Alessandra Biaggi, who represents portions of the Bronx and Westchester County in the New York State Senate, is running for Congress in the newly redistricted 17th District against current NY-18 Rep. Sean Patrick Maloney.
Biaggi made a name for herself in the state Legislature, first by ousting former Independent Democratic Conference head Jeff Klein in 2018, and then by resurrecting the all-but-dead Senate Ethics Committee. Additionally, she held hearings on sexual harassment in the state Legislature and subsequently helped establish new laws to address sexual harassment in the workplace.
At the same time, Biaggi stepped on some toes and earned a reputation for being a difficult boss.
“We really do owe it to the people we work for (to work hard),” Biaggi said when asked to respond to the allegations made by current and former staffers in Politico. “That being said, when we get feedback from the people that we work with, we work to really hard to learn and improve. It’s something I’m really proud of as a leader, because not only does it make me a better leader, but it allows for me to see, perhaps, blind spots and it makes us stronger.”
Capital Tonight asked Biaggi about the state of the race.
“Our grassroots coalition is only growing by the day. We have almost 300 volunteers who are knocking on doors and making phone calls, and sending postcards. (It feels) similar to the race I ran in 2018 when we had a really large coalition of people. We are seeing the same kind of energy on the ground,” Biaggi said.
According to the Federal Elections Commission, Biaggi has just under $270,000 on-hand the week before the primary. Sean Patrick Maloney on the other hand is steeped in cash, with $2.4 million going into Tuesday’s election. But as Biaggi likes to point out, she has opted not to take corporate money.
“At the end of the day, what’s really resonating with people is that there’s a strong desire to see elected officials who are not backed by Super PACs or corporations, or have funding from special interests from the fossil fuel industry or big pharma,” she said. “This is a campaign that represents working people.”
- 5 upstate races to watch in New York primaries for Congress
- Control of Congress could come down to the Hudson Valley
Biaggi has a developed a reputation as a progressive Democrat. She was recently endorsed by U.S. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez while Sean Patrick Maloney received the endorsement of former President Bill Clinton.
On the issue of policing, Biaggi told The New York Times that she no longer uses the phrase, “Defund the Police." Capital Tonight asked if her position on policing had changed, or if she only changed how she discusses the issue.
“When it comes to the phrase ‘Defund the Police,' it is very clear that it’s a phrase that has not allowed for me to enter certain rooms, and it scrambles peoples’ brains, and that turns them off from anything I’ve got to say,” she explained.
Biaggi said she is still focused on accountability, not just for policing, but for all public services.
“There’s not a system on earth, including policing, that cannot be made better,” she said.
To clarify Biaggi’s position on policing, Capital Tonight asked her about an article she wrote in 2020 for Data for Progress that called for removing police from traffic enforcement in order to reduce police contact and improve public safety.
Biaggi said she remains committed to the idea.
“I am, actually. In fact, one of the things that we saw, just from the data — and I mentioned it in the article that I wrote — less interaction with police officers during traffic stops is something that can actually reduce the amount of police brutality and fatalities that we often hear about in the news,” she said.
Instead, Biaggi floated the idea of having traffic enforcement officers under the Department of Transportation.
“I also think if you really get down to it, and you ask police officers, ‘Do you really want to be spending your time ticketing people for speeding or for expired meters? Or do you want to be spending your time focusing on solving violent crimes?’ I think they would probably say the latter,” she said.
On the issue of abortion, Biaggi was a vocal advocate of the Reproductive Health Act (RHA), which passed the legislature in 2019. Going forward, she told Capital Tonight there isn’t anything she wouldn’t do to further the rights of women to access abortion.
“I wrote a letter with my colleagues to the [Food and Drug Administration] about removing abortion pills from the REMs list, which is a list that also includes opioids, making access easier,” Biaggi said.
She told Capital Tonight that the takeaway from the vote on the Kansas constitutional question on abortion is that Democrats “don’t have to act like Republicans to beat Republicans.”
The primary is Tuesday Aug. 23.