Brad Lander Takes On Congressman Dan Goldman in Battle Over How to Best Fight for Sanity

By Arthur Schwartz

I am going to keep this short.

You’d have to be hiding in a hole not to know that our democracy is in a crisis. If it was not brought home before now, the recent brutal murders of ICU nurse Alex Pretti and Renee Good in Minnesota, made that truly clear.

So, what does that have to do with us?

Back in 2022, New York state had all its congressional districts redrawn (because we lost a seat). The Village, Soho and Lower Manhattan wound up in a new district ─ District 10. We had 10 candidates on the ballot. Nine of those candidates ran on their merits, all trying to sound more progressive than the other. One ran an expensive and dirty campaign. His name is Dan Goldman, a lawyer who owns Levi Strauss, Inc. At a net worth of $300 million, he is now the richest man in Congress. In 2022 he spent $7-8 million of his own money and was aided by another million or so from the Israeli PAC ─ AIPAC ─ which sent five mailings as NY Progressive PAC. Those mailings each contained ugly photos of then-Assemblywoman Yuh-Lin Nou, who was labeled “antisemite,” “anti-tenant,“ “NIMBY,” and “child hater.” Nou came in second, with 1,200 fewer votes than Goldman, who won with around 24% of the vote ─ not an awe-inspiring victory. Goldman’s claim to fame (besides his enormous wealth) is that he was one of the lawyers in the first impeachment trial (the Russia one) in 2019).

Brad Lander was an organizer for the Fifth Avenue Committee and Jews for Racial and Economic Justice for 15 years before running for office. He was the City Council member for Park Slope and Brooklyn Heights for 10 years. He started the Progressive Caucus in the City Council and a nationwide group called Local Progress which consists of state and local elected officials across the country. In 2021 he ran for an open seat as city comptroller and won, using the office to hold the Adams administration’s feet to the fire, build the city’s pension funds to their highest level ever, and direct those funds to build affordable housing. He ran for mayor last year, came in third behind Mamdani and Cuomo, and then threw his full support to Mamdani to prevent Cuomo from becoming mayor.

What did Goldman do last year? He refused to support Mamdani and, as a member of the House Oversight Committee, he asked Trump officials a lot of prosecutorial questions that CSPAN viewers may have appreciated. And, as a recipient of lots of money from the Israel lobby, he had not one word of criticism for Netanyahu, the horrific actions of Israeli settlers in the West Bank, Israel’s excesses in Gaza, or about the need to end that horrific war which made Israel a pariah around the world (and fostered antisemitism in the U.S.).

Over the next two years, the Democratic Party must engage in a dramatic reworking and rebuild if it wants to give Trump’s successor a fight in 2028. I say this as the Democratic district leader in the Village since 1995: the Democratic Party doesn’t stand for anything, and when you don’t stand for anything, you don’t win support of the vast “silent majority” in the U.S. Brad Lander will be a congressman we will be proud of; Goldman won’t be. Win ugly, stay ugly.

---

Note: A judge recently declared the congressional district which includes Staten Island to be unlawful. The Democratic Party has proposed to create a district which combines Lower Manhattan (including the Village) with Staten Island. That will knock Lander out since he lives in Park Slope. Stay tuned.