Jo Anne on the Issues:

Women’s Rights

Jo Anne has been a champion for abortion and reproductive health care. She was an abortion counselor early in her career. As an Assemblymember, she helped codify abortion rights into state law in 2019 to ensure this right is always protected in NY, regardless of what happens on the federal level. After the Supreme Court’s disastrous decision to overturn Roe v. Wade, she also helped passed an equality amendment to protect New Yorkers from discrimination and enshrine the right to an abortion in our State Constitution.
Jo Anne has improved access to contraceptives, healthcare, and child care. She helped pass laws to make NY a safe haven for people who will come here from other states for abortion care now that abortion is banned in many states. Our fight is mulitiracial and multi generational. She is going to fight like hell to protect access to abortion here and for women across the country.

Environment

Jo Anne champions environmentally just transportation and energy solutions, and she helped pass New York’s historic Green New Deal. With a 100% rating from leading environmental advocacy organizations, Jo Anne will fight polluters every day – our lives depend on it! We don’t have time for half-measures with the climate crisis before us. That’s why Jo Anne is fighting to transition our energy to publicly-owned, democratically-accountable renewable sources. Jo Anne has been critical in efforts to clean up the toxic Superfund site in Gowanus, Brooklyn.
Committed to public transit, alternative transportation, and smart, safe solutions for congestion, Jo Anne has been offering forward thinking, environmentally just solutions to Brooklyn’s vexing transportation issues for decades.

Gun Violence Prevention

Gun violence is a public health crisis that is shaking our nation to its core. It is shameful and beyond comprehension that we are the only country that so devalues human life, repeatedly allowing gun violence to happen.

Jo Anne authored New York’s groundbreaking “Red Flag Law” which is the strongest in the nation. It creates a new type of court-issued order to temporarily remove firearms when someone poses a serious risk of harm to themselves or others. She also created New York’s first firearm violence research institute. But we must end the iron pipeline that enables the flow of guns from other states into New York. We simply must have federal protections and, we must fight the incredibly powerful and well-financed gun lobby.

Educational Advocacy

As a lifelong educator and advocate for children, Jo Anne will fight to improve schools for all of our children and to bring down barriers for young learners. As a nationally recognized disability rights lawyer, Jo Anne’s advocacy has changed lives and laws across the country. She has led the way to ensure that students with dyslexia and related learning disabilities are identified early so they get the reading instruction they need to be proficient readers, and to improve the way schools of education prepare new teachers to teach reading. She has worked tirelessly for students with all disabilities and will bring this expertise to Congress.

Community Voices

Jo Anne is a community activist, advocating to make New York the equitable, sustainable, thriving place she knows it can be for all of us. She entered public service by way of her community activism, fighting for affordable housing and community input in local land use projects. She keeps the voice of the community front and center in her work, from closing Rikers, to ensuring an environmentally sound BQE redesign, to pushing for the City’s first traffic calming study. She is a strong ally of the LGBTQ+ community, people of color, people with disabilities, women, and people who have too often been marginalized. Jo Anne has dedicated her life to fighting for equal rights for all of us.

Economic Recovery for All

Our country is strongest when we have economic opportunities for everyone. This includes good jobs, affordable housing, and universal health care. She will fight for strong labor laws that allow workers to negotiate salaries, pass a higher federal minimum wage, guarantee paid family leave, and invest in a clean economy. Jo Anne will protect Medicare and fight for strong social safety net programs. She ensured our state budget invested in small businesses – and that we provided rent relief and homeowner protections to avoid evictions and foreclosures during Covid.