NY State Senator Adriano Espaillat ( Democratic candidate for New York’s 13th Congressional District)
New York State Senator Adriano Espaillat is the Democratic candidate for New York’s 13th Congressional District in the 2016 general election. He is currently the Ranking Member of the Senate Housing, Construction, and Community Development Committee, and Chair of the Senate Puerto Rican/Latino Caucus; he is also a member of the Environmental Conservation, Economic Development, Codes, Insurance, and Judiciary committees. Prior to becoming a state senator, he served in the New York State Assembly, and was the first Dominican-American elected to a state legislature when he first won his seat in 1996. In 2002, Espaillat was elected chair of the New York State Black, Puerto Rican, Hispanic and Asian Legislative Caucus, and helped to reunite the group after years of division.
Throughout his tenure as a public servant, Espaillat has been a vocal advocate for protecting tenants, improving schools, and making serious, smart investments in economic development, job creation, and environmental protection. As state senator, he currently represents the neighborhoods of Marble Hill, Inwood, Washington Heights, Hamilton Heights, West Harlem, the Upper West Side, Hell’s Kitchen, Clinton, and Chelsea.
Senator Espaillat has sponsored and helped to pass landmark laws encouraging the construction and preservation of affordable housing, developing free legal services for tenants, giving 35,000 low-income day care workers access to healthcare and the ability to join the UFT, providing workers’ compensation for 40,000 livery cab drivers, and improving hospital translation services. Espaillat has also worked to protect landmarks, taking legal action to protect the Palisades when the LG Tower threatened to permanently mar its natural beauty. After the July 1999 blackout in Upper Manhattan caused financial damage to restaurants, bodegas, and other small businesses, Espaillat helped to secure an agreement from Con Edison to invest an additional $100 million in Upper Manhattan’s electrical infrastructure at no cost to ratepayers—and when customers were billed for expenses related to an Indian Point Energy Center shutdown, Espaillat fought back and got their money refunded.
As congressman, Senator Espaillat will bring new energy to Washington and will be a steadfast champion for working- and middle-class New Yorkers. He will fight for a fair living wage, immediate and effective investments in affordable housing, meaningful criminal justice reform, infrastructure improvements, expanded youth programs, and better educational opportunities. Prior to entering public service, Adriano served as the Manhattan Court Services Coordinator for the NYC Criminal Justice Agency, a non-profit organization that provides indigent legal services and works to reduce unnecessary pretrial detention and post-sentence incarceration costs. He later worked as Director of the Washington Heights Victims Services Community Office, an organization offering counseling and other services to families of victims of homicides and other crimes, and as the Director of Project Right Start, a national initiative funded by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation to combat substance abuse by educating the parents of pre-school children.