Photo: Brian Kavanagh at an event in Seward Park in 2020.
State Senator Brian Kavanagh has announced he won’t be running for re-election. He’s represented the 27th Senate District, including the Lower East Side and most of Lower Manhattan, since 2017 and previously served in the State Assembly for about a decade.
In a statement posted February 3, Kavanagh wrote, “I believe that all of us in elected office owe it to our constituents to recognize when we have reached a point when we have given it our all and they would be well served by electing someone new.” He’s not retiring, but looking for the next challenge after 20 years of public service in Albany. “I am confident,” said Kavanagh, “that there will be new, exciting, and impactful ways to continue serving the public, and I look forward to exploring what I might do after I have completed my term in eleven months.”
Kavanagh was chair of the Senate Housing Committee and was at the center of several key legislative battles during the past few years, including passage of the 2019 Housing Stability and Tenant Protection Act. You can read the senator’s full statement here.
Kavanagh will serve out is full term, which ends at the end of this year. Lower Manhattan Assemblymember Grace Lee and former Assemblymember Yuh-Line Niou have announced they’re running to succeed Kavanagh. For more coverage of Kavanagh’s decision, check out these stories in City & State and Tribeca Trib.
