Opinion: Andrea Stewart-Cousins’ state Senate has been professional and productive

Andrea Stewart-Cousins is one of New York’s 20 most influential politicians of the past 20 years. See the full list.

Integrity. Discipline. Pride. Achievements.

These are words often used to describe the state Senate majority since 2019. And if there is one person most responsible for the praise we received, it is state Senate Majority Leader Andrea Stewart-Cousins. Ironically, the stability she has ushered in masks the historic nature of her accomplishments. Already the longest-serving Democratic majority leader in our state’s history, Stewart-Cousins has presided over the largest Senate majorities New York has ever seen from either party.

She is also the first woman to lead a Senate conference and the first woman leader of either legislative house. Indeed, her ascension to leadership broke the glass ceiling responsible for the infamous “three men in a room” dynamic that defined our state for centuries, and laid the groundwork for our present-day circumstance in which two-thirds of the participants in leaders’ meetings are now women.

But equally important, those achievements came with substantive policy wins. Under her leadership, the past eight legislative sessions are among the most significant New Yorkers have ever seen. This was especially true during the first, furious months of lawmaking by the Democratic majority in 2019, when each week of legislating was met with thunderous applause from the rafters and tears of joy that relieved decades of frustration from New Yorkers yearning for a better life.

New Yorkers screwed over by the inaction of a divided Legislature finally received help from the government that should have been fighting for them all along. The strongest-ever tenant protections, the prescience to codify Roe v. Wade in state law before it was overturned, help for the immigrant communities who define New York, the opening of our democratic processes through measures like automatic voter registration as well as early and mail-in voting, civil rights for our LGBTQ+ neighbors and putting the justice in our criminal justice laws are but a few of the landmark laws that Stewart-Cousins made sure were enacted.

Often forgotten amid the size and certainty of her Democratic majority is the sea change it represents from years prior, under both parties’ leadership. It was not that long ago that our state Senate was the laughing stock of governing bodies across the nation, most infamously depicted by actual clowns on the front pages of our news outlets. Legislators being escorted out in handcuffs was a regular sight, and the idea that real progress for New Yorkers would be made in the Senate chamber was as farfetched as could be. But her direction and example changed all that, hopefully forever.

There are few political figures who could have instilled the confidence in a jaded public that things could be better, but Andrea Stewart-Cousins has been the right person at the right time, and our state has undoubtedly benefited greatly. It was the honor of my life to serve as her deputy leader through this journey and I could not be prouder to not only call her my leader, but also my friend.