Episode description

As an Assemblymember, González-Rojas works to address a variety of intersectional issues facing her community, ranging from housing to healthcare. Her prior experience as a reproductive justice advocate has trained her well for intersectional lawmaking, which is often siloed by the political process. This approach serves the people most marginalized and helps create dynamic bills that tackle multiple areas of injustice to help constituents.

Excluded workers are not protected by many of the labor laws that govern most sectors, which include undocumented, part-time, and contract workers. They perform critical duties in our economy and have little recourse against various forms of exploitation and discrimination. During the COVID pandemic, excluded workers were labeled ‘essential’, and should be protected because they protect us and our economic system.

New York City has publicly subsidized elections, but New York State and most of the rest of the country do not. An easy way to help democracy is to pass sweeping campaign finance reform to level the playing field and remove wealth from the equation. This allows a new crop of diverse voices and perspectives to succeed in elections, creating stronger, broader, legislation to help all Americans, not just rich ones.

Jessica González-Rojas serves in the New York State Assembly representing the 34th Assembly District, which includes the diverse Queens communities of Jackson Heights, East Elmhurst, Woodside and Corona. She is an unapologetic social justice leader fighting for the values of dignity, justice, and equity. Jessica has dedicated her life – on both the local and national level – to fight for immigrant rights, racial justice, and gender equity.

For 13 years, Jessica served in leadership at the National Latina Institute for Reproductive Justice, the only national reproductive justice organization that is dedicated to building Latina power to advance health, dignity, and justice for 29 million Latinas, their families, and communities in the United States. She has been a leader in progressive movements for over two decades. Jessica successfully forges connections between reproductive health, gender, immigration, LGBTQ liberation, labor and Latinx civil rights, breaking down barriers between movements and building a strong Latina grassroots presence.

Jessica is a long-time leader in community and electoral politics. Prior to running for State Assembly in 2020, she was elected to the New York State Committee from 2002-2006. She has received proclamations from the New York State Senate, New York State Assembly, New York City Comptroller and New York City Council for her local and national advocacy.

You can follow her on Twitter @votejgr.