We thank our fellow New York State Democrats for making our initial meeting of the New York State Democratic Committee Progressive Caucus such a resounding success! Not only did we have over 80 attendees at our very first Caucus meeting, our very first resolution (by Jo Anne Simon), calling upon disgraced Assemblymember Vito Lopez to resign from his State Committee and District Leader positions, was supported unanimously, first in the Executive Committee — and then on the floor of the Spring Business meeting! Talk about an auspicious start! (See our Press page for the coverage. Here are the minutes.)
We were also very honored to have New York State Comptroller Tom DiNapoli open our meeting with remarks that welcomed the Progressive Caucus to the NYSDC and that underscored the importance of progressive activism for the Democratic Party. And we were delighted that the immediate past Chair of the State Party Jay Jacobs was also present and participated in our meeting.
As our first order of business, after electing our Executive Committee, members identified the following issues as matters of priority for our Caucus:
- Education
- Election Issues: Independence Party, Fusion Voting, Cross-Party Endorsements
- Fracking
- Healthcare & Single Payer
- Housing & Mortgage Foreclosures
- Women’s Issues
We are now looking for people who are willing to Chair these subcommittees and move forward. As we all know, there is plenty of work to be done on all of these issues throughout the state.
We are very excited about working together to making positive, progressive social change as a group and look forward to seeing everyone in Ryebrook on October 21st at our upcoming Caucus meeting.
Rachel Lavine, 66th A.D.
Chair
