Catherine Parker, the area’s Westchester County Legislator, has jumped into the Democratic race for New York’s 17th Congressional District. The seat currently held by Rep, Nita Lowey is up for grabs, with Lowey’s announced retirement after more than 30 years in the House.
Parker, who lives in Rye, has served as representative for Westchester’s 7th Legislative District since 2014. The district includes all of Mamaroneck and Larchmont.
Parker serves as the Legislature’s Democratic Majority Leader and stepped off her congressional run making Climate Change the centerpiece of her campaign. “It’s the most critically urgent matter of our time,” she said Thursday. “Unless we confront the looming environmental disaster on a national level nothing else will matter. It’s a social justice issue, an economic issue, a housing issue and a healthcare issue. Everyone else can run against Donald Trump if they want, but someone has got to see this existential threat right in front of us.”
She made her announcement at the site of a “passive home” under renovation in Ossining: a construction project designed to make the building energy neutral, meaning it generates as much energy as it uses.
“This is the future,” she said “it’s already here, we just need leaders who can see it in time.”
The 17th Congressional District includes all of Rockland County and much of Westchester including Port Chester and Harrison in our area. There are three candidates running from Rockland and six others from parts of Westchester outside the Sound Shore.
The New York Democratic Primary is on June 23rd. The winner will face a Republican opponent in November.
