Ben Jackson declares candidacy for 81st AD leader

A week after Abigail Martin, a Unity Democratic Club member, announced her re-election campaign for the 81st Assembly District, another person has thrown their hat in the ring, this time for the position of male democratic district leader.

Ben Jackson, a longtime Democratic Party volunteer and attorney announced his candidacy in a press release.

“I’m running for Democratic District Leader because we need to do more than just talk, Tweet, or post on Instagram about engaging voters,” Jackson stated Dec. 8. “Some people talk about increasing voter turnout, but I’ve actually done it – on a national scale.”

The press release states that Jackson ran the Democratic Party’s nationwide system of voter assistance and voter protection hotlines in 2016, served on the party’s national voter protection team in 2020 and has helped more than 70,000 people across the nation protect and exercise their right to vote.

Jackson, a committee member of the Benjamin Franklin Reform Democratic Club, is a Riverdale resident and a graduate of Harvard Law School. He works as a lawyer working on the behalf of unions, pension funds and retirement systems to hold large corporations and corporate executives accountable when fraud and misconduct puts people’s retirement savings at risk, his press release states.

Cohen Milstein Sellers & Toll, the firm for which he works, is committed to fighting corporate wrongdoing and has targeted several lawsuits at former president Donald Trump both during and after his presidency, he said.

“I’m also running for Democratic District Leader because I want to build a more inclusive Democratic Party — one that is welcoming to both moderates and progressives, and one that is focused on the future, and not the petty fights of the past,” Jackson stated. “At this critical moment, we need to engage every last Democrat in our District to fight back against the Republican Party’s radical right-wing agenda.”

Espaillat helps launch ‘public school caucus’

Elected officials announced the re-launch of the Public School Caucus, a bipartisan congressional caucus with the goal of elevating practices in public school settings to better serve children across the country.

The officials responsible for the re-launching are U.S. Reps. Adriano Espaillat and Mariannette Miller-Meeks and twelve of their colleagues.

“STEM is the future, and it’s critical that all children, especially those in underserved communities, have access to the best our country has to offer,” caucus co-chair Espaillat stated Dec. 11. “Working together across party lines, the Public Schools Caucus aims to ensure our hard-working and dedicated teachers can share invaluable insight on educational success to ensure today’s youth are best prepared for the careers of the future.”

The initial members of the caucus, which include an equal number of Democrats and Republicans, has several New York representatives, including U.S. Reps. Ritchie Torres, Mike Lawler and Claudia Tenney.

“From reading comprehension to mathematics, education is vital for children to learn the necessary skills to grow and become productive members of society,” stated Caucus Co-chair Miller-Meeks. “However, it is increasingly apparent that every child does not have the same educational needs.

The caucus is hosting three events to showcase the leading public school education practices across the country.