By COLE SINANIAN
Why would Steven Raga, a two-term assemblymember with a real shot at a leadership role in the Assembly, suddenly switch to the Senate?
In a visit to the Queens Ledger’s office last week, Raga acknowledged the counterintuitiveness of his decision to run for Senate District 12, which is soon to be vacated by outgoing Senator Michael Gianaris. But he said it was his immigrant-heavy community — under escalating threat from the Trump Administration and increasingly unaffordable housing and healthcare — that pushed him to do so.
“I know it would have been an easier race for sure,” said Raga, who became the first Filipino American in the New York State Legislature upon his election in 2022. “But I think with everything going on in the city, the state and the country, we really need a representative that knows the district and knows what the job is and knows what are the key priorities that our neighborhoods are fighting against or trying to protect themselves from.”
Raga added that state senators are more powerful and have access to more resources than assemblymembers. The Senate has just 63 seats compared to the Assembly’s 150, meaning senators get more money to allocate to their districts, which tend to be larger in both area and population.
For constituents across the sprawling Senate district, which includes the neighborhoods of…Raga has no doubts about what these key priorities are.
“Healthcare is number one, staying in our homes is number two, three is protecting our immigrant neighbors and mixed status families,” Raga said, adding that providing “good union jobs,” and “fighting against Trump” round out the top five.“
To Raga, these issues are not abstract. Born to Filipino immigrant parents, Raga was raised in Woodside and spent much of his childhood in a state of constant precarity and housing insecurity. His father passed away suddenly when Raga was 7, leaving he and his mother to bounce around Queens at the mercy of abusive landlords who’d raise rents and charge them for repairs that would never happen. During these years, Raga and his mother were evicted more than once.
“So when I say housing is a human right, I felt it,” Raga said. “I remember the landlord yelling at my mom for no reason, taking our deposit money and asking for maintenance money that never helped fix anything.”
As a legislator, Raga’s signed onto several bills aimed at empowering tenants to take control of their homes and businesses. He helped introduce the Tenants Opportunity to Purchase Act (TOPA), a bill that would give tenant groups the right of first refusal when their building goes on sale, enabling them to buy their own building before a for-profit company can.
While TOPA is still caught in the Assembly, Raga has already introduced another, similarly minded bill, this time for the benefit of small business owners who risk losing their storefronts over rising rents and hostile acquisitions. The idea for the Commercial Tenants Opportunity to Purchase Act, Raga said, arose during his research for TOPA. The business owners that he spoke to in his district told him that they too could benefit from the opportunity to purchase their storefronts from their landlords once they go up for sale.
“They’d get the opportunity to make sure that they continue to contribute to the neighborhood that they’ve already contributed to for so long,” Raga said. “It’s only right, and it’s something we’ve gotta fix to help our small businesses.”
Raga has been a steadfast champion of the New York Health Act, having co-sponsored its reintroduction in the Assembly in 2025 along with 61 fellow assemblymembers. The bill, which would establish a universal, single-payer healthcare system in New York State, has sat un-passed in the legislature since its initial introduction back in 1991— or “three Knicks finals ago,” as Raga put it. The bill has passed the Assembly five times since its initial introduction, but was blocked each time in the Senate.
For Raga, passing the New York Health Act is personal.
When his father passed away, he had been in the process of getting his citizenship, meaning the family had to travel back to the Philippines each year. Were Raga’s father a citizen and had access to affordable healthcare, Raga wonders if he would have survived his illness.
“He couldn’t access what he needed,” Raga said. “So that’s why in the State Senate I would fight for the New York Health Act, which I championed in the Assembly.”
But getting bills passed, even if they have broad popular support, isn’t so easy. Money and corporate lobbyists get in the way, Raga said, influencing how otherwise value-aligned politicians vote in the Assembly. This is another reason why Raga hopes to score a seat in the Senate. With the Senate’s smaller chamber, senators have a better shot at getting committee chairmanships, improving the odds that their legislation gets passed.
On the forces swaying legislators in Albany, Raga said he was surprised to find the full spectrum.
“Part of it is the folks that come to Albany, who are advocating, I feel like are the best of humanity,” he said. “They’re cutting like, work and class to tell you, ‘please fund cancer research.’ Then you meet people that are like, ‘Hey, man, I need you to make these corporations more money’”
“Someone was just here asking us to make humanity better, and you want to fill your pockets?” he continued. “It’s a wide contrast that I think was a bit surprising— demoralizing on one end, and at one end hopeful.”
Raga, who’s a dues-paying member of the Democratic Socialists of America, is facing Palestinian-American community organizer Aber Kawas, a fellow DSA member who’s picked up the organization’s official endorsement. Raga, meanwhile, has been endorsed by Queens Borough President Donovan Richards, NYC Public Advocate Jumaane Williams and City councilmember Shekar Krishnan, as well as labor unions like DC37, 32BJSEIU, 1199SEIU, and the New York State Nurse’s Association, among others.
Whatever the outcome, Raga urges New Yorkers to get out and vote. With multiple seats up for grabs in Queens, the effects of the June 23 primaries on the balance of power in the New York State Government will be far-reaching.
“I think this is one of the most important elections that folks are going to see in recent times,” he said. “My suggestion is, if folks want to keep the energy of getting their local priorities pushed in the State Senate and in Congress, they’ve really got to pay attention here, because this race is going to impact Western Queens and the city for the next few years.”
