Brad Lander

Bradford Scott Lander (born July 8, 1969) is an American politician and urban planner who is the Democratic Party nominee for New York's 10th congressional district, having defeated incumbent representative Dan Goldman in the primary. A progressive and former member of the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA), he previously served as New York City comptroller from 2022 until 2025, and before that served on the New York City Council from 2010 to 2021, representing the 39th district, which is partly based in Brooklyn.

Born in suburban St. Louis, Lander has pursued his political career in New York City since the 1990s, where he has become a mainstay in progressive activism. In 2009, Lander was elected to the city council, serving until his election as comptroller in 2021. In 2025, Lander unsuccessfully ran for New York City mayor, placing third in the Democratic primary. His decision to cross-endorse and campaign with Zohran Mamdani was considered important to Mamdani's victory in the primary due to the city's ranked-choice voting system.

Early life and education

Brad Lander is the son of Carole Lander and David Lander, a bankruptcy attorney. He grew up in Creve Coeur, a suburb of St. Louis, Missouri, in a Reform Jewish family, and graduated from Parkway North High School in 1987.

Lander developed an early interest in political issues, and was strongly influenced by the example set by the civil rights and anti-war leaders Reverend Martin Luther King Jr. and Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel. He earned a master's degree in anthropology from University College London on a Marshall Scholarship, followed by a master's degree in urban planning from the Pratt Institute in New York.

Early career From 1993 to 2003, Lander was the executive director of the Fifth Avenue Committee (FAC), a Park Slope nonprofit organization that develops and manages affordable housing. For his work he received the 2000 New York Magazine Civics Award, and FAC received the 2002 Leadership for a Changing World award (sponsored by the Washington, D.C.–based Institute for Sustainable Communities). He has also been a critic of the Atlantic Yards project. Lander's work in 2003–2005 on Greenpoint-Williamsburg rezoning led to the first New York City inclusionary housing program to create affordable housing in new development outside Manhattan. Lander served on a mayoral taskforce that recommended reforms to the 421-a tax exemption for luxury housing and required that new development in certain areas of the city set aside affordable housing units. He co-led the completion of the One City One Future platform, a progressive vision for economic development in New York City. He stepped down as head of the organization in 2009 to seek a seat on the New York City Council. Lander teaches as an adjunct professor at Brooklyn Law School.

New York City Council

Lander represented the 39th district on the New York City Council from 2009 until 2021, when term limits prevented him from running again. He co-founded the Progressive Caucus in the New York City Council.

In 2009, Lander ran to represent the 39th district on the New York City Council, including the Brooklyn neighborhoods of Boerum Hill, Borough Park, Brooklyn Heights, Carroll Gardens, Cobble Hill, Flatbush, Gowanus, Green-Wood Cemetery, Kensington, Park Slope, Prospect Heights, Prospect Lefferts Gardens, Red Hook, Prospect Park, South Slope, Sunset Park, and Windsor Terrace. He won the hotly contested Democratic primary on September 15, 2009, with 41% of the vote in a field of five and appeared on the general election ballot on the Democratic Party and Working Families Party lines. On November 4, 2009, he won with 70% of the vote. After his first four-year term, Lander was reelected on the Democratic and Working Families Parties' lines in 2013.

New York City comptroller

2021 election

Brad Lander and skateboarding advocate Loren Michelle pose in front of the Pablo Forever Mural at Washington Skatepark in Park Slope on May 8, 2021.

Facing term limits for his council seat after his third term, Lander announced his candidacy for the 2021 New York City Comptroller election, He was endorsed by progressive elected officials including Senator Elizabeth Warren, Public Advocate Jumaane Williams, Congresswoman Nydia Velázquez, Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, and members of the New York City Council and New York State legislature.

Lander won the Democratic primary against State Senator Brian Benjamin, entrepreneur and former US Marine Zach Iscol, New York State Senator Kevin Parker, former Public Advocate and former New York City Council Speaker Corey Johnson, and New York State Assemblymember David Weprin, among others, and won the general election over Republican nominee Daby Carreras.

Tenure In 2022, Lander called for ending 421a, a program that provided tax incentives for developers of market-rate apartments who also added below-market rentals. According to The New York Times, at the time it was "the most generous property tax break in the city, costing New York City about $1.77 billion annually in lost tax revenue". He subsequently refused to register the city's contract with Aetna, citing pending legislation that called the program's legality into question, but Adams overrode his decision and registered the contract. In 2024, the New York Court of Appeals unanimously ruled that the Adams administration could not force the retirees to switch to the new health plan. In 2023, Politico called Lander Adams's "archrival".

Lander is a member of the Vote Blue Coalition, a progressive group and federal PAC created to support Democrats in New York, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania through voter outreach and mobilization efforts.

In June 2025, as Donald Trump increased deportations of immigrants, Lander began accompanying defendants to immigration hearings. On June 17, Lander was arrested and handcuffed by masked Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officials at an immigration court while linking arms with a person ICE was trying to detain. The reason given for the arrest was "assaulting law enforcement and impeding a federal officer", according to Department of Homeland Security spokeswoman Tricia McLaughlin. Lander was released and said he "certainly did not" assault an officer. The arrest was quickly condemned by an array of Democratic politicians from the state, including New York State Governor Kathy Hochul, who called it "bullshit", NYS Attorney General Letitia James, who called it a "shocking abuse of power" and "grotesque escalation of tensions", and U.S. Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who called it "political intimidation".

Lander was arrested by DHS again on September 18, along with State Senators Jabari Brisport, Gustavo Rivera and Julia Salazar, and Assemblymembers Robert Carroll, Emily Gallagher, Jessica González-Rojas, Marcela Mitaynes, Steven Raga, Tony Simone, and Claire Valdez, while trying to access ICE detention cells and protest the detentions at the Jacob K. Javits Federal Building. In a two-day bench trial in June 2026, Lander was found not guilty of obstructing officers' access to an elevator.

In 2025, advocacy organization New York Communities for Change (NYCC) representatives voiced frustration with Lander and the New York City Comptroller's Office in regard to helping keep solvent three pension funds for retirees of various New York City employers: the New York City Employees Retirement System, the New York City Teachers Retirement System, and the New York City Board of Education Retirement System. The Comptroller's office is supposed to determine which asset management companies are environmentally friendly and reject investing city employees' retirement funds in companies that have a poor record. NYCC and other environmental groups argued that Lander was stalling his office's investigation into controversial investment company BlackRock in order to delay divesting from it. NYCC threatened to stop endorsing Lander in his next campaign because he missed a September 2025 deadline to respond to its representatives.

2025 New York City mayoral campaign

In July 2024, Lander announced that he would challenge incumbent Mayor Eric Adams in the 2025 New York City mayoral election. According to the Opinion editors, the panel consisted of 15 New Yorkers, chosen based on their "experience in citywide or local community affairs, their knowledge of key issues, and their range of viewpoints."

On June 13, 2025, Lander and Zohran Mamdani cross-endorsed each other in the Democratic primary. Lander placed third in the first round and was eliminated immediately thereafter, as Mamdani's lead was insurmountable. He was brought up on stage at Mamdani's victory party to celebrate.

Lander was expected to play a large role in Zohran Mamdani's transition team The New York Times reported that Mamdani met with Lander in October 2025 to discuss the latter challenging incumbent member of the United States House Dan Goldman in 2026.

2026 United States House of Representatives campaign

On December 10, 2025, Lander announced his candidacy for New York's 10th congressional district, attempting to primary moderate incumbent Dan Goldman from the left. He was endorsed by New York City mayor Zohran Mamdani, U.S. Senator Elizabeth Warren, U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders, New York City Public Advocate Jumaane Williams, and the Working Families Party. The district voted 60.3% in favor of Mamdani in the mayoral election and was Lander's strongest congressional district in the Democratic mayoral primary.

Despite his district overwhelmingly voting for Mamdani, Goldman did not endorse Mamdani during the mayoral election due to differences in opinion over Israel. On June 2, the pro-Palestine super PAC American Priorities announced that it would spend $2 million in support of a trio of progressive candidates in New York consisting of Lander as well as Darializa Avila Chevalier and Claire Valdez.

Lander defeated Goldman in the Democratic primary on June 23, 2026. New York's 10th district is considered a safe seat with a Cook Partisan Voting Index of D+26, so Lander's win is considered tantamount to election. The general election will take place on November 3, 2026.

Political positions Participatory budgeting Lander was one of four Council members who brought participatory budgeting to New York City, which allows citizens to propose, develop, and vote on items in the municipal budget. As of 2026, 22 of the 51 New York City Council Districts engage in participatory budgeting.

Labor In 2013, Lander played a key role in a campaign to pass paid sick leave over Mayor Bloomberg's veto, telling the Brooklyn Reporter the legislation would "make our city a fairer, more compassionate place to live and work". In 2015, Lander passed legislation to ban discriminatory employment credit checks, ending the practice of companies discriminating against people because of their credit history. In March 2015, outside a Park Slope car wash that was closed at the time, Lander was arrested for blocking traffic to show support for eight striking car washers; it was his fourth arrest. In November 2016, he announced his intention to get arrested as part of the "Fight for $15" National Day of Action, saying it was "part of a long tradition of civil disobedience, and it takes a little courage".

Lander has crafted a number of workers' rights policies. In 2017, he passed legislation to require fast food and retail companies to give their workers stable scheduling and restrict on-call scheduling and last-minute changes. Lander also sponsored a successful bill to prevent fast food workers from being fired without just cause and to allow them to appeal terminations through arbitration. He worked with the Freelancers Union to create the Freelance Isn't Free Act, the first legislation of its kind to ensure that freelancers and independent contractors are paid fully and on time. In 2018, Lander achieved the first ruling in the country to guarantee a living wage for Uber, Lyft, and other for-hire drivers.

By April 2020, Lander had sponsored over 2,254 articles of legislation. City and State New York ranked Lander's performance in the lower half of all New York City lawmakers, placing him 30th out of the 51 councilmembers; the ranking criteria included number of bills introduced, number of bills signed into law, attendance, and responsiveness to questions from constituents and the media.

Housing Lander opposed rezoning the site of Long Island College Hospital to include affordable housing. In July 2017, he was the primary sponsor of 20 local laws enacted by the City Council and signed by the mayor. Lander also played a role in helping shepherd the Community Safety Act through the City Council, along with councilmember Jumaane Williams. In 2017, Lander worked with advocates at the Association of Neighborhood and Housing Development and Make the Road New York to create a Certificate of No Harassment program that provides the strongest protections against tenant harassment and displacement of any law in the country. As part of the #TooHotToLearn campaign, Lander led the push to secure air conditioning for all New York City Public Schools classrooms, shining a spotlight on the 25 percent of classrooms that lacked it.

Homelessness Since 2019, Lander has drawn criticism and, in his words, "anger" and "suspicion", for vocally supporting contracts for two homeless shelters in particular. Opponents of the shelters claimed that the contracts contain up to $89 million of unexplained cost compared to contracts for equivalent shelters, and that costs were too high at $10,557 per unit per month. Since 2020, Lander has been a leading advocate of a program that has moved over 9,500 homeless people (his goal is 30,000) to vacant New York City hotel rooms to provide space for social distancing during the COVID-19 pandemic, at an average cost of $174 per room per night ($5,293 per person per month).

Lander's efforts drew intense criticism from Mayor Bill de Blasio's New York City Department of Social Services, which Lander called "cartoonish insults".

Social justice In January 2021, Lander said: "As a white man, [the work of racial justice] starts by listening as honestly as I can to Black people about the anger and pain they are feeling, and the system of white supremacy and systemic racism it reflects. That is not easy, because it implicates me". He supported removing the statue of Christopher Columbus from Columbus Circle.

In 2020, Lander wrote that he had visited the West Bank to learn more about conditions under the Israeli occupation and expressed support for efforts to achieve Palestinian human rights.

In March 2023, Lander wrote an op-ed in the left-wing Israeli newspaper Haaretz urging President Joe Biden and Secretary of State Antony Blinken to stop providing a "blank check" to an "increasingly authoritarian" Israeli government and asking Democrats to stop obeying the pro-Israel lobby group AIPAC. He wrote that he participated in a protest outside the Israeli consulate in solidarity with the 2023 Israeli judicial reform protests.

Lander split with and left the Democratic Socialists of America in 2023 following the October 7 attacks. According to New York, he is "a liberal Zionist who has called Israel's war in Gaza a genocide and supports conditioning military aid" to Israel.

Public safety and policing In March 2020, as the COVID-19 pandemic began, Lander urged that the police suspend criminal arrests, summonses, warrant enforcement, and parole violations for low-level offenses, and release most of the over 900 people incarcerated at Rikers Island who were over 50 years old. Lander voiced support for defunding the police and limiting police powers by cutting their budget by $1 billion in 2020. In December 2017, Lander was arrested at the U.S. Capitol while protesting a bill that lowered taxes on corporations and wealthy people while cutting healthcare; he tweeted, "Being arrested with Ady Barkan in the halls of Congress while ... fighting for a country where we provide health care for those who need it ... is something I'll remember for the rest of my life". In June 2018 he was arrested for blocking traffic, disorderly conduct, and failing to disperse at a protest outside the Brooklyn office of State Senator Marty Golden.

In 2019, Lander admitted to an ethics violation for using his official government position to solicit monetary donations for a progressive nonprofit he helped create and of which he was chairman. Lander had previously served as chair of the council's Committee on Rules, Privileges and Elections. In his second term on the council, he served as the deputy leader for policy.

Election history

Personal life Lander lives in Brooklyn with his wife, Meg Barnette, a former executive at Planned Parenthood, now president of Nonprofit New York. He also served as housing chair of Brooklyn Community Board 6, served on the board of directors of the charity Jewish Funds for Justice, and is a Little League coach in the 78th Precinct Youth Council.

Lander is a fan of the Revolutions podcast and in relation has described himself as a "Bundist at heart."