State Senator - District 25
Jabari Brisport
Has represented Senate District 25 since Jan. 1, 2021, and chairs the Senate Committee on Children and Families.
Issues Jabari is raising
Child care and family assistance
Wants a child care system in which all families have access to child care and all child care workers are paid fairly as educators. Sponsored a 2024 bill, vetoed by the governor, making caregivers eligible for child care aid regardless of the hours a parent actually works. Cast the only no vote as the Senate passed, 60-1, a 2024 law expanding the definitions of surplus agricultural and processed products for the Nourish New York program.
Housing and public housing
Opposes every form of privatizing New York City Housing Authority buildings and supports rent control and affordable housing. Sponsored a bill, passed by the Senate on June 4, 2026, that would bar naming dependent children under 18 in eviction petitions and warrants.
Taxes and the state budget
Wants to raise taxes on the rich to fund public hospitals, food aid, schools and affordable housing. Voted against the bills carrying major parts of the 2023-24 and 2026-27 state budgets, both of which became law, and against a 2024 extension of the state's thoroughbred breeding and development fund.
Public schools
Wants New York to meet its class size mandate for public schools. Voted against the 2024 bill carrying the education, labor, housing and family assistance parts of the 2024-25 state budget.
Courts, child welfare and policing
Sponsored laws on sealing family court records in persons-in-need-of-supervision cases, giving youth in foster care luggage, and requiring names and contact information in certain calls to the state child abuse register, plus a family court right-to-counsel bill the governor vetoed. Voted against peace officer status for hospital security officers in 2024 and 2026.
Background
Age 39
Before his election he taught middle school math in Crown Heights and was a member of the United Federation of Teachers. He was born in Bedford-Stuyvesant and raised in Prospect Heights.
- Chair of the State Senate Committee on Children and Families; member of the Banks, Codes, Housing, Construction and Community Development, Libraries, and Procurement and Contracts committees and the Joint Senate Task Force on Opioids, Addiction & Overdose Prevention
- Taught math to sixth- and seventh-graders at a public school in Crown Heights; member of the United Federation of Teachers
- Graduated from Poly Prep; BFA from New York University (2009) and MFA from Yale University (2014)
- Born Aug. 9, 1987, in Brooklyn and raised in Prospect Heights by a Guyanese immigrant father and a second-generation Guyanese mother; Caribbean-American and the child of an undocumented immigrant
- Organized in support of legalizing same-sex marriage in New York, continuing after the bill's 2009 defeat until it became law two years later; organized rallies and trained protesters in the early Black Lives Matter movement
- Joined the New York City chapter of the Democratic Socialists of America shortly after Donald Trump was elected president; member of New York State Socialists in Office
- Arrested while protesting the redevelopment of the vacant Bedford Union Armory in Crown Heights
- Ran for City Council District 35 as the Green Party candidate in 2017, receiving 28.84% of the vote against incumbent Laurie Cumbo
- Won the 2020 Democratic primary for Senate District 25 with 57.7% over Tremaine S. Wright and Jason Salmon, then the general election with 99.6%, becoming the first openly gay person of color elected to the New York State Legislature
- Re-elected in 2022 (70.4% in the Democratic primary over Conrad Tillard and Renee Holmes; 99.5% in the general election) and in 2024 (99.4%)
- Defeated Marlon Rice in the June 23, 2026 Democratic primary; the Working Families Party primary was canceled, so he advanced on that line without a primary vote
Support
Zohran Mamdani
Mayor of New York City
Julia Salazar
State senator
Phara Souffrant Forrest
Assemblymember
Claire Valdez
Assemblymember
Jessica González-Rojas
Assemblymember
Money
$156K
raised
Top donors: Courage To Change, NYC District Council of Carpenters PAC, Phara for NY