In her campaign for the New York State Assembly, Jeannette Garcia is running on a platform that focuses on the plight of “ordinary working families and their struggles to make ends meet.” She says candidates for public office need to show their commitment to improving the lives of everyday people. An experienced labor law attorney, labor organizer, and immigrant advocate, Garcia,38, says she has always been on the side of working people, understands their needs, and is eager to represent them in Albany.
She says that as a Yonkers homeowner and the owner of a three-family rental building, she understands the impact of rising property taxes that threaten to make buying a home out of reach for too many people in our city. She knows what it’s like to worry about paying the bills.
Garcia is running in the 90th Assembly District, facing off against the Democratic Party’s endorsed candidate – Frank Jereis. See his profile here.
Garcia: Opponent has Little Life Experience
According to Garcia, Jereis — who is 25 – has had little life experience and is not in tune to what it’s like to be working-class and live paycheck to paycheck. She notes that he lives in a house with his parents in northeast Yonkers with an in-ground swimming pool and tennis court in his backyard and that he went to private schools. According to Garcia, “[h]e doesn’t have the life experience, working experience or know how to build power from the ground up. He may say he’s from Yonkers but hasn’t lived the reality of [most people in] Yonkers.”
Garcia’s Opponent has Fundraising Advantage
Garcia faces a considerable fundraising disadvantage. According to the most recent financial disclosures, Garcia has raised about $23,000, exclusively in small individual donations. She therefore qualified for $77,800 in matching public funds. This compares with Jereis’s $120,000 in campaign contributions, qualifying him for up to an additional $175,000. Although Garcia has a long track record of working for unions, she received no union campaign contributions. Support from major unions has gone to Jereis.
The primary election is on June 23. In this heavily Democratic district, whoever wins will be heavily favored in the general election against the Republican candidate, John Isaac. Early voting begins June 13. The League of Women Voters is hosting a candidates’ forum between the candidates June 8.
Garcia Background — From Puerto Rico to Yonkers as an Attorney and Labor Organizer.
Garcia was born and raised in Puerto Rico to immigrant parents from the Dominican Republic. After graduating from college and law school on the island, she earned a master’s degree in Spain in immigration management and also lived in France. She is fluent in English, Spanish and French.
As a labor lawyer in San Juan, Garcia worked for the public employee union SEIU 1199, and at the same time counselled immigrants, in a program that she started, to help them integrate into life on the island.
In addition to representing union members in job-related legal matters, she worked on policy matters related to Puerto Rico’s prolonged fiscal crisis which had adversely impacted government workers. Salaries were frozen for some employees for 10 years and many received minimal healthcare benefits. She says this experience taught her that working-class people needed “a voice at the table” to help solve their problems.
When Hurricane Maria devastated the island in 2017, as part of a taskforce made up of a coalition of New York State unions, she helped coordinate medical and rebuilding missions from New York State medical professionals and construction workers to provide care and reconstruction assistance to families in remote areas of Puerto Rico.
Nurses Union Work
Based on her experience in the aftermath of Maria, in 2018 the NY State Nurses Association (NYSNA), recruited her for a position in New York as a union organizer. She was assigned to St Joseph’s and St. John’s hospitals in Yonkers. In her capacity as union representative, she was particularly proud of her role in helping nurses win pension coverage consistent with NYSNA’s high standards.
In 2024 Garcia took a job with the national office of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME), where she currently is a director working on strategic planning and development of union leadership on both the local and national levels.
Choosing Yonkers as a Home and the Fight for Communities Impacted by Redevelopment
In 2021, Garcia chose to move to Yonkers, in part, because she identified and felt at home with the people that she worked with every day. She first bought and lived in a three-family home on Woodward Avenue and later moved to Park Hill. She continues to own the Woodworth property as an investment. According to Garcia she “invested in the city, betting on its future.”
Moving to Woodworth made her aware of the negative impact that redevelopment can have on the existing community, she says. She believes that redevelopment decisions should be tied to the needs of the people living in the community. She wants to make sure that working-class families are not being priced out of their own neighborhoods.
Development of Yonkers Twin Towers Directly Impacts Candidate Garcia
Garcia’s Woodworth property was directly affected by the 2025 decision of the Yonkers Zone Board of Appeals (ZBA) approval of two 32- story apartment towers to be built close by. She worked with a coalition of 14 neighborhood associations that brought the neighborhood’s concerns about the twin towers project to the ZBA, which included questions about affordability and inadequate infrastructure to accommodate the influx of people and cars into the area.
She and others submitted a petition signed by 500 Yonkers residents seeking a moratorium on the project to allow time to address the community’s concerns. However, according to Garcia, the ZBA ignored the community when they approved the project, and now the residents of the area are under pressure to move away, and if they are property owners, to sell their homes. You can read the Ledger’s coverage of the twin towers project here.
Garcia stated that her experience with organizing opposition to the twin towers project was a motivating factor in her decision to run for the State Assembly.
Taking on the Political Establishment
Garcia says she recognizes that taking on the Yonkers Democratic Party establishment is a difficult task. Her opponent has tapped into the power of the Party to fundraise and has the support of the Party’s district and ward leaders to get the vote out. She also believes that her opponent’s endorsements, especially those made by local labor unions, do not reflect the reality of who is the true labor candidate in the race.
“The political establishment in Yonkers is used to protecting the same circle of power,” she says. “What threatens that system is a woman who knows firsthand what our communities are going through and refuses to wait her turn to fight for them.”
But Garcia isn’t alone in her pursuit of elective office. She has been endorsed by the Working Family’s Party and successfully qualified for the Democratic Primary on June 23.
Garcia’s Endorsements
As listed on her campaign website, she has also been endorsed by at least 17 labor, progressive and issue related organizations including Eleanor’s Legacy, Choice Matters, Hispanic Democrats of Westchester, and New York’s Progressive Action Network. She is also endorsed by four members of the New York State Assembly as well as former Congressman Jamal Bowman and former Yonkers City Council President Chuck Lesnick.
As part of her political network of support, Garcia is also informally aligned with two other candidates who did not receive the Yonkers Democratic Party endorsement: Leslye Oquendo-Thomas candidate for Westchester County Legislature 17th District, and, and Kisha Skipper, candidate for Westchester County Legislator in the 15th District.
If elected, she says her top issues will be affordability, schools and healthcare, redevelopment and public safety and quality of life issues.
Garcia says she will be a fresh voice in Albany and will lead the Democratic Party in a new direction that puts the people’s interests first. She is counting on voters who are ready for change to carry her to victory.
Correction: An earlier version of this article stated incorrectly that Garcia would appear on the Working Family Party (WFP) line. In fact, Garcia did not qualify for that line.
