Brad’s Story
Brad Lander was elected to serve as NYC’s budget watchdog and chief accountability officer on November 2nd, 2021. As New York City Comptroller, Brad is focused on ensuring an inclusive economic recovery, tackling the city’s gender and racial disparities, and confronting long term challenges including the risks to city infrastructure posed by climate change.
Brad’s background in community organizing and urban planning informs his work to make government work better for all New Yorkers. First elected to public office to represent Brooklyn’s District 39 in the the City Council in 2009, Brad co-founded the Council’s Progressive Caucus and has a strong track record of partnering with community advocates to win transformative change for a more just and equitable city.
Prior to serving in the City Council, Brad was a community planner and housing advocate. He spent 15 years in the nonprofit sector as the director of two organizations, the Pratt Center for Community Development and the Fifth Avenue Committee. He lives in Park Slope with his wife, Meg Barnette, President and CEO of NonProfit New York, and their children, Marek and Rosa.
Brad’s Track Record
Collaborative Legislator
Working together with labor unions and workers organizations, Brad has led successful fights to win groundbreaking laws that protect freelancers from wage theft, give fast-food workers a fair work week, ban discriminatory credit checks for employment, and to guarantee Uber and Lyft drivers earn a living wage. Together with community members, Brad passed the Community Safety Act to combat discriminatory stop-and-frisk policing.
Data-Driven, Innovative Policymaker
Brad’s hard-hitting policy reports have led to better bus service, air-conditioning for all NYC school classrooms, and restored hundreds of millions of dollars for affordable housing. Brad has taken a data-driven, innovative approach to successful policy campaigns to protect workers, expand tenants rights, and get reckless drivers off the roads.
Good Government Watchdog
Brad has passed some of the strongest laws in the country to make election spending more transparent, win ranked choice voting for New York City, brought a dozen agencies together to bring transparency to capital project spending, and brought participatory budgeting to NYC. His legislation has resulted in better tracking of expenditures across NYC’s parks, more effective ways to measure and combat poverty, and won new transit infrastructure for our neighborhoods.
Community Organizer
Brad approaches everything he does as an organizer, working with community members and fellow elected officials to build progressive political power for a more just, more equitable and more compassionate future. By helping to bring participatory budgeting to NYC, Brad has involved tens of thousands of New Yorkers in shaping the city’s investments in our neighborhoods. By launching #GetOrganizedBK, he brought thousands of Brooklyn residents together to stand up to bigotry, corruption, and injustice of the Trump regime.
Learn more about Brad’s track record →