A North Brooklyn state lawmaker with eight terms under his belt joins Brooklyn Paper Radio today to explain why voters should send him back to Albany for another two years instead of the democratic socialist running a grass-roots campaign to defeat him in this September’s Democratic primary.
Voters elected State Sen. Martin Malavé Dilan — a one-time ally of his party’s deceased, and disgraced, former boss Vito Lopez — to represent Brooklyn’s 18th District, which includes parts of Bushwick, Williamsburg, Greenpoint, Cypress Hills, East New York, Bedford-Stuyvesant, and Brownsville, in 2002, following his near decade as a Councilman representing locals from many of those neighborhoods.
The long-serving blue legislator recently took his even-bluer primary challenger, Julia Salazar, to court, contending she has not lived in New York State long enough to legally run for office, but a Supreme Court judge ruled against him last week — a verdict he reportedly intends to appeal.
“We’re moving forward and we expect at the next level we’ll be successful,” Dilan told the New York Daily News following the judge’s Aug. 10 decision.
And Salazar isn’t the incumbent’s first challenger from his party’s so-called progressive wing — in 2014 and 2016, Williamsburg activist Debbie Medina ran primary campaigns against Dilan, but failed to unseat him in both attempts.
Dilan, a self-proclaimed tenants’ rights advocate who has pushed for lower speed limits on city streets and improved G-train service during his Senate career, joins co-hosts Vince DiMiceli and Anthony Rotunno live at 2:30 pm, so tune in — and don’t forget to call in at (718) 260–TEAZ (or 8329) with your own questions for the pol.
Brooklyn Paper Radio is recorded and podcast live on Tuesday afternoons — for your convenience — from our studio in America’s Downtown and can be found, as always, right here on Brook