POLITICS
East Side Council Hopeful An Unwavering Progressive
Chris Sosa, former journalist, Virginia native, eyes Ben Kallos seat opening up in 2021
BY MATT TRACY
Chris Sosa, an out gay
City Council candidate
hoping to replace termlimited
lawmaker Ben
Kallos in Manhattan’s East Side
District 5, grew up far from the
bright lights and hustle bustle of
the district he hopes to represent
next year.
The 2021 City Council hopeful
came of age in a small town near
Fredericksburg, Virginia, where he
was homeschooled by his mother
while his father juggled a construction
job and attended college
in the evenings until he became an
accountant.
Sosa, meanwhile, set his sights
on becoming a journalist. Starting
at a community college, he later
transferred to Boston’s Northeastern
University. He kicked off a
journalism career that featured
gigs with multiple publications,
but as he continued to watch the
political landscape unfold he came
to the realization that journalism
was not necessarily the path he
wanted to pursue after all.
“I found it hard for me to accept
the role of being a bystander,” Sosa
said during an interview with Gay
City News. “I was concerned about
a lot of the negative trends and
forces happening throughout the
country, and through that I became
more of a commentator.”
To that end, Sosa shifted to the
non-profi t sphere and subsequently
landed a job working in the New
York State Legislature, where he
fi rst worked as
a communications director
within the Democratic Caucus under
the late State Senator José Peralta
of Queens followed by Senator
Luis Sepúlveda of the Bronx. He
was part of the team that steered
the New York State DREAM Act —
which offers state-funded fi nancial
aid and scholarships for DREAMers
— to passage and worked on
a range of other issues, including
bail reform and efforts to curtail
solitary confi nement.
“I found the experience very rewarding
and moving, and it became
Cris Sosa believes his work experience in the State Legislature and his uncompromising progressive
values can help set him apart from the competition in his Manhattan City Council race.
increasingly clear to me the
best way I could serve was to run
for offi ce myself,” Sosa explained.
Sosa, hoping to represent the
people of Yorkville, Lenox Hill,
Carnegie Hill, Roosevelt Island,
Midtown East, Sutton Place, and
El Barrio in East Harlem, has already
picked a lane: He’s positioning
himself on the left as a progressive
candidate entering the
2021 election, stressing issues like
the importance of police accountability,
the full decriminalization
of sex work, and the rejection of
campaign cash from police unions,
real estate developers, and other
contributors who wield power.
To date, Sosa has pulled in 293
donations totaling $14,990, with
111 of those contributions fl owing
in since the beginning of last
month. Of his total haul, 173 donations
have come from New York
State, 42 from his home state of
Virginia, and 49 from Massachusetts.
Sosa describes racial justice as
“the defi ning issue of our time”
BILL MOREE
and, even in the aftermath of a city
budget battle that did not translate
into the size of NYPD cuts some
advocates demanded, is adamant
that there remains an opportunity
to slash the NYPD’s massive budget
further.
“I fully reject that it cannot be
defunded,” Sosa said as he explained
that he would have voted
against the budget if he were in the
City Council this year. “This was
a temporary setback; this is not a
loss. If I’m elected, I will fi ght for
defunding.”
He added, “The people made a
demand for the NYPD to be held
accountable and for $1 billion to be
defunded from that budget. That
did not happen.”
Critics of the budget said the
claim of $1 billion in cuts was disingenuous
since at least half of
that funding was shifted to other
city agencies. And many advocates
sought cuts of up to $3 billion.
Sosa said that being straightforward
with voters is among the
most important qualifi cations for
the City Council. He implored voters
to reject any candidate who refuses
to offer clear and directs answers
on important issues.
He hopes to be a part of an incoming
City Council class that
would not just maintain LGBTQ
representation there, but expand
and diversify it. The Council’s entire
fi ve-member LGBTQ Caucus
consists of gay men, three of whom
are white. Sosa aims to become a
member of both the LGBTQ Caucus
and the Black, Latino, and
Asian Caucus, and he excitedly
acknowledged the diverse fi eld of
queer candidates running next
year during a cycle that could see
the city elect its fi rst non-binary
and fi rst transgender candidate as
well as the fi rst Black queer woman.
Sosa intends to focus on issues
that are typically viewed from both
a national and local lens. A supporter
of Medicare For All, Sosa is
well aware that the next batch of
city lawmakers will be confronted
with pivotal choices about healthcare
— especially as the coronavirus
pandemic continues to impact
the nation. He is thinking outside
the box about ways in which city
lawmakers can at least push Medicare
For All forward despite the
Council’s limited jurisdictional
reach.
“First of all, we can unilaterally
outlaw the practice of Medicare
and Medicaid refusal in hospitals,”
he said. “As it stands, there are
too many loopholes. New York City
does a better job, but better isn’t
good enough. Everyone should be
covered.”
He added, “Another issue is access
to quality healthcare. We have
the money; it’s in the wrong places.
A lot of our questions about how to
solve problems in the city are about
where our values are.”
He also tied the healthcare issue
to LGBTQ community concerns,
saying that the city must allocate
more resources toward both preventative
care, such as access to
PrEP, and mental healthcare in
➤ CHRIS SOSA, continued on p.15
August 27 - September 9,14 2020 | GayCityNews.com
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