Speaker Heastie & Governor Cuomo (photo: the governor's office)

The New York State Assembly’s judiciary committee convened a virtual hearing Tuesday morning to outline the wide-ranging scope of its impeachment investigation into Governor Andrew Cuomo, who is embroiled in a series of compounding scandals related to allegations of sexual misconduct, abuse of executive authority, and orders related to COVID-19 and nursing homes, the death toll among nursing home residents, and handling of data around nursing home resident fatalities due to COVID-19.

The investigation, Assemblymember and committee chair Charles Lavine estimated, could take months to resolve. On Tuesday, Lavine, a Democrat from Nassau County, and other members of the Assembly judiciary committee asked questions of attorneys from Davis Polk & Wardwell LLP, the law firm hired by the Assembly to conduct much of its inquiry. The hearing came as Cuomo is facing multiple investigations by federal prosecutors, the New York Attorney General’s office, and the Assembly.

Cuomo, a third-term Democrat, faces mounting legal challenges from the various scandals surrounding his administration and his behavior in office. After being praised by many as a competent steward during the early months of the pandemic last spring, questions lingered around some of his early decisions about closing down the state, New York’s large death toll both in and out of nursing homes, and the governor’s decision to write a book about his pandemic leadership.

That leadership came under significantly more scrutiny after a report from State Attorney General Letitia James’ office in January showed that his administration had undercounted covid deaths of nursing home residents, some of which may have been linked to a controversial directive from the governor’s administration last year that said nursing homes could not refuse to admit residents who had tested positive for the virus. 

In the following months, after the governor threatened the career of Assemblymember Ron Kim, a fellow Democrat who had been a consistent critic of the nursing home policies, a crescendo grew. Report after report emerged about the toxic workplace environment Cuomo fostered and the tactics of bullying that he and his top aides employed. More than half-a-dozen women, including current and former aides of Cuomo, came forward with allegations that he had sexually harassed them, touched them without their consent, or otherwise behaved in inappropriate ways.

The governor denied most of the claims while acknowledging and trying to excuse away some of the behavior and apologizing for making people uncomfortable. He has refused to step down from office despite sweeping calls for his resignation from a majority of state lawmakers, most of the state’s congressional delegation, and even New York’s United States Senators Chuck Schumer and Kirsten Gillibrand.

The Davis Polk & Wardwell impeachment inquiry team includes top lawyers Greg Andres, Angela Burgess, and Martine Beamon. The firm is expected to launch a helpline for the investigation to hear from potential witnesses.

“We will carry on our responsibilities fairly and with due process for all involved,” Assemblymember Lavine said in his opening statement at Tuesday’s hearing. He pointed to the expansive purview of the probe “including, but not limited to” the allegations of harassment and abuse, whether the governor tried to cover up the number of deaths at nursing homes, and whether Cuomo knew or told executive branch employees to hide information about structural safety concerns at the Mario M. Cuomo Bridge. 

“[D]ue process is not just a precept. It's not just at the heart of what makes us New Yorkers tick. It's at the heart of our American democracy as well,” added Lavine, who is a criminal defense attorney by training and has previously worked for the Legal Aid Society and in private practice. 

He also presaged the timeline for the investigation. “At this early stage, it's not possible to say precisely how long the investigation will take...Given the breadth and seriousness of the issues under investigation, we expect that the timing will be in terms of months rather than weeks,” he said. 

“The allegations before this committee are as disturbing as they are serious,” said Assemblymember Michael Montesano, the ranking Republican on the committee. Montesano urged the committee and the law firm to take several measures to ensure the integrity and confidentiality of the investigation. He called for in-person committee meetings to avoid hacked Zoom calls, routine updates from the firm to ensure transparency, and transcripts and reports of interviews and depositions with witnesses. 

“As for the substance of the allegations before this committee, everything is on the table,” he said, calling on the firm to not only look into the nursing home data and sexual harassment accusations but also the contract for the book that Cuomo released in October celebrating his covid leadership even as the state was already seeing a second surge after the better summer months and on its way toward more than 40,000 covid deaths.

Several members of the Assembly judiciary committee expressed a key concern raised in recent news reports and from the lawyer for former Cuomo aide Charlotte Bennett, one of his accusers, about potential conflicts in the choice of firm. If Cuomo is impeached by the Assembly, one of the jurors in the Senate trial would be State Court of Appeals Chief Judge Janet DiFiore, a key ally who is also married to Dennis Glazer, a former partner at Davis Polk. 

Lavine, however, insisted that the Assembly had thoroughly vetted the firm. 

The firm also offered a defense. “We have a very robust process within Davis Polk for ensuring that for any assignment that you take on, that we do not begin that matter with any conflicts of interest,” said Burgess. “And so we do a search throughout the firm and through our management committee to ensure that there are no conflicts of interest that would either as a matter of ethics or appearance create an issue. And we embarked on that process here and concluded that there was no conflict.”

The rest of the members of the committee spent the next hour pressing the attorneys on the process and logistics of the investigation, on implicit bias, the pressures of a high-profile case, among other issues. 

Assemblymember Jenifer Rajkumar, a Democrat, asked the lawyers how they would avoid their own implicit biases from affecting the probe and avoid external pressures.  

“We have routinely worked on matters where there is substantial press attention and pressure and the like, and we're accustomed to working under those circumstances,” Andres responded, insisting that the firm would share information with the committee “in many respects in real time or certainly on a regular basis” which would also act as a check on any bias.

“The question of implicit bias is an excellent one. It's something that we pay close attention to, both in investigations and in our everyday practice, and one that we're very focused on at all times,” Beeman said. 

Assemblymember Phil Steck, a Democrat, asked whether the investigation would also cover discrimination in hiring in the governor’s office, the hostile work environment and acts of retaliation undertaken against on of Cuomo’s accusers, Lindsey Boylan. After Boylan alleged that the governor had harassed her, the executive chamber publicly released her personnel records and even planned an attempt to discredit her that was eventually abandoned, as reported by the New York Times. Boylan has said she will not participate in the probe because of the conflict, through she is cooperating with the AG’s investigation. Bennett’s attorney, Debra Katz, has also criticized the selection of the firm.  

“Of course, subject to the committee's view, we would expect that all three of those subject matters that you have referenced here would be part of this investigation, and all are important aspects of any investigation with respect to sexual harassment or any aspect of sexual misconduct,” Beeman said. 

Lavine also announced later that he had already warned the executive chamber, “putting the governor on notice that he and his employees and allies should take no steps towards intimidating any witness or any potential witness.”

Assemblymember Rebecca Seawright, a Democrat, questioned the attorneys on the methods they intended to use during the probe. 

“We'll use all methods available to us and all tools for gathering information,” Andres said. “So that will include interviews. It could involve interrogatories if we found that to be necessary. Certainly we’ll request documents and we'll consider the use of subpoenas to ensure that the documents are produced and that there isn't any obstruction or any destruction of documents in the course of providing and preserving documents.”

The witnesses, he said, would not be limited, “whether it's current staff or prior staff, or folks who have retired or not, whether they have an official position in the government or otherwise. We'll follow all the leads from our investigation and interview any necessary witnesses.”

State Senator Michael Gianaris (photo: Senator Michael Gianaris/flickr)

A proposal to convert financially strapped hotels and other commercial properties into permanently affordable housing has been included in the State Senate's one-house budget proposal and is garnering support from a broad group of interested parties while new federal stimulus money is being eyed to fund the proposal.

The "Housing Our Neighbors with Dignity Act," or HONDA, would create a program for the state to acquire distressed commercial properties and transfer them to affordable housing developers to convert and operate. Supporters, which include housing advocates and developers alike, say the proposal would harness usable real estate left vacant or underutilized by the pandemic and economic crisis and put it toward housing tens of thousands of homeless New Yorkers and the exceedingly large number of housing-insecure residents.

"It's a win-win if we do it right," said Deputy Senate Majority Leader Michael Gianaris, a Queens Democrat and the bill's Senate sponsor, in an interview. "If we can identify the resources to purchase those properties and use them for the kind of housing we need it would be a very elegant solution."

The legislation, first introduced in the Senate on March 2, now has a companion in the Assembly and is being advanced in state budget negotiations. A large group of backers has come out in support of the proposal, including housing service and advocacy groups like VOCAL-NY, Community Service Society of New York, Housing Works, The Legal Aid Society, and the Strong Economy For All Coalition, and supportive housing developers like Gateway Housing, among others.

New estimates from Gianaris' office put the program's total cost at over $2.2 billion to get it to the needed scale to address the tens of thousands of homeless New Yorkers sleeping in shelters each night, though the Senate has not settled on estimated numbers of convertible properties or target units. The Senate's one-house budget bill -- which along with the Assembly’s create a framework for negotiations among legislative leaders and the governor -- includes $250 million in state funding for the program. Gianaris said he hopes the remainder of the funding will come from federal stimulus dollars in the recently-passed American Rescue Plan, either through the $12.6 billion in direct aid to state government or in a dedicated program.

What is now a joint legislative proposal is somewhat similar to one announced by Governor Andrew Cuomo, a third-term Democrat currently embroiled in multiple scandals and widespread calls for his resignation, in his State of the State agenda in January to convert ailing properties into housing, but adds requirements that the housing must be affordable and at least half of all units be reserved for homeless individuals.

"What we don't want to do is just take those properties and hand them over to wealthy developers that build even more luxury units because that would be a wasted opportunity to make progress on this issue," said Gianaris, adding that is what he believes Cuomo's proposal could do. (Gianaris and Senate Majority Leader Andrea Stewart-Cousins are among those who have called on Cuomo to resign amid a long list of sexual harassment allegations and other scandals, while the Assembly has begun an impeachment inquiry.)

On Friday, a companion bill was introduced in the State Assembly and the same day Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie, a Bronx Democrat, signaled support for including it in the state budget: "In this year's budget, we support HAVP, a sustainable statewide MAT, removal of prior authorization for life saving medication, and we are exploring ways to expand access to housing for the homeless by using vacant and under utilized spaces to do so," he wrote in a tweet.

"Budget negotiations are ongoing," said Freeman Klopott, a spokesperson for the New York State Division of the Budget, which is part of the gubernatorial administration, in response to inquiries about the Senate's budget proposal. A spokesperson for New York State Homes and Community Renewal, the state housing agency, said the legislation was under review.

In a statement, the bill's Assembly sponsor, Assembly Member Karines Reyes, a Bronx Democrat, said the state's "weak rent moratoriums and insufficient rent relief programs" had not gone far enough to protect low-income residents from eviction, especially in communities of color. "The conversion of office units and distressed hotel properties into housing units would greatly bolster the number of beds available to New Yorkers in need, as well as assist businesses that are getting back on their feet," she wrote.

The program would entail the state buying property and selling or leasing it to developers and non-profits that would manage the buildings and in some cases provide supportive services. The legislation would require at least half of all converted units be reserved for people experiencing homelessness. Affordability would include people making 50% of the area median income or less, and rent would be capped at 30% of income, the threshold for being considered “rent-burdened.”

Pre-pandemic, the demand for supportive housing outpaced the number of available units. For every vacant supportive housing unit there were five approved applications, according to a Coalition for the Homeless report released in March of 2020. The number of single adults staying in shelters across the city nightly has grown 143% over the last decade, from 7,700 in 2009 to nearly 18,700 in December 2019, according to the report. The New York City Department of Homeless Services reported a nightly average of 17,741 single adults sleeping in city shelters in fiscal year 2021.

"I’ve been living in the shelter system for over 5 years. Like so many others, I'm stuck here without any real pathway to get out and find permanent housing. I’m tired of living there and I’m tired of being told my needs are not a priority. We need our leaders to support HONDA and put our state on track to end homelessness,” said Milton Perez, who is homeless and a leader at the housing advocacy organization VOCAL-NY, in a statement.

“Quickly converting distressed hotels into permanent housing that is affordable to New Yorkers experiencing homelessness is a once-in-a-generation opportunity we need to respond to now," said Ted Houghton, president of Gateway Housing, a nonprofit specializing in converting city shelters.

While the bill defines distressed properties broadly to include office buildings and others, its drafters are eying the hotel industry, which has been particularly hard hit by the drop in tourism and lends itself physically to conversion into housing.

In January, the Hotel Association of New York said roughly 200 of the city's 700 hotels had shuttered since the pandemic began, NY1 reported. As the Wall Street Journal recently reported, the hospitality data firm Smith Travel Research found hotel occupancy in the city was 47% in mid-March, an encouraging rise from 38% in January, but far lower than pre-pandemic levels.

Only a quarter of members of the New York Hotel Trades Council, a union representing a majority of the city's hotel workers, are currently working, according to a source close to the union. The source, who was not at liberty to fully discuss the plans, said that the union is reviewing the various hotel conversion proposals and is comfortable with Gianaris'.

According to Deputy Mayor for Housing and Economic Development Vicki Been, the de Blasio administration is currently looking at ways to convert failing hotels into single resident occupancy (SRO) housing, a type of affordable housing option that often comes with supportive services but lacks certain amenities like private kitchens. The mayor's office did not immediately return a request for comment on the HONDA proposal.

Brooklyn Borough President Eric Adams, City Comptroller Scott Stringer, and City Council Member Carlos Menchaca, three Democratic candidates for mayor, have each called for hotel conversions as part of their housing platforms. Other candidates, including entrepreneur Andrew Yang, have indicated support for the idea.

Last fall, the developer Fairstead closed a $60 million deal to acquire Park 79 Hotel on Manhattan's Upper West Side and convert it into 77 affordable apartments for seniors.

A similar hotel conversion took place in 2018 when Breaking Ground, a supportive housing nonprofit, purchased a hotel in downtown Brooklyn for $170 million using a $157 million loan from the city's Department of Housing Preservation and Development. Under current economic conditions, Breaking Grounds estimates conversions to SROs would cost half what new construction would per unit, though groups like VOCAL-NY want to see more conversions into full-use permanent apartments like the 2018 project.

Gianaris said his office and supporters of the bill are working with United States Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, a Brooklyn Democrat, and New York's congressional delegation to carve out funding from the American Rescue Plan -- the $1.9 trillion federal stimulus package that was enacted earlier this month, with up to $100 billion heading to New York State for a variety of uses and through many channels (individuals, businesses, governments, and more). Gianaris is hoping lawmakers in Washington establish a program explicitly for converting distressed properties but that there is some flexibility in other funding pots, especially the $12.6 billion in direct aid New York state government is receiving.

"We're working closely with our federal representatives to unlock some assistance for programs exactly like this," Gianaris told Gotham Gazette. "There is a certain amount of aid that is unrestricted, we can certainly use that."

A spokesperson for Schumer did not comment directly on the state's proposal but told Gotham Gazette the American Rescue Plan included relief funds that could go toward assistance to hard-hit industries like hospitality and tourism.

An Espaillat campaign party (photo: Infinity Media IM/John R. Gagain Jr. @jgagain)

New York City, in all likelihood, won’t have a Dominican-American mayor after this year’s election. But that does not mean that the political power representing roughly 700,000 New Yorkers of Dominican heritage — about 30% of the city’s entire Hispanic population and just behind Puerto Ricans, who number around 730,000, according to American Community Survey figures — is not growing, the extension of a civic project that first took hold in the neighborhoods of Upper Manhattan and the South Bronx a few decades ago. The Dominican community has already chosen representatives at every level of government, and is itching to expand outside of its traditional geographic strongholds and use the lessons learned in political and civic organizing of every type to become an ever greater force in local politics.

“I think that there is a great crop of young leaders that are emerging now, and I think they want to take it to another level. And I'm really happy to see that,” said United States Representative Adriano Espaillat, a Dominican-born Democratic legislator whose ground-breaking 2016 election for the Upper Manhattan-based 13th New York Congressional District was widely seen as a referendum on the community’s voting power in a longtime African-American stronghold.

Like many immigrant populations across the United States over time, the Dominican community’s presence as a cultural and economic force preceded its rise as an electoral entity of major consequence in New York. The roots can trace back to the early 20th century; the Dominican population expanded significantly starting in the 1960s, as many fled the Trujillo regime, and experienced a political awakening in the ‘90s that has culminated in office-holders at every level of government. The reasons why, and what the future holds for a political engine reaching maturation, will have major implications for the civic life of New York through the 2021 city government elections and beyond.

The process of building out a domestic political identity and a machinery to power it always takes time, but some Dominicans feel that, paradoxically, the community’s culture of robust civic and political engagement actually delayed its integration into New York’s political frameworks. “There was probably a time when Dominicans didn't do much politics here, but were very much tied to whatever was happening home, and the dictatorship,” said Espaillat. “Not just for politics, but even the business community, many people have one foot here, one foot there.”

Espaillat, who sits on the powerful House appropriations committee, holds the distinction of being the most prominent Dominican elected official in New York and perhaps the country, illustrating both how far the community has come and the long process to get there: he started off sitting on a community board. There are now Dominicans at various levels of government. But with the massive overhaul of local representation happening through the 2021 elections, where all of city government is on the ballot from mayor through the borough presidents and City Council, there is both opportunity and risk for Dominicans in local elected office.

At the City Council, Dominican-born Ydanis Rodríguez represents Washington Heights, Inwood, and Marble Hill, and Antonio Reynoso, the son of Dominican parents, represents parts of Williamsburg, Bushwick, and Ridgewood and is running for Brooklyn Borough President. State Assemblymember Carmen De La Rosa was a District Leader before being elected to the Legislature in 2016, and is now running for the Council seat being vacated by the term-limited Rodríguez, who in recent years unsuccessfully sought higher office twice.

Rodríguez and Brooklyn Borough President Eric Adams, who Rodríguez has endorsed in the mayoral race, have been pushing a municipal noncitizen voting measure that could hugely expand the Dominican community’s political influence if passed. In something of a fracture, Espaillat is one of Comptroller Scott Stringer’s highest-profile endorsers in the mayoral race. Stringer and De La Rosa have endorsed each other’s 2021 campaigns.

According to recent American Community Survey figures, around half-a-million Dominican-born people resided in New York State as of 2019, representing about a third of the total Dominican-American community nationwide. Estimates by Dominicanos USA, a Bronx-based advocacy and voter engagement organization, point to Dominicans being about one-fifth the total share of the state’s Hispanic eligible voters.

They are concentrated in Upper Manhattan and the South Bronx, representing large portions of the 13th and 15th Congressional Districts, represented by Espaillat and Rep. Ritchie Torres, who is Afro-Latino of Puerto Rican descent. There are also significant pockets of Dominicans in the Brooklyn neighborhoods of Bushwick and Sunset Park, and in areas of Queens around Corona and Woodside, though not in the dominant concentrations found in Upper Manhattan and the South Bronx. The community is not only large, but has grown exponentially in the last 20 years.

All of this leaves the Dominican community in an interesting spot, having notched a series of victories and with the numbers to swing its weight in areas where it has not traditionally dominated, like the Northwest Bronx, where Dominican-born Mino Lora is running in a special election in City Council District 11 that concludes this week.

“Our numbers keep growing, and yet representation, and elected officials, is still too small,” Lora told Gotham Gazette. After the initial tally of votes in the 11th Council District special election, Lora was a distant second to Eric Dinowitz, the son of a prominent long-time Assemblymember in the area. She indicated on election night that she would challenge Dinowitz in the regularly-scheduled primary in June, where voter turnout will be much larger.

Meanwhile, Oswald Feliz, a Dominican-American tenant lawyer endored by Espaillat, Rodriguez, and De La Rosa, among others, is on the verge of victory in a special election in the Bronx's 15th City Council District, where a special election to replace Torres is also unfolding this month. Ballots will be tallied in the coming weeks under the new ranked-choice voting system, but Feliz was in strong shape after the initial count, perhaps setting the stage for additional Dominican wins in the coming months.

A number of other candidates with Dominican heritage are running for the many available Council seats, including Ángela Fernández, the former commissioner of the state Division of Human Rights, who is also running for Rodríguez’s seat. Manuel Silva, the Haitian-Dominican former chief of staff to former Council member (and now Queens Borough President) Donovan Richards, just ran unsuccessfully in a special election to replace Richards representing the neighborhoods of Far Rockaway, Edgemere, and Rosedale, among others. City Council Member Fernando Cabrera, who is of Dominican and Puerto Rican descent and who represents some of the same neighborhoods as Torres, is now running for Bronx borough president, as is Dominican immigrant Samuel Ravelo.

A fuller mobilization has the power to push forward the issues that the Dominican community has long held dear, particularly education reform that prioritizes dual-language and robust early education, support for small businesses, and the protection and expansion of affordable housing. The political future appears bright, if the extended Dominican community maintains its political focus, continues to run strong candidates, and strengthens coalition with other Latino groups.

The road to political influence had to run through not only the community’s own reservations about its place in the New York firmament but those imposed from outside. According to Dr. Ramona Hernández, director of the Dominican Studies Institute at CUNY’s City College, the perception of Dominicans as a sort-of transient group was a cyclical and self-reinforcing perception. “It's a popular thing among educators,” she said. “‘They send the kids back to the Dominican Republic in the summer, sometimes they don’t come back. And this is why the kid is behind.’ It's a very popular narrative, right? But that negates the actions, not just thinking, but actions that Dominicans took to establish themselves here.”

The civic organizing work began before the electoral victories, of course. “I came from a community where our church organized our community, where it founded what would be the structural organizations that were necessary for a community to survive in despair,” said Diana Reyna, who became the first female Dominican-American elected official in the state upon her election to the New York City Council in 2001 and went on to serve as a deputy borough president in Brooklyn.

Reyna pointed to a host of ground-up efforts to steady the Dominican neighborhoods of Upper Manhattan and the South Bronx in the aftermath of the crises of the late 1970s: community-run daycares and childcare; affordable housing and community development organizations “so that we could stabilize our buildings after they were burnt and abandoned”; care and hospice for HIV/AIDS patients; early immigration legal clinics and advocacy groups. All of this and more formed the precursor and engine for a new chapter of political victories. The spark that really set things in motion was the birth of second- and third-generation Dominican-Americans, who concretized the fact that Dominicans not only had to think about the possibility of return to the island but the kids that were very much going to grow up in New York.

Dr. Hernández traces the genesis of the community’s role as a direct political actor back to the 1991 election of Guillermo Linares to the City Council, where he became one of the first Dominicans in elected office in the country, representing the Inwood and Washington Heights neighborhoods now represented by Rodríguez and De La Rosa.

“People were not believing in politics, because their poverty rates were exceedingly high, unemployment was extremely high, crime was extremely high in New York City,” Dr. Hernandez said. “It was a moment when people were not feeling too hopeful, and then Guillermo came along.”

Linares served nine years in the City Council, a stint as commissioner of Immigrant Affairs in the administration of Mayor Michael Bloomberg, and a couple of recent stints as a member of the State Assembly for the upper Manhattan-based 72nd district that De La Rosa now represents. Now president of the Higher Education Services Corporation, Linares declined to weigh in on the status of Dominican political power in New York, citing a current focus on student financial turmoil. His election served as an example that it could be done, and Dominicans have gone on to serve as district leaders, in the City Council, in both chambers of the state Legislature, and in Congress. To date, though, there has not been a city-wide or borough-wide Dominican elected official. 

We are now again in a moment of crisis in the city, with the ongoing coronavirus pandemic having affected primarily communities of color and setting off new economic and fiscal crises. The vaccination effort has likewise already failed the hardest-hit communities, including heavily Dominican areas. The Trump presidency also posed an ever-present threat to immigrant communities in particular, who were the target of both punitive policy and hateful rhetoric. Just as crisis energized the community and focused its political output 30 years ago, it’s shaping up to be a catalyst today. The community has shown its organizing and civic energy again, establishing mutual aid and food distribution groups and driving some of the top 2010 and 2020 Census response rates in the city.

Dominicanos USA has seen increasing interest in its naturalization drives and resources. “For the last eight months we have had huge demand,” said Eddie Cuesta, DUSA’s executive director. “I'm talking about people that have lived in this country for 20, 30 years.”

Eliana Santos, New York organizer and program director for DUSA, said, “We asked why they want to become U.S. citizens. And one of the top answers is because they want to vote. We see that increase, especially in the last two years, as the November 2020 elections were approaching.” The organization has been not just helping people become citizens and register to vote, but also to navigate confusing electoral processes, such as how this year’s implementation of ranked-choice voting works and the fact that people need to be registered with a particular party to vote in the primary (which, given heavy voter enrollment imbalances almost everywhere in the city, means the Democratic primary is the key vote for the vast majority of New York City elections).

The new mobilization is not only of voters, but candidates, including younger hopefuls looking to pick up the momentum from the first wave of Dominican elected officials. “One of the strong reasons I became a citizen was when Trump was elected, I felt for my safety, and my family's safety, I needed to take that leap,” said Lora, 40, a Dominican-born former nonprofit executive. While Trump led her to become a citizen, the coronavirus spurred her desire to run for office. “This summer, with the pandemic, neighbors asked me, would you do it?”

Many of the younger Dominican candidates and activists are in the somewhat delicate position of attempting to bridge the older generations of Dominican immigrants, who can be more socially conservative, and what Lora called “a more progressive wave with Antonio Reynoso and others that I that I hope to continue as a Working Families Party candidate of this generation of Dominican leadership.”

Said Reyna, “they have to stay connected to a greater gap between those that came here to this country — like my mom, who's in her eighties now — not forgetting that that's a generation that is still greatly involved…and the generation of my children, where they become the leaders that my children will look up to. That's a big band to cover.”

In the short-term, the community’s political objectives are squarely related to recovering and addressing the pandemic-response missteps of local and state leaders. “The pandemic revealed what we already knew, which is that there are these long-standing health disparities,” said Espaillat. “I think that health will take a more prominent place in the community debate. And I think that small businesses and economic development will also take a more prominent place.”

The economic angle is of particular salience to a population with very high rates of small business ownership. “People lost their jobs,” said Dominicanos USA’s Cuesta. “Dominicans are very strong as entrepreneurs, owning their own businesses, and many of these businesses are closed, they’re unable to open. We have a lot of Dominicans that are in the restaurant industry, they're hurting.”

In the longer-term, there are a number of issues that have become inextricably linked to Dominican political organizing, perhaps none more closely than education. “We had the worst education system growing up, and we have to challenge the government to do better. Issues like bilingual education became a form of doing better,” said Reyna.

Everyone Gotham Gazette spoke with for this article brought up a solid dual-language education as an abiding, fundamental, and non-negotiable tenet of the community. Reyna emphasized that there’s even a distinction between merely bilingual, where Spanish may be an afterthought, versus full dual-language, which is “a classroom with an English certified teacher and a Spanish certified teacher.”

“In my district, over 22% of students are multilingual learners…and there's about 2% of seats and classrooms in this district that are dual language classrooms, which is not enough,” said Lora. Espaillat recalled that, during the ‘80s, “at one point, we were bussing about 5,000 kids outside of the district, because there weren't enough schools and the schools were very overcrowded.”

Looking forward, one of the most salient questions is the extent to which the Dominican political machine will mature into a force wholly of its own, apart from other Latino structures or in conjunction with them but finding additional success across more geographic boundaries. Much of the early community organizing in the ‘80s and ‘90s, not to mention the media and political campaign cultures, saw utility in treating Latino groups as monolithic and working as a unit. To an extent, Dominican political figures view this favorably, and are adamant that the way to build towards shared goals is through a unified front of Dominicans, Puerto Ricans, Mexicans, and other large and small Latino populations. “Division doesn't get you anything at the end of the day. We all are struggling for the same things: better housing, better jobs, better health programs,” said Cuesta.

Still, each community has its own identities and issues of political interest, and once the constituencies get large enough, the coalitions can get unwieldy. “One of the things that harms us is that we are from different countries, and how do we gravitate to one leader? Of a country that is not our origin? So who's our Al Sharpton? Who's our Jesse Jackson?” said Reyna, who believes this turns Dominicans into sort-of swing voters within the Latino population writ large.

The most visible Latino official initially running for this year’s race to be the next mayor of New York City, Bronx Borough President Rubén Díaz, Jr., who is of Puerto Rican descent, dropped out of the race early last year. Others still in the Democratic race are Dianne Morales, a nonprofit executive and former public school teacher with Puerto Rican parents, and Mexican-American City Council Member Carlos Menchaca of Brooklyn by way of Texas. The only notable Dominican candidate is Fernando Mateo, a Republican businessperson and taxi and bodega advocate who appears to be a top contender for the GOP mayoral nomination. He has received support from the Manhattan, Bronx, and Queens Republican Party establishments and, though a Trump supporter, calls himself an “urban Republican” who is focused on education, small businesses, and economic opportunity.

Dr. Hernández believes that competition will increase both among different generations of Dominicans and Dominican-Americans and among Dominicans and other Latino populations. Political power is something “second-generation Dominicans will grab because they think that they are better equipped to do the job,” she said. “What will happen in the future is Adriano [Espaillat] will have other people running for his seat that are not necessarily ‘americanos.’ That's just part of politics growing.”

The community that Dominicans have been most closely associated with and which is closest in raw number is the Puerto Rican one, which has as storied of a political legacy. In one conceivable scenario, it could represent the greatest challenger to Dominican political power; in the more likely one, the groups will continue to work symbiotically, a legacy that goes back decades. “Puerto Ricans were right behind in helping Guillermo [Linares] get elected,” said Dr. Hernández.

Ultimately, New York Dominicans’ political trajectory will have resonance well beyond the five boroughs, as it often acts as a model for Dominicans elsewhere. Espaillat believes that the community’s blend of characteristics — small-business entrepreneurship, a focus on economic justice, community organizing expertise, among others — can enable Dominican candidates to win not just in Dominican districts, but anywhere, in “Peekskill, New York, or in places out in the New England states, Florida, Pennsylvania,” referencing Peekskill Mayor André Rainey and legislators like Pennsylvania’s Rep. Danilo Burgos.

Reyna recalled that, before the political mobilizations in the ‘80s, “you were a resident. You had no stake in the system. You appreciated everything this country had to offer, but you minded your business, you put your head down and you keep on walking. Those days are long gone.”

Note: this story has been updated with information about the two Bronx special elections.

(l-r) Top: Tahanie Aboushi, Alvin Bragg, Eliza Orlins, Tali Farhadian Weinstein; Bottom: Liz Crotty, Dan Quart, Diana Florence, Lucy Lang

As part of the "Decision NYC with Ben Max" series of candidate interview s from Manhattan Neighborhood Network and Gotham Gazette, host Ben Max interviewed the eight Democratic candidates for Manhattan District Attorney competing in the 2021 primary that will take place in June. Find and watch all eight interviews below. Have feedback? Tweet @TweetBenMax and @GothamGazette, or email: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. 

Eliza Orlins (photo via campaign)

As part of the "Decision NYC with Ben Max" ser ies of candidate interviews from Manhattan Neighborhood Network and Gotham Gazette, Democratic candidates for Manhattan District Attorney talked about their campaigns ahead of the June primary. In this episode, public defender Eliza Orlins joined host Ben Max to explain her vision for the role. Watch:

Alvin Bragg (photo via campaign)

As part of the "Decision NYC with Ben Max" series of candidate interviews from Manhattan Neighborhood Network and Gotham Gazette, Democratic candidates for Manhattan District Attorney talked about their campaigns ahead of the June primary. In this episode, former Deputy New York Attorney General Alvin Bragg joined host Ben Max to explain his vision for the role. Watch:

Tali Farhadian Weinstein (photo via campaign)

As part of the "Decision NYC with Ben Max" series of candidate interview s from Manhattan Neighborhood Network and Gotham Gazette, Democratic candidates for Manhattan District Attorney talked about their campaigns ahead of the June primary. In this episode, former general counsel in the Brooklyn District Attorney's office Tali Farhadian Weinstein joined host Ben Max to explain her vision for the role. Watch:

Tahanie Aboushi (photo via campaign)

As part of the "Decision NYC with Ben Max" series of candidate interview s from Manhattan Neighborhood Network and Gotham Gazette, Democratic candidates for Manhattan District Attorney talked about their campaigns ahead of the June primary. In this episode, civil rights attorney Tahanie Aboushi joined host Ben Max to explain her vision for the role. Watch:

Dan Quart (photo via campaign)

As part of the "Decision NYC with Ben Max" series of candidate interview s from Manhattan Neighborhood Network and Gotham Gazette, Democratic candidates for Manhattan District Attorney talked about their campaigns ahead of the June primary. In this episode, Assemblymember Dan Quart joined host Ben Max to explain his vision for the role. Watch:

Diana Florence (photo via campaign)

As part of the "Decision NYC with Ben Max" series of candidate interview s from Manhattan Neighborhood Network and Gotham Gazette, Democratic candidates for Manhattan District Attorney talked about their campaigns ahead of the June primary. In this episode, former Assistant District Attorney Diana Florence joined host Ben Max to explain her vision for the role. Watch: