Ridgewood union organizer, artist and democratic socialist Claire Valdez has become the third woman to launch a campaign to unseat Assemblyman Juan Ardila, whose first term in Albany has been mired by sexual abuse allegations.
Valdez announced her candidacy on Aug. 30 for New York Assembly District 37, to represent the western Queens neighborhoods of Long Island City, Sunnyside, Woodside, Ridgewood and Maspeth which is home to Ardila, who has dodged calls to step down after being accused of sexual assault by two women in March. Ardila has denied the allegations of inappropriately touching one woman on a couch while she was intoxicated at a Fordham University party in November 2015 party and forcing himself on another woman in the bathroom that same night.
