Adam Bojak wants to give DSA a foothold in western NY

Adam Bojak, a member of Buffalo DSA, has learned a lot in the six years since he previously ran for Assembly. Now a father of two, the attorney has taken his experience in Erie County family court, where he works as an assigned council, and his pro-bono work as a tenants rights advocate, to see if he can make a change in the state Legislature. 

“I see the effects of poverty on these working families all day, every day. I also represent children, and it's brutal to see how children are affected just because their family doesn't have the resources it needs to succeed and thrive,” Bojak told City & State. 

The topic of affordability connects candidates across the state who are trying to capitalize on the victory of Zohran Mamdani last fall. Bojak, part of the Democratic Socialists of America slate, is running in an open primary in Assembly District 149 against Navy veteran Kevin Deese and Deputy Commissioner of Highways for the Erie County Department of Public Works Karen Hoak. This area of Erie County is a Democratic stronghold, but if Bojak wins he would be the first democratic socialist representative of Western New York. 

City & State caught up with Bojak to discuss how his affordability platform differs from those of his fellow candidates and whether Buffalo is ready for their turn at a democratic socialist politician. This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

You ran unsuccessfully in 2020 – why did you decide to give it another shot now six years later?

It was definitely just the timing. I always knew back in 2020 that I wasn't going to run against an incumbent. So we announced that because it was an open seat and a bunch of people said, "Hey, this is good timing. Why don't you try this?” And so we all got together and gave it a shot. In 2020 COVID kind of ruined everything, obviously. But after that it was never going to be something where we try again every single time. I was going to pick one more spot, and this was that spot, and all the dominoes kind of fell perfectly where Sean Ryan became the mayor of Buffalo, and it left open his Senate seat, and Jon Rivera tried to run for that and left this assembly seat open. So we're throwing our hat in the ring and doing it now.

How have recent political changes in the country has influenced your policymaking and the platform that you're running on? 

It's funny, in 2020 our motto was like homes and people first, and I wouldn't say that we've changed a whole lot. We got over 30% of the vote in a three-way race back then, even though we didn't knock a single door, and that was in a Democratic primary. People were interested in that message, and now that we can actually get out there and talk to people, we're getting really, really good responses. And our motto this time is healthy, housed and affordable, so it's not terribly different, because the issues have not been solved in any meaningful way, so we're still fighting the same fights, and in many ways they've gotten worse.

If elected, what legislation would you be interested in pursuing for the people of Buffalo?

I'm really, really excited about Assembly Member Emily Gallagher's social housing bill. I would be really pushing for the REST Act from Sarahana Shrestha that would give Buffalo a much easier path to get into rent control. There's a lot of great tenant protections downstate that we don't have here in Buffalo. Rent control is one of those, as well as good cause eviction protection, and so those are things I would be looking at right away. 

My own personal cornerstone piece of legislation that I would write and introduce is to redefine corporations at the state level, so that they cannot spend money in our elections. Our race is seeing support from a dark money PAC that's funded by Draft Kings and Fanduel, dumping hundreds of thousands of dollars into the race to try to boost our opponent and take us out. We know they're not doing that out of the goodness of their heart. They think they're going to get something back for that and that's just offensive to me that they're allowed to do that. As long as the Citizens United Supreme Court decision is ruling in our elections, we have to act at the state level and get ahead of that and prevent it from happening.

Do you think Buffalo is ready for a democratic socialist in office?

Absolutely. Like I said, even without knocking a door, in 2020 we got 30% in a three way race, and that included Hamburg, which is a suburb of the city. But the west side of Buffalo, which is about 50% of this district, is the hotbed for people that are interested in this kind of politics. Back in 2021 when India Walton ran for mayor, she cleaned up here in the primary on the west side, and she did extremely well again in the general, even when she lost citywide. So people are ready for these politics. The politics were certainly not the main reason why that general election was lost in 2021. There's myriad reasons for that, but the politics were not one of them. 

The socialism was not scaring people away from that. We've knocked well over probably 20,000 doors at this point and very few people are against the policy proposals that we're talking about. We're talking about a platform that makes sense to the average working person in New York and they realize that this is the campaign that's speaking to their issues in a way that no one else is, and so I'm not too worried about that. I think Buffalo has always been a union town, one of really, really strong labor movements in history here, and I have the most union endorsements in this race as well. They're ready for what we're talking about too. So we're building a really, really exciting and lasting coalition here that I'm looking forward to working with moving forward. 

You volunteered for India Walton's Campaign in 2021. What did you learn on the campaign trail with her that you're applying for your current race?

I always say that I love India as a person. I was one of the inner team on that campaign, and so I saw a lot of things up close and personal. I'm certainly not talking out of school here, I think mistakes were made about trying to build a coalition. I think at some point there was an idea that we were much more powerful and we had more support than we did. I'm not taking anything for granted. If and when we win this primary, I'm going to be building bridges and not giving ultimatums.

Buffalo is a border town with a large ICE presence and a nearby detention center. What do you think can/should be done on the state level to address this?

It has to be the New York for All Act. We have been talking about that since day one of our campaign, and I personally have been talking about abolishing ICE for years. I'm glad the other candidates have jumped on that train, but I've been on there for a long time.

When we saw Kathy Hochul come out and put out a watered-down version of the New York for All Act that prevents some cooperation with federal agents, but not all of it. It's just not good enough. They did pass that in the state budget, which is good. If it is objectively good, it will protect people in many instances, but in all of them, we had a refugee, Nurul Amin Shah Alam, basically murdered by CBP here this past winter, and the provisions that were put in place would not have changed that. That's so we have to go further. We have to pass a New York for All Act and prevent law enforcement at all levels from any cooperation with federal agents. We are seeing the rise of fascism, and there is no way to compromise with it. There is no way to work with it and reason with it. So we have to just say, until ICE is either abolished or entirely overhauled, we cannot allow any sort of cooperation.