Cameron Koffman is nothing if not ambitious. A recent Yale graduate, Koffman is running for Assembly District 73 against incumbent Dan Quart (D-Murray Hill, Lenox Hill) at the young age of 22. If he wins, he will be taking the reins in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, the worst crisis the City has faced since 9/11.
Nevertheless, Koffman believes that he is up to the challenge, and is determined to see out this race – despite opposition from the incumbent. Earlier this month, Quart sued to remove Koffman from the ballot; the suit alleges that Koffman’s four years at Yale disqualify him from the assembly, which requires that candidates spend five continuous years as New York State residents prior to the election. Koffman intends to contest these claims on May 5.
We recently got the opportunity to interview Mr. Koffman about his bid for office. Here’s what he had to say.
NYCP: I’m curious about your upbringing. What inspired you to get into politics at such a young age?
CK: As a lifelong New Yorker, I’ve always been passionate about my neighborhood and about my city. I always followed local politics and state politics. After 2016, especially, I really figured that I wanted to do something. I wanted to make a difference; I wanted to be part of the fight.
The other major catalyst was that, in recent years, we’ve really proven that young people can make a difference politically. Whether we’re seeing Will Haskell run for state senate in Connecticut, whether we’re seeing AOC or Mayor Pete… these were all people who were considered too young to make a difference.
NYCP: I read your nine-step plan to ensure that New Yorkers can still vote during the COVID-19 pandemic. It’s admirable, but that’s only one aspect of the crisis. If elected, what would you do to quell the spread of the virus and prevent a second surge?
CK: I think that we really need to make sure that our health department… you know, we’re not underfunding anything. The Governor was going to be cutting Medicaid costs even before all of this started. I don’t think we can be in a position right now where we’re going to be cutting any sort of healthcare costs for the foreseeable future. This is so important, whether it’s creating hospital capacity or making sure we hire the right staff. Nurses, doctors, tracers – people who can trace the spread.
When this all reopens, I think the biggest barrier is that it’ll cost a lot of money. We’re already in a fiscal position that is really difficult; New York state is going to lose $13 billion in tax revenue due to the economic slowdown from the virus. I understand, obviously, that the state needs to be fiscally sound. But we also need to make sure that we’re not skimping out on the real important investments to ensure that the virus does not come back and ravage this city more.
NYCP: On your official site, you said that you support giving interest-free loans to small businesses during the crisis. On the federal level, we already have the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP). Do you believe that the PPP is insufficient to help small businesses in the City? What would you do to supplement it?
CK: I don’t think the federal program is sufficient, and I think that we have to look at the crisis at the New York City level. We were facing a retail vacancy crisis before COVID-19. We had about 13 percent of our storefronts vacant in my neighborhood, the Upper East Side, before anything happened. Now? I don’t even want to know what the retail vacancy rate is going to be when things start coming back. New York needs to have a serious conversation about what we can do, because what is our city without our small businesses?
I’m all for any policy possible to help these small business owners. I think the federal government hasn’t been doing nearly enough; if anything, I think they’ve been more focused on helping big corporations than on the mom and pop shops. And I think the mom and pop shops are what’s so special about New York.
NYCP: Overall, what makes you better equipped to handle this crisis than the incumbent, Dan Quart?
CK: Well, I’m running to represent this district full time. My opponent is a lawyer, and he’s also running for district attorney. So he’s not been giving his district his full time. In fact, right before the City shut down, he was campaigning for his DA race in other parts of Manhattan – in Chelsea, the Lower East Side and Harlem.
What this crisis has demonstrated to us is that we need full time leadership- people who want to focus on being accountable to their constituents, being responsive, being fast. We want leaders who have the energy, to have the wherewithal to help our communities. And I think I’m the only one in this race who’s really arguing that.
NYCP: In an article about Dan Quart’s lawsuit, you were quoted as saying the following: “We want young people to be more involved, more engaged.” Did you mean to imply that if the court rules in favor of Dan Quart, it could set a precedent that dissuades other young people from getting into politics?
CK: You are exactly right. The stakes of this lawsuit are not just an assembly race on the Upper East Side; it’s for tens of thousands of college students who go to school out-of-state and vote on campus. If you look at Yale students, roughly half of the student body voted on campus. They’re not some sort of special exception.
We all want young people getting involved and voting in college, but we’re saying that when they return back home, where they live, they won’t be able to run for office for at least five years. I think that that’s antithetical to our democratic mission. I think, especially, Generation Z deserves a perspective in politics, whether it’s due to our unique perspective on climate change, or our unique perspective on gun control. To say that we should keep one generation out of politics is just wrong.
