Long Island City
resident announces
she’s challenging long-time
Assemblywoman Nolan in 2020
BY BILL PARRY
When state Assembly-woman
Catherine Nolan
was first sent to Albany
representing western
Queens in 1984, she was one of the
youngest woman ever elected in New
York. Thirty-five years later, as she mulls
another re-election campaign, Nolan
already has a primary challenger.
Mary Jobaida, a Bangladeshi-Amer-ican
“very happily married mother of
three,” filed to run in the 2020 NY State
Assembly race this week, citing the need
for a diverse, truly democratic election
in her district.
The Court Square resident, a self-described
progressive Democrat, de-cided
to run because Nolan has not
faced a primary challenger in more than
a decade.
“As a mother of three who has been
raising a family in this district for over 15
years, not once have I seen a true, demo-cratic
process when I’ve gone to vote for
a state assembly member from my party,”
Jobaida said. “For all that our country
does to serve as a beacon of democracy
around the world, having only one name
to choose from on a local ballot is not
what true democracy looks like. That is
why I wish to be the face of change and
true democracy in my district.”
Nolan said she would consult with
her family and supporters and announce
her own plans at an appropriate time.
“I welcome all challengers in our
beautiful free country since I have been
an independent Democrat my entire
career,” Nolan said. “I love representing
the people of the 37th Assembly District.
It is a great privilege and responsibil-ity
I take seriously every day. House
Speaker Nancy Pelosi has said, ‘know
your power.’ As an experienced woman
in politics who has worked in such a
male dominated field, I am one of the
very few women in the history of our
state who have been able to accrue
seniority in the legislature.”
Nolan was appointed deputy speaker
last year after serving as chair of the
36 MAY 2019 I LIC COURIER I www.qns.com
Education Committee from 2006 to
2018.
Jobaida believes she could make a
difference in Albany fighting for univer-sal
healthcare, public financing for state
elections, eliminating partisan gerryman-dering,
enacting term limits for state
assembly members and combating the
excessive influence of the real estate
and fossil fuel industries in New York
as her campaign’s top priorities.
“If I win, I will push to place term limits
on my very own tenure, because no
one should hold a single seat in office
for more than a decade,” she said add-ing
that her dream is to create a more
inclusive electorate that reflects the
entire diversity of downstate New York.
The outreach specialist at Urban
Health Plan also firmly believes that the
city’s booming wealth gap and homeless
population requires more action from Al-bany,
and intends to work with members
of both state legislative chambers to pass
bill that address these and other issues
of inequity, such as paid family leave.
Jobaida disagreed with Nolan’s
staunch support of Amazon’s plan to
build its HQ2 campus in Long Island
City while promising to create more
than 25,000 jobs.
“I don’t believe Amazon would have
been a good corporate neighbor that it
pitched itself to be, and that its history
of abusive labor practices and working
with ICE should have already painted
that picture,” Jobaida said. “I also believe
Amazon deceived the public in believing
that the jobs they were promising would
have gone to unemployed or underem-ployed
NYC residents, whose hopes they
were exploiting so that they could build
here and hire tech-sector employees
from anywhere in the country.”
Nolan said she will continue to work
on labor, education, environmental, vet-erans,
economic development, infra-structure,
and many other family issues
both in Albany and in western Queens.
“The primary in 2020 is a long time
away and it will be up to the residents of
the 37AD to decide who will represent
them,” she said.
Feature
Courtesy of Jobaida's campaign
Court Square resident Mary Jobaida files to
challenge Assemblywoman Catherine Nolan
in the 2020 primary.
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