NY: State Senate candidate Julia Salazar Runs to Upset Longtime Incumbent
Last edited Wed Jul 4, 2018, 02:29 PM - Edit history (1)
In a small room adjacent to the main campaign space, which was full of canvassing materials, maps of the district, and busy-seeming young adults, Salazar explained the path that led to her candidacy, an uphill battle against a long-time incumbent buoyed by new progressive energy and momentum behind candidates like her. A first-time candidate for office, Salazar paused before answering questions, and her answers did not appear canned, as if she’d already delivered them hundreds of times. She clearly articulated her motivation to run, largely staying away from attacks on Dilan.
Salazar is centering housing justice in her campaign to represent a district containing neighborhoods like Williamsburg and Greenpoint that, by some measures, have experienced the city’s most severe gentrification.
“In North Brooklyn, from Greenpoint to Cypress Hill, every inch of the district, people see the effects of lack of regulation in the housing market, the lack of affordable housing, and the failure to protect tenants. So, for me, it’s a very apparent issue,” she told Gotham Gazette.
So Salazar’s calling for universal rent control, which she says is attainable through a package of policies: expansion of the rent stabilization system throughout the state, capping the amount landlords can raise rent annually, and ending vacancy decontrol, vacancy bonuses, and improvement-induced rent increases, all technical mechanisms that allow landlords to raise rents.
She called it “egregious” that housing justice is not a more visible political issue, especially in North Brooklyn, where, she said, “a lot of community members have long been trying to pressure Senator Dilan to change his course on housing policy to end vacancy decontrol,” which allows landlords to charge market price, if it’s at least $2,000, for rent-controlled properties when their tenants leave. Dilan voted to institute vacancy decontrol in New York City while on the City Council in 1994, but has publicly expressed regret at his vote and has sponsored several unsuccessful repeal bills in the Senate, where, during most of his tenure, the Democrats have been in the minority. Current rent laws will expire in 2019 and will be largely renegotiated on the state level from January to June of next year. Those crafting and negotiating the details of the legislation, including the governor, will be elected or reelected this fall.
On her campaign website, Salazar critiques her opponent as part of “the political machine in North Brooklyn,” and vowed, at a Monday cross-endorsement rally with gubernatorial candidate Cynthia Nixon, to “replace legislators in Albany who have failed to advocate for tenants.” A Dilan campaign spokesperson did not provide a comment for this story.
Thus far, at least, Salazar is running a largely positive campaign, with a focus on what she wants to see out of Albany. While at the endorsement rally in Bushwick’s Maria Hernandez Park, Nixon railed against Dilan and Governor Cuomo, her opponent, calling them both “corporate Democrats,” but Salazar did not mention Dilan by name in her prepared remarks.
Most of Salazar’s campaign platform makes maximalist, rather than incrementalist, demands. In addition to supporting universal rent control, she advocates for the elimination of cash bail, free tuition at CUNY and SUNY schools, and Medicare for All, and she’s rejected corporate donations. Salazar is a member and endorsee of the New York City chapter of the Democratic Socialists of America (NYC-DSA), the burgeoning left-wing organization that recently helped another one of its members, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, defeat Rep. Joe Crowley of Queens and the Bronx in a primary upset that sent shockwaves nationally. Salazar’s platform is rooted in her theory of change — she refuses to “make political concessions from the outset” — and, like Ocasio-Cortez and NYC-DSA, she articulates broad, concise visions.
http://www.gothamgazette.com/state/7782-running-for-state-senate-julia-salazar-attempts-progressive-primary-upset
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