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Jamaal Bowman for Congress NY-16

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Jamaal Bowman for NY16

Jamaal is a middle school principal and has been a teacher and public school advocate for twenty years. He has seen firsthand how low-income families are being locked out of opportunity by a system that’s rigged for the wealthy and privileged few.
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Jamaal was born and raised in New York City and spent his early years in public housing and later in rent-controlled apartments. He didn’t have much growing up but his mother provided him all that he needed: love, a stable family, and a sense of community.
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Jamaal now lives in Yonkers with his wife and three kids. His approach to being a teacher and principal at a Bronx middle school has been grounded in service, love, and empowering each person to transform our communities. Over the past ten years, he has led community organizing efforts against standardized testing, the school-to-prison pipeline, and the corporate-driven privatization and chronic underfunding of our public schools.

Together, we are fighting for leadership that represents and serves the communities of the Bronx and Westchester.

The current representative of the district, Eliot Engel, has been in Congress for thirty years. During that time, he has voted for the war in Iraq, deregulating Wall Street, and building more prisons at a time we needed resources in the community for our children and families.

Over the past thirty years, our communities have seen the cost of housing, health care, child care, and education skyrocket, while wages are stagnating for most working families and the rich keep getting richer. It’s time for a Democrat who will fight for schools and education, not bombs and incarceration.

Less than 1% of Eliot Engel’s donations in 2018 came from small-dollar donors. While Eliot Engel takes thousands of dollars from large corporate PACs, Jamaal isn’t taking a dime of corporate PAC or lobbyist money.

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jcitybone
jcitybone

NY16 is northern Bronx, southern Westchester County. It is 48% white, 32% black, 5% Asian with 23% Hispanic. It’s D+24 so whoever wins the Dem primary will win the general. There are four primary candidates other than Bowman and Engel

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jcitybone
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humphrey
humphrey

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orlbucfan
orlbucfan

Go Jamaal!! 🙂

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Torabs
Torabs

One of the brightest lights of this cycle. Will definitely support him.

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jcitybone
jcitybone

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jcitybone
jcitybone

https://theintercept.com/2020/05/26/eliot-engel-primary-defense-industry-pro-israel/

INTRODUCING HIMSELF DURING a primary debate for a New York congressional district that covers parts of the Bronx and Westchester, left-wing insurgent Jamaal Bowman cut right to the issue that’s at the center of his challenge to Rep. Eliot Engel: reliance on campaign contributions from corporate interests and the defense industry. “He’s taken more money from weapons manufacturers than 144 Republicans in the House,” said Bowman during the debate that took place on Zoom and was aired by News 12 New York on Tuesday. “He’s completely funded by corporate PACs and big donors.”

Engel has been in Congress since 1989 and has served on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, which he currently chairs, since 2009. Throughout his tenure, he has established a reputation as one of the most hawkish Democrats in Congress, particularly with regard to Israel. His campaign is funded with major contributions from right-wing, pro-Israel groups like NORPAC, as well employee political action committees for the world’s largest weapons manufacturers and defense contractors, including Lockheed Martin, Northrup Grumman, and Raytheon. Defense PACs have contributed about $23,000 to Engel’s campaign this cycle, and more than $200,000 over the course of his career. Pro-Israel groups, meanwhile, have contributed $177,685, and more than $1.2 million throughout his three decades in Congress.

He is now facing his first competitive primary challenge since 2000, and his appearance at the Tuesday debate — which happened after Bowman challenged him to a series of debates — is a sign that he’s taking it seriously. While Engel’s campaign is by far the best funded (he’s raised more than $1.6 million to Bowman’s $540,330), Bowman has generated grassroots energy in the district and around the country, and racked up more than 40 endorsements, including from leading national progressive groups like Justice Democrats and the Sunrise Movement.

Bowman, who was a public middle school principal in the district for 10 years before resigning last December to focus on his campaign, is running on new deals for housing and education, and a platform built around “anti-poverty and anti-racist policies,” he told The Intercept last year. His platform includes support for Medicare for All, a Green New Deal, and criminal justice reforms, and his campaign is not accepting corporate PAC money.

Engel’s challengers are also narrowing in on his absenteeism from the district throughout his decades in Congress. “I ask voters about our current Representative, Eliot Engel, and I hear one word: Absent,” said Bowman in a press release accompanying a new ad this week, pointing specifically to Engel’s absence from New York amid the coronavirus pandemic. “This is the worst crisis since the Great Depression and people don’t know where their Congressman is. After 31 years of the same, it’s time for a change.”

It’s an issue that hurt former Rep. Joe Crowley, who represented a neighboring New York district but lived outside Washington, D.C., and was unseated by Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez in 2018.

“The congressman hasn’t set foot in the district since the pandemic hit,” said Waleed Shahid of Justice Democrats. “A big complaint about Crowley in 2018 was that he also didn’t live in the district. That’s something that voters care a lot about.”

The incumbent, seemingly realizing that his absence during the pandemic could be a liability ahead of the June 23 election, lied about it to The Atlantic, claiming falsely that he had been splitting his time between New York and his home in suburban Maryland

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