I was elected a District Leader in New York’s 69th Assembly District in 1977, my first electoral victory, and a rare tenured faculty member in office. I also was New York’s first openly gay elected official. This is what I did as a local party boss to make life a little easier for our constituents.
The 69th was a rambling district, running from West 97th Street down to 78th. The district had about 40,000 people, and was incredibly diverse: about 40% of the district was Jewish and about 40% was Black and Latinx. Many students, artists, writers, performing artists and other intellectuals lived in the rent-regulated housing and a very large number of them were gay.