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ISSUES

Working people – our sweat, labor, and love – make our district what it is. Lower Manhattan is home to a proud tradition of workers and families fighting for a better life, and we deserve an Assemblymember who shares our values and will stand up for us.

As our Assemblymember, Illapa will remain rooted in our communities, refuse special interest donations, and stand up for a democratic socialist vision for our state. And he’ll always fight to make sure the wealthy pay their fair share so we can invest in what our communities need. Here’s Illapa’s plan to bring down costs and deliver for working people:

Making Homes Affordable

A safe, dignified home is the foundation of a stable life. As a local tenant organizer, Illapa has organized with renters to build tenant associations, pressure negligent landlords to deliver necessary repairs, and pass tenants’ rights legislation. Illapa has also worked with the This Land is Ours Community Land Trust to create and preserve community land trusts in Lower Manhattan.

For decades, private developers, big landlords, and the politicians they purchase have decided what housing gets built and who can afford it. It’s time for New Yorkers to take back control of our homes. 

In the State Assembly, Illapa will fight to:
  • Expand the supply of affordable housing statewide, invest in green homes, and create a real competitor to private developers by establishing a Social Housing Development Authority (S5674/A6265).
  • Expand rent stabilization access for communities statewide through the REST Act (S4659D/A4877).
  • Deliver necessary repairs and capital investments for NYCHA residents, working alongside Tenant Association Presidents to fix and escalate issues.
  • Enact the Housing Access Voucher Program to keep neighbors housed and prevent homelessness.
  • Eliminate sneaky loopholes in the Good Cause Eviction law by bringing down the maximum allowed rent increase, and undo the governor’s shameful loosening of rent increases allowed under the Housing Stability and Tenant Protection Act of 2024.
  • Legalize basement apartments and bring them up to code.
  • Outlaw skirting rent-stabilization by making minor changes to an apartment.
  • Give tenants the opportunity to purchase their apartments by passing the Tenant Opportunity to Purchase Act (S401/A6100).
  • Fully fund and expand Right to Counsel for tenants.
  • Eliminate single-family zoning and other restrictive policies, such as parking requirements, to enable more construction of housing statewide.

Protecting Immigrant Neighbors

As the child of immigrants and a leader in local efforts to defend our communities from ICE, Illapa has been steadfast against Trump’s fascist and cruel anti-immigrant policies, bringing neighbors together to keep each other safe. He has led Know Your Rights trainings, grown local rapid response networks, and provided schools with the tools to protect our neighbors from the federal government. Solidarity melts ICE—and our state must step up.

Illapa will work in the State Assembly and in our district to prevent ICE from separating our immigrant neighbors from their families, livelihoods, and communities. He will:
  • Solidify protections against local and state law enforcement collaboration with ICE by passing the New York for All Act (S2235A/A3506).
  • Ensure immigrant New Yorkers have access to vital public programs from which the federal government often excludes them.
  • Make his in-district office a hub for resources, organizing, and support to immigrant New Yorkers facing ICE detention and their families, and everyday New Yorkers organizing to defend their neighbors.
  • Only support candidates for federal office committed to the full abolition of ICE.

Building A Green Future

Illapa helped pass the 2023 Build Public Renewables Act to help NY meet its climate targets, lower costs for New Yorkers, and build a greener future for New York by creating publicly owned renewable energy. Illapa knows that big corporations only care about profits, to the detriment of our environment, safety, and well-being, raising costs, harming our health, and endangering our future.

While the Governor sides with these big corporations, Illapa will stand up for our community’s future by fighting to:
  • Build Public Renewables: Due to electricity deregulation policies from the late 1990s, the vast majority of monopoly utility assets are wires, poles, and substations—not electricity-producing facilities such as wind farms or power plants. But public sector power providers can fill that production gap. As such, Illapa proposes expanding the Build Public Renewables Law won by NYC-DSA in 2023, with a bill to mandate the New York Power Authority to develop, operate, and own the majority stake in 15 gigawatts of renewable energy generation resources by 2030. This would ensure New York achieves its climate goals, create tens of thousands of union jobs, and help lower New Yorkers’ bills by adding new affordable energy supply.
  • Make Our Schools Green: Illapa will work with Mayor Mamdani to secure full funding for the decarbonization and retrofitting of NYC public schools to provide children with safe and healthy learning spaces. Greening our schools will help reduce NYC’s overall building emissions, expand green space in disadvantaged communities, and create good union jobs. We can support this work by raising state funds for the Green Schools plan and by directly building public renewables on school properties. Funds could be drawn from a Carbon Free and Healthy Schools bond, Cap-and-Invest, Tax the Rich, or other state revenue sources.
  • Take Over ConEd: As New Yorkers struggle to pay ever-rising utility bills, investor-owned utilities like ConEd make record profits. We must transform ConEd into a public utility. Illapa will support measures to reform energy utilities and move toward a public takeover, including but not limited to banning summer utility shutoffs, reforming the Public Service Commission, freezing utility rates, and expanding reimbursement requirements for blackouts. Ilapa will support long-term efforts to bring utilities under public ownership, such as the ongoing campaign to create the Hudson Valley Power Authority.
  • Freeze The Rates: Implementing a rate freeze must come as part of a public takeover of monopoly utilities. Freezing rates while preserving the monopoly utility system would simply use public funds to compensate the corporations that have exploited New Yorkers for decades and created this energy reliability and affordability crisis.
  • Build A Resilient 65th: We must do more to keep New Yorkers, and Lower Manhattan residents in particular, safe from climate dangers, particularly flooding. Illapa will work tirelessly to deliver the state funding necessary to build resilient infrastructure that will adapt our flood-prone neighborhoods to withstand the effects of the worsening climate crisis.

Strengthening Public Schools

Our city’s future is shaped by our public schools. Public education should be accessible and excellent.

In Albany, Illapa will stand up for world-class public schools by fighting to:
  • Fully fund our state’s public schools, including CUNY and SUNY, through supporting efforts to tax the rich in the state budget. Raising revenue at the state level will also make our state more resilient if the Trump administration makes real its threat to withhold funding from state and local governments.
  • Make elite private universities pay their fair share of taxes to expand funding available to our public schools and CUNY by backing the REPAIR Act (S7797/A8478, S7798/A8479)
  • Restore a tuition-free model for CUNY, offering quality education to every New Yorker regardless of their ability to pay.
  • Secure a signified retirement for educators by supporting efforts to fully restore Tiers 5 and 6 to have parity with Tier 4.
  • Support Comprehensive Sex Education legislation (S6901A/A7496A), which ensures age-appropriate, inclusive sex education statewide that reflects national standards.
  • Stop wasting funding on technology that simply does not work and does not support student learning.
  • Institute guardrails on AI in the classroom.
  • Maintain the cellphone ban in public schools.
  • Make early childhood education universal citywide while paying educators fairly and providing our youngest with age-appropriate activities.

Standing Proud for LGBTQ Rights

A proud gay person, Illapa has consistently fought for his LGBTQ siblings as a social worker and tenant organizer. Growing up in small New York towns, it was hard for him to live authentically. All of that changed when Illapa moved to Lower Manhattan. His lived experiences inform his love of the district and his belief that a safe, dignified, and good life can be possible for every LGBTQ person across New York State.

As your Assemblymember, Illapa will advocate to:
  • Protect trans youth, including defending access to gender-affirming care against attacks by the federal government.
  • Expand protections against housing discrimination against LGBTQ New Yorkers.
  • Fully fund life-saving services for LGBTQ communities and queer youth in particular.
  • Support Comprehensive Sex Education legislation (S6901A/A7496A), which ensures age-appropriate, inclusive sex education statewide that reflects national standards. This can help reduce stigma, affirm LGBTQ+ students, and promote safer, more informed school environments.
  • Sign onto the Gender Identity Respect, Dignity and Safety Act (S1049A / A5478), which ensures incarcerated transgender and gender-nonconforming individuals are treated with dignity, respected in placement, and provided gender-affirming necessities.
  • Pass “Cecilia’s Act for Rights in the Sex Trades” (S2513 / A3251), named for trans activist Cecilia Gentili, which would decriminalize sex work while maintaining protections for minors and trafficking victims.

Creating a Safer City

As a former mental health worker, Illapa knows that our state’s approach to public safety cannot be to throw police and armed officers at every circumstance. Instead, care work and wraparound services can be used to de-escalate and create safer and more whole communities.

An unjust, overly punitive, and racist criminal legal system is one of the most pressing challenges facing New York State. While establishment Democrats have regularly sought to undermine bail reform, Illapa will continue to push for decarceration and for a State government that invests heavily in addressing the root causes of crime. He opposes the targeting of communities of color within our unequal justice system. True public safety doesn’t come from surveillance and incarceration; it comes from stable communities with affordable housing, healthcare, childcare, and good union jobs. We believe we must dramatically increase resources supporting our communities by funding schools, housing, healthcare, and jobs; and shift resources away from policing, jails/prisons, and detention centers, and other agencies that separate families and destabilize communities. We believe anti-poverty work is the best anti-violence work.

In Albany, Illapa will:
  • Support Mayor Mamdani’s vision of a Department of Community Safety. The overwhelming majority of mental health responses can and should be done by trained mental healthcare workers—without police involvement.
  • Advance investments in programs to address the root causes of crime and to get police out of homeless outreach and other social service areas.
  • Advocate for the Release Aging People in Prison (RAPP) campaign, which Illapa is a long-time supporter of.
  • Strengthen the Civilian Complaint Review Board (S4354/A126) by expanding its oversight powers and authority.

Standing Up for Peace

As an anti-war activist, Illapa is committed to advancing state-level proposals to cut off funding for war, displacement, and weapons; advance the cause of peace and social justice; and defend human rights and liberties at home and abroad.

In the State Assembly, Illapa will:
  • Sign on to the Not On Our Dime! Bill (S606 / A6101), originally introduced by then-Assemblymember Zohran Mamdani, to prevent New York-based nonprofits from funnelling money to illegal Israeli settlements.
  • Oppose efforts to crack down on freedom of speech and assembly.
  • Support Boycott, Divestment, & Sanctions on Israel.
  • Stand up for peace and against forever wars, while publicly pushing federal counterparts to do the same.

Improving Transit & Street Safety

Illapa believes that our focus must be on dramatically changing our public spaces and systems to prioritize safety, accessibility, and sustainable modes over car culture. We’ve seen cities like Paris transform overnight, and New York State should be funding similar measures. New York must mandate funding for street redesign, mass transit, accessibility, and active transport over funding car dependency. We must reshape our environment to prioritize livability, safety, and sustainability.

As your Assemblymember, Illapa will:
  • Support Mayor Mamdani’s agenda for fast and free buses by championing full funding in Albany and pushing for more regular bus network redesign efforts.
  • Work to ensure MTA funding is protected from budgetary tricks and cutbacks, and give the MTA more flexibility with its debt obligations so the agency can expand its services at the rate that our state needs.
  • Fix Canal Street and support street improvements in our district.
  • Push for expanded investments in modernized subway technology.
  • Protect the dignity of transit workers by working to fully restore pension Tiers 5 and 6 to parity with Tier 4.
  • Oppose the introduction of autonomous vehicles for-hire in New York City. Autonomous vehicles for-hire are not just taking jobs from taxi workers — who are statistically safer than the average driver — they are inferior services that would introduce more congestion to our streets when we should be continuing to reduce congestion.

Delivering Universal Healthcare

As a former social worker, Illapa understands the necessity of accessible healthcare of all kinds for everyday, working-class New Yorkers. Our state has an obligation to provide high-quality healthcare to every New Yorker, regardless of their employment, citizenship status, pre-existing conditions, or ability to pay.

In Albany, Illapa will:
  • Champion the New York Health Act (S3425/A1466), which would provide comprehensive healthcare that is free at the point of service for NYS residents and retirees. This would help to bring down drug prices, reduce health disparities, and eliminate funding inequities between private and public hospitals.
  • Strengthen safe staffing ratios to ensure high-quality patient care and the safety and dignity of workers .
  • Advocate to keep public hospitals open and well-funded.
  • Support requiring fair pay and working conditions for care workers through the Fair Pay for Home Care Act (S8955/A1991).
  • Fight to fully abolish medical debt.
  • Stand up for trans healthcare access and patient privacy.