it or thank you very much for being here with us is very important for us i was as plain in the the the public right because we've been talking through weeks weeks and weeks about these things really to be able to talk about the issues to be able to talk about what's at stake what is happening here and why this race and all of the other i d c races are critical to making sure that our state government actually has real democrats in democratic districts and democratic seats i great grandparents my grandparents my parents all grew up in the bronx we are telling america of a time in american descent and it is it is the place where i came of age i am an attorney i am an activist and i had worked on hillary clinton's presidential campaign i did national operations managed a very large budget and when the race was over i thought to myself ok well now what how can i help so i went to work in governor cuomo office i worked on a lot of different pieces of legislation one of the pieces of legislation was the reproductive health act which would allow us to protect a woman's right to choose and the bill didn't pass and the bill didn't pass because my state senator in my district that has been my state senator for fourteen years has been running as a democrat elected by all of us as a democrat and he has been voting in albany and caucusing with republicans for the past seven years and he recruited eight additional members of the democratic party to be in his group and after twenty sixteen that was a very big problem because what it really meant was that he was empowering donald trump uptown manhattan for years i never see a candidate and the same thing happened in brooklyn the same thing happening in bronx all over the bronx in queens in many of our community they don't even bother affects yes the democrat party but to our community too so this is a good this is an excellent question they did this because if you were to run as a republican in these districts you would lose so they stayed on the democratic line even though they were caucusing with republicans and the reason that they did this was because in exchange for the power that they got from republicans they were able to have bigger offices larger staff money for their districts and the result of doing that meant that they created a democratic minority and a republican majority so they broke away and empowered the republicans and they were wishing that we were not paying attention but we those people th to yes hello i would like to explain what is the independent democratic friends and why you're against gender jeff kline and what are your question so the independent democratic conference also known as the i d c for short is a group of eight state senators that are democrats that have been elected as democrats but have gone to albany to vote with republicans and my opponent jeff kline is the founder he's the leader of this group of eight renegade or rogue democrats and they have been caucusing with republicans for the past seven years and they have blocked a lot of important legislation that we care about in district thirty four things like fully funding our public schools which is exactly what i'm fighting for and is exactly what i will do as state senator from district thirty four making sure that we have strong laws so that people can stay in their homes this is incredibly important and my opponent and the i d c members have not fought for stronger laws because they receive a lot of money from real estate donors  affordable health care and universal health care for all these are things that they've been blocking for many years and it's caused the district to suffer and these are things that i am going to prioritize as state senator from district thirty four thank you for giving opportunity when this because a people know who they are i know it's the only you but eight all the people are trying to do the sad thing because this is the time we don't do  power or the boat and is now to know who's running and how it's rolling and why the platform and besides in order i want to start giving you the opportunity that you can tell the running because i am a real democrat and i am making a commitment to run as a democrat and if elected and when elected i will stay with the democratic conference i will never betray my party like my opponent did and some of the things that i am running for that i am excited to work on as a state senator from district thirty four include public school funding making sure that our schools are fully funded district thirty four public schools are owed eighty eight million dollars in public school funding this is incredibly important that every single child in every single zip code has access to quality education healthcare for all making sure that every single person has access to health care strong rental laws we have got to make sure that people can stay in their homes affordable child care and stronger sexual harassment polic because we have got to make sure that women feel safe in the workplace that is one of my top priorities and last but not least among the other among many we have got to protect a woman's right to choose because in new york state a woman's right to choose is not protected because it is currently in the criminal law instead of the health law where it belongs because of my opponent and because of the i d c members and we have got to change that in september on the thirteenth mark women rights because it's very important and the way that women are treated yeah i agree one thousand percent it is so important that women have equal pay that women feel safe in the workplace again that we have affordable child care because in new york state only twenty percent of child care needs are met which means that women have to leave the workplace but let's go back to sexual harassment because my opponent was accused of sexual misconduct in january we do not know where the case is it has been almost nine months why is it taking so long why will we go to the polls in september and not know the result of this case from his former staffer and he was one of four men in the room this year for men who was at the table to rewrite sexual harassment policies he did not invite one woman into the room why why that's crazy so that is something that not only am i committing to make sure that we have strong sexual harassment policies that protect women but we cannot discuss cannot exclude women from the table when we're talking about things that affect their lives because it's happened for too long now so is we could have had andrea stuart cousins who is would have been the first black woman to lead the democrats he did not vote for her so he took that away from her and now he's saying how important it is to have andrius to our cousins as the you for this question district thirty four is very diverse and it is gerrymandered so in terms of the people right the voters of district thirty four it is one third latino one third white fifteen percent black about seven percent asian and then the rest is considered uncoded the neighborhoods include in westchester county pelham and a little bit of mount vernon in the bronx riverdale kingsbridge castle hill pelham parkway city island hunts point throgs neck soundview man y many other neighborhoods and rikers island so it's very important that we talk about criminal justice reform the most important issue in the district is affordability affordability no matter what topic we're talking about people want to be able to afford to stay in their homes they want to be able to stay in their community where they were raised and where their families are and they want to have a high quality of life and the state senate can pass laws to make sure that that happen it's good to to to ask why the leadership of the or the democrat party have to say about this that don't concern then they say way that the board is concerned because i said that i don't first part is that unfortunately then this is part of why i'm running albany is a machine right and the machine protects its own in a way that is sometimes damaging to our democracy and so what we're starting to see right now is that there are some democratic congress members democratic assembly members democratic new york city council members who are coming to stand with us all of the anti i d c challengers and they're saying enough because it is black and white there is a good side and there is a bad side and the people who have betrayed us as democrats do not deserve to get another term and the people who are coming forward now are part of a movement right you mentioned that earlier this bigger movement that is trying to take back our democracy and put people first that is that is the message that i have been running on from day one because it is people over dollars it is people over special interests and we have got to take back our government and our democracy to make sure that the people of every district but especially the people of district thirty four feel heard and they feel people over politics to always put people over flesh will interests it is so important it is so important to understand that we as people are more powerful we are the political currency of this time it is not dollars it is us and the time is right now to not only reclaim our government but to hold our leaders accountable for betraying our trust and make sure that our needs are met and so i am fighting for things like the fully funding of our public schools like women's issues like health care for all because these are basic things that we could have already had if we didn't have leaders who put themselves first over the people of all of these districts and so what i'm committing to is making sure that not only am i a democrat my dad's parkinson's medication costs fourteen hundred dollars i lost my uncle to gun violen am a sexual abuse survivor these experiences made me feel small like i didn't have a voice but now i know it's more dangerous to stay quiet and it is to stand up and new york should be a place where we can all thrive but it's not we've had years of corrupt representation years of blocked school funding sexual assault allegations gerrymandering years of back deals getting in the way of our government working for us not