This column, from the weekly opinion piece MATTER OF FACT, first appeared on BrooklynReporter.com, the Home Reporter and Spectator dated October 27, 2023
Ballots will begin to be cast when early voting period commences Saturday, October 28. Southern Brooklyn has a very competitive race in the newly drawn 47th council district, in the rare instance when two incumbents face off against each other.
With the redistricting process creating lines for this new district that encompass parts of Councilmembers Brannan’s and Kagan’s current districts, the scenario arose where two incumbents would oppose each other in this race. What is even more unique is that both Brannan and Kagan were elected to their current terms in the council as Democrats, yet are facing off this year in the general election, due to Kagan’s switch to the Republican party ten months ago.
In addition to switching parties, Kagan has switched his policy positions on many of the most consequential issues of our day. The following few paragraphs of this column, rather than providing my opinion on his positions, simply detail positions Kagan holds today, as well as where he stood on those same issues less than a year ago when he was a Democrat.
Two separate bills introduced in the council during the first half of 2022 when Kagan was a Democrat, sought to protect kids from the hazards of peeling lead paint in multiple dwellings. Kagan was not opposed to these bills at that time, but late this summer, he joined with all of his fellow Republican council members to vote against them. Both bills ultimately passed overwhelmingly.
On the very day Kagan announced his switch to the Republican party, December 5, 2022, Council Speaker Adrienne Adams issued a statement questioning his “policy priorities” and how they might “impact his committee roles, particularly his chairmanship given the fact he is joining a party that denies climate change.” Kagan, who has represented coastal communities hit hard by the climate crisis, was, at that time, chair of the Resiliency and Waterfronts Committee.
Two days after Adams’ statement questioning Kagan’s resolve on prioritizing policies to address climate change concerns, Kagan voted against two consequential climate bills in committee, as the lone no vote in each case. The following day, Kagan resigned as chair of the resiliency committee.
The New York League of Conservation Voters releases a scorecard that ranks all council members on their support for environmental legislation. In the last version, Kagan received a rating of 33 out of 100, well below the average of 86, but in the range of his fellow republicans.
On December 12, the New York Daily News ran a piece highlighting another stark policy 180 from Kagan, this time on an issue that has been a flashpoint nationwide since the conservative Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in June of last year. After supporting pro-choice policies as a Democrat, Republican Ari Kagan stated in the official 2023 NYC Votes guide that he is in favor of an elective abortion ban.
In the questionnaire, when asked about abortion access, Kagan stated, “Life starts at conception,” adding that abortions should “only be in cases of rape, incest or danger for the mother’s life and health.” Such a restrictive view on abortion goes further than most conservative states’ bans that restrict abortion after a certain number of weeks, and are more in line with, as the Daily News pointed out, states like Mississippi and Alabama.
Again, this firm policy stance of Kagan’s today is a clear about-face form where he stood before becoming a Republican. As a Democrat, just months before switching party affiliations, Kagan voted for a package of reproductive rights legislation that included bills to require city clinics to provide abortion medications for free, make the use of city resources to assist other states in enforcing abortion bans illegal, and to invest in a campaign to make the public aware of where abortion services can be found.
The views expressed in the preceding seven paragraphs are not my own. They are those of Ari Kagan’s, both as a Republican over the past ten months and as a Democrat before that. They are at total odds with one another. That is not my opinion, that is a matter of fact based on Kagan’s positions on consequential issues pre-December 5, 2022 and post-December 5, 2022.
Democrat Ari Kagan was for requiring multiple dwelling property owners to remove hazardous lead paint from their common areas, but Republican Ari Kagan opposed that. Democrat Ari Kagan was heading up a committee dedicated to addressing the resiliency issues so important to his own district’s coastal communities until Republican Ari Kagan voted against a pair of landmark climate bills and resigned his chairmanship the following day. Democrat Ari Kagan voted to strengthen abortion access and make New York City a port in a storm for reproductive rights, while Republican Ari Kagan is in favor of a total ban on elective abortions.
