Dear Friend:

After twelve years and 426 bills passed — spanning two governors and three mayors — I’m leaving the New York State Senate on December 31 and assuming my new office as Manhattan’s 28th Borough President. It’s been a profound privilege to represent you in Albany. I am forever grateful for the opportunity to represent our West Side district, which runs from the iconic Stonewall Inn to West 103rd Street, or as I like to say (maybe too often), from “the gay bars to Zabar’s.”

Challenging the Status Quo

When I first entered the Senate, the Republicans controlled the chamber, as they had for the better part of a century. It was difficult to enact bills of consequence, but one of the first measures I passed expanded access to the meningitis vaccine in the wake of a deadly outbreak among gay and bisexual men. (Can one imagine today’s MAGA Republicans collaborating on such an effort?) I took on the Republican majority for censoring my Senate resolution memorializing the 49 LGBTQ and Latino victims of the Pulse gay nightclub mass shooting. I convened the first legislative forum on climate change, initiated New York’s inaugural ivory crush in Times Square to combat illegal elephant poaching, successfully fought to lower the speed limit on the West Side Highway, and joined my Democratic colleagues in championing ethics and campaign finance reform. I called out the shuttering of the Moreland Commission to Investigate Public Corruption and demanded Speaker Silver’s resignation. Playing a part in Albany’s transformation from cesspool to functionality has been one of the most rewarding aspects of my public service.

Leading the Judiciary Committee

Fast forward to 2019, when Democrats took control from the Republican and their collaborators in the Independent Democratic Conference (IDC) under Andrea Stewart-Cousins, the first woman to lead the Senate. Those were heady days. We passed historic tenant protections, codified Roe v Wade, and enacted criminal justice reforms, like my Police Statistics and Transparency Act. I was honored to be named chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee, and after a lengthy and bruising battle, I helped confirm a new Chief Judge of the Court of Appeals, Rowan Wilson, and ushered in a better functioning court system, including strengthening Family Court, fully-funding the Commission on Judicial Conduct after decades of underinvestment, confirming New York’s first transgender judge, and supporting the re-opening of the Midtown Community Justice Center. Also, as Judiciary Chair, I filed the complaint that triggered Rudolph Giuliani’s disbarment due to his false claims about the 2020 election.

Taking on Trump

The Protect Our Courts Act, which I passed during the first Trump administration, has become a national model on safeguarding immigrant litigants from ICE arrests in or around state courthouses. I authored the landmark anti-SLAPP statute which significantly expanded protections for individuals, including journalists and advocates sued by the likes of Donald Trump for exercising their First Amendment rights on matters of public interest. I chaptered the TRUST Act which authorized the release of Donald Trump's state tax returns to a legitimate Congressional committee when requested. Government accountability is also fueled by local media, and I’m proud to have worked with the Governor to write a first-in-the-nation bill that provides funding to hire journalists and to have helped lead an effort to provide direct support to public radio.

Fighting for Human Rights

After years of stalling by the Senate Republicans, I was honored to pass the Child Victims Act and Adult Survivors Act to give more than 10,000 survivors of sexual abuse an opportunity to obtain justice, an issue that reverberates today, thanks to the outspokenness of survivors and advocates of statutes of limitations reform, including E. Jean Carroll, whose ASA case resulted in an $88 million judgement against Trump. My bill signed into law expanded the definition of rape to provide better legal recourse for survivors of various forms of sexual assault. I passed legislation to: include gender identity and expression protections under our human rights law, prohibit the cruel practice of so-called “conversation therapy” for minors, ban the profiling of transgender people, create a safe haven for non-New Yorkers and their medical teams seeking gender-affirming and abortion care, restore access to veterans’ benefits for those with less-than-honorable discharges due to being LGBTQ, and expand access to lifesaving medication and housing support for people with HIV/AIDS. In the wake of the troubling rise of hatred directed at minorities, I passed the first legislation to require statistical analysis of the perpetrators of hate crimes. I worked with the ADL to enact the Stop Hiding Hate Act to require major social media companies to publicly disclose to the NYS Attorney General how they moderate hate speech and other harmful content, and the Manhattan District Attorney to pass the Hate Crimes Modernization Act, increasing the number of hate crime eligible charges by 23 additional offenses.

Combating Gun Violence

I also collaborated with the A.G. and D.A. on reducing the scourge of gun violence by banning the sale and possession of non-traceable ghost guns, writing the original legislation to ban bump stocks that convert semi-automatic weapons into machine guns (after the deadliest mass shooting in U.S. history, I showed how easy it was to purchase a bump stock online), and passing legislation to mandate microstamping technology to link bullets to guns. This session, I worked with the D.A. and, with the support of the father of Michelle Go, who was pushed to her death from a subway platform in Times Square, to pass the SUPPORT Act to help reduce recidivism by ensuring oversight and accountability for individuals in the criminal justice system released from psychiatric care.

Supporting Public Health

I battled anti-vaxxers, including RFK, Jr., by leading the legislative push to eliminate non-medical (including religious) exemptions for school vaccine requirements in response to the measles outbreak that caused more than a thousand New York children to fall ill. Since then, our state has largely been spared from the measles outbreaks afflicting many parts of the country. During the COVID-19 pandemic, I was honored to help thousands of constituents secure unemployment benefits and COVID vaccine appointments (thanks to my amazing team), lead efforts to enact a major rent relief package for small business tenants in Grand Central, create a $200 million seed program for musicians impacted by the pandemic, originate the ongoing Musical and Theatrical Production Tax Credit to support Broadway’s post-pandemic recovery, and author the Tenant Safe Harbor Act to prevent evictions during COVID, which was replicated by states across the country. I’m proud to have worked with environmental groups to pass groundbreaking legislation in Albany to restrict the use of PFAS, or dangerous “forever chemicals,” in everything from firefighting foam, to apparel, to pizza boxes and other food packaging. I collaborated with youth advocates to secure a statewide ban on flavored e-cigarettes, a leading cause of lifelong nicotine addiction.

Personal into Policy

Many of the ideas I’ve advanced in legislation came from constituents sharing their experiences. I met the mother of a 12-year old boy who was killed by a speeding driver, so I passed “Sammy’s Law” in his name to allow NYC to lower its speed limit to 20 mph on side streets. Too often, tenants in our district send their rent checks to anonymous derelict landlords disguised as LLCs, so I passed the LLC Transparency Act to give government agencies and law enforcement for the first time access to the names of beneficial owners of LLCs (perhaps predictably, the bill was gutted by the federal administration so it must be fixed). I’ve heard from countless constituents about the dangers of delivery bikes; therefore, I advanced the first bill in Albany to tackle this problem by requiring mopeds to be licensed at the point of sale. West Siders are justifiably outraged by chopper noise, as reflected by skyrocketing 311 complaints, so I chaptered legislation that requires the West 30th Street helipad to move off of parkland in the Hudson River Park. New Yorkers were annoyed by the sight of floating digital billboards on the Hudson, so we banned them.

I’ve also always tried to bring my own personal experience into my work, as I did in a Washington Post op-ed defending President Biden from those attacking his relationship with his son. As the parent of a child with dyslexia, I learned first-hand how expensive neuropsychological exams can be, so I passed first-in-the-nation legislation requiring private insurance to cover the costs and created a statewide dyslexia and task force to examine evidence-based screening and intervention methods. My husband made a documentary called Saving Jamaica Bay that highlighted the mating habits of the 300 million year old horseshoe crab; as a result, I chaptered the Horseshoe Crab Protection Act, which aims to prevent the local extinction of this living fossil. Older New Yorkers are increasingly scammed by telemarketers; in response, I passed the law requiring telemarketers to state the call's purpose within 30 seconds. And finally, what’s more significant than the creation of life and how we die? I’m proud to have helped write the legislation legalizing gestational surrogacy in New York (I’m the proud parent of two daughters born through surrogacy) and, just this session, passed legislation that has recently been agreed to by the Governor to make New York the thirteenth state to allow medical aid in dying.

A Final Thanks

I’m humbled to have been part of such transformational change in New York but none of this work could have been accomplished without the leadership of Senate Majority Leader Stewart-Cousins, Democratic Senate colleagues and conference staff, my Assembly legislative partners, the Governor, and the dedicated advocates who’ve championed our efforts. Also, I’ve been beyond fortunate to have had my supportive family and an incredible team of brilliant, passionate public servants by my side through it all — I’m delighted that my office has been a launching pad for so many talented young people.  

Thank you Senate District 47 and Happy New Year! 

Brad