Daniel Squadron

Squadron served as a consultant to New York City's Department of Education and worked as a staffer on Congressman Anthony Weiner's 2005 mayoral campaign.[6] He served as an aide to U.S. Senator Charles Schumer, helping the New York senator with his book Positively American: Winning Back the Middle-Class Majority One Family at a Time (2007).

Squadron ran for the 25th district of the New York State Senate in 2008.[13] He received the endorsements of Schumer, Congressman Anthony Weiner, Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer, and Mayor Michael Bloomberg.[14] Assisted by family friends, Schumer supporters, and an aggressive campaign strategy,[15] Squadron defeated incumbent state senator Martin Connor and took 54% of the vote.[16] On November 6, 2012, Squadron was elected to the state senate again, this time to represent the 26th district.[17] He beat his Republican opponent, J. Haro, 86% to 14%.[18] Squadron won reelection in 2014 in a landslide over Republican candidate Wave Chan; and he ran unopposed in 2016, running on both the Democratic and Working Families Party lines.

Squadron's platform included opposition to luxury development in Brooklyn Bridge Park. He negotiated a deal that reduced and delayed housing in the park, and has been credited with returning $11 million in capital funding that had been cut from the park's budget.[19][20] Squadron also secured millions for a waterfront park project on the Lower East Side at Pier 42, along with Schumer,[21] and also helped secure the future of Governors Island.[22] Squadron's proposal to link New York's wealthiest parks conservancies with under-resourced neighborhood parks[23] resulted in hundreds of millions in new funding for community parks.[24]

In 2010, Squadron sponsored the law that brought billions in federal dollars to New York City's public housing.[25] Squadron also passed legislation expanding middle class eligibility for the Mitchell-Lama Housing Program.[26]

Squadron's tenure included a noted focus on ethics and campaign finance reform.[27] He passed the law prohibiting public officers from using government resources for their own for-profit business.[28] Squadron also unsuccessfully pushed to close the "LLC Loophole," which allows nearly unlimited, often anonymous campaign contributions to flood the political process.[29]

On August 9, 2017, Squadron announced his resignation from the Senate in an opinion piece published in the Daily News.[30] He cited "heavily invested special interests" and "cynical political deals," adding: "And the status quo has proven extraordinarily durable: It barely shuddered when the leaders of both legislative chambers [Senate Majority Leader Dean Skelos and Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver] were convicted of corruption."

In the race for Public Advocate, Squadron had the endorsements of mentor Senator Chuck Schumer, and former Public Advocates Betsy Gotbaum and Mark Green.[31] Squadron placed second in the primary and advanced to an October 2013 runoff primary,[31][32] which he lost to Letitia James, by 59% to 41%.[33]

In August 2017, Squadron announced he would be working with entrepreneur Adam Pritzker and Jeffrey Sachs of Columbia University on a national initiative focused on "stronger candidates, a sharpened approach and better policies at the state level," emphasizing "policies focused on creating a better, healthier, fairer future."[3] In October 2017, that initiative was launched as Future Now.