Track Record

Protecting workers

Working together with labor unions and workers organizations, Brad has led successful fights to win groundbreaking laws that protect freelancers from wage theft, give fast-food workers a fair work week and protections from unfair firings, ban discriminatory credit checks for employment, and guarantee Uber and Lyft drivers earn a living wage. Click here for more =>>

• Working with fast-food workers, SEIU 32BJ, and the Fight for $15 movement, Brad passed legislation to win fair work week for fast-food and retail workers, previously subject to abusive scheduling practices, so they receive two weeks advance notice to their schedules and a pathway to a full-time job if they want it.
• Together with fast food workers he won just cause protections to put a stop to arbitrary firings and give workers job stability.
• Brad won the first law in the country to guarantee a living wage for Uber, Lyft and other for-hire drivers, Organizing together with the New York Taxi Workers Alliance and the Independent Drivers Guild, he raised driver pay by an average of $5000 per year, putting more than $500 million in the pockets of drivers rather than Uber and Lyft’s bank accounts.
• In partnership with the Freelancers Union, Brad created the innovative “Freelance Isn’t Free Act” to give groundbreaking protections to freelancers/independent contractors to ensure they are paid on time and in full. Hundreds of freelancers have recovered millions of dollars they were owed.
• Brad passed legislation to ban discriminatory employment credit checks, ending the practice of companies discriminating against people because of their credit history.

Housing Rights

As both an advocate and as an elected official, Brad has fought to keep tenants in their homes and expand affordable housing across the City, leading fights against harassment and discrimination of tenants and winning aggressive inclusionary housing requirements for new construction. Click here for more =>>

• Before he was elected to the City Council, Brad led two not-for-profit, affordable housing and community development corporations, where he built over 500 units of affordable housing and created job training programs that have helped thousands more find jobs.
• Brad led the way for a decade in the advocacy to win NYC’s mandatory inclusionary housing program, first as an advocate, working with communities in Greenpoint-Williamsburg and Manhattan’s West Side, and then in the City Council, winning and improving the most aggressive inclusionary housing program in the country.
• At the Pratt Center, Brad directed the campaign demanding dramatic reforms in the 421-a tax break program. At the time, the program mostly gave massive tax breaks for 100% market-rate development. The reforms required affordable housing in covered projects (though Brad believes it is still a boondoggle for developers and should be abolished altogether).
• In the City Council, Brad worked with advocates at the Association of Neighborhood and Housing Development and Make the Road New York to create a Certificate of No Harassment program that provides the strongest protections against tenant harassment & displacement of any law in the country. Landlords who have harassed their tenants are not able to get building permits for 5 years.
• Brad was the lead sponsor of NYC’s safe & affordable basement units pilot program (aka accessory dwelling units). Working with the BASE Coalition (Basement Apartments Safe for Everyone), Chhaya CDC, and Cypress Hills LDC, they launched a program beginning in East New York to make basement apartments legal and safe, to expand the stock of affordable apartments.
• Through legislation, Brad established a NYC Commission on Human Rights program to conduct testing to identify and combat housing discrimination.

Racial Justice

Brad has been a leader in the fight for a more inclusive and equitable city. Together with Jumaane Williams and a broad coalition of police reform advocates, Brad sponsored legislation that helped end discriminatory stop-and-frisk policing. Through organizing, policy reports, and legislation, he has been a leader in the movement to integrate NYC schools. Click here for more =>>

• Working in deep partnership with the Communities United for Police Reform coalition, Brad and Jumaane Williams passed the Community Safety Act over Mayor Bloomberg’s veto, to combat stop-and-frisk and other discriminatory policing and establish the Office of the Inspector General to provide external oversight over the NYPD.
• Brad has continued to fight for police accountability and justice, as a leading proponent of the Right to Know Act and one of a few Council Members who voted against the city's FY21 budget because it did not meaningfully shift funding away from the NYPD and towards social services.
• Brad has been a consistent leader in efforts to desegregate NYC’s schools. He passed the School Diversity Accountability Act in 2014, helped lead a process to adopt a bold integration plan for the middle-schools of Brooklyn’s Community School District 15, published a report on Desegregating NYC: 12 steps toward a more inclusive city, helped to establish the Alliance for School Integration & Desegregation, and is a strong partner to the organizing led by the young people of Integrate NYC and Teens Take Charge.
• Over his time in the Council, Brad has campaigned, through both legislation and budget advocacy, to strengthen the NYC Commission on Human Rights, passing several packages of bills to strengthen how the law is enforced & interpreted.

More sustainable, resilient, and healthy NYC

Brad has led efforts to reduce environmental hazards in NYC, from the years-long fight to get rid of plastic bags to the advocacy for the retrofit regulations to meet ambitious targets for reducing fossil fuels to advocacy to reduce combined sewer outflows in the Gowanus Canal. Click here for more =>>

• Brad led a decade-long fight to ban plastic bags at the grocery store, working closely with the National Resources Defense Council, New York League of Conservation Voters, NYC Environmental Justice Alliance, and many others.
• Brad helped pass NYC’s “80 x 50” (80% fossil fuel reductions by 2050), the first major package of legislation passed under the Speakership of Melissa Mark-Viverito.
• Brad was an early supporter of NYC’s “Dirty Buildings” law (sponsored by Council Member Costa Constantinides) to require mandatory energy retrofits of buildings over 25,000 square feet with ambitious targets for 2030 and 2050.
• Brad passed a law prohibiting pharmacies from selling cigarettes, with a long-term plan to significantly reduce the overall number of stores that sell cigarettes.

Strengthening our public schools

Brad believes that public schools are critical institutions for democracy and fights hard to secure resources to make schools more equitable, integrated, and supportive places for learning. He has brought millions of dollars to improve and expand public schools in his district, won campaigns to bring air-conditioning to classrooms, and renovations to decrepit school bathrooms. Click here for more =>>

• Brad helped secure funding and development to open 3 new schools (PS 133, PS 118, PS 130/MS 839), as well as one major school expansion (PS 32) project during his time in the Council.
• Through the Council budget advocacy and participatory budgeting, Brad invested over $10 million in the public schools in his district, including new technology, renovated auditoriums and playgrounds, after-school arts, culture, technology, STEM, etc.
• Brad led the campaign that secured air-conditioning in all NYC school classrooms, shining a spotlight on the fact that 25 percent of classrooms previously did not have A/C, making it #TooHotToLearn for students.
• Brad secured $100 million in funding to renovate decrepit schools bathrooms across NYC.

Safe and livable streets

Brad is a champion for safer streets, fighting to hold reckless drivers accountable, and win new street and transit infrastructure to improve safety and efficiency. Click here for more =>>

• Working closely with safe streets advocates and families of victims of traffic violence, Brad created an innovative, data-driven program to get reckless drivers off the roads and into a restorative justice driver accountability course.
• Brad was a prominent supporter of the Prospect Park West bike lane, even as it faced backlash and lawsuits from some community members and elected officials. A bike infrastructure advocate, he was also an early supporter of the Times Square pedestrian plaza and the CitiBike program.
• Brad passed a bill requiring a citywide plan for Bus Rapid Transit, and won extensive transit improvements in his district, including bus lanes, bus arrival time clocks and more.

Good, effective, and participatory government

A believer in open, accountable, participatory government, Brad has passed some of the strongest laws in the country to make election spending more transparent, win ranked choice voting for New York City, brought a dozen agencies together to bring transparency to capital project spending, and brought participatory budgeting to NYC. Click here for more =>>

• Brad helped bring participatory budgeting to New York City, giving millions of New Yorkers, regardless of yough or immigration status, a chance to be part of the process of deciding how to invest public funds in their neighborhoods.
• Working with a dozen city agencies, Brad established a taskforce to create an online, public Capital Projects Tracker to help monitor capital spending, check in on progress for projects, and identify patterns to improve efficiency and accountability.
• Brad passed the Independent Expenditure Disclosure Act, giving NYC the most aggressive SuperPAC disclosure requirements in the country.
• As the sponsor of the City Council legislation to bring Ranked Choice Voting to NYC, Brad helped lead the successful advocacy effort across two NYC Charter Revision Commissions to transform our election system to increase participation and democracy.

Movement and community building

Brad approaches everything he does as an organizer, working with community members and fellow elected officials to build progressive political power for a more just, more equitable and more compassionate future. Click here for more =>>

• After Hurricane Sandy, Brad worked with local organizations and activists to help community members weather the storm and pick up the pieces after the devastation, building local networks of support to meet immediate needs (like food and water for people sheltering at the Park Slope Armory and John Jay High School) and building a long-term collective commitment to preparing for the next storm and confronting the climate crisis.
• Brad is one of the founders & board member of Local Progress, a national network of over 1000 progressive local elected officials in 45 states who share policy ideas and strategize together to win progressive change in their cities.
• Brad co-founded the Council’s Progressive Caucus, and helped build the foundation for its expansion and work on immigrants rights, racial justice, and workers’ rights.
• After the 2016 election, Brad helped to co-found what became Get Organized BK, bringing thousands of Brooklyn residents together to stand up to bigotry, corruption, and injustice of the Trump regime.