After 36 years with Senator Velmanette Montgomery, Red Hook will have a new voice in the New York State Legislature’s upper chamber in 2021. With little doubt that the Democratic primary on June 23 will also determine the victor in November’s general election, the open seat in Senate District 25 – rarely challenged by a significant opponent under Montgomery, who will retire next year – makes for an unusually consequential political moment this month for citizens of South and Central Brooklyn.
Now would be consequential political moment in any case. Police violence has generated civil unrest across the nation. In April, New York State experienced the largest drop in employment in its recorded history. A quarter of New York City tenants couldn’t (and didn’t) pay rent in May, and the number will go up in June. Under the leadership of Governor Cuomo and Mayor de Blasio, the coronavirus has killed 23,000 New Yorkers. Frontline workers continue to risk their lives without anything close to adequate compensation, and the rest of us – if we’re not out in the street protesting – sit dazed at home, dreaming of a better world.
There is no clear favorite in Senate District 25. Assemblywoman Tremaine Wright, who will give up her seat representing Bed-Stuy in the lower chamber, is the choice of Brooklyn’s Democratic machine, with pledged support from 22 elected officials (from City Council to Congress). But both of her opponents got an earlier start in the Senate race, earned significant endorsements, and have raised more money than she.
Jason Salmon, a former staffer for Montgomery with strong ties in the Clinton Hill-Fort Greene area, has rallied a coalition of progressive insiders, churchgoers, and artists. Jabari Brisport, a public school teacher, is the choice of left-wing activists: the New York City Democratic Socialists of America, the local branch of the Sunrise Movement, and Our Revolution.
As the Star-Revue previously reported, Wright’s record in the Assembly – where she has introduced a number of bills designed to protect property owners – betrays a hostility to renters almost unparalleled among Democrats in New York City. All signs indicate that, if elected to the State Senate, she will continue to use her position in Albany to serve as an advocate for landlords.
Salmon’s campaign, which has taken on the issues of overpolicing and gentrification, has credibly presented him as a passionate reformer. But Brisport’s platform, which shares these themes among others, is a bolder flight of fancy. We mean this as a compliment: with the world in ruins and few signs of hope on the federal level, now is the time in New York – for the always bold and the typically cautious alike – to demand a radically more humane society, and the transformative measures proposed by Brisport would make for a good start.
Brisport is an unabashed democratic socialist – which means, of course, that he is a pie-in-the-sky idealist. But he also has a pragmatic, detail-oriented side that allows him to speak with expertise on arcane policy matters ranging from housing to education to energy.
On his website, Brisport offers a program of legislative proposals far more precise and exhaustive than either of his competitors. He knows where preexisting bills need a boost, and where brand new legislation is needed. The candidate has in mind not a vague anticapitalist agenda but – if we support it – a workable plan for New York State.
Brisport’s recommendations – for new taxes on the rich, for social housing, for labor protections, for COVID-19 relief, for green infrastructure, for single-payer healthcare – take the form of small tweaks and major overhauls. Together, they would constitute not only a significant leg up for tenants and workers in our state but, also, a meaningful form of local resistance in the face of the national and global troubles of our time: wealth inequality, mass incarceration, climate change.
If elected, Brisport will be the first black, queer vegan in the New York State Legislature, and his commitments to racial justice, LGBTQ rights, and animal rights likely reflect these identities. But the charismatic 32-year-old talks about himself infrequently – he has not made himself the star of his campaign, which is a campaign of ideas aimed at collective liberation. It draws its energy not from any individual but from a popular movement whose principles are unlikely to waver.
In our view, a vote for Brisport is a vote for dignified living conditions in the Red Hook Houses, for the protection of undocumented immigrants in Sunset Park, and for the safety of homeless families in Bed-Stuy. It’s also, we hope, a vote for a post-coronavirus world where we all recognize that what comes next doesn’t have to look like what came before.
The Star-Revue Endorses:
- Bernie Sanders for President,
- Jabari Brisport for State Senate,
- Marcela Mitaynes for State Assembly,
- and Julio Peña III for District Leader.
