In her campaign for the New York State Assembly, Jeannette Garcia is running on a platform that focuses on the plight of “ordinary working families and their struggles to make ends meet.” She says candidates for public office need to show their commitment to improving the lives of everyday people. An experienced labor law attorney, labor organizer, and immigrant advocate, Garcia,38, says she has always been on the side of working people, understands their needs, and is eager to represent them in Albany.
She says that as a Yonkers homeowner and the owner of a three-family rental building, she understands the impact of rising property taxes that threaten to make buying a home out of reach for too many people in our city. She knows what it’s like to worry about paying the bills.
Garcia is running in the 90th Assembly District, facing off against the Democratic Party’s endorsed candidate – Frank Jereis. See his profile here.
Garcia: Opponent has Little Life Experience
According to Garcia, Jereis — who is 25 – has had little life experience and is not in tune to what it’s like to be working-class and live paycheck to paycheck. She notes that he lives in a house with his parents in northeast Yonkers with an in-ground swimming pool and tennis court in his backyard and that he went to private schools. According to Garcia, “[h]e doesn’t have the life experience, working experience or know how to build power from the ground up. He may say he’s from Yonkers but hasn’t lived the reality of [most people in] Yonkers.”
Garcia’s Opponent has Fundraising Advantage
Garcia faces a considerable fundraising disadvantage. According to the most recent financial disclosures, Garcia has raised about $23,000, exclusively in small individual donations. She therefore qualified for $77,800 in matching public funds. This compares with Jereis’s $120,000 in campaign contributions, qualifying him for up to an additional $175,000. Although Garcia has a long track record of working for unions, she received no union campaign contributions. Support from major unions has gone to Jereis…