“The Lady in Red” looks to represent District 38 a fourth time.

BY JACK DELANEY

JDelaney@queensledger.com

Every so often, Jennifer Rajkumar will get a text from one of her constituents with a photo of a red dress and the details of where to find it. It’s become the Queens assemblymember’s calling card: Her wardrobe is “all red,” she says, including more than 40 red dresses, red shoes, red handbags, and at one point red masks.

But long before Rajkumar opted for monochrome — before the state rep secured Diwali as a school holiday, cracked down on illegal smokeshops, or made headlines as one of former Mayor Eric Adam’s most visible allies amid a corruption probe — she was an civil rights lawyer taking on a pharmaceutical giant.

This was 2008, and at only age 26, Rajkumar was representing a class of over 4000 women who were demoted or fired by the drug company Novartis after they became pregnant. She won a $250 million verdict, in what is still considered one of the largest gender discrimination cases to go to trial. But her time in law wouldn’t last.

“I began to realize that if you really want to make a difference, you need power, you need to be at the table,” Rajkumar told the Ledger at a recent roundtable, “and that’s why I decided to leave everything I knew and go into government.”

Nearly two decades later, Rajkumar is now running for a fourth term as a Democrat in State Assembly District 38, which covers parts of Glendale, Ozone Park, Richmond Hill, Ridgewood, and Woodhaven. And while the Tarrytown native has been described as “omnipresent” for her borough-hopping press conferences during the previous mayoral administration — a label she embraces — her impact on her home district has been substantial.

One of Rajkumar’s proudest achievements in recent years is the “Put a Lid On It” bill, which requires pollutants transported by rail to be covered. Since at least the 2000s, residents living near the tracks complained of toxic odors wafting into their homes; at Christ the King High School, some students found it difficult to concentrate due to headaches and nausea. Rajkumar says the new legislation, passed in 2023 in collaboration with state Senator Joseph Addabbo, addresses those concerns.

“Passing things in Albany is like rolling a ball up a hill,” said Rajkumar, who chairs the Subcommittee on Diversity in Law and sits on six other committees. “It’s inertia you need to get past, and I think that’s what I’ve been able to do really well.”

Another focus has been supporting the Asian American community, in her district and throughout New York. Rajkumar was the first South Asian woman to be elected to the state legislature, assuming office in 2021, and in 2023 she successfully lobbied its leaders to designate Diwali as a day off for students — a notoriously difficult feat, considering the crunched academic calendar, and one which moved Bollywood megastar Priyanka Chopra to say her “teenage self living in Queens is crying tears of joy.” A year later, Rajkumar helped form the state’s AAPI Commission to bridge the gap between policymakers and residents.

Jennifer Rajkumar stopped by the Queens Ledger office on Friday. Photos by Mohamed Farghaly.

But the stakes for this election are high. After winning her primary uncontested in 2022 and 2024, Rajkumar now faces a stiff challenge from David Orkin, a member of the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) who is explicit about mobilizing state funds to realize Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s agenda. Rajkumar is less sure.

Yet despite Rajkumar’s longtime association with Adams, a Mamdani foe, the two candidates have more in common than might be expected. Orkin is an immigrant workers’ rights attorney; at the outset of Trump’s first term, Rajkumar was tapped by then-Governor Cuomo to build a $31 million statewide legal aid program for immigrant families.

When Rajkumar remembers that job, two stories spring to mind: a mother who called her an “angel” for returning her young son from detention, and a woman who was seeking asylum but was sent back to her home country in South America. (“I still wonder what happened to her,” said Rajkumar.)

While Rajkumar noted that policies should be “humane,” however, she emphasized creating economic opportunity rather than explicitly rebuking ICE. “The immigrant communities in my district, they work so hard — 25 hours a day,” she said. “They just need guidance. Like, how do you get from A to B to C?”

Rajkumar’s stance on transportation is similarly measured. Though she believes the priority should be making buses faster, she added that she is “open” to the idea of abolishing fares if MTA chair Janno Lieber, thus far a skeptic, considers the plan feasible.

In 2023, Rajkumar announced her campaign for comptroller, then abruptly shifted to an ill-fated run for public advocate. But despite accusations of opportunism — which she argues are gendered — Rajkumar has retained deep connections with many of her constituents, whether mentoring a middle schooler at Elizabeth Blackwell who hopes to attend Harvard or this week hosting a large-scale Iftar dinner in Ozone Park.

Rajkumar’s latest initiative is “Atlantic Avenue 2.0,” a proposal to revitalize the corridor by reviving the defunct LIRR stop in Woodhaven. She supports the IBX, is equally bullish on QueensLink and QueensWay, and aims to further promote mobility of a different sort by pushing to make CUNY fully free again.

And what’s with the red? For Rajkumar, it’s about making a statement: “I’m often underestimated. There are not many people like me in these halls of power. So I bring that passion and purpose with me everywhere I go.”