The Progressive Caucus is united by a set of progressive principles that our members agree to when they join the Caucus. Read the principles that guide our work.
A Fair Budget
A fair budget that incorporates a more transparent, inclusive and participatory budget process to provide strong core City services, prioritizes support for the most marginalized, protects funding for public schools, and utilizes progressive revenue streams, including advocacy and approval for progressive tax increases when necessary to meet these goals at the City, State, and Federal levels.
Economic policy
Economic policy focused on the creation and preservation of jobs that provide life sustaining wages with adequate benefits, leave, and security to support a family, that enhances rates of unionization, that aims to nurture a diverse economy, and that generates affirmative opportunities to those who have been left out, including individuals with barriers to employment and minority and women-owned business enterprises.
Truly Affordable Housing
Creating and preserving safe, habitable, truly affordable housing for all New Yorkers — with a particular emphasis on low-income, very-low income, and homeless households — through a strong commitment to protecting rent regulations, preserving existing subsidized housing, improving conditions in Public Housing, crafting pathways to homeownership for BIPOC and low income New Yorkers, and creating permanent, deeply affordable housing.
Word Class Public Education
High-quality, public education from early childhood education to higher education that prioritizes desegregation and reducing class sizes, as well as universal free or low-cost early childhood development (ages 0 – 5) and universal after school programs, which should enable all kids to succeed and aim to eliminate the achievement gap. All of these should include academic, athletic, and culturally competent programs that focus on human development rather than punishment or criminalization. The goal is not just for every New Yorker to graduate from a high quality high school, but to thrive in a public post-secondary educational setting that advances their career goals and economic opportunity.
Sustainability and Environmental Justice
A more sustainable and environmentally just city that leads in the fight against climate change and embeds climate solutions in all policymaking. By comprehensively driving down emissions from our greatest sources – buildings, transportation, and waste – and investing in resilient waterfronts and neighborhoods, we will do everything we can to protect and preserve New York’s neighborhoods and our environment for generations to come, improving the health of current residents, mitigating the evolving effects of the climate crisis (especially as it disproportionately impacts vulnerable BIPOC communities), ensuring a well resourced and reliable public transportation system and network of protected bike lanes, achieving a Zero Waste future, and more.
Holistic Community Safety
A holistic, multi-strategy approach to community safety that ensures true safety and justice. By enacting policies that build a robust public health infrastructure to provide New Yorkers with mental health support, stable housing, violence prevention teams and tools, training and employment, and harm reduction for drug use, we will do everything we can to reduce the size and scope of the NYPD and the Department of Correction, and prioritize and fund alternative safety infrastructure that truly invests in our communities.
Civil rights for all New Yorkers
Full civil rights for all New Yorkers regardless of race, gender, ethnicity, national origin, religion, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, or disability. This includes a commitment to the safety and well-being of LGBTQIA New Yorkers, but especially Black and brown trans women, reproductive rights for women and other people who can become pregnant, full municipal privileges and responsibilities regardless of immigration status or criminal record.
Government Transparency
Reform to restore confidence and participation in government, including sunlight and accountability in budgeting and contracting (including City Council awards), eliminating the culture of “pay-to-play,” providing citizens with the information they deserve, respecting the will of the voters, ensuring diversity in public institutions and strengthening the practice of local democracy in New York City.
