New York State Senator Zellnor Myrie, 38, is a candidate in this year’s crowded mayoral race against the incumbent Eric Adams.
Myrie represents the 20th Senate District in Brooklyn, encompassing Crown Heights, East Flatbush, Park Slope, Prospect Heights, Prospect Lefferts Gardens and Windsor Terrace. A native of Brooklyn, he was raised by immigrant parents from Costa Rica.
Myrie was first elected to office in 2019. He served as chair of the Senate’s Elections Committee, authoring the John R. Lewis New York Voting Rights Act, and now heads the Senate Codes Committee. He is best known for his criminal justice legislation, like the Clean Slate Act, and his leadership in fighting the closure of State University of New York (SUNY) Downstate hospital.
To date he has raised $785,391 in private funds and $2,240,993 through the city’s public matching funds program, according to the latest filings of the New York City Campaign Finance Board (NYCCFB).
The Amsterdam News caught up with Myrie over the phone. Here is what he had to say about his campaign. (Questions and answers have been shortened or edited for space and clarity.)
AmNews: Mayor Eric Adams is usually the law and order candidate, and to his credit, shootings have statistically gone down citywide. I would categorize you more as a criminal justice candidate. I was wondering if you could explain the difference between what law and order versus criminal justice looks like.
Myrie: I think that the value of keeping the public safe is what is centered in our vision for New York City and what has been my approach as a state legislator as well. I grew up in the late 80s and 90s in central Brooklyn, where I had to grapple with two realities. I could be a victim or survivor of gun violence, or I could be a victim or survivor of police brutality. And those two realities are unfortunately very familiar to too many New Yorkers and it is why we both need robust law enforcement that is held accountable, but also approaches that we know help drive down crime. While there may be some tension between those two realities, I don’t believe that they are at odds. The expectation of the leader of New York City is that you were able to hold both of those truths together. We need a system that is just, fair, and we also need to keep people safe in the here and now.
AmNews: The How Many Stops Act came out with a report: Black New Yorkers are still being stopped disproportionately for level one and level two encounters. They’re not necessarily being recorded or reported and I was wondering if you wanted to comment on that information.
Myrie: You know I think that it’s important that we have all of the information that we need as it relates to law enforcement and transparency in that process. We saw historically low crime rates in the city in 2018 and in 2019 pre-pandemic, even with the ruling that unconstitutional stops can no longer continue. So the city can and has in the past done this in a way that allows for people to not have their constitutional rights violated. But to do so in a way that still keeps people safe, that would be the expectation of the police department under my administration and I think that would be the expectation for most New Yorkers.
AmNews: Switching to the Office of Gun Violence Prevention, why do you think there wasn’t a centralized office in the state before, considering we’ve always had an issue with violence in our communities? Now that the White House Office of Gun Violence Prevention has been eliminated by Trump, do you feel like the statewide office would be as effective?
Myrie: I think it would be even more important that we establish a state Office of Gun Violence Prevention given that this president eliminated that national office on his first day in office. I think that in an era where a small percentage of the blocks in New York City are responsible for the outside amount of gun violence that takes place, we need a coordinated government response to this and that’s what an office of gun violence prevention would do. It would bring all of the stakeholders to the table. It would employ an interagency approach, not just to the execution of our current gun safety laws, but giving us data research and coordinating with educators, violence interrupters, medical professionals, and students.
The fact that we have not had this already, I think, speaks to the neglect that many of our communities have felt for decades. We’ve known the things that can help us get out of this crisis. We’ve been screaming for them for many years. We’ve marched for them for many years and I’m really proud that we have been a leader on this issue in the state legislature and that we are hopefully going to see this office finally created and cannot be undone by executive order but enshrined in our statute. So that no matter who is governor, no matter who is president, this office will remain and that we will have a real focus on preventing some of the most disruptive crimes that we see in our city.
AmNews: What strategy would you employ to reduce gun violence and gang violence among youth? Would you support ending the gang database?
Myrie: So when I represented Brownsville in the state Senate, we worked with many community partners to flood the most violent blocks with services. We worked in tandem with the 73rd Precinct and many other violence interrupters and social service providers to ensure that we gave these blocks the attention that they needed. We saw, in those periods where there was a concerted effort, we saw the incidents of violence go down. The city has recently adopted that model in some precincts, the Every Block Counts initiative, and I’d like to expand that to all of our precincts where we are seeing the highest rates of gun violence. And that it is an approach that is informed by community experience, but that has also been demonstrated that it can bring down crime.
I think that our young people need alternatives. We have told them to not be gangs. We have told them to not pick up guns, but we have not given them after school programming. One of the major initiatives that I wanna get done in my first term in City Hall is to provide universal after school for all of our kids. I want 50,000 more summer youth employment slots so that no young person is on the waitlist and has that opportunity. I also want to create some pathways for our young people who college may not be the best route for them.
I think that the gang database has provided law enforcement with a tool to bring down incidents of violence and I think that it is an important tool for them to utilize. Like with everything that law enforcement does, I think it’s important that we have paired that with accountability. We have seen that this civilian complaint review board (CCRB) has not received the amount of resources that it deserves over the past year, so I plan to increase the resources that it has so that it can hold officers accountable.
AmNews: Evidence sharing and discovery in a timely manner. Could you just explain a little bit your role in that legislation and what the pushback is against it?
Myrie: Yeah, you know this is a common sense approach to how we implement discovery here in the state and the city. The discovery law requires that defendants have the evidence that they are being charged with and we changed that process in 2019 to ensure that they were getting that evidence in a timely fashion, and not making life-changing decisions without having that evidence before them.
What we’ve seen over the past five years is that the timeline has been impacted because the police department and the prosecutor’s office are not exchanging the information in a timely fashion. Prosecutors don’t have access to the evidence that the police department has in their custody so I proposed a law that would give the prosecutors that access. That information can be turned over quicker and done so in a smoother fashion so they were not having cases dismissed because of a technicality. We’re also having defendants given that information in the timely fashion, we’ve actually gotten support from some prosecutors and public defenders on this, which to me demonstrates that it is one of the common sense approaches to us improving our discovery loss.
AmNews: What can be done on a city and state level to help immigrants wrongly detained by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE)?
Myrie: We’re in a tough spot because there are some jurisdictional boundaries that we have as a city and state as it relates to the federal government, but I’ve been proud to be a sponsor on a state bill called New York for All, which would protect New Yorkers from any ICE involvement on state owned, and in state run properties and facilities. I think that there are some opportunities for us to do something similar on the city level. You know our sanctuary city laws right now are under question because this Mayor has put them under question, but they used to not be a political football. It used to be protected by Democratic and Republican Mayors alike because they understood the value of protecting vulnerable New Yorkers.
I myself, as the son of two Costa Rican immigrants, who had me when they were not documented, feel this in a very personal way. Most people come here to work and I would like to see something called Work NYC, where we would provide New York City work permits for individuals who were seeking asylum and allow for them to work. That’s what my parents came here for, that is what the overwhelming majority of people come here for, that is what I’d like to institute as the next mayor.
We gotta be clear in the face of what is happening in this Trump administration. He is sending subpoenas to our city hotels. He’s not just asking for information on asylum-seekers. He seeks information on the city workers that help them. This is a major breach and an unprecedented step that we cannot afford to cower in the face of, and I’d be using the bully pulpit every day if I have to stand up for our immigrant community. And to partner with our state and federal colleagues to ensure that we’re using every tool that is at our disposal to protect New Yorkers.
AmNews: As a Brooklyn guy, does it hurt that Assemblymember Bichotte Hermelyn, the Brooklyn Dems’ party boss, would endorse Cuomo over you?
Myrie: You know, I think every elected leader is gonna make a decision on who they support for mayor. We’re still early in this process. Voters are just beginning to pay attention and I’m excited about the endorsements that we received thus far and the endorsements that we will be getting down the line. The most important thing to me at this moment is communicating what my vision is to New Yorkers and I have been a proud Brooklyn representative. I’m born and raised here and I would be very much looking forward to communicating that vision not just to the great people of Brooklyn but to every New York City resident.
AmNews: How do you manage to balance appealing to both Jewish and Muslim voters and their concerns over what’s happening with Mahmoud Khalil?
Myrie: I think that all New Yorkers are watching what this administration is doing and shocked that they would ignore our constitution, that they would ignore due process. I think that, regardless of how people feel about the content of speech, people do care deeply about the process. Seeing what happens when that is disregarded and how slippery a slope that it can be, my job as the next mayor is to keep all New Yorkers safe and to enjoy feeling safe and are free to express their opinions without consequence from the government when that does not cross any criminal line. So I think it’s really important at this moment to stand up for our constitution and for our protections and that’s what I would plan to do as mayor.
AmNews: Is there anybody you could see yourself eventually cross endorsing with towards June?
Myrie: I think it’s still early. As you know, we’re trying to get on the ballot. All of us. I think after that ballot is solidified, there can be conversations, but at the moment I’m very much focused on just trying to make sure we get on the ballot.