Assemblymember Jo Anne Simon to Jump into Jam-Packed Race to Represent Boro Park’s 10th District

By Yehudit Garmaise

Assemblymember Jo Anne Simon (D-52) will join the jam-packed Aug. 23 Democratic primary to represent Boro Park’s 10th congressional district in the US House of Representatives, she told the NY Daily News on Wednesday.

If elected to Congress in the Nov. 8 election, Assemblymember Simon said that she would focus on legislation to “preserve democracy,” expand gun control and protect reproductive rights.

“We are creeping not so slowly toward fascism,” said Assemblymember Jo Anne Simon, who has served in the New York State Assembly since 2014, after serving as a district leader. “That is what’s happening in this country. I have a very strong background in civil rights, and I have a strong record in Albany, so I am ready for that fight.”

Simon, who has started to collect the 1,062 petition signatures that are required to appear on the ballot, says that she holds an advantage in the crowded field because her current Assembly district overlaps with parts of District 10.

After the Upper West Side home of US Rep. Jerry Nadler (D-10), who has represented Boro Park in the House of Representatives since 2013, was redistricted to stand in District 12, New York politicians have been scrambling to throw their hats in the race for 10th district congressional seat.

Other candidates who have announced their 10th District runs are: former Mayor Bill de Blasio, US Rep. Mondaire Jones (D-17), former US Rep. Liz Holtzman (D-16), Assemblymember Yuh-Line Niou (D-65), Dan Goldman, who is a former federal prosecutor, and City Councilwoman Carlina Rivera (D-2).

A fun fact about Councilwoman Rivera, who represents the Lower East Side, is that before Pesach every year, she buys the chametz of the Sixth Street Shul in the East Village of Manhattan.