City Council speaker candidate was dues-paying socialist who voted to defund NYPD

One of the leading candidates in the City Council speaker’s race was once a dues-paying member of the Democratic Socialists of America who backed defunding the NYPD.

Carlina Rivera (D-East Village), who voted to defund the NYPD by $1 billion in 2020 before approving a $200 million boost back to the agency’s budget this year, says she’d be a bridge builder among moderate and progressive fractions of the incoming council. But Rivera, whose mother is a civilian employee with the NYPD, told Vice News in 2017 that she was seeking DSA’s endorsement for her council leader bid.