Another Open Position in the Village, Yet Another Primary!

By Arthur Schwartz

There was a time, beginning around 1998, when Greenwich Village, Chelsea and parts north shared a state senator. The first one was Tom Duane, a gay pioneer in the electoral arena, who was first elected as a City Council member to the “gay seat” created in 1991. Tom retired in 2013 and he was replaced by Brad Hoylman-Sigal who had chaired Community Board 2.

After the 2020 census a major redistricting took place. Hoylman-Sigal’s district was moved north and basically all that was left of his district in the Village was west of Seventh Avenue and north of Perry Street. Most of the Village and Lower Manhattan was moved into a district served by Brian Kavanaugh, a career government person who barely advertised himself. Kavanaugh was a major force in Albany on housing and fair election issues.

On February 4, Kavanaugh, 59, announced that he was through with being a senator. The day before, Erik Bottcher, the Village City Council member, was elected to fill Hoylman-Sigal’s Senate seat after Hoylman-Sigal became borough president. And remember, Deborah Glick also announced her retirement from the Assembly. So, all of a sudden we have open seats – and primaries – for City Council (April 28 and June 23), for Assembly (June 23) and for Senate (also on June 23). Most or all of the Village will get to vote on a new generation of leaders. (West of Sixth Avenue, Villagers elected a new City Council Member, Harvey Epstein, last fall.)

The Senate Race
The Senate race is already contentious. Yuh-Line Niou, a Taiwanese American who succeeded the corrupt Sheldon Silver as the Assembly Member for the Lower East Side, is running against her successor in the Assembly, Grace Lee, the first Korean American woman ever elected to the state Legislature.

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Who is Yuh-Line Niou?

Niou was born in Taipei, Taiwan, the eldest of three children, and emigrated to the U.S. with her parents when she was six months old. She went to school in El Paso, Texas. Her mother was as a registered nurse and hospital administrator while her father worked as a materials science engineer. Niou also lived in Moscow, Idaho and El Paso before her parents settled in Vancouver, Washington. She earned her bachelor’s degree in social policy from Evergreen State College then worked as a legislative assistant to state Representative Eileen Cody and Senator Debbie Regala of the Washington Legislature.She was diagnosed with autism at 22. She moved to New York City in 2010 to obtain a Master of Public Administration from Baruch College and later served as chief of staff to Assembly Member Ron Kim.

After a corruption scandal involving long-time Democratic Boss Sheldon Silver forced his resignation, Niou ran and lost the special election to fill that vacancy in April 2016. But two months later she won the Democratic primary and then the general election in November with 76% of the vote. In 2020, Grace Lee ran against Niou in the Democratic primary, receiving 35.7% of the vote to Niou’s 64%. Niou was uncontested in the 2020 general election.

As an Assembly Member Niou had a “F” rating from the NRA and has voted to expand red flag laws, require a license for possession of a semi-automatic firearm, prohibit the sale of privately made firearms, and authorize New York state to sue gun manufactures for damage caused by their guns. She is in favor of banning assault rifles and assault weapons. She supports Medicare for All, a nationwide single-payer healthcare system, and has been a supporter of the New York Health Act which would establish a statewide single-payer health plan if passed. Niou supports allocating 100% of residential units in the proposed 5 World Trade Center in Lower Manhattan as affordable housing.

In 2022 Niou ran for a newly created Congressional seat which covers Lower Manhattan and downtown Brooklyn. She lost by 1%, in a 10-way race to Dan Goldman, who is still in Congress. A pro-Israel PAC ran a smear campaign against her at a cost of over $1 million calling her “anti-tenant,” “anti-child,” “a NYMBY,” and “antisemitic.”

In the ensuing four years she ran the consulting firm Outlier Strategies and had a baby. Her campaign has been endorsed by Senator Elizabeth Warren, former Comptroller Brad Lander and a broad swath of progressive organizations.

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Who is Grace Lee?

Lee, 44,was the first Korean American woman elected to New York state government.She earned her bachelor’s degree in economics and philosophy from Columbia University in 2002 and a Master of Business Administration in finance and entrepreneurship from the University of Chicago.

From 2002 to 2006, Lee worked as an equities research associate at JPMorgan Chase and, briefly, at UBS before joining FSI Group, LLC in 2007. She founded Nine Naturals, a skincare company, in 2008. Lee was elected to the state Assembly in November 2022.

She is a member of the Vote Blue Coalition, a progressive group and federal PAC created to support Democrats in New York, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania through voter outreach and mobilization efforts.

Lee describes herself this way: “I am a community activist and organizer and an involved and concerned parent. I know firsthand how important it is that decisions be grounded in the everyday realities of the district, and I have a proven record of fighting for the most vulnerable in our community and against powerful interests. Before I was elected, I was an events coordinator for Swing Left, organizing thousands of volunteers and raising money for Democratic candidates across the country to successfully flip the House in 2018 after Trump was elected president. I co-founded Children First, a parent-led coalition, fighting against a corporate developer trying to build on a Brownfield clean-up site in the South Street Seaport across from two elementary schools. I was also a lead organizer for deaf tenants on the Lower East Side living in deplorable conditions. I partnered with a tenant advocacy group in Lower Manhattan and together we helped the tenants establish a tenant’s association, organize rallies and stand up to their building’s management company to demand housing justice.”

Lee has the support of the Downtown Independent Democrats and the Village Independent Democrats, as well as Borough President Brad Hoylman-Sigal and retiring Assembly Member Deborah Glick.

She lives in Lower Manhattan with her husband and three daughters.