NYC Primary Election 2020: Brad Hoylman Defends State Senate Seat

GREENWICH VILLAGE, MANHATTAN — Democrats living in Manhattan's 27th state senate district — which stretches from the Village to the Upper West Side — will head to the polls on June 23 to cast their ballot in this year's primary race.

On the ballot will be incumbent state Sen. Brad Hoylman, who has held the seat since 2013, and Elizabeth Glass, a first-time challenger from the East Village.

The June election will be the first time Hoylman has faced a primary challenger since 2012, when he first ran for the 27th District after Sen. Thomas Duane retired.

Hoylman, who lives in Greenwich Village with his husband and two daughters, currently chairs the senate's Judiciary Committee and is a member of the Finance, Health, Rules, Cities and Cultural Affairs, Tourism and Recreation committees. He previously served as a Democratic District Leader, chair of Manhattan Community Board 2 a board member of Tenants & Neighbors and Citizen Action and as president of the Gay and Lesbian Independent Democrats.

Manhattan's 27th District encompasses parts of Greenwich Village, Chelsea, Hell's Kitchen, Columbus Circle, Times Square, the Upper West Side, the East Village, Midtown East, and the Lower East Side.

The primary election, slated for June 23, is open to registered Democratic voters. All New York voters may request a mail-in ballot due to the coronavirus pandemic. Ballots must be postmarked by the date of the election for the vote to count.

For those who want to head to the polls, click here to find your poll site. Early voting is available from June 13 to June 21.

Patch reached out to all candidates in the primary election to create these profiles. Responses have been lightly edited for clarity.

Brad Hoylman

Age as of Election Day (Nov. 3)

55

NYC neighborhood of residence

Greenwich Village

Position Sought

State Senate

Party Affiliation

Democratic/WFP

Family

My husband, David, and two daughters, Silvia, age 9 (a third grader in a public school) and Lucy, age 2

Does anyone in your family work in politics or government?

No

Education

Harvard Law School (JD), Oxford University (M.Phil./Politics), West Virginia University (BA)

Occupation

State Senator; Chair, Senate Judiciary Committee

Previous or Current Elected or Appointed Office

State Senator

Campaign website

www.bradhoylman.com; @bradhoylman on Twitter

Why are you seeking elective office?

I’m seeking re-election to continue to fight for the people of our district, including seniors, tenants, public school parents (of which I’m one), working families, and others. This kind of aggressive advocacy, legislating and constituent services are key to my job. I think that’s why I’ve been called one of the most effective progressive legislators in Albany, passing more than 60 bills in the Senate, ranging from extending civil rights protections to LGBTQ people, to protecting the environment from dangerous chemicals, to expanding vital open space in our district. And it’s why I’m helping deliver food and unemployment insurance assistance to over a thousand constituents who’ve suffered economic losses because of the pandemic.

The single most pressing issue facing our nation/state/community is _______, and this is what I intend to do about it.

Inequality, racism and the lack of public investment. We’ve seen these problems most recently manifest themselves as part of COVID-19 pandemic, whereby communities of color have been disproportionately killed by the coronavirus because of a broken healthcare system, and the current crisis in policing, which has led to the incarceration, brutalization and death of black and brown New Yorkers at the hands of law enforcement. But these problems have afflicted our city and state for years, and span a host of issues like public education, mass transit, affordable housing, unionization and civil rights. I’m proud to say that two weeks ago the Senate passed four of my bills to help address COVID-19, including the Tenant Safe Harbor Act, legislation I authored to prevent tenants from being evicted from their apartments, protect taxpayers from coronavirus price-gouging and make a COVID-19 vaccine widely available.

Just this week, we passed a historic series of police reforms, including landmark legislation to repeal Section 50-a, which has unjustly shielded police personnel records from public scrutiny, as well as my legislation the Police Statistics and Transparency (STAT) Act, which will require racial and other demographic data to be collected for low-level offenses and deaths in police custody. This type of data collection, which has been resisted by law enforcement for years, is key to devising metrics to combat systemic racism and police brutality. I’ll continue to work on these problems while advocating for a state budget that raises crucial revenue from the wealthy to protect the most vulnerable in our state.

What are the critical differences between you and the other candidates seeking this post?

I’m not aware of any local accomplishments or community activities of my opponent, so I can’t speak to her record or positions. I do know, however, that my opponent has attacked me on social media as part of a group of anti-vaccination activists because I was the lead sponsor of legislation addressing last year’s dangerous measles outbreak that sickened over 1,000 New Yorkers, most of them young children, and helps peddle dangerous Internet-driven conspiracy theories about the efficacy and effectiveness of vaccines.

As I did during last year’s measles outbreak and continue to do so now during the coronavirus pandemic, I’ll continue to follow the guidance of physicians and scientists to protect the public health and fight “anti-vaxxers” who spread false information about vaccines and serious illnesses like COVID-19. Also, my opponent claims that I support permanent online learning for school children. That’s patently false and seems to originate, again, as part of another bizarre online conspiracy theory.

Describe the other issues that define your campaign platform

In addition to big picture legislation that I’ve passed in Albany, I’m also a fierce advocate for local needs. So, one of my proudest accomplishments as a State Senator was to create Community Board Budgeting, a program I devised to help allocate $1.5 million in state funding to capital improvements to public schools, libraries, parks and public housing using guidance from local community boards in our Senate district. I’m also concerned about safe streets, so I worked with the State Department of Transportation and local community boards to implement safety measures and lower the speed limit along the West Side Highway. Finally, I worked again with community boards to reclaim Pier 76 in the Hudson River Park for much-needed new public open space by forcing the NYPD to move its tow pound.

There’s much more work to be done at the local level, including assisting our independent retailers and bookstores, restaurants and mom-and-pop businesses that are in even greater jeopardy than ever due to the pandemic. That said, I’ll continue to work on major initiatives in Albany, such as continuing to advocate for systemic government and electoral reform, fighting for the release of our incarcerated elders, and as the Chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee, diversifying and improving the quality of our judicial system.

What accomplishments in your past would you cite as evidence you can handle this job?

I’m proud to be part of a historic Democratic Senate majority that challenged the real estate lobby in Albany and passed the most sweeping tenant protections in state history, effectively ending vacancy decontrol that had forced middle class families out of New York City and increased homelessness. I also passed landmark legislation to allow the adult survivors of child sexual abuse to file claims against their abusers or the institutions harboring them, leading to thousands of claims being filed across the state that have helped survivors achieve justice and predators to be identified. (I recently passed legislation giving these survivors an additional year to file such claims.) I also was the co-sponsor of legislation creating the nation’s strongest law to combat climate change and electoral and ethics reforms, including elimination of the notorious “LLC loophole,” which had enabled real estate companies to contribute virtually unlimited amounts of money to state candidates. Finally, I’m proud to have fought for the LGBTQ community by passing a human rights law for transgender people, the Gender Expression Non-discrimination Act, banning so-called LGBTQ “conversion therapy”, eliminating the defense to murder based on a victim’s sexual orientation or gender identity or expression, and allowing LGBTQ people and people struggling with infertility to create families through my legislation legalizing gestational surrogacy in New York.

The best advice ever shared with me was:

“Family first,” which my husband tells me. In politics, or any profession, really, you risk sacrificing personal and family relationships to work. His advice keeps me grounded and reminds me why I’m fighting for progressive change in Albany: A better future for our children.