BY JACK DELANEY | jdelaney@queensledger.com
Under normal circumstances, a newly-minted state representative from New York City has half the year to prepare for the job after they’re elected.
The primaries are in June, so the state legislature — which only meets from January until June — has already closed up shop. In a reliably blue district like Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s old stomping grounds of AD36, which covers Astoria and Long Island City, the Democratic nominee can spend the next six months assembling their staff, scouting a site for their district office, and generally getting their bearings before they head to the Capitol.
Diana Moreno had less than a day.
Moreno, a lifelong labor organizer, won a special election in early February to fill Mamdani’s vacated seat in the state Assembly. At the time, Speaker Carl Heastie was worried that a controversial bill, the Medical Aid in Dying Act, might not pass. So roughly 12 hours after returning home from her celebrations, Moreno was sworn into office. (Not wanting to presume the result, her team then had to scramble to book hotel rooms in Albany.)
“It was truly a whirlwind,” said Moreno, who compared the experience to cramming for a final exam. “I was glad to do it. But it was also like, hoo! Here we go.”
Moreno arrived in the Assembly at an inflection point. When Mamdani took the seat in 2020, he was one of six DSA members at the state level, a relatively fringe faction that was sidelined as mainstream Democrats — and a handful of Republicans — set the agenda. In 2026, the tides have shifted: 10 DSA members sit in the legislature, with the primaries offering the potential for their ranks to grow. Just as importantly, Mamdani’s mayoral victory means that Governor Kathy Hochul faces increased pressure from her left flank.
But Moreno’s experience suggests that the DSA, and progressives writ large, still have their work cut out for them. Though Moreno was proud to help pass a range of immigration bills — which prohibit local law enforcement from entering into formal pacts with ICE, ban agents from wearing masks, and allow lawsuits against them — she was frustrated that the New York For All Act, which would have also banned informal agreements, was blocked.
“I was extremely disappointed but not really shocked by the resistance we saw from Hochul, and just the lack of enthusiasm or fight in my colleagues,” said Moreno. “Whenever you come in as a new person, you’re like, ‘Everyone’s really worried about this crisis, right?’ But what I saw is that a lot of folks there seem resigned to a type of politics that feels disconnected from what we’re living.”
Part of the urgency Moreno feels is tied to the impending federal cuts to social services like health care, which will take effect in July. Rather than uniting to raise the funds needed to offset these measures by taxing the wealthy, Moreno argued that many state lawmakers opted for incremental responses, falling short of “safeguarding all New Yorkers.”
The state’s handling of climate issues also seemed sluggish to Moreno, if not actively harmful. “In the Year of Our Lord 2026, when we’re so clearly in the middle of a climate crisis, we’re rolling back climate laws in New York,” she said, “instead of saying we need to implement these ASAP, and do more.”
In order to push the needle further — within a DSA infrastructure that draws its strength from voting as a bloc — Moreno will have to contend with a quirk of the electoral system: Despite clinching the special election in February, Moreno will have to weather another election on June 23 to keep in her seat. To do so, she’ll face one of her challengers from the previous cycle, fellow DSA member Mary Jobaida.
Whatever her qualms with the state legislature, Moreno draws strength from constituents who are rallying for change. And something does need to change, she stressed.
“You used to be able to get somewhere in this country if you worked hard,” said Moreno. “As an elder millennial with a graduate degree, who has a partner who also makes a living wage — we could not imagine buying a home in our community. That is incredibly frustrating, in the wealthiest city in the wealthiest country in the history of the world.”
