‘People are counting on us’: A Q&A with state Sen. Erik Bottcher

Newly minted state Sen. Erik Bottcher hit the ground running in Albany on Wednesday, taking his oath of office to represent Manhattan’s West Side hours after winning a special election to fill a seat previously held by Manhattan Borough President Brad Hoylman-Sigal. 

Bottcher’s victory with 92% of the vote Tuesday night against Republican Charlotte Friedman will trigger a special election this spring to fill his now-vacant seat on the New York City Council.

Bottcher, a North Country native, served on the council for four years after working 17 years as a council staffer. He plans to seek election in November to a full two-year term. 

Senate Majority Leader Andrea-Stewart Cousins welcomed him to the Senate majority Wednesday with remarks on the floor.

“He comes to the chamber with a lifetime of public service shaped by lived experience, resilience and unwavering commitment to inclusion,” Stewart-Cousins said.

Bottcher, a member of the LGBTQ+ community and survivor of a teenage suicide attempt, wants to concentrate his legislative work on countering federal cuts, President Donald Trump’s agenda and improving mental health care across the state.

Bottcher spoke with City & State during his first hours in Albany and about his legislative priorities this session and in the future. This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

Congratulations on your election to the state Senate. How does it feel?

It's incredibly exciting and surreal. I’m originally from Lake Placid, New York – and I used to come to Albany as a child, and I was awestruck by the architecture and the scale of the city. Albany was the big city for us growing up. And I never in a million years thought that one day I'd be coming here as a state senator.

What are some of your legislative priorities now that you're officially a state senator?

Job No. 1 is fighting back against the assaults from the federal government. It's shameful what they're doing with respect to slashing critical funding to our states – funding cuts that will fall hardest on working families who are already hurting. We've got to fight back against that. New Yorkers are counting on us to do that. We have to fight back against the assaults from ICE against immigrant New Yorkers, attacks against transgender New Yorkers and women's reproductive rights. State governments are the tip of the spear, and people are counting on us right now more than ever.

One of my top priorities is also to address the mental health crisis. As a City Council member, I worked hard to build up the continuum of mental health care in New York City. It's shameful that we have people dying on the streets for untreated mental illness in the richest city and the richest country in the world. We can do so much better, and we need to do so much better. State government plays a critical role in that. I'm a survivor of suicide attempts. When I was 15 years old, I spent a month in a mental health hospital called Four Winds, and that treatment is why I'm alive today and why I'm here as a New York State senator. Unfortunately, that treatment is unavailable to most Americans, and that's just wrong.

Why do you feel like Albany is the better place to fight for these issues as opposed to the congressional seat you were originally going for?

State government is front and center right now in a fight against the MAGA movement.  Congress is critical, but so is state government, and this is an opportunity for me to serve immediately.

Did Micah Lasher or his allies encourage you to run for Senate instead to help him in the race for NY-12?

They actually didn’t. It was – they actually didn’t.

As a gay man representing the largest LGBTQ+ population in the state, will fighting for that community be a focus of yours in the Senate, and how?

It absolutely will. The LGBTQ community, we as a community, have had our tremendous advances during my lifetime, but everything that we've won is in danger of being lost. The MAGA right would take away all our rights if they had the opportunity, and we can't let up for a second. Transgender Americans are getting the worst of it from the federal government. They're erasing their very existence from all government, federal government documents. We need to ensure that transgender people know that they'll be safe here in New York, and then they'll have full rights and protections here in New York.

Sometimes people say that New York has stronger laws to protect the LGBTQ+ community than many other states. How do you take those protections even farther?

It's a common misconception that New York is completely shielded from right-wing hate and bigotry. But it wasn't long ago that right-wing extremists invaded my home and office in response to my support of drag story hour in Chelsea, New York. They stormed the library that was hosting a drag story hour. And when I went to the library to defend the families who are simply trying to take their kids to read, I was targeted by right-wing supporters. They came to my office and vandalized the hallways of my office. They came to my home. Two of them were arrested for entering my apartment building. A third was arrested for assaulting one of my neighbors. But we didn't back down. We stood strong, we fought back and that's what we're going to continue doing.

When he was a senator, Brad Hoylman-Sigal was known for being somewhat of a heroic bill drafter. Was there anything of his that was outstanding that you are looking forward to picking up and prioritizing, or maybe of yours you're planning to introduce separately?

One bill I passed at the City Council was legislation requiring gun stores to display graphic images on the walls of their stores that highlight the dangers of gun ownership, the public health risks of gun ownership. I want to pass that statewide so that every gun store in New York state has public health messaging on the wall that illustrates with a graphic photo, like cigarette packs in European countries. Those images about the dangers of gun ownership that will save lives.

My father didn't have a gun in the home when I was growing up. He does now, but he didn't then. If you had a gun in the home when I was an adolescent, there's no doubt in my mind that I would have shot myself with that gun. That is why we need to do more to educate people on the dangers of having a gun in the home. Guns are exponentially more likely to kill or injure members of the household than they are to be used in self-defense. People need to be educated about that.

One of the main issues Hoylman-Sigal focused on during his time in the Senate was passing the Child Victims Act to get justice for survivors of childhood sexual abuse. There's a bill he carried last session to fix a loophole in the law that's impacted survivors' cases after a Court of Appeals ruling last year. Is that something you plan to pick back up?

I'm very open to that, and I look forward to reviewing it. That's one of the first bills I look forward to reviewing now that I've arrived here.