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Democracy for NYC endorses Jeremiah Frei-Pearson for Assembly (36th AD)
This race has been off my radar (which has been largely focused on work and family these days), so I don't have anything specific to say about it. However, Democracy for NYC, the local branch of Howard Dean's Democracy for America movement that helped establish the successful 50-state strategy, has made a unanimous endorsement:
DFNYC Endorses Jeremiah Frei-Pearson for Assembly!
Democracy for NYC recently hosted a candidate forum and held an endorsement vote for the Democratic primary in the 36th Assembly District. All candidates were invited to participate and all DFNYC voting members were eligible to vote. Here are the results:
Jeremiah Frei-Pearson: 100%
Aravella Simotas: 0%We are proud to endorse Jeremiah and look forward to helping him win the Democratic primary in September. Jeremiah is civil rights attorney working on behalf of foster children. Jeremiah has been a grassroots activist for several years and we are confident that when Jeremiah is elected to represent us in Albany, he will continue to fight for Albany reform, marriage equality, and fiscal responsibility so that we have proper funding for schools, healthcare and jobs. To learn more, visit his campaign website, http://jeremiahfp.org/.
Background: The 36th District is in Queens in the neighborhoods of Astoria and Long Island City. The current Assemblymember, Michael Gianaris, is running for the State Senate seat, which is being vacated by George Onorato, who is retiring.
Jeremiah seems like a good candidate. From his website, he is involved in some good organizations:
Jeremiah is active in numerous civic groups in our community, including Western Queens Power for the People, Western Queens for Marriage Equality, Astorians United Against Hate Crimes, the Long Island City Alliance, the Coalition for a Better Astoria, Democracy for New York City and the New York Lawyers' Democratic Counsel.
Replying to Costa Constantinides
I'm a good friend of Costa's, and plan to support him when he runs for office (some day). There are, however, a few things that he left out of his statement:
First, he is not only a district leader, but also the president of Queens County Young Dems. In those positions, he is pretty much required to back the County machine pick.
Second, DFNYC bent over backward to schedule this forum on a night that Ms. Simotas could attend. Her campaign absolutely refused to participate. The event was correctly promoted as a forum, because not only were both candidates invited, but special steps were taken to give both candidates the opportunity to attend. Smacking down a candidate for being unable to attend is one thing, but Ms. Simotas could have attended, and DFNYC would have made sure to schedule the forum for her convenience -- but her campaign simply refused.
Third, the people at the Greater Astoria Historical Society make their space available for any civic or community group that needs space to meet. It costs them nothing, since they are open anyway.