State Senator Alessandra Biaggi

State Senator Alessandra Biaggi, a progressive Democrat, garnered national attention after announcing her run in the new 17th Congressional District of New York against Rep. Sean Patrick Maloney, who chairs the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC) and currently represents the 18th district. Both districts are north of New York City in the Hudson Valley.

All of New York’s congressional and state legislative districts were just redrawn in a mandatory decennial process based on new Census information. It got particularly messy in New York, which is

State Senator Alessandra Biaggi (photo: NYS Senate Media Services)

May 24, 2022 - Max Politics Podcast: Alessandra Biaggi Takes on Sean Patrick Maloney

State Senator Alessandra Biaggi joined the show to discuss her decision to run in New York's new 17th Congressional District, where she is set to compete in the Democratic primary against Rep. Sean Patrick Maloney, who currently represents the 18th Congressional District.

Listen to the conversation and let us know what you think, on Twitter @TweetBenMax. You can listen to

The New York State Senate (photo: NY Senate Media Services)

For years the Democratic majority of the New York State Assembly advanced bills its members knew the Republican-controlled State Senate wouldn't pass. Still other legislation, especially related to government ethics, transparency, and elections, stewed on the backburner with neither majority moving it forward. Those were the days of two-party rule in Albany, of a group of breakaway Democrats who buoyed Republicans, and a governor happy to straddle the middle.

Since

Then-Gov. Cuomo with current Gov. Hochul (photo: Governor's Office)

With the abrupt end of the ten-year reign of Governor Andrew Cuomo, reformers inside and outside of state government are looking for change. Unspooling their wishlist has been a kind of inaugural red carpet for Governor Kathy Hochul, who took office last month after Cuomo resigned amid a flurry of scandal -- almost all connected, in some way, to government ethics, transparency, and the erosion of checks and balances.

Hochul immediately pledged to take steps to undo Cuomo's

State Senator Alessandra Biaggi (center) (Photo: NY Senate)

Looking over the scandal-pocked landscape of Albany in the wake of former Governor Andrew Cuomo’s resignation, lawmakers in the State Senate set their sights this week on the dysfunctional Joint Commission on Public Ethics, the state’s ethics watchdog often criticized for its apparent lack of independence and bite.

At a Senate ethics committee hearing Wednesday, senators on both sides of the aisle tore into JCOPE’s executive director, Judge Sanford Berland, over the rules and practices

Queens Assembly candidate Khaleel Anderson (photo: @KhaleelAnderson)

A younger generation of Democratic political candidates — which has grown up amid the Great Recession, growing inequality, rising costs of higher education and massive student loan debt, the ticking time-bomb that is climate change, and other crises including, now, the coronavirus pandemic and its fallout — has been offering ambitious policy goals and great urgency around achieving them, resonating with voters and finding success in their runs for office.

In recent election cycles, New York

Bronx political leaders Heastie, Diaz Jr., Crespo (photo: Bronx Borough President's Office)

To say the Bronx political landscape is changing is simultaneously both a trite observation and a vast understatement. The once-vaunted Democratic machine in the borough is currently leaderless and has lost many of its longtime fixtures in recent years, with more on their way off the political stage. This comes at a time when progressive and anti-establishment forces are gaining momentum across the city, though in some ways less so in the

Gov. Cuomo presents a budget plan (photo: Darren McGee/Governor's Office)

The job of state legislators is to craft laws that protect New Yorkers and advance equal opportunity and justice. A significant part of that job is shaping our state budget, which funds our schools, our health care, our transportation systems, and a long list of vital other public services. During a global pandemic, this already crucial responsibility has reached a new level of importance. But, over the years, in the strange world of Albany, the role and

Alessandra Biaggi on the 2018 campaign trail (photo: @Biaggi4NY)

This story, and the series it is a part of, has been supported by the Solutions Journalism Network, a nonprofit organization dedicated to rigorous and compelling reporting about responses to social problems.

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On the night of September 13, 2018, a wave crashed through New York state politics.

For years, pressure had been mounting on the members of the Independent

Senators Ramos and Gounardes (photo: NY Senate)

A group of Democratic state senators, mostly from New York City, gathered in a digital forum Wednesday night to discuss the government’s COVID-19 response. The virtual event, held in partnership with the Fiscal Policy Institute (FPI), a nonprofit liberal think tank, covered topics including the state budget, impending cuts and proposals to raise revenue, and legislation to address ramifications of the virus.

Eight senators, or a fifth of the Democratic majority in the 63-seat chamber, participated in

Gov. Cuomo speaks at a 32BJ rally (photo: Fred Pollard/Governor's Office)

Governor Andrew Cuomo, a third-term Democrat, has in recent weeks repeatedly lashed out at state legislators from his own party and a long-time labor ally, 32BJ SEIU, as he points to the role of independent expenditures in state politics amid questions about his own fundraising habits and commitment to campaign finance reform.

The

Ben Max, left, of Gotham Gazette, and Jarrett Murphy, right, of City Limits

February 7, 2019 - Max & Murphy Podcast: State Senator Alessandra Biaggi

Alessandra Biaggi shocked the New York political world when she defeated then-State Senator Jeff Klein in last September's primary. After hitting the ground running upon taking office in January, State Senator Biaggi joined

Sen. Jeff Klein meets voters (Photo: jeffkleinny.com)

Already spending at what is likely a record pace, with two weeks until the September 13 primary, New York State Senator Jeff Klein kept spending his campaign cash at a rapid clip to try to beat back a Democratic primary challenge from Alessandra Biaggi, a lawyer and first-time candidate, Klein’s late post-primary campaign finance filing shows. In sum, Klein spent nearly ten times more than Biaggi, but was still unsuccessful as Biaggi claimed the nomination, likely unseating one of the state’s major powerbrokers of the past

Gov. Cuomo (photo: @andrewcuomo)

Governor Andrew Cuomo, emboldened after a sizeable Democratic primary victory, and an invigorated progressive movement with recent wins of its own, are again forced to grapple with the rift between them, as the factions must decide what steps they are willing to take to unite in the aftermath of a contentious primary season.

Facing a handful of general election opponents

Alessandra Biaggi celebrates (photo: @Biaggi4NY)

Hit the ground early. Educate the electorate. Reach new voters. Go viral.

Those are a few of the strategies that propelled insurgent candidates to victory in last week’s primary elections, wherein six challengers prevailed over sitting Democratic state senators who were once members of the Independent Democratic Conference, a breakaway faction that caucused with Republicans for seven years, creating or padding the GOP majority in the chamber.

The upsets in the state Senate races instantly

(photo: @andrewcuomo)

Governor Andrew Cuomo won the Democratic nomination by a wide margin Thursday, with his running-mate Lieutenant Governor Kathy Hochul surviving a much closer race, Public Advocate Letitia James prevailing comfortably in a crowded Attorney General primary, and more than half a dozen upsets of sitting state Senators, including six of the eight former members of the Independent Democratic Conference (IDC).

Additionally, voter turnout was significantly higher than 2014, the last gubernatorial election year, perhaps owing to the

photo: @32BJSEIU

As Alessandra Biaggi, a first-time candidate for office, attempts to unseat Democratic state Senator Jeff Klein, once the powerful leader of a rogue faction of Democratic senators, a prominent labor union is pulling no punches to ensure that her insurgent campaign prevails in the September 13 primary.

The property services workers union, 32BJ SEIU, which boasts more than 160,000 members and is a regular political heavyweight, has been aggressively courting voters and spending money to help Biaggi defeat Klein, a Democrat the union once backed. A force in

Cynthia Nixon (left), Alessandra Biaggi (top right), Bill Lipton & Jumaane Williams (bottom)

The Working Families Party celebrated its 20th anniversary last month at Brooklyn Bowl in Williamsburg, with its rank-and-file cheering on a line up of politicians that have served as standard bearers, past and present. But it’s the future of the party that is especially uncertain as the upstart liberal organization lays it all on the line in backing insurgent candidates in state elections this year.

In doing so,

John Liu and Jessica Ramos (photo: @JessicaRamos)

The deadline for candidates for state office to file their latest campaign finance disclosures with the state Board of Elections was Monday, July 16. The disclosures show candidate fundraising and expenditures from the last six months, from January to July.

All 213 seats in the state Legislature -- 150 Assembly and 63 Senate -- are on the ballot this year, but few incumbents face competitive races. The state Assembly is overwhelmingly composed of Democrats, most of whom do not have a

Corey Johnson endorses IDC challengers (photo: Gotham Gazette)

As progressives aggressively attempt to wrest control of the Democratic Party from the hands of those they call centrists and establishment politicians, elected Democrats across New York find themselves in an unenviable position. Abiding by their self-professed progressive values to support insurgent Democratic primary challengers could mean bucking the state party establishment and its leader, Governor Andrew Cuomo, while, on the