) also passed a rule to ban non-competes nationwide; however, that rule was later struck down by a court in Texas. New York State should not allow this back-and-forth to sweep non-competes under the rug. Instead, the legislature should continue its effort to ban non-competes for the sake of protecting New York workers.

Ban mandated arbitration clauses: Through arbitration agreements, employees waive their right to take legal action against their employer, and instead agree to settle any future disputes out of court. These clauses are intended to reduce the cost, inefficiency, and risk of negative publicity associated with legal cases brought against the employer. While arbitration can sometimes be mutually beneficial, most of the time arbitration benefits the employer at the expense of the employee. First, arbitration clauses are often included in the fine print of employment contracts, leaving many employees unaware that they have waived their rights. Second, arbitration outcomes are binding and deny the employee the ability to appeal a decision (which they would be able to do in court). New York State has already acknowledged the inappropriateness of arbitration clauses by banning them in cases of sexual harassment and employee discrimination. We need to expand this prohibition by banning all mandated arbitration clauses in employee contracts, giving workers the ability to settle disputes in court if they so choose.

Limit nondisclosure agreements: Similar to mandated arbitration, nondisclosure agreements are a common tool of employers to shield themselves from accountability for workplace abuse. There is certainly a role for nondisclosure agreements in protecting sensitive corporate information; however, when those agreements are used to hide mistreatment, they become unacceptable. New York State recognized the need to limit nondisclosure agreements in 2019 when it banned employers from using such agreements in sexual harassment and discrimination settlements. The rationale is simple: employers should not be able to buy the silence of employees in order to cover up wrongdoing. New York should broaden limitations on nondisclosure agreements to include all forms of workplace abuse.
Create state-level regulations for data privacy: Data privacy is one of the largest and fastest growing concerns in consumer protection. Currently, the federal government restricts data collection for specific industries (financial and healthcare) and demographics (children under the age of 13); however, few protections exist for adult consumers in the vast majority of industries. In the absence of federal regulation, several states have stepped up to protect consumers; however, New York is not one of them. We cannot wait for the federal government to take action. New York State must pass the New York Privacy Act to give New Yorkers control over their personal data. This Act would provide New Yorkers with a broad set of data privacy rights, including: (1) a clear description of what data is being collected, who has access to it, and how it is being used; (2) the ability to choose which data to share and which to withhold; (3) the ability to amend and/or delete shared data; and (4) freedom from discrimination on account of data preferences. The Act would also require data controllers to conduct annual data security risk assessments to protect consumers from data theft. As New York pursues data privacy legislation, it is important to do so transparently and in collaboration with both technology companies and with other states.

Regulate against manipulative practices: When New Yorkers download apps, purchase products, and interact with our economy, they shouldn’t have to fear manipulative, deceptive, and predatory practices. Currently, New York’s consumer protections include significant loopholes that leave consumers vulnerable to harmful business practices. For example, New York does not regulate what can and can’t be included in consumer contract terms, nor does it guarantee that legal fees will be paid for consumers who win consumer lawsuits. In addition, New York does not allow agencies to create rules to respond to emerging scams in real-time. Adequately safeguarding New Yorkers from predatory consumer practices requires the state to strengthen and expand its consumer protection laws.

Taxes, fines, fees

A common myth is that we have a progressive tax system where wealthy New Yorkers pay a higher share than their working class counterparts. However, when you look at all the different ways our state raises money (income taxes, sales taxes, property taxes, etc.), it’s clear that working class New Yorkers are asked to pay significantly higher tax rates than the wealthy.

To build the city we deserve, we need to reduce taxes, fines, and fees imposed on working class New Yorkers living paycheck to paycheck and increase taxes on the uber rich. We also need to increase the transparency of our tax system so that New Yorkers can hold the state accountable for how money is raised.

Establish tax-free minimum wage and expand refundable credits: Across New York State, millions of residents live paycheck-to-paycheck. In New York City, minimum wage translates into a salary of barely over $30,000 – far below what it actually costs to live, let alone support a family. Our tax code should make life easier for New Yorkers struggling to get by, not harder. New Yorkers earning minimum wage or below should pay no income tax. Instead, they should be keeping as much of their paycheck as possible. In addition, we need to expand refundable tax credits, such as the Earned Income Credit, the Empire State Child Credit, and the Child and Dependent Care Credit. New York State must leverage its tax code to do everything possible to alleviate poverty. This means establishing a tax-free minimum wage and expanding refundable credits that put money in the hands of New Yorkers living in or near poverty.

Establish fair and transparent property taxes: Property taxes are the second largest source of tax revenue collected by New York State. It accounts for almost a third of all tax revenue and is by far the most regressive tax we pay – meaning that low-income homeowners and renters pay a much higher effective property tax rate than wealthy homeowners. In addition to being highly regressive, our property tax system is extremely complicated and opaque. New York sets property taxes by separating buildings by type, assessing the taxable value of each building (very different from the market value), and then applying a type-specific tax to that assessed value. This approach is common; however, it is also unfair and hard to understand. Since it was adopted in the early 1980s, our property tax code has only become more complicated, as layers of abatements, exceptions, and carve outs have been added. Calls for comprehensive property tax reform have grown over the past decade; however, the pandemic derailed efforts to study and implement meaningful reform. Given the importance of property taxes to the state and the regressiveness of the current system, New York must pick up on comprehensive property tax reforms to establish a simpler, fairer property tax system.

End preferential taxes for capital gains: One of the biggest problems in our tax code is the preferential treatment given to capital gains. The maximum tax rate for capital gains in New York State is roughly half the maximum tax rate for wage income. This doesn’t make any sense. Tax preferences for capital gains exacerbate economic inequality because the vast majority of investment income (stocks, real estate, etc.) is earned by the wealthiest New Yorkers. Some estimates suggest that as much as 75% of all capital gains are earned by the wealthiest 1%. Another issue with the way that capital gains are taxed is what’s known as “step-up basis at death”. Essentially, when someone dies, the capital gains taxes owed on their assets are forgiven. This is a devastating gap in our tax code that allows wealthy families to pass on enormous amounts of wealth without ever paying taxes on those gains. New York State should eliminate preferential tax rates for capital gains and close the “step-up basis at death” loophole.

Tax generational wealth: The estate tax is one of the most direct ways for the state to tax generational wealth. When multimillionaires pass away in New York State, the estate tax is applied to their estate before it can be inherited. This tax only applies to estates worth more than $7 million and the tax rates range from 3% to 16%. The estate tax is a small but important tax because it allows the state to isolate and tax generational wealth. New York should be a place where every child has the opportunity to succeed – where access to generational wealth does not dictate your life choices. By shifting resources from those with multimillion dollar estates to those living paycheck-to-paycheck, the estate tax helps to make New York truly equitable. New York should expand the estate tax to ensure that every child in the state has the opportunity to succeed.
Eliminate extractive fines and fees and consider an income-based system: Fines and fees are ways for the state to raise money outside of taxation. Fines are penalties that punish you for breaking the law (for example, parking tickets or criminal fines); fees are costs that aren’t meant to be punitive but that pay for specific services (for example, providing a driver’s license or operating a courtroom). The state relies on fines and fees to pay for things that taxes don’t cover; however, fines and fees disproportionately burden low-income New Yorkers and make it very difficult to get –or stay– on your feet. NYC parking tickets are a good example: if you receive a ticket and you are unable to pay, you’ll be charged a series of late fees, after which your unpaid ticket begins to accrue interest, making it even more expensive. Once your parking ticket debt exceeds an arbitrary threshold, your car can be booted or towed, costing you hundreds of additional dollars. As if that wasn’t enough, failure to pay can also impact your credit score and lead to the suspension of your registration, which prevents you from earning or accessing the money that you need to get out of this cycle. This is one of many examples (criminal court fees are a big one). New York State should eliminate fees that contribute to cycles of poverty and should consider requiring income-based fee systems.

Publish annual reports on public revenue: Our systems of taxes, fines, and fees are extremely complicated. It is nearly impossible to understand how much money the government collects from us and how that burden is distributed across the population. That lack of transparency is part of how we end up with a system that treats New Yorkers unfairly. Increasing the transparency of our revenue systems would not only help New Yorkers to understand their government, it would also provide us with the information we need to hold policymakers accountable. New York State should commit to publishing clear and detailed annual reports on the state’s revenue from taxes, fines, and fees. New Yorkers deserve to understand exactly where the state’s revenue comes from and where it goes.

Elections

When people vote, protest, organize, and run for office, they make our government stronger and more representative. Too often, however, the state makes it harder for people to engage, not easier. It is the responsibility of our governments (at every level) to go out of their way to encourage people to participate.

New York State has many of the building blocks for effective civic engagement; however, we consistently see low voter turnout and engagement. Participation is especially low in Bushwick and East New York, where less than a quarter of registered voters participated in the last gubernatorial election. New York should set the standard for civic engagement and our community should lead the way.

Implement automatic voter registration: In 2020, New York passed a law adopting automatic voter registration. Under that law, people should be automatically registered to vote when they interact with other state agencies (such as the DMV, SUNY, and social service agencies). Automatic voter registration increases voter turnout because it removes a significant barrier that people face in preparing to go to the polls. It is also intended to fix the problem faced by New Yorkers who show up to the polls to vote, only to find out their registration did not go through. Automatic voter registration was supposed to be implemented in 2023; however, we have yet to see any progress toward implementation. New York should be doing everything possible to expand voter turnout – and implementing the law is the absolute least it can do. New York must immediately begin implementing automatic voter registration, and should adopt same-day voter registration so that no New Yorker is ever turned away from the polls for lacking registration.

Extend the right to vote to incarcerated individuals: In New York State, when someone is incarcerated for a felony they lose the right to vote for the duration of their time behind bars. Disenfranchisement is used as a tool to punish, disempower, and silence incarcerated individuals. This disenfranchisement is unfair because incarcerated individuals are among those most in need of political representation. Incarcerated New Yorkers face rampant human rights abuses (unlawful use of solitary confinement, excessive use of force, unacceptable rates of physical and sexual violence) – and by denying incarcerated individuals the right to vote we sweep those problems under the rug and refuse to hold the system accountable. Improving the fairness of the criminal legal system requires that we give voice to those who are in the custody of that system. In addition, when we talk about incarceration and the right to vote, it is important to talk about race. This country has a long history of withholding the right to vote as a form of political oppression – and New York’s system of conditional voting rights disproportionately silences Black and brown communities that have fought for centuries for political inclusion. When democratic governments limit civic participation, it undermines the legitimacy of the government itself. The right to vote should be considered a foundational right that cannot be taken away - not even upon incarceration. We must extend the right to vote to incarcerated individuals and encourage their civic participation.

Allow local communities to extend voting rights to permanent residents: Local governments have an enormous amount of influence over day-to-day issues, such as housing, policing, education, and more. These issues impact all permanent residents, regardless of citizenship status, yet permanent residents waiting for citizenship are currently locked out of local elections. Permanent residents are lawful workers, homeowners, and community members – and there is no reason why permanent residents who meet other voting requirements should be denied representation in local elections. In 2022, New York City joined over a dozen other cities (including San Francisco and Washington, D.C.) in giving permanent residents the right to participate in local elections; however, a state court ruled that this was in violation of New York’s constitution. We should amend New York’s constitution to allow communities to extend voting rights to permanent residents. Cities like New York City should have the autonomy to decide for themselves who should elect local leaders.
Adopt ballot initiatives and referendums: The way our government currently works, the state legislature is exclusively responsible for passing and repealing laws. Although New Yorkers elect their legislators, they have no ability to directly influence our state laws. This may sound normal because it’s how the federal government works; however, it’s actually abnormal for state governments. More than half of U.S. states allow residents to directly influence legislation through processes known as ballot initiatives or referendums. Ballot initiatives allow voters to adopt legislation directly, at the ballot box. The process is simple: to get a piece of legislation on the ballot, a group of citizens work together to get enough signatures (usually 10% of total voters in the last election) in support of the initiative. Once that threshold for support is met, the initiative is added to the ballot for all voters to weigh in on during the next election. If the initiative passes it goes to the governor to sign into law. If it fails, the legislature can decide whether or not to take up the initiative. Similarly, a ballot referendum uses the same process to allow voters to veto legislation passed by the legislature. Ballot initiatives and referendums encourage civic participation by putting legislative power directly in the hands of the people. New York should embrace ballot initiatives and put the power of our democracy in the hands of those who created it: New Yorkers.

Lower the cap on state election contributions: New York uses election contribution limits to prevent the wealthy from buying outsized influence over elections; however, the current limits are far too high to make a difference. During the last New York gubernatorial campaign (2022), for example, the cap on family contributions (including both the Democratic primary and the general election) was over $450,000 – this is roughly six times the median family income, that same year. This is a clear failure of contribution limits to equalize the playing field. Adding additional layers of unfairness, the primary contribution limits that candidates are subject to depends on the number of registered voters in that party. This means that the individual contribution limit is significantly higher for Democratic candidates than it is for Republican, Working Family, or other third-party candidates. A Democratic candidate for Governor is allowed to raise nearly twice as much family contributions than candidates from other parties. This is simply unfair and unacceptable. In order to ensure fair influence over our elections, New York needs to reduce and equalize campaign contribution limits.

Adopt ranked-choice voting statewide: Ranked choice voting is the voting method that New York City has used for local elections since 2021. With ranked choice, voters have the option to rank candidates in order of preference. When votes are counted, last-place finishers are eliminated one-by-one, and the voters who supported those candidates have their votes automatically shifted to their second or third choice candidates. Ranked choice preserves the principle of one-person, one-vote; however, it allows voters to express more nuanced preferences. Ranked choice voting also eliminates the fear of wasted votes: with traditional voting, if a voter’s preferred candidate (often a 3rd party candidate) is seen as unlikely to win, the voter is incentivised to vote for the lesser of two evils (one of the major party candidates), rather than voting their true preference, for fear that their vote will effectively be wasted. Beyond New York City, ranked choice voting is used across the country for local, state, and federal elections; however, despite its widespread adoption (including right here at home), New York State still uses traditional voting. Ranked choice voting is an improvement to our voting system that puts power in the hands of all voters. New York State should join states like Maine and Alaska by voting to adopt ranked choice voting for state and federal elections.